Bandit's Trail

by Max Brand

  “You should draw up a map of the wanderings of the brigand,” suggested the mischievous Valdivia on a day.

  It was a tragic suggestion to Carreño. He labored until many a weary midnight trying to fit the facts to the map or the map to the facts. But how can a man be in three places in one day? And according to the reports, El Crisco had done this very thing and committed horrible crimes in each of the three places.

  Carreño carried his problem to Valdivia.

  “What can I say,” said the estanciero very gravely, “except that, to use your own words, some people are capable of very strange performances. Is it not so?”

  Carreño was so delighted to hear his master quote one of his observances that he forgot his despair. But after that he gave up the making of the map. It remained where he had begun it, full of criss-cross lines and big question marks.

  When the greatest news of all arrived, he had the good fortune to be the first to carry it to the ears of the master. For Valdivia had risen late on this morning and Carreño had a chance to read the papers first. He could hardly wait until Valdivia issued from his room. He met the estanciero at the door of the breakfast room,

  “Señor, señor!” he cried. “This exceeds all the rest. You remember that El Tigre was captured?”

  “How could I forget, blockhead, when I received that news only yesterday? If you have come to tell me that the villain has escaped … wait until I have finished breakfast.”

  But Carreño, though he trembled for fear of the wrath of the master, was urged forward by the exquisite malice of the gossip. “It is the very word. He has been rescued!”

  “A thousand devils,” groaned Valdivia. “You rogue, you say it as if you were delighted.”

  “I, delighted?” gasped out Carreño, trembling with pleasure and impatience. “No, no. I am covered with grief for your sake, señor. But guess by whom this miraculous thing was done? Guess who, when El Tigre was a prisoner, surrounded by guards, entered the room of the Colonel Ramírez, the hero, held a gun at his head, forced him to order El Tigre into his presence, forced him to order horses prepared at the side door of the municipal building, forced him to have the troops assembled in the square, forced him with his own hands to free El Tigre, and then with the irons of El Tigre bound Ramírez … guess who has done this?”

  “Guess who has done this?” exclaimed the estanciero, staring. “Why, only the devil could have done it.”

  “You are right as ever, señor. It was a devil in human form … the worst and most brilliant of devils … it was El Crisco himself who rescued El Tigre and rode away with him over the Pampas.”

  This information turned Valdivia to stone. Then he struck himself heavily across the forehead and uttered words that were quite incomprehensible to the secretary.

  “They have joined hands,” groaned Valdivia. “They have joined hands. And now, I shall be ruined. Oh, what a fool I have been to trust in a … Carreño, get out of my sight. And if you ever again mention the name of El Crisco, I discharge you that instant from my service.”

  It was a thunderbolt for Carreño. Here was his dearest delight reft from him at a stroke, and his career as a chronicler cut short. However, even if the master refused to listen to his tales as he gathered them, he determined to continue his work in private. Fame would eventually reward him. And what was even the praise of Valdivia compared with the applause of the millions of his countrymen who would read his great book with fascinated attention?

  But, very naturally, he never again mentioned El Crisco willingly. He could not understand how the master should show such keen interest in all the exploits of the new outlaw except his very most daring and brilliant one. He could not understand why Valdivia refused to read or hear the details of an exploit that, as the gauchos said freely on the ranch, proved El Crisco to be as great a man as ever El Tigre had been in that bandit’s most flowering prime. But he continued to work on his book, and as for the eccentricities of Valdivia, he laid them down to the curse of money. How could one expect the rich to be like the poor—logical? They could afford to be different.

  The days immediately following were rich in the annals of El Crisco, as Carreño wrote them down. As fast as his pen could work he had to reproduce from the newspapers half a dozen reports every day. There was the result of the exploit of Nabor. The worthy Colonel Ramírez, for instance, had been at first heartily laughed at. But there was a sudden change of feeling. Who, it was said, could be expected to handle at the same time such fiends as El Crisco and El Tigre? It was more than could be hoped from any human. It was only a miracle that Ramírez had escaped with his life. He had been given a vote of thanks by Nabor. And the town had subscribed from its own pockets enough money to replace a certain pair of costly revolvers that had been stolen by the wicked and lucky Carlos Milaro in his escape.

