Crossroads (6 page)

T
he only retrospective quality that the Indian possesses is a singularly acute memory for personal benefits and personal wrongs. One who harms him would better have trodden on the tail of a rattler. One who confers a favor upon him is installed at once in the innermost recesses of the Yaqui’s heart. His vindictiveness lives as long as his life. Four hundred years ago the Spaniard named Cortez had committed certain horrible outrages in the name of exploring the New World. Because of that the Yaqui hated forever all Spaniards and all who are tainted with Spanish blood. But the Yaqui’s memory of benefactions is almost as enduring. Give him a crust of bread when he is hungry and he will follow you to your home and lie across your threshold like a dog—a deadly guardian against all intruders. The life of your son and the honor of your daughter are safer in his hands than they would be in your own. In fact, so bitter has been the life of the Yaqui, so full of hatred and battling, that when he meets kindliness it takes a divine savor in his heart. His benefactor becomes his god.

It chanced that some years before
Señor
Oñate had crossed the border to claim a debt from a general, high in the service. It was not a large debt, and Oñate went more to irritate the general than with the hope of collecting it. As he knew beforehand, the general did not have a tithe of the sum. Even if he had had it, he would not have
paid Oñate who lived among the
Americanos
so far to the forgetful north. But he showed Oñate, in lieu of payment, a most enjoyable time. Rather late in the evening, much heated with a wild mixture of Mexican drinks from mescal to beer, they visited the prison and paused particularly in front of the cell where six Yaquis were being held, awaiting the rope of the hangman. They were condemned for a murder. The evidence against them consisted in the fact that they had been found in the vicinity of a murdered Mexican. This was quite sufficient.

Señor
Oñate regarded them with a mixture of terror and delight, as a child gazes on the harmless strength of the lion behind the bars at the zoo. A drunken desire seized him to possess these dangerous fighters, even as the child longs to have the lion’s cub for a pet. Particularly he observed the lean face and meaningless eyes of El Tigre, a noted Indian. Memories of his exploits rang in the ears of Oñate. It was then that he remembered the debt of the general. He proposed on the spot that, if the Yaquis were given to him, he would discharge the debt. The general agreed. He had no direct authority over the prisoners, but indirect authority is all one needs south of the Rio Grande. A well-dressed man can order an arrest. A cavalier with a silver-mounted saddle can break up a mob.

The general saw the mayor, and the mayor saw someone else, and the next morning six Yaquis were escorted to a distant part of the border. Here they were informed that they owed their liberty to the ministrations of one
Señor
Oñate in the County of Chaparna, far to the north, and that he desired their presence at his house. This, as they very well understood, was all that was necessary. Thirty-six hours later a house servant, palsied with terror, ran to Oñate with the news that six Yaquis stood on his verandah. Something of the servant’s terror was communicated to
the master, but he understood something of what they must be. So he armed himself with a hollow dignity and went down to receive his wild guests. They were El Tigre and his five grim followers.

Now
Señor
Oñate, despite many faults, understood men. Instead of making a long speech to the Yaquis and enlarging upon what he done for them, or demanding an oath of faithfulness from them, he ordered that food he brought to them and pointed to an out house where they might sleep. From that moment they were his slaves. At first, they took it for granted that the Mexican wanted them for some special service, but, as soon as they understood that there was no particular mission for them to perform, they settled down calmly to the domestic life before them.

The five followers had no families, having lost wives and children by the bullets and bayonets of Mexican soldiery. But El Tigre had a daughter, secreted among the hills. He begged permission to be absent a week, and on the appointed day he returned, leading a tall girl, beautiful for her kind. She cooked for the six Indians, and they labored in the gardens of Oñate.

The scheme was perfect, except that now and then, toward the close of the day, a deep restlessness came over the Yaquis, and sometimes they would depart in a body, or one at a time, and spend the hours till morning prowling across the hills behind Guadalupe, like so many hungry wolves eager for a trail of blood. It was on such an errand, as Oñate well knew, that El Tigre himself had departed this evening, and he doubted whether or not Alvarado would ever overtake his leader.

However, El Tigre must have run at less than half his ordinary speed. In an hour he returned and stood, as Alvarado had stood earlier, hat in hand, stiff and straight, outside on the verandah and directly before Oñate. The
sheriff started when he glanced up and saw the apparition. By this time it was completely dark, and he was aware first of the steady, bright eyes of El Tigre, visible almost as if they possessed the phosphorescence of his namesake, and afterward he made out the gaunt outlines of the Indian chief. El Tigre took the prolonged silence as a command to speak.

