Bloom of Cactus

by Robert Ames Bennet

  CHAPTER VII

  CRAFT AND CRUELTY

  When Lennon wakened he was at first so stiff and sore that he couldhardly turn over. Yet his strength had in good part returned to him, andhe was aware of a grateful feeling of refreshment and well-being.

  Someone had covered him over with a finely woven old Navaho rug. Inpushing it off he noticed a fresh bandage on his wounded hand and thearm above. Under the cloth was an aromatic resinous salve. He nextdiscovered that his boots and socks had been taken off and his badlyblistered feet washed and treated with a healing powder.

  He sat up on the side of the bedstead. Before him stood a chair drapedwith a towel and a change of coarse, but clean clothes. On theclean-swept floor were a pair of soft moccasins, a dishpan, a bar ofsoap, and a large jar of water.

  When he limped out of his bedroom he had "tubbed" himself as thoroughlyas an Englishman and felt as ravenous as a wolf. Elsie was alone in theliving room, deftly handling pots and pans on the charcoal brazier.

  "Good morning," he hailed. "Glad I'm just in time for breakfast."

  The girl upturned her wide blue eyes to him in a look of shy delight.

  "I heard you splashing about and I hustled," she replied. "But it's notbreakfast--it's dinner."

  "So early as this?"

  "So late! You've slept all the rest of yesterday and all night and allmorning. I thought you'd never wake. Sit down."

  "How about the others?"

  "Oh, Dad just nibbles when he has his tizwin spells, and Mena ate hersmid-morning."

  The table top had been scrubbed. Lennon sat down at the nearest cornerand fell to on the omelette and fried chicken, cream cheese, salad,cornbread and honey that she set before him. The food was all served inbowls and jugs of quaintly beautiful ancient cliff-dweller pottery.

  "There's no cream for your coffee," the girl apologized. "The milksoured. Mena was asleep, and I dassn't go down to the goats alone.Cochise has come back with all the bunch. Dad was cross not to getcream. He's cranky over his food."

  "You say those red devils are all down there?"

  The girl cringed.

  "Don't--don't speak so loud. Cochise might hear you. He's stoppedswearing. I lowered a whole basketful of pies to them. Carmena isgetting ready to give him a big talking to. She--she won't let them getus."

  "That's good news," rallied Lennon.

  For the first time he was able to look away from his food long enough tonotice that Elsie was wearing a fresh pretty frock of blue-dottedcalico. He smiled at her amusedly.

  "Didn't you promise to be a sister to me--or something like that? Whynot sit down with me and celebrate our escape?"

  The girl clasped her hands together in childlike delight.

  "Oh, do you want me to be, really and truly? Only I don't know how toact to a brother. Sisters are different. They kiss eachother--sometimes. If you don't mind, I'll just sit and watch. I had minewith Mena."

  With unconscious grace, she perched on the edge of the table.

  "You eat ever so much nicer than Cochise."

  "I should hope so--a wild Indian!"

  "But he isn't. He's educated--he went to the Reservation school. Heknows a whole lot. That's why he's never been sent up. They caught himonly once. But Dad got him off. Dad's a lawyer, you know. He didn't wantto go out and leave us, but he's so scarey he does everything Sladetells him."

  Lennon recalled Carmena's plea for him to help her father and sister. Hethought he understood the situation.

  "So this Slade and the Indians are keeping all of you prisoners, here inthe Hole, are they? Yet Carmena got out. Why hasn't she taken you andyour Dad?"

  Elsie's big blue eyes rounded.

  "But they won't let us out--only one at a time, and I'm 'fraid to goalone, 'cause of Cochise. Besides, the Hole is Dad's ranch. He won'tgive it up and Slade keeps promising him his share of the profits, andit's a mighty flourishing business."

  "What, farming in a place like this?"

  "Course not. That's just for fodder. We're stockholders, Dad says. Wecon--conduct a stock exchange. Slade sells what the bunch maverick andbrand-blot."

  The terms brought no enlightenment to Lennon. He was from the Atlanticcoast.

  "You mean they deal in cattle?" he inquired.

  "Cattle and horses--and tizwin," added Elsie, screwing up her lusciouslittle mouth over the last word as if it had a bad taste.

  Lennon caught a half glimmer of the truth. But the girl's thoughts hadflitted butterfly-fashion----

  "I hope your feet don't hurt. Mena's were even rawer--awful bad. Shejust couldn't help crying when I sopped them with the tizwin. She saysthat's all it's good for. _I_ never knew her to cry before. But you weretoo dead asleep to feel the smart. I'll have your boots oiled and yourclothes cleaned before you need 'em."

