by Zane Grey
“Señor, the first I have seen to. The second is not mine to grant. Quinela will demand ransom . . . yes . . . but never will he send the señorita back.”
“But I . . . thought . . . ?”
“Quinela was wronged by Uvalde.”
Vaughn whistled his reception of that astounding revelation. He had divined correctly the fear Uvalde had revealed. The situation then for Roseta was vastly more critical. Death would be merciful compared to what the half-breed peon Quinela would deal her. Vaughn cudgeled his brains in desperation. Why had he not shot it out with these malefactors? But passion could not further Roseta’s cause.
Meanwhile, the horses splashed and cracked the rocks in single file up the narrowing gorge. The shady walls gave place to brushy slopes that let the hot sun down. Roseta looked back at Vaughn with appeal and trust—and something more in her black eyes, that tortured him.
Vaughn did not have the courage to meet her gaze, except for that fleeting instant. It was natural that he sank in spirit. Never in his long ranger service had he encountered such a diabolically baffling situation. More than once he had faced what seemed inevitable death, where there had been presented not the slightest chance to escape. Vaughn was not of a temper to resign. He would watch till the very last second. For Roseta, however, he endured agonies. He had looked at the mutilated, outraged body of more than one girl victim of bandits. As a last resource he could only pray for a recurrence of such unheard-of and incredible luck as had made ranger history.
When at length the gully narrowed to a mere crack in the hill, and the water failed, Juan put his men to the ascent of a steep brush slope. And before long they broke out into a trail.
Presently a peon came in sight astride a mustang, and leading a burro. He got by the two guards, although they crowded him into the brush. But Juan halted him, and got off Star to see what was in the pack on the burro. With an exclamation of great satisfaction he pulled out what appeared to Vaughn to be a jug or demijohn covered with wickerwork. Juan pulled out the stopper and smelled the contents.
“¡Canyu!” he said, and his white teeth gleamed. He took a drink, then smacked his lips. When the guards, who had stopped to watch, made a move to dismount, he cursed them vociferously. Sullenly they slid back in their saddles. Juan stuffed the demijohn into the right saddlebag of Vaughn’s saddle. Here the peon protested, in a mixed dialect that Vaughn could not translate. But the content was obvious. Juan kicked the ragged fellow’s sandaled foot, and ordered him on with a significant touch of Vaughn’s big gun, which he wore so pompously. The peon lost no time riding off. Juan remounted and drove the cavalcade on.
Vaughn turned as his horse started, and again he encountered Roseta’s dark, intent eyes. They seemed telepathic this time, as well as soulful with unutterable promise. She had read Vaughn’s thought. If there were anything that had dominance of the peon’s nature, it was the cactus liquor, canyu. Ordinarily he was volatile, unstable as water, flint one moment and wax the next. But with the burn of canyu in his throat he had the substance of mist.
Vaughn felt the lift and pound of his leaden heart. He had prayed for the luck of the ranger, and lo! a peon had ridden up, packing canyu.
IV
Canyu was a distillation from the maguey cactus, a plant similar to the century plant. The peon brewed it. But in lieu of the brew, natives often cut into the heart of a plant and sucked the juice. Vaughn had once seen a native sprawled in the middle of a huge maguey, his head buried deep in the heart of it, and his legs hanging limp. Upon examination he appeared to be drunk, but it developed that he was dead.
This liquor was potential fire. The lack of it made peones surly; the possession of it made them gay. One drink changed the mental and physical world. Juan whistled after the first drink; after the second he began to sing “La Paloma.”
Almost at once the pace of travel that had been maintained slowed perceptibly. Vaughn felt like a giant. He believed he could break the thongs that bound his wrists. As he had prayed for his ranger luck, so he prayed for anything to delay this bandit on the trail.
The leader Juan either wanted the canyu for himself or was too crafty to share with his two men, probably both. With all three of them, the center of attention had ceased to be in Uvalde’s girl and the hated gringo ranger. It lay in that demijohn. If a devil lurked in this white liquor for them, there was likewise for the prisoners a watching angel.
The way led into a shady rocky glen. As of one accord the horses halted, without, so far as Vaughn could see, any move or word from their riders. This was proof that the two guards in the lead had ceased to ride with the sole idea in mind of keeping to a steady gait. Vaughn drew a deep breath, as if to control suspense. No man could foretell the variety of canyu effects, but certain it must be that something would happen.
