“At that, I figure he’d be a mean man to tangle with,” Lance commented.
“You’re probably right.” Lockwood nodded. “Well, I’m going to get some chow. My stomach is commencing to think my throat’s cut. What you going to do, Lance?”
“I’m aiming to drop in on the hotel sometime this afternoon and get further acquainted with Professor Jones. I’ve got to see about getting a room there myself anyway.”
Oscar asked, mouthing a lemon drop, as he dropped into the chair vacated by Lockwood, “You figuring to see if you can pump him about those Loafer-for-William plants?”
“Mebbe.” Lance smiled. “I’d just like to get better acquainted with him.”
He and the sheriff passed through the doorway and started along Main Street. Lance mentioned that he had seen Herrick leave the bank with the bank’s owner, Gillett Addison. Lockwood frowned and said, “I doubt if it means anything. Gill Addison has always been on the up-and-up so far as I know. Incidentally, if you’re going to see the professor you’ll probably meet his niece. She’s a right likely looking filly, if I ever saw one. Her father owned a ranch down in Sonora. He was murdered about a year back. Nobody ever did know who done it. Some Yaquente Indians found the body and brought it into Pozo Verde——”
“They’re sure the Yaquentes didn’t kill him, eh?”
“I don’t know how sure they are. Being in Sonora, the whole business was up to the Mexican authorities, you know. What they ever did, if anything, I haven’t heard. It was out of my jurisdiction, of course——Say, speaking of Yaquentes—there’s a couple of ’em now across the street.”
Lance’s gaze followed the sheriff’s pointing finger and saw the two Indians. They were well setup men, clothed in loose, flopping cotton garments, with huge straw sombreros on their heads. One was in his bare feet; his companion wore crude leather sandals. They looked much like the peons to be found throughout Mexico, though there was an air of independence about the two men that almost smacked of belligerence.
“Right peaceful-looking hombres,” Lockwood muttered grimly, “but they’re sure hell on wheels when it comes to fighting. You give them two a six-shooter and a carbine and a bandoleer of ca’tridges and you’d be surprised how it ’d transform ’em. I know; I fought ’em some about fifteen years back. The Mex Government has got ’em held down to some extent at present, but no man can say they were entirely conquered.”
“What do you suppose those two are doing in Pozo Verde?”
“They cross the line and come to town every once in a while,” Lockwood replied. “A small bunch of ’em get a few pesos and come up here for a buying spree every so often. We never have no trouble with ’em. They never do any drinking here—mostly they’re satisfied to buy some beads or knives or bolts of colored cotton——”
“Here’s three more of ’em,” Lance interrupted, “coming along the street on this side.”
The sheriff didn’t seem greatly concerned. The three Yaquentes, dresed approximately the same as the first two Lance had seen, passed them swiftly and turned in at Parker’s General Store.
Lance laughed. “I hope somebody in that store can speak Yaquente.”
“He can’t,” Lockwood said dryly. “Nobody speaks Yaquente but a Yaquente. But they get along all right. Some of those Indians can habla Spanish right well.”
Lance parted from the sheriff at the corner of Laredo Street and crossed diagonally to the steps of the San Antonio Hotel which stood at the intersection of the two thoroughfares. As he mounted the steps to the hotel porch which stretched across the front of the building’s lower floor, fronting on Main, Lance glanced along the street in either direction. From this higher point of vantage he had a clear view both ways. His eyes narrowed a trifle as he noticed on the sidewalks still more Yaquente Indians.
“Knowing what I do of Yaquentes,” Lance muttered, “I sure wouldn’t feel too good about ’em coming over here. Howsomever, they’re peaceful now, and I reckon Ethan Lockwood knows his business.” Dismissing the thought from his mind, he passed on into the hotel.
The hotel lobby reached the length of the front of the building. To the left as one entered was a doorway into the hotel bar. At the opposite end of the lobby was a staircase ascending to the rooms on the second floor. Midway between the two was a small oaken desk with behind it a series of pigeonholes for room keys and letters. Several men were seated about the lobby. Most of them, Lance decided after a brief glance, were drummers for liquor or hardware houses or cattle buyers in Pozo Verde to make contacts with the neighboring ranches.
