by Will Cook
Grady lowered his paper. “What did he say?”
“Oh, something about traditions of the something or other.”
“No, no. How did he say it?” He swung his feet to the floor. “Did he shout?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so,” Hinshaw said. “Fact of the matter is, he was pretty nice about it.”
“Wait a minute now. Did he close his eyes?”
“Yeah, he did that. He wants to see you right away. Said I should tell you.”
“One more thing. Did he say . . . ‘Good Lord’?”
Hinshaw thought a minute. “Yeah, he said that. How did you know?”
“I just lost my sergeant’s rating,” Grady said. “When your arms heal, I’m fairly going to take the difference in pay out of your hide.”
“Aw, he wouldn’t do that,” Hinshaw said. “I just did him a big favor.” He stretched out on his bed and reached for Grady’s fallen newspaper. As soon as Grady left, he started to read it.
Colonel James Gary was writing a letter to his wife and children. The job depressed him for he could not help but compare the sheltered condition of his own with the Cardeen girls, homeless, without family, soiled by their horrible days of captivity. It was so sharp in his mind that he wrote of it in a separate letter meant only for his wife, and afterward he felt much better.
He had an appointment with Major Manners at four and lay down for a few hours’ rest. The telegrapher interrupted him with a message that had just come in. Gary read it.
Colonel James Gary, U.S. Army
On the Border, Laredo, Texas
Use your own judgment in negotiations. Have full confidence in you.
T. R.
It was the key he needed. He got up and went to headquarters. Manners and McCabe were talking, and Gary hesitated to interrupt, but he was waved into a chair.
“Glad you showed up,” Manners said, “for I was just about to send for you. We’ve had an odd bit of luck here, or perhaps it isn’t that at all. When Grady and Hinshaw ran into Carlisle on the plains, they didn’t realize that they were forgetting a vital link in the chain of circumstances surrounding the gun running. Carlisle and his men are being charged with murder. For some time we’ve known that he hangs every Mexican he finds on his property. One of his men broke, and he’s offered us a deal.”
McCabe said: “We still do make deals, Jim.”
“I’m not against it if the profit is high. What was the deal?”
“He’ll reveal the hiding place of some goods that’ve been stored at Carlisle’s place. Goods dropped off by Joe Sanders’s teamsters and plainly designated for Fred Early’s store.” Manners rubbed his hands together. “In exchange he wants the murder charge dropped. We’ve agreed to aggravated assault on Hinshaw and Grady. That’s sixty days at the most.” He looked at Grady. “This doesn’t sound good for Joe Sanders, Colonel. It’s unlogical as hell that Early would store anything on Carlisle’s place. A man in the gun-running business wouldn’t trust another man that far. No, from all indications of it, I’d say that Sanders was doing the illegal business and holding out on Early.”
“Are you thinking about a warrant?” Gary asked.
“Yes,” Manners said. “The judge will issue it. McCabe will serve it.”
Gary smiled. “Major, I was going to ask for the loan of McCabe. I got permission to dicker with the Mexican army, and I thought we’d take a ride across the river.”
“You could send someone else with the warrant,” McCabe said. “Grady’s not on patrol or on duty.”
“Grady’s been busted to private,” Manners said. He got up and went to the door to speak to the ranger on duty there. “Get Hinshaw here on the double.” He came back and sat down. “Somehow he’s got the idea that duty’s a lark. He might as well find out what it’s like right now.”
McCabe frowned. “Hinshaw’s taken a fancy to the girl, Major. It’s not really fair.”
“Since when have I been fair?” He looked steadily at McCabe. “Are you afraid to see him put to the test to find out what kind of a man he is? He’s run from the tough things in life before. Maybe he’ll run now. If he does, it’s better that we find it out before he runs when it can cost a man his life.”
Hinshaw was prompt, and Manners came right to the point. “In the morning I want you to go to town and have the judge swear out a warrant for Joe Sanders’s arrest. Take a buggy with you so you can bring him back to the stockade.”
