by Andre Norton
"Captain, I can prove everything I've told you. In Kentucky I have kin. They can----"
"Kentucky!" Bayliss snorted. "Kentucky is far away, Kirby. Do you expect us to sit around waiting for some mythical kin of yours to appear from Kentucky with another set of lies to open this door?" He pounded with one fist against the cell portal. "I'm a reasonable man, Kirby, and I'm not asking too much--you know that. What're Kitchell, Rennie, Topham to you that you're willing to face a noose for them?"
"Kitchell I know nothin' about--except what I've heard and that's not good." Drew sat down on the bunk, partly because the chill which had crept down his back had poured into his legs and they felt oddly weak under him. "Reese Topham and Mr. Rennie--as far as I'm concerned they're honest men. I don't think, Captain, that you can prove I'm not, either."
"There is such a thing as over-confidence, Kirby, and it always comes to the fore in your kind!" Bayliss returned. "But after you do some serious thinking I believe you'll begin to see that this is one time you're not going to be able to lie or ride yourself out!"
He left without a backward glance. Drew picked up the plate, pushed the spoon back and forth through the congealing mess left on it. He could not choke down another mouthful. Just how much power did Bayliss have? Could he try a civilian by court-martial and get away with it? And to whom could Drew possibly appeal? Topham? Rennie? Apparently Bayliss wanted them enough to suggest Drew testify against them. Did he actually believe Drew guilty, or had that been a subtle invitation to perjury? The Kentuckian set the plate on the floor and got up again to make a minute study of the cell. His thought now was that maybe his only chance would be to break out.
But his first appraisal of the detention quarters had been the right one. Given a pickax and a shovel, and an uninterrupted period of, say, a week, he might be able to tunnel under one of the log walls. But otherwise he could not see any other way of getting free--save to walk out through the cell door. Drew threw himself on the bunk and tried to think logically and clearly, but his tired body won over his mind and he slept.
"Hey, you! Kirby, wake up! There's someone here to see you!"
Drew reached for a Colt which was no longer under his pillow and then rolled over and sat up groggily, rubbing one hand across his smarting eyes. The lantern light had given way to dusty sunshine, one bar of which now caught him straight across the face.
"All right, Kirby, suppose you tell me what this is all about!"
Drew's head came up, his hand fell. Hunt Rennie and Lieutenant Spath stood side by side beyond the bars. Or rather, not Hunt Rennie, but _Don_ Cazar was there--for the owner of the Range was wearing the formal Spanish dress in which Drew had first seen him. And his expression was one of withdrawal.
"They think that I'm one of Kitchell's men and that I had something to do with those stolen horses we found on the Range." He blurted it out badly.
"They also showed me about six hundred dollars in gold found on you," Rennie returned. "I thought you needed a job. You told Topham that, didn't you?"
"Yes, suh." Drew's bewilderment grew stronger. Hunt Rennie sounded as if he believed part of Bayliss' accusation!
"That money's rightfully mine," Drew added.
"You can prove it?"
"Sure. Back in Kentucky...." Drew paused. Back-in-Kentucky proof would not help him here and now in Arizona.
"Kentucky?" Rennie's withdrawal appeared to increase by a score of miles. "I understood you were from Texas."
"Told you, Rennie," the lieutenant said, "his story doesn't hold together at all. A couple of really good questions and it falls right apart."
"I came here from Texas." Drew took stiff hold of himself. He was walking that narrow ledge again, and with a wind ready to push him off into a bottomless gulf. "Rode with a wagon train as far as Santa Fe--from there on with military supply wagons to Tucson. I was in Kentucky after the war; went home with a boy from my scout company...."
"Who gave you two blooded horses and a belt full of gold for a good-by present?" scoffed Spath.
"_Have_ you any proof of what you say closer than Kentucky?" Rennie ignored the lieutenant's aside. "I can account for your time on the Range, or most of it. But you'll have to answer for this money and where you came from originally. What about your surrender parole? I know you did have papers for the horses--Callie saw them. Produce those...."
"I can't." Drew's hands balled into fists where they rested on his knees.
"Sure you can't--you never had any!" Spath returned.
"I had them. I don't have them now." What was the use of trying to tell Rennie about his suspicions of Shannon? And if Johnny had destroyed the papers as well he might have, Drew could never make them believe him, anyway.
"Kirby, this is serious!" said Rennie. "You ride in from nowhere with two fine horses wearing a brand you say is your own. You have more money than any drifter ever carries. You claim to be a Texan, and yet now you say all the proof of your identity is in Kentucky. And--you are not Anson Kirby's cousin, are you?" That last question was shot out so suddenly that Drew answered before he thought.
"No."
