The Bells of San Juan

by Jackson Gregory

CHAPTER XIX

DEADLOCK

Virginia, having changed swiftly to her riding-togs, took up her little black emergency kit, which would lend an air of business urgency to her nocturnal ride with Norton, and stepped out into the hall.

"There's a call for you from Las Estrellas," said Struve, appearing from the front, whence his voice had come to her mingled with the excited tones of a Mexican. "Tony Garcia has been hurt; pretty badly, I expect. His brother says that Tony got his hand caught in some kind of machinery he was fooling with late this afternoon and crushed so that it's all but torn off."

Into the light cast by the hotel porch-lamp Norton, leading Persis, rode around the corner of the building.

"I was just going out," said Virginia. "But I'll go on this case first. Mr. Norton is riding with me. Please ask him to wait while I get my other bag."

In her room again, the lamp lighted on her table, she stood a moment frowning thoughtfully into vacancy. Then with a quick shake of the head she snatched up the two other bags which might be needed in treating Tony's hurt and again hastened out. Norton bending from his saddle took them from her. As Struve relinquished into her gantletted hands the reins of Persis's bridle she swung lightly up to the mare's back.

"The poor fellow must be suffering all kinds of torture," she said as Norton reined in with her. "Let's hurry."

He offered no answer as they clattered out of San Juan and turned out across the level lands toward Las Estrellas. So, as upon another night when speeding upon a similar errand, they rode for a long time in silence. Again they two alone were pushing out into the dark and the vast silence that was broken only by the soft thudding of their own horses' hoofs and the creak of saddle leather and jingle of spur and bit chains.

"You wanted to talk with me?" suggested the girl after fifteen minutes of wordless restraint between them.

"Yes," he answered. "But not now. That is, if you will give me a further chance after you have done what you can for poor old Tony. You will hardly need to stay at Las Estrellas all night, I imagine. When we leave you can listen to me. Do you mind?"

"No," she said slowly. "I don't mind. I'd rather it was then. You and I have a good bit to think about before we do any talking. Haven't we?"

They fell silent again. The soft beauty of the night over the southern desert lands . . . and there is no other earthly beauty like it . . . touched the girl's soul now as it had never done before; perhaps, similarly, it disturbed shadows in the man's. She was distressed by the position in which she found herself, and the night's infinite quiet and utter peace was grateful to her. As she left the hotel her thoughts were in chaos; she was caught in a fearsome labyrinth whence there appeared no escape. Now, though no way out suggested itself, still the stars were shining.

At last the twinkling lights of Las Estrellas, seeming at first fallen stars caught in the mesquite branches, swam into view. Plainly Tony's accident had stimulated much local interest; among the few straggling houses men came and went, while a knot of women, children, and countless mongrel dogs had congregated just outside of the hut where the injured man lay. A brush fire in the street crackled right merrily, its sparks dancing skyward.

"You promise me," said Norton as they drew their horses down to a trot, "not to say anything until we can have had time to talk?"

"I promise," she said wearily.

She entered the sufferer's room first, Norton delaying to tie the horses and lift down the instrument cases from the saddle-strings. She stopped abruptly just beyond the threshold; the smell of chloroform was heavy upon the air, Tony lay whitefaced upon a table, Caleb Patten with coat off and sleeves rolled up was bending over him.

"Oh, señorita!" cried a woman, hurrying forward, her hands twisting nervously in her apron. And a torrential outpouring in Spanish greeted the mystified Virginia.

"I thought that I was wanted here," she said, looking about her at the four or five grave faces. "Tony's brother came for me."

One of the men shambled forward to explain. "Tony want you," he said quickly. "Tony ver' bad hurt. Dr. Patten come in Las Estrellas by accident, he say got to cut off the arm, can't wait too long or Tony die. He just beginnin' now."

The woman, who, it appeared was Tony's wife and the mother of two of the ragged children out by the fire, joined her voice eagerly to the man's. He translated.

"Eloisa say she thank God you come; Tony want you, she want you. Patten charge one hundred dollar an'. . . ." He shrugged eloquently. "She say you do for Tony; you do better than Patten."

Virginia's eyes flashed upon Patten. He came a step toward her, his attitude half belligerent.

"The man has to be operated upon immediately," he said sharply. "He was hurt in the afternoon out on the end of the ranch; has been all day getting in; fainted half a dozen times, I guess. The arm has to come off at the elbow."

