CHAPTER XXVIIIBETRAYAL
“SIT down, señora. Don’t be frightened. We won’t let him hurt you.” Rickard vulgarized his Castilian to the reach of her rude dialect.
Her work-sharpened fingers moved restlessly under her reboso. She pulled it together as though the day were not scorching. Her eyes questioned his sympathy. A flash of desperate courage had left her weak and tremulous. She stood by the long pine table looking hopelessly down on the señor whose eyes had twice looked kindly at her.
“Sit down,” he repeated, and motioned to a chair.
For long years her misery had been silent; her tongue could not tell her story. She shook her head. “Take your time, take your time,” counseled the manager. He feared a burst of hysteria.
There was a sound of feet outside the ramada. The Indians, passing and repassing, brought a gleam of anger to her eyes. She recalled her wrongs; they lashed her into fury. Familiar as was Rickard with the peons’ speech in their own country, he could not keep up with her history. Lurid words ran past his ears. Out of the jumble of abuse, of shame and misery, he caught a new note.
“You say Maldonado,himself, sells liquor to the Indians?”
“Ssh, señor!” Some one might hear him! She looked over a terrified shoulder. Maldonado had told her he would kill her if she ever told—it came to her, as a shock, what she was doing, what she had done. It meant ruin for them all—for the muchachos. That had slipped out, the selling of the liquor. She could have told her story without that; she wanted to deny it. Relentlessly Rickard made her repeat it, acknowledge the truth.
“Ssh, señor, it has been so for many years, since I went there, oh, years ago. No one knows, who would suspect a rurale, a rurale who does his duty? He would kill me—”
“Stop shaking. No one is listening.” Rickard forced a tone of brutality. The poor wretch, he suspected, had been trained by the whip; he threatened to send for Maldonado.
“No, I will tell you, will tell you everything, señor. It is an easy trick, señor. No one would take the word of an Indian against Maldonado, a rurale. And the drink makes the men crazy, or stupid. Afterward, he does not remember where he got the tequila. Maldonado whips him, the Indian does not know it is the same hand, and when he is turned loose, he would kiss his feet— Or perhaps, Maldonado sends him to Ensenada—who believes him when he swears the rurale who arrested him made him drunk, señor? Twice, three times, Maldonado’s life was in danger—but the law made quick work of an Indian who tried to kill a rurale. He would kill me, señor—would Maldonado.”
“Go on,” drove Rickard.
Her bony fingers worked restlessly. She was shaking with terror.
“Is it known that he keeps liquors there?” Rickard saw he would have to help her.
“Oh, no, señor. Not even the Indians. They come, by accident. If they have no money, they are sent on. If they have—” Her curving, black-shrouded shoulders shrugged. “The walls are thick. They leave their money and their wits behind them. Sometimes, they wake a mile down the river, under the willows. They have come back to tell their wrongs to their friend, Maldonado, who promises to help them, to find the thief who has wrung those cotton pockets. It would make you laugh, señor, but if he finds it out, he will kill me.”
“What makes you tell me, now?” Rickard hunted for the ulcer. He knew there was a personal wrong. “What has Maldonado been doing to you? Has he left you?”
The veil of fear was torn from her eyes. The trembling woman was gone, a vengeful wildcat in her place. “Left me, Maldonado? Left his home, where he traps the Indian with one coin in his pockets? No, señor. He brought her to our home,there, Lupe, the wife of Felipe, the Deguino. Felipe had found a wife in Nogales, had brought her down to the river, a mile below the oleander. She found the desert dull; she had the city’s foolishness in her head. Felipe was gone a good deal. Maldonado sent him to Ensenada with some poor wretches. Maldonado was never at home then; I told him not to fool with Felipe; the Indian was dangerous; he had hot blood. Maldonado struck me—he kicked me—he said I was jealous—and hit me again.” Rickard saw jealousy in the unveiled eyes of hate. She pressed her hand to her breast. Her movement betrayed pain;whether a bruise, or a deeper hurt to the heart of her he could not guess.
She told the climax simply, her hand pressed over her bosom. “Maldonado told me to get a big meal—tortillasandenchilades, metates: I told him that it was for Felipe; I could see a black plot in his eyes. He laughed at me; when I said I would not cook for that treachery, he cursed me, he kicked me again.” She threw off the reboso, dragging her dress loose. “Don’t,” frowned Rickard. He had seen a welt across her shoulder—a screaming line of pain.