"I thought so." Hunt Rennie nodded. "Education is a polisher, but I don't think three or four years' schooling would have made a Texas range rider ask for sherry over whisky--except to experiment with an exotic beverage. There were other things, too, which did not fit with the Kirby background once Anson turned up. Just who are you?"
Drew shrugged. "That doesn't matter now--as the lieutenant and Captain Bayliss have pointed out--if my only proof is in Kentucky and out of reach."
"I suppose you have heard of telegraphs?" Rennie's sarcasm was cold. "Communication with Kentucky is not so impossible as you appear to think. You give me a name and address--or names and addresses--and I'll do the rest. All you have to do is substantiate background and your army service, proving no possible contact with Kitchell. Then the captain will be forced to admit a mistake."
Give Hunt Rennie the name of Cousin Meredith Barrett, of Aunt Marianna's husband, Major Forbes--the addresses of Red Springs or Oak Hill? Drew could not while there was a chance that Anse might find the papers or make Johnny Shannon admit taking them. The Kentuckian could _not_ tell Hunt Rennie who he was here and now.
"I want to talk to Anse," he said out of his own thoughts. "I've got to talk to Anse!"
"He's gone." Rennie's two words did not make sense at first. When they did, Drew jumped up and caught at the bars.
"Gone? Where?"
"Cleared out--got clean away." Again Spath supplied the information. "Or so they tell us. He went back to the Stronghold after he broke through our lines. But when a patrol rode down to get him, he was gone."
"Why?" Drew asked. "Why pick him up?"
"Why? Because he's in this, too!" Spath retorted. "Probably rode straight to Kitchell's hideout. Now, Mr. Rennie, time's up. The captain authorized this visit because he thought you might just get something out of the prisoner. Well, you did: an admission he's been passing under a false name. We know _what_ he is--a renegade horse thief."
Drew was no longer completely aware of either man. But, as Rennie turned away, he broke through the mist of confusion which seemed to be enclosing him more tightly than the walls of the cell.
"Shannon. Where's Shannon?"
Hunt Rennie's head swung around. "What about Johnny?" he demanded.
"He took my papers--out of my belt!" This was probably the worst thing he could do, to accuse Johnny Shannon without proof.
"What papers, and why should he want them?" If Rennie had been remote before, now he was as chill as the Texas northers Anse had joked about.
"The parole, the horse papers, some letters...."
"You saw him take them? You know why he should want them?"
Drew shook his head once. He could not answer the second question now.
"Then how do you know Johnny took them?"
How did he know? Drew could give no sane reason for his conviction that it had been Johnny's finge
rs which had looted the pocket of papers and stuffed leaves and grass in their place.
"You'll have to do better than that, kid!" Spath laughed. "You must have known Shannon was gone, too. By the time he's back from Mexico he won't need to prove that's a lie."
Drew disregarded the lieutenant's comments--Rennie was the one who mattered. And in that moment the Kentuckian knew that he had made a fatal mistake. Why hadn't he agreed to telegraph Kentucky? Now there was no hope. As far as _Don_ Cazar was concerned, one Drew Kirby could be written off the list. Drew had made an enemy of the very person he most wanted to convince. The Kentuckian swung around and walked to the one small, barred window through which he could see the sun. He walked blindly, trying not to hear those spurred boots moving out of the door ... going away....
14
Three good strides one way, four another to measure the cell. Morning sun, gone by noon, daylight outside the window becoming dusk in turn. They fed him army rations, delivered under guard. And the guard never spoke. There was no use asking questions, and Drew had none left to ask, anyway. Except, by the morning of the second day after Rennie's visit, his wonder grew. Why was Bayliss delaying a formal charge against him? This wait could mean that the captain was not finding it so easy to prove he really did have a "renegade horse thief" in custody. But Drew knew he must pin no hopes on a thread that fine.
What had happened to Anse? And Shannon--gone to Mexico? He must have ridden back with the _Coronel_. Drew could expect nothing more from Rennie, or Topham. The Trinfans? Spath had marched them back, too, along with his prisoner, but the lieutenant had not had them under arrest. The mustangers were well known in this district and could prove their reason for being where they were found. And Kitchell had raided one of their corrals last season, so they had no possible tie with the elusive outlaw. Probably by now the Trinfans had returned to their hunt for the Pinto.
No, there was no use thinking that anyone was going to get him out of this--no one but himself, and he had bungled badly so far. Drew, his body tired with pacing the small cell, flung himself down on the bunk and listened to the sounds of the camp. He had pretty well worked out the routine by those sounds. The camp itself was a makeshift affair. Its core, of which this cell was a part, was an old ranch building. There were tents and a few lean-tos, on a plateau bounded on the east by a ravine, on the west by a creek bottom. Huts of stone, rawhide, and planks served as officers' quarters. In fact it was no more a fort than the bivouacs he had known during the war. Unfortunately this room was the most substantial part.
