The girl started across the patio, along a graveled path that ran between rectangular beds of red coral-bells and lilac zinnias. A few steps and she stopped, her shoulders sagging.
Rennert went to her side and put an arm about her. She steadied herself, her head thrown back so that the sun shone full on it. He observed the dark circles below her averted eyes, the telltale lines that had etched her thin cheeks.
“I’m all right,” she spoke with a visible effort. “I’m going to my room.”
“Let me help you.”
She made no reply but accompanied him, the fingers of one hand grasping his sleeve tightly. He felt the uncontrollable trembling of her arm.
As they came to a door on the west side she stopped, looked up at his face and said in a low voice, little more than a whisper: “There’s no need to say anything, is there?”
“About the snake?”
“About what I was going to do.”
“None at all.”
“Thanks.” She put out a hand and opened the door. She paused on the threshold.
A tall young man clad in white pajamas was advancing out of the dim coolness of the room. He came forward and threw an arm about the girl.
“Ann! What’s the matter?”
A little tremor ran through her body and she buried her head against his shoulder, one hand running up the side of his temple to bury itself in his ruffled yellow hair.
“It was a rattlesnake,” Rennert explained. “She came very near stepping on it.”
“Oh!” He saw the quick flare of concern in the light blue eyes that were rimmed by dark shadows. The man’s face was long and handsome but weakened by an indeterminate chin. He stared at Rennert for a moment then extended a hand. “Tolman’s my name. This is my wife, Ann.”
“My name is Rennert. I’m to be a guest here at the hacienda for a while.”
He felt the soft thin-boned hand press ineffectually against his large tanned one before they released their grip.
“Thank you, Rennert,” Tolman said. He looked straight into Rennert’s eyes and repeated: “Thank you,” as if he were impressing upon him some special message.
“Could you tell me,” Rennert asked, “where I can find Mr. Falter?”
“That’s his room over there on the north side, to the right of the entrance to the inside patio.”
“Much obliged. And now,” Rennert had been observing the girl’s face, “I think it would be well if Mrs. Tolman lay down for a while. She had quite a shock.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Her husband was quickly apologetic.
They turned into the room and closed the door.
Rennert stared for a moment, thoughtfully, at the thick wooden panels before he walked away.
He knocked at the door that Tolman had indicated.
It was thrown open almost immediately by a florid, heavy-featured man with sparse, sandy-colored hair. A faded olive-colored shirt and gray drill trousers hung loosely upon a frame that would have been capable of supporting a great deal of solid flesh and muscle. He looked sixty and might have been forty.
“Mr. Falter?” Rennert inquired.
“Yes, you’re Rennert?” The voice was deep and heavy with a suggestion of Germanic gutturalness. “I had a talk with Ed Solier this morning and he said you were on your way down. Glad to see you.”
He gripped Rennert’s hand and looked straight and appraisingly into his eyes. His own hard china-blue eyes were sun-narrowed. He blinked them as if he had been aroused from sleep.
“Come in,” he said, “or would you rather get washed up first?”
“I’d like to get at least one layer of this dust off, if you don’t mind.”
“I expect so. I’ll show you where your room is. Where are your things?”
“Over by the door.”
Rennert followed him along the narrow stone-paved path that circled the patio under the shelter of the roof.
“Have a good trip down?” Falter asked conversationally.
“Hot and dry and dusty, but it’s what I expected.”
“You’ve been in this part of Mexico before, I believe?”
“Yes, I’ve spent a considerable number of years along the border.”
They retrieved Rennert’s suitcases and carried them to a door on the east side. Falter gestured toward it.
“Here you are. I expect you’ll want a bath?”
“It’s almost a necessity in my present condition.”
“All right. I had Miguel fill up a tub this afternoon. It runs pretty slow and I thought you wouldn’t want to wait. You’ll find the bathroom in the inside patio. If there’s anything you want, just shout.”
Rennert had opened the door and was already peeling off a coat that had once been white.
“You’ll have to pardon a little confusion around here,” Falter was glancing about him. “Miguel, the Mexican who acts as a sort of manager of the place, was taken sick a couple of hours ago. He didn’t have time to get all the things moved out of this room.”
“This looks very comfortable. Is the man seriously ill?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so.” Falter went to the door, turned back and said: “Come on into my room when you get through and we’ll have a drink.”
As he loosened his tie Rennert looked about him. The floor of the room was of dark red tiles, upon which lay a heavy blue-and-gray sarape. Overhead, huge beams had been patinated by time to metal smoothness. The walls were calcimined a light blue, restful to eyes that had to endure the glare of the sun outside. There was a bed with clean white sheets, an enormous wardrobe with mirrors set in the panels of its doors, a washstand and two chairs. Beneath the deep barred window stood a small metal trunk, bearing the initials EOS. Evidently a relic of Solier’s visit to the hacienda.
Rennert relaxed in the coolness and began to burrow in his luggage for clean clothing.
