Silvertip (1942) (9 page)

"Now, Tonio?" said Arturo Monterey.

One of the vaqueros made half a step forward. He was a solid fellow with a grave, steady look.

"Their houses are side by side, as you know, senior," said Tonio. "They have always been friends. Onate is a good man, and he has helped Alvarez. He's older, this Onate, and he has a head on his shoulders. But now, all at once, they are enemies. They run at each other with knives. We ask them why they quarrel. They give us no answer. They will not speak to each other. They will not speak to us. So we have brought them to you, senior."

"Who began this quarrel?" asked Monterey.

The two peons looked at one another, and were silent, staring again at the ground.

"Answer!" cried Monterey, lifting his voice suddenly to thunder.

They both started violently, and with one voice, both exclaimed: "I started the trouble, senor."

Then they were mute, and again gaped on one another.

"You both began the fight?" said Monterey, amused and interested. "How could you both begin it?"

"It was I, senior," said Onate. "I am sorry, and I repent."

"I am sorry, and I repent, also," said Alvarez. Then, losing his control for an instant, he exclaimed: "But this Onate is a liar and a fool!"

Onate, grinding his teeth, said nothing. He continued to look merely at the ground.

"You both began the fight; you both repent; and one of you is a liar and a fool. How, Onate? Are you the liar and the fool?"

Onate jerked up his head savagely. Then something from within gave him pause. He drew a breath and gasped,
"Yes, senior."

Monterey regarded them both soberly.

"They have seen you; perhaps it is enough. They will not fight again, senior," observed Tonio.

Monterey hushed him with a gesture.

"Fire can burn underground, but it will always break out when a wind blows," he said. "Why did you quarrel, you two?"

Again the pair regarded one another, gloomily.

"Speak!" commanded Monterey.

Onate said slowly: "I, senior, said a foolish thing. I am sorry. I angered Alvarez. I ask him to forgive me. I am -a liar-a fool!"

He brought out the last words with a bitter effort.

"There is no more lying in you, Onate, than in a blessed saint," declared Monterey. "What was it you talked about?"

There was another pause, but not so long that Monterey had to lay the whip of his impatience on either of them again. For Alvarez muttered:

"About you, senor, and God forgive us!"

"God will forgive you and so shall I, probably," said Monterey. "What was it that you said about me?"

This time the full pause lasted so long, before an answer, that the silence itself became more of a threat than any words from Monterey could have been. It was this quiet pressure that made Alvarez say:

"I asked Onate if he knew why the senior wore the cloth band about his head, always, day and night. And then he told me such a great lie that my knife got into my hand.
But even a good man will lie, sometimes, to make talk. I am sorry. But the senior is my father; he is the father to us all."

Monterey was so moved by something in this speech that he stood up from his chair, suddenly.

"What did you say, Onate?" he demanded.

"Senor," he said, "if you ask me for my words, I shall seem to you a traitor and a scoundrel. In the name of Heaven, do not make me speak, and forgive me!"

Monterey bowed his head for a moment in thought.

"The time has come, Onate," he said, "when secret shame should be bared before the world. My son has gone from me, Onate, and I fear that he will not return. Perhaps the secrecy with which I have kept that shame of mine is the reason that God chooses to punish me. Speak out, freely. What did you say to Alvarez?"

Onate flung himself suddenly on his knees.

"Senor," he groaned, "it is a foul story that has been in the air for many years, since the night when Senor Drum-mon and his men poured into the house. And it is said- forgive me for repeating it!-but it is said that on that night the brand of the Cross and Snake was burned into your forehead with your own branding iron by the gringo devils!"

He put up a hand before his face, as though to shield himself from an unexpected blow.

The girl sprang up and hurried to the side of Arturo Monterey, anxiously, as though to be a shield to any object of his wrath. But the old man, after a moment, cried out:

"It is the will of God that the whole world should know. Onate, you spoke the truth."

With that, he suddenly tore the cloth band from abou
t
his head, and the brightness of the moon showed to them all, and above all to the straining eyes of Silvertip, a small cross printed in a shadowy furrow in the brow of Mon-terey, and beneath it a wavering line-the complete brand of the Cross and Snake.

The Mexicans, both the prisoners and the vaqueros who had guarded them, slowly drew back from that sight, then turned, and fairly fled. Monterey slipped back into his chair and the girl, lifting the cloth circle from the ground, fitted it carefully over the bowed head again. She was weeping, stifling her sobs as well as she could. Then she sat beside him, watching his bowed face.

"The whole world had heard of it," said Monterey. "You have heard of it also, Julia. Drummon has talked of it and boasted of it among his men. That is why the gringos laugh, when they look at me, and laugh, also, when they speak of me."

"The cruel, savage dogs!" sobbed the girl. "I had heard of it, Uncle Arturo, but I would never believe. None of us would ever believe. Why did you show it to them?"

"The will of God," repeated Monterey. "Who can avoid that? And yet perhaps, before the end, I shall be able to strike one blow at Drummon. I have prayed for that. I have yearned for it, since that night when Drummon and his men broke into this house and lashed me to a chair in my own hall, and heated the branding iron in the coals of my own fire."

"No!" cried the girl. "No one could do that to you! Not even a beast like Drummon, or the brutes that follow him!"

"He told me," said Monterey, "that since I fought with him about the cattle in the valley, and since I claimed more than was mine, he would put my own brand where the devil himself and every man could always see it. And then he took the branding iron with his own hands. It was white-hot. It threw out snapping sparks, and the heat seemed to drip away, in shining water. He stamped the brand in the middle of the forehead, and burned the flesh through, to the bone. Then he left me, and I heard their laughter go like a roaring wind through the house. He left me with the brand on my forehead, and a ruined right hand, so that I could never strike back."

