The Woman in the Alcove Read online

  VII. NIGHT AND A VOICE

  Not to be outdone by the editor, I insert the article here with all itsdetails, the importance of which I trust I have anticipated.

  SANTA FE, N.M., April--.

  Arrived in Santa Fe, I inquired where Abner Fairbrother could be found.I was told that he was at his mine, sick.

  Upon inquiring as to the location of the Placide, I was informed that itwas fifteen miles or so distant in the mountains, and upon my expressingan intention of going there immediately, I was given what I thought veryunnecessary advice and then directed to a certain livery stable, whereI was told I could get the right kind of a horse and such equipment as Istood in need of.

  I thought I was equipped all right as it was, but I said nothing andwent on to the livery stable. Here I was shown a horse which I took toat once and was about to mount, when a pair of leggings was brought tome.

  "You will need these for your journey," said the man.

  "Journey!" I repeated. "Fifteen miles!"

  The livery stable keeper--a half-breed with a peculiarly pleasantsmile--cocked up his shoulders with the remark:

  "Three men as willing but as inexperienced as yourself have attemptedthe same journey during the last week and they all came back before theyreached the divide. You will probably come back, too; but I shall giveyou as fair a start as if I knew you were going straight through."

  "But a woman has done it," said I; "a nurse from the hospital went upthat very road last week."

  "Oh, women! they can do anything--women who are nurses. But they don'tstart off alone. You are going alone."

  "Yes," I remarked grimly. "Newspaper correspondents make their journeyssingly when they can."

  "Oh! you are a newspaper correspondent! Why do so many men from thepapers want to see that sick old man? Because he's so rich?"

  "Don't you know?" I asked.

  He did not seem to.

  I wondered at his ignorance but did not enlighten him.

  "Follow the trail and ask your way from time to time. All the goatherdsknow where the Placide mine is."

  Such were his simple instructions as he headed my horse toward thecanyon. But as I drew off, he shouted out:

  "If you get stuck, leave it to the horse. He knows more about it thanyou do."

  With a vague gesture toward the northwest, he turned away, leaving mein contemplation of the grandest scenery I had yet come upon in all mytravels.

  Fifteen miles! but those miles lay through the very heart of themountains, ranging anywhere from six to seven thousand feet high. In tenminutes the city and all signs of city life were out of sight. In fivemore I was seemingly as far removed from all civilization as if I hadgone a hundred miles into the wilderness.

  As my horse settled down to work, picking his way, now here and nowthere, sometimes over the brown earth, hard and baked as in a thousandfurnaces, and sometimes over the stunted grass whose needle-like stalksseemed never to have known moisture, I let my eyes roam to such peaks aswere not cut off from view by the nearer hillsides, and wondered whetherthe snow which capped them was whiter than any other or the blue of thesky bluer, that the two together had the effect upon me of cameo work ona huge and unapproachable scale.

  Certainly the effect of these grand mountains, into which you leapwithout any preparation from the streets and market-places of America'soldest city, is such as is not easily described.

  We struck water now and then,--narrow water--courses which my horsefollowed in mid stream, and, more interesting yet, goatherds with theirflocks, Mexicans all, who seemed to understand no English, but werepicturesque enough to look at and a welcome break in the extremelonesomeness of the way.

  I had been told that they would serve me as guides if I felt at alldoubtful of the trail, and in one or two instances they proved to be ofdecided help. They could gesticulate, if they could not speak English,and when I tried them with the one word Placide they would nod and pointout which of the many side canyons I was to follow. But they alwayslooked up as they did so, up, up, till I took to looking up, too, andwhen, after miles multiplied indefinitely by the winding of the trail, Icame out upon a ledge from which a full view of the opposite range couldbe had, and saw fronting me, from the side of one of its tremendouspeaks, the gap of a vast hole not two hundred feet from the snowline, Iknew that, inaccessible as it looked, I was gazing up at the opening ofAbner Fairbrother's new mine, the Placide.

