Читать книгу Montana Rides Again - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4

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They faced one another across the long table.

“Tell me about your tumble, first,” suggested Rubriz. “Well, even the mountain sheep break their necks now and again. If something hit you near the eye, thank your God that you are not blinded.”

“The gun butt hit the bone over my eye; that was all,” said the friar.

“Gun butt?” said Rubriz, suddenly scowling. Then he pointed. “Gun butt, eh? And what hit the other side of your face?”

“The point of a knife,” answered Brother Pascual. “But it was nothing.”

The bandit began to steal around the table as though he hoped to surprise news in the very mind of his big friend.

“And your head? The bandage, there?” he demanded.

“That is not very bad, either. The bullet glanced; I have a hard skull——”

“The butt of a gun—a knife—a bullet. Splendour of God! what fools have forgotten that you are the friend of Mateo Rubriz?”

“The governor of Duraya and his soldiers.”

“General Ignacio Estrada? Where did he dare to beat you?”

“In the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

“The governor—beats you—in the church! Am I going mad? What were you doing?”

“Fighting a little, Mateo, to keep the governor and the rest of the masked men from stealing the emerald crown of Our Lady.”

“Why, brother, that crown was stolen long years ago!”

“It was found again by a peon whose son was very sick. He brought the crown back to the church; his son was healed; and then the governor stole the emeralds and the gold again.”

“How was he known, if his face was masked?”

“The holy bishop recognized the voice of the principal robber.”

“Bishop Emiliano?”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” cried Rubriz, “that little man may be as thin as a knife, but he can cut as deep. He knows me, does he not?”

“You have made many good presents to the church.”

“It knows my gold and it knows my silver. Do you hear, brother? When the name of Rubriz is spoken in that church, all the shadows stir and the statues whisper a prayer for me. I tell you this: in that church alone I have bought half the distance from hell to heaven.”

The friar smiled a little.

“But this Estrada—what do you tell me about him? No good man ever wore the name of general—except Bonita Juarez—except Bonita Juarez—God rest his soul!”

“God rest his soul!” echoed the friar, devoutly. “But General Estrada came into the church. The poor monks ran away. Only the bishop guarded the image of Our Lady——”

“I would rather have one blessing from him than ten thousand Aves from a whole college of singing priests——”

“Peace, Mateo!” commanded the friar, sternly.

He went on:

“The holy bishop recognized the voice of the general and called out his name; and Estrada desired to leave no witness behind him. He struck Bishop Emiliano to the floor.”

“That poor bald head! Did it crack like an egg shell?” asked Rubriz.

“Our Lady had softened the blow or made it glance. The bishop lives, and the governor sits in his fort with the crown of Our Lady and the ten emeralds in it.”

“But you were there yourself?” demanded Rubriz, his face swelling and purpling with emotion.

“It had taken me a little time to get to my knees because I had been very deep in a prayer. I came shouting at them. But they struck down the holy bishop. I took a pair of the soldiers and knocked their heads together.”

“San Juan of Capistrano! If only I had been there to see and to help!”

“The two soldiers fell down. I knocked over another, but I tripped on him, and he stabbed at me and put the point of his knife in my cheek. As I was getting up a gun exploded; I felt that blow on my head as the bullet struck; and another man hit me over the eye with the butt of a gun. I tried to keep my wits, but they flew away into darkness like a flock of crows, and I fell on my face.”

“May they rot with a blight! I’ll put them on their faces! If I don’t cut off their eyelids and stake them out in the sun, my name is not——”

“Mateo, be still. The bishop called for me the next day—this morning. He said to me: ‘If I complain of the stealing, then all the hawks will gather; the jewels will be scattered through the land. It is better to carry word about this to Mateo Rubriz, because he will not allow this thing to be.’ ”

“Did he say that?” exclaimed Rubriz, leaping to his feet. “No wonder he’s a bishop. If he knows men as well as this, he must know a good bit about saints and angels, also. I shall show him, Pascual, that I am a man to trust. But what does he want me to do? I shall go to Duraya and cut the throat of the general the first time he leaves the fort at night!”

“That would leave the emerald crown still safely inside the fort, Mateo.”

“Hai! That is true! But, Pascual, in the name of God the bishop doesn’t think that I can fly like a bird or dig like a mole to get into the fort and then stand invisible inside it till I’ve found the emeralds and taken them? Does he think that?”

The friar sighed. He looked down at his own great hands and was silent.

