by Matt Rand
The Mexican heard his best efforts at profanity totally eclipsed. He paused to listen.
“Si, señor, I feel just the same way about it,” he said.
Rance stopped swearing and grinned.
“Anyhow, she sho’ don’t look like that kind of a girl!” he told himself.
An uncomfortable silence followed. The Mexican tensed in an attitude of listening.
“Somebody comes!” he hissed.
The door was kicked open. A giant of a man with a bandaged head entered. After him came several others. Rance grinned into the face of the revolutionary leader, Fuentes.
“Hi, Tomaso? You got a headache, too?”
Fuentes glared down at the Ranger. Then an evil smile writhed his lips back from his yellow teeth.
“Ha! You live! Eet ees most fortunate, although, Señor Ranger, you will no doubt soon not think so. I am rejoice to see you not dead—yet. Soon you weel be dead, si, but not too soon. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Rance felt a cold chill creep up his spine as the evil laughter rang through the room. The Mexican on the other bunk gave a howl. Fuentes strode to him and slapped him across the mouth.
“Save your yelps, you,” he snarled in Spanish. “Soon you will have the greater need of them. When the time comes, see if you can scream louder and longer than will the gringo.”
He barked an order to the men who had accompanied him. They shuffled forward, lifted Rance and the Mexican from the bunks and carried them through the door.
The setting sun was drenching the mountain tops with red gold and turkis-green gold and purest golden-gold, and by its light Rance saw that he and his companion had been imprisoned in a small, roughly constructed cabin.
“No wonder I’m thirsty and darn neah starved,” he mused. “Been out most of the night and all day. Wonder wheah we’re headed for? An ant hill, or a stake with a fire built round it?”
He believed Fuentes capable of either atrocity.
The cabin, Rance could see by craning his neck, sat on the lower slope of a mountain. All about were rocks and spiny cactus plants and desolation. He was being carried up the slope.
A dark opening loomed in the face of a beetling cliff. The bearers paused. Matches scratched. The bearers resumed their march.
By the dim flare of candles, Rance could see rock and earthen walls shored by rotten timbers. The timbers arched overhead.
“An old mine tunnel,” he deduced. “Now what the hell—”
On and on stumbled the bearers, panting with their loads. Rance could hear Fuentes cursing them and urging speed. They entered a cutting that crisscrossed the main tunnel, turned into another, and still another. Finally before a door of heavy timbers they paused. Rance heard the rattle of keys, the creak of rusty hinges. The bearers shuffled forward a few steps. Fuentes called a halt. Rance and the Mexican were flung’ carelessly onto the rock floor. Fuentes bent over the Ranger, the candlelight glinting on his evil eyes.
“Adios, Señor Ranger,” he purred. “When comes the sharp little teeth to keep you company in the dark, think you on how you make the fool of Tomaso Fuentes. Think—and pay!”
The candles withdrew. The door crashed shut. The Mexican prisoner gave one terror stricken yell as the darkness closed down like a sodden blanket, and began to whimper.
“Figgerin’ on leavin’ us to starve,” Rance grunted, straining at his bonds. “Well, we’ll see ’bout that. Shut up, you!” he shouted to the Mexican. “We ain’t dead yet and we won’t be for a long time.”
“Teeth!” screamed the Mexican. “Little teeth, sharp in the dark!”
“What the hell you talkin’ ’bout?” demanded the Ranger.
The Mexican jabbered incoherent Spanish that Rance could not follow. The Ranger could hear him thrashing about.
“Scared so bad he’s done gone plumb loco, I guess,” Rance decided. “Now if I can jest work a hand loose.”
He strained and tugged, but whoever had fastened the knots new his job.
“That jigger could hawgtie a lightnin’ flash with a live rattlesnake,” the Ranger panted. “Gosh, I’m numb all over from bein’ roped up so long. Wrists is all bleedin’, too. Wonder if I could talk that yelpin’ lunatic inter tryin’ to chaw me loose. Nope, that’s out—it’s a hair rope and his teeth couldn’t cut it in a month. Gotta think of somethin’ better’n that.”
For long minutes he lay drinking, with no results.
