by Zane Grey
Where were they taking him? Why had they not killed him at once? Who was at the bottom of the attack upon him? Already his mind was busy with the problem.
Presently the jolting ceased. He could hear guarded voices. The alfalfa was thrown aside and he was dragged from his place and carried down some steps. The men went stumbling through the dark, turning first to the right, and then to the left. They groped their way into a room and dropped him upon a bed. Even now they struck no light, but through a small window near the ceiling moonbeams entered and relieved somewhat the inky blackness.
“Is he dead?” someone asked in Spanish.
“No. His eyes were open as we brought him in,” answered a second voice guardedly.
They stood beside the bed and looked down at their prisoner. His eyes were getting accustomed to the darkness. He saw that one of the men was Pablo Menendez. The other, an older Mexican with short whiskers, was unknown to him.
“He fought like a devil from hell. Roderigo’s arm is broken. Not one of us but is marked,” said the older man admiringly.
“My head is ringing yet, Sebastian,” agreed Pablo. “Dios, how he slammed poor José down. The blood poured from his nose and mouth. Never yet have I seen a man fight so fierce and so hard as this Americano. He may be the devil himself, but his claws are clipped now. And here he lies till he does as we want, or—” The young Mexican did not finish his sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was significant.
Pablo stooped till his eyes were close to those of the bound man. “Señor, shall I take the gag from your mouth? Will you swear not to cry out and not to make any noise?”
Gordon nodded.
“So, but if you do the road to Paradise will be short and swift,” continued Menendez. “Before your shout has died away you will be dead. Sabe, Señor?”
He unknotted the towel at the back of his prisoner’s head and drew it from Dick’s mouth. Gordon expanded his lungs in a deep breath before he spoke coolly to his gaoler.
“Thank you, Menendez. You needn’t keep your fist on that gat. I’ve no intention of committing suicide until after I see you hanged.”
“Which will be never, Señor Gordon,” replied Pablo rapidly in Spanish. “You will never leave here alive except on terms laid down by us.”
“Interesting if true—but not true, I think,” commented Dick pleasantly. “You have made a mistake, my friends, and you will have to pay for it.”
“If we have made a mistake it can yet be remedied, Señor” retorted Pablo quietly. “We have but to make an end of you and behold! all is well again.”
“Afraid not, my enthusiastic young friend. Too many in the secret. Someone will squeal, and the rest of you—particularly you two ringleaders—will be hanged by the neck. It takes only ordinary intelligence to know that. Therefore I am quite safe, even though I have a confounded headache and a rising fever.” Gordon added with cheerful solicitude: “I do hope I’m not going to get sick on your hands. It’s rather a habit of mine, you know. But, really, you can’t blame me this time.”
A danger signal flared in the eyes of the young Mexican. “Better not, Señor. You will here have no young and charming nurse to wait upon you.”
“Meaning Mrs. Corbett?” asked the prisoner, smiling up impudently.
“Whose heart your soft words can steal away from him to whom it belongs,” continued Pablo furiously.
“Sho, I reckon Corbett—”
“Mil diablos!”
A devil of jealousy was burning out of the black eyes that blazed into those of the American. It was no longer possible for Dick to miss the menace and its meaning. The Mexican was speaking of Juanita. He believed that his prisoner had been making love to the girl and his heart was black with hate because of it.
Gordon looked at him steadily, then summed up with three derisive words. “You damn fool!”
Something in the way he said them shook Pablo’s conviction. Was it possible after all that his jealousy had been useless? Juanita had told him that all through his delirium this man had raved of Miss Valdés. Perhaps— But, no, had he not with his own eyes seen the man bantering Juanita while the color came and went in her wild rose cheeks? Had he not seen him lean on her shoulder as he hobbled out to the porch, just as a lover might on that of his sweetheart?
With an oath Pablo turned sullenly away. He knew he was no match for this man at any point. Yet he was a leader among his own people because of the force in him.
Gordon slept little during the night. He had been so badly beaten that outraged nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he washed the bloody face and head of the bound man.
Dick observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a deep purple swelling.
“Had quite a little jamboree, didn’t we?” remarked Gordon, with a grin. “I’ll bet you lads mussed my hair up some.”
Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.
“You want to know why we have made you prisoner, Señor Gordon?” he suggested. “It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much easier to shoot you and be done?”
“Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn’t quite run to murder maybe.”
“Not so. I spare you because you save my brother’s life after he shoot at you. But I exact conditions. So?”
The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on them so that only slits were open. “Let’s hear them.”
“First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any charges against those taking you prisoner.”
“Pass that for the present,” ordered Dick curtly. “Number two please.”
