The Bloody Border

by J. T. Edson

  Still the words failed to bring the desired result. Annoyance showed on the guard’s face and he started to move forward in a menacing manner. “Damned if I don’t take a chance on i—!”

  Then he came to a halt as if running into an invisible wall. His bugged-out eyes seemed magnetized to the bowie knife which slid into view from beneath the Kid’s serape and lined its needle-sharp point at the centre button of his tunic. Held low and in a position that only the sentry might see it, the bowie knife gave added menace to the Comanche-mean lines of the Kid’s face.

  “Get the hell out of our way, foot-shuffler,” the youngster growled in a pure Texas voice, “afore I come down and whittle your head top to a point.”

  And he looked mean enough to try it, what with the incident outside the hotel and a complete lack of patience in face of stupidity.

  Nor had the use of a cavalryman’s derogatory term for an infantry soldier escaped the sentry’s notice, adding to his sudden realisation that the couple on the cart were far more than itinerant vegetable sellers. Having been employed as a guard at the consul for over a year, the soldier could guess what kind of people he was facing. Spies in disguise did not expect to have their identities revealed and possessed sufficient influence high up to make life uncomfortable for any mere private who crossed them. Maybe his present employment lacked the glamour of active service, but he preferred to remain at it rather than be returned to his regiment. So he stepped back and prepared to let the visitors enter.

  “Act just as you would on an ordinary call like this!” Belle ordered, speaking English for the first time. “If you point out the kitchen, do it. Or take us there if that’s what you normally do.”

  Should there be a Yankee watching, he must see everything done in a normal manner.

  “Yes’m!” the sentry replied, but he had sense enough not to make the change in his demeanour too obvious. “I should shout up the corporal of the guard, ma’am.”

  “Then do it,” Belle snapped. “We haven’t all day.”

  “No, ma’am! Yes’m! Corporal of the guard! Back gate for the corporal of the guard!”

  On his arrival, the corporal of the guard proved to have a better grasp of the situation than the sentry. Which did not surprise Belle, who remembered him from her last visit. In fact she knew that, despite the two stripes on his sleeves, Rule Shafto drew the pay and held the rank of captain in the Confederate States Army. Of slightly over medium height, he possessed the kind of average build and features which defy description. On occasion he could pose as Mexican, from hildalgo down to peon, a French soldier, or a border drifter as tough and coarse as any of that breed and escape detection.

  “Vegetables for the consul, senor captain,” Belle greeted in a low voice. “Hello, Rule.”

  “Pass them in, Tidd,” Shafto ordered, without giving a sign of the surprise he must have felt.

  “Yo!” answered the sentry, stepping aside.

  “I had less trouble getting in last time,” Belle smiled as the cart rolled through the gate.

  “You looked different then,” Shafto replied, for on the previous visit she had posed as the amie of a Confederate ‘general’. “Tidd’s not the quickest thinker around. Comes in handy if we want the Yankees to know something. There’s one of ‘em buys him drinks regularly for what can be learned. Not that that’s much. I make good and sure he sees nothing.”

  “How about seeing us?” Belle asked.

  “I’ll keep him away from the cantina until you’ve finished your assignment. What brings you back here, Belle?”

  “A big one. You know Corporal Ysabel?”

  “Sure. Hi, Lon. Where’s your pappy?”

  “Down to ole Ramon’s posada,” the Kid replied.

  “Act natural,” Shafto warned. “The Yankees own that house back there and keep a feller in one of the top floor rooms watching us all the time.”

  “That’s bad!” Belle breathed. “I’ve two trunks in the cart that we have to take inside.”

  “Easy enough done,” Shafto assured her. “We put up that cabin—for the guard—when we took over. The Yankees can’t see behind it and we always unload stuff for the kitchen there.”

  Belle had already noticed the small cabin, obviously of later construction than the rest of the building, standing to one side. Instead of driving towards the rear doors, she directed the cart around the cabin and found it concealed another entrance to the kitchen.