The Mexican was babbling wildly. Suddenly his voice rose in a shriek of pain and terror.
“They come!” he screamed. “Oh, Cristo! They come!”
Rance swore roundly. “Shut up!” he roared. “What’s comin’?”
“Mira! Look!” howled the Mexican.
Rance looked, and felt his hair prickle. In the darkness, ringing him about, were dozens of fiery points of light. Points that slowly moved closer. He could hear a faint slithering on the stone.
“What is it?” he shouted. The Mexican thrashed and kicked.
“Rats, señor, giant rats! They starve here in the deserted mine. They are bold from hunger! We shall be eaten while yet we live. Dios! Already they nip me!”
His thrashings redoubled. His screams rang from the rock walls.
Rance jerked convulsively. A sharp, stinging pain had shot along one of his bound wrists. The famished rodents were closing in. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He gulped back a mad urge to yell and scream even as the Mexican was doing.
“God!” he gasped, “I gotta do somethin’!”
Another sharp sting in his wrist. He rolled wildly onto his back, crushed a squeaking writhing thing under his weight and lunged away from the wriggling horror. Blazing sparks of light glared right into his eyes and he jerked his head back as teeth clashed together a fraction of an inch from his cheek. He felt that in another instant he would go stark mad.
“Gotta keep movin’,” he gasped, rolling over on his face.
As he did so, something gouged sharply into his breast. He winced from the pain, wondering what it could be. Remembrance rushed to his aid and with it came a wild hope. Over and over he rolled, until he barged into his thrashing companion. The Mexican gave a louder yell of terror.
“Listen!” Rance thundered in his ear. “Shut up and listen to me!”
The other’s howls died to gasps and pants. “I listen, señor, I listen!”
“Get yore haid over heah ’gainst my shirt front!” Rance ordered. “Rip the pocket off with yore teeth. Theah’s a box of matches in it. Get holt of that with yore teeth, if you can. Hustle!”
Grunting and groaning, the other did as he was told. Rance felt the pocket tear loose. A moment of nuzzling and prodding. Then—
“Uh-wuh-unk!” mumbled the Mexican.
“Steady,” cautioned Rance. “Hang onto it till I get holt of it with my teeth. Soon as I do, sink yore fangs into this handkerchief round my neck and pull it over my haid. Drop it on the ground. Damn them brutes! They’re chawin’ my legs!”
Rance got the match box in his teeth. He snuggled his head down and in another moment the handkerchief came jerking and snaking over it. He rooted his face down until he could feel the soft stuff where it lay on the rock floor. Then he began chewing madly at the wooden match box.
Splinters raked his gums. In his mouth was the taste of sulphur. A rat bit his cheek. Another tore at one of his hands. Then he got a match head squarely between his front teeth.
He crunched down on it with a quick grinding motion. There was a burst of flame, then a blinding flare in his eyes and a lancing pain in his mouth as the whole box caught fire.
Onto the big handkerchief Rance dropped the blazing box. The rats squealed away in terror. The Mexican screamed. The cotton caught fire.
With desperate haste, Rance hunched and wriggled until his bound wrists were against the flaming cloth. The smell of burning hair rope and scorching flesh filled the tunnel. Rance set his teeth, cold sweat popping out on his forehead, his body shivering with pain.
Grimly
enduring the agony, he held his wrists against the fire. The blaze flickered, died down, winked out. Rance gave a mighty heave that sent torture coursing through his veins.
The charred rope stretched, crackled, ripped apart. Panting and gulping, the Ranger relaxed.
“Señor,” quavered the Mexican, “they come back!”
“To hell with ’em,” growled Rance, fumbling at the cords that held his ankles, “we got ’em licked. I’ll have you loose in a minute.”
Once on their feet, a few well directed kicks disposed of the rats. The rodents fled squealing into the holes from which they had been drawn by the smell of flesh and blood.
“Now,” said Rance, “let’s get the hell outa heah. Damn! I feel like I’d been put through a sausage grinder piece at a time!”
The Mexican was examining the door. He found a few overlooked matches in his pockets and struck one. Ho shrugged despairingly as the flare showed the massive timbers and the heads of big studs that clamped a heavy bar in place.
