by COLE JACKSON
That he was a wandering prospector, a typical desert rat, it seemed there could be little doubt. Pick and shovel peeped from the burro’s pack. A chipping hammer was also in evidence.
As Shafter neared the head of the wash, he proceeded more slowly. Several times he paused, as though listening for something and his gaze roved backward and forward along the irregular ledges ahead. He could see now that the wash turned sharply and was really but the entrance to a deeper gorge that slashed the hills. His dark brows drew together at the discovery and he muttered something back of his bearded lips. He began to examine the ground carefully.
Suddenly he paused. His eye had caught the gleam of deep mineral stains on a bit of float. He picked up the stone and examined it with growing excitement. Beard and moustache pursed together in a soundless whistle. Shafter raised his eyes to stare incredulously at the beetling breast of the hills. He shook his head in a dazed unbelief. Again he glanced at the stone, read its story with a trained mining man’s practiced glance. The evidence in his bronzed hand was indubitable.
Again he raised his eyes to the unpromising battlements of those forbidding hills. Still shaking his head, he strode onward, and a moment later picked up another piece of float, and in another moment a third. Shafter halted, and stared at the mineral fragments, his face working. Again his glance sought the hill crest, and again he incredulously shook his head.
Silver in the Tamarra Hills! Silver of a richness vouched for by the bits of float borne down the draw by turbulent storm water! It just couldn’t be! Spanish Conquistadore, scout, emigrant, cattleman, wandering prospector — all had passed the forbidding range, giving the grim crags and battlements a wide berth. Only the marauding Apache, the fleeing outlaw, the furtive smuggler sought sanctuary amid the cliffs and canyons and gloomy caves.
“Somebody might have dropped them rocks out of a pack or somethin’,” Shafter declared to his burro. But his voice held no conviction. The miner in him knew that the mineral-packed float had been torn loose from some ledge farther up the draw.
Sunset was flaming in all its scarlet and gold and shimmering bronze glory when Ed Shafter made his camp near the head of the draw. And as he boiled his coffee and fried his bacon, Destiny shuffled through the prairie grasses to the East and Death drifted silently across the purple-silver ribbon far to the south that was the stately Rio Grande.
Shafter could not hear those dragging footsteps through the grasses nor the muffled plod of hoofs up the muddy river bank, but a cold wind fanned his face and he hunched closer to his little fire, his mind brooding over twin problems. From time to time he drew a crumbling fragment of float from an inner pocket and stared at the blue threads that were silver. After each examination he would raise his eyes and gaze toward that shadowy river far to the south, and the muscles of his lean jaw would quiver beneath the beard. Finally he fumbled within his shirt, touching something there with his bronzed, sinewy fingers. As if by magic, the indecision left his steady eyes and with a shrug of his broad shoulders he dropped the bit of float back into his pocket, nodded purposefully toward the unseen river and prepared his bed.
And Destiny and Death drew nearer.
CHAPTER 2
MORNING came and Shafter, tired out by a long and hard trudge across the rangeland, slept late. The sun was high behind a sullen veil of clouds as he cooked his breakfast and ate it leisurely. He was washing his few dishes when his keen ears caught the sound that drifted up the draw.
There was a patient clicking of little hoofs on stone, and another sound, a dragging shuffle that kept laborious time with the first.
“Burro comin’ t’other side that brush, and a man,” Shafter deduced. “Man walks like he’s hurt,” he added, listening to the hesitant shuffle.
Picking up his rifle he cradled it negligently in his arm, where it could be swung into instant action should occasion warrant. Then he lounged carelessly in the shadow of a gnarled burr oak, where he could see better than he could be seen. There was something menacing about that indecisive shuffle. Shafter felt it, but was at a loss to explain why.
Abruptly he relaxed, an exclamation on his lips.
Through the final fringe of the growth, a man had appeared, a man and a burro. The burro was a sturdy little animal, loaded with a well arranged pack. The man was the strangest individual Shafter had ever seen.
