Norton, Andre - Novel 15 (14 page)

 
          
 
“Padre Justinian! What in the world brings you
out in this weather?" demanded Woldemar, while Herndon assaulted the fire
into greater efforts at heat.

 
          
 
Out of a brown and weathered face very bright
eyes surveyed them all and then darted to where the little Apache and his
rough-coated companion had again hidden out.

 
          
 
From somewhere within his coat the Padre
produced a small tin box from which he exhumed a glistening set of very white
teeth. These he inspected carefully before slipping them into his nutcracker
jaws to face the world once more a whole and articulate person.

 
          
 
"My son, in our lives there is no such
thing as weather. Do you not ride out even in the face of a gale if your duty
demands it? I received your Colonel's message only yesterday, having been on a
journey among my people. So this is the child he wishes me to take into our
school—"

 
          
 
His attention was now all for the small Apache
who had never turned his wide-eyed stare from the priest since his entrance.
And now the thick gutturals of the boy's own tongue flowed between those
brashly gleaming teeth.

 
          
 
The Apache got to his feet with caution and,
after darting a suspicious glance at the soldiers, came across the room to
stand before his questioner. After a while he even replied with a stiff word or
two.

 
          
 
And at winning that response from him, the
priest nodded briskly. ''It is well. He shall come to our school. In time, my
sons, I may offer back to you a scout for your forces. They have good minds,
these Apaches, and they can learn from us, even as we may learn from them. Your
Colonel is wise in giving him into our keeping. A fort is no place for a child
so young and so alien."

 
          
 
So was Ritchie's captive swept away, almost as
if carried out of the fort upon the swirling skirts of Padre Justinian's shabby
soutane.
Ritchie wondered how the child would take to
the redoubtable Padre's school. There seemed to be a brisk common sense about
that preceptor of the untamed young which argued well for the future. And maybe
the priest was right. When Ritchie Peters had brought back the biting young
fury of the mountains, he had really entrapped a future army scout.

 
          
 
He went to hunt up Sturgis with the news, only
to be drawn into the Christmas buying trip after all.

           
 
But the town expedition was a failure. Since
all of
Santa
Fe
knew that the pockets of army breeches were still empty, or so close to that
that it made no difference, no shopkeeper particularly welcomed the delegation
from the fort. Ritchie trailed along with the group of persuasive talkers who
had been sent to bargain. But after their fourth failure, discouragement drove
them to the bars. Among them they could raise the price of a beer. And there
were warmth, light, and the latest Eastern papers, only five or six weeks, old,
to be read. But Ritchie refused to be drawn in with the rest.

 
          
 
He walked back along the street which led out
to the fort road, his back hunched against the wind, kicking at lumps of clay
and snow. And, in spite of all his efforts, his thoughts swung backward a year.
The two high-stepping pacers and the light sleigh they had
pulled,
the crispness of the eastern air, the ride home from the station. Father at the
head of the table—even then he must have been worried to the verge of his
illness but he had not let them know—the last Christmas at home.

 
          
 
Well, Laura and May would be riding to church
in the sleigh again this year. Aunt Emma liked the girls, and they liked her.
It wasn't too bad a life for them. He touched the three coins in his pocket,
and wished he had something to send them—not that it would get there in time.
It'd have to fly through the air to reach
Washington Square
by the day after tomorrow.

 
          
 
There were one or two shops along the
street—mean little holes in the wall. He'd like to send the girls each one of
those lace head scarves the ladies wore out here. The Colonel's wife had a
black one. But where was he going to get forty dollars? He couldn't even send
one of those pound cakes of native sugar or a stick of horehound.

 
          
 
Something crinkly, rose and gold, fluttering
in the air drew his attention to the doorway of a shop. He crossed the drifts
to see what those long paper streamers could mean. And because the sign was so
unlike the others, he went in.

 
          
 
There were odd spicy smells in the air, and he
saw a thin curl of blue smoke mounting from a little bowl on the counter. In
daylight the room might have been as tawdry and mean as all the others, but in
the candlelight it was enchanted and strange.

 
          
 
"You wish—?"
Words,
singsong and different in tone.

 
          
 
A Chinese had slipped out of the shadows. His
long dark blue gown, his ageless—and to western eyes—expressionless face was in
stark contrast to the red Indian blanket pegged up on the wall behind him.

 
          
 
"Tea-coffee-?"

 
          
 
"No." Ritchie was embarrassed.
"It was the sign." He pointed with a mittened thumb to the streamer.

 
          
 
"File clackels? Si,” One hand went
beneath the counter-to reappear holding a package wrapped in vermilion paper.

