Jim Waring of Sonora-Town; Or, Tang of Life, Page 2

  Chapter II

  _Jose Vaca_

  The young Mexican's face was beaded with sweat as he rose and stareddown at the wounded man. Clumsily he attempted to help Waring, whowashed and bandaged the shattered shoulder. Waring had shot to kill, butthe gun was not his own, and he had fired almost as it had touched hishand.

  "Get your uncle on his horse," he told the youth. "Don't make a break.We're due at Juan Armigo's ranchito about sundown."

  So far as he was concerned, that was all there was to it for the timebeing. He had wounded and captured Jose Vaca, notorious in Sonora asleader in outlawry. That there were no others of Vaca's kind with himpuzzled Waring. The young Ramon, Vaca's nephew, did not count.

  Ramon helped his uncle to mount. They glanced at each other, Vaca's eyesblinking. The gringo was afoot. They were mounted. Waring, observingtheir attitude, smiled, and, crooking his finger, whistled shrilly. Theyoung Ramon trembled. Other gringos were hidden in the arroyo; perhapsthe very man that his uncle had robbed! Even now he could hear the clickof hoofs on the gravel. The gunman had been merciful for the moment,only to turn his captives over to the merciless men of the mines; menwho held a Mexican's life worth no more than a dog's. The wounded man,stiff in the saddle, turned his head. Round a bend in the dry river-bed,his neck held sideways that the reins might drag free, came Waring's bigbuckskin horse, Dexter. The horse stopped as he saw the group. Waringspoke to him. The big buckskin stepped forward and nosed Waring, whoswung to the saddle and gestured toward the back trail.

  They rode in silence, the Mexicans with bowed heads, dull-eyed,listless, resigned to their certain fate. For some strange reason thegringo had not killed them in the arroyo. He had had excuse enough.

  Would he take them to Sonora--to the prison? Or would he wait until theywere in some hidden fastness of the Agua Fria, and there kill them andleave them to the coyotes? The youth Ramon knew that the two littlecanvas sacks of gold were cleverly tied in the huge tapaderas of hisuncle's saddle. Who would think to look for them there?

  The gringo had said that they would ride to the ranchito of Juan Armigo.How easily the gringo had tricked them at the very moment when theythought they were safe! Yet he had not asked about the stolen money. Theways of this gringo were past comprehension.

  Waring paid scant attention to the Mexicans, but he glanced continuouslyfrom side to side of the canon, alert for a surprise. The wounded man,Vaca, was known to him. He was but one of the bandits. Ramon, Vaca'snephew, was not of their kind, but had been led into this journey byVaca that the bandit might ride wide when approaching the ranchos andsend his nephew in for supplies.

  The pack on Ramon's saddle rode too lightly to contain anything heavierthan food. There was nothing tied to Vaca's saddle but a frayed andfaded blanket. Yet Waring was certain that they had not cached the gold;that they carried it with them.

  At noon they watered the horses midway up the canon. As they rode onagain, Waring noticed that Vaca did not thrust his foot clear home inthe stirrup, but he attributed this to the other's condition. TheMexican was a sick man. His swarthy face had gone yellow, and he leanedforward, clutching the horn. The heat was stagnant, unwavering. The pacewas desperately slow.

  Despite his vigilance, Waring's mind grew heavy with the monotony. Herolled a cigarette. The smoke tasted bitter. He flung the cigaretteaway. The hunting of men had lost its old-time thrill. A clean break anda hard fight; that was well enough. But the bowed figures riding aheadof him: ignorant, superstitious, brutal; numb to any sense of honor. Wasthe game worth while? Yet they were men--human in that they feared,hoped, felt hunger, thirst, pain, and even dreamed of vague successes tobe attained how or when the Fates would decide. And was this squalidvictory a recompense for the risks he ran and the hardships he endured?

  Again Waring heard the Voice, as though from a distance, and yet thevoice was his own: "You will turn back from the hunting of men."

  "Like hell I will!" muttered Waring.

  Ramon, who rode immediately ahead of him, turned in the saddle. Waringgestured to him to ride on.

  The heat grew less intense as an occasional, vagrant breeze stirred inthe brush and fluttered the handkerchief round Waring's throat. Ahead,the canon broadened to the mesa lands, where the distant green of a lineof trees marked the boundary of the Armigo rancho.

