by Matt Rand
Rance began to hear music—the strumming of guitars, the rippling notes of song. Then the tap and shuffle of dancing feet, the clink of glasses and the slithering whisper of cards.
The blank windows gave way to gleaming squares. The voices of men and women tumbled merrily through the doorways. Figures passed and repassed the slanting bars of light.
Rance tied his horse at a convenient rack, loosened his guns in their holsters and crossed the street to where a wide-flung door beckoned. He had little fear of attracting undue attention—roving cowboys, miners, prospectors and such were too common to cause comment. The only danger lay in recognition.
He entered the cantina, narrowing his eyes against the sudden glare of light.
The saloon was well crowded. Men lined the long bar from end to end. Card games were going on at several tables. A roulette wheel whirred steadily. Couples whirled on the dance floor.
Rance bought a drink and leaned against the bar, sweeping the room with a searching glance. He tossed off the drink and left the place: nothing of interest here.
The same applied to the next place, and the next. At two others, smaller and less crowded, he merely glanced through the door.
“Hell,” he growled, “looks like I dealt myself a hand from a cold deck!”
A Mexican in a ragged scrape sidled up alongside him. He purred a sentence in soft Spanish.
“The señor is a stranger here, si?”
Rance replied cautiously. ’Sposin’ I am?”
“I thought,” said the Mexican politely, “he might be seeking diversion, entertainment.”
“And if I am?”
“Then,” explained the other, “the señor assuredly should go to Miguel’s cantina; Carmencita dances there tonight.”
‘“Who’s Carmencita?”
The Mexican shrugged his shoulders until the ragged blanket nearly slipped from around them. His hands spread wide in an expressive gesture.
“Ah, indeed is the señor a stranger! He knows not Carmencita? Valgame Dios! He knows not the sun of morning! He knows not the moonlight caressing the cheek of the rose with silver kisses! He knows not the dying stars singing together in the pale light of dawn. He—”
“Hold on!” snorted Rance. “You been eatin’ loco weed? What you talkin’ ’bout, anyhow?”
“Señor, I talk of Carmencita. Will not you come and see?”
“Hell, guess I’ll hafta,” Rance told him. “Trail yore rope, feller, I’ll be right on yore trail. Wait a minute till I get my boss.”
Straight through the town the peon led. To where the lights were fewer and the music less. He turned into a side street, rounded another corner and paused.
“This, señor,” he said, “is Miguel’s.”
The cantina was a big one. It sprawled along the street in an ungainly haphazard fashion. Light glowed softly through the recessed windows. Equally soft music seeped through the smoke-golden haze of the light. Rance could hear subdued laughter and the patter-murmur of voices.
“All right, let’s go in,” he told his guide.
The peon hung back. “But no, señor, ‘Miguel’s’ is not for such as I. ‘Miguel’s’ is for great señors, and their señoritas. I but show the way to those who know not ‘Miguel’s’. If the señor could spare—”
Rance chuckled and handed the fellow a peso.
“Gracias, señor! Muchas gracias!” A white-toothed grin splitting the dark face, a flirt of the ragged serape, and the peon was gone.
“Off to drop his loop on another gringo,” Rance grinned. “Wonder what we’ll find in this hacienda?”
The door was ajar. Rance pushed it open and entered. He sauntered to the bar, which stretched all the way across one end of the room, and ordered a drink. The bartender nodded pleasantly but offered no comment. Evidently gringos were not so uncommon in “Miguel’s” as to cause question.
As he sipped the golden mescal, Rance searched the room from under the low-drawn brim of his wide hat. He could see that it was pretty well occupied, but the lights were dim and he could make but little of the faces of those seated at the various tables. His attention centered on a flashily dressed Mexican lounging to one side of the cleared dancing floor.
“That jigger looks like a rainbow what’s got tangled in a flower garden,” Rance told himself.
The Mexican was gorgeous. His pantaloons, tight-fitting, low-cut vest and flowing cloak were of green velvet. Down the front of the cloak and the front of the pantaloons were broad yellow stripes on which were embroidered roses, pansies and tulips, life-sized and of brilliant color. Snowy white shirt, black tie, flat black velvet cap and fancily stitched boots completed his costume. A guitar hung from his neck by a yellow ribbon.
