Heart of the Sunset, Rex Beach [best fiction books of all time txt] 📗

no carts creaked along the highways, and the roads, like the little farms, were growing up to weeds. Stores were empty, the people were idle. Over all was an atmosphere of decay, and, what was far more significant, the people seemed content.

All morning the monotonous journey continued—a trial to Alaire and Dolores, but to José Sanchez a red-letter experience. He covered the train from end to end, making himself acquainted with every one and bringing to Alaire the gossip that he picked up.

It was not until midday that the first interruption occurred; then the train pulled in upon a siding, and after an interminable delay it transpired that a north-bound troop-train was expected.

José brought this intelligence: "Soon you will behold the flower of the Mexican army," he told Alaire. "You will see thousands of Longorio's veterans, every man of them a very devil for blood. They are returning to Nuevo Pueblo after destroying a band of those rebels. They had a great victory at San Pedro—thirty kilometers from La Feria. Not a prisoner was spared, señora."

"Is General Longorio with them?" Alaire inquired, quickly.

"That is what I came to tell you. It is believed that he is, for he takes his army with him wherever he goes. He is a great fighter; he has a nose for it, that man, and he strikes like the lightning—here, there, anywhere." José, it seemed, was a rabid Potosista.

But Dolores held opposite sympathies. She uttered a disdainful sniff.
"To be sure he takes his army with him, otherwise the
Constitutionalistas would kill him. Wait until Pancho Gomez meets this
army of Longorio's. Ha! You will see some fighting."

José blew two fierce columns of cigarette smoke from his nostrils. "Longorio is a gentleman; he scorns to use the tricks of that bandit. Pancho Gomez fights like a savage. Think of the cowardly manner in which he captured Espinal the last time. What did he do then? I'll tell you. He laid in wait and allowed a train-load of our troops to pass through his lines toward Chihuahua; then he took possession of the telegraph wires and pretended to be the Federal commander. He sent a lying message back to Espinal that the railway tracks were torn up and he could not reach Chihuahua, and so, of course, he was ordered to return. That was bad enough, but he loaded his bandits upon other trains—he locked them into freight-cars like cattle so that not a head could be seen—and the devil himself would never have guessed what was in those cars. Of course he succeeded. No one suspected the truth until his infamous army was in Espinal. Then it was too late. The carnage was terrible. But do you call that a nice action? It was nothing but the lowest deceit. It was enough to make our soldiers furious."

Dolores giggled. "They say he went to his officers and told them:
'Compadres, we are now going into Espinal. I will meet you at the
Plaza, and I will shoot the last man who arrives there.' Dios! There
ensued a foot-race."

"It is well for him to train his men how to run fast," said José, frowning sternly, "for some day they will meet Luis Longorio, and then—you will see some of the swiftest running in all the world."

"Yes! Truly!" Dolores was trembling with excitement, her voice was shrill. "God will need to lend them speed to catch this army of Longorio's. Otherwise no human legs could accomplish it."

"Bah! Who can argue with a woman?" sneered José.

Alaire, who had listened smilingly, now intervened to avert a serious quarrel.

"When the train arrives," she told her horse-breaker, "I want you to find General Longorio and ask him to come here."

"But, señora!" José was dumfounded, shocked. "He is a great general—"

"Give him this note." Quickly writing a few lines on a page from her note-book, she gave him the scrap of paper, which he carefully placed in his hat; then, shaking his head doubtfully, he left the car.

Flushed with triumph, Dolores took the first occasion to enlarge upon her theme.

"You will see what a monster this Longorio is," she declared. "It was like him to steal your beautiful cattle; he would steal a crucifix. Once there was a fine ranch owned by a man who had two lovely daughters—girls of great respectability and refinement. But the man was a Candelerista. Longorio killed him—he and his men killed everybody on the hacienda except the daughters, and those he captured. He took them with him, and for no good purpose, either, as you can imagine. Naturally the poor creatures were nearly dead with fright, but as they rode along the elder one began talking with Longorio's soldiers. She made friends with them. She pretended to care nothing about her fate; she behaved like a lost person, and the soldiers laughed. They liked her spirit, God pity them! Finally she declared she was a famous shot with a pistol, and she continued to boast until one of her guards gave her his weapon with which to show her skill. Then what? Before they could hinder her she turned in her saddle and shot her younger sister through the brain. Herself she destroyed with a bullet in her breast. Every word is the sacred truth, señora. Longorio's soul is stained with the blood of those two innocents."

"I've heard many stories like that, from both sides," Alaire said, gravely.

In the course of time the military train came creaking along on the main track and stopped, to the great interest of the southbound travelers. It was made up of many stock cars crowded with cavalry horses. Each animal bore its equipment of saddle and bridle, and penned in with them were the women and the children. The soldiers themselves were clustered thickly upon the car roofs. Far down at the rear of the train was a rickety passenger-coach, and toward this José Sanchez made his way.

There began a noisy interchange of greetings between the occupants of the two trains, and meanwhile the hot sun glared balefully upon the huddled figures on the car tops. A half-hour passed, then occurred a commotion at the forward end of Alaire's coach.

