"I expect she ain't never thought o' yu thataway, Seth. It's her say-so, yu know."
"Shore, but yu bein' her on'y relation, I reckoned it right to get yore--consent. No doubt it'll take time, but with yu on my side I got a chance."
To cover his perturbation, Sarel slopped some more whisky in his glass and took a long drink. "Tonia's fond o' Bordene," he said.
"Natural enough--they've been brought up together," Raven agreed. "But Andy's affairs are in bad shape, an' he's drinkin' an' gamblin' more'n a young fella should who's expectin' to settle down. Yu sabe?"
The Double S man nodded miserably; he was getting orders and hated it, but he could not help himself. At his invitation the visitor stayed for the midday meal, and made a surprising effort to be pleasant. He paid Tonia one or two little compliments, but was careful not to let any hint of his intentions escape him. When Bordene's name was mentioned, all he said was, "Andy's havin' a tough time; I'm hopin' he'll make the grade."
After he had gone, the girl turned to her uncle. "I don't think I ever disliked anyone as I do that man," she said. "He's--slimy."
"Oh, Seth's all right," Reuben muttered, and cursed the passion for poker which had put him in the saloon-keeper's power. He watched as she went to get her pony from the corral, stepping with a fine, swinging grace which, as so many things in her did, brought back her father. The thought that followed made him sick. How would Anthony have received the proposal to which he had tamely listened? He knew only too well--flung the maker of it headlong into the dust, at no matter what cost to himself. Anthony had been all a man, while he--With a bitter oath he turned into the house.
At the slow "Spanish trot" of the cowpuncher, Raven was returning to Lawless. He was well satisfied with the morning's work. Another instrument for the furtherance of his schemes had been created, a weak one, certainly, but--as he reflected grimly--all the more useful on that account.
Before his brooding eyes flashed a picture of the future as he had planned it: Seth Raven, offspring of a drunken prospector and his Comanche woman, owner of the three big ranches and husband of the prettiest girl in the south-west, rich, respected, and, above all, feared. He saw himself sent to Congress, even appointed Governor of the Territory, and at the thought of that he laughed harshly.
"By God! I'll make some o' these damn Yanks step around," he cried.
It was typical of the man that he did not long indulge in these day-dreams. Almost immediately his mind was again milling over the problems he had to solve, and of these the most pressing was the marshal. Leeson had failed, and he cursed him for a clumsy fool. Then his scowl changed to a Satanic smile of satisfaction; he had hit on a plan, one which would achieve his object without any come-back, which was what he desired.
"That'll fix him," he exulted, and awoke his dozing pony by ripping it across the ribs with both spurs.
CHAPTER XV
It was two mornings later that Pete, who for once was first astir, found a somewhat grubby envelope thrust under the door. It was addressed to "The Marshul."
"Huh, one has come at last," he said. "I'm wonderin' which o' the damsels in this dog-hole of a town has fallen for yore fatal beauty?"
"Usin' yore intellects on an empty stomach'll put yu in a loco-house," the marshal told him.
He tore open the envelope, extracted a scrap of coarse paper, and read:
"Marshul.
If yu wanta here about Sudden, come to the Old Mine at nune.
A Frend."
"Writin' is pretty near good, but she's got her own notions o' spellin'," Pete commented.
"Yu supposin' it's a girl?"
"Shore am. One o' them female wimmen wants to meet yu on the quiet. Mebbe she's bashful, or got a husban', or somethin'."
"You ain't got brains enough to outfit a flea," the marshal said caustically. "Grab a skillet an' get breakfast, yu chunk o' grease."
The approach of noon found Green nearing the rendezvous. He recognized that he was taking a risk, and had no intention of riding blindly into an ambush. Therefore he turned off the trail and advanced cautiously under cover of the chaparral until he was able to see the open space where Bordene's body had been found. Squatting on the ground in the shade of a juniper was a man, smoking a cigarette, and from time to time casting an eye down the trail in the direction of Lawless. He was a Mexican of the poorest class, a peon, raggedly clad, with a knife and pistol thrust through the dirty scarf wound round his waist. For a while the marshal waited, and then rode out. Instantly the man got up, a gleam in his shifty eyes.
