by H. H. Knibbs
It was new country to Pete, who had never been east of the Mogollones, nor north of Deming. The few men they saw were lean, leathery cowhands, and an occasional sheepman, grazing his band along the edge of the Datil plains. The fourth day found them across the divide and headed toward Magdalena. The rains had been heavy that season. They rode a wide, fenceless land of red earth and vivid grass, spotted here and there in the distance with shallow, silver stretches of evaporating surface water—strange bounty in a land so arid in the main.
“Magdalena is where you git lockjaw and I’m tongue-tied,” said Tonto Charley as they topped a rise and sighted the town.
Pete said little enough when with friends, and even less when among strangers. In this instance he said nothing. “You heard me, I reckon?” queried Charley.
“Twice.”
“Now don’t you go and git smart with me, kid. I’m tellin’ you somethin’.”
“About Magdalena? Say, I suppose you think I don’t know we’re riding cow country!”
“All right. Now what are you goin’ to call me, down this way?”
“Joe Adams.”
Tonto Charley chuckled.
“Won’t go, kid. I got friends in Magdalena, if they’re to home. And in Socorro.”
“Well, I guess that’s your business.”
“Say, you’re about as friendly as a rattlesnake. I don’t know why I’m wastin’ my time chousin’ along with you.”
“You won’t be—if that horse of yours throws another shoe. He’s lost one already. Lost it comin’ down out of Datil.”
“Yes. I aimed to tack on a couple of cold shoes in Magdalena. But thanks just the same.”
Rounding the shoulders of a low hill, they came suddenly upon a tall, heavy-set, dark-visaged horseman mounted on a silver-maned buckskin—a fine, big horse carrying his rider as if proud of the job. Tonto Charley reined up. Pete swung his horse to the other side of the road so the stranger was between them. The latter drew up, glanced at Pete, then addressed Tonto Charley: “Hello, Charley. Business poor over on the Tonto?”
“About the same. How are things up this way?”
“Quiet—so far. But it wouldn’t take much to liven them up.”
“I like ’em lively. What, for instance?”
“Nothing, right now. Did you see anything that looked like a wagon, north of the road?”
“No. But my horse threw a shoe comin’ out of Datil. If you find it you can keep it, for luck.”
The tall horseman smiled grimly, nodded, and moved on. For awhile Pete and Tonto Charley rode in silence, broken at last by Tonto Charley—
“You’re sure poison, kid.”
“You did all the talkin’.”
“Yes. But you put him between us, eh?”
“I didn’t like his looks, or his talk.”
“That was Benavides of Socorro. Some folks say he is half white. Some folks call him ‘Black Benavides.’ Take your choice.”
“Got any more friends like him down in Socorro?”
“Plenty.”
“Well, that’s your business. I’m goin’ to head up into that Pecos country and hunt a job.”
CHAPTER 2
Magdalena, as a community, paid little attention to Pete and Tonto Charley. The storekeeper catalogued them as strangers while they purchased tobacco and a box of cartridges. Their behavior was above criticism. After they had fed their horses and had eaten a square meal at the restaurant near the loading chutes, Tonto Charley tacked a couple of cold shoes on his horse, out in front of the blacksmith shop.
Two punchers, in from the range to the north, discussed the strangers with their eyes, overlooking no smallest detail of rig, clothing, or armament. The punchers mutually confirmed their conviction with a glance. They surmised that the strangers were not working for wages.
Pete asked one of the punchers what time it was. The latter rolled a mildly speculative eye toward the heavens and averred that it was about noon. Later, when Tonto Charley asked Pete why he had spoken, Pete replied that he just wanted to hear what the puncher’s voice sounded like.