Hinshaw’s mouth dropped open. “Arrest him? Major, he’s no more guilty than I am.”
“It’s not my policy to debate my decisions with recruits,” Manners said. “If you decline to accept your duty, say so, and I’ll draw up your discharge papers.”
“Maybe you just ought to do that,” Hinshaw said flatly.
“That was easy for you to say,” Manners told him. “Quitting gets easier every time you walk out, doesn’t it?” He slapped his hand flat on the desk. “Hinshaw, how many chances do you think life’s going to hand you?” He waved his hand. “I’ll get someone else.”
“Never mind,” Hinshaw said. “I’ll serve the warrant. But I won’t like it.”
“Nobody asked you to like it,” Manners said. “I don’t like it, either, because every time I have one served, I also run the risk of making a mistake.”
“You’ve sure made one this time,” Hinshaw said. “I’ll leave after breakfast, and I sure hope you’ll excuse me if I drive slow.”
Chapter Seventeen
Pedro Vargas camped in barbaric splendor twenty-five miles from the river while his army licked their slight wounds sustained in the encounter with General Hildago’s forces. Vargas’s claim to having an army was valid only when judged by number. He had nearly twenty-four hundred men in his camp, and he kept them only when the looting was good. A handful of lieutenants carried out his orders or passed them on down the line, for this was an army of individuals, with a man free to come and go as he wished. After a good raid, Vargas always got new recruits, poor peones eager to share in the prize money, but that always turned out to be very small, and, if any of them could have manipulated simple mathematics, they would have soon realized that they fought and died for less than eighteen cents a day.
Vargas’s share was somewhat larger. He took a straight fifty percent. The rest was largely divided up among his lieutenants. The soldiers were paid off in women and whisky. Like all revolutionary armies, Pedro Vargas was pressed hard by logistics. He had to carry his wealth wherever he went—for his was a pay-as-you-go army, and in dealing with Mexican police officials the pay was not cheap. Neither were the ,yan- quis. He had been brooding about this.
Vargas spent much time in his tent, sleeping, thinking, hating, and loving the young Mexican girls who were about. He had two guitarists who played almost constantly for him and a dozen servants who tolerated his moods.
One of his lieutenants entered his tent, a risky thing since El Jefe’s moods were unpredictable. “A man from Batiste has come into the camp, jefe.”
“Bring him to me,” Vargas said, and held up his wine glass to be filled by one of the servants.
The lieutenant returned a few minutes later with a Mexican in tow. “I am in the employ of Batiste Rameras,” the man said quickly.
“So?”
“He is unable to help you further, jefe.”
Vargas stood up. “I will have his ears for watch fobs. What does Rameras think I am doing? Playing a game with yanquis?”
“He is in bed with a split in the skull,” the Mexican said. “There was a fight between him and the young ranger, Hinshaw. A most brutal affair, jefe. For hours my patron did not regain his senses.”
Vargas cursed volubly again. “That man Hinshaw is a curse on my soul. First his interference on the train, then his sneak attack on my camp to free the girls, now this.” He slammed his fist into his palm. “I have had enough of this gringo. Luz, get me twenty men with souls of steel. We cross the border tonight.”
“Twenty, jefe?”
“Your ears are full of wax? Go!” As soon as the lieutenant dashed out, he turned to the Mexican. “Sit. Eat and drink what you want.” He snapped his fingers at the guitarists. “Play him a bright air. ¡Andale!”
“You are a savior, jefe. A true friend of the people.”
“Of all this I am aware,” Vargas said. “But it is good to hear it from sincere lips.” He began to dress for war, buckling on a much-silvered cartridge belt and a pair of pearl-handled pistols. He said to the Mexican: “You will become one of my bandidos tonight, my friend.”
The man was astonished and a little frightened by the prospect. “Jefe, my soul is not of steel, I am ashamed to say.”
“You will do even more dangerous work,” Vargas said. “Go back across the river. Find Hinshaw, then come to the edge of town. I will be waiting along the river.” He clapped the man on the shoulder. “I will make an example of him. You will be a hero in my camp. Now go!”
