The Red Sombrero (12 page)

“Now,” he said, swinging to eye Reno, “perhaps you are ready to say where that gold is.”

Rage came into Reno’s throat like bile and he lunged against the ropes. Cordray passed the cigar to Bennie. “See what you can do with the girl — ”

“Damn you!” Reno yelled. He locked the chair with his struggles but the ropes only tightened. Cordray waited expectantly. When the gunfighter started for Linda, Reno quit. “All right. You win,” he said bitterly. “I chucked the stuff under the steps.”

“Well!” Cordray chuckled. “We’ll go over there and — ”

“You will stay where you are,” said a bleak voice behind him and the grin fell off Cordray’s face, his jaw dropping. Hope swelled through Reno as spurred boots came into the room from the hallway. He had never imagined he’d be choked with joy to see that burly shape coming toward him with those bandoleered others crowding in behind him. “Viva Sierra — ” His voice shook and cracked. The relief was too great. He blanked out.

L
INDA
, backed against the table where this influx of unwashed men had trapped her, was so concerned over Reno that her own plight and problems dropped completely out of her thinking. In the general confusion with its strong undertow of conflicting aims and pressures she had a better chance than most to consider the varying expressions.

Don Luis, she thought, and the Texican, Bennie, were unstrung chagrined and plainly bordering on fright. The burly man — Sierra? — whose sudden entrance had caused this disruption of Cordray’s plans, gave an impression of amusement which she could not, when she studied it, find in his face.

His features, though coarse, possessed a kind of animal magnetism which she felt without being able either to explain or understand. Cheeks and chin were clean shaved. A heavy mustache bristled beneath the gross nose and the eyes looked like golden veined pieces of agate, yet she read sympathy in them as he looked down at Reno and the gruffness of his voice, she thought, concealed an unsuspected compassion. “Get some water and throw over him,” he told one of the soldiers.

As the man went off Linda looked at his companions. They were like wild men, these dorados, black haired and atavistic with bold eyes dark and cruel in high-cheekboned faces that seemed more Indian than Mexican. Each carried a knife with a long heavy blade in addition to the rifle and crossed bandoleers studded with cartridges, and some of them had pistols thrust into the ropes which held up their ragged pants. On their heads were the big Chihuahua hats. The two or three whose grimy feet were not bare wore rope soled sandals. Only Sierra wore boots and a serviceable jacket. The others wore blankets with a hole for the head.

Don Luis started to speak but Sierra waved him silent. The man who had left came back with a brimming bucket and, on the Liberator’s orders, emptied it over Reno who began to groan and splutter. Linda sprang forward in protest. “He’s been hurt!” she cried indignantly. Sierra looked and grinned.

“Well, General,” he said when Reno seemed able to take in his words, “do you have anything to say to me?”

Don Luis, Linda thought, appeared a little astonished at Sierra’s address though he was quick to conceal any disquiet he may have felt, and the former uneasiness she had marked was gone entirely.

Reno’s face, disfigured by ugly welts, torn skin and the angry red of the burn, gingerly shaped a wry grimace. “I guess not,” he said quietly, “except I’ve still got the gold — ”

“And which you were about to give away to quell the alarms of this gringa.”

Reno shrugged. “Who should know better than our illustrious commander the value of good relations? Is it not said from Zapatacas to Las Palomas that Tano Sierra is a martyr to Venus? Considering the stakes involved were a rich and influential lady’s health and personal beauty, it was obvious you would not have me do otherwise.”

Delighted grins appeared upon those dark and dusty faces. Reno had made of his default a virtue, a beautiful gesture which these ruffians of Tano’s, knowing the man, could both approve and appreciate; and Linda could see that Sierra understood this. He disclosed a dry smile and, stepping back, said, “Present me.”

If Reno regretted his coup he managed to conceal it. Though prevented by the ropes from getting out of his chair he was careful to control the nuances of his voice. “His Excellency Tano Sierra de Caribello y Guadalupe, Protector of the Poor and Liberator of the Downtrodden.” He bowed. “The Señorita Linda Farrel, late and rightful owner of the rancho Broken Spur.”

Sierra considered him briefly, the coppery glints in his eyes taking on an added luster. Then Linda smiled with stiff lips and the Mexican swept off his hat with an extravagant flourish, striding boldly forward to bend over her hand. His black curls came up to display his white teeth. Contempt made a twist of the ranchman’s mouth and Sierra said, still showing the smile but with his eyes coming around like a cat’s to watch Cordray, “Perhaps, señorita, you will pardon an old soldier’s bluntness and explain what you are doing here.”