Lance negotiated for a room and secured one on the second floor, facing Main Street. “I’ll see it later,” he told the clerk who wanted to show the room. “My bedroll is with my horse over at the Lone Star Livery. I’ll bring over what dunnage I need later on.” He signed the register, then asked, “By the way, Professor Jones is staying here, isn’t he?”
The clerk nodded. “Oh yes. His room is just down the hall from the one you’ve taken…. No, I’m afraid you can’t see him now. He’s out, I believe, riding with his niece. You know, studying cactus——” The clerk smiled a bit superciliously. “Why anyone should bother with such plants is more than I can understand. Now, a nice geranium in a window pot—that’s different——”
“Everybody to his own taste, I reckon,” Lance commented. “The professor goes in pretty heavy for cactus, eh?”
“More than seems reasonable.” The clerk nodded. “He’s already packed three boxes with plants and has them stored in our storage room until he leaves.” The clerk whirled the register around and read Lance’s name. “Oh, Mr Tolliver. You’re the one who found that murdered man, aren’t you?—Frank Bowman?”
Lance nodded and started to turn away. “Tell the professor I dropped in, will you? I’ll be back later on——”
He stopped short as a new voice broke in, “I’m a friend of Professor Jones’. Perhaps I can help you out if you’ll let me know what you want. It may save you a trip back here. I’m Malcolm Fletcher. Did I understand you to say you’re Tolliver?”
“I’m Tolliver.” Lance shook hands with Fletcher, whom he’d noticed seated at the far end of the hotel lobby. Fletcher was a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped man with a lantern jaw, piercing eyes and brown hair, somewhere in the vicinity of thirty or thirty-five years of age. He wore high-heeled boots and corduroy trousers. A black sombrero was shoved to the back of his head. He had the appearance of a cowman, though Lance felt he hadn’t worked at that trade for some time. There was an air of affluence about Fletcher.
“… and if you care to state your business,” he was saying, “I may be able to help you out.”
“No particular business to state.” Lance smiled. “I just met the professor on the street this morning, and he asked me to call. I’ll see him later.”
“It wasn’t about a job as a guide you wanted to see him?”
Lance shook his head. “Why should I?”
Fletcher laughed. “No reason at all,” he replied. “I just thought you were after that job Bowman had before his death. Just in case you were, I can tell you now it’s not open.”
“The professor decide he doesn’t need a guide any more?”
“He actually doesn’t, of course, around here, but he had hired Bowman to take him down into Sonora.”
“I see.” Lance nodded. “Has Professor Jones given up the Mexico trip?”
“Just about,” Fletcher answered. “I’ve been against it from the first, of course. I think he’ll take my advice.”
“There’s nothing final been decided yet, then?”
“It’s practically settled.”
“Why have you advised against the trip?”
“Mexico is pretty wild country,” Fletcher explained. “I don’t think it any place to take a girl—at least, a girl like Professor Jones’ niece. There are a large number of Yaquente Indians through the section in which Jones wants to travel. The Yaquentes are peaceful enough now, but”—Fletc
her shrugged his shoulders—“a man never knows what may turn up.”
“You certainly said something then,” Lance agreed. He turned to leave. “Well, much obliged for the information. If you’ll tell the professor I called——”
“I’ll tell him,” Fletcher said, “though there’s no chance of you getting that job even if you knew that country down there. I hope you see how it is.”
“I reckon,” Lance said noncommittally. He nodded to Fletcher and left the hotel. On the street he said to himself, “I’m not sure if I do see how it is. I wonder who that Fletcher hombre is, and is he making all decisions for Jones? For some reason he’s none too keen for Jones to head down into Mexico. Oh well, I’ll see Jones later. Maybe a mite of conversation will bring out something.”
Lance next bent his steps in the direction of the railroad depot. As he entered the station old Johnny Quinn glanced up and grunted sourly. “You agin, eh?” he squeaked. “Well, I ain’t remembered no more than I did this mornin’, so ye’re wastin’ my time and yours if ye insist on hangin’ round——”
“There’s no law against sending a tele gram, is there?”