Wide, thick shoulders hunched high about the massive neck, powerful, simian arms dangling loosely, ending in finely shaped hands with slim, tapering fingers that hung well below his knees. He was not over five feet tall. His legs were bowed and crooked and worked stiffly from the hips, giving him a peculiar shuffling gait that dragged feet singularly small for the rest of him. His body was unutterably grotesque, utterly misshapen, vibrating crude physical power.
“Those arms could crack a hoss’s ribs, and he could come darn near gettin’ ’em around a hoss, too,” muttered Shafter, staring amazedly at the face, so out of place on that distorted form.
As grotesque as the stranger was in body, he was beautiful of face. The pushed-back sombrero revealed crisply curling hair golden as the evening sunlight, a broad, finely shaped forehead, delicately curved dark brows that shaded eyes as clearly blue as a summer sky. The nose was straight with sensitive nostrils. The mouth was wide but with perfectly formed lips above a prominent, determined chin. It was a proud, sensitive, intelligent face.
The hunchback carried no rifle, but twin holsters swung from his heavy double cartridge belts, one holster worn slightly higher than the other. He paused a dozen paces distant from the tall bearded man, bowed courteously and spoke.
“Buenas dias, señor,” he said in a voice that was like the music of the waters echoing from the soundboard of the hills.
“Mawnin’,” replied Shafter, concealing his surprise at the other’s Spanish greeting. The man certainly did not look Mexican.
The hunchback spoke again, in unaccented English that was free of the soft drawl and slurred word-endings that characterize the Southwest.
“I smelled your coffee,” he said. “Been out myself for two days,” he added with a flash of white, even teeth.
Shafter chuckled his understanding.
“It shore is tough, especially if you’re sorta used to havin’ it reg’lar,” he admitted. “Amble up here and set. Pot’s still nigh onto half full. I made plenty this mawnin’.”
He stopped to stir the embers together as he spoke. He straightened with his back to the other and stood, lithe and tall as a young pine of the forest.
Into the hunchback’s blue eyes suddenly came a murky light of intense bitterness. His unbelievably handsome face contorted and for a moment its marvellous beauty dimmed as does the bright loveliness of the prairie under the shadow of a storm cloud. Then, as Shafter turned, the light died, the cameo-perfect features smoothed and the eyes became clear again.
“Thanks,” he accepted the offer.
Before he squatted beside the fire, however, steaming tincup in hand, he slipped the pack from the burro’s back and dropped it to the ground. Shafter liked him for that little act of thoughtfulness. His shrewd eyes ran over the outfit.
“Prospector?” he asked.
The hunchback nodded.
“No luck,” he volunteered in answer to the unspoken question in the other’s eyes. “Thought I’d work up through the Tamarra Hills and over to the Huecos, maybe. I’ve a notion there ought to be something worth while up there.”
“Know the country?” Shafter asked.
“Fairly well,” the other replied. “My ancestors owned most of it at one time. They lost tide when the courts invalidated the old Spanish grants in this section.”
His blue eyes hardened slightly as he spoke. In Shafter’s was a light of understanding.
“You come down from one of the old Spanish families, then?”
The question was really a statement. The other nodded.
“Yes,” he replied quietly, “I’m a Capistrano — Amado Capistrano is my name
.”
“And I callate you’re entitled to write Don ‘fore the Amado, if you take a notion,” observed Shafter.
Amado Capistrano shrugged with Latin eloquence.
“It would be rather out of place before a desert rat’s name, don’t you think?” he replied.
“Not necessarily,” answered Shafter, gazing thoughtfully at the proud sensitive face. With instinctive tact he changed the subject.
“Yore folks used to own the rangeland down there?” with a wave of his hand toward the lovely Tamarra Valley.
“Yes,” the other replied. “John Chadwick owns it now. Know him?”
“Heard of him,” Shafter replied.
That was not very definite. Almost everyone in that section of Texas had heard of John Chadwick, the cattle king. Chadwick was reputedly very wealthy, had served a term as State Senator and was spoken of as a possible candidate for governor.
Capistrano finished his coffee and stood up.
“Thanks,” he said again, lifting the pack to the burro’s back. “Guess I’ll head on up the draw.”