A group of officers climbed aboard, and among them was one who could be none other than Luis Longorio. As he came down the passageway Alaire identified him without the aid of his insignia, for he stood head and shoulders above his companions and bore himself with an air of authority. He was unusually tall, at least six feet three, and very slim, very lithe; he was alert, keen; he was like the blade of a rapier. The leanness of his legs was accentuated by his stiff, starched riding-breeches and close-fitting pigskin puttees, while his face, apart from all else, would have challenged prompt attention.

Longorio was a young man; his cheeks were girlishly smooth and of a clear, pale, olive tint, which sun and weather apparently were powerless to darken; his eyes were large, bold, and brilliant; his nostrils thin and sensitive, like those of a blooded horse. He seemed almost immature until he spoke, then one realized with a curious shock that he was a man indeed, and a man, moreover, with all the ardor and passion of a woman. Such was Alaire's first hasty impression of Luis Longorio, the Tarleton of Potosi's army.

Disdain, hauteur, impatience, were stamped upon the general's countenance as he pushed briskly through the crowd, turning his head from side to side in search of the woman who had summoned him.

Not until she rose did he discover Alaire; then he halted; his eyes fixed themselves upon her with a stare of startled amazement.

Alaire felt herself color faintly, for the man seemed to be scanning her from head to foot, taking in every detail of her face and form, and as he did so his expression remained unaltered. For what seemed a full minute Longorio stood rooted; then the stiff-vizored cap was swept from his head; he bowed with the grace of a courtier until Alaire saw the part in his oily black hair.

"Señora! A thousand apologies for my delay," he said. "Caramba! I did not dream—I did not understand your message." He continued to regard her with that same queer intensity.

"You are General Longorio?" Alaire was surprised to note that her voice quavered uncertainly, and annoyed to feel her face still flushing.

"Your obedient servant."

With a gesture Mrs. Austin directed Dolores to vacate her seat, and invited the General to take it. But Longorio checked the maid's movement; then with a brusque command he routed out the occupants of the seat ahead, and, reversing the back, took a position facing Alaire. Another order, and the men who had accompanied him withdrew up the aisle. His luminous eyes returned once more to the woman, and there was no mistaking his admiration. He seemed enchanted by her pale beauty, her rich, red hair held him fascinated, and with Latin boldness he made his feelings crassly manifest.

VII LUIS LONGORIO

"You probably know why I wished to see you," Alaire began.

Longorio shook his head in vague denial.

"It is regarding my ranch, La Feria." Seeing that the name conveyed nothing, she explained, "I am told that your army confiscated my cattle."

"Ah yes! Now I understand." The Mexican nodded mechanically, but it was plain that he was not heeding her words in the least. All his mental powers appeared to be concentrated in that disconcerting stare which he still bent upon her. "We confiscate everything—it is a necessity of war," he murmured.

"But this is different. The ranch is mine, and I am an American."

There was a pause. The General made a visible effort to gather his wits. It was now quite patent that the sight of Alaire, the sound of her voice, her first glance, had stricken him with an odd semi-paralysis. As if to shut out a vision or to escape some dazzling sight, he dosed his eyes. Alaire wondered if the fellow had been drinking. She turned to Dolores to find that good woman wearing an expression of stupefaction. It was very queer; it made Alaire extremely ill at ease.

Longorio opened his eyes and smiled. "It seems that I have seen you before—as if we were old friends—or as if I had come face to face with myself," said he. "I am affected strangely. It is unaccountable. I know you well—completely—everything about you is familiar to me, and yet we meet for the first time, eh? How do you explain that, unless a miracle—"

"It is merely your imagination."

"Such beauty—here among these common people! I was unprepared." Longorio passed a brown hand across his brow to brush away those perverse fancies that so interfered with his thoughts.

In moments of stress the attention often centers upon trivial things and the mind photographs unimportant objects. Alaire noticed now that one of Longorio's fingers was decorated with a magnificent diamond-and-ruby ring, and this interested her queerly. No ordinary man could fittingly have worn such an ornament, yet on the hand of this splendid barbarian it seemed not at all out of keeping.

"Dios! Let me take hold of myself, for my wits are in mutiny," Longorio continued. Then he added, more quietly: "I need not assure you, señora, that you have only to command me. Your ranch has been destroyed; your cattle stolen, eh?"

"Yes. At least—"

"We will shoot the perpetrators of this outrage at once. Bueno! Come with me and you shall see it with your own eyes."

"No, no! You don't understand."

"So? What then?"

"I don't want to see any one punished. I merely want your government to pay me for my cattle." Alaire laughed nervously.

"Ah! But a lady of refinement should not discuss such a miserable business. It is a matter for men. Bother your pretty head no more about it, and leave me to punish the guilty in my own way."

She endeavored to speak in a brisk, business-like tone. "La Feria belongs to me, personally, and I have managed it for several years, just as I manage Las Palmas, across the river. I am a woman of affairs, General Longorio, and you must talk to me as you would talk to a man. When I heard about this raid I came to look into it—to see you, or whoever is in charge of this district, and to make a claim for damages. Also, I intend to see that nothing similar occurs again. I have delayed making representations to my own government in the hope that I could arrange a satisfactory settlement, and so avoid serious complications. Now you understand why I am here and