“But, jefe, I have yet to finish my meal. And the song is not ended!”
“Would you deny me revenge because you are selfish and stupid?”
The roaring voice drove the Mexican from the tent, and Vargas stepped out a few minutes later. His lieutenant had formed a group of twenty men. They waited with their horses. “We go,” Vargas said, and stepped into the saddle.
Martin Hinshaw’s departure from the ranger camp was unauthorized, yet he went, understanding that, if he were caught, the major would likely dismiss him from the service. Taking a horse from the stable was just too risky, so he walked into town and kept to the back streets and alleys until he came to Ella Sanders’s house. It was well after eleven o’clock, and he didn’t expect to find any lights on. He went to the door and knocked until Ella came downstairs with a lamp in her hand. She parted the lace curtain over the door and held the lamp high so that it shone on his face. Then she slid the bolt.
“Marty, I should be angry with you, coming here at this hour. What do you want?”
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
She sighed. “I have to leave on the six-fifteen train. Can’t it wait?”
“No, it can’t,” he said.
“All right, come on in.” She held the door open for him, then said: “Who’s that?”
He looked around and saw the man standing by the gate. He sprinted off the porch while the man wheeled and dashed down the street. Hinshaw chased him for a half a block, then gave it up as the man ran under a street light and disappeared into the darkness.
Hinshaw went back to Ella Sanders. “Just some Mexican looking for something to steal,” he said, stepping into the house.
“Come on in the parlor but keep your voice down. Dad’s sleeping.”
She put the lamp on a small table, and sat on the sofa. He said: “I don’t know how to start, Ella. The beginning, I guess. This afternoon I thought I could do my duty like the major said, but I guess I can’t, because the major’s wrong.”
“What’s the major wrong about?”
“About your dad selling machine guns to the Mexican bandits.”
She was shocked and showed it. “What a vicious lie! Is the major insane? He must be to think a thing like that. What proof could he have … ?”
“Only what Fred Early gave him,” Hinshaw said.
Now she was hurt as well as shocked. “Marty, you’re lying to me.”
“Look at me,” he said. “Do I look like I’m lying? Ella, I’m not much of anything, but I love you. I wouldn’t hurt you if I could help it. When I came here tonight, it was to get your dad in a buggy and light out.”
“Is that all you know? To run?”
“I deserve that,” he said, “only I know Fred Early’s the one the major wants, not your dad. But I can’t prove that. I’ve got nothing to base it on except my judgment of the man. He’s no good.”
She studied him for a long moment, then said: “You believe what you’re saying, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Tomorrow, the major’s handing me a warrant. I’ve got to take your father back to the stockade and lock him up. Early brought a whole satchel full of papers as proof that your dad was trading in guns. And a few other things have come up that look bad. I know Early’s no good. Someday I’ll prove it, and I hope it’s before you’re married to him.”
His manner added credence to his words, gave them force and truth. Ella knew him for a simple, direct man, and, as shocked as she was, she knew she had to hear the rest of it. “What do you intend to do, Marty?”
“I wanted to spare you,” he said. “I still do.”
She shook her head. “We’ve got to do more than that. It’s. the truth we want, no matter how it hurts. Dad would want it that way. So do I. Tomorrow when you come with the warrant, Dad will be ready to go with you.”
“And Fred Early?”
She thought about it. “I think it’s easy for us to blame him. I love my father and assume him innocent. You love me, and because of that you assume he’s. . . .” She stopped, and lightly brushed a hand across her forehead. “Did you say you loved me?”
“I said it. Shouldn’t have, but I’m always saying things I shouldn’t.”
A cane thumped on the ceiling. “Dad’s awake. You’d better go up. He’ll want to know what you’re doing here.”
Martin Hinshaw said: “What’ll I tell him?”
Ella smiled. “You might say that you were courting me.”
“He’d never understand that.”
“He’ll understand it better than the other. I’ll tell him after you’ve gone.” She put her hand on Hinshaw’s arm. “I’ve got to prepare myself to lose either way, don’t I? I mean, if Fred is right, then I’ve got something to live with.”