  Who could have expected fortune to swing back to the colonel after his fall? More than this, the military department had commissioned the brave Ramírez to continue the hunt and take charge of the chase after the two desperadoes who were now considered to be a national danger.

  Yet all of these precious tidbits the good secretary was unable to convey to the ears of the estanciero. There were other things as well. For instance, the cunning Ramírez had, first of all, in working for his revenge and to reinstate himself in the confidence of his countrymen, succeeded in locating Francesca Milaro. He had put a secret watch upon her, confident that her father would attempt to return to her as soon as he was free again. Nor had he been wrong. El Tigre came, and El Crisco with him. There, at one grasp, both the villains had nestled within the closing fingers of the hard hand of the law. But that strong hand had closed upon a bunch of nettles. Stung and outraged, the fingers had opened again, and the two daring outlaws had cut their way through to safety—and more than that, they had carried away with them Francesca the beautiful.

  But even this marvelous tale could not be carried to the estanciero. He refused to read even the papers. He closed his ears to the facts. And yet something weighed so upon his spirits that he daily grew pale and paler. His brow was contracted until there was a continual furrow between his eyes. He developed a furtive look. One would have thought that calamity hung over his head.

  Pondering upon these matters, one night, the good Carreño walked in the garden breathing deeply of the fragrance of the hidden flowers, and listening to the distant singing of the laborers from the puestos, their harsh voices softened in the night wind. And in the midst of his half sad, half pleasant thoughts, he heard a light step behind him, light as the footfall of a woman. He turned with a smirk, and found himself confronted by Charles Dupont—El Crisco himself.

  Terror supplied the place of a gag. Poor Carreño could neither speak nor stir.

  Chapter Thirty

  It is one thing to dream. It is another to see one’s dream turn into a fact by day or even by starlight. It seemed to the trembling secretary that blood dripped from the fingers of the bandit. Those hands presented neither knife nor gun at his breast, and that absence of threat only emphasized the cruel complacency, the omniscience of the miscreant.

  “Juan,” the American said with his usual gentleness, “you are so happy to see me that you have lost your voice. Well, well, there is nothing to fear. I shall not harm you. Do you hear? I shall not harm you, Carreño.”

  Carreño could only gasp.

  “Wake up, man,” the bandit said, a little irritated. “I am not entirely a wild beast … in spite of reports. Tell me where your master is?”

  For once Carreño became almost a man. “Señor El … Dupont,” he said sadly, “God forbid that I should betray my good master.”

  “Betray … in the name of heaven, Carreño, do you think that I have come here to murder him? Nonsense, you talk like a fool. Don’t you understand that all of this was undertaken by his express … However, let it go. If there is a way to come at him without exposi
ng ourselves to anyone’s view, take me to him instantly.”

  “I? Never!”

  El Crisco uttered a faint exclamation of anger and admiration commingled. “Brave Carreño,” he said, “would you have so much courage for yourself? I think not. However, this is what I shall do. Lead me secretly to his door. Then you may enter by yourself. If, after you have told him that I have come, he is not willing to see me freely, and alone, I shall turn and leave the place. In fact I wish for nothing, but what do you say to that, Carreño?”

  The secretary pondered it feebly. He saw danger. And yet he thought that there might be something almost generous in this proposal. Before he could finish his thinking, the heavy hand of the outlaw dropped upon his shoulder.

  “Come! Start at once. I have small time to waste, amigo.”

  So Carreño led the way into the house by a side door and up a narrow and dark corridor to the library where he knew his master was at that moment. There he tapped timidly, and the voice of Valdivia answered him and bade him enter.

  He turned to El Crisco. “Your promise, señor?”

  “I keep it to the letter. Go in and tell him that I wait to see him.”

  Carreño could not help but obey, having advanced so far. He opened the door by slow jerks and at length stood in the presence of his master. The door he closed behind him.