  The experience was a strange one. The two ranges approached so nearlythat it seemed as if a ball might be tossed from one to the other. Butthe chasm between was stupendous. I grew dizzy as I looked downwardand saw the endless zigzags yet to be traversed step by step before thebottom of the canyon could be reached, and then the equally interminablezigzags up the acclivity beyond, all of which I must trace, still stepby step, before I could hope to arrive at the camp which, from where Istood, looked to be almost within hail of my voice.

  I have described the mine as a hole. That was all I saw at first--agreat black hole in the dark brown earth of the mountain-side, fromwhich ran down a still darker streak into the waste places far below it.But as I looked longer I saw that it was faced by a ledge cut out of thefriable soil, on which I was now able to descry the pronounced white oftwo or three tent-tops and some other signs of life, encouragingenough to the eye of one whose lot it was to crawl like a fly up thattremendous mountain-side.

  Truly I could understand why those three men, probably newspapercorrespondents like myself, had turned back to Santa Fe, after a glancefrom my present outlook. But though I understood I did not mean toduplicate their retreat.

  The sight of those tents, the thought of what one of them contained,inspired me with new courage, and, releasing my grip upon the rein, Iallowed my patient horse to proceed. Shortly after this I passed thedivide--that is where the water sheds both ways--then the descent began.It was zigzag, just as the climb had been, but I preferred the climb. Idid not have the unfathomable spaces so constantly before me, nor wasmy imagination so active. It was fixed on heights to be attained ratherthan on valleys to roll into. However, I did not roll.

  The Mexican saddle held me securely at whatever angle I was poised, andonce the bottom was reached I found that I could face, with considerableequanimity, the corresponding ascent. Only, as I saw how steep the climbbade fair to be, I did not see how I was ever to come down again. Goingup was possible, but the descent--

  However, as what goes up must in the course of nature come down, I putthis question aside and gave my horse his head, after encouraging himwith a few blades of grass, which he seemed to find edible enough,though they had the look and something of the feel of spun glass.

  How we got there you must ask this good animal, who took all theresponsibility and did all the work. I merely clung and balanced, and attimes, when he rounded the end of a zigzag, for instance, I even shutmy eyes, though the prospect was magnificent. At last even his patienceseemed to give out, and he stopped and trembled. But before I could openmy eyes on the abyss beneath he made another effort. I felt the brush oftree branches across my face, and, looking up, saw before me the ledgeor platform dotted with tents, at which I had looked with such longingfrom the opposite hillsides.

  Simultaneously I heard voices, and saw approaching a bronzed and beardedman with strongly-marked Scotch features and a determined air.

  "The doctor!" I involuntarily exclaimed, with a glance at the small andcurious tent before which he stood guard.

  "Yes, the doctor," he answered in unexpectedly good English. "And whoare you? Have you brought the mail and those medicines I sent for?"

  "No," I replied with as propitiatory a smile as I could muster up inface of his brusk forbidding expression. "I came on my own errand. Iam a representative of the New York--and I hope you will not deny me aword with Mr. Fairbrother."

  With a gesture I hardly knew how to interpret he took my horse by therein and led us on a few steps toward another large tent, where hemotioned me to descend. Then he laid his hand on my s
houlder and,forcing me to meet his eye, said:

  "You have made this journey--I believe you said from New York--to seeMr. Fairbrother. Why?"

  "Because Mr. Fairbrother is at present the most sought-for man inAmerica," I returned boldly. "His wife--you know about his wife--"

  "No. How should I know about his wife? I know what his temperature isand what his respiration is--but his wife? What about his wife? He don'tknow anything about her now himself; he is not allowed to read letters."

  "But you read the papers. You must have known, before you left Santa Fe,of Mrs. Fairbrother's foul and most mysterious murder in New York. Ithas been the theme of two continents for the last ten days."

  He shrugged his shoulders, which might mean anything, and confined hisreply to a repetition of my own words.

  "Mrs. Fairbrother murdered!" he exclaimed, but in a suppressed voice,to which point was given by the cautious look he cast behind him at thetent which had drawn my attention. "He must not know it, man. I couldnot answer for his life if he received the least shock in his presentcritical condition. Murdered? When?"

