by Max Brand
“Tell me only one thing,” Lee said. “Did the two of you ever live one summer in a cabin in the Samson Mountains?”
“Of course not,” affirmed McGuire. “Oh, Sally told me about it, son — about the glove — but she said she never had such a glove as that in all her life. It was just — well, she somehow could never tell you that herself — you were so sure of it.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m truly sorry, son — truly sorry.”
THE END
Rodeo Ranch (1923)
CONTENTS
I. AN ATTACK IN THE DARK
II. THE RODEO
III. DUDS KOBBE
IV. THE GIRL
V. SEÑOR LOPEZ
VI. SEÑORITA MANTIEZ TALKS
VII. OVER THE WALL
VIII. AN INTERVIEW
IX. ON WATCH
X. DANGER THREATENS
XI. QUINNADO!
I. AN ATTACK IN THE DARK
IT HAPPENED TO Señor Don Ramon Alvarez in the following manner. He was deep in the first sleep of the night and in the middle of the first happy dream when he wakened suddenly. He heard nothing and saw nothing in the blackness of the room, yet he knew perfectly that he was in the greatest danger. So he lay still, concentrating upon the problem. Reason told him that his house was large, his servants many, and the probability of danger reaching him in his own room remote indeed; but when he struggled the hardest to assure himself of his safety, at that very moment instinct protested that he was wrong and that death was stalking softly toward his bed.
He turned his head toward the wall and the door. He could see nothing except those strange, formless objects which sift about in the darkness for those who stare hard enough and long enough into blank space. He reached up and under his pillow. He found the butt of the revolver and squeezed it with a huge relief. In fact, if there were an actual danger confronting him, he would not perish unavenged. Thus he assured himself as he lay there with the perspiration standing upon his forehead and his heart pounding like the thud of a racer’s hoofs.
Then at the very moment when he had almost conquered his terror, he received the indubitable proof. For a hand touched him upon his breast, a soft and gliding touch. Still there was nothing to be seen in the darkness above him, and there was not a sound to be heard, but Alvarez, with a strong twist of his body, whirled himself out from under the danger, whatever it might be, and rolled by a complete turn nearer the window. The cat which darts up and away as the shadow of the dog slides near moves not more quickly than did Don Ramon. And even so the blow missed him by a scant fraction of an inch. The bedclothes were jarred tight around his body. He heard the hiss of a blade that thrust its length into the mattress. He heard the faint grunt of one who has wasted a mighty effort, and then he fired into nothingness.
There was no shout of pain or protest, not even the patter of feet in flight. Far away in the house rolled the echo of the explosion, but still there was no sound of human voice. Small wonder that an assassin had come with a knife to hunt him, seeing that he was so insecurely guarded. Would it be hours before the dull-wits, the blockheads, had heard that gun and realized what it meant? Would it be hours before they rushed to his rescue? He could have been killed a hundred times before their efforts could have saved him or revenged him.
He fired again, with a wild panic starting in his brain, and the flash of the second shot showed him the work of the first. The body of a man was sprawled upon the foot of the bed, lying inert, limp, lifeless, as he knew by even that fraction of a second’s glance.
Alvarez jumped from the bed and snapped on the electric light. And now he turned at last toward his victim and assailant. He went to the bed and leaned over. The dead man lay upon his face, his hands thrown straight above his head, and in the left hand was the knife which had already been thrust into the bedding in the search for the body of Alvarez. It was a tawny, long-fingered hand with a big emerald on the third finger, a flat-faced emerald upon which was incised a delicate design.
When Alvarez saw that design he whimpered softly and turned his head over his shoulder. If anyone had come through the door at that instant, he would have seen a face which was a veritable mask of tragedy and fear. The eyes were starting forth; the lips were drawn tight and were trembling; his nostrils expanded; his cheeks were sagging. He had grown, of a sudden, ten years older.
