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

by Unknown

  For the Ranger had found a faint boot-track, and with amazing pains he was following this delible record of guilt. Some one had come here and looked at the dead body. Why? To make sure that the victim was quite dead? To identify the victim? Roberts did not know why, but he meant to find out.

  The footprint was alone. Apparently none led to it or led from it. On that one impressionable spot alone had been written the signature of a man's presence.

  But "Tex" Roberts was not an old plainsman for nothing. He knew that if he were patient enough he would find other marks of betrayal.

  He found a second track--a third, and from them determined a course to follow. It brought him to a stretch of soft ground at the edge of a wash. The footprints here were sharp and distinct. They led up an arroyo to the bluff above.

  The Ranger knelt dose to the most distinct print and studied it for a long time. All its details and peculiarities were recorded in his mind. The broken sole, the worn heel, the beveled edge of the toe-cap--all these fastened themselves in his memory. With a tape-line he measured minutely the length of the whole foot, of the sole and of the heel. These he jotted down in his notebook, together with cross-sections of width. He duplicated this process with the best print he could find of the left foot.

  His investigation led him next to the summit of the bluff. A little stain of blood on a rock showed him where Wadley had probably been standing when he was shot. The murder might have been done by treachery on the part of one of his companions. If so, probably the bullet had been fired from a revolver. In that case the man who did it would have made sure by standing close behind his victim. This would have left powder-marks, and there had been none around the wound. The chances were that the shooting had been done from ambush, and if this was a true guess, it was a fair deduction that the assassin had hidden behind the point of rocks just back of the bluff. For he could reach that point by following the rim-rock without being seen by his victim.

  Roberts next studied the ground just back of the point of rocks. The soil here was of disintegrated granite, so that there were no footprints to betray anybody who might have been hidden there. But Jack picked up something that was in its way as decisive as what he had been seeking. It was a cartridge that had been ejected from a '73[1] rifle. The harmless bit of metal in his hand was the receptacle from which death had flashed across the open toward Ford Wadley.

  At the foot of the rim-rock the Ranger found signs where horses had been left. He could not at first make sure whether there were three or four. From that spot he back-tracked for miles along the edge of the rim-rock till he came to the night-camp where Wadley had met the outlaws. This, too, he studied for a long time.

  He had learned a good deal, but he did not know why Ford Wadley had been shot. The young fellow had not been in Texas more than six or eight months, and he could not have made many enemies. If he had nothing about him worth stealing--and in West Texas men were not in the habit of carrying valuables--the object could not have been robbery.

  He rode back to Battle Butte and carried to town with him the body of the murdered man. There he heard two bits of news, either of which might serve as a cause for the murder: Young Wadley had quarreled with Tony Alviro at a dance and grossly insulted him; Arthur Ridley had been robbed of six thousand dollars by masked men while on his way to Tascosa.

  Ranger Roberts decided that he would like to have a talk with Tony.

  [Footnote 1: The '73 rifle was not a seventy-three-caliber weapon, but was named from the year it was got out. Its cartridges could be used for a forty-four revolver.]

  CHAPTER X

  "A DAMNED POOR APOLOGY FOR A MAN"

  The big cattleman from New Mexico who was talking with the owner of the A T O threw his leg across the arm of the chair. "The grass is good on the Pecos this year. Up in Mexico[2] the cattle look fine."

  "Same here," agreed Wadley. "I'm puttin' ten thousand yearlin's on the Canadian."

  A barefoot negro boy appeared at his elbow with a note. The owner of the A T O ripped open the envelope and read:

  Dear Mr. Wadley:

  I was held up last night by masked men and robbed. They took the gold. I'm too sick to go farther. Arthur Ridley.

  The jaw of the Texas cattleman clamped. He rose abruptly. "I got business on hand. A messenger of mine has been robbed of six thousand dollars." He turned to the colored boy. "Where's the man who gave you this?"

  "At the Buffalo Corral, sah."

  Wadley strode from the hotel, flung himself on a horse, and galloped down the street toward the corral.

  Young Ridley was lying on a pile of hay when his employer entered. His heart was sick with fear and worry. For he knew now that his lack of boldness had led him into a serious mistake. He had by his indecision put himself in the power of Moore, and the chances were that the man was in collusion with the gang that had held him up. He had made another mistake in not going directly to Wadley with the news. The truth was that he had not the nerve to face his employer. It was quite on the cards that the old-timer might use a blacksnake whip on him. So he had taken refuge in a plea of illness.

  The cattleman took one look at him and understood. He reached down and jerked the young fellow from the hay as if he had been a child. The stomach muscles of the boy contracted with fear and the heart died within him. Clint Wadley in anger was dangerous. In his youth he had been a gun-fighter and the habit had never entirely been broken.

  "I--I'm ill," the young fellow pleaded.

  "You'll be sure enough ill if you don't watch out. I'll gamble on that. Onload yore tale like shot off'n a shovel. Quit yore whinin'. I got no time for it."