“A telygram?” Johnny Quinn stiffened like a soldier coming to attention. “Ye want to send a telygram? Whyn’t ye say so in the first place? Here’s a pad o’ paper. Write ’er out plain, and I’ll shoot ’er off.”
Lance smiled inwardly and proceeded to “write ’er out plain.” When he had finished he shoved the paper across to old Quinn. Quinn snatched at the paper and started to read it. He got as far as the address, then glanced up over his spectacles at Lance, saying, “You’re sendin’ this to Washington, D.C., hey? Hmmm. Thet’s where the President of these United States lives.”
Lance nodded. “I’ve heard rumors to that effect before. Howsomever, it isn’t being sent to him.”
“Shucks all tarnation!” Old Quinn sounded exasperated. “I know thet much.” He started to read on, then stopped. A frown gathered on his forehead. He squinted through his spectacles, took them off, wiped them on his bandanna, replaced them, took them off again. Finally he gave up. “Are ye drunk?”
“Haven’t had a drink today.”
“There’s somethin’ wrong with ye!” Quinn snapped. “I can read your words separate, but they don’t make no sense strung out in a line. Can’t make head ner tail what ye’re aimin’ to send.”
“You can send the words just as they are, can’t you?”
“ ’Tain’t usual!”
Lance laughed. “It is back in Washington. That’s the way folks talk back there. If you’re interested I can tell you what the message is about. You see, my aunt Minnie is back there suffering from a bad case of hemoglobinuria and——”
“What’s thet?” Quinn’s jaw sagged.
Lance laughed suddenly. “Of course, of course. I might have known you’d had that disease some time or other, so there’s no need of me going into details about Aunt Minnie’s case. Probably you know more about the ravages of hemoglobinuria than I do. What’s that? You got it back in sixty-five? Well, well, imagine that! That’s the very year Aunt Minnie was took down with it. What? You don’t say so! A poultice of axle grease and horse liniment, eh? And it cured you? I’ll sure write Aunt Minnie about that if she doesn’t get well——What? A glass of bourbon three times a day prevents a recurrence of the disease? Sa-ay, it’s lucky I ran into you. Aunt Minnie will probably owe you her life.”
Johnny Quinn’s eyes were glassy; his jaw hung open. He was gasping like a fish out of water. So far he hadn’t said a word, but Lance’s swift monologue had swept him from his feet. His brain swirled dizzily, and he was already convinced he had had the disease Lance mentioned.
“… and I’ll sure remember,” Lance flowed on, “to bring you a bottle of bourbon when I come back for the answer to my tele gram. I wouldn’t want you to come down with hemoglobinuria again. You see, when that answer comes through I’ll know if Aunt Minnie is recovering or not, so shoot my message off pronto. I’ll be back later for the reply—and I won’t forget your bourbon.”
Five minutes after Lance had left the station old Quinn was still scratching his sparse gray hair and panting for breath. His brain whirled. “Lemme see,” he gulped, “was it in sixty-five I had that hemo disease?” His thin frame trembled. “By grab! I’d better get this telygram sent right to once. A case of life or death ain’t to be ignored.” He stumbled toward the sending apparatus muttering, “Life or death, life or death, life or death.”
Lance was still laughing when he entered the sheriff’s office a short time later. Lockwood was back at his desk. Oscar Perkins had gone down to the general store for a fresh supply of lemon drops. “What you grinnin’ at?” Lockwood demanded.
“I had a tele gram to send,” Lance chuckled. “It was in code, so I had to give old Johnny Quinn an explanation.” He related what had happened.
The sheriff’s laughter merged with Lance’s. “Johnny’s always boasting about how many different diseases he’s had,” Lockwood said, “so I reckon it wa’n’t hard to convince him he had this here—uh—hemo—uh—what was that word? What’s it mean?”
“Hemoglobinuria.” Lance explained, “That’s just a more scientific name for Texas tick fever.” Lock-wood went off into renewed gales of laughter. When he had quieted Lance asked, “Say, who’s this Malcolm Fletcher staying at the hotel? I went to see Jones, but he was away digging cactus. Fletcher claims to be a friend of his.”
