Dead Man’s Cañon

by Paine, Lauran; Burns, Traber;

  For fully five minutes the armed Mexicans stood inside, covering Claude Rainey, then they, too, left.

  Claude looked at his cold coffee, drank it, swore heartily, and didn’t even bother going outside to look up and down the roadway. They were gone; Bríon wasn’t the kind who left loose ends lying around.

  Claude went over, moved the bench, stamped loudly as a signal for Arch Clayton to push upward from below, then he bent, grasped the ring, and heaved backward. The floor groaned and moved, then suddenly, as though someone below had just heaved a thick shoulder, it flew open and Clayton climbed out. Without a word passing between them, they eased the door down, put the bench back into place, and straightened up, regarding each other.

  Claude said, “Could you hear anything from down there?”

  Clayton’s reply was crisp. “There’s a chiseled out slit someone made right beneath where your desk sits, Sheriff. By standing straight, a man can put his ear up to it. Yeah, I heard.”

  “Well … he outfoxed me.”

  Clayton was laconic about that. “One thing I’ve learned about Mexicans, Sheriff … when they’re smiling and all relaxed … look out.”

  Claude went back and peered into his coffee container. It still held a little of the cold brew. He stonily refilled the cup and held it out. Clayton took it, went to the very chair Bríon had used, sat down, and sipped. He was silent for a long time. So was Claude Rainey, but with Claude it was chagrin more than speculation that kept him that way. At fifty-five, a man with his experience should have suspected that fancy-Dan wouldn’t just walk in and expect just to walk out again. Now he had a personal score to settle with Fernando Bríon. Before, he’d had only professional interest in the man.

  “All right,” he eventually growled. “I’ll get the vigilantes and we’ll go Mexican hunting.”

  “Wait a minute!” exclaimed Clayton, setting aside the emptied cup. “Let’s just sit and figure for a spell, Sheriff. Anyway, you’d never find them. Bríon’s anything but a fool. Sit back, relax. Let’s do some quiet figuring.”

  Chapter Nine

  The entire drama fell into place when the two men fitted each scene into perspective. Only two things were fresh to their minds and worth careful study and restudy, because one of them, at least, changed everything.

  As far as Bríon’s remark about sending half his men northeastward toward Raton, that didn’t mean much unless Bríon should recall them, then, according to Claude Rainey, Bríon would have a pretty big force of cutthroats at his back. In any event, Claude knew exactly how to deal with a situation like that. He’d been pitting force against force most of his life.

  But what really honed their dilemma to a razor’s edge of danger was the careless remark Claude had made about someone having already figured out, by drawing a map and integrating those marks off the coins, where that old-time Spanish cache was.

  Bríon didn’t have enough of the coins to do that yet himself, and he’d never get enough coins now to do it, so it didn’t take much of a discussion for Claude and Arch Clayton to guess what Bríon had to do now—catch Clayton.

  “That simple,” growled Claude. “I ought to be kicked for letting that slip out the way I did. But he irritated me, sitting there, looking rich and calm and untroubled about the men he’d caused to die.”

  “It’s that simple all right,” agreed Clayton. “He wants me right this minute more than he wants even that damned cache.” Clayton peered into the cup, into the coffee container, found them both empty, and stood up to say he was hungry.

  Claude jumped up with a low growl. “You just bar the door behind me. I’ll go fetch us both some grub. You’re not going out of here. Boy, don’t sell Bríon short. He’ll have eyes out there in the night all around this building just like he’ll have other eyes hunting through the dark corners of town.”

  Arch barred the door behind Sheriff Rainey and resumed his seat. Fifteen minutes later, when Claude returned, he hadn’t moved. “I’ve got an idea,” he said, as he let Claude back inside and leaned his back upon the door. “We’ll round up your vigilantes from the saloon yonder, take some lanterns, my map, and go dig up that damned cache, fetch it back here to town, and keep it where Bríon wouldn’t stand a chance of getting it.”

  Claude didn’t say anything right away. He divided up their food and coffee, sat down at his desk, and dropped his old hat atop a pile of papers as he began to eat.

