Beyond the Grave

TWO

The bigger man gestured with his rifle, a Henry that was at least as old as he was. He said, “Who are you, senor? What is your business here?”

“My name is John Quincannon. I've come to see Felipe Velasquez.”

“You are known to him?”

“Yes.”

“He expects you?”

“Yes. Is he here?”

The question went unanswered. Instead the two riflemen exchanged a few words of rapid, slurred Spanish that Quincannon couldn't follow. The bigger one said to him, “You will wait with Pablo,” and turned on his heel and disappeared inside the courtyard.

Quincannon waited under the watchful eye of the one named Pablo. The eye was full of dark and malignant glints, as if Pablo would like nothing better than to shoot several holes in him. Pablo, it seemed, liked gringos even less than his employer did. That being the case, Quincannon sat very still and maintained a neutral expression that revealed none of his irritation.

The wait was a short one. The other rifleman returned in less than five minutes, with Velasquez beside him. The lord of the manor wore a charro outfit, less elegant and ornate than the one two nights ago in Santa Barbara, and an irascible expression. In Spanish he said to Pablo, “Lower your weapon,” and Pablo obediently complied, though not without an air of disappointment. Then in English he said to Quincannon, “I did not expect you for at least another day.”

“Obviously not. Don't I warrant an apology?”

“Apology?”

“For the rough greeting by your two sentries, if that's what they are. Why the rifles?”

“There has been trouble in the valley,” Velasquez said. “Rustlers. And the wife of one of the other ranchers was attacked in her home by a stranger, a gringo. Precautions must be taken against such animals.”

“Apology accepted,” Quincannon said dryly.

Velasquez grunted. “There is a reason you have come so soon?”

“A very good reason.”

“We will discuss it in private. Dismount and come with me. Pablo and Emilio will see to your horse.”

Quincannon swung down, handed the reins to Emilio, and followed Velasquez into the courtyard. The ranch house enclosed it on two sides, but one of the wings seemed foreshortened; Quincannon had the impression that the house had been much larger when Don Esteban ruled the hacienda. Much of it had been damaged during the siege, no doubt, and never rebuilt. The other two courtyard walls were ten-feet-high, made of thick adobe brick, and covered with layers of vines and climbing roses. Another arched gateway, the gates on this one locked in place, bisected the rearmost wall. From beyond that wall, distantly, Quincannon could now hear the faint lowing of cattle, the sporadic shouts of cowhands at work.

Velasquez wanted to talk immediately in his study, but Quincannon was having none of that. After his reception at the gate, he was not inclined to be deferential. He insisted on hot coffee and hot food first, preferably in front of a hot fire. Grumbling, Velasquez led him past a pair of outdoor baking ovens and into an open arcade that connected the main house with one of its smaller adjuncts. This turned out to be the kitchen, where a fat Mexican woman worked industriously over a nickel-plated stove. The stove was the only modern convenience in the big, too-warm room; everything else-tables, cupboards, wall oven, larder-seemed to be leftovers from Don Esteban's day.

“You will eat here,” Velasquez said. “There is no fire, but as you can tell, the room is quite warm.”

Quincannon said wryly, “Is this where all your guests take their meals? Or only the Americanos?”

“Your levity is ill-timed, senor.” Velasquez issued instructions to the cook, said to Quincannon, “I will return when you have eaten,” and took his leave.

Nettled, Quincannon warmed himself before one of the brick-heated ovens while the fat woman prepared coffee and a plate of meat and beans-simple fare, as befitted servants and lower-caste gringo detectives. He ate at a bulky trestle table. By the time he had finished, the heat in the kitchen had raised his body temperature by several degrees and started him sweating. He was in no mood to be trifled with when Velasquez returned.

Fortunately the rancher made no remarks. He said only “Now we will talk” and presented his back for Quincannon to follow out of the kitchen, along the arcade, and up an outside staircase to the house's upper level.

From the gallery Quincannon could see beyond the courtyard walls to where a series of barns, bunkhouses, stables, corrals, and cattle pens stretched away along the flattish crown of the hill and down its gently sloping backside. Rancho Rinconada de los Robles may have been a shadow of what it was in the days of los ranchos grandes, but it was still a large and impressive spread. At least a dozen men were visible in the vicinity of the corrals and stock pens. From the size and number of the buildings, Quincannon estimated the total work force at thirty or more.

They entered the house through a thick oaken door. A large, cheerful parlor opened to the left, windowed on two sides, with a log fire blazing on its hearth. Two people occupied it-a slender, dark woman in her late twenties, dressed in an old-fashioned, lace-trimmed black dress and a black mantilla, and a little girl perhaps two years of age. Quincannon stopped to look in at them. Velasquez, who had started toward a room on the opposite side, reversed himself with a look of annoyance.

Quincannon said, “Aren't you going to introduce me?”