“That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in the Rio Chama Valley to Señorita Valdés and promise never to go near the valley again.”
“Nothing doing,” answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping tight.
“But yes—most assuredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you must go to meet me, Señor. Is a man’s life not worth all to him? So? Sign, and you live.”
The eyes of the men had fastened—the fierce, black, eager ones of the Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.
“You are a fool, Señor. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy. Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that.” And Pablo snapped his fingers airily.
“Maybe—and maybe not. I figure on living to be an old man. Tell you what I’ll do, Menendez. Turn me loose and I’ll forget about our little rumpus last night. I’d ought to send you to the pen, but I’ll consent to forego that pleasure.”
Sulkily Pablo turned away. What could one do with a madman who insisted on throwing his life away? The young Mexican was not a savage, though the barbaric strain in his wild lawless blood was still strong. He did not relish the business of killing in cold blood even the man he hated.
“If you kill me you’ll hang,” went on Gordon composedly. “You’ll never get away with it. Your own friends will swear your neck into a noose. Your partner Sebastian—you’ll excuse me if I appear familiar, but I don’t know the gentleman’s other name—will turn State’s evidence to try to save his own neck. But I reckon he’ll have to cl
imb the ladder, too.”
Sebastian pushed aside his companion angrily and took the American by the throat.
“Por Dios, I show you. If I hang I hang—but you—” His muscular fingers tightened till the face of his enemy grew black. But the eyes—the steady, cool, contemptuous eyes—still looked into his defiantly.
Pablo dragged his accomplice from the bedside. The time might come for this, but it was not yet.
It had been a close thing for Gordon. If those lean, strong fingers had been given a few seconds more at his throat they would have snapped the cord of life. But gradually the distorted face resumed its natural hue as the coughing, strangling man began to breathe again.
“Your—friend—is—impetuous,” Dick suggested to Pablo as soon as he could get the words out one at a time.
“He will shake the life out of you as a terrier does that of a rat,” Pablo promised vindictively.
“There’s no fun—in being strangled, as you’ll both—find out later,” the prisoner retorted whimsically but with undaunted spirit.
Sebastian had left the room. At the expiration of half an hour he returned with a tray, upon which were two plates with food and two cups of steaming coffee. The Mexicans ate their ham and their frijoles and drank their coffee. The prisoner they ignored.
“Don’t I draw even a Libby Prison allowance?” the American wanted to know.
“You eat and you drink after you have signed the paper,” Pablo told him.
“I always did think we ate too much and too often. Much obliged for a chance to work out my theories.”
Gordon turned his back upon them, his face to the wall. Presently, in spite of the cramped position necessitated by his bound arms, he yielded to weariness and fell asleep. Sebastian lay down in a corner of the room and also slept. He and Pablo would have to relieve each other as watchmen so long as they held their prisoner. For that reason they must get what rest they could during the day.
Menendez found himself the victim of conflicting emotions. It had been easy while they were plotting the abduction to persuade himself that the man would grant anything to save his life. Now he doubted this. Looking clown at the battered face of the miner, so lean and strong and virile, he could not withhold a secret reluctant admiration. How was it possible for him to sleep so easily and lightly while he lay within the shadow of violent death? There was even a little smile about the corners of his mouth, as if he were enjoying pleasant dreams. Never had Pablo known another man like this one. Had he not broken the spirit of that outlaw devil Teddy in ten minutes? Who else could shoot the heads off chickens at a distance as he had done? Was there another in New Mexico that could, though taken at advantage, put up so fierce a fight against big odds? The young Mexican hated him because of Juanita and his opposition to Miss Valdés. But the untamed and gallant spirit of the young man went out in spite of himself in homage to the splendid courage and efficiency of his victim.
Not till the middle of the afternoon did Gordon awaken. He was surprised to find that his hands were free. Of Menendez he asked an explanation.
Pablo gave him none. How could he say that he was ashamed to keep him tied while two armed men were in the room to watch him?
“Move from that bed and I’ll blow your brains out,” the Mexican growled in Spanish.
Presently Pablo brought him a tin dipper filled with water.
“Drink, Señor” he ordered ungraciously.
Dick drank the last drop and smiled at his guard gratefully. “You’re white in spots, Mr. Miscreant, though you hate to think it of yourself,” he said lightly.