With red, impalpable dust sticking to boots, overalls, filling shoulder-creases in their shirts, clinging to eyebrows, hat brims, and to the quick-drying sweat of their horses, they rode down the Blue Cañon above Socorro, having made the twenty-five miles in an easy six hours. They had not exchanged a half-dozen words during the ride. But Pete had been doing some thinking. It was evident to him that Tonto Charley had no special plan of campaign. Pete felt that he wanted something definite to catch hold of; that heretofore, Fate had had him by the back of the neck and the seat of the pants and had been running him hither and yon, no matter how hard he dug in his heels. He told himself he would like to get a couple of jumps ahead of whatever was pushing him from behind, and choose a trail for himself. He believed that such a choice would not, and could not, include Tonto Charley. Charley was amazingly efficient in a ruckus, a staunch friend, shrewd and careful enough when sober—but a reckless chucklehead when he was drinking. Not hotheaded, nor cold-blooded—just a grinning chucklehead, willing to play any game for the sake of the excitement in it. Pete felt that to break with him without a good excuse would not be square. Yet to ride with him, now that Hemenway’s gang was scattered, could mean nothing but ultimate disaster.
Crossing the bench below Blue Cañon they dropped down into Socorro, entering the town by the back door, as it were. As they passed the first home, a dim adobe, its windows a golden square of lamplight in the dusk, its door closed, Tonto Charley gestured.
“Looks warm and comfortable, but it must be hell comin’ back to the same house every night!
“I dunno, Charley. Say, what are we riding into Socorro for, anyway?”
“Why, just for luck.”
“I wonder if your friend Benavides picked up that horseshoe.”
Tonto Charley chuckled.
“We ain’t lost any luck yet!”
Pete had heard considerable about this town by the river, a Mexican town, originally, which had become a sort of half-way house for travelers between Santa Fe and El Paso, north and south, or for those flitting between Fort Sumner and the Mogollones, east and west; a place where a man could get food and lodging, ammunition, liquor—or expeditiously shot, if he overstayed his welcome. He had heard that someone was always in town looking for somebody and that the somebody rode west or south more often than east or north.
A drinking center, a news center, a clearing-house for deputies and their like, an oasis for transients, the old town rocked along on the slow tide of its own affairs, only occasionally waking up to obliterate some obstreperous desperado who deliberately ignored the polite hint that Socorro’s four doorways were open day and night, and no questions asked.
This much Pete had gleaned from members of his own outfit. But he wanted to see what the town looked like. He knew Prescott, Phoenix, Globe, Tucson, Nogales, and twice he had been in El Paso. Socorro was different. Even in the darkness he sensed it. He was experiencing the feel of the town when Tonto Charley turned down a quiet side street and stopped at the third house from the corner. He sat his horse and gave a peculiar whistle.
The front door of the adobe did not open, but from the back came a quick stab of light, gone instantly. A shadowy figure moved along the side of the house. Tonto Charley answered a low-spoken question in Spanish. Dismounting, they led their horses down a lane and into a small corral.
The horses whinnied softly at the rustle of cornstalks as the Mexican came with his arms full.
They entered the kitchen, their saddles on their shoulders. Pete squinted against the sudden brightness. A thin, sallow-faced woman sat at the table eating something from a bowl. She nodded as Tonto Charley spoke to her and rose indifferently as he introduced Pete. Her husband, a wizened, bowlegged vaquero, with small, deep-set eyes, grinned affably but did
not offer to shake hands.
“Miguel,” said Tonto Charley. “Miguel and me left Tucson together—the same night!”
Pete noticed that Miguel’s right ear was largely missing. Also there was a deep pucker in his cheek, a sinister, permanent dimple, never devised by nature. The woman fetched food and placed chairs for them. She took her bowl and sat over by the stove.
The three men ate the hot chili-con-carne, drank coffee, and smoked. The thumb and trigger finger of Miguel’s right hand were missing. Pete surmised that Miguel had been a hard one in his day—before somebody chopped off his thumb and trigger finger. Or, maybe, he got them burned off taking a dally. Once in a while a fellow got caught like that. Their bowlegged host fetched some brandy, stiff liquor that ironed the tired spots out of a man.
