CHAPTER XXVI
AT SUNSET
Steve, in solitary confinement, with only his throbbing leg for company, was under no illusions as to what his punishment would be. Pasquale had been killed by an American who had been seen talking with Yeager five minutes before he had shot the general. The charge against him would probably be conspiracy, but it did not much matter what the excuse was. His life would be snuffed out certainly.
There were several reasons why Culvera should sacrifice him and not one why he should be spared. Ramon had a personal grudge against him, and the new commander was not a man to forget to pay debts of this kind. Moreover, the easiest way to still any whispered doubts of his own loyalty to Pasquale was to show sharp severity in punishing those charged with being implicated in his death.
Yeager accepted it as settled that he was doomed.
But what about his friends? What of Threewit and Farrar? And, above all, what of Ruth? Would Culvera think it necessary to extend his vengeance to them? Or would prudence stay his hand after he had executed the chief offender?
Culvera was a good politician. The chances were that he would not risk stirring up a hornet's nest by shooting a man as well known in the United States as Threewit. Since Farrar was in the same case, he would probably stand or fall by the Lunar director. As for Ruth—her life would be safe enough. There was no doubt of that. But—what of her future?
Ramon was a known libertine. No scruples would restrain him if he thought the game was a safe quarry. And Steve knew with a sinking heart that he could offer to any official inquiry of the United States Government a plausible story of an abandoned woman who had come to camp to sell her charms to the highest bidder. It would be easy to show that she had ridden down with a man suspected of being a rustler and known to be a bad character, that she had jilted him for Pasquale who was already married and a good deal more than twice her age, and that after the death of Gabriel she had turned at once to his successor. To twist the facts in support of such an interpretation of her conduct would require only a little distortion here and there. The truth, twisted, makes the most damnable lies.