Devon and Petra walked out of the portal into the bright afternoon. The sun was starting to slip in the west, hanging a little above eye level at the moment, but its rays felt strong in this area where the heat had collected all day.
“Let’s go to the trees,” she said, “for the shade.”
They crossed the hard, bare middle area of the parade ground. Devon’s hat protected him from the strength of the sun, but Petra had not brought her parasol or any other form of shade, so her white complexion and red dress were shining. In a few minutes the glare was cut by the cool shadows of the cottonwood trees.
It was the closest Devon had come to the dark pool. He noted the rocks that lined the edge, absorbed by the earth and lined with moss along the surface of the water. He could not see very far down into the pool, so he had no idea how deep it was or what lay along its bottom. From the first time he saw it he had assumed it was artesian.
“This is a nice spot,” he said.
“I don’t come here very much because of the dust and dirt. And when I was a little girl, I was always told to stay away. My mother was afraid I would fall in, and my father did not like me out here where the men were, anyway.”
Devon raised his chin and peered out to the center of the surface. “A good precaution.” Then, noting again the stones around the edge, he asked, “Does anyone use this as a source of water?”
“The rabbits come to drink,” she said, “and every once in a while, a deer. At one time, long ago, the livestock drank here, but they broke down the sides and made a big mess, and some of them fell in and drowned. That’s what my father told me. Therefore someone, in the time of his father or grandfather, lined the edge and planted these trees. Since then, the animals drink in their own places.” She waved her hand at the rest of the compound.
“The wells must not be very deep here. I have seen two hand-pumps outside here, and I suppose you have one in the kitchen.”
“The water is very accessible.”
“That would be why they put the house and corrals here to begin with. Does the rancho take its name from this pool?”
“Yes.RanchoAgua Prieta, for the dark water.My father was very proud of having good water, of course.” She began towalk, taking slow, wandering steps.
He walked beside her, watching the ground ahead. “I’m sure.” Silence hung in the air for a minute until he spoke again. “And this other one?”
“He does not like dogs or chickens or peacocks or even sheep, although they bring him money. He likes only his precious horses.”
“And so he has gone away. Just in a pout, or did he really leave?”
“I don’t know. I can’t believe he would leave that easily. If I know him, he probably went to tie up some bank accounts so he can keep his leverage.”
“Depending on how much public opinion matters to him, he may not enjoy the reception he receives.”
“Pah!” she said. “He deserves to be despised for much more than what is circulating in the current gossip, though that is plenty in itself.”
Devon kept his eyes on her as he asked his question. “Do you think he was the cause of Ricardo’s death?”
Still ambling along, she arched an eyebrow and looked sideways at him. “I know he was.”
He stopped. “You know it?”
She stopped as well, and turning, she brought her dark eyes to meet his. “I saw him.”
Just for a moment his surroundings seemed to swim and blur. Then he got command of his senses. “You saw him? On the night in question?”
“Yes.” She paused, but she did not seem reluctant to tell more. “It was Saturday. Ricardo sent word that he would come at night, around midnight. He said he would come by the orchard, and he would whistle.”
“So you waited up, as you told the sheriff.”
“Yes. And I knew Don Felipe was still up as well. I heard himmoving around, and I smelled his cigarette smoke. I knew also that he had a horse saddled and ready. Consuelo told me, as she heard it fromMiguel.”
“And so Ricardo came?”
“As he said. At a little after midnight. I heard a long, low whistle. I went to the window and opened it. The moon was up, lighting the night.”
“Just a couple of days before the full moon.”
“It was bright, but I couldn’t see him. Then I heard Don Felipe leave the house, so I followed him. He went out through the portal, went to the stable, and brought out a white horse. He climbed on and went out the gate, slow at first.”
“Did he have someone at the gate?”
“Yes. You could see it was all planned.”
Yes. You could see it was “Did you follow him?”
“No. I went out the other way, through the orchard, listening for Ricardo. But he didn’t whistle again. Then I heard the hooves of a horse, loud and hard, as Don Felipe came around the outside.” She pointed in the direction of the horse stalls. “I went to the edge of the trees, and I saw Ricardo on his horse, maybe a hundred yards away, out on the plain. Don Felipe yelled at him to stop, called him a coward. So he waited.”
