The Delafield Affair

“It’s going to be a bad one, I guess,” Curtis muttered, jamming his soft hat down closer on his head. The mare seemed to be trying of her own accord to escape the storm, and her swinging lope was steadily leaving the miles behind. “Keep it up, Betty, keep it up,” he said encouragingly. “I want to reach Adobe Springs and get this message to Baxter off my mind. My shoulder’s aching, old girl, but it ain’t aching a bit more than I am to tell him what I think of him.”

Soon the sand-storm was upon them, concealing the landscape and covering the sky with its clouds. Upon man and beast it beat as bitterly as a sand-blast. It pelted and stung Conrad’s face and neck, and filled his eyes and ears and nostrils until he was forced now and again to pull his hat over his face for a moment’s respite in which to draw a less choking breath. “It looks as if all Arizona had got up and dusted, and was hell-bent to get out of here,” he jested grimly, as he bent over the mare’s neck and encouraged her with voice and gentle stroke. “That shows good sense, Betty, though it’s mighty hard on us. Come right along, old girl; we must get to Adobe Springs.”

As the air grew thicker there shone from the sky, instead of the vivid white sunshine of a few hours before, only a dim, diffused, lurid light. Even to Curtis, sitting quartering in the saddle with his back twisted toward the wind, Brown Betty’s ears were barely visible. For a while he allowed the mare to follow the road herself, until he found that her sense of duty must be supplemented by authority. For, under the discomfort of the belaboring wind and stinging sand, she began to yield to her instinct to turn tail and drift before the storm. Then he knew that he must keep a firm hand on the bridle, and his attention at the highest pitch, or they would soon be wandering helplessly over the plain. He walked long distances beside the mare, with his body shielding her head and with speech and caress keeping up her courage. Their progress was slow, for the force of the storm was so great that, though it beat against them from the side, they could struggle through it only at a walk.

Hour after hour went by, and the only sign of its passage was that a dim, yellowish centre of illumination, that had once been the sun, crept slowly across the sky. As the day grew older Conrad’s pain from his injury became more acute. Most of the time he felt it only as an insistent background to the keen outward discomfort of stinging sand and pounding wind. But when an occasional sharper twinge brought it more vividly to his consciousness he swore a little between his teeth, and thought of the letter he was going to write to Dellmey Baxter. The particles of sand filled his hair and encrusted his face and neck until they were of a uniform brick-red. Constant effort and encouragement were necessary to keep Brown Betty in the road, and finally he was compelled to walk at her head most of the time and with a guiding hand on her bridle counteract the unflagging urge of her instinct to drift before the blast.

Thus they battled their way through the hot, beating wind and suffocating sand, while that vague core of light moved athwart the dirty heavens, dropped slowly down the western sky, and was swallowed up in the denser banks of dusk above the horizon. It had been too dark before for the discernment of objects, but a yellowish glare had filtered through the sand-laden air, lending a lurid, semi-translucence to the atmosphere. Now even that was gone, leaving a desert enveloped in pitchy darkness, while the wind roared about the ears of the travellers and pounded their bodies as with cudgels and the sand pelted their skins.

Most of the time Curtis depended upon the feel of the road under his feet to maintain his direction, but now and then it was necessary for him to get down on his hands and knees in order to recover the track from which they had begun to stray. Once his fingers came in contact with a small feathered body. The bird tried to start up under his hand. He knew it must be disabled and placed it inside his shirt. Thus they plodded on through the night and the storm, the pain in his shoulder growing keener and the torture of the wind and sand ever more nerve-racking.

At last the mare raised her head and gave a long whinny. Conrad felt sure that she was announcing their near approach to the food and shelter within the adobe houses. “What is it, Betty? Do you know where we are?” he asked, and she rubbed her nose against his face, nickered, and pulled at the bridle with the evident desire to turn from the direction they were pursuing. Curtis knew they were in a little hollow, and thought it might be that into which the road dipped after leaving the houses.