  Arthur told his story. The cattleman fired at him crisp, keen questions. He dragged from the trembling youth the when, where, and how of the robbery. What kind of pilgrim was this fellow Moore? Was he tall? Short? Dark? Bearded? Young? Old? What were the masked men like? Did they use any names? Did he see their horses? Which way did they go?

  The messenger made lame answers. Mostly he could only say, "I don't know."

  "You're a damned poor apology for a man--not worth the powder to blow you up. You hadn't the sand to fight for the money entrusted to you, nor the nerve to face me after you had lost it. Get out of here. Vamos! Don't ever let me hear yore smooth, glib tongue again."

  The words of Wadley stung like hail. Arthur was thin-skinned; he wanted the good opinion of all those with whom he came in contact, and especially that of this man. Like a whipped cur he crept away and hid himself in the barn loft, alone with his soul-wounds.

  From its window he watched the swift bustle of preparation for the pursuit. Wadley himself, big and vigorous to the last masculine inch of him, was the dominant figure. He gave curt orders to the members of the posse, arranged for supplies to be forwarded to a given point, and outlined plans of action. In the late afternoon the boy in the loft saw them ride away, a dozen lean, long-bodied men armed to the limit. With all his heart the watcher wished he could be like one of them, ready for any emergency that the rough-and-tumble life of the frontier might develop.

  In every fiber of his jarred being he was sore. He despised himself for his failure to measure up to the standard of manhood demanded of him by his environment. Twice now he had failed. The memory of his first failure still scorched his soul. During ghastly hours of many nights he had lived over that moment when he had shown the white feather before Ramona Wadley. He had run for his life and left her alone to face a charging bull. It was no excuse to plead with himself that he could have done nothing for her if he had stayed. At least he could have pushed her to one side and put himself in the path of the enraged animal. The loss of the money was different. It had been due not wholly to lack of nerve, but in part at least to bad judgment. Surely there was something to be said for his inexperience. Wadley ought not to have sent him alone on such an errand, though of course he had sent him because he was the last man anybody was likely to suspect of carrying treasure....

  Late that night Ridley
crept out, bought supplies, saddled his horse, and slipped into the wilderness. He was still writhing with self- contempt. There was a futile longing in his soul for oblivion to blot out his misery.

  [Footnote 2: In western Texas when one speaks of Mexico he means New Mexico. If he refers to the country Mexico, he says Old Mexico.]

  CHAPTER XI

  ONE TO FOUR

  Through the great gray desert with its freakish effects of erosion a rider had moved steadily in the hours of star-strewn darkness. He had crossed the boundary of that No Man's Land which ran as a neutral strip between Texas and its neighbor and was claimed by each. Since the courts had as yet recognized the rights of neither litigant there was properly no State jurisdiction here. Therefore those at outs with the law fled to this strip and claimed immunity.

  In the Panhandle itself law was a variable quantity. Its counties had been laid out and named, but not organized. For judicial purposes they were attached to Wheeler County. Even the Rangers did not pretend to police this district. When they wanted a man they went in and got him.

  The rider swung at last from his saddle and dropped the bridle reins to the ground. He crept forward to some long, flat sheep-sheds that bulked dimly in the night shadows. Farther back, he could just make out the ghost of a dwelling-hut. Beyond that, he knew, was a Mexican village of three or four houses. A windmill reared its gaunt frame in the corral. A long trough was supplied by it with water for the sheep.

  The night-rider dipped a bucket of water from the tank that fed the trough. He carried it to the gate of the corral and poured it slowly into the fine dust made by the sharp feet of the sheep, mixing the water and dust to a thick paste with the end of an old branding-iron. He brought bucket after bucket of water until he had prepared a bed of smooth mud of the proper consistency.

  Before he had quite finished his preparation a dog inside the adobe hut began to bark violently. The interloper slipped over the fence and retreated to the darkness of the barranca.

  From the direction of the hut men poured. The one crouching in the chaparral heard voices. He made out a snatch or two of talk in Spanish. The men were explaining to themselves that the dog must have been barking at a wolf or a coyote. Presently they trooped back into the house. Silence fell again over the night.

  The man in the chaparral once more crept forward and climbed the fence. He made straight for the entrance of the corral. Carefully he examined the footprints written in the bed of mud he had prepared. One after another he studied them. Some had been crossed out or blotted by subsequent prints, but a few were perfect. One of these he scrutinized for a long time, measuring its dimensions with a tape-line from toe to heel, across the ball of the foot, the instep, and the heel. When at last he straightened up his eyes were shining with satisfaction. He had found what he wanted.

  Once more the dog was uneasy with growlings. The man retreated from the corral, returned to his horse, and rode away across the mesa. A quarter of an hour later he unsaddled, hobbled his horse, and rolled up in a blanket. Immediately he fell into sound sleep.

  It was broad day when he wakened. The young morning sun bathed him in warmth. He lighted a fire of mesquite and boiled coffee. In his frying- pan he cooked flapjacks, after he had heated the jerked beef which he carried in his saddlebags. When he had eaten, he washed his pan with clean, fine sand, repacked his supplies, and rode forward past the sheep-corral to the village.