“Had he already started to leave?”
“I don’t believe so. I think he was uncertain and had withdrawn a ways, planning to come back. I don’t know for sure, of course.”
“And so Don Felipe caught up with him?”
“Oh, yes, in a great fury. He knocked him off his horse, rode circles around him, and shot him four times. Then he left him there on the ground.”
Devon raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “So much for his word and his honor. Based on what he told the sheriff, he would proudly take responsibility if he carried out his threat, but it is evident that once he did it, he didn’t want to face the consequences if he could get away with it.”
“Exactly,” she said, with the look of contempt again on her face. “He left Ricardo there, sent Alfonso out to transport the body, and then instructed all the workers to say that they heard and knew nothing.”
“And your mother?”
“If she heard anything from inside the house, I don’t know, but if she did, she might prefer not to know what it was.”
Devon let out a long breath. “It is all very clear”, he said, “except one thing. Why did you lie to the sheriff and protect him?”
Her eyes were like two polished pieces of coal. “I did it to punish him for all the times he tried to impose himself on me.”
“To punish him?”
“Yes. To make him twist in pain, knowing that at any moment I chose, I could turn him in.”
Devon knew the word for blackmail, but he chose not to use it. “For control,” he said.
“Precisely. And then, shameless and brazen as he is, he went so far as to tell me I lied to protect him.”
“It would seem that way.”
“Pah! Trash that he is, dirt and filth, he told me I lied to protect him because I knew I was going to be his.”
“When did he tell you this?”
“Last night, in his repugnant manner. And for that reason, today I divulged his motives to my mother. I had suggested it to her many times before, and this time I told her, in pointed words and in front of him, that he tried to take advantage of me. Yet she insists on sticking by this…abuser…come what may.”
“So that was the occasion for the big dispute, earlier in the day.”
“Yes.”
“Did he ride away in shame, then?”
“Him? He does not have enough shame. I think he saw it as a momentary defeat, and since he didn’t have things under control in his own way, he went to regroup his forces.”
Devon thought back to his earlier impression that she had staged the disclosure with him in front of her mother in order to give it an audience. That was strengthening her control. “We have a saying in English,” he said. “When someone makes a personal disgrace public, we call it hanging out the dirty laundry.”
“We have a similar saying, to bring out all the rags.”
“Yes, and you know, if there has been a sickness in the house, with deadly germs, it is a good practice to take out all the blankets and sheets and mattresses, and expose them to the sun for a day or two.”
“Oh, yes. To kill the germs.”
“Well, I think you have a good impulse in wanting to expose this man for his attempts on you. Perhaps if he had succeeded, as happens in some cases, a sense of shame would discourage you, but you are in a good position to use the truth.”
She took on a defiant, almost haughty, expression.
“Not only did he never have success, but he never received the least interest or encouragement.”
“Nor would I have thought he had. What I am focusing on is the possibility of killing germs by exposing them to sunlight.”
She seemed to settle down somewhat as she said, “Very well.”
He chose his words with care. “It is good that you can speak of these things with me—that is, with another person.”
“You are a person of confidence and intelligence.”
“I appreciate that, but perhaps I should not be the only one. Do you think, perhaps, that you would be willing to tell others what you know?”
“Others? In what way?”
“I think your word would be more effective than mine. You could be of service if you let the truth be known, just as you have with me.”
She gave him a narrow look. “Do you mean all the times when he came too close to me? Once my mother knows, and once she knows that someone else does, why does it have to go further?”
“I was not thinking so much of that. What I mean is, can you tell what you saw that night when Ricardo came here to the rancho?”
“I have told you.”
“Yes, but as I said before, your word is much better than mine.”
Her face had a stubborn, sullen cast to it. “You want me to tell others.”
“It would be best if you could tell the people who uphold the law.”
“Then he, Don Bonifacio, will want to know why I didn’t tell the truth to begin with.”
“You can tell him you were afraid to say it with your stepfather standing there. You can tell him anything for that part. But if you tell the truth about what you saw, it will be better for everyone—Ricardo’s family, Carlos, even yourself.”
“And my mother?”
“In the long run, yes. There is nothing stronger than the truth.”
“Not even faith in God?”