  "Ten days ago, at a ball in New York. It was after Mr. Fairbrother leftthe city. He was expected to return, after hearing the news, but heseems to have kept straight on to his destination. He was not very fondof his wife,--that is, they have not been living together for the lastyear. But he could not help feeling the shock of her death which he musthave heard of somewhere along the route."

  "He has said nothing in his delirium to show that he knew it. It ispossible, just possible, that he didn't read the papers. He could nothave been well for days before he reached Santa Fe."

  "When were you called in to attend him?"

  "The very night after he reached this place. It was thought he wouldn'tlive to reach the camp. But he is a man of great pluck. He held up tillhis foot touched this platform. Then he succumbed."

  "If he was as sick as that," I muttered, "why did he leave Santa Fe? Hemust have known what it would mean to be sick here."

  "I don't think he did. This is his first visit to the mine. He evidentlyknew nothing of the difficulties of the road. But he would not stop. Hewas determined to reach the camp, even after he had been given a sightof it from the opposite mountain. He told them that he had once crossedthe Sierras in midwinter. But he wasn't a sick man then."

  "Doctor, they don't know who killed his wife."

  "He didn't."

  "I know, but under such circumstances every fact bearing on the event isof immense importance. There is one which Mr. Fairbrother only can makeclear. It can be said in a word--"

  The grim doctor's eye flashed angrily and I stopped.

  "Were you a detective from the district attorney's office in New York,sent on with special powers to examine him, I should still say what I amgoing to say now. While Mr. Fairbrother's temperature and pulse remainwhere they now are, no one shall see him and no one shall talk to himsave myself and his nurse."

  I turned with a sick look of disappointment toward the road up whichI had so lately come. "Have I panted, sweltered, trembled, for threemortal hours on the worst trail a man ever traversed to go back withnothing for my journey? That seems to me hard lines. Where is themanager of this mine?"

  The doctor pointed toward a man bending over the edge of the great holefrom which, at that moment, a line of Mexicans was issuing, each with asack on his back which he flung down before what looked like a furnacebuilt of clay.

  "That's he. Mr. Haines, of Philadelphia. What do you want of him?"

  "Permission to stay the night. Mr. Fairbrother may be better to-morrow."

  "I won't allow it and I am master here, so far as my patient isconcerned. You couldn't stay here without talking, and talking makesexcitement, and excitement is just what he can not stand. A week fromnow I will see about it--that is, if my patient continues to improve. Iam not sure that he will."

  "Let me spend that week here. I'll not talk any more than the dead. Maybethe manager will let me carry sacks."

  "Look here," said the doctor, edging me farther and farther away fromthe tent he hardly let out of his sight for a moment. "You're a cannylad, and shall have your bite and something to drink before you takeyour way back. But back you go before sunset and with this message: Noman from any paper north or south will be received here till I hang outa blue flag. I say blue, for that is the color of my bandana. Whenmy patient is in a condition to discuss murder I'll hoist it from histent-top. It can be seen from the divide, and if you want to camp thereon the lookout, well and good. As for the police, that's another matter.I will see them if they come, but they need not expect to talk to mypatient. You may say so down there. It will save scrambling up thistrail to no purpose."

  "You may count on me," said I; "trust a New York correspondent to do theright thing at the right time to head off the boys. But I doubt if theywill believe me."

  "In that case I shall have a barricade thrown up fifty feet down themountain-side," said he.

  "But the mail and your supplies?"

  "Oh, the burros can make their way up. We shan't suffer."

  "You are certainly master," I remarked.

