Colonel Rutherford's Colt Read Online Free PDF Page B

physical means and by exploiting her feelings of powerlessness. Luis had announced that he was willing to endure whatever vengeance the colonel chose to exact, if Susan would come away with him; but she could not bring herself to harm so many people for a purpose as meager as that of her own happiness. And further, she had been brought up according to a tradition in which a wife’s obedience to her husband was deemed a sacred article of the marriage contract, and despite Colonel Rutherford’s insensitivity and abuse, she could not entirely escape the notion that he was the one who had been wronged.
    Luis, who loved Susan as fervently as she did him, became increasingly desperate, yet found no outlet for his desperation. What, after all, could he do? She refused to allow him to confront the colonel, and he could not find it in himself to go contrary to her wishes. The idea of creating a circumstance that would bring the colonel to ruin occurred to him, as did that of murder. But he lacked sufficient guile to achieve the one, and had not been able to rouse in himself the brutality necessary to accomplish the other. For Susan’s part, she knew that if she could not step away from her vows, then she ought to break things off with Luis. The pain she saw in his face was reason enough to sever the relationship, but she could not summon up the courage to deprive herself of the one thing that gave her joy, that breached the joyless confinement of the marriage. She told Luis on several occasions that it would be best for him if they ended the affair, but each time he begged her to reconsider and each time she relented. She realized that to continue as they were in the face of her indecisiveness was foolhardy. But desire and love were proof against understanding, and they went on as before.
    Whenever the colonel traveled out from Havana, Luis would wait until eleven in the evening to scale the western wall of the estate. Once he had gained the top of the wall he would chin himself onto the lowermost branch of an enormous ceiba tree and climb through the canopy, which spanned the distance between the street and the house. From the eastern edge of the canopy, he could swing out and clutch the vines that enmeshed the yellow stucco and thus he was able to climb to Susan’s bedroom window. As Susan was in the habit of locking her door, except on those occasions when the colonel announced that he would be visiting her chambers, she and Luis would then be safely hidden away until the early morning. His leave-taking, however, was not so easily managed, for the branches of the ceiba beneath Susan’s window would not support the weight of someone leaping down onto them. Thus he was forced to descend to the lawn by means of the vines and make his way through the thick shrubbery to the western wall. This course had one particular point of peril. To reach the shrubbery he had to pass a doorway at the rear of the house, in front of which a sapling sabal palm had recently been transplanted. The door led to a staircase that ascended into the body of the house and, farther along, to the apartments inhabited by the colonel’s housekeeper Mariana. It was frequently left ajar, since Mariana—a light sleeper—was given to waking in the night and going out for a stroll; she did not always shut the door on her return. But because she was a creature of regular habits, bathing each morning between five-thirty and six, Luis was able to time his exits so as to coincide with her ablutions . . .
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    The door to Room 322 was pushed open, breaking the glide of Jimmy’s thoughts, and Rita came in. For a moment he had trouble focusing on her, still immersed in the story. The Colt resting on his chest felt warm, like a heavy pat of melting butter. Rita tossed her key onto the table by the door and sat in one of the chairs and began shucking off her boots. Jimmy could tell she was drunk by the cautious