  Clayton didn’t touch his food. He waited for Sheriff Rainey to comment. He fished inside a shirt pocket, brought forth a small, badly worn little black notebook, and tossed it over by Claude’s hat atop the desk. Rainey’s eyes took in the little book slowly.

  “The map in there?” he asked, around a mouthful of food.

  Clayton nodded, still waiting.

  Claude put down his sandwich and reached with his right hand for the cup of coffee. He never made it. Neither did he answer Clayton, for the door that Arch hadn’t barred from the inside after Sheriff Rainey’s return slowly opened, and silently the same three murderous-eyed Mexicans who had come in out of the night once before stepped in soundlessly out of the night, shuffled back into shadows away from the door, their cocked six-guns covering Clayton and Rainey.

  Fernando Bríon stepped through moments later. There wasn’t a movement or a sound in the jailhouse as Clayton and Rainey raised their eyes, sitting like stone. Bríon gently closed the door and leaned upon it, looking with his darkly triumphant stare at Archer Clayton. He smiled.

  “No man as lean as Sheriff Rainey would eat all the food and drink from two cups all the coffee he brought back from the little café, amigos.”

  Bríon swept an indifferent glance over where his black-eyed killers stood poised for an order to start shooting. He let his glance slip on past and probe the room, then he shrugged as though to himself; as though he still didn’t understand how Claude had hidden Arch Clayton, but as though it wasn’t really important now anyway. Then he stepped away from the door, crossed to the wall bench and sat down, pushed his long legs out, and stonily regarded Clayton.

  “A man with as much to lose as I have,” he told Arch, “takes no chances. Of course, I had my men hiding and watching. You were foolish ever to think otherwise, Señor Clayton.”

  “I didn’t think otherwise,” contradicted Arch, his right hand a good two feet away from his right hip where the lashed-down six-gun jutted from its holster.

  “No? Well then,” murmured Bríon, switching his attention to Claude Rainey. “You were foolish to bring all that food back here within sight of my spies, Sheriff, for it doesn’t take a very smart man to figure out two portions of everything mean two men are to eat, and since my spies reported no one had entered the jailhouse after I left it, why then naturally I knew you’d had Clayton hidden in here all the time.” Bríon made a little gesture of contempt. “The yanqui mind, amigos, is full of fight, yes, but it has never been very clever in other ways.”

  Claude finally recovered, and looked at Arch with troubled eyes. “That’s the second time I pulled a damned fool stunt,” he growled.

  Bríon said, “Señor Clayton, you made a map, Sheriff Rainey told me. Fine, otherwise I was going to have to take you up to Raton for the rest of the coins, then kill you and work up my own map. This way I’m saved a lot of time and hard riding. Tell me, where is this map?”

  Clayton’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker. Claude, sitting with his outstretched arm lightly lying upon the desk not six inches from the little black book, picked up his hat, put it on his head, and waited like that for Clayton’s answer. Bríon was also waiting, his face expressionless, his liquid dark eyes like black stones.

  “Near Raton,” lied Arch. “So you didn’t get saved the hard ride after all.”

  For several terrible seconds the silence settled and grew out thin again. Bríon slapped his leg and leaned as though to arise. “Then we have to take the sherif
f with us,” he said, arising, looking balefully down at his prisoners. “Otherwise he’ll send an alarm to Raton, and maybe even round up some of those fools sitting around over at the saloon waiting for … they know not what … but he knows, and I know, and you know.”

  Claude removed his hat, tossed it down angrily on top of the little black notebook, and started to jump up. One of the villainous Mexicans snarled and tipped up his pistol. Claude glared, but eased back down again, gripping both arms of his desk chair.

  “You’ve got things figured out just fine,” he snapped at Bríon. “But those men you spied out up there at the saloon’ll be on your trail before sunup when they find me missing … or dead.”

  Bríon seemed momentarily to consider this, then he jerked his head at the nearest Mexican assassin and said in swift Spanish, “Little one, this old man I believe we must kill. But not with the pistol for the noise will be formidable. Do you possess a knife?”