If he could only get out, and pick up his horses, then perhaps he could head for Mexico. There was a war on down there; a soldier could find an anonymous refuge in a foreign army. Shelby's whole Confederate command had crossed the Rio Grande to do just that. That part was easy. To get out of here--that was what he could not accomplish.
Two men always came together when they fed him, and they didn't open the cell door, but just pushed the plate through. A sentry was on duty outside. Drew could beat time to the sound of those footfalls day and night. And suppose he did get free of the cell; he would have to have a horse, supplies, arms....
Drew rolled over on the cot and buried his face on his folded arms. He might as well try to get out of here by using will power alone to turn locks! They left the lantern burning all night to keep a light on him, and the sentry looked in the peephole every time he passed.
The Kentuckian did not know just when it was that he became conscious of the noise overhead. Lizards--maybe even rats--could move about the beams, hidden by the age-browned manta strips. But surely this was too late in the season for a lizard to be so lively by night when the temperature dropped with the rapidity of a weight plunging earth-ward. And rats aloft....
Drew did not change his position on the bunk, but his body tensed. No rat would stay in one place, gnawing with such purpose and concentration at a spot in the darkest corner of the cell roof. Anse? How or why the Texan could be at work there, Drew did not know. But that there was a stealthy attempt being made to reach him from above he was now sure.
His teeth closed on his wrist as he lay listening, to that scratching above, to the regular advance and retreat of the sentry. He heard the man pause by the door and knew he was under inspection. Well, let the Yankee look! He would see his prisoner peacefully sleeping.
Now the trooper was moving on, the noise above became sharper. There was a slight crackle. The linen roofing sagged under a burden, and Drew caught his breath in a gasp. Miraculously the yellow cloth supported the object--a bulge as big as a saddlebag. A portion of the roof which had given way?
The scratching, which had stilled, began again. Then the bulge was gone, pulled away from above. Dust sprinkled down from the disturbed manta. In the next instant Drew moved.
Using his hands on either side of his body, he raked up the straw which filled the box bunk. In a swift moment, timed to the sentry's passing to the farthest point from the spy hole, the Kentuckian rolled to the floor, slapped and pulled the blanket into place over the mounded straw. Not too good--it certainly would not fool any inspection within the room. But in the lantern light and this far from the door, the improvised dummy might satisfy the glance of the sentry for some precious seconds.
Drew was across the cell, flattened against the wall under the still quivering strip of material. More bulges appeared and disappeared, fragments fallen and retrieved. Then a sharp point pierced downward, the tip of a knife slitting the tough stuff. A slash, and the manta peeled back against the wall of the cell.
"_Seor_--?" It was so faint a whisper Drew hardly caught it.
"Yes!" He looked up with desperate eagerness into what he had hoped to see--the dark splotch of a hole.
A rawhide lariat smoothly braided, oiled into supple silkiness, dangled through. Drew got his hands on it, pulled it back against the wall as the sentry returned. He held his breath during that pause beside the spy hole, a pause which lengthened alarmingly. Then his body jerked in answer to a sound a half second before he realized what manner of sound. The sentry had sneezed. He sniffled, too, loudly; then he went on to complete his beat. The blanket and the straw--they had worked!
Drew pulled at the lariat, was answered by a return jerk. He jumped and began to climb. Then, with a wrench he was through the hole, other hands helping to pull.
"Come--pronto!" The hands were pushing, urging. He wriggled forward. Teodoro Trinfan! But why?
There was no time to ask; Drew could only obey directions. They made a worm's progress along the full length of the old ranch building, and dropped the lariat for a ladder to the ground. They crossed the small part of the camp near the ravine with the same caution they had used on the roof.
"_Seor_..." Teodoro's lips were at Drew's ear as the boy pressed against him in a thin cover of shadow. "Left--a big stone--put your hands on it--swing about and down."
Drew had to take that on blind trust. He had no idea what kind of a drop waited below, and only by firm will power did he follow orders. But his boot soles met a solid surface. Then he was caught about the waist and Hilario's voice whispered to him.
"_Seor_, you stand--so." Hands fumbled about him, looping him with a supporting lariat. "Now--we go! Your hand, _seor_." Drew's left hand was caught in a tight grip which pulled him to the right, face to the wall. So secured, he inched along what he knew must be the face of the ravine, his toes on some small ledge midway between lip and foot.
Somehow the three of them reached ground level, their diagonal course of descent putting some distance between them and the camp. In spite of the cold of the night, Drew was wet with sweat as they threaded through heady sage brush. Now came the scent of horses, the sound of a hoof stamped impatiently on gravel.
"Trinfan?"
Topham! Here?
"_S._"
At Hilario's hissed assent, a figure detached itself from the utter black of the bushes and moved forward into a sliver of moonlight.