"Buenas dias, senor!" he greeted. "No spik here; I breeng horse."
He slipped like a snake into the brush, and a moment later, a cackle of merriment told the marshal that he was trapped.
"One leetle move, senor, and you die," said a familiar voice.
Green glanced round and saw Moraga covering him with a levelled carbine; saw, too, the dozen bandits with drawn guns closing in upon him from all sides, and realized that any attempt at resistance would be sheer suicide. His hands came away from his guns, and, disregarding the threat, he rolled and lighted a smoke. Then he turned to face the leader.
"Yu win--this time--little man," he said contemptuously. "Brought yore army too, I see."
Moraga spat out a sibilant Spanish oath; like most small men he was touchy about his stature. For an instant his hand hovered over a pistol butt, and then, with a cruel smile, he hissed, "I can wait, senor." Turning to his followers, he added, "Seize and tie him."
The marshal had made his preparations. While his hands had apparently been fumbling with his cigarette papers, he had deftly tied the reins to the horn of his saddle. As soon as he heard the command, he slid to the ground and uttered a shrill call. Nigger knew it for the signal that he was to go full speed, and bunching his great muscles he sprang forward, burst through the ring of astonished riders, and vanished down the trail. Green grinned scornfully as two of the guerrillas spurred after the runaway; he knew his horse. The return of the animal to town with the reins tied would tell Pete something was wrong, and they might be able to trail the bandits; it was his only chance.
"Yu don't get the hoss," he said to Moraga. "He's too good for a Greaser."
The Mexican's face flamed at the epithet, but he said nothing. Two men removed the marshal's guns and directed him to mount a pony; his wrists were then secured and his ankles roped beneath the animal's belly. At a word from its leader, the party set out at a fast lope, headed for Mexico, one man remaining behind. They had covered several miles when two horses, one bearing a double burden, caught them up; Nigger had evidently got away.
The satisfaction the marshal derived from this did not make him unduly optimistic. The chance of deliverance was slim indeed, and he had little hope of seeing another day dawn. Some time must necessarily elapse before a rescue party could be organized, and the country on either side of the line was of the wildest description, making the following of a trail a slow and arduous affair. Still, it was not in the man's nature to despair, and he rode along with an air of sardonic indifference. This attitude palpably amazed his captors; in his predicament they would have been shivering with dread, for they knew that El Diablo was not so named without reason.
They crossed Lazy Creek at a point lower than the marshal had done and then plunged into a mass of low, flat-topped hills, through which they made their way by threading long narrow ravines, twisting and turning snake-like about the bases of the mesas.
On the far side of the hills they found a desert confronting them, stretching out in every direction save that from which they had come. Across this arid waste Moraga unhesitatingly led his men. The only break in the maddening monotony of sand was provided by what appeared to be a group of tiny black mounds, towards which they were heading.
Plodding on, the horses' feet sinking to the fetlocks in the hot, powdery sand, they at length reached the spot, and the leader called a halt. It was a curious place. The "mounds" resolved themselves into pieces of stone,
set in a rude circle, some upright, pointing like fingers to the sky, others lying prone. Old, weather-scarred, they yet seemed to suggest humanity. The marshal had no thought for them; his mind was busy with the problem of why the stop had been made. It could not be to camp, for there was neither wood nor water; it must be that this was where he was to die. He looked at Moraga, as two of the men removed the rope from his feet and dragged him from the saddle, and saw that he had guessed correctly; the guerrilla leader's face was that of a devil. When he spoke his voice was soft, silky, but charged with menace:
"The senor understands? He will remain here, where nothing can live--long. It is the fate of those who cross El Diablo."
"Shucks! I didn't cross yu; it was the Injun did that," Green retorted. "How them scars healin' up?"
The reminder of his humiliation--one that nothing could ever wipe out--shattered the Mexican's self-control.
The unmoved demeanour of the man before him brought on another short spate of rage. "You Gringo dog!" he stormed. "You shall die by inches, slowly, horribly, with life a few paces away and yet out of reach." Again his voice dropped into a low, hateful purr, and the marshal was reminded of a cat playing with a mouse: "The senor has seen a man die of thirst--yes? He know how the tongue go black and swell up teel it too beeg for the mouth; how the body burn like--"
"Them scars on yore chest," the marshal suggested.
