Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 664
The Yaqui and his fellow toilers had one day of rest — the Sabbath. There was no freedom. And always there were guards and soldiers. Sunday was the day of bull fights in the great corral at the hacienda. And on these occasions Yaqui was given extra work. Montes knew the Indian looked forward to this day. The old Don’s son, Lieutenant Perez, would come down from the city to attend the fight. Then surely Yaqui fed his dark soul with more cunning, more patience, more promise.
It was the Yaqui’s work to help drag disemboweled and dying horses from the bull ring and to return with sand to cover up the gory spots in the arena. Often Montes saw him look up at the crowded circle of seats and at the box where the gray old Don and his people and friends watched the spectacle. There were handsome women with white lace over their heads and in whose dark and slumberous eyes lurked something the Yaqui knew. It was something that was in the race. Lieutenant Perez was there leaning toward the proud señorita. The Indian watched her with strange intensity. She appeared indifferent to the efforts of the picadores and the banderilleros, those men in the arena whose duty it was to infuriate the bull for the artist with the sword — the matador. When he appeared the beautiful señorita wakened to interest. But not until there was blood on the bright blade did she show the fire and passion of her nature. It was sight of blood that quickened her. It was death, then, that she wanted to see.
And last the Yaqui let his gaze rivet on the dark, arrogant visage of young Perez. Did not the great chief then become superhuman, or was it only Montes’s morbid fancy? When Yaqui turned away, did he not feel a promise of fulfillment in the red haze of the afternoon sun, in the red tinge of the stained sand, in the red and dripping tongue of the tortured bull? Montes knew the Yaqui only needed to live long enough and there would be something. And death seemed aloof from this Indian. The ferocity of the desert was in him and its incalculable force of life. In his eyes had burned a seared memory of the violent thrust with which Perez had driven his wife and baby forever from his sight.
Montes’s changed attitude evidently found favor in the proud señorita’s eyes. She had but trifled with an earnest and humble suitor; to the advances of a man, bold, ardent, strange, with something unfathomable in his wooing, she was not indifferent. The fact did not cool Montes’s passion, but it changed him somehow. The Spanish in him was the part that so ardently loved and hated; his mother had been French, and from her he had inherited qualities that kept him eternally in conflict with his instincts.
Montes had his living quarters in Merida, where all the rich henequen planters had town houses. It was not a long horseback ride out to the haciendas of the two families in which Montes had become most interested. His habit of late, after returning from a visit to the henequen fields, had been to choose the early warm hours of the afternoon to call upon Señorita Mendoza. There had been a time when his calls had been formally received by the Donna Isabel, but of late she had persisted in her siesta, leaving Montes to Dolores. Montes had grasped the significance of this — the future of Dolores had been settled and there no longer was risk in leaving her alone. But Montes had developed a theory that the future of any young woman was an uncertainty.
The Mendoza town house stood in the outskirts of fashionable Merida. The streets were white, the houses were white, the native Mayan women wore white, and always it seemed to Montes as he took the familiar walk that the white sun blazed down on an immaculate city. But there were dark records against the purity of Merida and the Yaqui slave driving was one of them. The Mendoza mansion had been built with money coining from the henequen fields. It stood high on a knoll, a stately white structure looking down upon a formal garden, where white pillars and statues gleamed among green palms and bowers of red roses. At the entrance, on each side of the wide flagstone walk, stood a huge henequen plant.
On this day the family was in town and Montes expected that the señorita would see him coining. He derived pleasure from the assurance that, compared with Perez, he was someone good to look at. Beside him the officer was a swarthy undersized youth. But Montes failed to see the white figure of the girl and suffered chagrin for his vanity.
The day was warm. As he climbed the high, wide stone steps his brow grew moist and an oppression weighed upon him. Only in the very early morning here in Yucatan did he ever have any energy. The climate was enervating. No wonder it was that servants and people slept away the warmer hours. Crossing the broad stone court and the spacious outside hall, Montes entered the dim, dark, musty parlors and passed through to the patio.
Here all was colorful luxuriance of grass and flower and palm, great still ferns and trailing vines. It was not cool, but shady and moist. Only a soft spray of falling water and a humming of bees disturbed the deep silence. The place seemed drowned in sweet fragrance, rich and subtle, thickening the air so that it was difficult to breathe. In a bower roofed by roses lay Señorita Mendoza, asleep in a hammock.
Softly Montes made his way to her side and stood looking down at her. As a picture, as something feminine, beautiful and young and soft and fresh and alluring, asleep and therefore sincere, she seemed all that was desirable. Dolores Mendoza was an unusual type for a Yucatecan of Spanish descent. She was blond. Her hair was not golden, yet nearly so; she had a broad, low, beautiful brow, with level eyebrows, and the effect of her closed lids was fascinating with their promise; her nose was small, straight, piquant, with delicate nostrils that showed they could quiver and dilate; her mouth, the best feature of her beauty, was as red as the roses that drooped over her, and its short curved upper lip seemed full, sweet, sensuous. She had the oval face of her class, but fair, not olive-skinned, and her chin, though it did not detract from her charms, was far from being strong. Perhaps her greatest attraction, seen thus in the slumber of abandon, was her slender form, round-limbed and graceful.
