“He is an American?” asked the boss.
“Looks like it; but he’s got the heart of a greaser,” replied Grayson. “Some of Villa’s men are with me, and they’re a-goin’ to take him to Cuivaca tomorrow.”
Neither Barbara nor her father seemed to enthuse much. To them an American was an American here in Mexico, where every hand was against their race. That at home they might have looked with disgust upon this same man did not alter their attitude here, that no American should take sides against his own people. Barbara said as much to Grayson.
“Why this fellow’s one of Pesita’s officers,” exclaimed Grayson. “He don’t deserve no sympathy from us nor from no other Americans. Pesita has sworn to kill every American that falls into his hands, and this fellow’s with him to help him do it. He’s a bad un.”
“I can’t help what he may do,” insisted Barbara. “He’s an American, and I for one would never be a party to his death at the hands of a Mexican, and it will mean death to him to be taken to Cuivaca.”
“Well, miss,” said Grayson, “you won’t hev to be responsible — I’ll take all the responsibility there is and welcome. I just thought you’d like to know we had him.” He was addressing his employer. The latter nodded, and Grayson turned and left the room. Outside he cast a sneering laugh back over his shoulder and swung into his saddle.
In front of the men’s quarters he drew rein again and shouted Eddie’s name. Shorter came to the door.
“Get your six-shooter an’ a rifle, an’ come on over to the office. I want to see you a minute.”
Eddie did as he was bid, and when he entered the little room he saw four Mexicans lolling about smoking cigarettes while Grayson stood before a chair in which sat a man with his arms tied behind his back. Grayson turned to Eddie.
“This party here is the slick un that robbed the bank, and got away on thet there Brazos pony thet miserable bookkeepin’ dude giv him. The sergeant here an’ his men are a-goin’ to take him to Cuivaca in the mornin’. You stand guard over him ‘til midnight, then they’ll relieve you. They gotta get a little sleep first, though, an’ I gotta get some supper. Don’t stand fer no funny business now, Eddie,” Grayson admonished him, and was on the point of leaving the office when a thought occurred to him. “Say, Shorter,” he said, “they ain’t no way of gettin’ out of the little bedroom in back there except through this room. The windows are too small fer a big man to get through. I’ll tell you what, we’ll lock him up in there an’ then you won’t hev to worry none an’ neither will we. You can jest spread out them Navajos there and go to sleep right plump ag’in the door, an’ there won’t nobody hev to relieve you all night.”
“Sure,” said Eddie, “leave it to me — I’ll watch the slicker.”
Satisfied that their prisoner was safe for the night the Villistas and Grayson departed, after seeing him safely locked in the back room.
At the mention by the foreman of his guard’s names — Eddie and Shorter — Billy had studied the face of the young American cowpuncher, for the two names had aroused within his memory a tantalizing suggestion that they should be very familiar. Yet he could connect them in no way with anyone he had known in the past and he was quite sure that he never before had set eyes upon this man.
Sitting in the dark with nothing to occupy him Billy let his mind dwell upon the identity of his jailer, until, as may have happened to you, nothing in the whole world seemed equally as important as the solution of the mystery. Even his impending fate faded into nothingness by comparison with the momentous question as to where he had heard the name Eddie Shorter before.
As he sat puzzling his brain over the inconsequential matter something stirred upon the floor close to his feet, and presently he jerked back a booted foot that a rat had commenced to gnaw upon.
“Helluva place to stick a guy,” mused Billy, “in wit a bunch o’ man-eatin’ rats. Hey!” and he turned his face toward the door. “You, Eddie! Come here!”
Eddie approached the door and listened.
“Wot do you want?” he asked. “None o’ your funny business, you know. I’m from Shawnee, Kansas, I am, an’ they don’t come no slicker from nowhere on earth. You can’t fool me.”
Shawnee, Kansas! Eddie Shorter! The whole puzzle was cleared in Billy’s mind in an instant.
“So you’re Eddie Shorter of Shawnee, Kansas, are you?” called Billy. “Well I know your maw, Eddie, an’ ef I had such a maw as you got I wouldn’t be down here wastin’ my time workin’ alongside a lot of Dagos; but that ain’t what I started out to say, which was that I want a light in here. The damned rats are tryin’ to chaw off me kicks an’ when they’re done wit them they’ll climb up after me an’ old man Villa’ll be sore as a pup.”
