Part 33 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXI
THE WEAK LINK
Though the sun was bright that day, unseen forces were gathering in the sky above town, mesa and mountains, not of weather but of fate, to loose their lightnings. Sunday peace seemed to reign, the languid summer Sunday peace of tranquil nature. Yet even through this there was a faint breath of impending events, a quiver or excitement in the air, an increasing expectation on the part of men, who sensed but did not realize what was to come.
All day whispers and hints had pa.s.sed among the people in San Mateo and out to isolated farms and up nearby creeks, kindling in the ignorant, brown-skinned Mexicans a lively interest and an exorbitant curiosity. Nothing was said definitely; nothing was promised outright.
So in consequence speculation ran wild and rumors wilder. The hints had to do with the manager of the dam who had shot the strange Mexican: something was to be done with him, something was to happen to him. He had been arrested, or was to be arrested; he had confessed, or was about to confess the murder; he was going to kill other Mexicans, or had killed other Mexicans; he was about to raid San Mateo with his workmen and slay the town; he was to be hanged;--and so on eternally.
Uncertain as was everything else, what was sure apparently was that something would happen at San Mateo that night.
Families visiting about in wagons spread the news. Hors.e.m.e.n were at pains to ride to outlying Mexican ranch houses, for what messenger is so welcome as he who brings tales of great doings? He might be sure of an audience at once. So it was that the plan craftily put in operation by Weir's enemies, to gather and inflame the people, under cover of whose pressure and excitement when the engineer was arrested he might be slain by a pretended rescue or popular demonstration, whichever should serve best, produced the expected result. During the afternoon wagons and hors.e.m.e.n and men on foot began to appear in town, to join already aroused relatives or friends at their adobe houses or to loaf along the main street in groups.
Outwardly there were few signs in the aspect of the Mexican folk of something extraordinary developing. But to the sheriff, Madden, aroused from an afternoon nap at his home by a telephoned message from the county attorney requesting him to come to the court house, the unwonted number in the town was in itself a significant fact.
”I didn't know this was a fiesta, Alvarez. What's up with you people?”
he asked of one he met on the street.
”The fiesta is to be to-night, eh?” the man laughed. ”Have you this engineer locked up yet?”
”What engineer?”
”The killer, the gun-man, that Weir. It is said he is already arrested and is to be hanged from the big cottonwood at dark beside the jail.
It is also said he is still loose and bringing five hundred workmen to burn the town, rob the bank, kill the men and steal the girls.”
”If he is to do either, it's news to me,” Madden said, and proceeded to the office of Lucerio, the county attorney.
Madden was a blunt man, who for policy's sake might close his eyes to unimportant political influence as exercised by the Sorenson crowd.
But he was no mere compliant tool. This was his first term in office.
He had never yet crossed swords with the cattleman and the others a.s.sociated with him, because the occasion had never arisen. When he had allowed himself to be nominated for sheriff, though Sorenson might imagine Madden to be at his orders, the latter had accepted the office with certain well-defined ideas of his duty.
”What do you want of me?” he asked Lucerio, for whom he had little liking.
”I desire to tell you, Madden, that at eight o'clock I'll have a warrant for you to serve on the engineer Weir. You'll go to the dam and arrest him and bring him in to the jail.”
”Well, apparently the whole country except me knew this was to happen.
The town's filling up as if it were going to be a bull-fight.”
”I know nothing of that.”
”All right; give me the warrant.”
”At eight o'clock. I don't want it served before then.”
”Why?”
”I have my reasons.”