  Valdivia considered him with a faint smile, above the edge of a book. He seemed to be still following the print with half his mind while he prepared to talk with his secretary. “You look, Carreño,” he said, “as though you had come to ask for an increase in pay. Is it that?”

  “Señor …”

  “Well, I see that I have hit the nail on the head at the first attempt. You don’t have to blunder and delay about it, Carreño. Always speak out your mind freely with me. Because … it is a mind that I delight to follow.”

  “Señor, you are a thousand times kind to me.”

  “You have the increase. Leave the sum of it to me … it will greater than you would dare to ask for yourself.”

  “God bless you, señor.”

  “You talk like a widow’s son. No, you talk like the widow herself. Now get off with you and don’t trouble me with thanks.”

  “Only one thing, Señor Valdivia.”

  “The devil. I hate habits, Carreño, and particularly the habit of begging. What else is wrong with you?”

  “El Crisco …”

  The Argentinean hurled the book across the room. “You rascal!” he thundered. “I swore that if you dared to mention that name to me, I would discharge you that instant, and, by the heavens, you will find …”

  Carreño clasped imploring hands.

  “Well,” Valdivia said in tones far other than a gentleman should use, “what have you to say for yourself? I grant you ten seconds to explain what you mean.”

  “He himself …” In his terror Carreño choked. But it was enough to make Valdivia start to his feet.

  “What is it, Carreño?” he asked in a lowered voice, changing color a little.

  “He himself … El Crisco … he has come.”

  Valdivia changed color. “Are you mad, Carreño? Where is he, then?”

  “There,” whispered the panic-stricken secretary. “There … outside the door.”

  There was a drawer of the big library table standing open near to the estanciero, and without a word he caught out from it a revolver. “Are you armed, Carreño?” he asked, whispering as the secretary had done. “And will you help me face him?”

  “Until I die, señor.”

  “And yet … how did he come to let you pass if he is there?”

  “He told me to tell you that he has come, and he swears that, if you do not wish to speak with him, he will go just as he has come and do no harm.”

  The estanciero started. Once or twice he started forward and then drew back again, and the color flooded into his face and ebbed swiftly out of it, until at length he came to a determination, and, throwing the revolver into the drawer, he dropped into his chair. “Tell Dupont that I’ll see him,” he directed.

  “But not alone …”

  “Alone, Carreño. Leave me.”

  “I shall gather men below …”

  “Fool,” sneered Valdivia. “If the wretch has come to murder, what do I care for vengeance after I am dead? Leave the room and tell him to enter. If this is mere effrontery and devilishness, this fellow is a great man.”

  So Carreño left the room, and, as he stepped out, Dupont came in and closed the door behind him. He removed from his head the wide sombrero that he had worn until that moment.

  “Señor Valdivia,” he said, “I have brought you good news. Milaro and his daughter are within your power.”

  In great crises, the mind flies off at wild tangents. When death stares men in the face, some think of all the swift procession of their lives, or of nothing, but rarely of death itself. And when this great tiding came to Valdivia, he could see nothing but that first picture of the tall young cowpuncher as he had stood in the corral at the side of Twilight.

  Then he rallied and rose from his seat. “Dupont,” he said, breathing hard, “I have always thought you an honest fellow. Let me be equally honest with you. The whole world knows that you have allied yourself with El Tigre … rescued him from prison and certain death … helped him to regain his daughter, and now you come to say that you have placed them both in my power? Can you expect me to believe that this is not a trap?”

  It was so frankly spoken that Dupont, though he reddened with anger, was instantly calm again. “Valdivia,” he answered with equal directness, “do you think that I could play the hypocrite and the traitor to two men?”

  The estanciero hesitated, as a general hesitates before he gives the order to charge. Then he pointed to a chair, and, when his visitor was seated, he said: “If this is true, it is the great day of my life. You know, Dupont, that my wishes are … but let that go. I have trusted you, amigo, as I have never trusted another man.”

