by E. R. Slade
“Well,” Clint said, “if she does not wish to marry him, she could refuse—women change their minds all the time.”
“Valenzuela will not allow it. He will force her to submit.”
“Maybe I don’t understand all this too well,” Clint said, “but couldn’t you stop the whole thing by just telling Valenzuela you won’t give your daughter the mine if she marries him? It’s the mine he’s after, I’ll wager. He’s doing this to get his hands on it. But if you refuse to give it to her if she marries him, won’t that stop it right there?”
Griego lifted a hand in exasperation, closing his eyes and shaking his head slowly from side to side as though in great pain.
“Señor, it is true you do not understand. I have given my word to Pepita that she will have the mine when she marries. It is known far and wide. I cannot go back on my word of honor. Would you, señor?”
“I would if it would get my daughter back.”
“I cannot. I have never in my life broken my word of honor.”
Clint shrugged. “Well, I don’t think just telling Valenzuela you’re going to stop him if he tries to go through with his intention of marrying Pepita will do much but make him grin from one ear to the other.”
“It is true. This is the reason I must have your help. I could send some men to attack, but a battle would endanger Pepita’s life. There is only one way to get my daughter out of there. A man such as yourself must find a route in and get her out by night over this route.”
Clint felt safe enough to refuse. “I must tell you, Señor Griego, in all honesty, that there is no such way in or out. I have been into this stronghold of Valenzuela’s, and it has only one way in and out, and this way is heavily guarded. There is no way at all to get your daughter out without the help of a large force of men, which you must have already. It is true that to attack would be dangerous to your daughter, but there is no other method possible that I know of. Even if I wished to help you, I could do nothing. I think you’d better forget your honor and let Valenzuela know he’ll never get his hands on the mine.”
Griego lifted both hands to his face and then let them drop.
“There is also the problem that Valenzuela will be angry,” he said. “If I did do that, he would kill Pepita out of spite. You are allowed in, are you not?” he asked. “It is true you will be going with Felipe to deliver the message? Will you not consider while you are there, if there is not some way you might bring Pepita with you when you come out? I am not used to begging, señor. I never have in my life. But I beg you to help my daughter. If you succeed, I will give you all that you may wish.”
Clint fished out the twenty dollars he’d been given to help deliver the message, tossed it onto Griego’s bed. “I cannot promise even to do that,” he said. “I have sent word to Dixon that I wish to see him. If I am offered an opportunity, I will kill him. This may interfere with helping to deliver the message. I have no right to take money for a service I may not perform. However, if I do go with Felipe into the stronghold, I will consider how a rescue might be done. But I promise nothing. I will not myself be involved in a rescue. But if there is a way I can see it could be done, I will tell you how.”
Griego’s expression relaxed. “Oh, I am much indebted to you, Señor Evans. Keep the money. The peace of mind you have given me is worth much more than that. Please, take it, señor.”
But Clint refused, thinking of what was left of the other money belonging to Griego he carried. He felt a little guilt about it for the first time and would have returned it except that doing so would require too many difficult explanations he didn’t feel safe trying to make.
Chapter Fifteen
They rode away over the rolling green hills of the hacienda’s lush piece of Mexico, freshly supplied and sixty dollars richer between them. They passed small grazing herds of cattle which looked up munching as the men passed. Overhead the endless parade of summer clouds went by.
“I get the feeling you’re related to any man who offers you money,” Clint commented to Felipe.
“The señor Griego is my cousin also.”
“So I see. Which one are you working for?”
“I work for whoever will pay me, Cleent,” Felipe said with a grin. “It does no harm and I can support my family.”
“It’ll catch up with you someday, Felipe, I’m telling you.”
“I have done this for many years.”
“This kidnapping has been going on for years?”
“Oh no. But there is always somebody who has a quarrel with somebody else, is there not? It is the way the world passes.”
“I still say it’s risky.”
“But señor, you are doing it yourself, are you not? You have promised to look for a way to rescue Griego’s daughter from Valenzuela.”
“I have promised nothing. I told him I’d take a look if I went with you and didn’t get a chance at Dixon instead. I’ve got some sympathy for the old guy, and anyway, I didn’t think I’d ever get him off my back if I didn’t say something like that.”
“It was worth twenty dollars, was it not?” Felipe’s eyes shown. “You should have taken the money, Cleent. You could have made even more than that if you had wished. It is not difficult, once you know how. If you keep trying, you will learn.”
“Looky, Felipe Fats, if you want to live like a leech on other people’s troubles, that’s your business, but I have troubles of my own.”
“Sí, everybody has the troubles. I am not without troubles, señor. But there is much money to be made. When we see Valenzuela, he will probably wish us to return and convince Señor Griego that his daughter really desires of her own accord to marry Valenzuela. It will then be worth some money to agree to this. Perhaps something will go wrong; perhaps your ability to use a gun will become useful here, no? It is possible.”
“Did you get a chance to read Griego’s letter before it got sealed?”
“I have not the reading, señor, as you know.”
“Then it’s like picking up a stick of dynamite without bothering to notice if the fuse is lit to go back to Valenzuela’s stronghold. How do you know that Griego hasn’t mentioned that you told him the real story of what happened to make Pepita write that letter?”