"Thank you," returned Virginia quietly, going to the table. "I'll take the case now, Dr. Patten."

"You?" Patten laughed, his eyes jeering. "You operate? Do you think that they want you to cut a skein of silk with a pair of scissors? Cut off a man's arm . . . how far would you go before you fainted?"

"That'll be about all, Patten," came Norton's voice sternly from the door. "This is Dr. Page's case. Clear out."

"Thank you, Mr. Norton," said Virginia quickly. She was already making an examination of the blood covered arm and hand, and did not look around. "And please clear the room, will you? Let Tony's wife stay, that is all. Eloisa."

The woman came forward, her eyes wide and frightened. Virginia smiled at her reassuringly.

"No muy malo," she said in the few Spanish words which she could summon for the occasion from those she had picked up from the desert people. "Muy bueno manana. And now get me some warm water . . . agua caliente. Mr. Norton, if you will open my instrument case . . . no; the other one. And then stand by to help with the anaesthetic if Patten hasn't already given him enough to keep him asleep all night!"

She gave her directions concisely and was obeyed. Norton put the last of the undesired onlookers out of the door, closed it after them, found another lamp and some candles, did all that he could think of to help and all that was asked of him. Eloisa, having brought the water, withdrew to a corner and kept her fascinated eyes upon Virginia's face and stubbornly away from her husband's.

Virginia, when she had completed a very thorough examination, turned toward Norton, her eyes blazing.

"Patten has no more right to an M.D. after his name than you have," she cried angrily. "Not so much, for he hasn't even any brains! Cut the man's arm off! Why, there is only a simple fracture above the wrist which won't cause a bit of trouble. The hand is another matter; but even it isn't half as badly mangled as it looks. . . . The second and third fingers are terribly crushed; they've got to come off. We might as well do it now, while he is already under the chloroform. . . . Tell Eloisa just how matters stand and then send her out."

Eloisa, already prepared for the greater operation, gasped her gratitude for the lesser and allowed herself to be gently thrust from the room. Then Norton came back to the table, his eyes wonderingly upon Virginia. He knew that she was capable; he had read that fact the first day when he had seen her hands. But it struck him as rather unusual that a girl, any girl no matter what her training, should take hold as she was doing.

And as she selected her instruments, laid them out upon a bit of sterilized gauze upon a chair, cleansed her hands and prepared to operate he began to feel a sense of utter confidence in her. Rapidly his own anger rose at the thought of the crime Patten would have perpetrated.

Tony Garcia, when in due time his consciousness came back to him bringing the attendant dizzy nausea in its wake, looked down at his side curiously, wondering how it would be to go without an arm. And when his Eloisa told him. . . .

"We are going to sell our cow and the goats to-morrow!" vowed Tony faintly. "And give her all the money!"

"Si, si, Tony," wept the wife.

Whereupon the small children, who were teaching the goats to pull a wagon, set up a wail of grief and rebellion.

It struck both Virginia and Norton as a shade odd that Patten should be still in Las Estrellas when they rode out of it long after midnight. They saw him standing in the doorway of the one still lighted building of the village as they galloped past. It was the Three Star saloon. Patten's horse was tied in front of it. Since Patten neither drank nor played at dice or cards here might have been matter to ponder on. But in neither mind was there place now for any interest other than that which again held them silent and constrained.

Las Estrellas lost behind them, they drew their horses down into a rocking trot, then to a slow walk. Virginia rode with her head up, her eyes upon the field of stars. Her face, as Norton kept close to her side, looked very white in the starlight. He would have given much to have seen her eyes when a little later he began to talk. And she was conscious of a kindred wish.

"Look yonder," she said. "The late moon is coming up. There will be a little more light then and. . . . And I want to look at you, Rod Norton, while we thresh it out."

The thin curved sliver of silver thrusting up over the edge of the world in the east, ghostly and pale, added little to the throbbing gleam of the stars; but the waiting for it had put Las Estrellas a mile behind them, had set them alone together out in the heart of the silences, had given them that last excuse to be had to set back an evil moment. Virginia, with a sigh, brought her eyes down from the glitter of the wide heavens and sought Norton's.

"I am afraid," she said listlessly, "that there is no way out for us, Rod Norton."

"There is a way!" he began quickly

"There is no way unless you do what I say. If you would only give me your word to take the stage to-morrow, to go to a competent surgeon, to submit to the operation. If you would only give me your word. . . ."