  Presently Vaca began to sing; softly at first, then with insanevehemence as the fever mounted to his brain. Waring smiled with drylips. The Mexican had stood the journey well. A white man in Vaca'scondition would have gone to pieces hours ago. He called to Ramon, whogave Vaca water. The Mexican drank greedily, and threw the empty canteeninto the bushes.

  Waring listened for some hint, some crazy boast as to the whereabouts ofthe stolen money. But Vaca rode on, occasionally breaking into a wildsong, half Yaqui, half Mexican. The youth Ramon trembled, fearing thatthe gringo would lose patience.

  Across the northern end of the canon the winnowing heat waves died tothe level of the ground. Brown shadows shot from the western wall andspread across the widening outlet. The horses stepped briskly, knowingthat they were near water.

  Waring became more alert as they approached the adobe buildings of therancho. Vaca had drifted into a dull silence. Gray with suffering andgrim with hate for the gringo, he rode stolidly, praying incoherentlythat the gunman might be stricken dead as he rode.

  The raw edge of the disappearing sun leveled a long flame of crimsonacross the mesa. The crimson melted to gold. The gold paled to a brieftwilight. A faint star twinkled in the north.

  Dogs crowded forward in the dusk, challenging the strange riders. Afigure filled the lighted doorway of the Armigo ranch-house. The dogsdrew back.

  Ramon dismounted and helped his uncle down. Waring sat his horse untilJuan Armigo stepped from the doorway and asked who came. Waring answeredwith his name.

  "Si! Si!" exclaimed Armigo. "The senor is welcome."

  Waring dismounted. "Juan, I have two of your friends here; Jose Vaca andRamon Ortego."

  Armigo seemed surprised. "Jose Vaca is wounded?" he queriedhesitatingly.

  Waring nodded.

  "And the horses; they shall have feed, water, everything--I myself--"

  "Thanks. But I'll look after the horses, Juan. I'm taking Vaca and Ramonto Sonora. See what you can do for Vaca. He's pretty sick."

  "It shall be as the senor says. And the senor has made a fight?"

  "With those hombres? Not this journey! Jose Vaca made a mistake; that'sall."

  Armigo, perturbed, shuffled to the house. Waring unsaddled the horsesand turned them into the corral. As he lifted the saddle from Vaca'shorse, he hesitated. It was a big stock saddle and heavy; yet it seemedtoo heavy. On his knees he turned it over, examining it. He smiledgrimly as he untied the little canvas sacks and drew them from thetapaderas.

  "Thought he showed too much boot for a hard-riding chola," mutteredWaring.

  He rose and threw some hay to the horses. He could hear Ramon and Armigotalking in the ranch-house. Taking his empty canteen from his ownsaddle, he untied the sacks and slipped the gold-pieces, one by one,into the canteen. He scooped up sand and filled the canteen half full.The gold no longer jingled as he shook it.

  While Waring had no fear that either of the men would attempt to escape,he knew Mexicans too well to trust Armigo explicitly. A thousanddollars was a great temptation to a poor rancher. And while Armigo hadalways professed to be Waring's friend, sympathy of blood and the appealof money easily come by might change the placid face of thingsconsiderably.

  Waring strode to the house, washed and ate with Juan in the kitchen;then he invited the Mexican out to the corral.

  "Jose and Ramon are your countrymen, Juan."

  "Si, senor. I am sorry for Ramon. This thing was not of his doing. He isbut a boy--"

  Waring touched the other's arm. "There will be no trouble, Juan. Onlykeep better track of your horses while I ride this part of the country."

  "But--senor--"

  "I've had business
with you before. Two of your cayuses are astray downthe Agua Fria. One of them is dragging a maguey lead-rope."

  "Senor, it is impossible!"

  "No, it isn't! I know your brand. See here, Juan. You knew that Vaca wastrying to get away. You knew I'd be sent to get him. Why did you let himtake two spare horses?"

  "But, senor, I swear I did not!"

  "All right. Then when Ramon rode in here two days ago and asked you fortwo horses, why didn't you refuse him? Why did you tell him you wouldsell them, but that you would not lend them to him?"