“All right, Betty,” he said. “I’ll follow your lead a little way, but be cautious, old girl, and don’t tie up to any lying hunches.” He slackened his hold on the bridle, and the mare started off eagerly. They climbed a hill, and presently Conrad was aware of a black mass before him. Putting out his hand he felt an adobe wall. The mare crowded close against it, and stopped. She had left the road, which took the hill at a long sloping angle from the foot of the rise, and had climbed straight up the steep incline. He felt his way around the corner, unfastened the door, and entered. An emphatic “Whew!” gave vent to his feeling of relief. The mare, close at his heels, snorted in response, and Curtis, smiling in the dark, threw his arm across her neck in fellowship and said, “Feels good, doesn’t it, Betty B., to get out of that hurricane from hell?”

By the light of a lantern he led the mare to the spring, stabling her afterward in one of the houses. “In the best society, Betty Brown,” he explained, “it’s not considered good form for horses to sleep in men’s houses. But you deserve the best I can give you to-night, blest if you don’t, old girl, and you shall have it, too.” He gathered together, for her food and her bed, the alfalfa hay from several of the bunks, and found for her also a small measure of oats. Then, having attended to her wants, he looked about for something to stay his own hunger.

It was his custom to keep some canned provisions in the place, as the station was much used by his men. On a little smouldering fire in one corner of the room, he made some tea in a tin can. A frying-pan hung against the wall, and in it, awkwardly fumbling with his one useful hand, he contrived to warm a stew of tinned chile con carne and pilot bread. Fine sand drifted in and settled in a red dust over the food as he ate, and he could feel its grit between his teeth.

The bird he had carried in his bosom he found to be a Southwestern tanager. Its pinkish-red plumage shone with a silvery radiance in the lamplight. One of its legs was broken, and one wing had been injured. “I’ll take it to Miss Bancroft,” he said aloud, “and she’ll care for it till it can shift for itself again, poor little devil!”

With intense satisfaction Conrad at last sat down to the letter in which he had all day been longing to express his feelings. “I wonder,” he thought, “if Dellmey Baxter did it because he don’t like the things I say about him. Well, he’ll have to get used to it, then, for I’m not going to quit.” There was a grim smile on his face as he wrote:

“I consider it the square thing to tell you that I am onto the game of your man, José Gonzalez. We had our first set-to this morning, in which he winged me, but I got the best of him. I could have killed him if I had wanted to, but he is such a good cowboy I hated to do him up. I am going to keep him in my employ, but I want you to understand, distinctly, that if he makes another crack at me I shall go to Santa Fe as quick as I can get there and make a Christmas gift of you to the devil before you know what’s happening.

“Yours truly,“Curtis Conrad.

“P. S. I am still shouting for Johnny Martinez for Congress. C. C.”

“There!” he exclaimed, as he sealed the envelope and threw it down contemptuously; “I sure reckon he won’t be so anxious for me to turn up my toes with my boots on after he reads that.”

The pain in Conrad’s arm and shoulder had become so keen that he could not sleep. He lay in his bunk listening to the rattling of the door and the rage of the wind against the house, seeking to keep his mind from the stabbing pain long enough to sink into unconsciousness. But no sooner did his eyelids begin to close down heavily than a fresh throb made him start up again wide awake. This irritated him more than did the other suffering, and finally he jumped up angrily, found a copy of Lecky’s “History of European Morals,” and, with the muttered comment, “This is about what I need to-night,” settled himself on an empty cracker box and read the night away. Toward morning he became aware that the wind was abating, and a little later that less sand was drifting into his retreat.

Breakfast was eaten and Brown Betty cared for by lamplight and with the first dim rays of morning he set out once more upon the road. The bird was again in his bosom, and the cactus, wrapped in old newspapers, rested at the back of his saddle. The storm had passed, but the air was still full of dust particles through which the sun shone, red and smoky. Curtis knew that these would settle gradually with the passing hours and the sky become as clear as usual. Already he could see the road for several rods in front of him, and that was all he needed to keep it flying under Brown Betty’s feet.

At the ranch house Mrs. Peters told him that a man had been there looking for work and described his appearance. “Yes; he overtook us at Rock Springs, and I hired him,” Conrad said. Then, remembering the account Andy Miller had given of his previous situation, he asked her if the man had said where he came from.

“No,” she replied; “he didn’t say where he’d been working; but he came from toward Golden.”

The superintendent thought the discrepancy rather curious, but decided it was nothing more than a not unusual cowboy eccentricity of statement. He resumed his journey with no misgivings, and mid-afternoon found him arguing with the physician at Golden that he might just as well start back to the round-up that same night.

