by Will Cook
“You cannot stay here,” Rameras said, his manner unfriendly. “The rangers are looking for you.”
“I know that,” Early said, showing his weariness. “I’ve been ducking and hiding and running all the way back here. Batiste, you’ve got to help me.”
“Why?”
“Because I helped you,” Early said. “What kind of a question is that?”
“You have been paid well for anything you did,” he said. “Leave my store.”
“Wait,” Early said, holding up his hand. “Let me stay here until tonight. I’ll cross the river and work my way to the coast.” He took paper and pencil from his pocket. “Here’s the combination to my safe. Not the one in my office. Slide my desk away from the wall. You’ll find a trap door in the floor. There’s a safe there with over a hundred and thirty thousand in it. As soon as it gets dark, get the money and come back here. Then take me to Pedro Vargas’s camp. You’ll be rewarded.”
Batiste thought of this, then said: “Why don’t I tell the rangers where you are and keep the money?”
“They’d take it away from you,” Early said. “Batiste, the only safe place for us is in Mexico. Don’t be a fool now. I told you I’d reward you, and I will, generously. I’ll give you five hundred dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Batiste said, and nodded.
He left the back room and closed the door, then he moved to the front of the store and motioned for one of his workers to come over. Quickly, in Spanish, he told the man what he wanted done, then pressed a ten-dollar gold piece into his hand.
“Go like the wind. Tell the soldiers at the river crossing that your mother is sick and that you would visit her. El Jefe will admit you. Tell him I will be there late tonight… with the yanqui. A big fiesta should be held in his honor. Now, go.” Rameras did not go into the back of the store untillate afternoon. He found Fred Early pacing up and down. Immediately he grabbed Rameras by the arm. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick wondering.”
“There is nothing to worry about,” Rameras said. “I have dispatched a man to El Jefe’s camp. There will be much dancing, and the señoritas will laugh and sing for you tonight. El Jefe will be pleased that you are his guest.” The gaiety left his voice. “But El Jefe will not be pleased about the weapons you promised.” Then he shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. “Ah, why speak of it? El Jefe is a man with a big heart, and he will remember the good things you have done.”
“I want to make arrangements to get to the coast,” Early said. “Naturally I’ll pay for any help I get.”
“Naturally. The people of Mexico are poor, and the dollars are of great value. You will want a boat to take you to New Orleans. It can be arranged.”
“Once I get out of Texas, I’ll be safe enough,” Early said. He laughed briefly. “They really have nothing to charge me with. I’ll hire some attorneys and start litigation to protect my property here. Those damned rangers can’t do a thing to me. Not a thing.”
“Then why are you afraid of them?” Rameras asked.
“Because Hinshaw’s alive,” Early snapped. “He’s a reckless, headstrong fool, and he’s liable to shoot me on sight as not. Who wants to die at the hands of some idealistic fool?” He looked at Rameras. “Why did Vargas have to bungle the job when he had the chance? Couldn’t fifteen men kill one wild Texan?”
Batiste Rameras smiled. “To kill a Hinshaw is no small thing, señor. I know that well. My family learned it and took the knowledge to the grave.” A brightness came to his eyes. “His death to me is a thing long desired, but he is a man unafraid. To my face he comes to me, like the thunder. He does not run and hide, and someday I will meet him, and one will die, but it will be a proud thing, with honor.” He looked at Early again. “I can see why you are afraid of him. Myself, I know fear of him, but to me it is an excitement, like a fiery woman’s love. You do not know what I mean?”
“I never understand half of the things you people say or think,” Early said. “See if you can get me something to eat. And a tub of water and a change of clean clothes. I’m crawling with dirt.”
Rameras shrugged. “We cannot have everything, señor. The money I will bring, but no more.” He went out and closed the door, and he heard Early shoot the bolt home. It pleased Rameras to have the man gripped by fear, and he went down the street for a leisurely supper at a restaurant.
As soon as it was dark, he let himself into Early’s store by the back door and, without using more than match light, worked the combination of the hidden safe. He packed the money, mostly bills, in a saddlebag and left the store the way he came in.