  "If Ramon says that, he lies. I told Ramon--"

  "Thanks. That's all I want to know. I don't care what you told Ramon.You let him take the horses. Now, I'm going to tell you something thatwill be worth more to you than gold. Don't try to rope any stock grazinground here to-night. I might wake up quick and make a mistake. Men lookalike in the moonlight--and we'll have a moon."

  "It shall be as the senor says. It is fate."

  "All right, amigo. But it isn't fate. It's making fool mistakes when youor your countrymen tackle a job like Vaca tackled. Just get me a coupleof blankets. I'll sleep out here to-night."

  Juan Armigo plodded to the adobe. The lamplight showed his face beadedwith sweat. He shuffled to an inner room, and came out with blankets onhis arm. Vaca lay on a bed-roll in the corner of the larger room, andnear him stood Ramon.

  "The senor sleeps with the horses," said Armigo significantly.

  Ramon bent his head and muttered a prayer.

  "And if you pray," said Armigo, shifting the blankets from one arm tothe other, "pray then that the two horses that you borrowed may return.As for your Uncle Jose, he will not die."

  "And we shall be taken to the prison," said Ramon."

  "You should have killed the gringo." And Armigo's tone wasmatter-of-fact. "Or perhaps told him where you had hidden the gold. Hemight have let you go, then."

  Ramon shook his head. Armigo's suggestion was too obviously a questionas to the whereabouts of the stolen money.

  The wounded man opened his eyes. "I have heard," he said faintly. "Tellthe gringo that I will say where the money is hidden if he will let mego."

  "It shall be as you wish," said Armigo, curious to learn more of thematter.

  At the corral he delivered Vaca's message to Waring, who feigned delightat the other's information.

  "If that is so, Tio Juan," he laughed, "you shall have your share--ahundred pesos. Leave the blankets there by my saddle. We will go to thehouse."

  From the coolness of night, with its dim radiance of stars, to theaccumulated heat of the interior of the adobe was an unpleasant change.The walls were whitewashed and clean enough, but the place smelledstrongly of cooking. A lamp burned on the oilcloth-covered table. Ramon,wide-eyed with trepidation, stood by his uncle, who had braced himselfon his elbow as Waring approached. Waring nodded pleasantly and rolled acigarette. Jose Vaca glared up at him hungrily. The lower lip,pendulous, showed his broken teeth. Waring thought of a trapped wolf.Juan glanced from one to the other.

  But the gringo seemed incurious, merely gazing at the pictures on thewalls; a flaming print of the Madonna, one of the Christ, a cheapphotograph of Juan and his senora taken on their wedding day, an abaloneshell on which was painted something resembling a horse and rider--

  "The gold is hidden in the house of Pedro Salazar, of Sonora. It isburied in the earth beneath his bed."

  Jose Vaca had spoken, but Waring was watching Ramon's eyes.

  "All right, hombre. Muchas gracias."

  "And now you will let me go?" queried Vaca.

  "I haven't said so." Waring's tone was pleasant, almost indifferent.

  Ramon's face was troubled. Of what use was it to try and deceive thegringo? But Waring was smiling. Did he, then, believe such an obviouslie?

  "Bueno!" Waring exclaimed. "That lets _you_ out. Now, what about you,Ramon?"

  "My uncle has spoken," said Ramon. "I have nothing to say."

  "Then you will ride with me to Sonora."

  "As you say, senor."

  "All right. Don't sit up all night praying. That won't do any good. Getsome sleep. And you, too, Juan." And Waring turned quickly to Armigo."Sleep all you can. You'll feel better in the morning."

  Waring turned and strode out. In the corral he spread his blankets. Withhis head on the saddle, he lay gazing up at the stars.

  The horses, with the exception of Waring's buckskin Dex, huddled in onecorner of the corral. That strange shape stretched quietly on the groundwas new to them.

  For a long time the horse Dex stood with head lowered and one hip saggedas he rested. Just before Waring slept he felt a gentle nosing of hisblankets. The big horse sniffed curiously.

  "Strange blankets, eh?" queried Waring drowsily. "But it's the same oldpartner, Dex."

  The horse walked slowly away, nosing along the fence. Waring knew thathe was well sentineled. The big buckskin would resent the approach of astranger by snorting. Waring turned on his side and slept. His day'swork was done.