Slender brown fingers brushed the strings. The guitar sobbed out a quivering melody. Then a voice like the sparkle of ruby wine:
“Open thy casement, dearest, unto the dove,
“For ’tis my soul that’s seeking for thee, my love!”
“Whe-e-ew!” breathed the Ranger, “a feller what can sing like that’s got a right to w’ear any kinda clothes he takes a notion to. He—”
The unspoken word flipped out of his mind and died forgotten. Rance drew a deep breath.
Onto the dance floor a girl had floated. She came from out the shadows like a shaft of starlight from behind a cloud. Her tiny feet seemed barely to touch the boards. Silken ankles gleamed amid the froth of her tossing skirts. Her arms and shoulders glowed white-gold under the soft lights. She was small and slender, with great dark eyes and tossing short dark curls.
Eyes narrowed, jaw grimly set, Rance Hatfield stared at her.
“Gypsy Carvel!” he muttered. “Ain’t she never gonna give that sidewinder up! No wonder she didn’t show at the trial! But what’s she doin’ down heah posin’ as the dancer Carmencita?”
CHAPTER 12
As the girl danced, Rance noticed that most of her glances went to a table a little apart from the others and nearer the bar. The Ranger divided his attention between the girl and that table.
Three men sat at the table. Two wore the flashing uniform of officers of the government army. Rance wondered what they were doing here in the stronghold of the rebel, Fuentes.
The third man was swarthily handsome, with a tremendous spread of shoulders and gorilla arms. Rance eyed him speculatively.
“Somethin’ darn familiar ’bout that hombre,” he mused. “I’ve seen him somewheah.”
The big man turned his head, revealing a livid scar that gashed one ear from top to lobe and slanted down his neck. Rance swore softly.
“Tomaso Fuentes hisself! This is gettin’ interestin’.”
The friendly drink juggler leaned across the bar.
“Ai! She is una bellisima moza!”
Rance nodded. He heartily agreed that “Carmencita” was “a very beautiful girl.” The bartender sighed.
“Ai! But she has eyes for none but un Gran General!”
This time Rance did not nod. Instead, he frowned. The idea of Gypsy Carvel having eyes for no one but “the big General,” meaning Fuentes, did not meet with his approval. He called to mind some of the vicious practices and abominable cruelties credited to the revolutionary.
“Pig!” he growled as Fuentes gulped his glass.
“Eh?” exclaimed the startled bartender. “I see no puerco, señor!”
“Yore eyes ain’t pinted right,” chuckled Rance. “How come the little lady’s got such a leanin’ toward Fuentes?”
The bartender glanced furtively about, saw that the attention of all was fixed on the dance, and leaned closer.
“There is a whispered story, señor, a story that says Carmencita whose name is not Carmencita at all, came to Fuentes and begged of him help. She offered him gold, the story goes, but Fuentes shook his head. ‘Dance for me in ‘Miguel’s’,” said ‘un Gran General’—Miguel is but Puentes’ manager, señor—‘and perhaps we shall come to terms’.”
“Then what?” asked the R
anger. The bartender leaned still nearer.
“Night after night she danced, señor, and night after night Puentes sat and watched. The time grew short, and Carmencita grew desperate, for Fuentes would not name his price, nor would he promise to help. Then, the morning of yesterday, when Carmencita had all but despaired, Fuentes named his price.”
“Oh-huh, and that was—”
The bartender glanced toward the dark-eyed girl floating and swaying in time to the music, graceful as the wind of dawn amid the flowers. His eyes slowly left her and focused on the Ranger’s lean, bronzed face.
“Señor,” he whispered softly, “the price was—herself!”
Rance Hatfield turned upon the Mexican a glance bleak as wind sweeping across snow-sifted ice.
“Feller, why you tellin’ me this?”
The dark eyes met his squarely. “Señor,” said the Mexican, “a worm looking up from the mire might love a rose, and never hope to possess it. Still, the lowly worm would not wish to see the rose crushed and befouled by the foot of—a pig!”
Rance nodded grimly. “I see; but wheah do I come into this?”
“They who ride the range for Arizona are brave men, and resourceful men,” murmured the bartender with apparent irrelevance.
Rance’s eyes narrowed still more.
“So the jigger knows I’m a Ranger,” ran through his mind. “Well, he must be on the level, or he’d hardly tip his hand this way.
“What’d La Señorita have to say ’bout it?” he asked aloud.