“He’s not right.”
“Then I’ve loved a man who’s worse than a thief,” she said.
“You never loved him,” Hinshaw said. “Just think of the things he’s said that you really didn’t like but overlooked, and you’ll know that you never loved him.”
“How can you know he’d say anything . . . ?”
“Because he’s no good, and a no-good man has a lot of funny notions.”
Joe Sanders thumped again with his cane, and Hinshaw turned to the stairs and started up. Ella went into the parlor to get the lamp.
Hinshaw reached the top landing before the front door crashed open. He whirled and saw the Mexicans crowding in, and he acted without thought, drawing his gun and firing as it came level with his hip. Two men fell, and the ones crowded behind fired back, the bullets puckering the steps around him, gouging strips of plaster and paper from the wall. Instead of retreating, he vaulted the banister and dropped level with the hall and crouched there, working the hammer, driving them back with their wounded. For a moment he thought he saw Pedro Vargas, but he was sure that he was mistaken.
Hinshaw realized that he couldn’t defend the house from the bottom floor, so he grabbed Ella by the arm, jerked her into the hall, and shoved her up the stairs. The front windows lost their glass as two Mexicans forced themselves into the house, and glass came down in the rear of the building as they broke into the kitchen.
When he and Ella reached the top of the landing, Hinshaw stopped. “Get a mattress!” he yelled.
The door to Joe Sanders’s room opened, and he dragged himself out. He had his pistol and a box of cartridges. Ella came back with the mattress. Hinshaw rolled it and used it for a shield while he went belly down on the landing. The Mexicans were crowding into the house. He could hear them talking as he punched spent shells from his gun and reloaded.
Hinshaw’s view of the front door was uncluttered, and the Mexicans did not try to enter that way. Instead, they congregated in the parlor and the kitchen, out of sight. Then he heard Vargas curse them. He was here! And surely the bandit knew that the gunfire would attract attention, and that time would be running out for him, or maybe he didn’t care. A man could want something so badly that he lost all care. It never occurred to Hinshaw that Pedro Vargas wanted him. He had
automatically assumed that it was Joe Sanders whom Vargas sought.
Vargas’s men had to get up the stairs, so they rushed it, ten strong, and Hinshaw fired point-blank into the mass while bullets thudded into the mattress and nipped the collar of his shirt. The men retreated, and Hinshaw turned his attention to his empty gun.
Joe Sanders made no sound. Hinshaw looked at him and found him leaning on the mattress, blood dripping down his face from the hole in his temple. Quickly he looked around and saw that Ella had barricaded herself in the bedroom. He was glad of that at least.
He reached over and took Joe Sanders’s gun from his still hand and broke it open. It was unfired. Well, Hinshaw thought, they got what they came after. Three dead Mexicans lay in the open front door and two more on the stairs. One had rolled to the bottom.
Outside the house there was a stir, a rumble, the sound of men approaching on the run, and Vargas got out the back way. They had horses nearby, and Hinshaw heard them ride away. He got up and took a deep breath because he had the hard part to do. He went to Ella’s bedroom and opened the door and found her standing by the dresser, her complexion like chalk.
“They’ve gone,” he said. “You’d better sit down.” When she hesitated, he put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to sit on the edge of the bed. “Ella, I don’t know how to tell you, but your dad was unlucky.”
She looked at him, and her expression melted into grief. She began to cry silently. He turned away from her as, downstairs, men ran into the house. He met a crowd on the stairs. They stopped and looked at Hinshaw, and he realized that he was still holding his revolver. He holstered it and looked at Fred Early, who seemed to be leading them.
“Where is she?”
Hinshaw jerked his thumb toward the bedroom. “In there, crying.”
Early started to push past so he could go in to Ella’s room, but Hinshaw blocked him with a stiff arm. “Don’t bother her.”
“We’re engaged. I never bother her.”
“You bother me,” Hinshaw said, and shoved him into the arms of his friends.