She wound the reboso around the dishonored shoulder. “I cooked his tortillas, his dinner! There was a big meal. There was a lot of liquor—Felipe was drunk; the tequila made him mad, quite mad. He seemed to know something was wrong; he fought as Maldonado dragged him to the cell, the señor remembers the cell? The next day, Maldonado sent for two rurales, Felipe drank the pitchers of wine he put through the bars, but there was no liquor in sight when the rurales came! They started the next day for Ensenada, taking Felipe; that day, Maldonado brought Lupe home. I said she could not stay and he laughed in my face, señor. He put me outside the walls. He thought I would beg to be let in the next morning, come sneaking in like a dog that has been beaten, wash the faces of the muchachos, grind the corn for the metates, but I could stand it no longer. I beat that gate until my fingers bled. I remembered the kind face of the señor, and then I came here. You will help me, señor?”
“What is it you want me to do?” But he knew what she wanted him to do!
“Send that woman away. Make him send Lupe away.Let me stay here until he is over his anger. He is not bad, Maldonado, when he is not angry. Make him set Felipe free;hewill keep that Lupe from my house, from the children.”
Rickard shook his head. “I shall have to look into this thing. If this is true, it’s prison for your husband. You won’t have to fear Lupe.”
“Prison, señor? For Maldonado? You will never get him. He will swear it is not so. He will kill me; he will know that I have told. They will not believe my word against his.”
She was verging toward a spasm of terror. To quiet her, Rickard said that they would have other proof. And her husband would have no more power to hurt her; Maldonado’s crimes would protect her from him.
He could see the struggle in her soul; he knew she wanted to say she had been lying to him. It was not that sort of revenge she wanted; she wanted her husband. She wanted him to help her get her husband back. The revenge sought to trap Lupe—
“When he gets out, he will kill me, señor.”
“Ah, but that will be a long time, señora! And you will have protection. You will get a divorce— He is your husband, señora? You are married to him?”
She screamed at him. MacLean looked up from his note-book. “A divorce?” She was approaching hysteria. “Si, señor, he is my husband. We were married in a church. Never would I get a divorce from my husband. No, not Lucrezia Maldonado.”
Rickard back-stepped, to calm her. It would be all right, anyway. She would be protected. He would see that Maldonado did not harm her. He would look out for her and the children, and she might stay here, incamp, until the thing was settled. In the meantime, she must rest—
He wanted to get rid of her. Maldonado and his villainy must wait. The Indians were waiting to be registered. They were to be sent to their camp, tribe by tribe. Forestier was waiting for him. MacLean was waiting—
“You will let me work for you, señor?”
“There’s always work. I won’t have to send my washing to Yuma, and I haven’t had a button sewed on for months—nor has MacLean, nor Jenks—you can darn their socks, and help Ling with the beds; we can keep you busy, señora. And you can go back to the children pretty soon.”
The terror was seizing her again. Before she could begin her pleading, he called to MacLean.
“Ask Ling to find a tent for Señora Maldonado. Tell him to give her a good meal.”
Her eyes appealed to Rickard over her shoulder. Her body wavered with fatigue. Her eyes were cavernous, with dark radiating shadows.
“How did you get here?”
“I walked, señor.”
“Walked! You must be dead. Get to bed. You’ll be all right in the morning.” A twenty-mile walk to escape the cruelty of the brute whom she would not divorce because of a few priest-mumbled words! Not hers the sacrament of love, of vows mutually kept, yet he knew that he could not depend on her testimony to convict that scoundrel down the river. One glance from his eye, and she would be a shivering lump of fear again.
He must trap the rogue. Some Indian, that was the plan. He would ask Coronel. Coronel, himself, couldnot play the game; Maldonado would not sell liquor to the white man’s friend. He was too wily for that. But some buck—Coronel would make the choice. An Indian who would go to the adobe, pretend intoxication; be clear-headed enough to betray him. That infernal place must be closed. The woman had come in the nick of time. Those tribes were to be guarded as restless children—
He went out to meet Forestier.