In his own shop, Rameras put the saddlebag beneath the counter, then went in back, and tapped on the door. “I have the money. When I tap on the back door, come out. I’ll have horses waiting.”
“All right,” Early said. “But for God’s sake hurry. I don’t like being cooped up in here.”
“I will make haste,” Rameras said. He left the shop, went to the alley, and saddled two horses he kept in the barn. Then he went back for the saddlebag and finally tapped on the rear door. Early immediately came out.
“No one saw you?”
“Who pays attention to a Mexican?” He stepped into the saddle.
“Where’s the money?” Early asked, mounting.
“I have it here. It is safe.”
“I’ll carry it myself,” Early said, and Rameras handed it over without argument. When they reached the end of the alley, they stopped, for a party of six rangers were entering town, towing Early’s damaged automobile. Three rangers had their ropes dallied tight and were dragging the car along, the wheelless axle scuffing the ground. One of the rangers sat in the driver’s seat, loudly blowing the bulb horn.
A crowd began to collect.
“The swine,” Early said. “No respect for anything!”
“We go now,” Rameras said. “No one will notice us with the machine taking their attention.” He rode out, and Early followed, still swearing softly over the treatment of his automobile.
Rameras knew all the spots where the river could be crossed unobserved, and they went in the water, swimming the horses. They emerged on the other side and paused in a grove of trees. Twenty minutes went by, then Rameras’s helper appeared on a burro.
“Everything is in readiness,” he said. “The camp is not two hours’ ride from here.”
“Then let’s get going,” Early said.
It seemed to Early, that they wandered over a circuitous route. There were times when he felt they were near the river, and far from it, and lost, for he was a man with little sense of direction and no ability to get from one place tq another unless he followed the road or took the train. They were in wooded, hilly country when they came to Pedro Vargas’s camp. Early was stunned by the enormity of it. They rode for fifteen minutes just getting from the fringe to Vargas’s headquarters.
It was, he believed, the noise that bothered him the most, for everyone seemed to be talking or singing or yelling or getting drunk. He felt a momentary regret in coming here, and he hoped that he would be leaving before morning. Surely Vargas would understand his desire to hurry.
Vargas’s headquarters was a huge tent surrounded by his retainers, and he welcomed Early with a laugh and an embrace. “Ah, my friend, you do me the honor to come to my humble house.” He snapped his fingers. “Music, dancing, andale! Sit down, sit down. Bring food and wine here.” He smiled and led Early to a chair. “Misfortune falls upon you, eh? It is life. Tomorrow the sun will shine.”
“I must get to the coast and to New Orleans,” Early said.
“Of course. It will be arranged. But now you will rest and eat and be entertained.” He glanced at Batiste Rameras, then at the saddlebag Early held. “What have you there, amigo?” He indicated the saddlebag.
“A bag of yanqui dollars, jefe,” Rameras answered for him.
“The property of Señor Early.”
“So! Sanchez, Luz! Stand over the property of ou
r guest with your rifles. Kill the first man who dares place his hand on it.”
“Si, jefe.” They stood on each side of the saddlebag with cocked rifles as Early set it down. He said: “That really isn’t necessary, Vargas.”
“It is a courtesy,” Vargas said. He smiled. “In my camp, you may call me jefe.” He threw his leg over the arm of his chair. “A pity there will be no more guns. You promised me new machine guns, and I have not seen them.”
“They’re aboard a boat right now,” Early said. “As soon as I get to New Orleans, I’ll take legal steps to take possession of that cargo.”
“Splendid,” El Jefe said. “Ah, here are the servants with food and wine.”
Early sat there, paying no attention, while he was being served. Then the feeling grew strong in him that he was being watched, and he realized that no one in the vicinity was talking. He looked up and found a young, dirty-faced girl staring at him, and, in the lamplight, he could hardly make her out, then a full recognition came to him.
“Why, it’s Rhea Cardeen, isn’t it? You’ve been in my store.”