  While members of the Negro domestic staff unloaded the cart, the Kid looked around him. Although he received information and instructions from Shafto, this was his first visit to the consul’s house. The French knew about the blockade runners using Matamoros, but preferred that the Confederate States consul did not take an active part in it. So all contact with the Ysabel’s superiors took place well away from the house.

  At the rear of the building lay a small open plaza and a truck garden. Along each side and, he presumed, to the front, were well cared for gardens with a number of thick, flowering bushes scattered around. Too many, to the Kid’s way of thinking, for they offered places of concealment a skilled man might use. However the high wall, with its topping of jagged glass, and the sentries at front and rear seemed to rule out the chances of anybody making use of the cover.

  “Here you are, Lon,” Belle said, holding out the Dragoon Colt. “Let’s go inside and see the consul.”

  Already the trunks were being carried inside. Following them, Belle, the Kid and Shafto passed through the kitchen and to the front hall. The servants set down the trunks by one of the doors leading from the hall and Shafto went through it. Trying to tuck the Colt into his waist band, the Kid found its weight too much for the piece of rope which acted as a belt.

  “Damn it!” he growled.

  “Leave it on the trunks with mine,” Belle suggested. “You’re not likely to need it in here.”

  “Mr. Garfield won’t keep you a couple of minutes, Belle,” Shafto announced, returning from the room. “He has a visitor. Don’t worry, he’ll show him out through the library.”

  While waiting, Belle told Shafto of her run-in with the French corporal. When she mentioned the pair of Americans, he nodded his head.

  “Her name’s Corstin, Emily Corstin,” Shafto said. “Cousin of Hayter, the Yankee consul and down here on a visit. Or so I heard. Only that doesn’t tell us why she’d be with a border rat like Charlie Kraus.”

  “I think Miss Corstin will bear watching,” Belle remarked.

  “So do I, now,” Shafto agreed. “I’ll see to that.”

  Soon after, the room’s door opened and Winston Garfield, the consul, came out. A tall, well-built, elegantly-dressed man, he covered ability under a mantle of amiable pomposity.

  “My dear Miss Boyd,” he greeted, looking her over from head to toe. “I’d never have recognised you-all. Come in, come in. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, but that was the harbour-master come for his weekly pay-off.”

  “You know why I’m here?” Belle asked, leading the way into the consul’s comfortably furnished study.

  “Of course,” Garfield admitted. “Have a seat, Miss Boyd. May I offer you a glass of wine?”

  “I think I could use one,” Belle smiled. “Have you met Corporal Ysabel?”

  “Not officially,” Garfield answered. “But I’ve seen the results of your work, young man.”

  “Thanks,” the Kid replied, feeling just a touch uncomfortable in the luxurious surroundings. “Pappy said to tell you he’d bring down some more of that wine on the next trip.”

  “Hum! Yes!” Garfield sniffed. “And now, to business. I trust everything has gone smoothly so far, Miss Boyd?”

  “Well enough,” she said. “We ran into a little difficulty on the way to the bay, but it all worked out.”

  While the others talked, the Kid looked around the room. Then his eyes went to the window which overlooked the gardens on the left side of the building. The upper part of the sash had been lowered to allow a cooling breeze
to circulate around the room, but that did not interest him. Even as he looked, he caught the brief flicker of a colour alien to its surroundings in the garden. Constant alertness had been a lesson taught from early childhood and the sight sent a warning ringing in his head.

  “Is there anybody working in the garden?” he asked, cutting into the conversation without hesitation.

  “Not on this side of the house,” Shafto replied. “There never is when the harbour-master calls.”

  Before the reply was half completed, the Kid started across the room towards the window. He intended to raise the lower sash on his arrival and check that his eyes were not playing tricks, but saw there would be no time. That flicker of colour had been no trick of light or imagination. A man was darting through the bushes away from the house.

  Hurling himself forward in a rolling dive, the Kid went through the window in a cloud of shattering glass and framework. Behind him Garfield let out a startled squawk. Equally surprised, Belle and Shafto followed on the Kid’s heels. They did not know why he was acting in such a manner, but figured he must have a mighty good reason.