  All this time I had been using my eyes. There was not much to see, butwhat there was was romantically interesting. Aside from the furnace andwhat was going on there, there was little else but a sleeping-tent, acooking-tent, and the small one I had come on first, which, without theleast doubt, contained the sick man. This last tent was of a peculiarconstruction and showed the primitive nature of everything at thisheight. It consisted simply of a cloth thrown over a thing like atrapeze. This cloth did not even come to the ground on either side, butstopped short a foot or so from the flat mound of adobe which serves asa base or floor for hut or tent in New Mexico. The rear of the simpletent abutted on the mountain-side; the opening was toward the valley.I felt an intense desire to look into this opening,--so intense that Ithought I would venture on an attempt to gratify it. Scrutinizing theresolute face of the man before me and flattering myself that I detectedsigns of humor underlying his professional bruskness, I asked, somewhatmournfully, if he would let me go away without so much as a glance atthe man I had come so far to see. A glimpse would satisfy me I assuredhim, as the hint of a twinkle flashed in his eye. "Surely there will beno harm in that. I'll take it instead of supper."

  He smiled, but not encouragingly, and I was feeling very despondent,indeed, when the canvas on which our eyes were fixed suddenly shook andthe calm figure of a woman stepped out before us, clad in the simplestgarb, but showing in every line of face and form a character of mingledkindness and shrewdness. She was evidently on the lookout for thedoctor, for she made a sign as she saw him and returned instantly intothe tent.

  "Mr. Fairbrother has just fallen asleep," he explained. "It isn'tdiscipline and I shall have to apologize to Miss Serra, but if you willpromise not to speak nor make the least disturbance I will let you takethe one peep you prefer to supper."

  "I promise," said I.

  Leading the way to the opening, he whispered a word to the nurse, thenmotioned me to look in. The sight was a simple one, but to me veryimpressive. The owner of palaces, a man to whom millions were asthousands to such poor devils as myself, lay on an improvised bed ofevergreens, wrapped in a horse blanket and with nothing better thananother of these rolled up under his head. At his side sat his nurseon what looked like the uneven stump of a tree. Close to her hand wasa tolerably flat stone, on which I saw arranged a number of bottles andsuch other comforts as were absolutely necessary to a proper care of thesufferer.

  That was all. In these few words I have told the whole story. To besure, this simple tent, perched seven thousand feet and more abovesea-level, had one advantage which even his great house in New Yorkcould not offer This was the out look. Lying as he did facing thevalley, he had only to open his eyes to catch a full view of thepanorama of sky and mountain stretched out before him. It was glorious;whether seen at morning, noon or night, glorious. But I doubt if hewould not gladly have
exchanged it for a sight of his home walls.

  As I started to go, a stir took place in the blanket wrapped about hischin, and I caught a glimpse of the iron-gray head and hollow cheeks ofthe great financier. He was a very sick man. Even I could see that. HadI obtained the permission I sought and been allowed to ask him one ofthe many questions burning on my tongue, I should have received onlydelirium for reply. There was no reaching that clouded intelligence now,and I felt grateful to the doctor for convincing me of it.

  I told him so and thanked him quite warmly when we were well away fromthe tent, and his answer was almost kindly, though he made no effort tohide his impatience and anxiety to see me go. The looks he cast at thesun were significant, and, having no wish to antagonize him and everywish to visit the spot again, I moved toward my horse with the intentionof untying him.

  To my surprise the doctor held me back.

  "You can't go to-night," said he, "your horse has hurt himself."

  It was true. There was something the matter with the animal's leftforefoot. As the doctor lifted it, the manager came up. He agreed withthe doctor. I could not make the descent to Santa Fe on that horse thatnight. Did I feel elated? Rather. I had no wish to descend. Yet I wasfar from foreseeing what the night was to bring me.

  I was turned over to the manager, but not without a final injunctionfrom the doctor. "Not a word to any one about your errand! Not a wordabout the New York tragedy, as you value Mr. Fairbrother's life."

  "Not a word," said I.

  Then he left me.

  To see the sun go down and the moon come up from a ledge hung, as itwere, in mid air! The experience was novel--but I refrain. I have moreimportant matters to relate.

