Herman Whitaker - Over the Border - A Novel

Isabel stopped in her embarrassed explanations for, like a scared white bird, Lee was flying through the gateway. Grabbing Isabel’s horse from the anciano who was just about to lead it around to the compound, she leaped into the saddle and went flying down the trail.

Turning at the sound of hoofs, Ramon waited for her. It was the first time they had met since the funeral, and though embarrassment would have been quite natural, Lee’s frank greeting put him at once at his ease.

“You were going away – on my saint’s day?”

“It was out of respect for – ”

She cut off his apology. “Yes, yes, but father was angry and unjust that day. He would have acknowledged it himself, had he lived. You must come back, at once, with me.”

Not knowing the cause of her sudden flight, Bull had followed to the gateway. As he stood there watching the two returning, Benson’s voice broke at his shoulder.

“That’s the hell of raising a girl in this country. I spoke often to Carleton about it, but he was a lonely man and couldn’t bear to have her away. I suppose that he felt she was perfectly safe with him.”

Knowing him for Lee’s sincere friend, Bull did not scruple to hand on the information he had gained from Mrs. Mills. Benson received it with a low, shocked whistle.

“And the poor man had to meet death with that on his mind? She hasn’t seen Ramon since the funeral, you say? That speaks well for him. He tried to go, just now, too. He’s not half bad. But when it’s a question of marrying Lee, no Mexican need apply. But come on back in. She’ll pick out in a second that we’re talking about them.”

During the lively chatter that whiled away the afternoon; at supper when the cake appeared in a glory of radiant candles; while the young folks laughed and chatted thereafter under the lighted portales , the two stealthily watched Lee and Ramon. Sliver and Jake having retired early, Bull and Benson engaged in an interminable game of poker which left them free to discuss the proposed defensive alliance without neglecting their watch.

Before night fell the girls had distributed candles here and there among the foliage which now transmuted their waxen gleam into a greenish incandescence. Behind the creeper that fell in a cascade from the roof, the lamplit portales gleamed in half-circles of gold. The massed cluster of a bougainvillea dripped clotted blood down the façade of the gate arch. As the girls moved under the golden arches opposite, their white dresses might easily have been the fluttering wings of giant tropical moths, and, noting it, Benson paused in filling his hand.

“It’s like a beautiful stage setting.”

Bull’s nod took in the bright faces, soft laughter, happy chatter. With a slow, indulgent smile he musingly watched the secret glances between the two pairs of lovers; artless subterfuges by which the girls achieved small personal contacts.

“Don’t take much to make ’em happy, does it? A little laughter an’ a little song; plenty of chatter an’ some pretty clothes; a baby to love and a man to boss; ’tain’t much, but Lordy, how many of ’em don’t get it. If men ’u’d on’y keep on admiring in their wives the things they liked in their sweethearts, the divorce courts ’u’d go out of business. If I had a daughter, I’d marry her to a boot-black that understood the nature of women ahead of a merchant prince; for a man that says to his wife at breakfast, ‘Why, how pretty you look this morning!’ is a-going to get a reward that can’t be bought with a million.”

Just then Phœbe Lovell’s clear voice floated across the patio . “What a lovely night! Let’s go for a walk.”

“All right. Wait till I get a shawl.”

As the others moved off, Lee ran back into her room. They had passed through the gateway when she came out again, except Ramon, who took the shawl and threw it over her shoulders. For a few moments they stood talking under the lamplit portal , and, though the conversation was quite ordinary, the glow in his big dark eyes was sufficiently revealing. As Lee’s back was turned toward them, her face told nothing. But just before they moved off she reached up and straightened the lapel of Ramon’s coat.

Bull frowned. “D’you really think she’s in love?”

Benson shrugged. “When a girl fusses with a young man’s clothes she doesn’t hate him.”

Bull broke a second frowning pause. “You’ve knowed her almost all her life. Kedn’t you put in a word?”

The Englishman made a wry face. “I did, about six months ago, when I first noticed this thing starting. But never again!” He laughed, a little self-consciously. “I never had any one sauce me so in all my life. Told me that it was none of my damn business; to go home and boss my poor wife. Said that she preferred Mexicans to English, anyway. Phe-e-ew! I never think of it, even now, without aching to spank her. No, counsel wouldn’t help her.”

“But she simply kain’t be allowed to go ahead an’ marry him.” Bull’s coal eyes flashed with the old wicked gleam. “Before that I’d – lay for him an’ shoot him.”

Benson regarded him dryly. “Your plan has the advantage of finality, but – it would lead to reprisals. Old Icarza stands well with Valles. If anything happened to his beloved son we’d be wiped out so completely there’d be no one left to mourn us. But why worry? We don’t know for sure whether she even loves him. Give me two cards. I raise you three blues.”

For two hours thereafter the two played and talked, arranging a code of smoke signals by day, beacons by night, to warn the haciendas . But under it Bull’s thought still revolved around Lee and her problem. The party had returned from the walk, and Lee was shooing all her guests off to bed before his brow cleared and he uttered a low chuckle.

“What’s the matter?” Benson looked up in surprise.

“Oh, jest something I was thinking of. I raise you two reds.”

Not until Jake woke up when Bull entered the bunkhouse did his secret thought find expression. “Sure I noticed it,” he answered Jake’s remark concerning Lee’s “likin’ for that Mexican.” “But leave it to me.”

“What d’you allow to do?”

This time Bull laughed outright. “Mrs. Mills was saying, t’other day, that we’d have to import a rival. ’Tain’t sech a bad idea.”

“What d’you reckon to do – put an ad in the paper ‘Wanted, a husband’?”

“Never you mind,” Bull quietly replied to the cynical comment. “I’m going, to-morrow, up to El Paso.”

Departures are usually cheerless affairs, but the morning sun loosed a flood of gold into the patio where the party was in process of dissolution. William Benson had left with Jake and Sliver, when they went out on the range, so Bull sat and smoked alone.

It was very pleasant there. His after-breakfast pipe was always the sweetest of the day, and while puffing contentedly Bull observed with an indulgent grin two small brown criadas , darting with needle and thread and pins from room to room with first-aid-to-injured habits; the transparent flirtations, stealthy glances after the girls came out; the beauty of innocent sex, of youth in love – set his big rough heart aglow. The girls, with keen instinct for honest feeling, felt it. The young men, with natural respect for quiet power, admired his kindliness and strength. Their farewells and invitations were hearty and sincere.

“You’ve promised and promised and never come yet – that is, for a real visit,” Phœbe and Phyllis rebuked him.

The young men earnestly charged him, “We look to you to take care of our girls till we’re in shape to look after them ourselves.”