  In the same language the Mexican said that he had, indeed, an excellent knife; it was soundless and very sharp.

  Clayton and Rainey, understanding this soft exchange, tensed for action and Bríon noticed that, so he faced them anew, speaking once more in English. “Don’t try it, amigos. I didn’t say we wouldn’t shoot you. All I said was that it would make a lot of noise.”

  “You’re bucking a losing streak,” growled Claude. “You kill me and you’ll never get safely back to Mexico.”

  Bríon acknowledged the disposal of Claude Rainey was a problem, but he didn’t act too concerned about it. He even showed that gentle little smile again as he said, “Sheriff, one thing I’ve always admired is a brave man. So we’ll take you with us on your own horse so no one around Springville will notice anything odd until we’re too far away to be caught, then we’ll give you the Mexican fuego.” Bríon raised his eyebrows. “You know what I’m talking about?”

  Claude knew. Every yanqui in the Southwest knew. It was an old Mexican tradition, and while it definitely did show respect for a brave man, it nevertheless was quite fatal. A prisoner wasn’t turned about and shot in the back the way cravens and outlaws were executed; he was, instead, permitted one almost nonexistent chance for his life. The executioners lined up, the captive was told to run, and he was allowed sometimes as much as a two-hundred-foot start, before the gunmen tried to kill him. The number of men who’d lived through that experience in over a hundred years of Mexican application could all be counted upon the fingers of one hand. Still, it was considered homage to bravery to be given the chance.

  Sheriff Rainey slowly arose. “Let’s go,” he snapped.

  Bríon gazed at him. So did Clayton. They both seemed to harbor the notion that Claude Rainey wasn’t at all resigned, but had instead concocted some evasive notion in his head. Clayton arose, then, and upset all Bríon’s speculations with one statement.

  “Wait a minute. Bríon, how badly do you want that cache of Spanish gold?”

  The handsome Mexican’s black gaze shifted and turned gradually sharp as the gaze of a ferret. He had guessed what Arch would say, but he went along with it anyway.

  “You can guess, amigo, how badly. I’ve sent four men to their deaths and will happily kill five times that many more. So speak out, I’m listening.”

  “I can remember every twist and turn on that map in my head. We won’t have to ride to Raton. I can take you where the cache is. It’ll take most of the night, but by sunup we should be there.”

  Bríon nodded very slightly, gazing straight at Arch Clayton. “I see. And in return for showing me the cache, you want Sheriff Rainey spared. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Amigo,” purred the Mexican. “If you know, I can torture it out of you. I don’t have to bargain for …”

  “You’re dead wrong, Bríon. Torture and be damned to you. You kill Rainey and you might just as well kill me, too, because so help me Hannah, you can rip out my tongue and I’ll bleed to death and still never tell you.”

  Clayton’s square jaw was locked down hard. The look in his eyes was blackly adamant. Anyone, including Claude Rainey, who saw him standing like that, had to believe he meant exactly what he said. Bríon stood thoughtfully glowering at Clayton, his lips pursed, his eyes darkly smoldering. Then he seemed to arrive at a decision. He said, “Tell me, are you sure you can take us to the cache even in the night?”

  Clayton’s answer sounded truthful even to Sheriff Rainey. “That’s the one big problem. I’ve never had a chance yet to hunt up the cache, or I’d be able to ride right to it, night or day. That’s why I said a minute ago we’d reach it about sunup. I think I can do it in the dark, but daylight would sure be a whole lot better.”

  Bríon turned thoughtful again, still balefully watching. “All right,” he assented softly. “But we take Sheriff Rainey with us.”

  Clayton’s jaw closed down like iron again. “No we don’t. You can tie him and hide him so he can’t get loose for a day or two, but you don’t take him with us to shoot later on.”

  Bríon rammed his fisted hands deeply into his trouser pockets. He had a dilemma and he knew it. He looked at his cowboys, but they didn’t understand any of this because it was all being said in English. He gazed at Claude Rainey, then straight at Arch Clayton again. Finally he nodded his head ever so slightly.

  “On your terms,” he growled, and turned with a harsh order toward his gunmen.