Linda’s voice wavered a little but she told him that owing to her father’s death she happened at the moment to be Don Luis’ guest.

“And the scream?” Sierra asked.

Linda’s eyes went to Reno. “Look what they’ve done to him — look at his face!” The Liberator appeared to find her own more engrossing. She said, flushing, “Aren’t you going to untie him?”

“He interests you?”

She got hold of herself. She said with eyes flashing, “I shall always be interested in seeing justice done.”

“This is something Sierra can share with you.” He smiled, at last releasing her hand. “You believe he has been treated unjustly?”

“I can tell you about that — ” Don Luis began, but his voice fell away before Sierra’s cold glare.

“When I get around to it, friend, there are quite a few things you will find yourself telling me. You had better be shaping them up in your mind.” He glanced around. “Tuerto! Cut the General’s ropes and bring in that fat one to find something for his face.” His eyes sharpened. “Well?”

“I think,” Reno suggested, “we had better put out some pickets. Cordray has a crew of tough hombres — ”

“Relax. I’ve had enough of your advice for the moment. No one will get in or get out. My troops occupy Columbus and Las Palomas. All the roads are watched.” He swung back to face Linda. “And why does he call you the
late
and rightful owner of this great Farrel ranch?”

Before Linda could speak Cordray’s voice cut in suavely, “A little matter of business, excelencia. I have recently acquired, in the way of a dowry — ”

Sierra’s face came around white with anger. “Keep your mouth shut until you are spoken to! Pancho! Take this windbag outside and show him the dead men. Felipe! Help the General and that fat one over to the bunkhouse — ”

“You’d better,” Cordray snarled, “keep that renegade under guard. Except for my intervention he would already have taken those bags and run off with them!”

Sierra strode forward and struck him flat handed. Cordray’s eyes filled with hate. Sierra struck him again. “Filth of a whore! Do you think I am blind?” He swung away, breathing heavily. “Tacho! Disarm this Texican and take four men with him to fetch that gold from the lineshack.” He glared at Don Luis. “Andale! Pronto!”

Cordray, eyes bright with outrage, limped off toward the door, one of the dorados with a rifle tagging after him. Linda watched Reno come unsteadily to his feet and, without looking at her, go off with Juanito and a second armed dorado. She saw another take the pistol away from Bennie and prod him doorward, the remainder of these wild men falling blank-faced in behind them. She looked at Sierra and tried to still her pounding heart.

• • •

Reno’s heart was pounding, too.

The big Mexican’s ministrations had reduced much of the swelling from his face but there were other aches and anguish Juanito’s unguents could not touch.

Nor did it comfort the American that Sierra had called him ‘General.’ Too well he recalled Tano’s penchant for indulging whims, that streak of Puckish humor which sometimes gave even men like Descardo the creeping jitters. The length of time he had left Reno tied was the key to this cat-and-mouse game he was playing. Reno’s holster was still empty and he did not imagine the silent Felipe was lounging outside the door to keep the wind from blowing the lamp out.

He wondered if Sierra had been speaking the truth when he had bragged that his men were occupying Columbus. It would be just like him to pull a crazy stunt like that! International bounderies meant nothing to Sierra. They bothered him no more than finding grubs in his sirloin.

He looked at Juanito and scowled at the reflections limned on the black glass of the window. The Mexican lay stretched in the bunk across the aisle as though completely indifferent to the possibilities of change inherent in Sierra’s presence. What did he think about? What was it like, Reno wondered, to be a Mexican? A queer people, he thought, marveling. In so many ways completely childlike. Faith personified. Magnificent. Appalling. Living each additional day as it came without regrets for the past or apparent care for the morrow.

He saw beyond the reflections in the window the bobbing blob of a lantern and guessed that would be the man Pancho with Don Luis. He tried to emulate Juanito but his mind was across the dark yard with the girl left behind in Cordray’s house with Sierra. His thoughts leaped about like the legs of frogs in a skillet. To squirm out of the corner he had been backed into he had made her important by connecting her with Spur, the ranch of many waters, never suspecting in her plainness she could engage the bandit’s interest.

He clenched his fists in impotent fury. It was intolerable he should have placed her in such danger. A fever rose in his brain and he swung both booted feet to the floor with his narrowing stare intently considering the head and shoulders of the cigarette-smoking Felipe who lounged outside within a jump of the door.