The bartender shrugged. “What could she say? Fuentes is crafty. He gained her confidence—he can be most charming and courteous when it is necessary to be such to gain his ends. This room—the town—is filled with his men. La Señorita learned she was a prisoner, helpless. She fought for time—insisted that first Fuentes must do the thing she asked. He consented, for it amused and pleased him to do it. To do it was to injure those he hates. Yesterday, as the day changed to night, he did it. Tonight he plays with her as the cat plays with the mouse. Tonight he demands his price.”
Rance thought swiftly. “Feller, can you get outa heah without anybody askin’ questions?”
“Assuredly, señor, I often go out on errands.”
“All right. My hoss is tied acrost the street—the big black one at the little rack by hisself. Get that hoss untied and lead him over to this side the street. When I pitch La Señorita out the door, you grab her, get on that hoss with her and hightail for the Border.”
“And you, señor?”
“Nev’ mind me. I’ll be right on yore tail, if things go right. I’ll take one of them other hosses. ’Fraid to take a chance with the girl on one of them. Mine’s gentle and’ll carry double ’thout makin’ a fuss. If I don’t catch up with you ’fore you get to the Line, you head straight for Ranger headquarters. Tell Captain Morton what happened. He’ll look out for you and La Señorita till I get theah.”
“Si, señor, I go now. Adios.”
“So long.”
The bartender called an assistant, who lounged by the back bar, spoke a word to him and shuffled out the door.
Rance hammered the bar. “Fill ’em up,” he mumbled blearily. “Have one on me.”
The assistant grinned, and complied. Rance tossed off the mescal like so much water. “Hell,” he shouted, “thass got no kick—make the next one tequila! Have ’nother one on me! Who-o-o-oppe-e-e!”
Occupants of the tables turned, frowning at the racket by the bar. The singer missed a note. Rance tossed off his glass of fiery tequila and roared for another. He staggered about to face the tables.
“Ev’body drinks on me!” he whooped, jingling a gold piece onto the bar. “Set up the house!”
The frowns changed to grins. Free drinks was something else. “If the drunken gringo was willing to pay for his fun, why let him have it!”
Waiters hurried forward with empty glasses, and hurried back to the tables with them filled.
“Drink up! Drink up!” howled the Ranger. “We gotta have ’nother round!”
Another gold piece clinked on the bar. The drink dispenser opened fresh bottles.
The music had stopped. The dancer stood listlessly waiting for the hurrying waiters to clear the floor. Rance spun a coin to the musician.
“Play somethin’ quick an’ dev’lish!” he ordered.
The grinning Mexican swept into the lilting roll of a fandango. Rance reeled across the floor.
“C’mon, lady, less dance!” he whooped, sweeping the girl into his arms. From the tail of his eye he saw Tomaso Fuentes frown angrily and half rise from his seat. But the crowd howled with glee and the revolutionary evidently thought better of his first impulse to interfere.
The girl was stumbling and reeling in the Ranger’s staggering embrace. Rance read recognition, astonishment and pain in her dark eyes.
“For heaven’s sake, let me be, you drunken beast!” she panted.
Rance lurched and whirled toward the door, yelping a wordless accompaniment to the music.
“Listen,” he snapped between yelps—“gettin’ you outa this—hoss outside—ride like hell—to the Border—un’stan’?”
He heard her breath catch sharply. Then she whispered, “Yes! Oh, thank God!”
Faster and faster drummed the music. Wilder and wilder grew the Ranger’s whoops and leaps. The crowd was still laughing, but Fuentes’ face was darkening with an ugly scowl.
Rance whirled the girl clear off the dance floor and right opposite the door.
“Steady!” he hissed, “you’re goin’!”
“But you! What—”
“Be right behind you. All right—out?”
A bound and he had reached the door. He kicked it open, saw the bartender’s form looming in the shaft of light. He hurled the girl into his arms.
“Adelante! Muij presto!” he shouted.
The bartender “went very quickly.” Rance saw the two figures vanish from the light, heard the black horse snort. He whirled to face the roaring cantina, both guns coming out.
Men were boiling toward him, Tomaso Fuentes in the lead, snarling with a rage that was frightful.
“Hold it!” shouted the Ranger as El Rey’s hoofs thundered away from the building. “I don’t wanta hurt you fellers if I don’t hafta!”