“You know my maw?” asked Eddie, and there was a wistful note in his voice. “Aw shucks! you don’t know her — that’s jest some o’ your funny, slicker business. You wanna git me in there an’ then you’ll try an’ git aroun’ me some sort o’ way to let you escape; but I’m too slick for that.”
“On the level Eddie, I know your maw,” persisted Billy. “I ben in your maw’s house jest a few weeks ago. ‘Member the horsehair sofa between the windows? ‘Member the Bible on the little marble-topped table? Eh? An’ Tige? Well, Tige’s croaked; but your maw an’ your paw ain’t an’ they want you back, Eddie. I don’t care ef you believe me, son, or not; but your maw was mighty good to me, an’ you promise me you’ll write her an’ then go back home as fast as you can. It ain’t everybody’s got a swell maw like that, an’ them as has ought to be good to ‘em.”
Beyond the closed door Eddie’s jaw was commencing to tremble. Memory was flooding his heart and his eyes with sweet recollections of an ample breast where he used to pillow his head, of a big capable hand that was wont to smooth his brow and stroke back his red hair. Eddie gulped.
“You ain’t joshin’ me?” he asked. Billy Byrne caught the tremor in the voice.
“I ain’t kiddin’ you son,” he said. “Wotinell do you take me fer — one o’ these greasy Dagos? You an’ I’re Americans — I wouldn’t string a home guy down here in this here Godforsaken neck o’ the woods.”
Billy heard the lock turn, and a moment later the door was cautiously opened revealing Eddie safely ensconced behind two six-shooters.
“That’s right, Eddie,” said Billy, with a laugh. “Don’t you take no chances, no matter how much sob stuff I hand you, fer, I’ll give it to you straight, ef I get the chanct I’ll make my get-away; but I can’t do it wit my flippers trussed, an’ you wit a brace of gats sittin’ on me. Let’s have a light, Eddie. That won’t do nobody any harm, an’ it may discourage the rats.”
Eddie backed across the office to a table where stood a small lamp. Keeping an eye through the door on his prisoner he lighted the lamp and carried it into the back room, setting it upon a commode which stood in one corner.
“You really seen maw?” he asked. “Is she well?”
“Looked well when I seen her,” said Billy; “but she wants her boy back a whole lot. I guess she’d look better still ef he walked in on her some day.”
“I’ll do it,” cried Eddie. “The minute they get money for the pay I’ll hike. Tell me your name. I’ll ask her ef she remembers you when I get home. Gee! but I wish I was walkin’ in the front door now.”
“She never knew my name,” said Billy; “but you tell her you seen the bo that mussed up the two yeggmen who rolled her an’ were tryin’ to croak her wit a butcher knife. I guess she ain’t fergot. Me an’ my pal were beatin’ it — he was on the square but the dicks was after me an’ she let us have money to make our get-away. She’s all right, kid.”
There came a knock at the outer office door. Eddie sprang back into the front room, closing and locking the door after him, just as Barbara entered.
“Eddie,” she asked, “may I see the prisoner? I want to talk to him.”
“You want to talk with a bank robber?” exclaimed Eddie. “Why you ain’t crazy are
you, Miss Barbara?”
“No, I’m not crazy; but I want to speak with him alone for just a moment, Eddie — please.”
Eddie hesitated. He knew that Grayson would be angry if he let the boss’s daughter into that back room alone with an outlaw and a robber, and the boss himself would probably be inclined to have Eddie drawn and quartered; but it was hard to refuse Miss Barbara anything.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Eddie jerked a thumb in the direction of the door. The key still was in the lock.
“Go to the window and look at the moon, Eddie,” suggested the girl. “It’s perfectly gorgeous tonight. Please, Eddie,” as he still hesitated.
Eddie shook his head and moved slowly toward the window.
“There can’t nobody refuse you nothin’, miss,” he said; “‘specially when you got your heart set on it.”
“That’s a dear, Eddie,” purred the girl, and moved swiftly across the room to the locked door.