"I give you my word," he said sharply, "that that is just the thing which I will never do. Virginia, breathe deep, fill your lungs with the wonder of the night; realize what it means to live; think what it means to die! You say that I am not afraid of death; well, maybe not if it comes in a guise I have grown up to be familiar with. But to lie as I saw Tony Garcia lying just now, powerless, unconscious, without will or knowledge of what was coming to me, and to let a man cut into me . . . I'd rather die, I think, standing upon my two feet and fighting it out with a gun! You would go on and tell me that the chances would be highly in favor of my recovery; and yet you would admit that the danger would be grave."

"Then you are afraid, after all? That is it? That holds you back?" She found it hard to believe that he was telling her his true emotion.

"I am merely measuring the chances," he said steadily. "I am satisfied with life as I find it; I do not believe that there is anything wrong with me; I see at least the possibility of death and nothing to be gained by submitting to an operation."

"Then," she said again wearily, "there is no way out."

"But there is! My way, not the one you have thought of. You have stumbled upon a thing which you must forget; that is all. Give me the free swing to finish Jim Galloway, to complete certain other undertakings. Promise me that you will do this; in return I will promise you not to . . . ."

And here he hesitated.

"Not to commit another theft?" She set the matter squarely before him. "Can you promise that, Rod Norton? Could you keep the promise were it once made?"

"Yes."

"No! You could not. You don't understand or you won't understand. You would obey the impulse which would come just as certainly as the sun will rise and set again. So I can neither accept your promise . . . nor give you mine."

"You will tell what you have guessed?"

"Rather what I know! Even if you were my own brother. . . ."

"Or your lover?" he demanded, a challenge in his voice.

"Or my lover. For his sake if not for the sake of others."

For a little while he made no answer. Again there was absolute silence between him, a troubled silence filled with pain. Then suddenly he leaned close to her, threw out his hand for Persis's rein, jerked both horses back to a fretful standstill.

"Can't you see what you force me to do?" he demanded half angrily. "Do you picture what your denunciation would do for me? Do you think that I can let you make it?"

His face was so near hers that she could see it clearly in the pallid light. He could see hers and that it was lifted fearlessly.

"How will you stop me?" she asked quietly.

"I will finish Jim Galloway out of hand," he told her savagely. "It will no longer be the representative of the law against the lawbreaker; it will just be Norton and Galloway, both men! I will accomplish the one other matter I have planned. Both will require not over three or four days. During that time . . . I tell you, Virginia, I have grown into a free man, a man who does what he wants to do, who takes what he wants to take, who is not bound by flimsy shackles of other men's codes. During those three or four days I shall see that you do no talking!"

Once more, her voice quickened, she asked:

"How will you stop me?"

"We have come to a deadlock; argument does no good. Either I must yield to you or you to me. There is too much at stake to allow of a man being squeamish. I don't care much for the job, but by high Heaven I am of no mind to watch life run by through the bars of a penitentiary. After all action becomes simplified when a crisis comes; doesn't it? There is just one answer, just one way out. You will come with me, now. I will put you where you will have no opportunity to do any talking for the few days in which I shall finish what I have to do." His hand on Persis's rein drew the two horses still closer together. "Give me your promise, Virginia; or come with me!"

Her quick spurt of anger rose, flared, and dwindled away like a little flame extinguished by a splash of rain; the tears were stinging her eyes almost before the last word. For she felt that here was no Roderick Norton speaking, but rather a bit of bone pressing upon the delicate machinery which is a man's brain.

"Where would you take me?" she asked faintly.

"To the King's Palace," he answered bitterly. "Where we had one perfect, happy day, Virginia; where, I had hoped, we would have other perfect days. Oh, girl, can't you see," and his voice went thrilling through her, "can't you see what I have hoped, what I have dreamed. . . ."

"You might still hope," she told him steadily. "You might still dream."

"I will!" His eyes shone at her, his erect form outlined against the black of the earth and the gleam of the stars was eloquent of mastery. "There will come a time when you will see life as I see it. . . . And now, for the last time, will you give me your promise, Virginia? It is forced upon you; you will be blameless in giving it. Will you do so?"

She only shook her head, her lips trembling, not trusting her voice. . . . And then, in a sort of daze, she knew that they had turned off to the left, that no longer was San Juan ahead of them, that they were riding toward the gloomy bulwark of the mountains.