by Brand, Max
As he came to the casement above he paused. The shaken branches gave off a rustling sound as though a wind were blowing through them. Below him he still heard the droning of the drawbeam as the horses pulled it on their rounds. And there was no human being in view.
He sat in the Casement and peered inside past the lamp. It was a big room, quite emptily furnished. He saw the sheen of a goatskin rug on the floor, and then the body of a woman stretched face down on the bed, with her arms thrown out crookedly. So she might lie in death. Some of her hair had escaped and streamed in disorder to the side, glistening black. So she would lie, in fact, if she had been slain after a struggle and thrown down by brutal hands, to lie as she fell.
The window rose silently and easily at the touch of Silver. After what he had seen, he could not have been stayed from entering that room even if there had been armed men in it.
He lifted the lamp, put it to one side, and slithered through. Then he drew down the window, replaced the lamp, and turned, breathing more easily.
His absence from the horses might be marked before long, but the droning noise of the water wheel gave proof that the team was still at labor. Yet even when his absence was marked, who could guess, unless his ascent had been seen, that he was here in this room where the light shone from the window.
“Señorita!” he whispered.
She was not asleep. Even that lightly spoken word made her spring up from the bed and face him. And at the sight of her face, he was glad that he had come. He laid a finger on his lips and gestured behind him toward the lamp, as though it were significant of the danger in which he stood.
She had not spoken, but, stepping back toward the wall a little, she caught up her loosened hair with an instinctive gesture and wound it into place. Understanding suddenly came into her dark eyes.
“You’ve come through the window? Then you’ve been seen, and unless they sent you, you’re trapped here!”
“I was not seen,” said Silver, trying her with English. “The horses still pull at the water wheel. You can hear ’em. But there’s no one on the driver’s seat.”
“Who are you? And why have you come?” she asked, in English.
“Because I knew that some one was here with her back against the wall. No one sent me. It was chiefly guesswork. But if you want to leave, there’s an open chance by climbing down that vine that runs up the face of the house. Can you manage that?”
“You’re not a Mexican,” she said. “It’s stain that’s on your skin, not the real color.”
“You have eyes,” said Silver. “But will you come?”
“If you’re American,” she said, “don’t think of me, but do something for one of your own people. He’s held here. They’re guarding him in the loft of the barn. Forget me. It’s not my life that they want, but they’ll surely murder him in the end!”
“Do you know his name?” asked Silver.
“Brender. But his name doesn’t matter. He’s young. He’s thrown himself away trying to help me. If he dies — ”
“Rap Brender?” exclaimed Silver. “And these devils are holding him? Rap Brender? I’ll find him! Is there a way through the house to the stable?”
“There is. But the house is filled with men. You couldn’t pass through. Go back the way you came — ”
“Hush!” said Silver, holding up a hand.
For a change had come, and a vibrant sound had left the air. He knew what it meant. The horses were no longer dragging at the water wheel, and in a moment their idleness would be known; men would surely come to inquire into the silence, and the way of retreat down the climbing vine would be under observation.
He sprang into the casement to make sure, and as he had suspected, two men were coming out of the, inner patio, pointing out the stationary team to one another.
Poor Tonio would have to sweat for this. He would have a chance to wish that he had promised not pennies, but dollars, for the honest tending of his team. But now the first way of retreat was thoroughly blocked.
Silver turned back to the girl.
“They’re on guard again at the water wheel,” he said. “We can’t go back by that way. There must be some chance of getting through the house.”
“There’s none.” She shook her head. “Unless you can get across the hall and into a room that opens onto the patio — and even the inner patio is guarded now. There’s no way for you! Heaven help you! Who are you, and why have you come?”
He leaned his big shoulders against the wall and turned his eyes slowly about the room.
These seconds were counting against him, he knew, but it would be worse to make a blind move than none at all. All the interior of the house was a sealed book to him. He would be stepping into darkness.