 
          
 
For the second time Ritchie had to shake his
head. "It's not the Fourth," he began.

 
          
 
Then something else caught his eye, and he
stepped over to examine a pile of small polished boxes. Some were carved with
queer Chinese symbols; some merely depended upon the beauty of the wood for
decoration; some were inlaid. Trinket boxes for the girls!

 
          
 
"How much?"
He had picked out one of the less decorative ones.

 
          
 
"Fivedolla'!"

 
          
 
He sighed and pinched the coins in his pocket.
By no miracle did they total five dollars—or even two.

 
          
 
"You like?"

 
          
 
"They're mighty pretty."

 
          
 
"No five dolla'?"

 
          
 
"No five dollars, no four dollars, no
three dollars," Ritchie admitted with wry amusement. "We balgin—you
savvy balgin?"

 
          
 
"Balgin—?"
Ritchie translated hastily. "You mean bargain?"

           
 
“Si—balgin.
What you
give—one box?" The shopkeeper selected three and then a fourth box. He
tapped each with a long forefinger and pronounced the words slowly and
distinctly.

 
          
 
"This mesquite, this
maderone, this manzanita, this mesquite.
You like?"

 
          
 
Ritchie looked them over carefully. The
polished maderone was certainly dignified enough to meet even Aunt Emma's
strict standards; the manzanita one had an Indian design which would amuse
Laura; and either of the mesquite pieces with their inlays would please May.

 
          
 
"I like." He singled out the
maderone one.
"Two bits?"

 
          
 
“Fo' dolla'," was the solemn reply.
"Wait—"

 
          
 
The shopkeeper disappeared into the shadows.
When he returned, he had a small tray on which stood two handleless cups
equipped with lids. One he set before Ritchie with a ceremonious gesture.

 
          
 
''Tea.
You
dlink—cold—"

 
          
 
"It sure is," Ritchie agreed. He put
aside the lid of the cup, and the fragrant steam, different from any tea scent
he had known before, met his nose. He drank slowly, and the fragrance became
part of the tang on his tongue.

 
          
 
"Look here." He put down the cup.
"I really haven't enough money to pay for these." Out of his pocket
he brought the sum total of his current wealth and dumped it on the counter.
The coins looked even less than they had felt.

 
          
 
But the Chinese merchant refused to look.
"Balgin," he repeated firmly.

 
          
 
"All right!"
Ritchie laughed. "Now that you know the worst, I'll bargain."

 
          
 
It was warm in the store; the tea was
stimulating; and the stubbornness of the Chinese intrigued him.
He "balgined."

           
 
When the price reached one dollar each, the
shopkeeper produced a sheet of red paper and started to wrap the three
selected. Ritchie protested.

 
          
 
"But—see here—" He counted out the
coins. "Honestly— that's all I have. I can't pay your three dollars!"

 
          
 
"You solda, you get pay—bling to Fung Yu
then tlee dolla."

 
          
 
"But you don't know me—you never saw me
before tonight!"

 
          
 
"I see—you will pay." The Chinese
was tying a cord twisted out of straw around the package now.

 
          
 
"I sure will!" Ritchie took the
bright bundle. "Thanks for the tea and—and—" He really did not know how
to put into words what he wanted to give thanks for. But when he was out of the
shop and back on the fort road, there was a warm glow inside him that was not
wholly born of a cup of hot tea. What luck—seeing that paper sign that way!

 
          
 
Back in the barracks he gloated over his
gifts. They were good looking with the satin-smooth finish. He was still
rubbing them up when the food committee burst in, all talking at once. And
through the babble he heard the bad news.

 
          
 
"Skipped-!"

 
          
 
"Yeah.
Cold pork
is what we'll git now.
Some Christmas!"

 
          
 
"Dirty trick!"

 
          
 
"Ought to have his
slimy neck stretched!"
The last was Sturgis' contribution as he
flung himself on the bunk.

 
          
 
"What happened?"

 
          
 
"What happened? That dirty,
no-good"—Sturgis rapidly became both technical and unprintable in his
description of certain personal attributes of the man under discussion—
"Sergeant Camp has been collecting for Christmas—screwing our last pennies
out of us. Well, he's also had a bad run of luck at the table. And tonight he
takes our funds and skips out of town! We'll get cold boiled pork for Christmas
—if we're lucky—and nothing else!"

 
          
 
This calamity hung like a cloud above the fort
the next day. Even Sergeant Woldemar showed none of his usual cheerfulness, and
Ritchie scratched away at his writing, glad when he was overlooked. Only once
was the disaster mentioned by the lords of the orderly room.