Sartain’s knees seemed suddenly to vanish and the floor struck him in the mouth, and the last thing he remembered was the taste of dirt and straw in his mouth, and the sound of running feet.…
* * *
FOR A LONG time he was aware of nothing, and then there was sunlight through a window, a pump complaining, and a woman’s voice singing. He was lying now in a strange bed, and the hand that lay on the coverlet was much whiter than when he had last seen it.
A door opened and he looked into the eyes of Carol Quarterman. “Well!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t think you were ever coming out of it! How do you feel?”
“I…don’t really know. What house is this?”
“Dr. Hassett’s. He’s my uncle and your doctor. I’m your nurse, and you had four bullets in you, two rifle, and two pistol. That’s what Uncle Ed says, although I don’t think he could tell one from the other.”
“Noll?”
“He’s dead. You grazed him once, hit him three times. John Pole is dead, too. You…killed him.”
“Wasn’t there some other shooting?”
“That was Holy Walker and Dad. They finished off Newton and Fowler when they started to help Pole. Dad got hit in the side, but not badly, but Walker wasn’t scratched.”
“Mason?”
“He was luckiest of all. He was hit three times by bullets aimed at other people and none of them more than broke the skin. All of them are back in the canyons again, and not even Steve Bayne has a word to say.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A week, and you’d better settle down for a long rest. Uncle Ed says you can’t be moved and that you’ll have to stay in bed, with me to nurse you, for at least two more weeks.”
Sartain grinned. “With you as nurse? I’ll go for that, but what about Steve Bayne?”
She shrugged. “He’s gone back to his ranch with more headaches than the one you gave him. Pole had been rustling, branding some of it with Steve’s Bar B and selling the rest. Newton worked with him, and he talked before he died; he also swore he saw George Noll set the fire on the range that burned everybody out.
“Apparently he hated me, but when they went through his office they found figures showing how he had planned to buy up the ranches after the range war killed off most of the men. The questions you asked around town started the investigation of his effects, and proved you’d guessed right. As you knew, he was the only one with money enough to take advantage of the situation the range war would leave.”
“Anything on Parrish?”
“Nothing exact. However, he had been back to the ranch and talked with the wrangler after leaving Mason. Probably that was Pole. Parrish must have caught him rustling, but we’ll never know.”
Jim Sartain stared out of the window at the sunlit street. He could see the water trough and the two lone trees. A man sat on the edge of the walk, whittling in the sun. A child was chasing a ball. Farther along, a gray horse stamped a patient foot and flicked casually at the flies.
It was a quiet street, a peaceful street. Someday all the West would be like Gila Crossing.…
MEDICINE GROUND
* * *
A Cactus Kid Story
THE CACTUS KID was in a benevolent mood and the recent demise of Señor “Ace” Fernandez was far from his thoughts. Had the Kid’s own guns blasted a trail down the slippery ladder to Hell, he would have been wary, for he knew well the temper of the four brothers Fernandez.
He had not, however, done a personal gun job on Ace. He had merely acted for the moment as the finger of destiny, and but for a certain small action of his, the agile fingers of the elder Fernandez might still be fleecing all and sundry at the Cantina.
Nobody who knew him could question the Kid’s sense of humor, and it extended as far as poker, which is very far indeed. The humor of Martin Jim (so called because he was the second of two Jim Martins to arrive in Aragon) was another story. Jim had a sense of humor all right, but it ended somewhere south of poker. Martin Jim was a big, muscular man who packed a pistol for use.
On the memorable afternoon of Ace’s death, that gentleman was sitting in a little game with Martin Jim, the Cactus Kid, Pat Gruen, and an itinerant miner known as Rawhide. The Kid, being the observant type, had taken note of the smooth efficiency of Señor Ace when he handled the cards. He also noted the results of a couple of subsequent hands. Thereafter the Kid was careful to drop out when Ace was doing the dealing. The others, being less knowing and more trustful, stayed in the game, and as a result the pile of poker chips in front of Ace Fernandez had grown to an immodest proportion.