They soon got up from the table and stepped out into the early starlight. It was a pretty night, neither cold nor warm. The horses, munching their feed, did not even lift their heads as the three men sauntered up. Pete caught a word here and there as Tonto Charley and Miguel talked of old times…of Fort Sumner, White Oaks, the Kid… Tularosa, Benavides…
It was early. Pete was not interested in their conversation, especially as it was in Spanish.
“Do we bush here tonight?” he asked Tonto Charley.
Tonto nodded. “Right here, son!”
“Then I’m goin’ to take a look at the town!”
“All right. I’ll be here when you get back. Put your gun inside your shirt, and don’t fall in the river.”
Twice Pete sauntered round the plaza, past the low roofed white hotel with its series of single rooms fronting the east—door after door with nothing to distinguish one from the other save the number above it. The south side of the plaza was dark, the stores bolted and barred against unsolicited trade. The east and north sides of the square glowed with life, in spots. Dark figures slid slowly past the glimmering patches of light from saloon doorways, to pause and visit with a friend, or to pass from an absorbing shadow into the next patch of radiance, and so on, until lost in the darkness of some outgoing street. Sometimes one of the shadows became silhouetted sharply against the doorway glare, entering or leaving a saloon. A murmuring, a break of laughter, occasionally a word, distinct in the soft night, drifted across to Pete where he stood, musing, conscious of what was going on, yet comfortably indifferent… Mexicans, mostly, people of the town, on foot, talking, smoking, loafing away a warm evening… Pete tingled as he heard the click and clatter of shod hoofs.
The horses came at a brisk, choppy walk—five of them—crowding along the lighted side of the square. The men rode sedately, the horses crowding, not under the spur, but because they were fresh. Pete saw the riders dismount, saw one of their number lead the horses away, whereat the rest of the riders followed a tall figure into a saloon. Pete’s curiosity awakened to a point of recollection. That tall man, now—he skylined a whole lot like the Benavides they had met on the road between Magdalena and Datil: size, shape, and especially the swing to his hat, not go-to-hell, or slouchy, but a keen, businesslike swing in the shape of the wide sombrero.
If it was Benavides, reflected Pete, he had made a long, hard ride. He had been west of Magdalena when they met, and was headed west. Now he was riding another horse, a fresh horse, and the men with him were on fresh mounts. Well, it was their business.
With no special intention of making it his business, Pete decided to stroll round the plaza again, largely because he was curious. Also, he had grown tired of standing still. Passing the eastern corner of the square, he kept on down the street where the horses had gone. A Mexican lurched out of an alley, muttering to himself. As Pete stepped aside, the Mexican backed off and apologized drunkenly. He had a grievance. Becoming very tired, he had gone to sleep in the corral back of the cantina, to be awakened and routed out by the arrival of many horses, one of which had kicked him. And to add insult to injury, the Americano who had fetched the horses had laughed at him.
“Whose horses did you say?”
“The horses of Benavides—a hundred. Benavides is a rich man.”
Pete stepped round him and walked on down the dark street. Coming back toward the plaza, he decided to warn Tonto Charley that Benavides was in town, for Pete had seen enough when they met on the road to convince him that the Socorro cattleman and Tonto Charley would not waste words the next time they met. Pete found Charley and Miguel in the kitchen, the doors and windows closed. The room was hot, and heavy with tobacco smoke and the rank smell of brandy. Miguel’s wife was not there. A bottle and glasses stood on the table. Tonto Charley invited Pete to drink with them. He took a swallow or two, coughed, and set the glass down.
“Benavides is in town, Charley.”
“The hell he is! Where did you see him?”
“In that blue front saloon on the north side of this plaza.”
“Alone?”
“No. He rode with four men. They all had fresh horses. The horses are in that corral back of the cantina.”
Tonto Charley and Miguel glanced at each other.
“You sure?” asked Tonto Charley.