  Quite naturally, Lennon inferred from this chatter that Elsie had firstmade Carmena comfortable and then, with innocent concern for him, hadventured into his room alone to treat his injured hand and feet.

  He laid down his fork to clasp one of her plump, capable little handswith grateful warmth.

  "It was most kind of you, Elsie, to care for my injuries."

  The grown-up child beamed at him radiantly.

  "I think you awful nice, Jack! I just knew I'd like you, the minute Iset eyes on you."

  "My word!--when I looked like a dying tramp," teased Lennon.

  Carmena had not exaggerated. Elsie was sweet as honey and cuddlier thana kitten. He felt tempted to put a finger under her dainty up-tiltedchin.

  "Now that I look more like a matinee idol, just how much more do youlike me?" he bantered.

  "Oh, heaps more than I liked the first pard Mena brought in. He was acowman, and after they made him pay a whole lot to get loose, Mena setCochise on him 'cause he wanted me to go away to live with him--likeSlade. They filled him up with tizwin and left him out in the middle ofthe Basin, with only tizwin in his canteen. Mena said it served himright and dead men tell no tales."

  Lennon stiffened.

  "You can't mean to say your father and sister were parties to such anoutrage--that they helped to rob a man and then abandon him to die ofthirst?"

  "Why not?" demanded Elsie, with unexpected spirit. "He wasn't what Menathought him. He was a _bad_ cowman. He wanted to bring his bunch andshoot up the Hole and kill us all and make me go with him. You see howit was, don't you?"

  "Yes," agreed Lennon, certain that he understood.

  His surmise was that Carmena had sought help from a neighbouringrancher, and the man had proved himself a scoundrel. Elsie had notmentioned any proposal of marriage. Whatever the lawlessness ofFarley's Indian associates, they had apparently put the guilty man toransom and then turned him loose to die in the desert, merely by way ofvengeance for his attempted wrong against the girl.

  Yet both of the girls had given out that the partnership with theApaches and the unknown Slade was by no means satisfactory. Farleyfeared his associates, and they would permit him and Carmena to leavethe Hole only one at a time.

  On the other hand, when he first met Carmena, she had been alone on thetrail, only a few miles from the railway. Why had she not galloped tothe nearest station and led a sheriff's posse to free her father andsister? She knew that Cochise and his fellows were "bronchos."

  Across the train of Lennon's thoughts fell a black shadow of suspicion.Was it possible that the girl had acted as a decoy to lure him into thisill-omened Dead Hole? She had previously brought in another man, who hadin effect been murdered, after paying ransom.

  In his own case, the girl had herself suffered far too much during theirflight from the Apaches for the pursuit to have been a sham. But she mayvery well have had an arrangement with the renegades to lure a victiminto the Basin; and then, untrustful of their bloodthirsty instincts,had fled with her prize to the Hole, so that he might be put to ransom.

  The more Lennon pondered the situation, the more everything related toit appeared in a worse and worse light--everything and everybody,
exceptthe open-eyed innocent little Elsie. The Apaches admittedly wererenegades. The absent Slade had been mentioned by no means favourably.Farley was far from prepossessing either in appearance or words oractions. As for Carmen, even the tender glances that he had surprisedmight be explained by the coquetry of a Delilah.

  Lennon rose from his chair with an appearance Of calm deliberation.

  "Would you be so kind as to bring me my rifle, Elsie?" he asked. "Withsmokeless powder a gun needs frequent cleaning and oiling."

  "Yes. Carmena always keeps hers clean as a whistle. But Dad put yoursaway. He said he apprehended that you might become per--perturbed andcommit an assault with a deadly weapon. He and Mena are talking thingsover now---- No, they're coming out. Want to hear Mena give it toCochise?"

  The girl darted through the largest doorway. Lennon, still affectingcool indifference, stepped out after her into the long, bare anteroomwhose rear wall Cochise and his mate had so angrily splashed withbullets.

  Farley was crouched at the far side of the rope-ladder doorway. Carmenahad bent her head to pass under the massive lintel. Lennon followedElsie to the side of the doorway opposite Farley. The lawyer-ranchmanappeared to cringe, yet he held to his position and even attempted aningratiating smile as he rasped out a half-whispered, "G'day."

  Lennon gave him a curt nod and bent down to peer into the deep entrance.Carmena did not glance around. If she heard him, she gave no heed. Shehad seated herself upon a Navaho rug and was leaning forward to lookover the cliff, with her hands on the sillstone at the brink. Down belowLennon could see only a single swarthy face, bound about the foreheadwith a wide cloth band. The other Indians were in nearer the base of thecliff.