“But that is what he wishes!” muttered Rubriz. He turned pale. On the hair of his bare arm he smeared some of the sweat off his face. “No single man in this world could do the thing!” he cried. “Look at me, Pascual, and tell me that I am right!”

But Pascual, in a misery, continued to stare silently down at his hands, which were gripped hard together.

“I shall find ten other emeralds and make them into a golden crown twice as big,” exclaimed Rubriz.

“Mateo, beware of blasphemy!” said the friar.

“True!” groaned Rubriz. “It is a holy thing. It has come from the brow of Our Lady. May God pour the fire of hell into the bones of Estrada! But what can I do—alone?”

“You have many men,” said Brother Pascual, softly, as though he wished that his words might become part of the other man’s thought.

“I have men? I have hands and feet and guns to help me. But for such work numbers are a loss, not an advantage. To be secret as a snake, quick as a cat’s paw, without fear under heaven—all of these things I am—but where is there another to be my brother in the danger? Oh, Pascual, two men together may outface the devil; but one man alone—in the fort of Duraya——”

He threw up his arms with a groan.

“Is there no other man?” asked the friar.

“There is one other, but he could not come.”

“Could money buy him?”

“He is rich.”

“For the sake of Our Lady?”

“He is a gringo dog,” cried Rubriz, pacing the floor, “and Our Lady means nothing to him. Besides, if he were to try to ride south into Mexico, a whisper of his coming would go before him, the stones would yell out under his feet, ‘El Keed!’ That is how he is hated and wanted by the Rurales, by the soldiers!”

“Ah, Mateo, is this gringo the only man? This man you hate?”

“Ay, this man I hate is the only one. But also I love him, and he loves me. Hai, Pascual! Think that I had him under the muzzle of my gun. That his life was like this, in my hand to crush. And there lay Tonio, the traitor—Pascual, keep me from speaking about it. O God! these are not tears of water that run out of my eyes. They are tears of blood and my heart is weeping. But I let them both go free because Tonio loves me, even while he is wearing another name and speaking another speech. And Montana I saw was the second man in the world. Rubriz, then El Keed. There is no third. I could not kill him. I left the house. I took his hand. We spoke quietly. We were friends. For a little while, as I went away, my heart was so full with my friend that I could forget how I had lost Tonio through him.”

Brother Pascual, listening to this speech, was so intent that sweat ran unheeded on his face, faster than the tears of Rubriz. He knew very well that famous tale of how the Montana Kid, by means of a tattooed birthmark, had insinuated himself into the Lavery household in the place of the son whom Rubriz, to repay the whip-stroke, had stolen twenty years before; but then some stroke of conscience had driven the Kid south into Mexico to find the real heir, whom he had seen there in his wanderings.

He knew how Montana had fought to take young “Tonio” away, and how Rubriz, who had raised the boy to love him and hate the “gringos,” had resisted desperately and then pursued the pair north towards the Rio Grande. Now Tonio was restored to his blood and his family; he had been sent off to Europe to put some distance between him and his terrible foster father, Rubriz; and the Montana Kid—El Keed in Mexico—remained on the Lavery ranch about to marry the daughter of the family. It was such a story that men were sure to remember it and talk about it. But nothing about it was more strange than that Rubriz respected Montana even more than he hated that reckless young adventurer.

Rubriz blew his nose with a great snoring sound.

“Now I am better,” he said.

“This Montana who stole Tonio——” began the friar.

“Be silent!” shouted Rubriz, with the face of a madman.

“If he were with you, might you not steal back the emeralds, even from Fort Duraya and General Estrada? And if you went to El Keed, might he not remember how you once spared him? Might he not ride with you in spite of the danger?”

“He is to marry the sister of Tonio. How can I make him leave her?”

“Mateo, it is not for us to doubt. Let us go north towards the land of the gringos. Let us cross the river. When we have come to the place, God will surely show us the proper way. He will bring even Montana into our hands.”

Rubriz, at this, had stopped his pacing. His head began to lift higher and higher.

“Pascual,” he said, “who can tell? Perhaps it is true. Perhaps it is the will of God, after all. Perhaps God wishes to see Mateo Rubriz at the side of El Keed. For even God Himself could never guess what two such men might do. It is true! I feel that the thing shall be. We shall ride together; we shall work together; and what will walls of stone be, what will soldiers be, when we two are side by side?”

“But he is a gringo—and ah, the pity of it!” said the friar.

“Ay,” groaned Rubriz, “the pity of it! But only his skin is American and his heart is pure Mexican!”