  While falling to the ground, the Kid found time to curse his luck in not having the old Dragoon available. The man running away from the window must be stopped and had a good head start to be run down in a foot-race. Then another fact ripped into him. A flicker of dark blue had attracted his attention, but the fleeing men wore buckskins of a tawny colour. That meant there must be two interlopers in the garden. Locating the second of them became a matter of vital importance to the Kid’s continued well-being.

  Not that the locating took much accomplishing. Catching a movement from the corner of his eye, the Kid swung his head to make a closer examination. To the side of the window, dark blue shirt and all, was the second man, a lean, vicious-looking half-breed armed with a knife and already moving forward to use it. Holding his weapon Indian fashion, with the blade below the hand, the man launched a sideways stroke aimed at the Kid’s neck. No white man could have avoided the attack, but the man struck at a part Comanche.

  Landing with a cat-like agility, the Kid dropped his right knee to the ground, thrusting his left leg behind him and lowering the left hand for added support. The other’s knife almost brushed the black hair as it passed oven the Kid’s head. Then the young Texan launched an attack of his own. While thinking and acting like a Pehnane tehnap’, he gripped the bowie in the fashion of skilled white knife-fighter With the blade rising ahead of his thumb and forefinger, he could thrust, cut, or chop with equal ease. He chose the latter, swinging the knife around like a woodman chopping fire-kindling. A scream broke from the man as the razor-edged blade tone across his body. Designed by a man who had given much thought to perfecting it as a fighting weapon, the bowie knife possessed the deadly qualities of a cavalry sabre. It ripped across the man’s body, laying through the flesh and into the vitals below.

  “A:he!”

  Once again Belle heard the deep-throated sound break the Kid’s lips. Still she could not guess whether it be words or a grunt caused by a strenuous effort. Few white people could have given her the answer, for those who heard that particular sound rarely lived to discuss it. It was the Comanche coup cry, ‘I claim it!’ given when a brave achieved ambition of killing an enemy by personal contact.

  ‘Close the gates!” Shafto roared through the window.

  Ignoring the stricken man, the Kid rose like a sprinter starting a footrace and went after the second man. Already the other had disappeared around the rear of the building. Mingled with Shafto’s warning yell came a startled shout from the back entrance’s sentry. Then a revolver barked, followed by the crack of a rifle. The Kid heard a bullet strike the wall of the house and scream off in a ricochet, so guessed that the sentry had been hit and was firing wild.

  Belle’s hand flew to the top of her skirt as Shafto plunged out of the window. Then she realised that the garment did no possess means of speedy removal; which, in view of the skimpy nature of her sole piece of underclothing, was probably just as well. However a peon girl’s attire did not impede rapid movement, so she found little difficulty in leaping out after the man. Then she raced across the garden, following the departing Kid.

  Bursting from the bushes, the young Texan looked across the truck garden to the rear entrance. The sentry lay on the ground, his smoking rifle at his side, but the Kid paid little attention to him. More important right then was the sight of the gate closing. Uncaring for the danger he might do, the Kid charged across the truck garden. He reached the gate and grabbed its handle, tugged and let out a low curse. In passing on his arrival, he had seen a key in the gate’s lock. It was no longer there. That lean cuss in the buckskins had been a man of some nerve, taking the time to extract the key and using it to increase his chances of escape.

  Transferring the blood-smeared blade of the bowie knife to between his teeth, the Kid drew back a couple of paces from the gate. Then he sprang forward and leapt, his hands catching the top. Even as he began to haul himself up, Belle and Shafto appeared at the one end of the building, while the sentry from the front gate came around the other corner.

  “Look out, Lon!” Belle screamed. “Drop back!”

  Brought from his post by Shafto’s shout, the sentry came ready for trouble. When he saw the Kid climbing the gate, he drew an erroneous—if understandable—conclusion. Whipping the Enfield rifle to his shoulder, he took aim and prepared to bring down the absconding ‘Mexican’. He heard the girl’s yell, but realised he might be making a mistake just too late to halt the final rearward movement of the trigger.