“Señor, I trust Señor Griego’s intelligence. He knows that I am useless to him if he gives away that I work for him. It is the same with Señor Valenzuela. He will not say anything to Señor Griego that might make me useless to him.”
“You sure do think you’ve got everybody cornered just where you want them, don’t you? But one day, you wait, it’ll catch you when you aren’t looking, and then you’ll wish you’d never seen either one of these fellows in your life.”
“But Cleent, if you feel this way, why do you do it yourself?”
“I’m not. I can’t seem to get it through your thick head. I told Griego exactly the truth. I don’t like Griego much, but I like Valenzuela even less, and if Pepita doesn’t want to marry him, I don’t think she ought to have to. If there is no word from Dixon, then I’ll have to go see Valenzuela and make him tell me where to find Dixon. And if I have to do that, I might as well take a look around and let Griego know if I see some way to get through the defenses. But I’m hoping it won’t come to that. I’m hoping I’ll get my hands on Dixon and see he pays for what he did to Margaret, and then ride for Colorado. And all without having to go near Valenzuela or Griego again.”
The ride north to Crooked Creek was uneventful, unless you counted the four times the burros got loose and ripped up their packs by crowding through thickets. The burros seemed to wander farther and farther at night, and mornings searching for them grew long and tedious.
Crooked Creek was still roaring and buzzing with activity. As usual, there were several altercations going on at once. A pair of miners were hunkered down behind an ore wagon, hotly contesting something with two or three more behind a water trough across the street. The street in between was empty, but a couple of wagons were pulled up short of
firing range and their drivers were standing up waving their arms and their weapons and shouting angrily about disturbing the public’s peace and obstructing the right-of-way.
Clint and Felipe pulled up behind, and just then the drivers of the wagons entered the fray; pretty soon things were right lively in the street.
“If you don’t want your hair parted somewhere you don’t like,” Clint said to Felipe, “maybe we’d best give these folks plenty of gunning room.”
Felipe agreed, and they backed off and rode around outside town. Chap’s was still standing, but was considerably more shot up since they’d been here last. Old Chap himself had his arm in a ratty sling and as they checked in he told them a tale of a general increase of excitement in these parts due to another strike. An argument about who the strike belonged to was still going on, but in the early stages it had taken place here at the hotel, and several patrons had been planted as a result. He himself had gotten winged when he tried to clear the folks out before they brought the hotel down around everybody’s ears.
“It was rather a fearsome fray, gentlemen,” Old Chap said. “We are used to a certain amount of shooting and disagreement among our patrons, but they had overstepped the bounds. I say, gentlemen, you haven’t by chance returned because of an interest in the new find, have you? If you have, I’ll thank you to discuss the merits of ownership in someone else’s establishment.”
Clint assured him they would be careful not to be so rambunctious as to knock the building down, and then he and Felipe spread their rolls in the room they’d taken. They went out for supper, then returned. Clint had been in the habit of tying Felipe up at night during their trip north and he had no intention of making any change just because they had reached Crooked Creek. Felipe had become stoical about this, finally realizing that all his running off when trusted spoke louder than his protestations of trustworthiness when the time of day came for him to be tied up.
Tonight, Felipe said, “Cleent, I am thirsty. Let us have something to drink before we go to bed. We had not enough tequila on our travels.”
“Felipe, in the morning we have to get up bright and early. I don’t want you lying around holding your head until noontime. We’re almost out of time now for getting to Valenzuela, remember?”
“Sí, this is true,” Felipe agreed mournfully. “You are right. But perhaps one small drink could be allowed?”
“I guess one wouldn’t hurt. I have to see if there’s a message for me from Dixon anyway. Come on.”
After dark, the town was considerably more dangerous. Not because there were more bullets flying, or because there were more drunken miners in town, or because there was more card playing and hence more potential for disagreement—though all these things were true—but because it was dark and harder to see where bullets or knives or fists might come from. A wind blustered through the town lifting the grit and flapping the tents and howling in the ears and adding to the carnival atmosphere. Lanterns hanging inside the tents swung on their hooks as the tents worked, and threw the shadows of those inside against the tent walls in large wildly moving forms.
There were a lot of saloons, mostly in tents, with a board slung over a pair of hogsheads doing for a bar and apple crates of different sizes doing for tables and chairs. These places were packed full of whiskey-breathed miners, bearded, fierce, with their belts full of knives and pistols and their scarred and rock roughened hands full of grimy cards. The whiskey was mostly of the rotgut variety, maybe a mixture of raw alcohol and creosote, enough to kill anyone not used to it, pretty near. It was served in a motley array of old tin cups and tankards. Glass wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of rounds in a place like Crooked Creek.
Clint, keeping Felipe at his side, asked in several of these saloons if there was any message from Dixon for him, and had no luck. Felipe then grew impatient and hauled Clint into a saloon that catered to the Mexican element. It was even dirtier and more makeshift than the saloons catering to norteamericanos. Felipe bought a drink and put it down like it was only a thimbleful of water. Before Clint could stop him, Felipe got down a second. Clint tried to crowd to the bar to get Felipe by the arm, but this upset another fellow who spoke derisively of the pushy gringo and shoved him back. Clint had good reason not to get involved in a fight and so tried not to make an issue of it. He slid around and called to Felipe, reminding him he was only to take one drink.