A knife droned past his ear. Somewhere in the back of the room a gun boomed. Rance heard the whine of the passing slug. Fuentes was throwing down with a big gun.
The Ranger went into action. He kicked a table over, crouched behind the heavy oaken top and let loose with both guns. A man with a knife poised for the throw went down. One of the gaily clad army officers dropped his drawn gun and grabbed at a broken arm. Tomaso Fuentes went behind a table like a rabbit into its burrow. His bullets drummed against Rance’s protection.
The crowd gave back, huddling against the far wall, the fight out of them. Only Fuentes and the remaining officer kept up a steady fire.
Rance smashed the army man’s shoulder with a bullet from his left-hand gun. He took careful aim at what he could see of Fuentes’ head and pulled trigger.
“Gotcha!” he exulted as ‘un Gran General’ reeled back.
Rance half rose from his crouch, gliding toward the open door.
Crash!
The roof of the cantina split asunder, letting in great whirls and blazes of pain-streaked light. After them came rolling black clouds. Rance knew he was falling, but he never knew when he hit the floor.
The bartender’s assistant, who had crept in back of the Ranger, snarled down at the prostrate form and poised his heavy bung starter for another blow. It was not needed.
The wounded army officer aimed a gun with his left hand, but Tomaso Fuentes, blood streaming from an ugly gash just above the line of his black hair, struck the weapon up.
“No!” he barked, “that ees too easy. Me, I will take care of thees stealer of women!”
CHAPTER 13
Rance found coming back to consciousness an unpleasant
business. A splitting headache, a devilish sickness in the pit of his stomach and a general “gone-to-hell” feeling.
He tried to sit up, and didn’t have much luck. Then he realized that his feet were roped and his hands tied behind his back. He rooted his nose into a dirty blanket, hunched his legs and finally managed to back himself up against a board wall.
“Now wheah the hell’ve I got to?” he wondered, staring about the unfamiliar room.
“Sho’ ain’t that cantina wheah the roof fell on my haid,” he decided, eyeing a rickety table, a broken chair and a rusty sheet-iron stove.
A hollow groan jerked his eyes about and centered them on a blanket-tumbled bunk built against an end wall. Something writhed under the blankets, heaved itself up.
“Bull bellerin’ blue blazes!” grunted the Ranger.
A mat of frowzy hair, a cactus-patch stubble of whiskers and two wild black eyes met his gaze.
“Quien es? Who is it?” he demanded.
There came another groan, then a dismal eruption of Spanish profanity.
“That’s right, podner, get it off yore chest. I feel jest the same way ’bout it.”
“Señor, you too are tied?”
“If I ain’t, somebody done hypnotized me inter thinkin’ I am. What’s the big idea, anyhow?”
“Ai! Maldito! Caramba! Cien mil diablos! Tomaso Fuentes!”
Rance nodded as best he could. “Uh-huh, mebbe he ain’t a hundred-thousand devils, but he sho’ is one, all right. What’d he tie you up for?”
The Mexican groaned again. “It was I, señor, who led those who rescued the bandit Cavorca from the clutches of the gringos. I was to bring Cavorca—may he be accursed and rest uneasy in his grave!—to Fuentes, who had use for him. Cavorca and La Señorita who rode with us from Paloa, they—how you say eet—give us the slip. Fuentes was angry, ai, most angry. He strike me! He tie me up! He say he feed me to the rats. Huy! Caspita! Fuego!”
While the Mexican continued to groan and swear, Rance slid into a somewhat less uncomfortable position and digested the information he had just received.
“So that is what Fuentes did for ‘Carmencita’,” he growled disgustedly. “She bribed Fuentes inter sindin’ a gang acrost the Border to turn Cavorca loose. She—sizzlin’ sidewinders they said theah was a girl with that gang when they busted inter the co’ht house. I bet a peso she was that girl! It was her rode away with him, sho’ as hell. Then Cavorca sneaks off and she ambles back to Paloa. Bet she had a scheme figgered out all the time to leave Fuentes holdin’ the sack. Anyhow, me, little Johnny on the spot, comes along and plays right inter her hand. Feller, of all the prize suckers, yore it! You risk slidin’ inter Paloa tryin’ to get a line on Cavorca. Then you fergit all ’bout what you come for and help his girl to keep from payin’ a honest debt. And all you got to show for yore brightness is a lump on yore empty haid!”