The Bells of San Juan by Jackson Gregory (notion reading list txt) 📕

"What was our good sheriff doing to-day?" he asked banteringly, as though the subject he chose were the most apt one imaginable for jest. "Another man killed in broad daylight and no one to answer for it! Why don't you go get 'em, Roddy?"

Norton stared at him steadily and finally said soberly:

"When a disease has fastened itself upon the body of a community it takes time to work a cure, Dr. Patten."

"But not much time to let the life out of a man like the chap from Las Palmas! Why, the man who did the shooting couldn't have done a nicer job if he'd been a surgeon. One bullet square through the carotid artery . . . That leads from the heart to the head," he explained as though his listeners were children athirst for knowledge which he and none other could impart. "The cerebrum penetrated by a second. . . ."

What other technical elucidation might have followed was lost in a thunderous crashing of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drown the man's utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he sat gaping at her.

"I can't stand that man!" Florence said sharply to Norton, and though the words did not travel across the room, Virginia was surprised that even an individual so completely armored as Caleb Patten could fail to grasp the girl's meaning.

When Florence had pounded her way through a noisy bit of "jazz," Caleb Patten, with one of his host's cigars lighted, was leaning a little forward in his chair, alert to seize the first opportunity of snatching conversation by the throat.

"Kid Rickard admits killing Bisbee," he said to Norton. "What are you going to do about it? The first thing I heard when I got in from a professional call a little while ago was that Rickard was swaggering around town, saying that you wouldn't gather him in because you were afraid to."

The sheriff's face remained unmoved, though the others looked curiously to him and back to Patten, who was easy and complacent and vaguely irritating.

"I imagine you haven't seen Jim Galloway since you got in, have you?" Norton returned quietly.

"No," said Patten. "Why? What has Galloway got to do with it?"

"Ask him. He says Rickard killed Bisbee in self-defense."

"Oh," said Patten. And then, shifting in his chair: "If Galloway says so, I guess you are right in letting the Kid go."

And, a trifle hastily it struck Virginia, he switched talk into another channel, telling of the case on which he had been out to-day, enlarging upon its difficulties, with which, it appeared, he had been eminently fitted to cope. There was an amused twinkle in John Engle's eyes as he listened.

"By the way, Patten," the banker observed when there came a pause, "you've got a rival in town. Had you heard?"

"What do you mean?" asked the physician.

"When I introduced you just now to our Cousin Virginia, I should have told you; she is Dr. Page, M.D."

Again Patten said "Oh," but this time in a tone which through its plain implication put a sudden flash into Virginia's eyes. As he looked toward her there was a half sneer upon the lips which his scanty growth of beard and mustache failed to hide. Had he gone on to say, "A lady doctor, eh?" and laughed, the case would not have been altered.

"It seems so funny for a girl to be a doctor," said Florence, for the first time referring in any way to Virginia since she had flown to the door, expecting Norton alone. Even now she did not look toward her kinswoman.

John Engle replied, speaking crisply. But just what he said Virginia did not know. For suddenly her whole attention was withdrawn from the conversation, fixed and held by something moving in the patio. First she had noted a slight change in Rod Norton's eyes, saw them grow keen and watchful, noted that they had turned toward the door opening into the little court where the fountain was, where the wall-lamp threw its rays wanly among the shrubs and through the grape-arbor. He had seen something move out there; from where she sat she could look the way he looked and mark how a clump of rose-bushes had been disturbed and now stood motionless again in the quiet night.

Wondering, she looked again to Norton. His eyes told nothing now save that they were keen and watchful. Whether or not he knew what it was so guardedly stirring in the patio, whether he, like herself, had merely seen the gently agitated leaves of the bushes, she could not guess. She started when Engle addressed some trifling remark to her; while she evaded the direct answer she was fully conscious of the sheriff's eyes steady upon her. He, no doubt, was wondering what she had seen.

It was only a moment later when Norton rose and went to Mrs. Engle, telling her briefly that he had had a day of it, in the saddle since dawn, wishing her good night. He shook hands with Engle, nodded to Patten, and coming to Virginia said lightly, but, she thought, with an almost sternly serious look in his eyes:

"We're all hoping you like San Juan, Miss Page. And you will, too, if the desert stillness doesn't get on your nerves. But then silence isn't such a bad thing after all, is it? Good night."

She understood his meaning and, though a thrill of excitement ran through her blood, answered laughingly:

"Shall a woman learn from the desert? Have I been such a chatter-box, Mrs. Engle, that I am to be admonished at the beginning to study to hold my tongue?"

Florence looked at her curiously, turned toward Norton, and then went with him to the door. For a moment their voices came in a murmur down the hallway; then Norton had gone and Florence returned slowly to the living-room.