He lifted that hand, and Siivertip saw for the first time that it was a withered, twisted, inturned claw.

"Do you wonder, Julia," said Monterey, "that I raised Pedrillo to be a warrior, and that I taught him very little besides riding and shooting with rifles and revolvers? Do you wonder that I brought in the gun fighter and man-killer, Jose Bandini, to be a tutor to him, at last? For I had sworn that when he reached his twenty-first year, he should have to leave my house, and never return to it unless he had fulfilled my promise to Drummon. I swore to him, Julia, as he stood back from me-I swore to Drummon, when the pain had blinded me, that I would do to him as he had done to me, but more, and lay this brand of mine on the door of his house, on his forehead, and over his heart. Do you understand why I have waited these years? I married in hope of having a son; when he was born, I gave my life to raising him for that one purpose.
And he is gone, Julia. He has been swept away. So I remain alone, with only this to perform my task!"

And he lifted, again, the withered right hand which was his only tool for labor.

Chapter
XII

Drummon's Me
n
IT HAD come to Silvertip like a thunderstroke of revelation. The sense of folly and of wasted effort departed from him; the whole cloud of obscurity was not lifted, but he could see his major purpose emerge clear and straight before him. He knew to what end the life of Pedrillo Mon-terey had been aimed; now he had before him, clearly, the definite goal. On the door of the Drummon house, on Drummon's brow, and over his heart to place the brand which had been stamped so brutally into the forehead of Monterey-that was to be the task. The joy that swelled suddenly in the heart of Silvertip could not be contained by the cold constriction of fear that also gathered about it.

And as the bewilderment left him, as the purpose became clear before him, he was struck again with wonder as to how he should be able to approach Monterey, to offer his services. His face was known in the house-and the Mexicans were prepared to hunt him like a beast.

He heard the girl saying: "We must go in, Uncle Arturo. It's growing very cool, now. And it's late."

"It's late," said Monterey, "and it's too cool for yo
u
out here now. But I want to be alone, Julia. I have to be alone for a time. Go in, my dear, and I'll stay out here for a few moments."

"Then let me call some of the men," said the girl.

"So that they can guard me under the wall of my own house?" asked Monterey angrily. "So that they can stare at me, and whisper to each other because of the shame they've seen stamped on my face forever, this evening? No, I'll stay here alone. And if Drummon's hunting wolves come near enough to nip me, they will not be taking a great prize. Go in, Julia."

She lingered for a moment, then, as though persuaded by some inward impulse, she left him silently, and passed into the house.

Arturo Monterey, when she had gone, walked to each side of the terrace, and peered across the hollow of the valley. Then he returned and sat at the table, staring north.
A gust of wind, iced from the mountain snows, struck coldly across the garden, making the tall perennials around Silvertip whip up and down with a rushing sound. The breeze fell away, and old Monterey remained at his place unmoved by the cold, lost in his thoughts. Again the wind fanned his silver hair, ruffling and raising it, sending through the flowers rustlings that seemed to continue even after all the breeze had died.

It was time, Silver knew, to step out and confront the Mexican. Sooner or later he had to face him and make his offer, in whatever words he could find. But still he delayed. One shout from Monterey would bring men pouring out from the house; and perhaps the shout would come before he could explain himself.

So he waited, irresolute, and now heard the rustling among the tall flowers again, though it seemed to him that there was no wind at all. Something pulled his glance suddenly up, and he saw two figures rise almost beside him. The back of Monterey was turned toward them; it did not need a glimpse of the shotgun one carried or of the revolver that shimmered in the hand of the other to tell Silvertip that these were the men of Drummon. They were black against the sky, their faces darkened under the wide brims of their sombreros as though they had been rubbed with charcoal.

Silvertip's Colt was in his grip as he rose, shouting: "Monterey!"

The old man leaped up; a revolver spat twice. To Silvertip the gun seemed to make hardly a sound; he was more aware of the shotgun, which was being swung toward him; and at that fellow he fired.

The man dropped his weapon. He ran stumbling forward, stretching out his arms before him as one who has lost balance. Right between Silvertip and the second of Drummon's men he ran, and lurched into the flowers at Silver's feet with a crash. Silvertip was already firing over him, as the body fell, but the second stalker had taken to flight and ran like a snipe flying down wind.

Already he was through the opposite border of flowers, and racing down the slope beyond. Silver, running in pursuit, saw old Monterey standing by the table with a small pocket pistol raised to an attitude of attention, like a duelist in another day, waiting for the word to fire.

When Silvertip gained the edge of the terrace, he saw his quarry already in a cluster of tall shrubbery, out of which the fugitive sped away on a horse. There was no purpose in pursuit. The moon flashed for an instant on the striding of the mustang; then it was lost among great trees, like a hawk in a dark cloud.

Silvertip whirled back, to find that Monterey already was kneeling beside the fallen body, trying to turn it over. That task Silvertip performed for him, and as a door of the house crashed open, as wild voices poured out at them, Silver turned on its back the powerful body and the wide, brutal face of Chuck Terry.

His mind flashed back to the picture of young Pedrillo Monterey, lying smiling at the ceiling, and Silver felt that at last he had made one long stride down the trail on which he had set his foot.

They were all around him now, Tonio and the girl among the first, with others filling in the background.
Every man of them was armed. They would have pulled down Silvertip like a pack of hungry dogs, if the voice of Monterey had not stopped them.

"That is the gringo who brought the mare, senior!" shouted some one.

"By the grace of God!" said Monterey. "Otherwise I
s
hould have lain where this one is lying. He has saved me, my children. He has killed this murderer, and made another run like a deer. Do you know the face of the dead man, any one of you?"