CHAPTER XII

THE FIRST SHOT

Alexander Bancroft sat in his private room with Curtis Conrad’s return checks before him. They were not many: one in favor of his brother at the University of Michigan, one for a mail order house in Chicago, a small one to a New York publishing concern, – and his eyes fell upon the name of Rutherford Jenkins and the amount, – five hundred dollars. He stared at the slip of paper for a moment, conviction rushing to his mind that his pursuer knew the truth; then he took his revolver from his pocket and examined its chambers. “I may have to do him up myself!” he thought, his lips tightening. But sudden hesitation gripped his heart. Until within a few weeks he had considered Curtis one of his best friends, had liked the young cattleman whole-heartedly, admiring and enjoying his impulsiveness, his geniality, his ardent loyalty to his friends, and his equally ardent hostility to those he disliked. Now the good-fellowship he had been accustomed to feel stopped his hand. “Can it be possible,” he asked himself for the hundredth time, “that this eager-hearted, companionable fellow will really carry out his deadly purpose?” He recalled the intensity with which Conrad had spoken of his long quest for revenge, his vehemence toward his enemies, his impetuosity. Again conviction grew strong upon him that, when the man knew, the end would come. The frontier code by which he had lived so long nerved his heart, and he muttered, “He shan’t smash things – now! I’ll smash him before I’ll let him do that!”

He swung the revolver into position and took sight. As his eye glanced down the barrel he saw that it was pointing at Lucy’s pictured face, smiling down from the top of his desk; his hand shook as he laid down the weapon. There was a knock at the door, and he made sudden pretence of close attention to the papers before him. The door partly opened and he heard Conrad’s voice outside. Surety of imminent peril seized Bancroft’s mind. The instinct of self-defence sent his hand to his revolver, and he sprang up, pulling the trigger. Curtis rushed in at the report, calling out, “What’s the matter, Aleck?” The banker had just time to stay his finger at sight of the friendly face and solicitous manner.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I, Curt?” he asked anxiously, sinking back in his chair and looking at Conrad’s arm, helpless in a sling. The bullet, they found, had nicked the top of the door and buried itself in the ceiling. “I was looking my revolver over when you knocked,” Bancroft explained, “and had just been aiming at that spot on the wall. My finger must have pulled the trigger unconsciously. The thing’s set to a hair, anyway. I must have it fixed. What’s the matter with your arm, Curt?”

In the revulsion of feeling that swept over him as he realized that the cattleman was as friendly as ever and that therefore his secret was still safe, he felt genuinely thankful that his bullet had gone wild.

Conrad told of his fight with José Gonzalez. “You’re getting the truth about it, Aleck,” he went on; “but to everybody else I’m saying that I got horned by a steer, knocked over, and my collar bone cracked. I’m convinced it’s some of Dell Baxter’s work. I reckon I’ve been saying out loud just what he is too often to please him. But the letter I’ve sent him will buffalo him quick enough. José’s a good cowboy, and I’m going to keep him. But I don’t want the boys to know anything about our little scrap. So I’m saying it was a steer on the prod that did it.”

Bancroft’s thoughts were active as he lighted his cigar. That check – it must have been Castleton money, to be handled for Johnny Martinez. Perhaps security might still be compassed without bloodshed. In thankfulness that he had not killed the man who was still his friend he revolted against the purpose of the Mexican, to which he knew in his soul he had given tacit consent. He did not want this cordial, confiding, good fellow struck down – if his own safety could be otherwise secured.

“You’d better give the Mexican his time, Curt. He’s locoed probably; when you get back you may find he’s killed half your men.”

“Well, if he tries running a-muck in that gang,” the superintendent responded cheerfully, “he’ll never do anybody else any harm. Anyway, I’ve settled him for the present; I busted his knife and threw the pieces into the pond. No; he’s in Dell’s pay; that’s all there is to it; and when Dell reads my letter he’ll hike to call his man off. I don’t expect any more trouble from José.”

Bancroft made no reply and Conrad went on: “By the way, Aleck, for a full minute yesterday I thought Baxter must be my man – the man I’m after, you know – Delafield. I’ve found out that he’s somebody rich and respectable here in New Mexico, and when I felt that Baxter must be responsible for this attack on me, I lit on him for my meat. But it was too good to be true; as soon as I thought it over I saw that Baxter couldn’t be Delafield. But they’re two of a kind all right. Both of ’em have got their freight loaded ready to pull out for hell at the drop of a hat. Baxter will have to pull his in less than three jumps of a bucking horse if he doesn’t call off his man. And Delafield will be pulling his mighty soon anyway.”