  In front of a mud-and-log tendejón two Mexicans lounged. They watched him with silent hostility as he dismounted, tied his horse to a snubbing-post worn shiny as a razor-strap, and sauntered into the tendejón. This stranger wore the broad-rimmed felt hat and the buckskin suit of a Ranger, and none of that force was welcome here.

  Back of a flimsy counter was a shelf upon which were half a dozen bottles and some glasses. One could buy here mescal, American whiskey, and even wine of a sort. The owner of the place, a white man, was talking to a young Mexican at the time the Ranger entered. The proprietor looked hard at the Ranger with dislike he did not try to veil. The Mexican in front of the bar was a slim young man with quick eyes and an intelligent face. The Ranger recognized him at once as Tony Alviro.

  "Buenos!" the Ranger said with the most casual of nods. "I've come to take you back with me, Tony."

  The other two Mexicans had followed the Ranger into the room. The Texan stood sideways at the end of the bar, quite at his ease, the right forearm resting on the counter lightly. Not far from his fingers the butt of a revolver projected from a holster. In his attitude was no threat whatever, but decidedly a warning.

  The four men watched him steadily.

  "No, Señor Roberts," answered Alviro. "You can touch me not. I'm out of Texas."

  "Mebbeso, Tony. But till I get further orders, this is Texas for me. You're goin' back with me."

  Rangers and outlaws held different views about this strip of land. To the latter it was a refuge; law ended at its border; they could not be touched here by State constabulary. But the Ranger did not split hairs. He was law in the Panhandle, and if the man he wanted fled to disputed territory the Ranger went after him.

  "Not so," argued Alviro. "If you arrest me in Texas, I say 'Bad luck,' but I go wiz you. There you are an offizer, an' I am oblige' surrender. But in thees No Man's Land, we are man to man. I refuse."

  The lift of excitement was in the voice of the young Mexican. He knew the record of the Texas Rangers. They took their men in dead or alive. This particular member of the force was an unusually tough nut to crack. In the heart of Tony was the drench of a chill wave. He was no coward, but he knew he had no such unflawed nerve as this man. Through his mind there ran a common laconic report handed in by Rangers returning from an assignment--"Killed while resisting arrest." Alviro did not want Ranger Roberts to write that about him.

  "Better not, Alviro. I have a warrant for your arrest."

  The Texan did not raise his voice. He made no movement to draw a gun. But to Tony, fascinated by his hard, steel-gray eyes, came the certainty that he must go or fight. They were four to one against the Ranger, but that would not make the least difference. In the curt alternative of this clean-jawed young officer was cold finality.

  The worried eyes of the fugitive referred to his companions. They had agreed to stand by him, and he knew that if it came to a fight they would. But he wanted more than that. His glance was an appeal for one of them to make his decision for him.

  The voice of the tendejón-keeper interjected itself smoothly. "You've played yore hand out, friend. We're four to one. You go back an' report nothin' doin'."

  Roberts looked at the man, and a little shiver ran down the barkeeper's spine. "There won't be four of you when we get through arguin' this, amigo, if we ever start," the Ranger suggested gently.

  The proprietor of the place dropped his hand to the butt of his gun. But he did not draw. Some deep, wise instinct warned him to go slow. He knew the others would take their cue from him. If he threw down the gage of battle the room would instantly become a shambles. How many of them would again pass alive through the door nobody knew. He was a man who had fought often, but he could not quite bring himself to such a decision while those chilled-steel eyes bored into his. Anyhow, the game was not worth the candle.

  "What is it you want Tony for?" he temporized, playing for time and any chance that might arise.

  "For killin' Rutherford Wadley last month."

  "A mistake. Tony has been here since the full of the moon."

  "Oh, no. He was at the dance on Tomichi Creek. He tried to knife young Wadley. He left the house right after him."

  "I left--sí, señor--but to come here," cried the accused man.

  "To follow Wadley, Tony. You jumped a camper that night an' didn't know it. He saw you."

  "Wadley was a dog, but I did not kill him," Alviro said gloomily.

  "That so? You were on the spot. You left tracks. I measured 'em. They were the same tracks you left out in the corral five hours ago."

 
Tony's eyes flashed with a sudden discovery. "The mud--you meex it to get my footprints."

  "You're a good guesser."

  Alviro threw up his hands. "I was there. It iss true. But I did not kill the gringo dog. I was too late."

  "You can tell me all about that on the way back."

  "If I go back they will hang me."

  "You'll get a fair trial."

  "By a gringo jury before a gringo judge." The tone of Alviro was more than skeptical. It was bitter with the sense of racial injustice.

  "I can't argue that with you, Tony. My business is to take you to Tascosa. That's what I'm here for."

  The American behind the bar spoke again. "Listens fine! He's a Mexican, ain't he? They claim he killed a white man. Well, then, the mob would take him from you an' lynch him sure."