Half an hour later he stood before one of the mirrors, straightening his tie. There was a slight frown on his wide tanned forehead and the eyes that followed the movements of his fingers were thoughtful. His mind was on that scene in the patio, the snake coiled under the flowers and the white-faced girl who had walked through the sun toward it. If there had been any doubt about her intentions her words had effectually dispelled it. Did her husband suspect what she had been about to do? There had been, unless he was mistaken, a queer troubled look deep down in the blue eyes that had looked into his. Yet there had been no mistaking the manner in which the girl’s head had sought his shoulder, the gentle protectiveness of his arm as it went around her body.
He went to the bed and picked up the soiled suit that he had worn to the hacienda. He carried it to the wardrobe, opened one of the doors and hung it upon a hook. There was a shelf just above and on the shelf an empty Habanero whisky bottle.
Dazzling bright sunlight flooded into the room. He turned.
A young man was standing with one hand on the knob of the door and staring at him. As Rennert’s eyes accustomed themselves to the glare he had an impression of a well-built, compactly muscled body clad in baggy seersucker trousers and a flannel shirt. The shirt splayed open at the top to reveal a brown stocky throat. The shoulders were broad and straight.
The newcomer strode into the room, moving easily with a lithe swinging gait.
“Hello!” he said, a bit awkwardly. “Sorry I bothered you. I’m Mark Arnhardt. I suppose you’re Mr. Rennert?”
“Yes.”
They shook hands perfunctorily.
Glancing at Arnhardt’s face one would have noticed his eyes first. They were clear dark brown and the pupils seemed to protrude slightly, like two very bright marbles. They gave the effect of a bold disconcerting stare. Looking more closely, one saw that there was something gentle and friendly about their directness that offset the superficial sternness of his strong plainly featured countenance.
“Glad to have you with us, Mr. Rennert.” He hesitated. “I suppose I ought to explain why I came busting in here like I did. I didn’t know you were in here, you see. I thought it was still my own room.” He looked about him. “Falter must have moved my stuff while I was out this afternoon.”
“See here,” Rennert protested, “I don’t want to disturb you. I can take another room.”
“Oh, no, it doesn’t matter,” the other said quickly. “This is cooler and you aren’t as used to the heat as we are.” He hooked his right thumb about his belt and let his shoulders sag forward. He stood for a moment, planted in this posture of well-balanced relaxation, and seemed to be trying to think of something further to say.
“Going to be with us long?” he asked.
“Several days, at any rate.”
“Well,” Arnhardt swung around, “I’ve got to go and find out where Falter moved me to.” He unloosened his thumb and thrust his hand into a trousers pocket. “Glad to have met you, Mr. Rennert. See you later.” His smile was pleasant as he closed the door.
Rennert felt in his pocket for cigarettes. He felt a mental alertness, the result of several factors: the cool water which had splashed his tired body, the confrontation with a problem which had its origin in the tap roots of some individual’s behavior and (although be would not have admitted it verbally) the insistent presence about him of the hot enigmatic sensuousness of Mexico.
As he walked into the patio and strolled toward Falter’s room he heard a low murmur of conversation coming from the open door.
He stopped to light his cigarette under the frangipani tree that rose above him to a height of at least twenty feet, charging the air with the sweet cloying odor of its white golden-hearted blossoms.
The murmur fused into a strong young voice raised in anger—the same voice that Rennert had heard a few moments earlier in his own room. Its hesitancy was gone now.
“I’ll have you remember that I’m as much an owner of this ranch and this house as you are. I’ve got as much to say about the living arrangements as you have. You haven’t any right to move me about from room to room without consulting me. Understand?”
There was a low rumble of protest from Falter. “I told you when you moved in there that that room was Solier’s, that he didn’t want anyone in there. He told me to put Rennert there and I did. If you’ve got any kick register it with him, not with me.”
Arnhardt’s voice cut in: “To hell with Solier! He can’t lock up a room on the east side of the house and expect it to stay vacant until he gets ready to come back.”
“Well, run the Tolmans out of their room if you want to. They—”
“Yes, and that reminds me of another thing I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time.” Arnhardt raised his voice still higher. “It’s about the Tolmans. Ann told me about the damned dirty deal they’ve gotten from you and Solier. I’m going to see that you two get paid back for that if it’s the last thing I do. I won’t—”
The door of a room across the patio opened and a young Mexican came out. He wore boots, corduroy trousers and a khaki shirt. A broad-brimmed straw hat shaded a finely featured face across which a thin waxed mustache looked like a painted line. He carried a square case of black leather and a spade. He regarded Rennert for a moment with a steady direct stare then, with no sign of greeting, walked toward the entrance.
As Rennert’s eyes followed him he reminded himself that eaves-dropping is not judged as harshly in Mexico as among Anglo-Saxons.
“You young fool!” Falter’s voice was hoarse and guttural. “If anything happened to the Tolmans your stepfather, George Stahl, was responsible as much as Solier and I. You’ve let yourself be taken in by hard-luck stories from that red-headed—”
A fist cracked smartly against flesh. A splintering crash was the echo.