Bancroft made a gesture of annoyance. “Curt, you talk too easily about killing. You’d make a stranger think you’re a bad man of the border, instead of the decent citizen you are. For Heaven’s sake, man, why don’t you come to your senses, and see what an ass you’ll be making of yourself if you try to carry out this fool scheme of revenge that’s got hold of you? Why don’t you accept his offer to pay back the money as fast as he can? Let him make restitution, and keep a whole skin; perhaps you’ll save your own scalp in the bargain.”

The seeker after vengeance laughed blithely.

“Aleck, you’ve no idea what this thing means to me. Why, man, you talk as if giving up that plan would be no more than changing my coat! You don’t know, Aleck – why, to get the drop on Delafield and hold him while I tell him what he is in language that will scald him from head to foot, and then deal out to him the death he deserves – that’s the one thing I’ve lived for all these fifteen years! I’m obliged to you for your advice, Aleck; but I know what I’m about.”

Bancroft shrank away a little as Curtis talked. His lips tightened as he picked up the revolver and sighted it at a calendar on the wall. After a moment’s silence he looked the other full in the eye and said, impressively:

“You forget one thing, Curt. If this man Delafield knows what you are doing – and you seem to feel sure he does – he’ll be prepared for your attack, and you’re not likely to have things your own way. Unless he’s a fool or a coward he’ll defend himself, even if he has to kill you doing it. And if he has any sabe at all he’ll be loaded for you when you get there, and have the drop on you before you can say a word.”

“Chances of war,” Conrad replied serenely. “He’s welcome to all he can get. But I’m betting my last dollar, and my scalp in the bargain, that he can’t draw as quick as I can, nor shoot as straight. You bet your life, Aleck, when that circus comes off I’ll be the star performer.”

“Well,” said Bancroft slowly, “if you won’t listen to reason I suppose you’ll have to go on, hell-bent, in the gait you’ve struck – and take the consequences. But you’re a fool to do it, and I hate to see you making such a blind ass of yourself.”

Curtis laughed, undisturbed. “That’s all right, Aleck. I don’t expect you to get the joy out of this business that I shall.”

He went over to Bancroft’s desk and picked up the revolver, examining its sights. “They’re not right, Aleck,” he said. “When I get the use of my arm again I’ll fix them for you. And you don’t use your gun right when you want to take quick aim: you don’t swing it up quickly and steadily, as if you were used to it. You ought to practise, Aleck. Out here a man never knows when he may have to defend himself. I’ve got to stay here several days, the doctor says; and while I’m here I’ll show you a few tricks.”

“All right, if you like,” Bancroft replied, adding, as he pocketed his revolver, “I’m not a very good shot and, as you say, out here a man never knows when he may have to defend himself.”

Conrad, turning to go, lingered awkwardly. “By the way, Aleck,” he blurted out, “it has occurred to me that perhaps you are getting tied up with Dell Baxter too tight for comfort. I don’t want to seem curious about your affairs, you know, and I haven’t got any big pile – you know what my balance is; but whatever I have got you’re welcome to, any time, if you want to cut loose from Baxter and it will help any.”

Bancroft hid a grim smile behind the hand at his moustache as he thought of sundry checks of his own making their way toward Conrad’s balance. “Thank you, Curt; it’s very kind and thoughtful of you to make the offer, and I appreciate it. But I don’t need anything. Baxter and I are in partnership in a number of enterprises, but it’s all straight sailing.”

“That’s good, and I’m glad to hear it. I was afraid he’d got you under his thumb. But remember, Aleck, that my small pile is at your disposal any time it will be of use to you.”

As the young man left the bank he saw Lucy Bancroft turn the corner toward the Mexican quarter and was quickly at her side, relieving her of the little bundle she carried. She was going to Señora Melgares, she explained, who could wash laces and embroideries and all kinds of dainty things beautifully with amole root. She was taking her some of Miss Dent’s and her own fineries, and hoped to get her a great deal of work from others. “The poor thing!” said Lucy earnestly, her eyes wide and soft with sympathy. “She is so heartbroken over the affair! You’ve heard? Mr. Gaines died the other day, and Melgares has been indicted for murder. My father says he’ll surely be found guilty and will probably be hanged. The poor señora!”