“My father,” he said, “has sent for El Tigre, his son.”

“Your father,” responded Oñate with an equal solemnity, “is sick at the heart with many troubles.”

He waited, but it was not the habit of El Tigre to make idle comments.

“There is a man,” continued Oñate with sudden vehemence, “whom I hate and who hates me.”

He paused again, rather regretting his outburst. But the purring voice of El Tigre, a harsh guttural, thick with a hesitancy between words, like the one who seldom speaks, answered: “The enemies of the father are the enemies of the son. El Tigre is lean with hunger. It is long since he hunted. His ribs stick out through his skin because of his hunger. His tongue is dry because he wishes to kill.”

Oñate shivered a little and hastily swallowed the rest of the contents of the glass before him. The warmth was grateful to him. Suddenly he had an overly bright vision of the six figures stealing through some far distant night upon a trail visible to their eyes alone. He saw them slip through the blackness toward the red eye of a camp fire. He saw the bulk of Dix Van Dyck, Herculean among the shadows thrown by the fire. He saw one of those stealthy prowlers of the night creep behind, crouch, saw the spring, the flash of the knife driven home, the leap and outflung arms of the white man, his fall, face down, among the red embers of the fire. Oñate shivered again, but he grinned as he leaned toward El Tigre.

“The man is Dix Van Dyck, big man on a great horse. A great warrior. El Tigre will win much honor by that killing, and he will take a mighty load from the heart of his father. Moreover, there is a price on the head of the man, and El Tigre may hunt him as freely as he would hunt a coyote with traps or with guns. He was last seen at Double Bend.”

“The heart of his father is the heart of El Tigre,” responded the Indian, and without further speech he vanished.

T
he Anglo-American, when his heart is full, seeks action; the Mexican-American, when his heart is full, seeks words; the Indian, when his heart is full, seeks silence. So it happened that the next morning
Señor
Oñate, on his inevitable verandah, was ill at ease. He was happy, to be sure, and wore an automatic smile, but his thoughts were running to the north on the heels of El Tigre and his five companion bloodhounds.

These things being known, it is not difficult to imagine why
Señor
Oñate watched with interest the tall form of Dolores, daughter of El Tigre. She came from the squat door of the adobe hut, where the Yaquis dwelt, and moved onto a little hillock nearby. There she took her stand and screened her eyes against the glare of the sun while she looked north into the shadows of the hills. The wind fluttered the loose end of her crimson
rebozo
, and blew the dress about her, clinging at every curve. She was very tall, very slender, very erect. As she came down the hill again toward the hut, walking with the easy, swinging grace of youth,
Señor
Oñate felt a very great need of words. His heart, indeed, was filled to overflowing, for the
gringo
should know, before many days, what comes to those who cross the path of
Señor
Don Porfirio Maria Oñate.

He called: “Dolores!”

She swerved in the midst of a stride and stood stiff and
straight, looking toward him, as if she could not understand that he had called. He had never summoned her before, but now she was the only creature in the world who could entirely understand and sympathize with him. Her father had taken the war path, and he had taken it at the command of the sheriff.

Señor
Oñate felt a sudden kinship with the girl. He forgot, for the instant, that she was a Yaqui. So he called again: “Dolores, come hither!”

She came with the same buoyantly graceful stride, like a young man, and her small feet paused beyond the verandah at a respectful distance. She stood much as her father stood in the presence of the great sheriff. In place of removing a hat that she did not wear, she took off the
rebozo
that partially veiled her face. It was the ultimate tribute of respect. It was like the act of a child who will hide nothing from the eye of its father. The heart of
Señor
Oñate was touched.

It was his habit to carry about with him pockets full of trinkets. For a little gift here and there, given with a good grace, is more to the childish heart than a rich bribe. He fumbled now automatically in one of his loose coat pockets and brought out a slender necklace of coral—a flimsy trinket but very bright in the morning sun. He held it high so that the light could catch at it and run flashing from bead to bead. The face of Dolores, daughter of El Tigre, lighted a single instant with desire, and then the light went out. Her eyes had grown luminous and darkened again like the flashing of a red torch over a black pool—a glimmer, and then a more profound darkness.

“They are yours, Dolores,” said the sheriff, “to comfort you for the loss of your father. He will come again in a little while. In the meantime you shall have these.”