Odd as it may seem, Gordon found a curious pleasure in exploring the mind of the young man. He detected the struggle going on in it, and he made remarks so uncannily wise that the Mexican was startled at his divination. The miner held no grudge. These men were his enemies because they thought him a selfish villain who ought to be frustrated in his designs. Long ago, in that school of experience which had made him the hard, competent man he was, Dick had learned the truth of the saying that to know all is to forgive all. He himself had done bold and lawless things often enough, but it was seldom that he did a mean one. Warily alert though he was for a chance to escape, his feelings were quite impersonal toward these Mexicans. Confronted with the need, he would kill if he must to save himself; but it would not be because he was vindictive.
Dick’s mind was alert to every chance of escape. He studied his situation as well as he could without moving from the bed. From the glimpse of the house he had had as the two men carried him in he knew that it was a large, modern one set in grounds of considerable size. He had been brought down a flight of steps and was now in the basement. Was the house an unoccupied one? Or was it in the possession of some one friendly to the scheme upon which the Mexicans had engaged?
A suspicion had startled him just after the men finished eating, but he had dismissed it as a fantasy of his excited imagination. Sebastian, carrying out the dishes, had dropped a spoon and left it lying beside the bed. Dick contrived, after he had wakened, to roll close to the edge and look down. The spoon was still there. Two letters were engraved upon the handle. They were A.V. If these stood for Alvaro Valdés, then this must be the town house of Valencia, and she was probably a party to his abduction.
He could not without distress of heart accept such a conclusion. She was his enemy, but she had seemed to him so frank and generous a one that complicity in a plot of this nature had no part in the picture of her his mind had drawn. He wrestled with the thought of this until he could stand it no longer.
“Did Miss Valdés come to town herself, or is she letting you run this abduction, Menendez?” he asked suddenly.
Pablo repeated stupidly, “Miss Valdés—the señorita?”
The keen, hard eyes of Gordon did not lift for an instant from those of the other man. “That’s what I said.”
It occurred to the Mexican that this was a chance to do a stroke of business for his mistress. He would show the confident Americano what place he held in her regard.
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “You are clevair, Señor. How do you know the señorita knows?”
“This is her house. She told you to bring me here.”
Pablo was surprised. “So? You know it is her house?”
“Surest thing you know.”
“The señorita trusts me. She is at the ranch.”
“But you are acting under her orders?”
“If the señor pleases.”
Dick turned his back to the wall again. His heart was bitter within him. He had thought her a sportsman, every inch a thoroughbred. But she had set her peons to spy on him and to attack him—ten to one in their favor—so that she might force him to sign away his rights to her. Very well. He would show her whether she could drive him to surrender, whether she could starve him into doing what he did not want to do.
The younger Mexican wakened Sebastian late in the afternoon and left him to guard the prisoner while he went into the town to hear what rumors were flying about the affair. About an hour later he returned, bringing with him some provisions, a newspaper, and a handbill. The latter he tossed to Gordon.
“Señor, I never saw five hundred dollars dangling within reach before. Shall I go to your friend and give him information?” asked Pablo.
Dick read the poster through with interest. “Good old Steve. He’s getting busy. Inside of twenty-four hours he’ll ferret out this spot.”
“It may be too late,” Pablo flung back significantly. “If they press us hard we’ll finish the job and make a run for it.”
They were talking in Spanish, as they did most of the time. The prisoner read aloud the offer on the handbill.
“Please notice that I’m worth no more alive than you are if I’m dead. I reckon this town is full of friends of yours anxious to earn fi
ve hundred plunks by giving a little information. Let me ask a question of you. Suppose you do finish the job and hit the trail. Where would you go?”
“The hills are full of pockets. We could hide and watch a chance to get out of the country.”
“We wouldn’t have to hide. Jesu Cristo, who would know we did it?” chipped in Sebastian roughly.
“Everybody will know it soon. You made a bad mistake when you didn’t bump me off at the start. All your friends that helped bushwhack me will itch to get that five hundred, Sebastian. As to hiding—well, I was a ranger once. Offer a reward, and everybody is on the jump to earn it. The way these hills are being combed this week by anxious man-hunters you’d never reach your cache.”
“Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t. We’ll have to take a chance on that,” replied the bearded Mexican sullenly.
To their prisoner it was plain that the men were I growing more anxious every hour. They regretted the course they had followed and yet could see no way of safety opening to them. Suspicious by nature, Sebastian judged the American by himself. If their positions were reversed, he knew he would break any pledge he might make and go straight to the sheriff with his story. Therefore they could not with safety release the man. To kill him would be dangerous. To keep him prisoner was possible only for a limited time. Whatever course they followed seemed precarious and uncertain. Temperamentally he was inclined to put an end to the man and try a bolt for the hills, but he found in Pablo an unexpected difficulty. The young man would not hear of this. He had made up his mind riot to let Gordon be killed if he could prevent it, though he did not tell the American so.