“Señor,” he said, “I fear we are doomed. The door is fastened on the outside. We can never break it down.”
“We won’t try,” Rance told him. “We’ll find some other way outa this rat nest.”
One of the Mexican’s matches started them off down a low-roofed winding tunnel.
“Save the rest of ’em,” Rance counseled. “We may need ’em bad ’fore we get out. Hope we’ll find some water soon; gosh, I’m hongry!”
“The rats they eat us, soon, por Dios! We be glad to eat the rats!’ groaned the Mexican.
As they floundered on and on through the black dark, Rance began to fear his companion might have the right idea. Water was the pressing need, however. The Ranger’s throat was like an oven. His tongue was swelling. His scorched lips and wrists added to his sufferings. The Mexican was in little better shape, having been held prisoner even longer than Rance. He began to mutter incoherently and pushed ahead of the Ranger.
“Take it easy, feller,” Rance cautioned anxiously. “You might fall in a hole or somethin’.”
The other laughed wildly and staggered on.
“This damn tunnel leads right straight to Hell, I guess,” swore the Ranger. “Well, it’ll save us the trouble of doin’ any back-trackin’ when we cash in. What’s yore name, pardner?”
“Angel,” the other replied.
Rance chuckled mirthlessly. “They won’t even hafta change it—jest hand you a harp and let you keep trailin’ right along.”
The Mexican began to laugh—wildly, hysterically. The low tunnel rang dully to Iris maniacal mirth. Rance shivered in spite of himself.
“Shut up, you loco hombre!” he shouted. “You’ll have me pickin’ things outa the air, too!”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” roared the madman. “Is it not droll, señor? We—”
There was a prodigious splash, a strangled yell and then Angel’s voice, perfectly sane and badly frightened.
“Help, señor, help! I am carried away!”
Instinctively Rance darted forward. Without the least warning, the ground vanished beneath his feet and he found himself struggling in deep swift water. He went under, gulped, strangled, and broke surface again.
“For Pete’s sake!” he sputtered, “I wanted a drink, but it waren’t nec’sary to pour a river down my neck. Wheah are you, Angel?”
A gurgling squall somewhere in the darkness ahead answered him. Rance struck out strongly, guided by a spouting and thrashing. His outreaching hand touched something and in another instant he had Angel by the collar.
“Stop yore damn kickin’, ’fore I bust you one!’ he panted. “Keep still and do as I tell you.”
The Mexican quieted and Rance kept their two heads above water without much difficulty. He did not attempt to breast the current, which ran like a mill race. A tentative try to right and left brought him up against smooth rock walls.
“Runs through a cross tunnel,” he reasoned. “If this gali-wumpus hadn’t been makin’ such a racket we’d have heard it and not tumbled inter it.”
Angel’s teeth were clicking together like dice in a darky’s hand.
“Señor,” he gasped, “I freeze!”
“I ain’t so hot myself,” Rance admitted. In fact the icy chill of the water was worrying him more than a little. There was more than discomfort in the cold—there was a deadly threat.
“I’m gettin’ numb already,” ran the Ranger’s thoughts. “All I can do right now to hang onto this ground-flyin’ cherubim. A little more of this and—good gosh! What’s that?”
They had spun around a bend, scraping the rock wall an instant and then shooting back into the middle of the stream. Completely blocking the tunnel ahead was a sheet of intense white fire, growing brighter as they swept toward it.
“Madre de Dios!” howled Angel. “Already we are dead! The flames of El Infierno await us!”
For an instant Rance was inclined to agree with the Mexican; then he understood and his whoop of joy rang between the narrow walls.
“It’s the sun!” he shouted. “It’s jest comin’ up and shinin’ right inter this damn roofed river. Feller, we’re out!”
Angel’s answer was a terrified yelp as they went plunging over the lip of a fall. Down they shot, beaten, hammered, half-drowned. They struck the deep pool beneath the fall and were pounded almost to the bottom by the rushing water. When they broke surface again Angel hadn’t a yell left in him. He did haw quite a bit of water, however.