He flung them idly to her. Her hand darted out as swiftly as the head of a striking snake. The beads were
caught by her and disappeared in the folds of her dress. Once again there was a flash of light in her eyes. It reminded
Señor
Oñate of the spark that flies from flint when iron strikes it. She straightened a little more, and her head went back. She was about to speak of her gratitude, and on such occasions an Indian never does less than Oñate.

“My father,” said Dolores, and Oñate wondered at the timbre of her voice, deep as a man’s and light as a girl’s, “is filled with care for his children. I, Dolores, am not worthy. I am less than the desert rat creeping from mesquite to mesquite under the eye of the eagle that circles high in the air…high…a little speck on a white sky.” She made a slow gesture, first raising her arm and then unfolding her slender hand. It suggested infinite height. “Yet, the care of the father is even for Dolores. He has made her rich. The heart of El Tigre shall beat hard when he sees the gift of the
Señor
Oñate. I am the child of my father. I am his slave. I am his shadow who does what he wills…who comes when he comes…who goes when he goes.”

She drew the
rebozo
over her head again, turned, and made back toward the adobe hut.
Señor
Oñate watched her, swelling with the importance that comes from the knowledge of a good deed done. It made a little warmth in his body and lightness in his brain. But perhaps that came from following the easy, springing gait of Dolores. Like Diomedes, she rose a little with every step, as if her small feet scorned the ground. He matched her pride of gait against the humility of her speech and chuckled softly.

Afterward he followed stealthily toward the adobe hut until he gained an advantage post at the rear window. Through this he peered and saw Dolores squatted cross-legged on the floor of the hut. In the full current of the
sunlight that slanted through the door, she dangled the string of bright beads, and, as the light made liquid brilliance of each bead, the face of the girl shone with an almost fierce exultation. With a soft little cry of delight she tossed the beads above her and caught them again with a dexterous hand as they fell. She poured them from hand to hand swiftly, so that it seemed at times as if she were handling liquid fire. She slipped them over her head and, catching up a polished steel mirror, surveyed herself from every angle.

Back to his comfortable chair on the verandah
Señor
Oñate carried the image of that smile. He forgot in time the head-hunt that El Tigre was carrying on in the northern hills. He forgot even the inevitable tequila that stood in a vase on the little table beside him.

Now, it is a dangerous thing to forget too much. It is also dangerous to think too much of one thing, particularly in a climate where the sun burns ideas home in the brain. There is nothing worse than brooding in the tropics or semi-tropics. When a man becomes too visionary, it is time for him to travel north and cool his body with snow and his thoughts with change. Of this
Señor
Oñate did not think. He gave himself up to visions like an opium smoker. The skin of Dolores, in fact, was hardly darker than his own. The complexion that he saw in his dreams, however, was almost an Italian olive. In those same dreams her smile grew softer. Her eyes grew gently conscious of him.

Now these dreams were endurable during the day, but, when the sun dropped from sight and when the night wind began to whisper drowsily through the leaves of the palms….
Señor
Oñate awoke from his reverie and began to think of reality. This was no easy task. While he ate his supper, the vision crossed between him and his plate. It dazzled him. He sat, absent-minded, until the meat grew
cold. Then he roused himself long enough to curse the waitress and the cook in a needless fury, although he remembered that a doctor of repute had once warned him against apoplexy. At this, trembling with alarm, he called for a wet, cold towel and reclined in a wicker chair with the towel wrapped about his feverish forehead. He began to curse cautiously, lest he should rouse himself again, the house, the servants, the country, the climate, the
Americanos
, the Yaquis, and Dolores. Here he paused and began to repeat the name over and over, like a musician lingering on a pleasing chord. He called for more tequila.

Meantime the name
Dolores
grew more and more fixed in his mind. He discovered that it was necessary for him to see her. At first he thought of sending for her. Then he decided that he could not speak to her in the hearing of his eavesdropping house servants. Moreover, he wanted the cooler, fresher air. He went out on the verandah again to think, but the moment he crossed the threshold, he was aware of a great yellow moon pushing up above an eastern hill. He watched it with a peculiar fascination. It rolled higher until it seemed to rest for a moment like an enormous, illumined blossom, in the crest of a Spanish dagger. It rose higher, hanging poised directly above the hut of Dolores, daughter of El Tigre.
Señor
Oñate walked toward the hut.

At the door he called her, his voice low and a little tremulous: “Dolores.”

She stood a glimmering figure in the dusk. He could not see her face.

“Come out in the night, Dolores,” he said. “It is cool. It is pleasant. Besides, you should see the yellow moon.”

She stepped out and stood beside him. Still, he could not see her face, for the shadow of the hut struck across it.