Читать книгу The Mesa - Charles Alden Seltzer - Страница 7

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“So you have been caught, Señor Valdez?” said Don Pedro in a dulcet, almost a caressing, voice. The rounded labials of his language flowed liquidly from his tongue, and he lingered over them as though enjoying their timbre, like a drinker and a connoisseur of wine inhaling its bouquet.

“You came once too often to my potrero seeking your choice of my horses, and my vaqueros took you! Last year you appropriated three of my best and left only the grullas Diablo. Did you not know that I would be expecting you? Did you think that I would let it happen again? Do you not know that since you made off with my horses last year there has not been a night when my ranchites or my vaqueros have not been watching for you? Bastante! Señor Valdez, I shall have you flogged. Afterward, you shall be shot!”

The culprit, a tall, slender Mexican, seemed unaffected by Don Pedro’s threats. He stood near one of the roughly rounded red sandstone pillars of the colonnaded courtyard, his arms folded across his arched chest, his booted feet set wide apart and firm, his black eyes gleaming with an expression in which was more of amusement than of concern.

And yet the concern was tempered by respect; the amusement was not provoked by derision but by Señor Valdez’s contempt of himself for having permitted himself to be taken into custody by Don Pedro’s men. Valdez was aware that his position was precarious and that Don Pedro’s threat to have him shot had not been idly uttered.

Don Pedro Bazan was powerful. One need only to gaze as Valdez was now gazing into the vastness of Don Pedro’s domain to understand how unlimited was the authority he exercised. Don Pedro’s possessions could not be comprehended by glances from any given point. A month’s riding would hardly suffice to cover the limits of his land.

Perhaps for the first time Valdez was assailed with a proper conception of Don Pedro’s position, for his gaze now wandered, seeking the pepper trees below him, their yield just beginning to colour in the blighting heat of the sun. He looked from the pepper trees to the bright green palms that grew everywhere; he studied the thickets and coppices towering over prickly pear hedges. Near by a garden caught his eye, and he was amazed at the orderliness of the rows of onions, garlic, cabbages, melons. Beyond the garden was a forest of cypress, eucalyptus, and lapacho wood. On a broad level adjacent grazed countless cattle, knee deep in sedge grass. (That was where Valdez had been caught.)

The lowlands were vivid with colour. Vermilion, scarlet, crimson, claret, purple, lavender, plum, green, orange, gold-brown, lemon-yellow were splashed over the face of the lowlands in such harmony of design that Valdez, who appreciated beauty, was conscious of a pang in his chest and of a queer constriction at his throat. Associated with his strange physical pains was a thought that perhaps not many more times would he look upon the beauties of the earth.

And yet, as Don Pedro continued to remain silent, merely watching him, Valdez glanced at the two branches of the Altar that came from their cañons eastward to mingle at the confluence; and his gaze travelled the upland reaches of Don Pedro’s land until a ragged horizon of distant peaks loomed hazily in his vision.

To the peaks and beyond stretched Don Pedro’s domain. Up, up, to the sky. Down through the lowlands to the Gulf of California. Northward five days’ travel. Southward as many more. Scattered over the face of this kingdom—it was nothing less, Valdez assured himself—were the jacals of Don Pedro’s ranchites, the dugouts of his vaqueros. One could not travel half a dozen miles in the daylight without encountering one of Don Pedro’s minions. Why, at Pezon, which was a collection of jacals on the Altar a dozen miles distant, Don Pedro maintained a private cuartel where he arbitrarily confined wretches that offended him. And what was worse, Valdez was aware that somewhere behind the colonnaded red sandstone courtyard in which he was now standing was an iron-barred structure of the same material into which, he anticipated, he would be confined until such a time as it suited Don Pedro’s whim to have him executed.

A glint of awe somehow got into Valdez’s eyes. A feeling that weakened his knees so that he cast a glance around as though searching for something to sit upon. A conviction of Don Pedro’s omnipotence had struck him suddenly, and for the first time since he had been captured he was beginning to doubt the power of his leader, Zorilla, to aid him.

“Que desa Usted?” asked Don Pedro, observing the changing colour of his captive’s face.

“A place to sit, Magnífico,” blurted Valdez, amazed to find that his voice was quivering as uncertainly as his knees. “I am faint; I have had no food since yesterday at noon!”

Between Don Pedro and Valdez was a huge table with legs like clumsy posts. Its top was covered with a heavily embroidered native cloth with a deep-tasselled fringe. Upon the table were openwork silver trays bearing native bread made of maize and manioc. Clustered about were fruits, tarts, sweetmeats—candied—a silver pitcher of milk, little bowls of honey, and platters of new cheese. Goblets, aguardiente, a bowl of glittering panales, another of lemons.

