TIA ROSA, the midwife, made the first examination of the unconscious girl, cut the matted hair from the deep scalp wound, bandaged it and held her own counsel until Dr. Alvarez arrived from the town. When the doctor was finished he agreed with the midwife’s findings and Don Pedro was summoned.
“Please, my friend, seat yourself,” the doctor said.
“I will stand, Alfredo. Is my daughter gravely injured?”
“Physically,” Dr. Alvarez began slowly, “Maria will have a full recovery. She has the strength of her father.”
“We are only what God makes us.”
“Very true. But there is another thing, another injury suffered by your daughter. It is something that may have damaged her spirit, something that will make her require your guidance and understanding as never before….”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“The girl has been violated, Don Pedro,” Alvarez told him gently, and there was a long and stunning silence.
“My daughter?” the proud father said icily. “Such a thing is unthinkable.”
“But, unfortunately, a fact.”
“You have, of course, informed no one else of this?”
“Only yourself.”
“And you two — I have your pledge of secrecy?”
The doctor and the frightened midwife nodded.
“Time,” Alvarez said, “heals all wounds. What I prescribe for Maria is gentleness and understanding.”
Don Pedro silenced him with a gesture. “Thank you, Alfredo,” he said. “You will call on your patient regularly?”
“I will be here the first thing tomorrow morning.” The doctor left the hacienda then and returned to town. Don Pedro went to his study, and after an hour had passed he called his wife and son into the room.
“Our name has been dishonored,” he told them. “Against her will, a man has had carnal knowledge of our beloved Maria.”
A sob broke spontaneously from Doña Isabel. Juan del Cuervo went white beneath his tanned complexion.
“I will kill him very slowly,” Juan said.
“You will kill whom, my son?”
“I will find him out, never fear.”
“And you will then announce your reasons for killing him?”
“I — ” The young man’s voice broke off abruptly. He shook his head. “My sister must be avenged.”
“In good time, Juan,” his father said. “In good time.”
“Immediately! He cannot live a minute longer than I can manage his death.”
“No,” Doña Isabel said, brushing away her tears. “This is a very delicate matter. Your sister intends to be married in a few short months.” She looked at her husband. “I, personally, have never given my full approval to young Sebastian, nor to the Diaz family. But Maria is apparently fond of him, and the alliance is advantageous — ”
“Sebastian Diaz is Maria’s choice,” Don Pedro said angrily. “I am not bargaining with my daughter’s happiness.”
“Of course not, dear husband.” The woman turned to her son. “But you know Sebastian very well, Juan. We have all seen him grow from a rather willful little boy to one of the wealthiest young men in all of Mexico — ”
“But what has this to do with Maria’s betrayer?” the young man interrupted impetuously.
“A great deal,” Isabel said, “if your sister truly loves Sebastian. Sebastian is used to having everything come to him new, firsthand.” She glanced down into her lap and the rosary interlaced in her fingers. “Wrong or right,” she said, “Sebastian would demand that he bring a maiden to the wedding bed.”
“But Maria is!”
“In her heart, yes. In God’s knowledge. But should Sebastian learn of this terrible incident of today — I am not so certain of his sympathy, of his understanding.”
“To hell with Sebastian!” Juan shouted. “Let Maria find a man of heart — ”
“You are young,” Don Pedro told him sternly. “Your blood runs hot in your veins and needs cooling.”
“Your father speaks truly,” Doña Isabel said gently. “You are twenty years old, you are not thinking of marriage. When you do, you will see how your thinking has been disciplined to the customs of our time.”
“I would never hold — rape — against my bride’s honor.”
“Then you would be one man in a thousand in Mexico,” his mother said.
Juan sat down then, and seemed to subside.
Don Pedro said, “We will, in time, learn the man’s identity. Then, with Maria married, and without her knowledge, we will do what must be done.”
Juan raised his head, was about to speak out, then closed his lips in a tight line.
