Crossroads (18 page)

T
he white stallion, at a reeling gallop, swung down the last long slope toward Double Bend. It was pitch dark now, and the horse was too exhausted to pick his footing by instinct. Twice he stepped on a loose stone and nearly fell. At last, with hanging head, at a shambling trot, he struck into the main street of Double Bend.

Jack had expected voices, noise, crowds. It was the time for the dance hall to be in full blast, but, when she passed it, she found closed doors and blank darkness. Something had happened, and she knew in her heart that it had something to do with Dix Van Dyck. But there was not a soul on the streets. The lights were out in every house. She could not hear the stirring of a step, not a voice, not a single burst of laughter. Yet, this was Double Bend! It was ghostly. She thought of some breath of pestilence that might have struck across the place. Certainly everything was as still as death. It was then that she caught the glimmer of light from the office of Marshal Phil Glasgow. She would rather have seen it in any other place. She spurred the stallion pitilessly to a staggering gallop. As she drew closer, she saw a huddle of horses in front of the office and men passing in, so she swung from the saddle and ran though the door.

Inside were a dozen white men, and at a table before them Marshal Phil Glasgow was reading. Every man
stood with raised hand. They were taking the oath. A posse was being formed. It froze her heart. She knew the meaning well enough. A lawless mob had seized Dix Van Dyck and killed him. Now the marshal was forming a posse to follow the perpetrators of the crime. That was why Double Bend was plunged in darkness. The reading of the oath ended. The men answered as one in a deep-voiced chorus: “I do!”

It was then that Phil Glasgow looked up and saw the white face of the girl at the door. “What the hell?” asked Glasgow. “Jack, how’d you come here?”

“Dix,” she said faintly, “Dix Van Dyck. They’ve killed him?”

“Have they?” growled the marshal. “Not that I know of.”

“Thank God,” she breathed and could do nothing but repeat it for a moment over and over. She said at last, light breaking on her: “This posse is to follow
him
…follow Van Dyck?”

“Maybe,” said the sullen marshal.

“Send ’em home,” said the girl. “There ain’t no call for a posse. The governor has pardoned Dix Van Dyck. I got it here.” She placed the pardon on the table before him.

It would have been hard to tell whether it was disappointment or relief that showed most plainly in the face of Phil Glasgow. “It’s the old man’s signature,” he said, “and it reads like his lingo. Yep, it’s straight stuff. Boys, you hunt your bunks. Thanks for turning out for me.”

But they lingered, swearing. It was their way of expressing all emotions. They stared at Jacqueline who had slipped exhausted into a chair.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you that,” said one of the men. “The prettiest little fight that was ever staged on the range. The Mexs started for the jail. They were in a gang…damn if I know how many there was in it. Old El Tigre went before
’em and turned Dix Van Dyck loose and give him guns. About the time the crowd hit the jail, Dix and El Tigre come out, Dix with his guns spittin’ and El Tigre with a knife. Nacherally they was a heap of an argument between them two and the crowd. The Mexicans had numbers, but them two had the fighting heart. Finally El Tigre was knifed between the shoulders, and it looked black for Van Dyck, when little Dolores charged into the gang with two horses and got Van Dyck, aboard one of ’em. Then they beat it off. They left the ground considerable littered up. We picked up seven dead men, not counting El Tigre, and a dozen others hurt too bad to crawl away, besides the Lord knows how many that was able to run off. It looked like the floor of a slaughter house. Speaking personal, I’m glad Van Dyck got away. He showed like a man to night.”

“You talk like a fool,” said the marshal. “They warn’t nothing really to hold Dix Van Dyck for in the first place except for that shooting of the deputy from Guadalupe, and there was never any real charge against him for that to have happened. He never murdered anyone. He was tackled by a mob to night, and all he done was in self-defense. But it’s probably only days before he’ll be on the trail of old Oñate.”

“Is Oñate behind it?” asked someone.