The woman heard and looked up, which left Velasquez with a choice between further rudeness and at least a show of good manners. He chose good manners, evidently for the woman's sake. She was his wife, Dona Olivia, he said; and the child was Sofia, his daughter. He spoke their names in a protective way and with more gentleness than Quincannon had believed he possessed. His eyes seemed to say, almost challengingly, “Now do you understand why I have posted armed guards at the gates?”

Barnaby O'Hare had said that Mrs. Velasquez was a beautiful woman. Quincannon could understand why-she presented a striking physical presence-but he did not agree with the assessment. There was a haughtiness about her, an air of aristocratic superiority, that he found unappetizing; and her eyes were cool, distant, with no hint of the fabled Latin passion. He preferred women who mixed warmth with their self-possession-women like Sabina.

Dona Olivia was polite enough, but he sensed that she was no more fond of Americanos than her husband. They made an ideal couple, he thought. He wondered if Velasquez had confided in her about his hiring of a detective and decided that the answer was yes; she seemed to know Quincannon's name. She was the type of woman, he judged, who would always insist on knowing her husband's business, and the business of everyone with whom either of them came in close contact.

“Will you be dining with us this evening, Senor Quincannon?” she asked.

“It would please me to do so,” he answered before Velasquez could speak. And added perversely, “Your husband has invited me to be your guest for a few days.”

“You are welcome, of course.” She shifted her cool, black-eyed gaze to her husband. “When you and Senor Quincannon have finished your business, please come to me in the parlor. There is a matter we must discuss.”

Quincannon thought: A matter named John Quincannon, no doubt. He felt like smiling at Velasquez and gave in to the impulse. The look he received in return was withering.

Velasquez said to his wife, “As soon as we are finished, Dona Olivia,” allowed Quincannon and the woman to exchange a polite parting, and then ushered him into a smallish, oak-paneled study. When the door was shut, he let his anger show; his eyes glinted with sparks of light as he said, “You presume a great deal, senor. A great deal.”

“Do I? Perhaps you'd care to terminate my employment, then?” Quincannon had had about all he could tolerate of Velasquez's superciliousness and bigotry. “Pay me what you owe for services already rendered, and I will be more than happy to vacate your house and your land.”

Velasquez glared at him for a moment. Then, abruptly, he turned and crossed the room to a window set beside a broad rolltop desk. He stood silent and rigid, staring out at the gray afternoon.

Quincannon let the silence build; he wanted Velasquez to be the first to speak. He packed his pipe and lighted it. The study, like the parlor occupied by Velasquez's wife and daughter, was furnished in the dark, ornate Spanish style of a bygone age. The old-fashioned way in which he and his family were dressed, the house and its atmosphere of faded elegance, had a pathetic quality. The Velasquezes lived in the past, sought to recapture the lost days of the Spanish aristocracy; they succeeded only in making an enemy of the present.

At least two minutes passed before Velasquez turned from the window. The anger was gone; his face was set in grim, tired lines. In that moment he seemed somehow old, not so much an anachronism as a man whose time has come and gone-a man with nothing left to make of his life. And no desires save one: the recovery of his father's lost treasure.

He said, “Why are you here? What has happened in Santa Barbara?”

“Luis Cordova is dead. Murdered two nights ago. Whoever killed him took papers that may reveal the original hiding place of the artifacts.”

Velasquez showed no reaction. He stood a moment longer, then turned and shuffled to a chair before the room's cold fireplace, sat down in it, and looked at his hands as if he were a Gypsy seeking his fortune in their seams and creases. At length he said, “How do you know all this?”

“I found the body.”

“And the police-did you inform them?”

“No. They'll find out soon enough.”

“What did you do?”

“Left Santa Barbara immediately to come here. I suspect the murderer did the same.”

“You believe the artifacts are still hidden? That Cordova did not steal them?”

“There is no evidence that he stole them. Or that anyone else did.”

“But the statue of the Virgin Mary-how did that come into his hands?”

Quincannon explained about Tomas Cordova and his legacy. Velasquez's anger returned as he listened; a small, bright hatred seemed to flicker like firelight over his features. “A filthy traitor, this Tomas Cordova,” he said broodingly. “If Don Esteban had discovered his treachery, he would have died in agony.”

“Perhaps that's how he did die, and only one day later.”

Velasquez made a guttural noise and looked again at his hands.

Quincannon said, “There was something Luis Cordova's murderer overlooked, something I found in the corpse's hand.”

Velasquez's head jerked up. “What did you find?”

“A scrap of paper, torn from a document I believe was written by Tomas Cordova and given to his wife before she and Luis fled the rancho. A document describing the location of the artifacts.”

“Ah. You found no other part of this document?”

“No. Just the scrap.”

“It has words on it, this scrap?”

“Yes.”

Quincannon took the torn corner from his pocket, moved over to hand it to his employer. Velasquez studied it eagerly, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Mas alia del sepulcro,” he said. “In English-”

“‘Beyond the grave.’”