Juan had mellowed. A subtle change had occurred in his disposition, although he was still the watchful leader. Vaughn felt that he was now in more peril from this bandit than before the advent of the canyu. This, however, would not last long. He could only bide his time, watch, and think. His luck had begun. He divined it, trusted it with mounting passion.
The two guards turned their horses across the trail, and that maneuver blocked Roseta’s mount while Vaughn’s came up alongside. If he could have stretched out his hand, he could have touched Roseta. Many a time he had been thrilled and softened and bewildered in her presence, not to say frightened, but he had never felt as now. Roseta contrived to touch his bound foot with her stirrup, and the deliberate move made Vaughn tremble. Still he did not yet look directly down at her.
The actions of the three guards were as clear to Vaughn as an inch of crystal water. If he had seen one fight among peones over canyu, he had seen a hundred. First, the older of the two guards leisurely got off his horse. His wide, straw sombrero hid all his face, except a peaked, yellow chin, scantily covered with black whiskers. His garb hung in rags, and a cartridge belt was slung loosely over his left shoulder. He had left his rifle in its saddle sheath, and his only weapon was a bone-handled machete stuck in a dilapidated scabbard on his belt.
“Juan, we are thirsty and have no water,” he said.
“Gonzalez, one drink and no more,” returned Juan, and lifted out the demijohn.
With eager cry the peon tipped it to his lips. And he gulped until Juan jerked it away. Then the other peon tumbled off his horse and gaily besought Juan for a drink, if only one precious drop. Juan complied, but this time he did not let go of the demijohn.
Vaughn felt a touch—a gentle pressure on his knee. Roseta had laid her gloved hand there. Then he had to avert his gaze from the Mexicans.
“Oh, Vaughn, I knew you would come to save me,” she whispered. “But they have caught you For God’s sake, do something.”
“Roseta, I reckon I can’t do much at this sitting,” replied Vaughn, smiling down at her. “Are you . . . all right?”
“Yes, except I’m tired and my legs ache. I was frightened badly enough before you happened along. But now . . . it’s terrible. . . . Vaughn, they are taking us to Quinela. He is a monster. My father told me so. . . . If you can’t save me, you must kill me.”
“I shall save you, Roseta,” he whispered low, committing himself on the altar of the luck that had never failed him.
Her eyes held his, and there was no doubt about the warm pressure of her hand on his knee. But even through this sweet stolen moment, Vaughn had tried to attend to the argument of the bandits. He heard their mingled voices, all high-pitched and angry. In another moment they would jump at each other like dogs.
A wrestling sound, trample of hoofs, a shrill—“¡Santa Maria!”—and a sodden blow preceded the startling crash of a gun.
As Vaughn’s horse plunged, he saw Roseta’s rear into the brush, with her screaming, and Star lunge out of a cloud of blue smoke. Next moment Vaughn found himself tearing down the trail. He was helpless, but he squeezed the scared horse with his knees and kept calling: “Whoa, there . . . whoa, boy
!”
Not for a hundred yards or more did the animal slow up. It relieved Vaughn to hear a clatter of hoofs behind him, and he turned to see Juan tearing in pursuit. Presently he crashed into the brush and, getting ahead of Vaughn, turned into the trail again to stop the horse.
Juan jerked the heaving horse out of the brush into the trail, then led him back toward the scene of the shooting. But before they reached it, Vaughn espied one of the guards coming with Roseta and a riderless horse. Juan grunted his satisfaction, and let them pass without a word.
Roseta seemed less terrorized and shaken than Vaughn had feared she would be. Her dilated eyes, as she passed, said as plainly as any words could have done, that they had one less captor to contend with.
The journey was resumed. Vaughn drew a deep breath and endeavored to contain himself. The sun was still only halfway down toward the western horizon. Hours of daylight yet! And he had an ally more deadly than bullets, more subtle than any man’s wit, sharper than the tooth of a serpent.
Perhaps in a quarter of an hour, Vaughn, turning his head ever so slightly, out of the tail of his eye saw Juan take another drink of canyu. And it was a good stiff drink. Vaughn thrilled as he possessed his soul in patience. Presently Juan’s latest deed would be as if it had never been. Canyu was an annihilation of the past.