“Are ye blind?” queried Glasgow fiercely. “Can’t you see his hand behind all this? He come in here an hour ago with the fear of God in him. He demanded the protection of my men. Think of that! A sheriff asking for protection! I asked him what he feared, and he told me that during the fight Dix Van Dyck had made threats against him. I laughed at him and told him, if that was the case, he’d better order his coffin. But it wasn’t any laughin’ matter with old Oñate. He went off sick and yellow-faced, the dog! I hear he’s called in a bunch and is payin’ ’em to
guard his house. No, lads, it’s only a question of time before we’ll be on the trail of Van Dyck again for a reason. He’ll be coming for the hide of Oñate. I don’t wish him no bad luck, but, if he drops the sheriff, I’ve got to go after him, and there ain’t no man that’s got away from me yet after I once started on his trail!”

“What’ll you do?” asked one of the men.

“Sit here and wait,” said the marshal. “Double Bend is our trap. Oñate is our bait. Just takes time but in the end we’re sure to get Dix Van Dyck. Only it’ll be a man-size job to take him after he’s cornered.” He looked at the girl. “Jack, you’re his friend, ain’t you?”

“I am,” she answered.

“Then, if you can run across him, tell him to lay off Oñate. It ain’t healthy.”

“Glasgow,” she said scornfully, “d’you really think there’s a ghost of a show of getting Dix Van Dyck off a trail he’s once started?”

He leaned across the table and stared at her. “Jack” he said, “I got an idea it’d be to your interest to get him off this here trail of Oñate. They’s been feudin’ for some time now, and no good has ever come of it. Oñate’s lost some of his kin in the fight so far. After to night, and with this pardon, maybe the feud could end peaceably for ’em both.”

Jack jumped from her chair and stood with flushed face, glaring at him. “What d’you mean, Glasgow?”

“I dunno,” said the marshal and grinned not unkindly at her, “but just think it over. If he’s worth saving, you got to keep him away from the sheriff.”

She turned slowly away. She was not thinking of the marshal’s words, but she was seeing again in her mind’s eye the careless, boyish recklessness of Van Dyck as she had first watched him in the dance hall. How long ago it seemed! The heart of a boy and the heavy hand of a
strong man. The two did not go safely together. She tried to define him. He was simply a grown-up mischief maker. Then the advice of the marshal struck home in her mind. She could have blessed him for it. She knew that Dix Van Dyck had followed her through the mountains on a long trail. Perhaps for her sake he would give up his vengeance on Oñate.

True, it was only a dim hope, for she remembered how he had sat at their table in the dance hall and actually waited for the pursuit to overtake him—waited in the hope and joyous expectation of a fight. Waited because he challenged the bad luck of the cross that she wore. She remembered how his agile hand had suddenly poised on the edge of the table, his eyes fixed and burning past her, so that she had known that the enemy was in the room. Then the down swoop of that hand, the flash of the revolver, the boom of the shot. How the deputy had staggered back with his hands across his face. It was terribly clear to her. And terribly clear were the misfortunes that the cross had brought upon him. First the outlawry. She had broken that, but now he was a known man, and at the first suspicion things would go hard with him again at the hands of the officers of the law.

The bad luck led him on toward Oñate. He was sure to strike at the Mexican. He was sure to succeed, and afterward there would be the inevitable outlawry again, and this time the pursuit must end in the death of Van Dyck. Once he had escaped. It would be impossible to do so twice. In the sense of helplessness that overwhelmed her, she brought her hand to the base of her throat to seize the little metal cross and throw it away from her, anywhere, into the night.

But at her touch the cross pressed cold against her flesh, and she remembered a thousand things. It had betrayed others, perhaps, but to her the cross had been a
continual salvation. It was wealth and strength to her. It carried with it a host of associations. She felt that she would never have the strength to give it up, even for Van Dyck. But here her thoughts paused suddenly. It was necessary, first of all, to reach Van Dyck and tell him of the pardon and then of the necessity of keeping from the trail of Oñate.

She waited until after midnight to let the stallion rest. Then she started slowly on the trail for Guadalupe, keeping well to the right of the beaten track and among the hills. She believed Van Dyck would head toward Guadalupe to reach Oñate.

I
n Double Bend
Señor
Don Porfirio Maria Oñate could neither sit nor stand in comfort. He could not walk without crossing a doorway, and, every time he crossed a doorway, there came over him a shuddering thought that the door might open and a giant spring out upon him. A giant such as his trembling friends had described to him: unkempt, unshaven, lean, hollow-eyed, swift, and terrible—with hands that crushed throats with a single grip and steel-faced fists that broke heads. It all seemed too frightful to contemplate.