Such was the face which Alvarez turned toward the door; he ran to it and turned the key in the lock. Then back he faced to the prostrate form in the bed and, seizing it by the shoulder, he turned it over. He found himself looking down into wide, dull eyes, and upon the lips there was a crushed smile of foolish derision. Alvarez, however, had no regard for the smile. He was only interested in the features. It was a long, lean face. A habitual frown made a crease, even in death, between the eyes. The face was as yellow-tan as the hands. There was the smoke of Indian blood in that complexion, and in the yellow-stained pupils of the eyes.
Alvarez looked upon the dead man with a peculiar horror. He went backward at a staggering pace and fell into the arms of a big, overstuffed chair. He slumped into it so inertly that his head struck against the thick roll at the back of the chair, and he sat there with his eyes riveted upon the wall before him as though he saw the pictures of his fate drawn in the clearest outline before him.
He passed his hand hastily through his hair. It was a dense mass of the thickest silver, and it stood up almost on end after the gesture, giving him an unwonted appearance of wildness and dissipation.
Now came footfalls down the hall. How long had it been since that report from the revolver should have roused the household? It seemed a quarter of an hour to Alvarez, though perhaps excitement had lengthened seconds to minutes for him. He heard a hand turn the knob of the door. Then there was a shout of fear when it failed to open. Others took up the cry, up and down the hall. Perhaps there were a score of tongues in the shout:
“They’ve murdered the master and locked his door! The señor is dead!”
Alvarez grinned at the door mirthlessly and shook his clenched fist at it, like one who suffers so much that he is glad to see anxiety in others. Then he hastened back to the limp figure upon the bed. He tore the ring from the third finger of the left hand, looked down with a shudder to the diagram upon the face of the emerald, and dropped it in his pocket. Then he went in the greatest haste through the pockets of the deceased. There was a wallet stuffed with papers and with plenty of currency. Certainly hunger and pressing poverty could not have impelled the stranger to the crime which he had attempted, for there was something over a thousand dollars in that wallet. And had he been in need, he might have raised several thousand more upon the emerald, for it was a stone as large and splendid as it was strangely cut. And it was odd indeed to find a jewel so precious, cut as a seal!
Alvarez shoved the wallet under his pillow. In the other pockets of the stranger he discovered nothing of importance. There were cigarettes, a few cigars — thick at the fire end after the Mexican style — and a heavy pocketknife mounted in gold, but without any identifying initials. All of these things Alvarez left in the clothes of the stranger.
Then he turned to the door of his bedroom against which his servants were thundering. He strode to it and cast it wide open, with the result that he nearly received half a dozen bullets in the face, so convinced were his adherents that he was dead and that only his murderer could be living in the room.
They gave back with lowered guns and with yells of joy when they saw that it was Alvarez himself who stood before them. The cook fell upon his knees and threw up his hands in thanksgiving, so that Alvarez was touched, and it took a great deal indeed to move Alvarez.
Yet he would not allow his gentler feelings to control him. As they stood before him, he scowled heavily and let them have the full advantage of his expression before he uttered a word. Then it was to shout at them: “Traitors! Blockheads! Fools! Have you left me here to be massacred while you slept in your beds? I have fed you and clothed you and treated
you like my children! I have squandered my money upon you. I have given you all a home. And now I am left here to be murdered in my bed!”
They drew together in a frightened huddle under his torrent of abuse, which was freely interspersed and sprinkled with oaths. They began to protest that the instant they heard the explosion of the gun in the room of the master they had come at once to his rescue, but he shut them off with more curses.
At length he bade them come in and view the villain who would have destroyed his life, and they trooped in together, whispering and gasping with horror until they found the body upon the bed. Then they were speechless and with that as an object lesson before them, Alvarez read to them a long lecture upon the beauties of honest and faithful service to an overgenerous master, for like some other employers of labor Alvarez appreciated his own virtues to the uttermost.
He drove them out, at length, and sent some of them to find the coroner and others to find the sheriff. He himself went back into the bedroom and spent a few minutes walking up and down, up and down, his face twisted with anxiety. It was not the man lying upon the bed to whom he gave a thought. It was rather the presence of some danger in the outer world which troubled him and which caused him, now and again, to pause at one of the big windows and shake his fist at the possibilities which lay somewhere between him and the misty circle of the horizon.