  At Belle’s warning, the Kid released his hold and dropped back to the ground. Nor did he move a moment too soon. The Enfield’s bullet kicked splinters from the top of the gate a scant couple of inches above his head. Spitting the bowie knife back into his hand as he landed, the Kid turned towards the girl.

  “He’s locked the gate on the outside,” he explained.

  “I’ll go over and open it,” Shafto answered. “See to Tidd, will you, Belle?”

  “Of course,” she replied, dropping to her knees at the soldier’s side. “Did you see who the man was, Lon?”

  “Not for sure,” the Kid admitted. “A tall, lean cuss in buckskins. But I know the pelado who was with him. It was one of Charlie Kraus’ boys—Damn it! The feller who got away was Joe Giss most likely.”

  “Get some of the servants out here, sentry,” Belle told the soldier who came up. “He’s got a crease across his scalp, but nothing worse.”

  “Joe Giss allus was a lousy shot with a hand-gun,” the Kid commented. “Reckons to be something real special with a rifle, though.” Then he looked around him. “Reckon somebody’d best start finding out how they got in.”

  Chapter 5

  Now They Know You’re Here, Belle

  Following on the Ysabel Kid’s heels, Belle Boyd watched a masterly display in the art of reading tracks. As he moved across the garden, the Kid pointed out small marks on the ground which she could barely see, much less attribute any significance to. He showed her where the two men had lain hidden among a thick clump of bushes before advancing cautiously towards the window and inadvertently attracting his attention. Then he retraced the route they had taken to reach their vantage point. Close to the wall, he ducked under another bush and pulled out a strange-looking object. It appeared to be a saddle’s seat without the horn, cantle, tree or other fittings. A number of scratches and cuts in the leather of the inner side gave a clue to its purpose.

  “They used it to climb the wall,” Belle said. “Threw it on top to cover the glass and climbed over on it.”

  “Yep,” agreed the Kid. “Come over afore day-break and hid out.”

  “How did they plan to get out?”

  “Same way, I guess, unless something went wrong.”

  “You mean they’d stay here all day until after dark?”

  “Why sure,” the Kid answered. “Ole Joe Giss’s long on patience and so was the ‘breed.
Happen nobody disturbed ‘em, they’d lie up under the bushes and could watch everything that happened in this side of the house. They’ve done it afore. Not every day, but regular enough.”

  “That’s going to please Winston Garfield!” Belle commented.

  “As long as he don’t lay too much blame on Rule Shafto,” the Kid replied. “Rule’s got more’n plenty on his hands one way and another. And he’s from Virginia, they don’t get trained right down there. Joe Giss learned watching and not being seen from Injuns.”

  “It’s not for me to lay blame,” Belle smiled, recognising a hint of rebuke in her companion’s voice.

  Certainly Shafto did have plenty of work on his hands, controlling and operating in the Confederate spy ring based on Matamoros and organising the blockade runners. So he might be excused for not having located the two men. Such a contingency would evade most people, although it was easy to be wise and raise points after the event.

  “Why’d they risk coming up to the window?” the Kid said, half to himself. “It’s not like Joe Giss to take chances.”

  “Probably they wanted to see who we were,” Belle guessed. “Or to try to hear what was said. How long had they been there?”

  “I dunno. Not long, but maybe long enough to hear Mr. Garfield say your name. He talks kinda loud and they’d be able to hear him.”

  “Yes,” Belle agreed, realising the implications of what the Kid told her. “Even if the man wasn’t Giss, he must be working for the Yankees. No matter what Garfield told the French patrol, the two of them didn’t come just to commit robbery.”

  Almost as soon as Shafto had climbed over the gate and unlocked it, a French lieutenant and half-a-dozen soldiers arrived to investigate the shooting. They belonged to a small force assigned to the task of policing the town and were clearly under orders to prevent open trouble between members of the Confederate and United States consular staffs. Stalling the French long enough for Belle and the Kid to hide in the house, Shafto then allowed them to enter the grounds and offered an explanation for the shooting which Garfield backed up. As the French authorities did not wish to antagonise either of the warring sides north of the border, the lieutenant made only a brief examination of the grounds and left apparently satisfied.