Evidently Don Pedro had been about to gorge himself when Valdez had been brought to him, for upon the table near him was a huge vessel of carne con cuero—roast beef with peppers and spices, and a ragout of stringy mutton, half garlic.

“Ya se ve,” answered Don Pedro. “But you should have thought of that before you tried to steal my horses. Pedro the Magnificent does not eat with thieves, but none the less he does not deny food to those who hunger. Philippe!” he called to a servant who had been standing near a column in apparent indifference to the presence of Valdez.

The servant approached and stood, waiting.

“Philippe,” said Don Pedro, “escort Señor Valdez to that bench at the corner column and give him some of that most excellent olla which was left over from yesterday. Also give him a cup of mescal. But see that the mescal is not too strong, Philippe, for Señor Valdez is faint, and I fear he will collapse under the stimulus of strong drink.” Don Pedro smiled very faintly at his captive.

With a wave of his hand he dismissed both servant and Valdez, drew a chair up to the table, and began to eat.

From his distant bench Valdez furtively watched his host.

Don Pedro was a gross figure. He was a giant of a man, and in his youth must have been an heroic figure. For his shoulders were broad and still retained a military squareness; and his features were of that mould which from time immemorial have been termed patrician. Yet age and abnormal appetite had coarsened his face and laid a sheath of flesh at his jaws and at the back of his neck which sagged flaccidly. His nose had grown more prominent; it was becoming bulbous with moles and other protuberances, so that of its patrician shape nothing was left except the bridge. His mouth, especially the upper lip, had a blatant flare, while the lower receded but still held a rather attractive curve. His teeth, like those of all gourmands, were white and even and had the appearance of having been ground off so that they formed a straight line.

His eyebrows were shaggy and prominent, and the eyes under them were full and brilliant such as reflect a sensuous spirit seeking the complacent enjoyment of fulfillment. The lobes of his ears were fat and pendent, with a bluish cast.

As Don Pedro sat at the table his enormous stomach rested on his knees. And yet his stomach was not flaccid, like the flesh of his face; it seemed to form the lower bulge of a mass that swelled out under his armpits, firmly, completely encircled him, and then ran down his hips and legs to feet so small that they might have belonged to a woman. His arms were short, and with his fat stomach against the table edge Pedro had some difficulty in reaching the food that was spread before him. But he had hardly seated himself when a swarthy servant appeared and hovered over him.

Don Pedro’s attire was rather startling for the rural region in which he lived.

He wore the uniform of a Spanish general of viceregal days with its blue coat with red facings and narrow gold lace, its white waistcoat, knee breeches, and silk stockings with gold buckles on the knee straps, and the low shoes which accompanied it. He wore a big cavalry sabre in a black leather scabbard, which dangled almost to the floor as he sat at the table.

He had come out of the house wearing a tricolour-cockaded rather flat hat. Whenever Don Pedro was forced to sit as judge and jury, as in the present instance, he appeared in the panoply of power and authority.

Valdez had heard tales of Don Pedro’s achievements at the festal board, and yet, as he sat there covertly watching, it seemed that the tellers of the tales had not done justice to the man’s appetite.

Under Valdez’s eyes, as though through some weird feat of legerdemain, the platter of roast beef vanished. Portions of lamb, fish, ham, and boiled pigeon followed, and an aroma, pleasant to Valdez’s nostrils, permeated the atmosphere of the courtyard. Don Pedro’s garlic was pungent; it made Valdez’s mouth moist.

Don Pedro paid no attention to Valdez as he applied himself to the viands before him. He ate noisily, eagerly, enjoying every mouthful, lingering longer over some dishes than others. Frequently he drank deeply of the thick white wine of Mendoza. There seemed to be no appeasing his appetite.

“Diablo!” breathed Valdez, “two such eaters would bring famine into the country! I think I know now why he is called Pedro the Magnificent! Bah! He is magnificent only at the table!”

While Don Pedro attacked the fruits, tarts, the candied sweetmeats, the honey, and drained a silver tankard of dark Benicarlo wine, Valdez found time to gaze around him. His glance went through a broad doorway whose sill was level with the sandstone of the courtyard into a patio. The sun shining through a window beyond the patio revealed another open door and a room. In the room Valdez could see a tall bufete, a chest of drawers, a writing desk, filing cabinet, and bookcase. Standing fairly in the sunlight that entered a window of the room was a seron of tobacco. Near by was a wine cask. In the patio was swung a gigantic hammock, knotless, broadmeshed, with a broad silk ribbon affixed to a ring in the wall of the house. With the ribbon the occupant of the hammock could pull the latter back and forth.