As she turned the key in the lock she felt a little shiver of nervous excitement run through her. “What sort of man would he be — this hardened outlaw and robber — this renegade American who had cast his lot with the avowed enemies of his own people?” she wondered.
Only her desire to learn of Bridge’s fate urged her to attempt so distasteful an interview; but she dared not ask another to put the question for her, since should her complicity in Bridge’s escape — provided of course that he had escaped — become known to Villa the fate of the Americans at El Orobo would be definitely sealed.
She turned the knob and pushed the door open, slowly. A man was sitting in a chair in the center of the room. His back was toward her. He was a big man. His broad shoulders loomed immense above the back of the rude chair. A shock of black hair, rumpled and tousled, covered a well-shaped head.
At the sound of the door creaking upon its hinges he turned his face in her direction, and as his eyes met hers all four went wide in surprise and incredulity.
“Billy!” she cried.
“Barbara! — you?” and Billy rose to his feet, his bound hands struggling to be free.
The girl closed the door behind her and crossed to him.
“You robbed the bank, Billy?” she asked. “It was you, after the promises you made me to live straight always — for my sake?” Her voice trembled with emotion. The man could see that she suffered, and yet he felt his own anguish, too.
“But you are married,” he said. “I saw it in the papers. What do you care, now, Barbara? I’m nothing to you.”
“I’m not married, Billy,” she cried. “I couldn’t marry Mr. Mallory. I tried to make myself believe that I could; but at last I knew that I did not love him and never could, and I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love.
“I never dreamed that it was you here, Billy,” she went on. “I came to ask you about Mr. Bridge. I wanted to know if he escaped, or if — if — oh, this awful country! They think no more of human life here than a butcher thinks of the life of the animal he dresses.”
A sudden light illumined Billy’s mind. Why had it not occurred to him before? This was Bridge’s Penelope! The woman he loved was loved by his best friend. And she had sent a messenger to him, to Billy, to save her lover. She had come here to the office tonight to question a stranger — a man she thought an outlaw and a robber — because she could not rest without word from the man she loved. Billy stiffened. He was hurt to the bottom of his heart; but he did not blame Bridge — it was fate. Nor did he blame Barbara because she loved Bridge. Bridge was more her kind anyway. He was a college guy. Billy was only a mucker.
“Bridge got away all right,” he said. “And say, he didn’t have nothin’ to do with pullin’ off that safe crackin’. I done it myself. He didn’t know I was in town an’ I didn’t know he was there. He’s the squarest guy in the world, Bridge is. He follered me that night an’ took a shot at me, thinkin’ I was the robber all right but not knowin’ I was me. He got my horse, an’ when he found it was me, he made me take your pony an’ make my get-away, fer he knew Villa’s men would croak me sure if they caught me. You can’t blame him fer that, can you? Him an’ I were good pals — he couldn’t do nothin’ else. It was him that made me bring your pony back to you. It’s in the corral now, I reckon. I was a-bringin’ it back when they got me. Now you better go. This ain’t no place fer you, an’ I ain’t had no sleep fer so long I’m most dead.” His tones were cool. He appeared bored by her company; though as a matter of fact his heart was breaking with love for her — love that he believed unrequited — and he yearned to tear loose his bonds and crush her in his arms.
It was Barbara’s turn now to be hurt. She drew herself up.
“I am sorry that I have disturbed your rest,” she said, and walked away, her head in the air; but all the way back to the ranchhouse she kept repeating over and over to herself: “Tomorrow they will shoot him! Tomorrow they will shoot him! Tomorrow they will shoot him!”
CHAPTER XIV
‘TWIXT LOVE AND DUTY
FOR an hour Barbara Harding paced the veranda of the ranchhouse, pride and love battling for the ascendency within her breast. She could not let him die, that she knew; but how might she save him?
The strains of music and the laughter from the bunkhouse had ceased. The ranch slept. Over the brow of the low bluff upon the opposite side of the river a little party of silent horsemen filed downward to the ford. At the bluff’s foot a barbed-wire fence marked the eastern boundary of the ranch’s enclosed fields. The foremost horseman dismounted and cut the strands of wire, carrying them to one side from the path of the feet of the horses which now passed through the opening he had made.