“Si. ‘Beyond the grave.’”

“Does the phrase mean anything to you?”

“No. Except that there is a graveyard behind the church of San Anselmo de las Lomas …”

“I know, I stopped there briefly on my way here. Who was Maria Alcazar?”

“My father's first wife. She died in childbirth.”

“She appears to be the only ‘Maria’ buried there. Which would make her grave the one referred to in Tomas Cordova's document.”

“Yes,” Velasquez said, “but that fact by itself tells me nothing. What are the other directions? Without the document-”

“The document can be found.”

“Can it?” Velasquez seemed to doubt that; there was an undercurrent of despair in his voice. “You have no idea who took it from Cordova's study?”

“Not yet. One possibility is James Evans. I had an altercation with him the night of the murder; and he knew then of my interest in Cordova and the statue of the Virgin Mary.” Quincannon made a second withdrawal from his pocket, held out the slender piece of metal for the rancher to examine. “I found this near Cordova's body. If it belongs to the murderer, it may help identify him.”

Velasquez stared at the little hollow cone. “What is it?”

“I wish I knew. I've seen it before-I know I have-but I can't remember where. It isn't at all familiar to you?”

“No.”

Quincannon reclaimed it and the paper scrap and repocketed them. His pipe had gone out; he turned to the fireplace to knock out the dottle. When he turned back again, Velasquez was on his feet.

“What are your plans, Senor Quincannon? How will you proceed with your investigation?”

“Then I am still in your employ?”

“Of course.” Velasquez dismissed the matter with an impatient gesture, as if it had never been open to question.

Quincannon said in his best Sherlock Holmes manner, “In the absence of definite information I will proceed on the basis of two assumptions. One, that the murderer believes the remaining artifacts are still where your father and Padre Urbano secreted them. Two, that he will come to the pueblo to search for them. I intend to be there when he arrives.”

“You will maintain a vigil?”

“A daytime vigil-he won't go to the pueblo at night. There is no moon, and he dare not show a light that might be seen from up here.”

Velasquez nodded. “You will do this alone?”

“One man can lie in wait more safely than two or three.”

“When do you begin?”

“Tomorrow morning. There is less than an hour of daylight left today; and I saw no indication that our man has yet been to the pueblo. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

“Very well.”

“One thing, Senor Velasquez,” Quincannon said. “I may be here for some time. During my stay I suggest you at least pretend to treat me as an invited guest. It will make matters easier for both of us. Agreed?”

Purse-lipped, Velasquez said, “Agreed.”

Quincannon was given accommodations on the lower floor of the house-perhaps not the best guest room the hacienda had to offer but a comfortable one nonetheless. He permitted himself a two-hour nap on its tolerably soft bed, during which he dreamed of Sabina. She called him “dear” twice in the course of the dream and kissed him once, and he awoke refreshed and in much better spirits.

He washed in a pannikin of water brought by one of the servants and changed into his only clean clothing-a nobby, dressy, all-wool brown-and-gray-mixed cassimere suit with a diagonal Cheviot pattern that made him look (or so Sabina had said, much to his satisfaction) like a gay young blade. He was just knotting his cravat when the servant returned to conduct him upstairs to the dining room.

Dinner was a somber affair. There were just the three of them; Barnaby O'Hare had left that morning for an overnight visit to the Alvarado ranch, some distance away. Velasquez was moody and had little to say. His wife made polite conversation for the most part, although from time to time she asked probing little questions that told Quincannon her husband had indeed informed her of recent developments in Santa Barbara. The food, at least-a spicy beef stew, tortillas, fresh vegetables-was good enough so that Quincannon indulged in a second helping. It seemed to him that he deserved it.

He and Velasquez had coffee and cigars in the parlor. The rancher also had several glasses of aguardiente, which only served to deepen his dark mood. Unlike his wife, he had nothing more to say about Luis Cordova's murder or the words on the paper scrap, which suited Quincannon. Constant reiteration and speculation served no useful purpose, only led to a heightening of frustration.

He was back in his room by nine o'clock, his mood once more as grim as Velasquez's. He did not like the man or his wife, or the style in which they lived, or Rancho Rinconada de los Robles; he longed to be gone from here, to be back among people who lived in the present instead of the long-dead past. If Cordova's murderer did not come soon …

But he would. He had killed to find out the location of the artifacts; he would not wait long to come after them.

Quincannon undressed and went to bed. By the light of a coal-oil lamp he tried to read from the volume of poems by Wordsworth; but he had no interest in poetry this evening, took no enjoyment in Wordsworth's bleak, episodic reminiscences of his childhood and his residence at Cambridge. He closed the book finally, put it aside. And in spite of himself, he again took out the conical piece of metal and turned it over in his hand, holding the object so that the lamplight glinted off its shiny surface.

He knew what it was. Hell and damnation, he was morally certain he knew what it was.

What was it?