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Page 5
Ignacio lifted his brows a shade disdainfully. They were both San Juan
citizens, but obviously not to his liking. Jim Galloway was a big man,
yes; but of _la gente_, never! The se�orita should look the other way
when he passed. He owned the Casa Blanca; that was enough to ticket
him, and Ignacio passed quickly to _el se�or doctor_. Oh, he was
smart and did much good to the sick; but the poor Mexican who called
him for a bedridden wife must first sell something and show the money.
Beyond these it appeared that the enviable class of San Juan consisted
of the padre Jos�, who was at present and much of the time away
visiting the poor and sick throughout the countryside; Julius Struve,
who owned and operated the local hotel, one of the lesser luminaries,
though a portly gentleman with an amiable wife; the Porters, who had a
farm off to the northwest and whose connection to San Juan lay in the
fact that an old maid daughter taught the school here; various other
individuals and family groups to be disposed of with a word and a
careless wave of a cigarette. Already for the fair stranger Ignacio
had skimmed the cream of the cream.
The girl sighed, as though her question had been no idle one and his
reply had disappointed her. For a moment her brows gathered slightly
into a frown that was like a faint shadow; then she smiled again
brightly, a quick smile which seemed more at home in her eyes than the
frown had been.
Ignacio glanced from her to the weeds, then, squinting his eyes, at the
sun. There was ample time, it would be cooler presently. So,
describing a respectful arc about her, he approached the Mission wall,
slipped into the shade, and eased himself in characteristic indolence
against the white-washed adobe. She appeared willing to talk with him;
well, then, what pleasanter way to spend an afternoon? She sought to
learn this and that of a land new to her; who to explain more knowingly
than Ignacio Chavez? After a little he would pluck some of the newly
opened yellow rosebuds for her, making her a little speech about
herself and budding flowers. He would even, perhaps, show her his
bells, let her hear just the suspicion of a note from each. . . .
A sharp sound came to her abruptly out of the utter stillness but meant
nothing to her. She saw a flock of pigeons rise above the roofs of the
more distant houses, circle, swerve, and disappear beyond the
cottonwoods. She noted that Ignacio was no longer leaning lazily
against the wall; he had stiffened, his mouth was a little open,
breathless, his attitude that of one listening expectantly, his eyes
squinting as they had been just now when he fronted the sun. Then came
the second sound, a repetition of the first, sharp, in some way
sinister. Then another and another and another, until she lost count;
a man's voice crying out strangely, muffled. Indistinct, seeming to
come from afar.
It was an incongruous, almost a humorous, thing to see the sun-warmed
passivity of Ignacio Chavez metamorphosed in a flash into activity. He
muttered something, leaped away from the Mission wall, dashed through
the tangle of the garden, and raced like a madman to the eastern arch.
With both hands he grasped the dangling bell-ropes, with all of his
might he set them clanging and shouting and clamoring until the
reverberation smote her ears and set the blood tingling strangely
through her. She had seen the look upon his face. . . .
Suddenly she knew that those little sharp sounds had been the rattle of
pistol-shots. She sprang to her feet, her eyes widening. Now all was
quiet save for the boom and roar of the bells. The pigeons were
circling high in the clear sky, were coming back. . . . She went
quickly the way Ignacio had gone, calling out to him:
"What is it?"
He seemed all unmoved now as he made his bells cry out for him; it was
for him to be calm while they trembled with the event which surely they
must understand.
"It is a man dead," he told her as his right hand called upon the
Captain for a volume of sound from his bronze throat. "You will see.
And there will be more work for Roderico Nortone!" He sighed and shook
his head, and for a moment spoke softly with his jangling bells. "And
some day," he continued quietly, "it will be Roderico's time, _no_?
And I will ring the bells for him, and the Captain and the Dancer and
Lolita, they will all put tears into men's eyes. But first, Santa
Maria! let it be that I ring the others for him when he marries himself
with the banker's daughter."
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