The Baron of Diamond Tail/Chapter 22
"THEY'VE stopped him, they've killed him on the road!" said Alma, still on her knees beside her bed.
"Oh, Holy Mary! Oh, sweet Virgin Mary!" said Teresa, clasping her hands in agony.
"He would have been here by this time, Teresa—more than half an hour since Manuel got there. They've killed him, Teresa!"
"Oh, sweet Virgin Mary! Oh, Holy Mother of God!" Teresa implored, her clasped hands lifted, her stricken face upturned.
Outside the ruffians were beginning to clamor and curse, and beat on the windows in their impatience to have the thing over and their vigil done. They shouted ribald suggestions through the kitchen door, humorously proposing to come in and help dress the bride. Presently the two trembling women heard a deputation enter by way of the kitchen, and stamp noisily into the library, whither Nearing and the unwelcome guests his galloping fate had thrust upon him had retired to wait the little while Findlay had granted the bride.
Teresa put out the light in the room and went to the door to listen. Alma could hear them cursing, insubordinate wretches that they were even under Findlay's hard, quick-shooting hand. They were willing to go any reasonable length for a friend, they said, but this was a little too much. Here were men enough to watch a herd, keeping windows to prevent the escape of one heifer. Marry, and have it over with, and call them in to kiss the bride, according to their ancient right.
Findlay's answer neither Alma nor Teresa could hear, though he came along the passage toward the kitchen door with his villains. Whatever it was, it seemed to suffice them for the time. They retreated with laughter, spirits high.
"Oh, my little dove!" said Teresa, in new burst of trouble, turning again into the room, closing the door. "The ball at Four Corners! He is at the ball!"
Her confidence in the cunning of Manuel, her senior by thirty years, was so great that she could not admit for more than a passing moment the thought that he had failed. She embraced Alma now in the fervency of this new hope.
"Then we must put them off half an hour longer, and they'll never wait," Alma said.
"You must change your dress," said Teresa." Put on your riding habit, as if you expected to go away with him when the wedding is over. The shirt is loose; it will hide the knife."
Teresa made the light again. She brought a gray wool shirt from the closet, such as cowboys commonly wore, a corduroy riding-skirt, and leather belt. As she stood with them in her hands a step sounded in the hall, a knock on the door.
"Alma!"
It was Nearing again. Alma, crouching in white terror at the foot of her bed, did not answer.
"She is dressing, señor," Teresa answered for her.
"Alma!" Suspiciously, sharply, knocking again.
"Yes, Uncle Hal."
"Come! we can't wait any longer. Mr. Thomson is ready."
"As soon as I change my dress," Alma promised.
"Five minutes?" he said.
"I'll do the best I can, Uncle Hal."
Alma held the tremor of fear out of her voice by a struggle, but with the best she could do it was wild and unnatural. For in the light of the lamp the long knife gleamed on the bureau beside the little clock.
Nearing went away, to come again, and not alone, in less than the allotted time. Teresa answered the knock, opening the door a little way. Alma sat with her abundant hair falling over her shoulders, and down beside her white face like a sorrowing madonna.
"When I fix her hair—I am parting it down the middle like a married woman's," Teresa said.
It was plain to Nearing, and to Findlay, who stood at his shoulder, that this was true. They could see Alma there beside her white bed, seated on a low rocking chair, her dark-red hair around her shoulders. She was dressed as if she meant to mount and ride. Findlay whispered in Nearing's ear.
"Be quick about it, we can't have any more of this delay," Nearing said, plainly repeating an order.
"For the love of Our Señor, give her a little time!" Teresa pleaded.
She closed the door to all but a narrow crack, fearing they might see the fearful instrument with which her palomita, her little dove, would strike for her chastity and honor if they must crowd forward the terrible moment.
"We'll wait here. Quick! do it up any way."
Nearing gave the order more to Alma than Teresa, Dale Findlay, like a prompting demon, close behind him.
"You can hurry neither a corpse nor a bride, señor," Teresa answered him, to all outward appearances quite composed. But what a tumult was in her pained bosom, what a straining for the sound of hoofbeats in the night!
"It's almost ten, Alma," Nearing said.
"I'll be only a little while longer, Uncle Hal."
"We'll wait here," he said.
Teresa closed and locked the door. Then she began to plat her dear one's hair, gathering it into a great braid as thick as a ship's hawser.
"They'll break the door down!" Alma whispered.
Teresa let the great rope of hair fall dangling, the ungathered ends of it almost sweeping the floor.
"Here—the knife!" she whispered, bringing it quickly. "We must be ready!"
"Your hair will do, Alma," Nearing called, impatiently. "You can finish it afterwards. Open the door!"
"Here—a little slip of the hand into the bosom, and you are saved!" Teresa whispered, hiding the knife quickly. 'One moment, señor—one little moment to say a prayer!"
"Open this door!" Nearing commanded, foot set harshly against the panel.