Montes gazed at her until he felt a bitterness of revolt against the deceit of Nature. She gladdened all the senses of man. But somehow she seemed false to the effect she created. If he watched her long in this beautiful guise of sleep he would deaden his intelligence. She was not for him. So he pulled a red rose and pushed it against her lips, playfully tapping them until she awoke. Her eyes unclosed. They were a surprise. They should have been blue, but they were tawny. Sleepy, dreamy, wonderful cat eyes they were, clear and soft, windows of the truth of her nature. Montes suddenly felt safe again, sure of himself,
“Ah, Señor Montes,” she said. “You found me asleep. How long have you been here?”
“A long time, I think,” he replied, as he seated himself on a bench near her hammock. “Watching you asleep, I forgot time. But alas! time flies — and you awoke.”
Dolores laughed. She had perfect white teeth that looked made to bite and enjoy biting. Her smile added to her charm.
“Sir, one would think you liked me best asleep.”
“I do. You are always beautiful, Dolores. But when you are asleep you seem sincere. Now you are — Dolores Mendoza.”
“Who is sincere? You are not,” she retorted. “I don’t know you any more. You seem to try to make me dissatisfied with myself.”
“So you ought to be.”
“Why? Because I cannot run away with you to Brazil?”
“No. Because you look like an angel but are not one. Because your beauty, your charm, your sweetness deceive men. You seem the incarnation of love and joy.”
“Ah!” she cried, stretching out her round arms and drawing a deep breath that swelled her white neck. “You are jealous. But I am happy. I have what I want. I am young and I enjoy. I love to be admired. I love to be loved. I love jewels, gowns, all I have, pleasure, excitement, music, flowers. I love to eat. I love to be idle, lazy, dreamy. I love to sleep. And you, horrid man, awake me to make me think.”
“That is impossible, Dolores,” he replied. “You cannot think.”
“My mind works pretty well. But I’ll admit I’m a little animal — a tawny-eyed cat. So, Montes, you must stroke me the right way or I will scratch.”
“Well, I’d rather you scratched,” said Montes. “A man likes a woman who loves him tenderly and passionately one moment and tears his hair out the next.”
“You know, of course, señor,” she replied mockingly. “The little Alva girl, for instance. You admired her. Perhaps she—”
“She is adorable,” he returned complacently. “I go to her for consolation.”
Dolores made a sharp passionate gesture, a contrast to her usual languorous movements. Into the sleepy, tawny eyes shot a dilating fire.
“Have you made love to her?” she demanded.
“Dolores, do you imagine any man could resist that girl?” he rejoined.
“Have you?” she repeated with heaving breast.
Montes discarded his tantalizing lightness. “No, Dolores, I have not. I have lived in a torment lately. My love for you seems turning to hate.”
“No!” she cried, extending her hands. She softened. Her lips parted. If there were depths in her, Montes had sounded them.
“Dolores, tell me the truth,” he said, taking her hands. “You have never been true.”
“I am true to my family. They chose Perez for me to marry — before I ever knew you. It is settled. I shall marry him. But—”
“But! Dolores, you love me?”
She drooped her head. “Yes, señor — lately it has come to that. Ah! Don’t — don’t! Montes, I beg of you! You forget — I’m engaged to Perez.”
Montes released her. In her confession and resistance there was proof of his injustice. She was no nobler than her class. She was a butterfly in her fancies, a little cat in her greedy joy of physical life. But in her agitation he saw a deeper spirit.
“Dolores, if I had come first — before Perez — would you have given yourself to me?” he asked.
“Ah, señor, with all my heart!” she replied softly.
“Dearest — I think I must ask you to forgive me for — for something I can’t confess. And now tell me — this reception given to-morrow by your mother — is that to announce your engagement to Perez?”
“Yes and I will be free then till fall — when — when—”
“When you will be married?”
She bowed assent and hesitatingly slid a white hand toward him.
“Fall! It’s a long time. Dolores, I must go back to Brazil.”
“Ah, señor, that will kill me! Stay!” she entreated.
“But it would be dangerous. Perez dislikes me. I hate him. Something terrible might come of it.”
“That is his risk. I have consented to marry him. I will do my duty before and after. But I see no reason why I may not have a little happiness — of my own — until that day comes. Life for me will not contain all I could wish. I told you; now I am happy. But you were included. Señor, if you love me you will remain.”
“Dolores, can you think we will not suffer more?” he asked.
“I know we will afterward. But we shall not now.”
“Now is perilous to me. To realize you love me! I did not think you capable of it. Listen! Something — something might prevent your marriage — or happen afterward. All — all is so uncertain.”
“Quién sabe?” she whispered; and to the tawny, sleepy languor of her eyes there came a fancy, a dream, a mystic hope.
“Dolores, if Perez were lost to you — one way or another — would you marry me?” he broke out huskily. Not until then had he asked her hand in marriage.
“If such forlorn hope will make you stay — make you happy — yes, Señor Montes,” was her answer.