“Juan, I’ll fall off this horse pronto,” began Vaughn.
“Very good, señor. Fall off,” replied Juan amiably.
“I am most damned uncomfortable with my hands tied back this way. I can’t sit straight. I’m cramped. Be a good fellow, Juan, and untie my hands.”
“Señor Texas Medill, if you are uncomfortable now, what will you be when you tread the fiery cactus on your peeled feet?”
“But that will be short. No man lives through such torture long, does he, Juan?”
“The chaya kills quickly, señor.”
“Juan, have you reflected upon the gold lying in the El Paso bank? Gold that can be yours for the ride. It will be long before my death is reported across the river. You have ample time to get to El Paso with my check and a letter. I can write it on a sheet of paper out of my notebook. Surely you have a friend or acquaintance in El Paso who can identify you at the bank as Juan . . . whatever your name is.”
“Yes, señor, I have. And my name is Juan Mendoz.”
“Have you thought about what you could do with three thousand dollars? Not Mexican pesos, but real gringo gold!”
“I have not thought, señor, because I hate to give in to dreams.”
“Juan, listen. You are a fool. I know I am as good as dead. What have I been a ranger all these years for? It’s worth this gold to me to be free of this miserable cramp . . . and to feel that I have tried to buy some little kindness for the señorita there. She is part Mexican, Juan. She has Mexican blood in her, don’t forget that. . . . Well, you are not betraying Quinela. And you will be rich. You will have my horse and saddle, if you are wise enough to keep Quinela from seeing them. You will buy silver spurs . . . with the long Spanish rowels. You will have jingling gold in your pocket. You will buy a vaquero’s sombrero. And then think of your chata . . . your sweetheart, Juan. . . . Ah, I knew it. You have a chata. Think of what you can buy her. A Spanish mantilla,. and a golden cross, and silver-buckled shoes for her little feet. Think how she will love you for that! Then, Juan, best of all, you can go far south of the border . . . buy a hacienda, horses, and cattle, and live there happily with your chata. You will only get killed in Quinela’s service . . . for a few dirty pesos
You will raise mescal on your hacienda, and draw your own canyu. . . . And all for so little, Juan!”
“Señor not only has gold in a bank but gold on his tongue. . . . It is, indeed, little you ask and little I risk.”
Juan rode abreast of Vaughn and felt in his pockets for the checkbook and pencil, which he had neglected to return. Vaughn made of his face a grateful mask. This peon had become approachable, as Vaughn had known canyu would make him, but he was not yet under its influence to an extent which justified undue risk. Still Vaughn decided, if the bandit freed his hands and gave him the slightest chance he would jerk Juan out of that saddle. Vaughn did not lose sight of the fact that his feet would still be tied. He calculated exactly what he would do in case Juan’s craftiness no longer operated. As the other stopped his horse and reined in Vaughn’s, the girl happened to turn around, as she often did, and she saw them. Vaughn caught a flash of big eyes and a white little face as Roseta vanished around a turn in the trail. Vaughn was glad for two things, that she had seen him stop and that she and her guard would be unable to see what took place.
All through these tingling, cold-nerved moments Juan appeared to be studying the checkbook. If he could read English, it surely was only familiar words. The thought leaped to Vaughn’s mind to write a note to the banker quite different from what he had intended. Most assuredly, if the El Paso banker ever saw that note, Vaughn would be dead, and it was clearly possible that it might fall under his hands.
“Señor, you may sign me the gold in your El Paso bank,” at length said Juan.
“Fine. You’re a good fellow, Juan. But I can’t hold a pencil with my teeth.”
Juan kicked the horse Vaughn bestrode and moved him across the trail so that Vaughn’s back was turned.
“There, señor,” said the bandit, and his lean dark hand slipped book and pencil into Vaughn’s vest pocket.
The cunning, thought Vaughn, in sickening disappointment! He had hoped Juan would free his bonds and then hand over the book. But Vaughn’s ranger luck did not yet ride so high.
He felt Juan tugging at the thongs around his wrists. They were tight—a fact Vaughn surely could attest to. He heard the bandit mutter a little and then curse.
“Juan, do you blame me for wanting those rawhides off my wrists?” asked Vaughn.
“Señor Medill is strong. It is nothing,” returned the Mexican.