“My name is Silver,” he told her. “If I drop my life here — well, it’s a thing that Rap Brender saved for me not long ago. They’ll have to pay something before they conclude the bargain, however.”
He touched the gun under his arm, but did not draw it.
“Is the door locked?” he asked.
“From the outside. Think of something to do! You can’t stay here. And there’s no way for you to retreat. You’re lost! One more life to them. Señor Silver — ”
“Say it in English,” said Silver. “Just now the Spanish hurts my ears.”
A footfall came down the hall rapidly and paused at the door. The girl dared not speak. Wildly she gestured toward the big clothespress that stood at the side of the room, while she threw herself as before, face downward on the bed.
One door of the clothespress was open. Silver was instantly inside it, and hidden behind the long, shimmering folds of a yellow slicker. Over the shoulder of that coat he could see the door opened by that same Alonso Santos, that same big fellow of the mustaches and the militant carriage that Silver had seen in the saloon this day.
The Mexican tossed the door shut behind him, and the careless gesture sent a cannon-shot report through the room. The girl started up from the bed and stared wildly all about her, fixing her glance on Santos at last.
“What has happened?” she asked.
Santos shaped his mustache for a moment with one hand before he answered.
“Something odd has happened in the outer patio. It seems that a rascal of a peon called Tonio left his team at the water wheel. He was fetched out of a shed close by and swore that he left the team in the hands of another fellow all in rags, who swore that he had crossed the desert to-day in search of work from Señor Higgins. Tonio let the man drive the team while he went off to play at dice, and presently the water wheel stopped turning — the stranger was gone. And it seemed to Tom Higgins that perhaps the man might have gotten into the house. How? Well, by climbing up the big vine and disappearing through your window. Come, my dear. Have you seen the man here?”
“Is it likely?” she asked.
“I’m not talking of likelihood,” said Santos. “Answer me yes or no. Have you seen him?”
Silver waited for her to lie.
Instead she fixed her glance steadily, calmly, on Santos.
“I’ve seen several sorts of men in this room,” she said. “What manner of man was this?”
“A big, ragged peon,” said Santos.
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen a Mexican in this room since supper was carried in for me.”
“Which you sent out without tasting, eh?” said Santos. “Do you worry so much about the gringo, my dear?”
Her eyes closed, or almost closed.
“What have they done with him?” she asked.
“Nothing, Rosa,” said Santos. “And they will do nothing. That is, until they’ve used him as a bait. It appears that he has a friend, a certain famous vagabond called Silver. And there is such a devotion between the two gringos, that since this Brender is caught and held, the other one, the important one, is sure to put his head into the trap. So they’ll hold Brender until Silver appears, and then they may have the pleasure of dying together. That, I think, i
s the design of Mr. Christian.”
“And who is Mr. Christian?” asked the girl calmly, as though the rest of the speech had meant nothing to her.
“He is a tall fellow with a pale face, and a soft voice, and the soul of a tiger, and the brain of a bloodless fiend,” said Santos. “But now I must look at the casement and open the window to make sure that there are no traces on the sill.”
He crossed the room out of Silver’s sight, and presently there was a slight sound as the sash of the window was raised. Silver stepped instantly from his concealment.
He carried a revolver in his hand, and it was well for Santos that at that moment he was sprawling far out onto the deep casement, pushing the lamp to one side as he looked down at the upper branches and the foliage of the climbing vine.
So Silver went sidling to the door, his step soundless, his eyes flashing from the girl to the form in the window.
And she, her chin still in her hand, did not stir. She hardly seemed to glance at Silver, and the only sign she gave of emotion was the sudden tightening of the grip of the hand that clasped her chin.
The door yielded soundlessly to Silver’s touch. He slid the revolver back beneath his armpit and stepped out into the hall, drawing the door shut behind him. As he closed it without a word, he heard Santos saying:
“On my word, I think that two of the twigs have been broken. The wind may have done it, perhaps. But if you — ”
The closing of the door shut out the rest of that speech, and Silver found himself standing in a long corridor, lighted faintly from one end by a hanging lamp.