Señor
Oñate caressed his neck with his pudgy hands. He retired from the vicinity of the yawning doorway and sought refuge in the corner of his room. But here, with wall on two sides, it occurred to him that his own flight would be barred in case the foe should enter the room. He moved hastily to the center of the apartment and stood, casting fearful glances on all sides.

He was not an exceedingly timorous man, to be sure, but recent events had shattered his nerves. He was prepared for anything except failure. His plans had been so well laid that it had been more than improbable they would fail—it had seemed impossible. That was what broke his spirit. The impossible had occurred. Only a few hours ago the great enemy had lain helpless and hopeless in the jail. A mob had been gathering to crush him.
Now Van Dyck was free, loose in the hills, armed and ready for vengeance.

Thank God that for money guards could be hired. Oñate dropped back into his chair and sighed with sick-hearted relief when he remembered the stanch fighters whom he had employed. They patrolled his garden, up and down in every direction. They were posted at the four doors. But suddenly
Señor
Oñate leaped from the chair again. Fear had spurred him once more. It occurred to him that, though all these men had come highly recommended for fighting qualities, many of them were unknown to him personally. It might be that a few gold pieces dropped in their hands would undo all his prearranged precautions. After all, was it not simple? A man approached them softly in the dark and said to one of the sentinels: “Turn your back but an instant, my friend. Here is money to help you turn.” What mercenary could resist that temptation?

Oñate stole from his room and crept along the hall to the main opening that passed in a vaulted hall from the path to the front of the house. Once in this passage, fears and whispers and the light-touching winds of the night beset him. He crouched in the throat of the black arch and peered forth into the night. There in the garden he peered cautiously, but he saw nothing. A pang of horror and cold rage beset him. Had the dogs already betrayed him and left their posts? Were they even then, perhaps, stealing up on him? At the very moment, when he was about to turn and fly back to the house, he perceived a shadow moving closer to the door. Then another, another, another. Four men walked their posts in the garden. He was safe, safe, safe! The sensation of relief was so great that a sob rose in his throat and tears trickled, one after another, down his face.

He went back into the house almost boldly, but, when
a door was snatched by the wind and loudly banged, he started and whirled in a fresh panic. At this point he discovered that he was very thirsty and called aloud: “Dolores! Ho, there, Dolores!”

It was not till his anger began to rise at her delay that he remembered that she had left him, that she was gone to the side of his great enemy. She had found the white man with the cruel, straight-lipped mouth, and she had followed him as she had threatened. It left a sense of bitter emptiness in Oñate. Moreover, it gave a new edge to his fear. For the girl knew him like a book. She knew all his tastes, all his weaknesses. She could read his mind. If she combined her brain with that of Dix Van Dyck, nothing between heaven and hell could keep him from falling before their combined attack.

“I hope he will beat her!” groaned Oñate. “Beat her till the blood flows down over her beautiful face. Beat her till welts rise on her back. Kick her in the mouth…so!”

He struck at the air in his wild fury. Then he remembered that such a man as Dix Van Dyck would never lay the weight of a finger on a woman. He remembered that for the sake of a woman Dix Van Dyck had allowed himself to be led, unresisting, into captivity. This strange truth still further disarmed Oñate. It was another miracle attributable to Van Dyck.

What we do not understand, we all fear. A child fears the night. Oñate feared Dix Van Dyck. If the man had been a plain scoundrel, he would have understood a little. He would not have felt so helpless. As it was, he was about to engage in a death struggle with an unknown power. He could not tell whether the man would hire others to fight his battle with him or make the attack alone. He did not know whether to look for many or for one. He did not know whether the stroke would come stealthily in the middle of the night with the silence of a crawling
snake, or whether it would come in the middle of day with terrible boldness, when the bright sunlight wrapped him in a sense of false security.

The brain of Oñate reeled, and in his despair he reached automatically for his favorite flask of tequila and poured himself a stiff drink. The liquid fire warmed his throat and at least took some of the chill from his heart. It became possible for him to think. Thoughts sprang fully grown into the brain of Oñate. It was, indeed, the secret source of his power. He never had to fumble about in the dark, as many other men did. When a difficulty confronted him, he generally saw straight into the heart of the matter and knew instantly when and where to strike.