Felipe let on not to hear, or perhaps he really didn’t. But the vaquero Clint had offended was spoiling for a fight, and he got Clint by the front of the shirt and yanked him close.
In Spanish, the man swore at him and called him a filthy gringo dog, and then hauled off to belt Clint. Clint ducked, and the fist hit someone behind him; a yell went up, and the next minute, fists were swinging everywhere. Clint tried to push for the door. If he got himself laid out, he wouldn’t be able to face Dixon successfully even if there was a message. But since he was the object of interest in this fight, he didn’t get far before a fist landed solidly in his midsection, and the next thing he saw was the flash of a knife by the light of the swinging overhead lantern.
Clint got the wrist of the knife-wielding hand, and pushed the owner tumbling backwards into the crowd. This let him get an additional couple of feet towards the door, and then another fist glanced off his jaw, and for a moment everything got a little distant and hazy. He swung back, a kind of automatic reaction, and a knife flashed towards his arm, and before he could stop it, the blade sliced a hole in his shirt, the cold metal smooth and icy against his skin.
Clint tried to back away, but the man with the knife wanted him, and here it came again, driving upwards towards his belly.
Clint twisted sideways, finding that somebody had his arms from behind now. He saw grinning fierce Mexican faces, all waiting to watch the hated gringo writhe out his life on the knife.
Suddenly, he was scared. He realized he couldn’t afford half measures any longer. He backed the crowd to one side with a powerful thrust of his legs, the knife gliding up his side, just drawing blood. He abruptly squatted and bent forward, breaking the grip of the man holding his arms. He drew his knife and came up again, the blade arcing in a quick flash into the other knife handler’s wrist, drawing a scream and some blood and causing the Mexican’s knife to fall. Clint’s knife, flashing around, cleared space around him as the other Mexicans backed off.
This gave him gunning room, and he drew and cocked his gun, swinging it back and forth, glaring into the fierce faces.
“¡Cuidado!” he bellowed warningly, and as he made for the door a path opened, respectful of the gun. He got outside and slipped off into the darkness. He found his legs were a little weak in the knees. All those damned Mexican faces had gotten to him.
For a moment it was silent in the saloon, more or less, and then the place seemed to explode, and it wasn’t half a minute before the tent collapsed on the yelling, swearing bunch of Mexicans, reducing the fight to a wriggle under a damper of canvas, until the smashed lantern suddenly flared up and set the whole thing on fire. Mexicans tore loose and ran off in all directions to leap into water troughs to cool off.
Clint kept his eye open for Felipe, and finally saw him staggering towards him, looking mighty scorched and cooked around the edges. Clint got him by the arm and yanked him towards the hotel. When they reached the room, Clint made sure Felipe was very well tied down to the bed.
“Hope you’re satisfied,” Clint said.
“Sí, Señor Cleent,” Felipe moaned. “It is enough for one night.”
“Damned right it is,” Clint muttered.
He checked himself over, found he wasn’t seriously hurt, though his shirt was getting to look a little flappy, and set off to finish making his round of the saloons.
He wasn’t three steps out the door of the hotel when a pair of hulks came from the dark and rammed their gun barrels into his back, one of them wanting to know, “You Clint Evans?”
“I might know him,” Clint said cautiously,
in case a yes answer might mean instant death.
“Never mind the clever talk. Is you or ain’t you Clint Evans?”
“I don’t talk good with guns in my back.”
“You better learn quick.”
Clint said, “Looky, friends, I know this fellow Evans, I think. But I’m not mixed up with him. You don’t want me. I just got here.”
“Check his pockets,” the other of the two men said with some disgust at his companion. “You won’t find out nothin’ jawin’.”
Clint’s pockets were searched, and a match struck to see what had been fished out. His gun was taken; then his knife was pulled, his initials discovered.
“Okay, C.E.,” the first man said, jabbing his pistol barrel into Clint’s back forcefully. “That’s close enough for me. The games is over. Let’s go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Clint kept looking for a chance to get the upper hand, but it never came. He was put into the back of a buckboard and tied up. The two men got onto the seat and one of them sung out to the horses and away they went, jouncing and clattering over the rough ground, going east out of town, as near as Clint could tell. He couldn’t sit up because his wrists were tied back to his ankles, behind him.
It seemed pretty clear that Dixon had gotten his message and this was the answer. Dixon must have long known why Clint wanted to find him, if he had ears everywhere. Probably he’d just smiled to himself at the puny efforts of the bereaved man. But now perhaps he was worried for some reason, or maybe it was an amusement to him to play with Clint.
The stars looked solemn and peaceful way up there. Clint couldn’t see anything else for the sides of the buckboard. He wondered if Felipe was this uncomfortable. However, Felipe could have prevented the necessity for being tied up. Clint didn’t feel sorry for him.