  At once two of them put up their pistols and started for Claude Rainey. As they approached him, Bríon said, “Sheriff, if you think your friend has saved your life, don’t crow too loudly just yet. If he doesn’t take me to the cache, I can still return even in broad daylight, and slit your scrawny gullet.” He gestured to the Mexicans. “Tie him,” he snarled in Spanish. “And tie him well, little ones, for if he isn’t tied and we have to come back this way, of a specific certainty I’ll eat the hearts of both of you.”

  The Mexicans were rough at their work, but they were also obviously skilled. They used Claude’s trouser belt, his shell belt, and even his neckerchief and handkerchief to bind him. Clayton watched, as did Bríon, the latter smiling at Sheriff Rainey’s grimaces of pain as his tormentors bore down at their work. When they were finished, they only lacked one thing—a gag for Claude’s mouth. Bríon handed them a handkerchief from his own pocket, immaculate and of tough linen. “Let him try chewing through that,” he said in English to Arch Clayton.

  One of the kneeling men asked a question. Bríon didn’t answer right away; he turned, gazed into the big strap-steel cage, then went on probing the room for the best place to store Sheriff Rainey. Finally he said, in Spanish, since there was no suitable place indoors, they should haul Rainey around back where an abandoned horse shed stood, and toss him out there. Then, to Clayton, Bríon said, “All right, amigo, I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Now let’s see if you will keep your part.”

  As the Mexicans eased open the door to make certain it was safe to pass out into the night with their burden, Clayton and Claude Rainey exchanged a long look. Bríon saw and nodded gently.

  “Very touching,” he said, and reached for Arch’s six-gun, straightened back holding the gun, then carelessly tossed it atop the desk beside Sheriff Rainey’s hat. “Stand up,” he ordered Clayton, and as the grunting Mexicans lugged Claude Rainey outside, Bríon gestured. “Walk out, act perfectly natural, my friend, and follow those men around behind the jailhouse where we left our horses. I’ll send one of my men to steal a mount for you, then we’ll be on our way.”

  When the men moved outside, that little moon was up there, but it wasn’t much thicker than it had been the night before, so the night was as dark as ever.

  Chapter Ten

  Where Bríon’s men dumped Claude there was a jutting stone. It gouged him hard but he made no effort to roll off it until he was certain the Mexicans were gone.

  He heard Bríon and Arch Clayton walk by outward
bound toward the yonder alleyway. He also heard Bríon instruct one of his men to go steal a saddled horse from one of the tie racks out front. After that, although he knew they were still back there, except for the abrasive rub of leather over leather and the soft music of rein chains and spur rowels, there was no more talk. Finally, however, when the Mexican returned leading a saddled horse, Bríon’s last command was given.

  “Mount up, Mister Clayton. Eusebio, lead out, and be very careful. Stay in the alleyway until we’re out of their town.”

  Claude heaved himself off the rock and lay panting for a moment. He had very little hope of wrenching loose from the way those experienced vaqueros had trussed him up, and back there in his office while he’d been able to do so, he’d fervently hoped they’d put him in the cell, or roll him into a corner, for then Barney or Mather or someone would surely have come along sooner or later to release him. But this place where he now was had been disused for so long the chance of an impromptu discovery was even too remote for him to hope for.

  He knew the shed, had in fact used it for his horse up until two years previous. It was rickety and musty and strong-smelling from rats and mice. Although it stood less than a hundred feet behind the jailhouse, in his present view he thought it could’ve been a hundred miles for all the good distance might do him.

  He lay relaxed for a moment thinking what should be done. After he got free, he’d get the vigilantes, of course, and at the first shade of dawn track Bríon down. He groaned; by the first shade of dawn Arch Clayton would be dead.

  He heaved around, seeking something he might rely upon to cut through the trouser belt holding his wrists tightly behind his back. There was nothing; even the manger was shiny-smooth from his horse having rubbed on it. There were no protruding nails either; he’d been careful of them and had diligently pounded them back when they’d appeared so his horse wouldn’t be snagged. There was nothing at all he might rub against and free himself.