There came a time when Yaqui was needed in the factory where the henequen fiber was extracted from the leaves. He had come to be a valuable machine — an instrument of toil that did not run down or go wrong. One guard said to another: “That big black peon takes a lot of killing!” and then ceased to watch him closely. He might have escaped. He might have crossed the miles and miles of henequen fields to the jungle, and under that dense cover had made his way northward to the coast. Yaqui had many a chance. But he never looked toward the north.
At first they put him to feeding henequen leaves into the maw of a crushing machine. The juicy, sticky, odorous substance of the big twenty -pound leaf was squeezed into a pulp, out of which came the white glistening threads of fiber. These fibers made sisal rope — rope second in quality only to the manila.
By and by he was promoted. They put him in the pressing room to work on the ponderous iron press which was used to make the henequen bales. This machine was a high, strange-looking object, oblong in shape, like a box, opening in the middle from the top down. It had several distinct movements, all operated by levers. Long bundles of henequen were carried in from the racks and laid in the press until it was half full. Then a lever was pulled, the machine closed on the fiber and opened again. This operation was repeated again and again. Then it was necessary for the operator to step from his platform upon the fiber in the machine and stamp it down and jump upon it and press it closely all round. When this had been done the last time the machine seemed wide open and stuffed so full that it would never close. But when the lever was pulled the ponderous steel jaws shut closer and closer and locked. Then the sides fell away, to disclose a great smooth bale of henequen ready for shipment.
The Yaqui learned to operate this press so skillfully that the work was left to him. When his carriers went out to the racks for more fiber he was left alone in the room.
Some strange relation sprang up between Yaqui and his fiber press. For him it never failed to operate. He knew to a strand just how much fiber made a perfect bale. And he became so accurate that his bales were never weighed. They came out glistening, white, perfect to the pound. There was a strange affinity between this massive, steel-jawed engine and something that lived in the Yaqui’s heart, implacable and immutable, appalling in its strength to wait, in its power to crush.
IV
There seemed no failing of the endurance of this primitive giant, but his great frame had wasted away until it was a mere hulk. Owing to his value now to the hacienda, Yaqui was given rations in lieu of the ball of soggy bread; they were not, however, what the Indian needed. Montes at last won Yaqui’s gratitude.
“Señor, if Yaqui wanted to eat it would be meat he needed,” said the chief. Then Montes added meat to the wine, bread, and fruit he secretly brought to the Indian.
When Montes began covert kindnesses to the poor Yaqui slaves the chief showed gratitude and pathos: “Señor Montes is good — but the sun of the Yaquis is setting.”
Perez in his triumphant arrogance evidently derived pleasure from being magnanimous to the man he instinctively knew was his rival.
One day at the hacienda when Montes rode up to meet Donna Isabel and Dolores he found them accompanied by Perez and his parents. Almost immediately the young officer suggested gayly:
“Señor, pray carry Dolores off somewhere. My father has something to plan with Donna Isabel. It must be a secret from Dolores. Take her a walk — talk to her, señor — keep her excited — make love to her!”
“I shall be happy to obey. Will you come, señorita?” said Montes.
If they expected Dolores to pout, they were mistaken. Her slow, sleepy glance left the face of her future husband as she turned away silently to accompany Montes. They walked along the palm-shaded road, out toward the huge, open, sunny space that was the henequen domain.
“I hate Perez,” she burst out suddenly. “He meant to taunt you. He thinks I am his slave — a creature without mind or heart. Señor, make love to me!”
“You will be his slave — soon,” whispered Montes bitterly.
“Never!” she exclaimed passionately.
They readied the end of the shady road. The mill was silent. Montes saw the Indian standing motionless close at hand, in the shade of the henequen racks.
“Dolores, did you mean what you just said?” asked Montes eagerly.
“That I will never be Perez’s slave?”
“No; the other thing you said.”
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Make love to me, señor. It was his wish. I must learn to obey.”
With sullen scorn she spoke, not looking at Montes, scarcely realizing the actual purport of her speech. But when Montes took her in his arms she started back with a cry. He held her. And suddenly clasping her tightly he bent his head to kiss the red lips she opened to protest.
“Let me go!” she begged wildly. “Oh — I did not — mean — Montes, not so! Do not make me—”
“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never let you go. It was his wish. Come, I dare you — I beg you!”
One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then she thrust him away.
“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over her face. “Now I will love you more — my heart will break.”
“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes miserably.
“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”
“But you love me, Dolores?”
“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!” she cried.
“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.
Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly she espied the Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes, like black fire, were fixed upon her.
“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he who watches us at the bull fights — Let us go, Montes — Oh, he saw us — he saw me — Come!”
Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them effusively. He seemed radiant with happiness. He had united two of the first families of Yucatan, which unison would make the greatest henequen plantation. The beautiful señorita had other admirers. But this marriage had unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productiveness of the plantations and the obstacles to greater and quicker output that would be done away with, and the fact that Lieutenant Perez through his military influence could work the fields with peon labor — these facts had carried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him which he owed to the henequen, and he had decided to make the wedding day one on which the rich product of the plantation should play a most important part.