When the sheriff arrived, he found the rich rancher dressed and in his library. The language of Alvarez was strange for a man who has recently escaped from the hands of a secret and midnight murderer, for he told the sheriff that he was sorry for the thing which he had been compelled to do that night. He was confident that no man would willingly assail the life of another man who had not injured him, and that there must have been some cause of great poverty and pressing need which had caused the stranger to invade his home. The sheriff replied with a grunt.
II. THE RODEO
AS A MATTER of course, Alvarez received nothing but praise for the adroitness with which he had baffled the murderer. It was surmised that the absence of any papers which might identify the stranger, as well as the removal of the ring from his finger — for the pale band was noted as well as the indentation in the flesh of the finger — indicated that the murderer, in taking his chance to kill the rich rancher, had purposely removed all possible means of identifying himself in case he should be killed in the attempt. As for the purpose of destroying Alvarez, it was instantly apparent, for around his neck Alvarez wore the key which opened the safe in which his money for current expenses was kept. And that money was enough to make a large haul.
But, on the whole, the attempt to destroy Don Ramon was considered lucky for the district for it was the immediate cause of the celebration of a great festival by the rancher. He wished to indicate his joy at his escape, and for that reason he organized a rodeo which quite put in the shade other affairs of the kind.
There was one fault to be found with his plans, and that was that there was only a week’s notice given. However, the instant his announcement was made, it was carried in all the newspapers of the range towns, and four days were enough to bring in ‘punchers from the distant sections. Furthermore, the prizes were of such a nature that every skillful man along the range was sure to come if he possibly could, for Don Ramon had dipped deeply into his pocket for the sake of the festival. There were handsome cash prizes for every event. And the events ranged from fancy roping to foot racing, from horse-breaking to knife-throwing, from boxing to shooting. There were events in which cowboys were sure to excel, and there were events in which vaqueros were certain to excel, and there were others in which Indians would stand forth. Who but an Indian, for instance, could be expected to win a twenty-four-hour race across the desert and the mountains?
On the whole it would be a great spectacle, and people immediately began mustering for it. But, in the meantime, there was a single blot upon the happiness of the occasion, and that was the news that Don Ramon was confined to his bed, and that he might not be able to view the sports of the great day. The nature of his sickness was not known. Some held that it was the result of a nervous breakdown caused by the crisis through which he had just passed and others, again, declared that the poor don was suffering merely from old age.
However that might be, Don Ramon did not leave his bed in the interim before the sports began. Neither did he rise on the morning of the festival, but sent his majordomo to distribute the prizes in his name. He stayed in his bed attended by his doctors and surrounded by soft-footed servants. It was not until the late afternoon of the day that he arrived in the field. He came there, indeed, barely in time for the last and the greatest of all the contests. That was the shooting.
Ordinarily, gun play held secondary place in such affairs, if it appeared at all, but on this occasion it was given a great emphasis by the prize which was offered. It was a prize calculated to attract every red-blooded cowpuncher who had ever had any skill with guns in his life. It was the sort of prize which made even the spectators yearn to be in the lists taking part in the trial of skill. In a word, the prize which Don Ramon was offering was his famous chestnut stallion, El Capitán. He was a six-year-old king among horses, and had been brought to the West especially to give Don Ramon’s ranch an unequaled stock of finest horseflesh. El Capitán had cost the don a trip to England and many thousands of dollars. El Capitán, as Don Ramon christened the horse, was immediately considered an object of public pride by the entire community. Ever since it had been announced that he was to be the prize for the shooting, people had begun to wonder if Don Ramon had gone mad or whether the stallion was not so wonderful after all. The result was that for weeks crowds had come to watch him in his corral. El Capitán was not much under seventeen hands in height, but for all his bulk he was built like a picture horse. His gait was as light and mincing as any dancing pony’s. His head was all that a horse’s head should be, a very poem of beauty, courage, pride and great-heartedness. And that this miracle among horses should be given as the prize in a shooting match was almost too strange to be true. Don Ramon was forced to give an explanation through his majordomo. His ranch was stocked with El Capitán’s progeny and therefore it was possible for him to part with his favorite. But most of all he was giving the stallion to encourage marksmanship and practice with guns among the cowpunchers of the range, for he declared that the greatest of all frontier accomplishments was falling into disuse in the new century, and it was his ambition to restore it.. Beginning with this year he would offer an annual prize for the best shot in the West. And each prize would be almost as splendid as the one he was offering this season.