Finally, when Pat Gruen and Rawhide were about broke, there came a hand from which all dropped away but Ace Fernandez and Martin Jim. With twelve hundred dollars of his hard-earned money (cowhands were making forty a month!) in the center of the table, Martin Jim’s sense of humor had reached the vanishing point.
The Cactus Kid, idly watching the game, had seen the black sheep lead the burly lamb to the slaughter; he also chanced to glimpse the cards Ace Fernandez turned up. He held a pair of fours, a nine, ten, and a queen. A few minutes later his eyes shifted back to the hand Fernandez held and there was no nine, ten, or queen, but three aces were cuddling close to the original pair of fours.
Naturally, this phenomenon interested him no end, especially so as he had seen the way, an odd way, too, Ace held his arm.
* * *
WHEN THE SHOWDOWN came, Martin Jim laid down two pair, and Ace Fernandez, looking very smug, his full house.
Leaning forward as if to see the cards better, the Cactus Kid deftly pushed the cuff of Ace’s white sleeve over the head of a nail that projected an inch or so from the edge of the table.
Smiling with commiseration, Ace Fernandez made his next-to-last gesture in a misspent life. He reached for the pot.
As his eager hands shot out there was a sharp, tearing sound, and the white sleeve of the elder Fernandez ripped loudly, and there snugly against his arm was what is known in the parlance of those aware of such things as a sleeve holdout. In it were several cards, among them the missing nine, ten, and queen.
For one utterly appalling instant Ace Fernandez froze, with what sinking of the heart you can imagine. Then he made the second of his last two gestures. He reached for his gun.
It was, of course, the only thing left to do. Nobody from the Gulf to the Colorado would have denied it. Martin Jim, as we have said, wore a six-gun for use, and moreover he had rather strict notions about the etiquette of such matters as poker.
He looked, he saw, he reached. By the manner of presentation, it must not be inferred that these were separate actions. They were one.
His gun came level just as that of Señor Ace Fernandez cleared his holster, and Martin Jim fired twice right across the tabletop.
Lead, received in those proportions and with that emphasis and range, is reliably reported to be indigestible.
The test of any theory is whether it works in practice, and science must record that theory as proved. They buried Señor Ace Fernandez with due ceremony, his full house pinned to his chest over the ugly blotch of blood, the torn sleeve and holdout still in evidence. If, in some distant age, his body is exhumed for scientific study, no poker player will look twice to ascertain the cause of death.
Now, as we have said, the Cactus Kid was giving no thought to the abrupt departure of Ace Fernandez, nor to the manner of his going. Nor did he think much about the fact that he might be considered a responsible party. The Kid was largely concerned with random thoughts anent the beauty and the grace of Bess O’Neal, the Irish and very pretty daughter of the ranching O’Neals, from beyond the Pecos.
It was the night of the big dance at Rock Creek School, and Bess had looked with favor on his suggestion that he meet her at the dance and ride home with her. What plans were projected for the ride home have no part in this story. It is enough to say the Kid was enjoying the anticipation.
Twice, the Kid had agreed to meet Bess, a
nd twice events had intervened. Once he had inadvertently interrupted a stage holdup and in the resulting exchange of comments had picked up a bullet in the thigh. Not a serious wound, but a painful one, so painful that he missed the dance and almost missed the funerals of the two departed stage robbers.
On the second occasion, someone had jestingly dared the Kid to rope a mountain lion. The Cactus Kid had never roped a lion and was scientifically interested in the possibilities. Also, he never refused a dare. He got a line on the cat, but the cat reversed himself in midair, hit the ground on his feet, and left the ground in that same breathtaking instant, taking a leap that put him right in the middle of the Kid’s horse.
It is a scientifically accepted fact that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time, and the resulting altercation, carried on while the frightened horse headed for the brush at a dead run, left the Kid a bedraggled winner.
His shirt was gone and he was smeared head to foot with mingled lion and human blood. The Kid had handled the mountain lion with a razor-edged bowie knife, and regardless of their undoubted efficiency, they simply aren’t neat.