This time the gibe produced no outward effect. Moraga went on: "Like fire; the eyes lose their light; and the brain--melts. It is not nice, senor, as you weel learn--presently."
"Yu got me plumb scared," the prisoner replied, and if he was telling the truth his bearing did not show it.
At an order from the leader, Green's wrists were first freed and re-tied with a lariat, which was then fastened securely to one of the smaller horizontal stones. He was too near to the weight to turn round, but he could sit down, and did so, watching the rest of the preparations with a face of iron. Moraga, dismounting, inspected the bonds, and then stepped back a few paces to gloatingly survey his victim.
"I might wheep you, senor," he said, "but I want that you have all your strengt'; you weel suffer longer."
With a harsh laugh he turned away, and as he did so a knife slipped from his sash and dropped soundlessly upon the soft sand. To the marshal's surprise no one appeared to have noticed it. Moraga croaked another command, and one of the men unslung his gourd canteen and placed it in the shadow of a stone about ten paces from the bound man, who caught the swish of water as he put it down. The guerrilla leader waved to it.
"There is life, senor, if you can reach it," he jeered. "But the stone is a leetle heavy, I fear. Adios!"
With a snarling grin, he bowed to the man he was condemning to a cruel death, and leaping on the back of his horse, signed to his troop and followed them on the journey out of the desert. The marshal watched the riders vanish over a distant swell and then gazed around; he could see nothing but sand, ridges, humps, and flat levels, reaching unendingly to the horizon. His position appeared to be desperate; even if he got free, the task of making his way on foot out of this grim wilderness would be well-nigh hopeless.
The stillness of the desert wrapped him like a shroud. The sun, a ball of white flame, blazed out of a cloudless dome of pale blue. There was no movement in the air, no bird, reptile, or insect. Nature seemed to have called a halt in this desolate spot. With the departure of his captors, their low guttural voices and jingle of accoutrements, sound seemed to have gone also, leaving a silence which was that of a tomb. An instinctive desire to break this menacing, nerve-shattering quiet made him speak aloud:
"Wonder what kind o' hombres fetched these rocks? Sorta temple, looks like: been here a few thousand years too, I reckon. This fella I'm roped to might be an Aztec stone o' sacrifice. Well, it'll shore have another offering if I don't get busy."
The sound of his own voice amazed him: he hardly recognized it. He found a difficulty in forming the words; his throat was parched and his tongue already swollen. The scorching rays of the sun had sucked every atom of moisture from his body, and the desire to drink was becoming unbearable. Anxiously he peered through the dancing, quivering heat, but the surrounding desert was empty.
"Damnation! I'll beat the game yet," he said, and the fact that the words were a whisper only warned him that he had no time to lose.
Twisting his fingers round the lariat, he dug his heels into the sand and flung his weight forward. There seemed to be a slight movement, but whether it was the stone or a mere stretching of the rawhide he could not determine. Again he tried, and this time felt sure that the weight behind him rocked. It gave him an' idea. Turning as far as he could, with the toe of his boot he scraped the sand from under the stone, forming a hollow for it to fall into. This helped, but it was slow work, and at the end of an hour's digging and pulling he had advanced little more than a yard.
Panting for breath in that oven-like atmosphere, with every muscle aching and a throat which seemed to be on fire, he sat on the stone and gazed at the blade which meant freedom gleaming in the sunlight only a few feet away.
"It ain't possible, but I'm a-goin' to do it," he tried to say, but the sounds which issued from his tortured, puffed lips were unintelligible.
Doggedly he resumed his labours, a slight slope in the sand helping a little, but the terrific exertion, the hammering heat, and lack of liquid were taking their toll, and the next hour found his strength almost spent, with the goal still two yards distant. Grey with dust, speechless, staggering weakly, he fought on, creeping inch by inch towards the coveted bit of steel. His body was one huge throb of pain, but he battled with it, tensing his teeth and tugging until it seemed to him that his arms must leave their sockets.