He came to the head of a flight of steps and ran lightly down the windings to the floor below.
Here again a hanging lamp gave light to the corridor and showed him a door ajar. Through it he peered. It was a bedroom, and vacant, so far as he could see. But all was dim before his eyes, since what light entered the chamber came from lanterns in the outer patio, which was just beyond this wall.
He entered, closing the door, and remained for a moment drawing his breath. Then he passed to the window.
Beyond it he saw that the team at the well had again commenced its rounds, and the dull snoring sound, and the pulsing gush of the water from the chain of buckets, was passing softly into the night, almost overcome by the rattling of active voices.
Another man, not poor Tonio, sat on the drawbeam, for Tonio himself was held by either hand by a stout peon, and the shirt had been pulled from his brown back. A crowd stood around him, some holding lanterns that might have helped Silver to see the scene, but there were too many shifting figures that continually stepped between him and the picture that he wanted to make out.
If he could not see Tonio clearly, he could make out the man who was master of ceremonies. He was an old Mexican with a head of pure white, and he stood now with a black snake in his hand, tucking up the sleeve over his right arm.
As he prepared to flog Tonio, he made a little speech.
“Now, my children,” he said, “you will see a lesson. The señor is too kind. He is too gentle. Only now and then his great heart is moved with anger, and this is one of the few times. A wretched rascal like this Tonio must make us all have trouble. What? Would it be very much for the señor to grow disgusted with us all and march us off from our homes on this green island, this happy place? A few more lazy gamblers, dice lovers, like Tonio, and we are all ruined. For our own sakes, I am going to lay on the lash. And for the good of your lazy soul, Tonio. Stand still. Don’t struggle. There are ten strokes to fall, unless you howl. And that will cost you ten more. The señor will not wish to hear you yelling like a dog under the whip!”
And the lash swung in the air like a thin shadow and fell with a spat as of two open palms striking together.
There was no cry from Tonio. And Silver, realizing that hardly any power in the world could draw the attention of the crowd from the beating, determined to use this opportunity for leaving the house. If he could get out of the outer patio and around to the stable, he could try his best to reach Brender. As for the girl — they would then have two pairs of hands to help her!
He slid through the window and dropped to the ground as the fourth blow fell. And then a sudden howl, beginning loudly, wailing away to a drone, burst from the lips of the tortured Tonio.
CHAPTER XIV
The Barn Loft
THE loft of the barn of Tom Higgins was built on a huge scale to match the barn itself. In that barn were sheltered, at night, scores of milch cows; and, though a great percentage of their feed was green alfalfa, there was also a huge stock of baled hay on hand for their use and for the beef cattle and the horses and the mules of Tom Higgins. For his wealth, as has been said, was almost entirely on the hoof. After the last autumn cutting of the alfalfa, that immense loft was crammed to the roof with the baled hay, but earlier in the year the stock diminished a great deal, for, of course, it was a maxim with Higgins to feed out his total supply of hay each year. Time would spoil the surplus, and it was not profitable to haul the hay across the burning width of the desert to the nearest town.
That was the reason why the whole end of the loft was now free space, with a wall of bales stepping back in several sections toward the center of the barn. And in that free space Rap Brender was imprisoned. It was considered an ideal place because it removed the prisoner and his doings from the observation of house servants, and although the peons of the Higgins place were proverbial for their silence, still it was preferable to have as little talk as possible about Brender.
Moreover, there was plenty of room for both the prisoner and the two guards who were kept on duty day and night, each pair taking an eight-hour shift. Three rolls of blankets had been rolled down on a quantity of hay, and the ropes that bound Brender also tied him to the big wooden pillar that rose to the support of the roof. On each side of the room there was a small dormer window, and through a trapdoor protruded the head of a ladder that led to the ground floor of the barn. Up through that open trap came the noises of the feeding animals beneath, the shouting and the cursing of the Mexican peons who tended them. But at this hour of the early night all was quiet, except for the soft rustlings of hay, and the subdued, deep sound of the grinding jaws.