Accordingly, Bess O’Neal, with Irish temper and considerable flashing of eyes and a couple of stamps of a dainty foot, had said he either must arrive on hand and in one piece or no more dates. Should he be in no condition to dance with her, he could go his way and she would go hers.
* * *
HENCE, THE CACTUS Kid, wearing a black buckskin jacket heavily ornamented with silver, black-pearl inlaid gunbelt and holsters, black creased trousers, highly polished boots and a black, silver-ornamented sombrero, was bound for Rock Creek School.
His gelding, a beautiful piebald with a dark nose and one blue eye, stepped daintily along doing his best to live up to his resplendent master as well as to the magnificent saddle and bridle he wore.
These last had been created to order for Don Pedro Bedoya, of the Sonora Bedoyas, and stolen from him by one Sam Mawson, known to the trade as “One Gun” Mawson.
Mawson decided they would look best on the Kid’s horse, and attempted to effect an exchange by trading a bullet in the head for the horse. He failed to make allowances for an Irishman’s skull, and the bullet merely creased the Kid, who came to just as Mawson completed the job of exchanging saddles and was about to mount. The Cactus Kid spoke, Mawson wheeled and drew…One Gun was not enough.
The outlaw’s taste, the Kid decided, was better than his judgment. He departed the scene astride a one-thousand-dollar saddle.
With Rock Creek School a bare six miles away where Bess O’Neal would be looking her most lovely, the Cactus Kid, a gorgeous picture of what every young cowhand would wear if he had money enough, rode along with a cheerful heart and his voice lifted in song.
“Lobo” Fernandez was big, rough, and ugly. He had loved his brother Ace—but then, Lobo never played poker with him. With Miguel, a younger brother, he waited beside the road. Someone had noticed and commented on that deft movement of the Kid’s fingers that foretold the demise of Ace, and then, Lobo had never liked the Kid, anyway.
Out in the West, where men are men and guns are understood, even the bravest of men stand quiet when an enemy has the drop. The Kid was a brave man, but Lobo and Miguel Fernandez, two men on opposite sides of the road, had the drop on him, and clearly the situation called for arbitration.
He reined in the piebald and for one heart-sinking, hopeless instant he realized this was the third and last chance given him by Bess O’Neal.
“Buenas noches, señores!” he said politely. “You go to the dance?”
“No!” Lobo was more emphatic than the occasion demanded. “We have wait for you. We have a leetle bet, Miguel and I, he bet the ants finish you before the buzzards. I say the buzzards weel do it first.”
The Cactus Kid studied them warily. Neither gun wavered. If he moved he was going to take two big lead slugs through the brisket. “Let’s forget it, shall we? The dance will be more fun. Besides, ants bother me.”
There was no humor in the clan Fernandez. With hands bound behind him, and one Fernandez six feet on his left, another a dozen feet behind, the Cactus Kid rode away.
He knew what they planned, for the mention of ants was enough. It is a quaint old Yaqui custom to bind a victim to an anthill, and the Fernandez brothers had been suspected of just such action on at least two occasions. On one of these the Kid had helped to remove the body from the hill before the ants finished. It had been a thoroughly unpleasant and impressive sight.
The moon he had planned for Bess (by special arrangement) was undeniably gorgeous, the lonely ridges and stark boulders of the desert seemed a weird and fantastic landscape on some distant planet as the Cactus Kid rode down a dim trail guided by Lobo. Once, topping a rise, he glimpsed the distant lights of Rock Creek School, and even thought he heard strains of music.
The trail they followed dipped deep into the canyon of the Agua Prieta and skirted the dark waters of the stream. The Cactus Kid knew then where they were taking him—to the old medicine camp of the Yaquis. With the knowledge came an idea.
Suddenly Miguel sneezed, and when he did, his head bobbed to the left.
“Ah!” the Kid said. “Bad luck! Very bad luck!”
“What?” Miguel turned his head to stare at him.
“To sneeze to the left—it’s the worst kind of luck,” the Kid said.