  Instead of crouching in tense readiness to dodge back out of danger,Carmena gazed over at her late pursuers with serene fearlessness. Herrich contralto voice, no longer harsh from thirst, rang mockingly downthe cliff:

  "Howdy, boys. Glad you've begun to cool off. Quite a warm run, wasn'tit?"

  From below came an explosion of thick gutturals and hissings. Carmenaflung out a hand in a gesture of refusal.

  "No, I won't, Cochise. I'll talk American, and so will you---- Andyou'll speak decently, or we chop off. Sabe?"

  There followed a silence of several moments. Carmena's patience soonreached its snapping point. She frowned and started to draw back. Thevoice below called up, still thick and guttural, but speaking clear-cutEnglish:

  "You lied. You said you catch another sucker."

  "I said I would fetch another man to the Hole, and I have done it. Anylie about that?" countered the girl.

  "Dam' plenty," came back an angry shout. "You knew what we want himfor."

  "How about Slade? What'll he want him for? Haven't you any sense anymore, Cochise? Have you forgotten how Dad had to get you loose? Don'tyou see you've got to keep on playing the game our way? Yours is out ofdate. Even in the days of your Uncle Cochise and Geronimo it didn'twork."

  "They got a heap of fun."

  "Well, let me tell you one thing--the new man is my game, not yours. Youhad your chance and missed it. He stood up full of Gila monster poisonand got away from you--threw you off his trail--tricked a bunch ofApache trailers--out-ran and out-thirsted you. Want me to tell that toSlade?"

  The taunt was followed by another prolonged silence. Carmena smiled andtossed down first a bare corn cob and then a full ear.

  "Which will you have?" she asked. "Your way, you'll get the cob. My way,we'll all have a share of corn. A man who could fool and out-game youwouldn't make a poor partner to take into our business. We'll wait forSlade to decide."

  "You give me my woman, I wait," bargained the unseen Cochise.

  Carmena fairly blazed with anger. She hurled down another bare corncob.

  "She's not your woman. You sha'n't have her! We'll see what Slade saysabout that and about your running me across the Basin. You know youcan't scare me. Now, is it fight, or do you back up?"

  The reply was a jabber of hissings and gutturals. Carmena jerked herhand about in swift signs and cried back in uncouth thick-tongued Apachewords. The dispute at last ended in a sullen mutter from below and asudden thudding of hoofs. The Apaches dashed out from under the cliff,loping their horses toward a corral over across to the left of thecornfields.

  Carmena drew back out of the deep doorway, with a look of profoundrelief. At sight of Lennon she smiled and caught up his wounded hand.

  "I've made Cochise back up," she said. "We're safe from the bunch tillSlade returns--only none of us can leave the Hole. How's your armfeeling?"

  The dark eyes were very clear and straightforward in their gaze. Lennonflushed with shame over his black suspicions. These renegade Apaches,and Slade as well, probably were bad men. Farley no doubt was in withthem. But he appeared to be an unwilling associate, barred from escapeby sickness, drink, and fear. Carmena had begged for help to get him andElsie out of the Hole.

  Lennon permitted his hand to linger in her gentle clasp.

  "It seems to be much better," he replied to her question.

  "That's good. Let's hope it will be all right before Slade gets back.You heard me bluff off Cochise with the partnership talk?"

  Farley was backing across the room, gray-faced and trembling like a veryold man.

  "Slade will be angered," he quavered. "I'll lose all--all!"

  "Leave him to me. I'll handle him," promised Carmena. "Remember what youagreed. Jack is to be a full partner."

  Lennon felt a sudden rekindling of suspicion.

  "May I ask you to explain all this about a partnership?" he queried.

  "Why, of course," replied the girl. She drew close to him and loweredher voice.

  "Dad refuses to give up everything and leave the Hole. So I've allowedhim to think you'll come in with the bunch. My idea is to bring about asplit between Slade and Cochise. We'll then have a fighting chance. Allwe can do now is take things easy and get your hand in shape."

  "My rifle was taken by your father. I would rather like to----"

  "Dad, hand over Jack's rifle," called the girl.

  Elsie glided across to the dark doorway through which Farley wasdisappearing. Within a few moments the missing rifle was thrust out toher. She brought it to Carmena, who handed it over to Lennon. Aseemingly casual examination showed him that it had not been tamperedwith.

  His last flicker of suspicion died away.