"Oh, Mother of God! Oh, sweet Virgin Mary!" Teresa murmured, turning her distracted eyes upon Alma.
"Open it," Alma said.
She drew the unfinished braid of hair over her shoulder, and stood while she completed what Teresa had begun. Teresa flung the door wide, as if discovering a triumph to mock them. Alma stood before the glass, winding the braid of hair crown-like around her head. She fastened it with tortoise-shell pins, deliberately, with steady hand, and turned to face them where they stood in the door.
"Go on; I'll come with Teresa," she said.
"With me," Nearing declared, determined to have done with delay.
He motioned Findlay ahead. Alma followed beside her uncle, slowly along the narrow hall.
Charley Thomson was walking back and forth before the library fireplace, hands under the tails of his long black coat, smoking a cigar. The long oaken table bearing the shaded lamp was between him and the door that opened into the broad front hall, through which the strange wedding party entered. Thomson drew up abruptly in his studious pacing to and fro, and stood a moment, hands still under his coat, frowning heavily upon them as if they might be culprits come for sentence before his grim and uncompromising bar.
Findlay arranged himself beside Alma, Nearing falling back to give place to him just within the door. Teresa, her eyes so great they seemed all white, stopped in the door, her hands clasped, her lips silently forming the words of her appeal.
Alma felt as if her bones had turned to marrow, her flesh to snow. She saw everything in the keenest sense of detail, even to the slender stream of blue smoke that rose from the end of Thomson's cigar, and thought that it burned avidly, as if in a hurry to be reduced to ashes and done with his vile mouth. She noted how the books lay on the table, and that certain ones were not where they had been when she waited in that room after Nearing's arrival home, while he talked with Aunt Hope.
She felt her thoughts leap and surge like a confined blaze as she crossed the narrow room at Findlay's side; it seemed as if her soul had taken fire and sought in frantic haste the exit to freedom that it could not find. She did not know, now that the moment had come, whether her heart and hand would fail in the horrible deed she had set for herself to do; she did not know whether it were better to smirch her soul with a thing so foul, or smirch her body in the passive purchase of immunity for the craven man who drove her to this pass.
She was weak, she was cold; her limbs trembled, her heart beat low as in one from whom life stands at the door ready to flee away. Findlay had not spoken a word to her. Perhaps if he would speak, the straining doubt of this moment might resolve into some definite thing.
Must she strike, holding his hand as Teresa had said, or yield like a thing offered and sold? She was to have little time to turn it in the fiery tumult of her thoughts.
Thomson took his bitten, flat cigar from his huge hungry mouth; he disposed it carefully on the metal base of the lamp, and leaned over the table slightly, thumbs hooked under it, fingers spread on the dark wood.
"It is the presumption, when two people appear before a properly authorized person, seeking to be legally married, that they do so of their own free will and accord. I take it that such is the case in the present instance, and without further"
"No!" said Alma, her voice rising strongly over the old scoundrel's droning. "You know I'm forced to do it! You could stop it"
"Without further preliminaries, dismissing the usual formula, we will presume, we do presume," Thomson went on, not heeding her, "that you accept each other as man and wife. Take hands. Take her by the hand, Findlay, damn it! Take her hand!"
Findlay turned to face his unwilling bride, offering his right hand. Coldly she laid her left hand in it, clasping it suddenly, with a force that caused Findlay to fix his eyes on her face in questioning surprise.
"I pronounce"
Thomson's words lingered in his vile mouth as Alma, drawing with the strength of her despair on Findlay's hand, snatched at the hidden knife in her bosom.
"Watch her!" Thomson shouted, falling back from the table as if his own life stood in peril.
The guard of the knife caught her shirt as Alma drew it, impeding the swift movement of her hand.
"Strike!" Nearing shouted, his loud, hoarse voice vibrant with eagerness.
Findlay caught her wrist, holding her hopelessly in his invincible grip. The knife fell to the floor. Alma sobbed as she struggled to tear away, writhing and fighting in the great strength of her baffled rage.
Nearing plunged in to reach the knife; Findlay drove a terrific kick into his stomach, stretching him on the floor.
"Go on—marry us!" Findlay ordered, scowling across at Thomson, who stood well behind his barrier of table, out of the sudden fight.
Findlay held Alma's wrists, one crossed over the other, his fingers hard as oak, it seemed, and hopeless to unclasp. Thomson came forward, lifting his eyebrows as he peered over his glasses, to see that Nearing was not rising with the knife.
"Go on! Marry us, damn you!" Findlay repeated.
In the kitchen a great turmoil of shots and shouting suddenly rose. Teresa rushed into the room as Findlay, still holding his grip on Alma's wrists, turned to see who came so rudely upon his wedding hour.
"Sweet Mother of God!" Teresa cried, spreading her arms to receive her dove, restored to her heart unsullied.
Barrett stood in the door.