This explanation was accepted for what it might be worth, but the cowpunchers were frankly incredulous. El Capitán was worth a small fortune. It was still incredible that he should be put up for the prize in a day’s sport. However, having been carefully examined, he was pronounced without a single flaw. Altogether he was matchless. In England he had not been fast enough to keep up with the light-footed sprinters on the tracks and so he had not been of use either as a racer or as a sire of racers. But where the course was to last all day and where the track was not a smoothed turf but a wild way over mountains and sandy deserts, El Capitán kept going where other horses dropped beside the way.
The very best men in the country came to vie with one another in the contest. It was an unusual struggle, unlike any that had ever been held before. It began with rifle shooting at close and long range. It continued with rifle shooting at moving objects. And it closed with revolver work, and skill with the revolver counted against skill with the rifle as three is to one! For the revolver, said Don Ramon in his announcement, should be the unique weapon of the Western ranges.
All centered, then, upon adroitness with the smaller weapon. In the beginning the contestants were lined up and asked to try their skill upon stationary targets. These targets were large-headed nails driven into boards and placed at such a distance that they were almost invisible! Five men came through this
contest. The others were hopelessly distanced. Then the five were required to shoot at bricks thrown into the air at a uniform height and distance and, when that part was over, they were made to mount their horses and ride at a gallop between two rows of posts on each of which a small can was placed. Those cans had to be blown off, and there was only one way in which it could be done. The horse must be controlled with the knees and the voice, and there must be a revolver in each hand.
The five set their teeth and prepared for the crucial tests. They had weathered the brick shooting well enough. Shooting from the firm ground at a moving object was one thing, but shooting from a moving object at a stationary point was another. The difference is that which exists between guns on shore and guns at sea. Everyone knows that a single large caliber gun on land is equal to a whole battleship armed with a dozen such guns afloat in the water.
So, with their horses prepared, their guns ready, the five awaited the signal. It was given and Shorty Galbraith, famous in song and story in spite of his scant forty years, went gallantly down the rows. His horse cantered with the rhythmical precision of a circus animal. It rocked slowly ahead, and from either hand Shorty blazed away at the cans. His bullets flicked off the first three pair. Then he began to miss with his left-hand gun and scored two blanks with his port weapon, a thing which so upset him that with his last two shots he missed on both sides. He had knocked off eight out of twelve cans, however, and that was a score amazingly high. It would be extraordinary if it were much improved upon by any of the remaining four champions. For Shorty was almost ambidextrous and could use his right hand almost as well as his left.
The applause which greeted Shorty’s effort had hardly died down when old Chapman, hero of a score of fights in the old days and still as steady of eye and hand as ever, started for the posts. He scored a double miss on the first pair of posts. But the next four pair went off as if by magic, and exultant cheers were beginning from his supporters when he missed as completely on the last pair as he had missed on the first. However, he had tied with Shorty. And he reined his horse to one side, prepared heartily to wish bad luck to the remaining three contestants. Of these the first one to make the attempt failed almost completely. He knocked off one of the first pair, but then his horse started forward too fast, and he succeeded in bringing down only three of the remaining targets. But the marksman who followed called up a hysteria of cheering by actually bringing down nine of the cans. So loud was the yelling that the old fellow had to take off his hat to the thunder and wave it at his admirers. He was a veteran frontiersman, tall, lean, with a head on which flashed many a gray hair when he had removed his sombrero. His name was Sam Calkins and, though he was not as well known as some of his competitors, his figure, his stately bearing, his grave and reserved manner of speech complied with all the traditions of the West. Everyone instantly wished him well, particularly because of the character of his single opponent who remained to rival his score.