“Maria,” Don Pedro continued, “is still not conscious. Tia Rosa will attend her, and Juan, I desire that you and Gomez stand alternate watch outside the door. The girl may suffer delirium and no one must hear her outcries under any circumstances. Do you understand, my son?”
Juan nodded, got up and left his parents alone to discuss the thing further. He climbed to the floor above and took up his station outside the door of his sister’s room. Three hours later Gomez arrived to spell him.
“Café,” the young man said affectionately, calling the segundo by the nickname he had earned from his constant drinking of coffee, “Café, where is the man who carried Maria in his arms when we met you this afternoon?”
“He went on his way, Señor Juan.”
“His way where? Why?”
“Who knows?”
“I remember him,” Juan said. “I paid little attention at the time, but now I think of him. He was a hard-looking man. He said practically nothing.”
“Un vago. A type that moves from place to place, and never tarries.”
“Which way was he moving today?”
“Toward the border.” Gomez looked intently at Juan. “But you are wrong if you suspect him of this thing.”
“Then you know?”
“I know what I know. The hombre also knew, but he was not the one.”
“You are very certain.”
“As certain as I am that it was not myself.”
Juan left Gomez then, to eat his supper and, presumably, to sleep. For this was the time of the winter roundup, and this season Don Pedro had elevated Juan to range boss — under Gomez’ supervision, of course, but boss just the same and coming gradually into his own as primo of the Rancho del Rey. It was early to bed and early to rise at roundup season, but the young boss did not bed down, although he returned to his rooms in the west wing. While there he looked over his collection of handguns and rifles, finally chose a Remington .45 and a carbine, and whiled away an hour cleaning both weapons, testing their action and then loading them with live ammunition. He opened a bottle of Franciscan brandy then, lit a cigar borrowed from his father’s private stock, and in the presence of guns, liquor and tobacco saw himself as a man full-grown and specially dedicated.
He thought of Maria, and so many memories of his younger sister flooded his mind that he had to herd them into a sensible whole, a complete picture. He passed over the annoyances of their early youth, the demands that a little sister can make on the activities and the patience of a boy two years older. He forgot how she demanded, and got, equality in all things, how she made him wonder who was the elder and who the younger, who the son in this patriarchal system and who the daughter with no other problem but to get safely married.
Tonight Juan didn’t think of the strong-minded Maria but of the smiling, agreeable, sweet-scented and always femmine little sister that one could not consider without a happy little pang tugging at the heart. She was so good, so beautiful — so innocent — that it reduced one to sentimental extremes to see her.
And some man had debased her. Some terrible person, male like himself, had attacked Maria and brought dishonor to the name of Del Cuervo.
Juan finished the brandy in his glass and moved down the great corridor of the hacienda toward the room where Maria lay. Gomez straightened at his approach.
“Que va?”
“I just wanted to see her for a few moments,” Juan explained, opening the door swiftly. He went inside and closed the door behind him. Tia Rosa sat in a padded rocking chair near the bed, but the chair was motionless and when Juan investigated he found the old woman drowsing. Good. He leaned down over his sister’s pale face.
“Maria,” he whispered. “Maria!”
There was an answering sound from the girl’s lips.
“Maria — can you hear me?”
“Yes,” came the toneless answer.
“Who did this to you, Maria? Who was he?”
“Ro — ” the voice started to say, then stopped.
“Roy?” Juan asked insistently. “Roy Agry?”
“Yes.” Suddenly the girl’s eyelids fluttered open. She looked around wonderingly. “What happened? Where — ”
But her brother was already across the room, opening the door. The sounds awoke Tia Rosa who gave a startled cry; the woman arose and went to the bedside.
Gomez, too, was disturbed. Not by anything he had heard but by the look on the face of Don Pedro’s son.
“What is it, Juan? What has happened?”
The young man walked away without speaking, returned to his rooms for the guns, and left the great house by a rear door. He cut out his own sleek stallion from the remuda, saddled it and rode down the cobblestone drive. From there he took the public road that led to Agrytown across the border.