When they reached the little adobe house Lucy asked Curtis to go in with her, saying, “I’m not very sure of my Spanish, and I’d be glad to have you come in and help me out.” They found Señora Melgares sitting with her head buried in her arms, her hair dishevelled, and her face, when she raised it, eloquent of grief and despair. But she greeted them with grave and gracious courtesy. Lucy impulsively took her hand and held it in both her own while she presented Señor Conrad. At the name the woman drew her slight figure together with a convulsive movement, her dark face lighting with interest.

“Don Curtis? Señor Don Curtis Conrad?” she asked eagerly.

“The same, señora,” he answered in Spanish, bowing gravely.

“The same whose mare – ?” she began, her expressive countenance finishing the query. Conrad bowed again. The woman sank down in her chair, her face in her hands, swaying back and forth as she moaned and sobbed. Lucy knelt by her side to comfort her, while Curtis bent over the girlish figure and spoke in a low, changed tone that the girl barely recognized, so different was it from his usual brisk utterance. It set her nerves vibrating in quick, half-conscious conviction of a depth and quality of feeling in harmony with her own.

“I am afraid I made a mistake by coming in, Miss Bancroft,” he said. “It did not occur to me that she would connect me with her husband’s trouble. Won’t you please tell her, when she is quieter, that I am very sorry about the whole affair, that I have no feeling against him, and that I’ll gladly do for him whatever I can. I think I’d better go now, but I’ll wait outside for you, and if I can be of any use you must call me.”

When Lucy joined him a little later her face showed signs of tears, and as they walked back she was preoccupied and perturbed. She wished to see her father, so Curtis left her at the door of the bank.

“Daddy!” Lucy exclaimed as she rushed to his side, her eyes shining and her face aglow. “Oh, daddy, Señora Melgares has just told me the strangest thing! Mr. Conrad was with me, but he went out because she cried so, and he didn’t hear what she said. I tried to quiet and comfort her, and finally she told me that her husband had been persuaded and paid to steal Mr. Conrad’s horse by a man who said he wanted to get even with him for something. She told me his name – you and Mr. Tillinghurst and Judge Banks were talking about him the other day – Mr. Jenkins – Don Rutherford Jenkins, she called him.”

Anticipation warmed Bancroft’s heart as she spoke. If the story was true it might give him just the hold on Jenkins that he wanted. He made her repeat the details of her conversation with the Mexican woman. “Did you say anything about it to Conrad?” he asked in conclusion.

“No, daddy; I thought I ought to tell you about it first.”

“Quite right, Lucy. You were very prudent. And don’t mention it now, to him or to anybody.”

“No, of course not. But, daddy, won’t that make it better for poor José Maria? Mr. Jenkins is the one that ought to be punished – he and Mr. Baxter; and poor ignorant Melgares ought to be let off very easily. Don’t you think so, daddy?”

One of her hands rested on his shoulder. He took the other in both of his as he smiled at her indulgently. Her news had so heartened him that he hardly noticed her connection of Baxter with the affair. “I don’t know about that, daughter. It isn’t likely to have any effect, because his indictment is for murder – you know he killed Gaines while resisting arrest – and his motive in stealing the horse has no connection with that crime. I’m glad you told me about it, dear. I’ll talk with Melgares myself, and see what can be done. I suppose his wife must be having a hard time. You might give her some money. And ask her,” he said as he handed Lucy some bills, “not to speak about this Jenkins matter to any one else. Be sure you impress that upon her. It’s a pretty bad case, but you can tell his wife that everything possible will be done for him. Dell Baxter is coming down to undertake his defence; he does it for nothing. So you mustn’t think so badly of him hereafter, when you see how willing he is to make what amends he can to the poor fellow.”

Lucy threw her arms about his neck and kissed his forehead. “Daddy, you’re awfully good and kind – the best man in the world! About Mr. Baxter, though – ” she paused to toss her head, and a little sparkle shone in her eyes – “well, I’m glad he has the decency to do it, but it’s no more than he ought; and before I think much better of him I’ll wait to see if he drives any more of the poor Mexicans out of their homes.”