A little later Shafter watched the other man’s grotesque form shuffle toward the wide mouth of the gorge. At the end of the wash he hesitated, apparently doubtful whether to turn to the right or the left, and as he paused, Destiny cast the dice. There was a flutter of grayish white, a skittering among the stones as a cottontail rabbit darted from a covert, weaved erratically for a moment and then sped away to the right. Shafter could almost hear the hunchback’s amused chuckle as he too turned to the right and vanished up the gorge.
Late afternoon found Shafter on the move. He entered the gorge, drove straight ahead for a mile or two and then veered slightly to the left. Suddenly he paused, his eyes narrowing.
Directly ahead a ledge of grayish rock, marbled with black and yellowish blotches, undulated along the dark side of an abrupt rise. Shafter eyed it, breathing deeply. He strode forward with long strides, paused, loosened his prospector’s pick from the burro’s pack and sank it into the rock. It came crumbling down in brittle lumps.
With a trembling hand, Shafter picked up one of the fragments. It was streaked and veined with silver. He examined another, and another. Each was as the first — unbelievably rich in silver ore.
Shafter straightened up, his eyes blazing. Clenching the stones in sweat-moistened hands he stared at the ledge, turned abruptly and gazed toward the south. Lips tight, he dropped the bits of ore into his pocket, carefully scuffed dirt over the remaining fragments, smeared dust on the fresh scar his pick had left and resolutely turned his back on the ledge. He turned sharply to the left and strode southward with long strides.
And several miles to the north, the hunchback descendant of the Conquistadores paused before the face of a sheer cliff, sighed wearily and, turning, retraced his steps, veering more and more to the left as the shadows lengthened.
As the blue dusk was descending on the hill tops, Shafter made a fireless camp less than half a mile from the precipitous slope that was the south wall of the gorge. In the shadow of an overhanging rock he sat silent, motionless, rifle across his knees, eyes fixed on a wide notch that cut the gorge wall. From this notch flowed a ribbon of trail, or what passed for a trail. Shafter, who, like Amado Capistrano, was fairly familiar with the country, knew that it was the sinister Huachuca Trail that writhed its blood-splotched way northward from the purple mountains of Mexico.
Silently he watched the gloomy notch, while a great white moon soared up over the eastern rim of the world and edged the black velvet of the hills with silver.
The moon climbed higher, bathing the gorge in ghostly light, and still the bearded Shafter sat motionless, alert.
Suddenly he stiffened, his lean hands gripping the rifle. Eyes eager, he leaned forward.
There was motion in the notch — furtive, indistinct motion that quickly became clearcut and real. Shadowy forms bulked large and grotesque in the wan moonlight.
Tense, quivering with excitement, Shafter watched them jolt down the trail — the mounted men, the loaded mules. Even at that distance he could recognize the long, deadly looking cases and the chunky boxes that seemed to swell with lethal power. His breath came quick and fast.
“I was right!” he muttered. “It wasn’t a loco yarn of a drunken Mex! Nobody but me b’lieved it, but I was right! They’re doin’ it! They’re gettin’ ready! This is big! And nobody but me caught on to what was happenin’!”
His whole attention riveted on the stream of men and beasts flowing down the distant trail, he failed to see his gray old burro shuffle up a little rise and stand outlined clear and distinct in the moonlight.
For long minutes Shafter watched the ghostly caravan slide through the notch and vanish amid the shadows of the gorge. When the last outrider disappeared, he straightened his cramped limbs, stood up and strode out of the shadow. He turned quickly, gripping his rifle, at a slight sound behind him. Not ten paces distant stood a form blending into the shadows. A shaft of moonlight bathed the face, outlining every feature.
For a paralyzed second Shafter stared, his face that of a man whose judgment and trust has been shattered. Then he read the message in the eyes glaring into his, he flung his rifle to his shoulder. The other’s hands moved with blinding speed.
Ed Shafter died with his finger squeezing the trigger of his rifle — died under the blast of lead-belching from two blazing guns, black holes blotching his broad forehead. He crumpled back in the shadow of the overhanging rock, a shapeless bundle of patched clothes, almost hidden from view. The killer deliberately fired twice more. He was taking no chances. A moment later he shot the old burro.