A dozen wild schemes presented themselves to be reluctantly abandoned in the inescapable knowledge that to be of any help to her he had to stay alive.

He got up and prowled the shack without finding any weapons or anything from which he could fashion an advantage. Juanito said through a yawn, “I could put out the light.”

The words soaked through Reno’s mind like tiny drops of cold water. There’d be a chance all right if he could trust the man, but why should this Mexican offer to help him? To in turn help Don Luis? Where was the good in that?

He prowled some more; then he got into the bunk again and pulled off his boots, dropping them noisily. “Go ahead,” he said quietly.

Juanito bent forward and blew at the lamp. It went out in a stench of warm oil. Nothing happened. Reno could see Felipe’s silhouette fairly plain through the window and the man had not even looked around. “Knock on the glass and get his attention,” Reno breathed, reaching down and taking hold of a boot.

“I desire to go too,” Juanito whispered. “Throw one through the glass and let us see if God listens.”

The noise was monstrous banging back against the corners of the room. The guard turned his head but did not move from his place. Juanito, threshing up a racket, threw in groans and grunts and curses. “Chingao! Peeg of a gringo!” he snarled; then softer: “God labors. Throw the other one.”

Reno hurled it from the foot of his bunk. It tore through at an angle, splattering glass. The pale blob of the guard’s face came up to the window. “Silence!” he roared.

Under cover of Juanito’s redoubled commotion Reno padded to the door. He crouched beside the hinge, waiting for the guard in his anger to fling it open. When he saw the fat man’s shape in the aisle he knew the guard wasn’t going to. “No bueno por nada,” Juan grumbled. “As well stow horns in a bag and call them wool,” he said, disgusted.

“There must be some way,” Reno said, staring.

“In the morning perhaps. In the night this one is wary.”

“If I went through the door — ”

“You would be shot,” Juanito said.

• • •

When the Texican stumbled out into the yard, roughly prodded by Tacho’s rifle, fear had reduced his mind to one thought. He must someway escape before Sierra’s orders thrust him into the lion’s mouth of that camp. These dorados could not know this country as he did; perhaps in the night he could lead them to some other place where there would be no vaqueros lying in wait with cocked rifles.

Tacho detailed two men to go with him to the corrals while he roped out a horse and got it ready for the trail. They watched him closely and before he was permitted to lead the animal back to where the others waited one of them examined his securing of the cinch, afterwards taking away Bennie’s spurs. The man grinned in the darkness, sardonically reminding him the ley fuga — the Mexican law of escape — would work as well north of the border as south of it.

Bennie eyed the cold shine of the stars and shivered. But it was not until all were mounted and they were passing through the gate that he gave up his hope of getting away from them. At this point Tacho ordered his boots pulled off and his ankles bound together beneath the belly of his horse. He knew then he would have to stay with them and darkly considered where he should take them.

There were several alternatives. He could lead them to one of the other Tadpole camps and seek to alert the men there in charge. It would be risky but less dangerous than going where these hombres expected to be taken.

He considered fetching them into the gulch where the Farrel beef was being held. Four or five of Cordray’s crew would be there and he was tempted, reasonably certain those men would do whatever he ordered. But the gold was nagging at his mind again now and desire for it was blunting the sharper edges of his fear. The trap was already fashioned. All he had to do was figure how he could get it sprung without being caught in its jaws with the rest of them.

The straw boss, Paco Pedrazos, would know his voice if he called out, but would he heed it? Cordray’s orders had been definite: kill anyone attempting to come away …

The night was filled with shadows. He would have to make up his mind for pretty soon they would be there at the pace of this Tacho. The gulch of the cattle or the shack of the steps which concealed the gold onzas?

Sweat came out on his cheeks and beneath his brush jacket the shirt clung damply to the backs of his shoulders. Anger crept into his thinking, old furies fanned afresh by the remembrance of how Cordray had used him, holding over his head past mistakes, threats of prison and the knot of a rope; and the sweat was a coldness but the hate was like fire.

• • •

In the ranch house at Tadpole Linda answered Sierra’s questions as well as she could, telling him of Spur’s condition and of the steps Don Luis had presumably taken to remedy this, and of the rustling he’d reported and the cutting of fences —

“So that his cattle grow fat on your grass,” Sierra nodded, “and your own disappear to make room for them and to make certain you are unable to redeem this note. And still you plan to wed this half Spaniard?”