“For the person whose faith is that strong, how is it different from the truth?”
She smiled. “You reason well. You could be a lawyer.”
He laughed. “I am too much of an idealist. But I am also a realist in this matter. I think you can cure many ills if you tell what you know. You have seen how strong the truth is by using it to hold him in your power. But you can’t go on like that forever, and you lose nothing by turning the truth over to someone else.”
“Again, you reason well.”
“What is your reluctance?”
She looked at the pool and then back at him. “To tell you the truth, I fear that I would be acting out of hatred if I told on him now. I have hated him, and I do not want to continue to act out of spite.”
“And yet, when you hold the truth over him, is that not also out of hatred?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And is there any degree to which you might resist letting go of your power over him, just so that you may keep him twisting in pain, as you put it?”
She looked down. “There might be.”
“Then which is worse, to conceal the truth or let it out?”
A smile played across her lips. “Such a lawyer.”
“Let me put it another way. What would your father have you do?”
She raised her head. “My father would have had him dispatched long ago, but you are right. In these circumstances, he would say to reveal the truth.”
“Do you think you can?”
After a few seconds of delay she said, “Yes, I think I can. And I will hope it helps me get over my hatred.”
On the plain once again on hisway back to town, Devon looked out upon the landscape as it stretched away in all directions. This was the world, and every person had a chance at it. The rule that eventually became familiar was that each person got one chance; he got to go through it only once, and whatever he made of itwas his. In Devon’s own life he had had, at times, the illusion that he could start over, but he knew that life went on in only one direction. And when one person’s life stopped, like Ricardo’s, the rest of life went on, like the Sunday paseo.
As he rode beneath the broad, endless sky, he had the definite sense that life was coming to a big junction for the three main inhabitants of Rancho Agua Prieta. If life had ever been innocent there, it was going to be much less so in very little time. How things played out depended on where Don Felipe had ridden off to. The best thing he could do, for his own selfpreservation, would be to keep on riding—south, to Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas. The worse he could dowould be to come back to the rancho, insist that he was still the master, act as if nothing untoward had ever happened, and continuewith his old maneuvers. He was probably on somemiddle course, as Petra had suggested—talking to bankers and lawyers, trusting that his problems were still domestic only, and trying to find a way to bring his wife and stepdaughter into an uneasy compliance, even as he admitted, without saying it, that he had been caught with las manos en la masa—with his hands in the dough.
At some point before long, however, he was going to have to confront his other transgression, which he probably thought he was still keeping at bay. If he had the slightest idea of what Devon and Petra had talked about at the edge of the dark pool, he would no doubt be riding straight for the Republic, perhaps after a stop at the bank.
Devon looked around at the landscape again. Off to his left about a mile, a herd of sheep lay like a dirty gray patch on a hillside. Life crawled on in the form of placid sheep out making money for the master, wherever he was. Devon hoped he didn’t meet Alfonso, much less Don Felipe, on the way into town. Nevertheless, he was determined that if he did, he would not change his mission. Petra would not go to the sheriff herself, and it had to be done.
Still, Don Felipe was out there somewhere, no doubt brooding more than he was repenting. A horseman and a man of honor indeed, hoping not to have to answer for killing a man, and hoping he might have the chance after all to seduce his stepdaughter. Devon had no doubt he would see the man again. He just wondered where.
When he had ridden more than half the way back to town, Devon saw three riders appear on the trail ahead of him. Theywere traveling in a bunch, neither abreast nor in single file, until the distance between him and them came down to about a quarter of a mile. Then the other men came to a stop and drewup alongside one another to form a barrier of three across. Devon rode straight ahead to meet them.
As he rode the last hundred yards, he got a better view of the men. The one in the middle was older, graying and paunchy, while the other two looked as if they could be his sons. Devon recalled the innkeeper’s warning and Alfonso’s lookout. These could well be Ricardo’s people.
He came to a stop about five yards from the men, noticing as he did so that they had the sun at their back and were all wearing pistols. The man in the middle, who had a gray mustache and chin beard, reminded Devon in a vague way of the miniature of Petra’s father. Devon placed him at about fifty-five and the two younger men in their mid-twenties. All three of them were wearing clean trousers, jackets, and hats, and their saddles were in good condition.