The white moon slid down behind the western crags. The stars dwindled to pin points of pale flame before they vanished in the whitening vault of the sky. The silent dawn spread its red mande over the lonely mountains. The sun rose in gold and scarlet splendor and it was day.
Other days came, gray days and golden days, and moon bright nights and nights of lashing rain and wailing winds. Summer gave way to Autumn. And still the huddled bones of Ed Shafter lay in their moldering rags under the overhanging rock.
Strange sounds came to the hill country — unwonted thunders, mysterious boomings that puzzled the coyotes and sent the owls winging away. Also a low growl and mutter that swelled and lessened, rose and fell, but never ceased.
Two wandering miners discovered Shafter’s skeleton. They stared at the grisly remains, bent over them gingerly. One pointed to the holes in the fleshless skull. The other nodded, bending closer as a gleam of metal caught his eye. With a hesitant hand he fumbled the tattered shirt, jerking loose the shining object pinned to the rotten undershirt beneath. He held the bit of silver in his horny palm and he and his companion stared at it with dilated eyes.
“Bill,” he said, mouthing the words nervously, “this ain’t no ord’nary killin’. Yuh know what this thing stands for. We’d better hustle down to town and report this. Sheriff’s purty apt to be there — spends more time in Helidoro now than at San Rosita, the county seat.”
The other shifted uncomfortably.
“Curt,” he objected, “we hadn’t oughta be havin’ no truck with that sheriff, not after that run-in we had with him last week. I don’t hanker to go reportin’ no killin’ to him. Can’t tell what might be liable to happen.”
The first speaker considered.
“Mebbe yuh’re right,” he admitted, “but jest the same this’d oughta be reported — I won’t feel right if it ain’t. Them fellers is square shooters and they ain’t nobody got no bus’ness pluggin’ ‘em. Tell yuh what. Franklin ain’t sich a turrible ja’nt fer fellers like you and me — hardly a hundred miles. S’posin’ we jest amble over there and report to the post?”
“Now yuh’re talkin’, feller,” his companion agreed heartily. “That’s jest what we’ll do.”
He glanced about with keen eyes, calculating distances, noting landmarks. He nodded toward the Huachuca Trail sliding furtively through the no
tch.
“Got the place all easy marked for the tellin’,” he said with satisfaction. “I can lay ‘er out so a blind man with the shakin’ palsy can find ‘er. C’mon, podner, stretch yore laigs.”
CHAPTER 3
RARELY does rain fall upon the Tamarra Desert, that grim waste of alkali, scrub and dust powdered sage which stretches from the Huecos to the Tamarra Hills. But when it does rain, it is as if the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And always, before the first hissing lances spatter the gray leaves of the sage, a roaring wind swirls the choking alkali dust in blinding clouds that blot out the sun and fill the air with a rasping grit.
Nothing lives in the Tamarra Desert, not even a callous snake or hardened lizard. The wolf and the coyote give it a wide berth and seldom do even the vultures sail over the dreary expanse. Only when some ill-advised wanderer gets caught in a storm do they appear.
How do they know the lost one is there? Perhaps they hear the Hill Gods chuckle, even above the roar of the storm. Doubtless they were whetting their beaks in anticipation as they peered down with telescopic eyes, that could perhaps pierce the dust clouds, at the man who struggled blindly across the dismal waste, gasping, choking, bending his head to the beat of the winds, reeling drunkenly from time to time.
He was a little man, dark of face, scrawny of body, clad in a greasy shirt and pantaloons, rope sandals, tattered separe and floppy straw sombrero.
Hugged to his breast, a rag wrapped around the lock to protect it from the dust, he held a shiny new rifle.
Through all his bitter battle against the storm he grimly clutched the heavy weapon, even when he tripped over some unseen straggle of sage or scrub and fell, which was often. He still held onto it when for the last time he crashed to the earth, writhed feebly for a moment and was still, while the dust drifted and settled upon his unconscious form.