The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  False clews in abundance were brought to Davis and Pesquiera. Good citizens came in with theories that lacked entirely the backing of any evidence. One of these was that a flying machine had descended in the darkness and that Gordon had been carried away by a friend to avoid the payment of debts he was alleged to owe. The author of this explanation was a stout old lady of militant appearance who carried a cotton umbrella large enough to cover a family. She was extraordinarily persistent and left in great indignation to see a lawyer because Davis would not pay her the reward.

  That day and the next passed with the mystery still unsolved. Valencia continued to stay at the hotel instead of opening the family town house, probably because she had brought no servants with her from the valley and did not know how long she would remain in the city. She and Manuel called upon the Underwoods to hear Kate's story, but from it they gathered nothing new. Mrs. Underwood welcomed them with the gentle kindness that characterized her, but Kate was formal and distant.

  "She doesn't like me," Valencia told her cousin as soon as they had left. "I wonder why. We were good enough friends as children."

  Manuel said nothing. He stroked his little black mustache with the foreign manner he had inherited. If he had cared to do so perhaps he could have explained Kate Underwood's stiffness. Partly it was embarrassment and partly shyness. He knew that there had been a time--before Valencia's return from college--when Kate lacked very little of being in love with him. He had but to say the word to have become engaged--and he had not said it. For, while on a visit to the East, he had called upon his beautiful cousin and she had won his love at once. This had nipped in the bud any embryonic romance that might otherwise have been possible with Kate.

  A little old Mexican woman with a face like wrinkled leather was waiting to see them in front of the hotel.

  "Señor Pesquiera?" she asked, with a little bob of the body meant to be a bow.

  "Yes."

  "And Señorita Valdés?"

  "That is my name," answered Valencia.

  "Will the señor and the señorita take a walk? The night is fine."

  "Where?" demanded Manuel curtly.

  "Into old-town, señor."

  "You have something to tell us."

  "To show you, señor--for a hundred dollars."

  "Sebastian--or is it Pablo?" cried Valencia, in a low voice.

  "I say nothing, señorita" whined the old woman. "I show you; then you pay. Is it not so?"

  "Get the money, Manuel," his cousin ordered quietly.

  Manuel got it from the hotel safe. He took time also to get from his room a revolver. Gordon had fallen victim to an ambush and he did not intend to do so if he could help it. In his own mind he had no doubt that some of their countrymen were selling either Pablo or Sebastian for the reward, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

  The old crone led them by side streets into the narrow adobe-lined roads of old-town. They passed through winding alleys and between buildings crumbling with age. Always Manuel watched, his right hand in his coat pocket. At the entrance to a little court a man emerged from the shadow of a wall. He whispered with the old dame for a minute.

  "Come. Make an end of this and show us what you have to show, muy pronto," interrupted Manuel impatiently.

  "In good time, señor," the man apologized.

  "Just a word first, my friend. I have a revolver in my hand. If there is trickery in your mind, better give it up. I'm a dead shot, and I'll put the first bullet through your heart. Now lead on."

  The Mexican threw up his hands in protest to all the saints that his purpose was good. He would assuredly keep faith, señor.

  "See you do," replied the Spaniard curtly.

  Their guide rapped three times on a door of a tumble-down shack. Cautiously it was opened a few inches. There was another whispered conversation.

  "The señor and the señorita can come in," said the first man, standing aside.

  Manuel restrained the young woman by stretching his left arm in front of her.

  "Just a moment. Light a lamp, my friends. We do not go forward in the dark."

  At this there was a further demur, but finally a match flickered and a lamp was lit. Manuel moved slowly forward into the room, followed by Valencia. In a corner of the room a man lay bound upon the floor, his back toward them. One of the men rolled him over as if he had been a sack of potatoes. The face into which they looked had been mauled and battered, but Valencia had no trouble in recognizing it.

  "Sebastian!" she cried.

  He said nothing. A sullen, dogged look rested on his face. Manuel had seen it before on the countenance of many men. He knew that the sheep grazer could not be driven to talk.

  Miss Valdés might have known it, too, but she was too impatient for finesse. "What have you done with Mr. Gordon? Tell me--now--at once," she commanded.

  The man's eyes did not lift to meet hers. Nor did he answer a single word.

  "First, our hundred dollars, Señorita," one of the men reminded her.

  "It will be paid when you deliver Sebastian to us in the street with his hands tied behind him," Manuel promised.

  They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to Pesquiera's condition. The prisoner's hands were tied behind him and his feet released so that he could walk. Manuel slid one arm under the right one of Sebastian. The fingers of his left hand rested on the handle of a revolver in his coat pocket.

  Valencia, all impatience, could hardly restrain herself until they were alone with their prisoner. She walked on the other side of her cousin, but as soon as they reached the Plaza she stopped.

  "Where is he, Sebastian? What have you done with him? I warn you it is better to tell all you know," she cried sternly.

  He looked up at her doggedly, moistened his lips, and looked down again without a word.

  "Speak!" she urged imperiously. "Where is Mr. Gordon? Tell me he is alive. And what of Pablo?"

  Manuel spoke in a low voice. "My cousin, you are driving him to silence. Leave him to me. He must be led, not driven."

  Valencia was beyond reason. She felt that every minute lost was of tremendous importance. If Gordon was alive they must get help to him at once. All her life she had known Sebastian. When she had been a little tot he had taught her how to ride and how to fish. Since her return from college she had renewed acquaintance with him. Had she not been good to his children when they had small-pox? Had she not sold him his place cheaper than any other man could have bought it? Why, then, should he assume she was his enemy? Why should he distrust her? Why, above all, had he done this foolish and criminal thing?

  Her anger blazed as she recalled all this and more. She would show Sebastian that because she had been indulgent he could not trade defiantly upon her kindness.

  "No," she told Manuel. "No. I shall deal with him myself. He will speak or I shall turn him over to the sheriff."

  "Let us at least go to the hotel, Valencia. We do not want to gather a crowd on the street."

  "As you please."

  They reached the hotel parlor and Valencia gave Sebastian one more chance.

  The man shuffled uneasily on his feet, but did not answer.

  "Very well," continued Miss Valdés stiffly, "it is not my fault that you will have to go to the penitentiary and leave your children without support."

  Manuel tried to stop her, but Valencia brushed past and left the room. She went straight to a telephone and was connected with the office of the sheriff. After asking that an officer be sent at once to arrest a man whom she was holding as prisoner, she hung up the receiver and returned to the parlor.

  In all she could not have been absent more than five minutes, but when she reached the parlor it was empty. Both Manuel and his prisoner had gone.

  CHAPTER XVII

  AN OBSTINATE MAN

  When Richard Gordon came back from unconsciousness to a world of haziness and headaches he was quite at a
loss to account for his situation. He knew vaguely that he was lying flat on his back and that he was being jolted uncomfortably to and fro. His dazed brain registered sensations of pain both dull and sharp from a score of bruised nerve centers. For some reason he could neither move his hands nor lift his head. His body had been so badly jarred by the hail of blows through which he had plowed that at first his mind was too blank to give him explanations.

  Gradually he recalled that he had been in a fight. He remembered a sea of faces, the thud of fists, the flash of knives. This must be the reason why every bone ached, why the flesh on his face was caked and warm moisture dripped from cuts in his scalp. It dawned upon him that he could not move his arms because they were tied and that the interference with his breathing was caused by a gag. When he opened his eyes he saw nothing, but whenever his face or hands stirred from the jolting something light and rough brushed his flesh; An odor of alfalfa filled his nostrils. He guessed that he was in a wagon and covered with hay.

  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 p
en, 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.