“What are you doing here, Mister Early?”
One of Vargas’s lieutenants raised his hand to strike her, but Vargas snapped: “Let her speak. Señor Early is my guest. We are . . . business partners.”
“We needn’t discuss it,” Early said. “My dear, are you a prisoner here?”
“She is my property,” El Jefe said. “She was taken from me once by that tall yanqui.” He laughed. “This time I am watching for him.”
“Grady?” Early asked.
“He is the one,” Vargas said.
“You will wait long, jefe,” Rameras said softly. “Grady is dead. Is that not the truth, Señor Early?”
Early glanced at Rhea Cardeen and found her eyes steady and hard on his. Suddenly he felt the need to be moving on and stood up. “I thank you for your hospitality, Vargas, but if I can have a horse and a guide to the coast, I’ll be moving on.” He reached for his saddlebag, and the muzzles of two rifles pushed into his stomach. A hard, frightening suspicion came to him, and he looked at Vargas and found the man smiling.
“Sit down, señor. That’s better. You are in haste, and you haven’t eaten yet.” He glanced at Rhea Cardeen. “And you have not told her how Señor Grady died. Was he shot in the breast, señor? Man to man . . . did you fight him and kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Early said. “I don’t go around killing people.”
“No, that is probably true,” Vargas said. “You would have it done.” He leaned forward slightly. “In the back, then?” He let Early sweat for a moment, then laughed. “Carve the bird, my little flower. Give our guest the choice piece.”
Rhea Cardeen picked up the long carving knife and never took her eyes off Fred Early. Suddenly she thrust the point against his stomach, and he reared back in the chair. He held himself that way, his eyes round and frightened.
“I loved him,” Rhea said. “We were going to be married, Mister Early.”
“God, I’m sorry!” he gasped.
“Are you?”
She threw her weight against the knife, and he screamed and fell backward and thrashed on the ground, both hands clutched around the wooden handle. Vargas sat there with a smile on his lips. He said: “How much money is in the bags, Rameras?”
“Mucho dinero, jefe.”
“Help… me!” Early gave this cry, then began to gag, and finally he stopped kicking and lay, staring at the stars with vacant eyes.
Rhea Cardeen said: “Kill me now if you want. I don’t care.”
“Who speaks of killing?” Vargas asked. “Rameras, get a horse. Take her to the river. You are free, my little flower. With the stroke of your hand you have earned your freedom. Go with El Jefe’s blessing.”
She stared at him, stunned. “Why?”
“Because El Jefe is kind,” Vargas said. He motioned toward Fred Early. “Put a rope on his feet and drag him to the edge of camp. In tomorrow’s heat he will draw the flies.”
Rameras brought up a horse and almost picked Rhea Cardeen up and placed her astride him. “We go,” he said. “El Jefe may change his mind.”
“I wouldn’t care,” she said.
Rameras went with her, and another man, and it was only a short ride to the river taking a direct route. On the way Rameras and the other man talked in Spanish and laughed. Occasionally they mentioned Fred Early’s name. At the river’s edge they stopped and got down.
Rameras asked: “Can you swim, señorita?”
“Yes, very well,” Rhea said.
“The current is not swift here,” Rameras said. “And the only deep part is in the middle.” He pointed upstream. “Laredo is not far. You will make it before dawn if you do not stop and sleep.” He dug into his purse and handed her two gold pieces. “It will buy you a new dress and a flower for your hair. I am sorry about the yanqui.”
“I believe you are,” Rhea said. She turned and went into the water to her knees, then looked back for a moment before going on.
Rameras and the other man mounted. They sat and watched her swimming strongly. There was a sliver of moon, and they could see her head and the wake she made. She made midstream without difficulty, then Rameras swore softly. “She has stopped swimming. Swim, señorita.’ Swim!” He thought she turned and looked back, then her head disappeared from sight. They waited many minutes, but she did not reappear. “She stopped swimming,” Rameras said again.