“Good afternoon,” he called out.
The older man returned the greeting and then asked, “Where are you going?” He used the familiar form of address, and his tone made it almost a challenge.
“To town.”
“And where do you come from?”
“Rancho Agua Prieta. My name is Devon Frost. I am a visiting artist.”
The man nodded, and it looked as if his mustache raised and his nostrils flared. “My name is Francisco Vega Orozco. These are my sons with me.”
Devon nodded to each side. The young men had full dark mustaches and dark eyes, and they bore the same unhappy expression. Returning to the father, he said, in the formal mode of address, “May I help you in some way?”
“Maybe so. If you have been to the rancho, perhaps you know where Felipe Torres can be found.”
Devon relaxed his features. “I don’t know. I was visiting at the house, with Doña Emilia and the señorita Petra, but Don Felipe was not there. I understood that he left for some place, but I don’t know where.”
“And the foreman? This fellow Alfonso?”
“I imagine he’s out on the llano someplace. I saw him this morning when I was on my way to the old church. They have given me permission to study it for the purpose of making pictures.”
“Yeh, yeh. That is well known.” The man looked to each side and said, “We are here on serious business. I imagine you have heard of the great wrong that was done to our family.”
“Yes, and I have sympathy for you in your sorrow.”
“And we are not satisfied with how it has been handled. We take it as an affront.”
Devon, feeling that his expression of sympathy was being dismissed, said, “It is well known.”
The older man’s face stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “I don’t suppose you know anything yourself.”
“Only what I’ve heard, and you have no doubt heard the same things.”
“You do not know much of Don Felipe, then?”
“He has not taken me into his confidence. I was present when he spoke to the sheriff, Don Bonifacio, but I am sure you know all of that.”
“Oh, yes, including the daughter’s testimony.”
“The stepdaughter.”
“It is said that Don Felipe likes to fold the blankets many times.” Don Francisco raised his head and, still using the familiar forms, added, “You, who know them and who were there when the sheriff came, do you think she lied to protect him?”
Devon felt something kick inside, but he just shook his head. “She has no motive to protect him.”
“Well, we know this: Ricardo left for Rancho Agua Prieta that night, with her encouragement, and he died for it. If they say he never got there, we have reason to doubt it.”
“It is not my place to take Don Felipe’s side, and I would not be disposed to do so anyway. But I will say this in defense of the señorita Cantera. She is very much Don Vicente’s daughter.”
“May he rest in peace,” said Don Francisco, as if he had an obligation to say it. “But my interest is in his successor. You can’t tell me where he is?”
“No, I don’t know. But I assure you he was not at the house when I left there half an hour ago, and I understood that they did not expect him back soon.”
Don Francisco looked at his sons again. “Well, we won’t keep you any longer. Who knows where he is, or his foreman either.”
“Do you have the makings for a cigarette?”
The older man frowned and then gestured to the son on his left, who dug into his jacket pocket.
“Oh, no, not for me,” Devon said. “But I met a sheepherder the other day, and if you stop to ask him questions, he may ask you for the makings.”
“Oh, to hell with the sheepherders! They’ll lie like all the rest.”
Devon shrugged. “Just a thought. But he is out in the direction where Don Felipe may have gone. Not this first herd, but another, farther out.” He pointed to the south.
“Many thanks.” The older man reined his horse aside, as did the son on his left, and the three of them were set to take off. They didn’t seem to be veryworried about trespassing on Don Felipe’s land.
“May everything go well for you,” Devon said.
“Likewise.”And the three riders took off on a lope. Devon watched the dust rise in their wake. Maybe this would be the easiest solution, if they got to Don Felipe first and settled things in the old way, but Devon didn’t think it was the best. For one, he thought it would be better if the truth came out first; and for another, he didn’t think they deserved to take things into their own hands quite so soon. Furthermore, he didn’t like the way Don Francisco made his comment about Petra. Devon was convinced that she had not lied to protect Don Felipe, and he was convinced that she hadn’t given him any encouragement to fold the blanket. That was a truth worth bringing out, also. He wished he’d thought to mention it to her in that way, but if it got done, she would see it and be glad of it. At least things were in motion, and he didn’t mind having sent the three surly horsemen on a long ride.