Down into the river they rode following the ford even in the darkness with an assurance which indicated long familiarity. Then through a fringe of willows out across a meadow toward the ranch buildings the riders made their way. The manner of their approach, their utter silence, the hour, all contributed toward the sinister.
Upon the veranda of the ranchhouse Barbara Harding came to a sudden halt. Her entire manner indicated final decision, and determination. A moment she stood in thought and then ran quickly down the steps and in the direction of the office. Here she found Eddie dozing at his post. She did not disturb him. A glance through the window satisfied her that he was alone with the prisoner. From the office building Barbara passed on to the corral. A few horses stood within the enclosure, their heads drooping dejectedly. As she entered they raised their muzzles and sniffed suspiciously, ears a-cock, and as the girl approached closer to them they moved warily away, snorting, and passed around her to the opposite side of the corral. As they moved by her she scrutinized them and her heart dropped, for Brazos was not among them. He must have been turned out into the pasture.
She passed over to the bars that closed the opening from the corral into the pasture and wormed her way between two of them. A hackamore with a piece of halter rope attached to it hung across the upper bar. Taking it down she moved off across the pasture in the direction the saddle horses most often took when liberated from the corral.
If they had not crossed the river she felt that she might find and catch Brazos, for lumps of sugar and bits of bread had inspired in his equine soul a wondrous attachment for his temporary mistress.
Down the beaten trail the animals had made to the river the girl hurried, her eyes penetrating the darkness ahead and to either hand for the looming bulks that would be the horses she sought, and among which she might hope to discover the gentle little Brazos.
The nearer she came to the river the lower dropped her spirits, for as yet no sign of the animals was to be seen. To have attempted to place a hackamore upon any of the wild creatures in the corral would have been the height of foolishness — only a well-sped riata in the hands of a strong man could have captured one of these.
Closer and closer to the fringe of willows along the river she came, until, at their very edge, there broke upon her already taut nerves the hideous and uncanny sc
ream of a wildcat. The girl stopped short in her tracks. She felt the chill of fear creep through her skin, and a twitching at the roots of her hair evidenced to her the extremity of her terror. Should she turn back? The horses might be between her and the river, but judgment told her that they had crossed. Should she brave the nervous fright of a passage through that dark, forbidding labyrinth of gloom when she knew that she should not find the horses within reach beyond?
She turned to retrace her steps. She must find another way!
But was there another way? And “Tomorrow they will shoot him!” She shuddered, bit her lower lip in an effort to command her courage, and then, wheeling, plunged into the thicket.
Again the cat screamed — close by — but the girl never hesitated in her advance, and a few moments later she broke through the willows a dozen paces from the river bank. Her eyes strained through the night; but no horses were to be seen.
The trail, cut by the hoofs of many animals, ran deep and straight down into the swirling water. Upon the opposite side Brazos must be feeding or resting, just beyond reach.
Barbara dug her nails into her palms in the bitterness of her disappointment. She followed down to the very edge of the water. It was black and forbidding. Even in the daytime she would not have been confident of following the ford — by night it would be madness to attempt it.
She choked down a sob. Her shoulders drooped. Her head bent forward. She was the picture of disappointment and despair.
“What can I do?” she moaned. “Tomorrow they will shoot him!”
The thought seemed to electrify her.
“They shall not shoot him!” she cried aloud. “They shall not shoot him while I live to prevent it!”
Again her head was up and her shoulders squared. Tying the hackamore about her waist, she took a single deep breath of reassurance and stepped out into the river. For a dozen paces she found no difficulty in following the ford. It was broad and straight; but toward the center of the river, as she felt her way along a step at a time, she came to a place where directly before her the ledge upon which she crossed shelved off into deep water. She turned upward, trying to locate the direction of the new turn; but here too there was no footing. Down river she felt solid rock beneath her feet. Ah! this was the way, and boldly she stepped out, the water already above her knees. Two, three steps she took, and with each one her confidence and hope arose, and then the fourth step — and there was no footing. She felt herself lunging into the stream, and tried to draw back and regain the ledge; but the force of the current was too much for her, and, so suddenly it seemed that she had thrown herself in, she was in the channel swimming for her life.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 424