  I was given a bunk at the extreme end of the long sleeping-tent, andturned in with the rest. I expected to sleep, but on finding thatI could catch a sight of the sick tent from under the canvas, Iexperienced such fascination in watching this forbidden spot thatmidnight came before I had closed my eyes. Then all desire to sleepleft me, for the patient began to moan and presently to talk, and,the stillness of the solitary height being something abnormal, I couldsometimes catch the very words. Devoid as they were of all rationalmeaning, they excited my curiosity to the burning point; for who couldtell if he might not say something bearing on the mystery?

  But that fevered mind had recurred to early scenes and the babble whichcame to my ears was all of mining camps in the Rockies and the dickerof horses. Perhaps the uneasy movement of my horse pulling at the end ofhis tether had disturbed him. Perhaps--

  But at the inner utterance of the second "perhaps" I found myself upon my elbow listening with all my ears, and staring with wide-stretchedeyes at the thicket of stunted trees where the road debouched on theplatform. Something was astir there besides my horse. I could catchsounds of an unmistakable nature. A rider was coming up the trail.

  Slipping back into my place, I turned toward the doctor, who lay sometwo or three bunks nearer the opening. He had started up, too, and ina moment was out of the tent. I do not think he had observed my action,for it was very dark where I lay and his back had been turned toward me.As for the others, they slept like the dead, only they made more noise.

  Interested--everything is interesting at such a height--I brought my eyeto bear on the ledge, and soon saw by the limpid light of a full moonthe stiff, short branches of the trees, on which my gaze was fixed, giveway to an advancing horse and rider.

  "Halloo!" saluted the doctor in a whisper, which was in itself awarning. "Easy there! We have sickness in this camp and it's a late hourfor visitors."

  "I know?"

  The answer was subdued, but earnest.

  "I'm the magistrate of this district. I've a question to ask this sickman, on behalf of the New York Chief of Police, who is a personal friendof mine. It is connected with--"

  "Hush!"

  The doctor had seized him by the arm and turned his face away from thesick tent. Then the two heads came together and an argument began.

  I could not hear a word of it, but their motions were eloquent. Mysympathy was with the magistrate, of course, and I watched eagerly whilehe passed a letter over to the doctor, who vainly strove to read it bythe light of the moon. Finding this impossible, he was about to returnit, when the other struck a match and lit a lantern hanging from thehorn of his saddle. The two heads came together again, but as quicklyseparated with every appearance of irreconcilement, and I was settlingback with sensations of great disappointment, when a sound fell on thenight so unexpected to all concerned that with a common impulse each eyesought the sick tent.

  "Water! will some one give me water?" a voice had cried, quietly andwith none of the delirium which had hitherto rendered it unnatural.

  The doctor started for the tent. There was the quickness of surprise inhis movement and the gesture he made to the magistrate, as he passed in,reawakened an expectation in my breast which made me doubly watchful.

  Providence was intervening in our favor, and I was not surprised to seehim presently reissue with the nurse, whom he drew into the shadow ofthe trees, where they had a short conference. If she returned alone intothe tent after this conference I should know that the matter was at anend and that the doctor had decided to maintain his authority againstthat of the magistrate. But she remained outside and the magistrate wasinvited to join their council; when they again left the shadow of thetrees it was to approach the tent.

  The magistrate, who was in the rear, could not have more than passed theopening, but I thought him far enough inside not to detect any movementon my part, so I took advantage of the situation to worm myself out ofmy corner and across the ledge to where the tent made a shadow in themoonlight.

  Crouching close, and laying my ear against the canvas, I listened.

  The nurse was speaking in a gently persuasive tone. I imagined herkneeling by the head of the patient and breathing words into his ear.These were what I heard:

  "You love diamonds. I have often noticed that; you look so long at thering on your hand. That is why I have let it stay there, though at timesI have feared it would drop off and roll away over the adobe down themountain-side. Was I right?"

  "Yes, yes." The words came with difficulty, but they were clear enough."It's of small value. I like it because--"

  He appeared to be too weak to finish.

  A pause, during which she seemed to edge nearer to him.

  "We all have some pet keepsake," said she. "But I should never havesupposed this stone of yours an inexpensive one. But I forget that youare the owner of a very large and remarkable diamond, a diamond thatis spoken of sometimes in the papers. Of course, if you have a gem likethat, this one must appear very small and valueless to you."