The stream below the fall was swift but shallow. Rance waded to shore, dragging the gurgling Angel by the collar. Once on solid ground again, he took the Mexican by the middle and shook most of the water out of him.
“That oughta hold you,” he decided at last “Now wheah the hell are we, I wonder?”
Angel got up, still gulping.
“Señor,” he quavered, “I know. I recognize that range of low hills to the left. Beyond those hills is a trail which will lead us to the home of a friend of mine. He will give us food and provide you with a horse. You can reach the Border then in but a few hours.”
“What you gonna do?” Rance asked as they scrambled up the hill. “Can’t go back to Fuentes, can you?”
“God forbid! Never do I wish to see his face again. Nor the faces of my companions, nor of any bandito. Señor, beside you walks a changed man. Por Dios! When I have rested, I start for Sinaloa, far to the south. There my old father and my brothers till the soil and live in peace. I too will till the soil and find peace. Cursed be the day I left it to seek adventure!”
“That’s right, feller,” Rance chuckled, “you try and live up to yore name from now on.”
Angel’s friend proved to be a chacerero—the owner of a chacra or small ranch. He received the famished pair with true Mexican hospitality, fed them, treated their numerous cuts and burns and bites and bruises and dried their clothes. Three hours later, feeling like a new man, though deadly weary and gaunt from lack of sleep, Rance rode a borrowed horse to the Border.
CHAPTER 14
Rance found Captain Morton at Ranger headquarters, a worried man. His most pressing concern was relieved when Rance turned up, but he still had plenty to get off his chest.
“Cavorca makin’ a successful break that way after bein’ convicted of robbery and murder has kicked up one devil of a row,” he told Rance, after the Ranger had recounted his experiences. “Jim Thomas and Walsh Patton are workin’ like pack rats in a sack of buttons. They got a petition goin’ to present to the legislature when it meets. And I heah they got plenty of signers. Petition says the Rangers is nothin’ but a burden on the taxpayers, ain’t needed and don’t do no good. They’re playin’ up Cavorca’s get-a-way big. He’s their ace-in-the-hole.”
Rance nodded gravely. “Uh-huh, and he’s our ace-in-the-hole, too.”
“What the devil you mean by that?” demanded Morton.
“Jest this, Boss. Thomas and Patton and their crowd is tiein’ their whole case ’gainst the Rangers on Cavorca gettin’
away. With Cavorca hawgtied, the whole thing’d tumble down like a adobe stable in a flood. All we got to do is get Cavorca again.”
Morton snorted like a bull in a pepper patch. “Uh-huh, thass all!”
Rance Hatfield leaned forward, his grey-green eyes cold as mountain water flecked with snow.
“Boss, I’ll get that homed toad if I hafta ride a gunpowder hoss through Hell to do it. Jest turn me loose on him is all I ask.”
“All right,” Morton sighed. “You got him once. Mebbe you can do it again. If you can, you’ll save the Rangers. Governor Murphy is our friend, and he b’lieves in the Rangers. If we can show him that hyderphobia skunk Cavorca, nicely corralled ’hind a set of iron zig-zags or with daylight shinin’ through him, Murphy’ll be able to whip the legislature into line and give Patton and Thomas the run-a-round. If we can’t! Well, feller, guess you and me can go back to punchin’ cows for a livin’! Theah’s times when I wish I’d never quit! Now you fergit all ’bout it and pound yore ear a while.”
A trifle diffidently, Rance asked a question:
“That girl, ‘Carmencita’, wheah’d—”
“Hell, all this worryin’ knocked it clean outa my mind—most forgot to tell you,” Morton interrupted. “Yore Mexican barkeep showed up all right—I’ll have him heah when you come ’round t’morrer—but the girl! Well the way the bar-keep tells it, right after they crossed the Line she dropped her handkerchief or somethin’ and asked him to get it for her. Soon as he’s on the ground, she slips inter the saddle and away she goes. Nope, not back inter Mexico—nawth on the Canyon Trail. Barkeep had a tough time leggin’ it heah. ’Fraid he’s lost most o’ his faith in female human nature.”