“Si,” said the other man matter-of-factly and turned his horse and rode back toward Pedro Vargas’s camp. A moment later Rameras followed him but made no attempt to catch up.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Two small Mexican boys, spearing frogs along the river, found Rhea Cardeen. They told their father who hastily hitched his burro to a cart and drove seventeen miles to Laredo for the Texas Rangers. Guthrie McCabe and Major Manners answered the call personally. The two Mexican boys were each given a silver dollar for their prompt honesty, and they ran whooping toward the adobe a mile away to show their mother this great fortune. The Mexican farmer helped pull Rhea Cardeen to the bank, and McCabe made a close examination of her.
“She hasn’t been in the water too long, Carl. Fifteen hours, maybe. No marks on her, either. Drowned, I guess.”
“The question in my mind is how did she get away from Vargas’s camp?” Manners asked.
McCabe pointed to her feet. “They’re not cut up. No blisters. Either she was brought to the river, or the camp isn’t far from it.” He looked upstream. “How far would something float in that length of time?”
“All the way from Laredo,” Manners said. “Does that suggest that his camp is somewhere across from town?”
“It could,” McCabe said. He turned to the Mexican and, in Spanish, hired him to take the girl to Laredo in the cart. Then he and Manners mounted their horses and rode back.
As they rode along, Manners said: “Would she leave her sister? The young one wasn’t quite right in the head, you know. Leastways not since Grady and you and the kid brought ’em back.”
“She wouldn’t leave her unless she was dead,” McCabe said. “When we get back, I’d like to check the investigation reports on that train’s derailing. It seems to me that some fella testified that a woman shot another. Do you remember?”
“Yes, Collins. A salesman for a windmill firm.”
“The pieces sort of come together,” McCabe said. “Rhea killed her sister before they ever left the vicinity of the train. And somehow she got loose, or was turned loose, and drowned trying to swim the river.”
“The Mexicans could have held her under.”
McCabe shook his head. “It ain’t their way of killing.” He fell into a thoughtful silence. “She didn’t have anything on but her chemise. To me that suggests that she could swim. A person who couldn’t wouldn’t shed a dress before getting in the water, or take it off after she went in.” He shook his head again. “The river ain’t so wide that even a passable s
wimmer couldn’t make it. It’s my guess that she just gave up and let herself sink. What was there to come back to? She’d killed her sister and that preyed on her mind. And Grady’s dead.”
“She didn’t know that,” Manners said.
“How can you be sure of that?”
“I guess I can’t,” Manners said. “The older I get, the less I’m sure of.”
Colonel Gary and Martin Hinshaw swung off the train as soon as it reached the station. They immediately lost themselves in the crowd and worked their way clear. On a street corner two blocks away they found a saloon and went in, bought two glasses of beer, and took them to a table in one corner.
“I hate to confess this,” Gary said, “but I haven’t the slightest notion as to how to go about contacting the German.”
“I don’t know, either,” Hinshaw said. “Early must have had some kind of an arrangement, but I don’t know it.”
“Do you suppose Schilling is put up at one of the hotels?”
Hinshaw shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. One thing for sure, we don’t have time to play around with this. Early is liable to show up tomorrow, or the next day for sure.”
Four rough men staggered into the saloon and made a lot of noise ordering their drinks. Then unexpectedly they veered toward the corner table, and, before Hinshaw or Gary could rise, they were surrounded.
One man made a rude joke and gave Hinshaw a push in the face with the flat of his hand that upset him. Gary made a move for his pistol, but one man grabbed his arm and shook his head. Before Hinshaw could rise, they piled him, three of them while the fourth held Gary neutral. Under a smother of bodies, a soft, sober voice said: “Play along, Hinshaw.”
They started to brawl, wrestling against the table until they broke it. Then the bartender came over with his shotgun and said: “All right! Now take it outside! Go on, get out of here!”
Gary exchanged glances with Hinshaw, and, in that brief instant, he saw that there was more to this than he understood. They went out to the street, making a lot of noise. After they walked down a piece, they ducked into an alley, and the four men grinned.