He was still some five feet from the knife when he again sank gasping upon the stone, unable to move the monstrous burden another inch. It seemed to be the end; even the magnificent muscles and amazing vitality with which clean living and the great open spaces had endowed the puncher failed at a task which would have killed an ox. Glaring with haggard eyes, a sudden possibility occurred to him; it was his last hope. Resting all his weight on his hands, he arched his body and reached for the knife with one heel. The strain on his pulsing sinews was agonizing, but after one or two attempts he hooked his spur over the glittering blade and brought it nearer. Pausing for long moments between each effort, he at last had the thing at his feet, but tied as he was, could not get his hands to it. Kneeling in the sand, he contrived to grip the haft between his knees and stand up again; then his groping fingers touched the blade, and a moment later he was free. Staggering like a drunken man he lunged forward and snatched up the canteen, only to fling it down; it was empty!
A croak of mingled disappointment, rage, and despair broke from his strangled throat as the devilish cruelty of the trick seeped into his tortured brain. The knife left apparently by accident; the canteen of water, deliberately punctured when the man set it down, to deal a crushing blow to the reason of one already dying from thirst and the exhaustion of a punishing fight for freedom. And, in truth, the marshal was near to madness. Dimly he remembered stories of the ghastly tortures by the Holy Inquisition in the old days, and a grim thought saved his reason: Moraga had proved his boast that he was of Old Spain.
Instinctively he glanced round, almost expecting to hear mocking laughter, but there was no living thing in sight. The Mexican and his men had not waited--there was no need to put themselves to that discomfort. Even if the prisoner succeeded in getting free and retained his sanity, he would not have the strength to escape from the desert without water, food, and a horse.
Faint and wracked with pain, the American was not yet beaten. Picking up the knife, which he had dropped directly he had cut himself loose, he turned his face to the north. The sun's rays were no longer vertical, but the heat was still terrific. Nightfall would bring a bitter cold air, and though this would mean some relief, he knew that unless he found water he must die. Lurching from side t
o side he floundered on through the burning sand. Then his glazed, bloodshot eyes rested on a welcome sight, a grassy glade, trees waving in the breeze, and, leaping down from the rock-side into a little pool, a silver streak of crystal-clear water. So real did it seem that he fancied he could hear the gurgle and plash of the tiny cascade.
The marshal knew it was not real, that it was only a desert mirage, another trick--perpetrated by Nature, this time--to steal the last vestige of his sanity. He set his jaw savagely, and soon--as he had known it would--the vision vanished, leaving only the old desolation. He staggered on, frequently falling from sheer weakness, but always, after a time, rising to continue the fight. A great stain of crimson on the western horizon told him that the sun was sinking, and the air was already cooler. In the effort to retain his reason, he tried to keep his mind from the one thing his whole body cried out for. It was in vain; pictures of cool running streams into which he plunged insistently presented themselves, and the sound of the waterfall he had seen in the mirage was perpetually in his ears. With leaden feet he stumbled on and fell, a sharp pain stabbing his wrist. In the gathering gloom he saw that he had dropped close to a queer green growth, shaped like a cask, and defended by fierce spikes. It was a bisnaga, or barrel cactus.
Had he been able to utter a sound it would have been one of joy, for this fortunate find might mean life. Raising himself to his knees, he cut off the top of the cactus, and slicing out a portion of the pithy interior crushed it greedily against his swollen lips and tongue. The liquid so obtained was pure and slightly sweet. Repeating the operation until the plant was exhausted, he felt new energy stealing into his veins. Unfortunately, the cactus was a very small one, and though he searched diligently he could not discover another. Reinvigorated in some degree by this relief to his torture he pursued his way. Though there was no wind, it was now intensely cold. The moon came up and threw a softening silver radiance over the harshness of the desert. To the desperately worn man plodding through it, the sand seemed a malignant devil which clutched his ankles and held them. Each step was now an achievement, for his strength was gone. During twelve hours he had drunk less than half a pint of cactus-juice, and this in a land where a man needed two gallons of water per day. Moreover, for a great part of that time he had taxed his body to the uttermost. Weaving blindly onwards he fell again, made a last attempt to rise, and then lay supine...
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