Again Virginia looked out into the patio. Never a twig stirred now; all was as quiet as the sleeping fountain, as silent and mystery-filled as the desert itself. Had Roderick Norton seen more than she? Did he know who had been out there? Was here the beginning of some further sinister outgrowth of the lawlessness of Kid Rickard? of the animosity of Jim Galloway? Was she presently to see Norton himself slipping into the patio from the other side, was she again to hear the rattle of pistol-shots? He had asked that she say nothing; she had unhesitatingly given him her promise. Had she so unquestioningly done as he had requested because he was the sheriff who represented the law? or because he was Roderick Norton who stood for fine, upstanding manhood? . . . Again she felt Florence Engle's eyes fixed upon her.

"Florence is prepared at the beginning to dislike me," she thought. "Why? Just because I walked with him from the hotel?"

In the heat of an argument with Mrs. Engle there came an interruption. The banker's wife was insisting that Virginia "do the only sensible thing in the world," that she accept a home under the Engle roof, occupying the room already made ready for her. Virginia, warmed by the cordial invitation, while deeply grateful, felt that she had no right to accept. She had come to San Juan to make her own way; she had no claim upon the hospitality of her kinswoman, certainly no such claim as was implied now. Besides, there was Elmer Page. Her brother was coming to join her to-morrow or the next day, and as soon as it could be arranged they would take a house all by themselves, or if that proved impossible, would have a suite at the hotel. At the moment when it seemed that a deadlock had come between Mrs. Engle's eagerness to mother her cousin's daughter and Virginia's inborn sense of independence, the interruption came.

It arrived in the form of a boy of ten or twelve, a ragged, scantily clothed, swarthy youngster, rubbing a great toe against a bare leg while from the front door he announced that Ignacio Chavez was sick, that he had eaten something muy malo, that he had pains and that he prayed that the doctor cure him.

Patten grunted his disgust.

"Tell him to wait," he said briefly. And, in explanation to the others: "There's nothing the matter with him. I saw him on the street just before I came. And wasn't he ringing his bell not fifteen minutes ago?"

But the boy had not completed his message. Ignacio was sick and did not wish to die, and so had sent him to ask the Miss Lady Doctor to come to him. Virginia rose swiftly.

"You see," she said to Mrs. Engle, "what a nuisance it would be if I lived with you? May I come to see you to-morrow?"

While she said good night Engle got his hat.

"I'll go with you," he said. "But, like Patten, I don't believe there is much the matter with Chavez. Maybe he thinks he'll get a free drink of whiskey."

"You see again," laughed Virginia from the doorway, "what it would be like, Mrs. Engle; if every time I had to make a call and Mr. Engle deemed it necessary to go with me . . . I'd have to split my fees with him at the very least! And I don't believe that I could afford to do that."

"You could give me all that Ignacio pays you," chuckled Engle, "and never miss it!"

The boy waited for them and, when they came out into the starlight, flitted on ahead of them. At the cottonwoods a man stepped out to meet them.

"Hello," said Engle, "it's Norton."

"I sent the boy for Miss Page," said Norton quickly. "I had to have a word with her immediately. And I'm glad that you came, Engle. I want a favor of you; a mighty big favor of Miss Page."

The boy had passed on through the shadows and now was to be seen on the street.

"I guess you know you can count on me, Rod," said Engle quietly. "What now?"

"I want you, when you go back to the house, to say that you have learned that Miss Page likes horseback riding; then send a horse for her to the hotel stable, so that if she likes she can have it in the early morning. And say nothing about my having sent the boy."

Engle did not answer immediately. He and Virginia stood trying to see the sheriff's features through the darkness. He had spoken quietly enough and yet there was an odd new note in his voice; it was easy to imagine how the muscles about his lean jaw had tensed, how his eyes were again the hard eyes of a man who saw his fight before him.

"I can trust you, John," continued Norton quickly. "I can trust Ignacio Chavez; I can trust Julius Struve. And, if you want it in words of one syllable, I cannot trust Caleb Patten!"

"Hm," said Engle. "I think you're mistaken there, my boy."

"Maybe," returned Norton. "But I can't afford right now to take any unnecessary chances. Further," and in the gloom they saw his shoulders lifted in a shrug, "I am trusting Miss Page because I've got to! Which may not sound pretty, but which is the truth."

"Of course I'll do what you ask," Engle said. "Is there anything else?"

"No. Just go on with Miss Page to see Ignacio. He will pretend to be doubled up with pain and will tell his story of the tinned meat he ate for supper. Then you can see her to the hotel and go back home, sending the horse over right away. Then she will ride with me to see a man who is hurt . . . or she will not, and I'll have to take a chance on Patten."

"Who is it?" demanded Engle sharply.

"It's Brocky Lane," returned Norton, and again his voice told of rigid muscles and hard eyes.