It was the watch of Buck and Stew. They sat at a small table that had been brought up for their comfort, and they played blackjack, each turning a restless head now and then to keep an eye on the prisoner.
But Brender lay flat on his back, his tied hands crossed on his breast, his legs straight out as he stared at the black, monstrous shadows that crossed the rafters.
Suddenly he sat up.
Buck leaped instantly to his feet and drew a gun.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” exclaimed Stew, half rising, also.
He turned his head sharply toward the window at his right. A long-drawn human howl came ringing through the night air. He hastened to the window, with Buck behind him.
“I can hear the whack of the whip,” said Buck. “They’re beating up a peon, I guess.”
Then a voice spoke out of the dimness toward the trapdoor. They saw the head and shoulders of a man.
“A lot of blind bats!” said the voice of Barry Christian. “I could have picked off the pair of you, and no trouble at all!”
He stepped up onto the floor of the loft and came scowling toward them. But the anger which had made him break out he now controlled immediately.
He unrolled a bundle and spread on the table a coat and riding trousers, a flannel shirt, a bandanna handkerchief, and a pair of riding boots, together with a big sombrero.
“A dog was nosing around in the brush of this plantation a little while ago,” he said, “and the pup began yapping, and some children who were playing unearthed this bundle out of a shrub. Take a look at it. Any of you ever see it before?”
“No,” said Buck.
“Not that I know of,” agreed Stew.
Christian picked up the lantern from the table and shone the light of it suddenly a
nd closely into the face of Brender. The eyes were wide and staring, though they instantly squinted.
“You saw it, though!” said Christian.
“Saw it? No — I never did,” said Brender, swallowing hard in the midst of his sentence.
“You — never did, eh?” mocked Christian.
He sat down at the table and gave Brender his gentle, deadly smile.
“You never saw these clothes, eh? Never? Not on a tall fellow with big shoulders! Not on a tall fellow with a fine big head on his shoulders? Not a lad by the general name of Silver?”
“Those? No!” exploded Brender violently. “Not the least bit. Nothing like his clothes! The — the — the coat’s all different — the — everything’s different!”
Christian smiled at him, and began to roll up the bundle again.
“That’s enough,” he declared. “If Silver had to lie for you, Rap, he’d do a better job of it than you’ve done.”
“I tell you — I swear — ” said Rap Brender.
“Ah, Rap,” protested the soothing voice of Christian in his most ministerial, bedside manner. “Not perjury, dear lad. Any other sin, but not perjury. Not that! These bodies of ours may walk in a great many dark paths, but consider your immortal soul, Rap, and don’t swear it away. These are the clothes of Silver. I could see the truth shine out of that handsome young face of yours.”
“If those are Silver’s clothes, then Silver himself ain’t far away!” breathed Buck. “I knew it. I knew it minutes back. I got a puckering of the skin and a chill up the back. I knew that he was in the air!”
“Gimme a man to stand watch here, will you?” said Stew. “Look at the yaller hound, turning green under my eyes! He’s scared to death. Gimme a fighting man with me, if Silver’s going to be on deck pretty soon!”
Christian shook his head.
“Perhaps a little fear will keep the eyes wider, Stew,” he said. “And the sort of fear that Buck feels may make his body shake — but not his gun hand. I’ve seen Buck tremble before this, but I never saw him miss when he was shaking! No, I’ll trust to Buck. And to a few more that I’m going to send up here. Because you’re right, Buck. If we have Silver’s clothes, the man himself is not far off. Besides, I’ve been hearing a queer story about a big peon — a new man that no one knows anything about, a fellow who walked all across the desert to find a job here. A barefooted peon. And no one had brains enough to ask him how he could cross the desert in his bare feet!”