  Again the dark blood swept into the face of Dupont. “For you, Valdivia,” he said coldly, “I have lured a brave man into a trap. He is brave, I know. He is generous, I know. He is kind in everything that I have seen of him. But … if he is a good man, you are a scoundrel.”

  “Ah?” murmured Don Sebastian with an indrawn breath.

  “And that,” said Dupont, “I know you are not.”

  The estanciero relaxed again in his chair.

  “When I gave you my word that I would do my best to bring Francesca to you, señor, I made that promise because I was convinced from what you had told me that her father is a beast … a wild beast, Valdivia. So I have drawn him into the trap. If he is taken and if I should find out afterward that you have lied to me … then, Valdivia, I swear to you that I would never rest, day or night, until I had put a bullet through your head. Because from what I have seen with my own eyes, this Milaro is a king among men. But I have your word against him. And I have trusted your word.”

  There was a slender-throated decanter on the table beside Valdivia, and now he tipped a swallow of golden brandy into a glass and drank it off, quite forgetful of offering the same to his guest. But he needed that stimulus before he spoke again and was able to smile at the American.

  “Why, Dupont.” he said, “when I first saw you, I knew you were worth your weight in gold as a fighting man … and if I needed proof before tonight, at least now I am sure that you are worth your weight in diamonds as an honest man. If I am unworthy of your trust … God forgive me.”

  He raised his hand as he spoke, but though he strove at the same time to look upward, he found that he could not lift his eyes from the grim face of the cowpuncher. For a long moment he felt the boring scrutiny of Dupont, then the big man drew his handkerchief across his wet forehead.

  “I believe you,” Dupont said faintly. �
�And yet … when I came here, I half hoped that I would not be able to believe. Tell me, Valdivia,” he added suddenly in an outbreak of the anguish in his mind, “is treachery ever pardonable? No matter what the end may be, is treachery ever excused … do you think?”

  “It is a matter of the case,” Valdivia said, biting his thin lip. “If you needed treachery to get the girl to me, and if you felt that I could make her happy, and if you felt that she was worth the betrayal of her father …”

  “Worth it? She is worth all the rest of the world,” Dupont said in a trembling voice.

  The answer of the estanciero was sharp as a cutting knife. “You have a keen appreciation of her virtues, Dupont.”

  “I love her,” the American answered simply.

  The eyes of Valdivia grew dull and dazed. “You love her … and bring her to me?” he muttered.

  “I am not a fool,” said the cowpuncher sadly. “She is a jewel. What sort of a setting could I give her? And besides,” he continued, arguing aloud with himself, “though she might begin by hating you, she could not help but love you in the end. My trust is in your own fine nature, Don Sebastian.”

  The Argentinean coughed. “You shame me with your modesty, amigo,” he said gently. “But remember that what you have done is not wasted time. If I am rich, it is not …” He saw the big hand of Dupont raised sternly.

  “This,” said the cowpuncher, “is not to be paid for … except in her happiness,” he added, sighing, “except in her happiness, I pray to God.”

  “It shall be the work of my life to make that happiness, my generous friend.”

  “You will succeed. I have gone over the thing every night until I was half mad … it is not your wealth alone, but above all your fine soul, and your honor, Valdivia.”

  Don Sebastian hastily waved that praise aside. Besides, it was rather a heartfelt judgment than mere words of praise. “As for Milaro …”

  “As for Milaro,” the American broke in hotly, “if it were not that liberty for him means death for you, Valdivia, why I … I would risk my own life a hundred times over rather than give him up.” He groaned aloud and bowed his head. “Rather than betray him, Don Sebastian. What a thing it is to live with a man, eat with him, hear him open his mind, feel his trust like a hand on one’s shoulder … and then betray him at the end. And yet, if he is not secured, you will never live to make Francesca happy. And she? She should have the life of a queen, and who can give it to her but you?” He made a gesture of despairing surrender. “If I am wrong,” he said, “God strike me. I have done my best to be honest. But this thing more. You are rich, Valdivia.”