“He might be, at that,” Lockwood conceded. “I don’t know. He’s been right friendly with Miss Gregory—you know, Jones’ niece. The two of ’em have gone riding a lot. Anyway, I told you the girl’s father owned a ranch down in Sonora. Malcolm Fletcher was Jared Gregory’s pardner in the ranch. I meant to tell you all this today. Then we got talking about those Yaquentes we saw, and it slipped my mind.”
“You told me about Jared Gregory being murdered and brought in by the Yaquentes.” Lance’s eyes narrowed. “It couldn’t be that Fletcher had a hand in the death of Miss Gregory’s father?”
“If he did, I couldn’t say. He had an alibi, at least.”
“The same being?”
“Fletcher claims to be interested in both mines and ranches. At the time Jared Gregory was killed Fletcher was this side of the border driving around and looking at properties for sale.”
“You just got his word for that?”
“We got the word of Banker Addison. Addison was showing the properties which the bank had foreclosed on some time before.”
“Apparently,” Lance said slowly, “that clears Fletcher.” Then he added, “Apparently.”
Shortly before suppertime Lance entered the railroad depot, a bottle of bourbon under one arm. He placed it on the counter behind which old Johnny Quinn stood waiting with a yellow sheet of paper in his hand. “Johnny, there’s your medicine. Did you get an answer for me?”
“Sartainly,” Johnny replied. “I had it rushed right through.”
Lance took the yellow paper and quickly perused the code message it contained. A frown gathered on his face.
“Aunt Minnie must be worse,” Johnny said anxiously.
“Aunt Minnie,” Lance replied solemnly, “has plumb passed away. You’d better drink your medicine regular, Johnny.”
Three minutes later Lance was back in the sheriff’s office. “I got an answer to my tele gram,” he said tersely. “I had a little checking up done on Professor Ulysses Z. Jones of the Jonesian Institute at Washington, D.C. According to my reply there never was any such organization as the Jonesian Institute, and no one down there has ever heard of Professor Jones!”
“Somebody,” Lockwood said grimly, “is a blasted liar.”
Lance nodded. “I figure that I’m going to get acquainted with that somebody right after supper. I’ll bet he doesn’t do any cactus digging at night—though he may have other activities. That’s something I’m aiming to find out with no more waste of time.”
VII
Guns and Me
zcal Buttons
It was shortly after six o’clock that evening when a worried-looking Johnny Quinn locked the doors of his station and took his departure, with an already partly depleted bottle of bourbon under his arm. Muttering something under his breath about the sad end of poor Aunt Minnie, he hurried off in the direction of his lodging house to fortify his system against the dread disease that had carried off Aunt Minnie.
The rapidly descending sun touched a line of fire along the high peaks of the Saddlestring Mountains. The crimson line turned to purple, then disappeared altogether. Darkness filled the ravines and hollows, spread swiftly overhead, and night came down. A few stars twinkled into being in the eastern sky, the first vanguard of the millions to follow. Off in the hills a coyote barked suddenly and as suddenly fell silent.
In the Mexican huts and adobe houses across the railroad tracks lights shone from windows, and a smell of cooking food mingled with the fragrant odor of mesquite roots ascending from dozens of chimneys. A door opened here and there and then closed abruptly on soft snatches of conversation in Spanish. Somewhere could be heard the strumming of a guitar. For a time quiet settled on the Mexican district. Then, gradually, as meals were concluded doors commenced to open and close again as small knots of men and girls started walking toward Main Street to end up at Tony’s Saloon or the Mexican Chili Parlor, with dance hall attached, which was located across the street from the sheriff’s office. There weren’t so many lamps burning in the houses now.
One, two, three hours passed. It had grown darker by this time. The moon wasn’t yet up. By twos and threes soft-stepping, white-clothed forms in huge straw sombreros were commencing to cross the railroad tracks, flit silently past the scattered Mexican dwellings and take their steps in the direction of a squat adobe-and-rock building situated on the southern outer fringe of Pozo Verde at the very edge of the open range. The door of the building was locked, so the white-clad figures congregated silently about the building or conversed in low, guttural tones while they waited for the white man who had promised to come.
The Battle At Three-Cross Page 6