The casa, or house, was a great structure with sloping roofs of Spanish tile and many squat gables. Like the colonnades and the floor of the courtyard, the house was built of red sandstone. Vines climbed its walls. Flowers bloomed near its foundations and in spacious beds arranged among curving walks. Rows of palms formed a lane that ran down the slope westward into the garden. The air, except for the scent of the lingering garlic, was fragrant. The sun beat down brightly, but not with such intensity as elsewhere. A vaquero, gaily caparisoned, was riding leisurely down into the sedge grass of the level where the cattle grazed. Some ranchites were lounging around a jacal at a distance. Half a dozen lazy peons were making a pretense of working in the garden. A corsetless Mexican girl with a brilliantly embroidered girdle was turning some peppers that were strewn on the floor of the courtyard at a distance. Her black hair was agleam with oil; twice had Valdez caught the flash of her dark eyes.

A heavy somnolence was in the atmosphere. Two or three vultures sat on the azoteas—flat roofs—of the outbuildings near by. A vagrant breeze stirred the leaves of the palms close to the courtyard. Don Pedro had leaned back. He was filled to repletion, and a drowsiness was stealing over him. His head had sagged forward, and he was watching Valdez through heavy-lidded eyes. Pretending that he was not aware of Don Pedro’s gaze, Valdez viewed the tinted gauze of the southwestern haze where the sun was working its magic above a distant stretch of desert.

“Señor Valdez,” said Don Pedro suddenly, “why do you persist in trying to steal my horses?”

“They are good horses, Magnífico,” answered Valdez, startled into telling the truth.

“So they are. And thieves must ride only the best. Por Dios! That is an insolence, Señor Valdez. You might say the same thing about my wines, my silver, my hacienda. All are good. But because they are good it does not follow that they should be appropriated to the use of Señor Zorilla!”

Valdez started; his gaze fell.

“That is the truth, is it not, Señor Valdez?” said Don Pedro in a voice which was almost insinuatingly derisive, but which had in it a note of gentleness.

Valdez was silent.

“Come, señor,” insisted Don Pedro, “be frank. Zorilla is your chief, is he not?”

Valdez looked straight at Don Pedro.

“Si, Señor Magnífico,” he answered.

Don Pedro stiffened. He had hoped Valdez would deny the charge. For in spite of himself his heart had been warming toward Valdez. That, he supposed, was because Valdez had not blustered or exhibited venom and had not been impertinent.

For a time Don Pedro did not permit himself to speak. His passions were aroused, and he knew that if he permitted himself to give voice to his thoughts his rage would grow and he might order Valdez to be shot immediately. And despite his rage against Zorilla, the outlaw chief, he did not feel viciously disposed toward his captive.

When he felt he could control his voice he spoke.

“Señor Valdez,” he said, “you know that Zorilla is my despised and contemptible enemy?”

“Si, Señor Magnífico.”

“And having tried to steal my horses for Zorilla you do not hope to escape being shot, Señor Valdez?” queried Don Pedro, leaning back and surveying his captive with brilliant, scowling eyes.

“I have no such hope, Señor the Magnificent,” answered Valdez, an edge of bitter irony in his voice.

“Ah!” exclaimed Don Pedro; “then you have heard that when once I say a thing I do not reconsider?”

“That is common knowledge, Señor the Magnificent.”

“So it is,” said Don Pedro, his great chest swelling a little. “It is as such a man that I have become known. People talk about me in that manner, eh? They know of my determination, my unalterable will, my——” He paused, searching for further words.

“And they know you for your justice, señor,” supplied Valdez, cunningly.

“So they do, Señor Valdez. No man can say I am not just. It is true that it is Zorilla I should have taken out and shot. But since Zorilla is not here, and since you were fool enough to permit yourself to be taken in his place, it is, of course, you who will have to be shot. You see the justice of that, Señor Valdez?”

Valdez’s cunning expression faded.

“Si, señor,” he was forced to say.

“Yet the affair will be conducted with great ceremony, Señor Valdez. As an agent of Zorilla, you will be accorded every courtesy that would be accorded Zorilla. There will be six men in the firing squad. But only three of the rifles will bear bullets. And the men will be instructed to fire at your heart, in order to make the affair as merciful as possible.”

“Gracias, señor,” said Valdez, thin irony in his voice.

“Do not thank me,” said Don Pedro. “I try to end these affairs quickly.” He lifted a goblet of wine, drained it, and leaned back again, his arms folded across his ponderous stomach as he gazed somewhat meditatively at Valdez.