  "Yes, this is nothing, nothing." And he appeared to turn away his head.

  "Mr. Fairbrother! Pardon me, but I want to tell you something about thatbig diamond of yours. You have been in and have not been able to readyour letters, so do not know that your wife has had some trouble withthat diamond. People have said that it is not a real stone, but awell-executed imitation. May I write to her that this is a mistake,that it is all you have ever claimed for it--that is, an unusually largediamond of the first water?"

  I listened in amazement. Surely, this was an insidious way to get atthe truth,--a woman's way, but who would say it was not a wise one,the wisest, perhaps, which could be taken under the circumstances? Whatwould his reply be? Would it show that he was as ignorant of his wife'sdeath as was generally believed, both by those about him here and thosewho knew him well in New York? Or would the question convey nothingfurther to him than the doubt--in itself an insult of the genuineness ofthat great stone which had been his pride?

  A murmur--that was all it could be called--broke from his fever-driedlips and died away in an inarticulate gasp. Then, suddenly, sharply, acry broke from him, an intelligible cry, and we heard him say:

  "No imitation! no imitation! It was a sun! a glory! No other like it! Itlit the air! it blazed, it burned! I see
it now! I see--"

  There the passion succumbed, the strength failed; another murmur,another, and the great void of night which stretched over--I mightalmost say under us--was no more quiet or seemingly impenetrable thanthe silence of that moon-enveloped tent.

  Would he speak again? I did not think so. Would she even try to makehim? I did not think this, either. But I did not know the woman.

  Softly her voice rose again. There was a dominating insistence in hertones, gentle as they were; the insistence of a healthy mind which seeksto control a weakened one.

  "You do not know of any imitation, then? It was the real stone you gaveher. You are sure of it; you would be ready to swear to it if--say justyes or no," she finished in gentle urgency.

  Evidently he was sinking again into unconsciousness, and she was justholding him back long enough for the necessary word.

  It came slowly and with a dragging intonation, but there was nomistaking the ring of truth with which he spoke.

  "Yes," said he.

  When I heard the doctor's voice and felt a movement in the canvasagainst which I leaned, I took the warning and stole back hurriedly tomy quarters.

  I was scarcely settled, when the same group of three I had beforewatched silhouetted itself again against the moonlight. There was sometalk, a mingling and separating of shadows; then the nurse glided backto her duties and the two men went toward the clump of trees where thehorse had been tethered.

  Ten minutes and the doctor was back in his bunk. Was it imagination,or did I feel his hand on my shoulder before he finally lay down andcomposed himself to sleep? I can not say; I only know that I gave nosign, and that soon all stir ceased in his direction and I was left toenjoy my triumph and to listen with anxious interest to the strange andunintelligible sounds which accompanied the descent of the horseman downthe face of the cliff, and finally to watch with a fascination, whichdrew me to my knees, the passage of that sparkling star of light hangingfrom his saddle. It crept to and fro across the side of the oppositemountain as he threaded its endless zigzags and finally disappeared overthe brow into the invisible canyons beyond.

  With the disappearance of this beacon came lassitude and sleep, throughwhose hazy atmosphere floated wild sentences from the sick tent, whichshowed that the patient was back again in Nevada, quarreling overthe price of a horse which was to carry him beyond the reach of somethreatening avalanche.

  When next morning I came to depart, the doctor took me by both hands andlooked me straight in the eyes.

  "You heard," he said.

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  "I can tell a satisfied man when I see him," he growled, throwingdown my hands with that same humorous twinkle in his eyes which hadencouraged me from the first.

  I made no answer, but I shall remember the lesson.

  One detail more. When I stared on my own descent I found why theleggings, with which I had been provided, were so indispensable. I wasnot allowed to ride; indeed, riding down those steep declivities wasimpossible. No horse could preserve his balance with a rider on hisback. I slid, so did my horse, and only in the valley beneath did wecome together again.