Neither Fernandez replied, yet he had a hunch the comment on the old Yaqui superstition impressed them. He knew it had been a belief of many of the southwestern tribes that if the head bobbed left when one sneezed, it spelled disaster. He had a hunch both men knew the old belief.
“Tsk, tsk,” he said softly.
* * *
MIGUEL SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY in the saddle. The high black cliffs of the canyon loomed above them. Both men, he knew, had been here before. Being part Yaqui, they would be impressed with the evil spirits reported to haunt the old medicine camp of the tribe.
He worked desperately with his cramped fingers, trying to get the rawhide thongs looser. A stone rattled somewhere, and he jumped.
“What was that?” he said, in a startled voice.
Lobo Fernandez looked up, glared at him, then glanced around uneasily. There was no moonlight here, and nothing could be seen. The Kid’s gun belt hung over the pommel of Lobo’s saddle, and with a free hand a lot might be done.
“Wait!” he said suddenly, sharply.
The brothers reined in, and he could almost feel their scowls. “Listen!” he said sharply. Their heads came up with his word, and he had a hunch. When one listens for something at night, there is invariably some sound, or seeming sound.
Somewhere, rocks slid, and the canyon seemed to sigh. Lobo shifted uneasily in his saddle, and spoke rapidly to Miguel in Spanish, and Miguel grunted uneasily.
“Ah?” the Cactus Kid said. “You die soon.”
“Huh?” Lobo turned on him.
“You die soon,” the Kid repeated. “The Old Gods don’t like you bringing me here. I’m no Yaqui. This here is a Yaqui place. A place of the spirits.”
Lobo Fernandez ignored him, but Miguel seemed uneasy. He glanced at his brother as if to speak, then shrugged. The Kid worked at the rawhide thongs. His wrists were growing sweaty from the warmth and the constant straining. If he could get rid of them for a while, or if he had a little more time—
Then suddenly the trail widened and he was in the flat place beside the stream, the place where the Yaquis came, long ago. Once before, chasing wild horses, the Kid had been through here. There was an old altar, Aztec, some said, at the far end in a sort of cave formed by the overhang. The Mexican rider he had been with had been fearful of the place and wanted very much to leave.
“Maybe you die here,” the Kid said. “My spirit say you’ll die soon.”
Lobo snarled at him, and then they halted. About here, the Kid recalled, there was a big anthill. They had certainly brought him to the right place, for no one would ever come by to release hi
m. This was a place never visited by anyone. Probably only two or three white men had ever descended to this point, and yet it was no more than fifteen miles at most from Rock Creek School.
Lobo swung down, and then walked over to the Kid and, reaching up with one big hand, dragged him from the horse. The Kid shoved off hard and let go with all his hundred and forty pounds.
It was unexpected, and Lobo staggered and fell, cursing. Miguel sprang around the horse, and the Kid kicked out viciously with both feet and knocked the younger Fernandez rolling. But the Kid’s success was short-lived.
Lobo sprang to his feet and kicked the Kid viciously in the ribs, and then they dragged him, cursing him all the while, to the anthill. He felt the swell of it under his back. Then, as they bound his feet and Miguel began to drive stakes in the ground, Lobo drew his knife and leaned over him. He made two quick gashes, neither of them deep, in either side of the Kid’s neck.
Then he drew the sharp edge of the knife across the Kid’s stomach, making no effort to more than break the skin, and then on either of his ankles, after pulling off his boots. It was just something to draw enough blood to invite the ants. The rest they would accomplish in time, by themselves.
The two brothers drew off then, muttering between themselves. His talk of evil spirits had made them uneasy, he knew, and they kept casting glances toward the cave where the altar stood. Yet there seemed some other reason for their hesitation. They muttered between themselves, and then walked away, seeming to lose interest in him. Yet as they left he heard one word clearly above the others: señorita.
What señorita? He scowled, still struggling with the thongs that bound his ankles. They were growing slick from perspiration now, and perhaps some blood. The ants had not discovered him, and probably would not until morning brought them out.
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