Suddenly the painful tension on Vaughn’s wrists relaxed. He felt the thongs fall.
“¡Muchas gracias, señor!” he exclaimed. “Aghh! That feels good.”
Vaughn brought his hands around in front to rub each swollen and discolored wrist. But all the time he was gathering his forces, like a tiger about to leap. Had the critical moment arrived?
“Juan, that was a little job to make a man rich . . . now wasn’t it?” went on Vaughn pleasantly. And leisurely, but with every muscle taut, he turned to face his guard.
V
The bandit was out of reach of Vaughn’s tense hands. He sat back in the saddle with an expression of interest upon his swarthy face. The ranger could not be sure, but he would have gambled that Juan did not suspect his deadly intentions. Star was a mettlesome horse; Vaughn did not like the other’s horse, upon which he sat bound; there were at least several feet between them. If Vaughn had been free to leap he might have, probably would have, done so.
He swallowed his eagerness and began to rub his wrists again. Presently he removed pencil and book from his vest pocket. It was not pretense that occasioned a few labored moments in writing out a check for Juan Mendoz, for the three thousand and odd dollars in his balance at the bank.
“There, Juan. There it is . . . all made out and signed. May some gringo treat your chata as you treat Señorita Uvalde,” said Vaughn, handing the check over to the Mexican.
“Gracias, señor,” replied Juan, his black eyes burning upon the bit of colored paper. “Uvalde’s daughter then is your chata?”
“Yes. And I’ll leave a curse upon you, if she is mistreated.”
“Ranger, I had my orders from Quinela. You would not have asked more.”
“What has Quinela got against Uvalde?” queried Vaughn.
“They were vaqueros together years ago. But I don’t know the reason for Quinela’s hate. It is great and just. . . . Now, señor, the letter to your banker.”
Vaughn tore a leaf out of his notebook. On second thought he decided to write the letter in the notebook, wh
ich would serve in itself to identify him. In case this letter ever was presented at the bank in El Paso he wanted it to mean something. Then it occurred to Vaughn to try out his captor. So he wrote a few lines.
“Read this, Juan,” he said, handing over the book.
The bandit scanned the lines, which might as well have been Greek.
“Texas Medill does not write as well as he shoots,” said Juan.
“Let me have the book. I can do better. I forgot something.”
Receiving it back, Vaughn tore out the page and wrote another as follows:
Dear Mr. Jarvis:
If you ever see these lines you will know that I have been murdered by Quinela. Have the bearer arrested and wire to Captain Allerton, of the Rangers, at Brownsville. At this moment I am a prisoner of Juan Mendoz, lieutenant of Quinela. Miss Roseta Uvalde is also a prisoner. She will be held for ransom and revenge. The place is in the hills somewhere east and south of Rock Ford trail.
Medil
Vaughn, reading aloud to Mendoz, improvised a letter which identified him, and cunningly made mention of the gold.
“Juan, isn’t that better?” he said as he handed the book back. “You’ll do well not to show this to Quinela or anyone else. Go yourself at once to El Paso.”
As Vaughn had expected, the other did not scan this letter. Placing the check in the book, he deposited it in an inside pocket. Then without a word he drove Vaughn’s horse forward on the trail and, following close behind, soon came up with Roseta and her guard.
The girl looked back. Vaughn contrived, without making it obvious, to show her that his hands were free. A radiance crossed her wan face. The exertion and suspense had begun to tell markedly. She sagged in the saddle.
Juan appeared bent on making up for lost time, as he drove the horses at a trot. But this did not last long. Vaughn, looking at the ground, saw the black shadow of the bandit as he raised the demijohn to drink. What a sinister shadow! It forced Vaughn to think of what now should be his method of procedure. Sooner or later he was going to get his hand on his gun, which stuck out in back of Juan’s hip and hung down. That moment would see the end of the fellow. But Vaughn remembered how this horse he bestrode had bolted at the other gunshot. He would risk more, shooting from the back of this horse than by the hands of the other Mexican. Vaughn’s feet were tied in the stirrups, with the rope passing underneath the horse. If he were thrown sideways out of the saddle, it would be a perilous and very probably a fatal accident. He decided that at the critical time he would grip the horse with his legs so tightly that he could not be dislodged, and let the moment decide what to do about the other man.