‘It was then with his own hands—’
Florid life was closing in upon Elbert a bit too fast. Riding in silence into Arecibo, he reflected upon the quiet life of the leather-store, and upon the manner of life he was entering upon right now. He couldn’t have chatted and smoked like Monte Vallejo. He couldn’t have done the elegant butchery part of el capitan Ramon. It was like the story of Red Ante—there just wasn’t the stuff in him to endure certain phases of that, nor the sort of thing pulled off in el cuartel, Arecibo, this very day.
In so many cases in this country, he reflected, one but arrived to the estate of manhood, when he met death in violent form. And out of all this death, what hope for Bart Leadley, and the rounding-out of that old bitter tale?
Elbert felt very confused and inadequate.
The little plaza, with only one building of more than one story surrounding, and that el cuartel, looked cold and forbidding to his eyes that late afternoon; the little shops with dirt floors, where old cheese and new rum struggled together to reproduce the flavor of by-gone Spain, had lost their accustomed romance. It was not until Mamie was safely cared for in a clean corral by herself; not, in fact, until her master sat down to tortillas and huevos rancheros (the flavor of garlic coming in from the open fireplace of the little fonda)—that a certain wistful zest of life really began to stir again in his veins once more. Black tobacco in the air, black coffee sweetened to a syrup.
‘If one could only live to enjoy all this,’ he reflected, leaning back.
Dusk was already in the room—candle-lights across the plaza, the first strum of guitars. At this moment a young Mexican officer appeared; elegantly dressed, and quite as Elbert might have pictured such an entrance—whipping a riding crop against his polished boot.
‘May I humbly present myself, Señor—I, Ramon Bistula?’