“Plenty sure. I saw Benavides in there when I walked past, just now. He’s in town, all right.”
“Well, so am I. How many did you say were with him?”
“Four.”
“Two deuces, two treys, and the jack.”
“Charley, you’re drunk.”
“Nothin’ like that kid. So black Benavides is in town?
“You’re gettin’ set for trouble.”
Tonto Charley laughed.
“Nada! Me, I’m goin’ to hit the trail for the Pecos right soon. It’s cooler up there. But first, I got to go see if Benavides found that horseshoe.”
Tonto Charley rose, took up his belt and gun from the table, picked up his hat, and stepped toward the door. Miguel hastily filled a tumbler, emptied it, and, rising, carefully adjusted the lamp wick, as the lamp had been smoking. Tonto Charley flung the door open. He grinned as he met Pete’s steady, intense gaze.
“We’re goin’ to see what the town looks like—this evenin’.”
Pete shrugged his shoulder.
“Well, put your gun inside your shirt, and don’t fall in the river.”
Tonto Charley chuckled, stepped out into the night. Miguel stumped after him. The door closed. Pete sat with his chair tilted back against the wall. He made a cigarette and smoked, staring at the crooked flame in the dingy lamp chimney. If Tonto Charley was determined to hunt trouble, that was his business. Tonto was Spanish for “fool.” Anyway, it was about time, thought Pete, that they split up. Charley would never settle down to a straight job. For one thing, he had too many counts against him. He would have to keep moving.
Pete caught himself staring at a pair of spurs hanging on the back of a chair—Tonto Charley’s spurs. Charley and Miguel had gone into town on foot. Pete tried to dismiss them from his mind. He walked out to the corral and stood staring at the shapes of the two horses, resting. He regretted having mentioned Benavides at all. Yet he felt he could hardly have done otherwise. It was only fair to warn Charley that the other man was in town. Charley had had a chance to pull his freight, easy—slip out of Socorro by one of the three doorways on the river side of town—with a pretty fair assurance that Benavides would not have followed him far beyond his own range.
Instead, Tonto Charley had buckled on his gun and gone out to hunt trouble. But that was not hard to understand. The arrival of Benavides so soon after their meeting on the road west of Magdalena could mean nothing less than his acceptance of any play Tonto Charley might care to make. Pete was disgusted, not so much because Tonto Charley was out looking for Benavides, but because luck had shoved Benavides up in front of them at this time. Pete’s pride was touched because Tonto Charley had not asked him to go along, instead of that dried-up Mexican.
But standing there in the st
arlight looking at the horses was not doing any good. Pete decided to saddle up and drift out of town before he got tangled in a free-for-all gun fight that would more than likely spoil his plan of getting a job over in the Pecos country. And Tonto Charley was just drunk enough to start such a fight. Pete packed his saddle out to the corral and caught his horse.
As he saddled up he remembered how often Tonto Charley had told him a man was a fool who did not keep his horse handy when visiting a strange town.
Well, tonto was Spanish for fool. Charley was afoot. Pete hesitated. No, he could not pull out that way. He would try to get Charley out of town before something happened. Charley would listen to him if he would listen to anybody. Only, Miguel and he seemed pretty thick. They seemed to have come to an understanding as to what they were going to do. Pete went back to the house and got Tonto Charley’s saddle and bridle and spurs.
It was a pretty night, warm and still. Pete mounted and rode down the dark street back of the house, leading Tonto Charley’s horse.
Tying the horses to the hitch-rail at the northwest corner of the plaza, Pete sauntered past the doorway of the saloon midway in the block. Three or four Mexicans stood near the corner, talking. He heard Benavides’ name mentioned. The talking ceased as he came up. He turned and walked back. As he again came opposite the doorway, Miguel stepped out and walked with him toward the corner.
“Tonto Charley is in there—and Benavides,” said the Mexican. “Charley saw you when you went past. He says you are to go away.”
Pete stopped, swung round, and faced Miguel.