It happened now that he cast about in his mind to think what man would be sure to follow Dix Van Dyck in this war, and the first name that came to his lips was that of Joseph Van Dyck, the young brother in far south Guadalupe. First Oñate thought of him as a power to harm and remembered a tall youth of seventeen, rather darkly handsome, and with gentle eyes far different from the cold glance of Dix Van Dyck. The elder brother was an anomaly even to his family. He was a throw-back toward the primitive, an atavism. Joseph Van Dyck followed the natural course of family blood. He made up in his gentleness for the grim ferocity and tiger-hearted playfulness of his brother. Oñate regarded the elder brother as a menace, but the thought of Joseph Van Dyck’s ever raising a hand to fight except in the most desperate case of self-defense was amusing. It was absurd.

Not a danger, then, and not a help to Dix Van Dyck? Then came the rapier thrust of inspiration. Not a help to Dix Van Dyck but a terrible and compromising weakness. To reach the terrible elder brother was not in the power of the sheriff in spite of his men, and he knew it. He could not have purchased the services of mercenaries to
follow the trail of this redoubtable man-slayer. But the younger brother? There passed a trail of vague thoughts through the mind of Oñate—rumors he had heard in Guadalupe concerning a great love and tenderness that lay between the two brothers in spite of the differences between their natures. The rumors ran on to tell how the hard hand of Dix Van Dyck had warded the danger of the world from the shoulders of his younger brother. There were a score of anecdotes that flashed now across the mind of
Señor
Oñate, and now in the full flush of his inspiration he leaped to his feet and shouted aloud, again, again, and again.

Manuel and Pedro at the same instant showed their dark faces at the door. Their master redoubled his laughter and jovially hurled a stool at their heads.

“I am safe!” cried Oñate, and collapsed into his chair. “I am safe, Manuel, Pedro, good boys, worthy lads. Bring me yonder flask. God is on my side. But wait! First go to the telephone and get my new deputy at Guadalupe on the wire. Quick! Let everything wait for that!”

They disappeared, and, until his call came in, he sat in his chair, alternately shivering violently, like one seized with a palsy, and then laughing inordinately and rolling his fat body about in the chair. When his call came, the voice of José Remoso answered him on the end of the wire.

“José,” called the sheriff sharply, “
Señor
Van Dyck is escaped from the jail. His pardon will be here at once from the governor. I am in danger.”

In his astonishment the deputy swore. He had no other answer.

“I must be protected,” went on the sheriff, “against this devil. José Remoso, my friend, there are still members of Van Dyck’s family in Guadalupe.”

“It is true,” said the deputy.

“Do you see?”

“See what,
señor
?”

“You are a fool. Are there not brigands who kidnap men and children and hold them for ransom?”

“That also is true,
señor
.”

“And still you do not see?”

“Nothing,
señor
.”

“If Joseph Van Dyck disappears, will it not seem that some brigand, some outlaw has seized him?”

“That is true also.”

“Blockhead, if the boy is in my power, I have nothing to fear from his brother…his devil of a fire-eating brother, Dix Van Dyck. Let the boy disappear. Then I send word to Dix Van Dyck that, if a hair of my head is injured, the boy will answer for it to my friends.”

“
Señor
, the thought must have come to you from heaven.”

“From heaven, indeed, Remoso. Let it be done at once.”

“At once,
señor
. But how did the man break from the jail?”

“The treacherous dog, El Tigre…and then the two fought like demons and killed many men.
Adiós
, Remoso. Strike quickly in Guadalupe.”

So saying, he hung up the receiver and went back to his chair. The terror was passing, leaving him only weak and weary from the long hysteria. Comfort was coming and with its coming a great thirst. He drank again and again until his brain hummed. Out of the humming grew a sound, and the sound after a time took on the semblance of a human voice. It was extremely odd. The drink, the sharp reaction, had thrown him into a sort of a delirium. He was conscious of a fever and a lightness of head for which the drink could only be partially responsible. A faintly singing voice chanted in his head. He canted his ear to it and listened with a frown. At last he made out
that it was his own mind that kept repeating in his own voice, over and over: “Dolores! Dolores
mia
! Devil Dolores! Dolores, my beautiful!” The sheriff fell back helplessly in his chair. “She has come to haunt me,” he groaned, “and I shall not sleep to night.”