Читать книгу Jim the Conqueror - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 8

Table of Contents

DON JAIME made a new will that night and handed it to Ken Hobart at breakfast the following morning. “Your instructions are all in that envelope, too,” he explained, “in case I should be unfortunate. Enrico Caraveo, my riding boss, has the run of things pretty well. He’s a good man, and a Caraveo has always been riding boss of the Rancho Valle Verde. I shouldn’t want you to make a change, Ken.

“I have some Mexican first cousins; they’re émigrés, living in Los Angeles, and I’m leaving them the ranch in trust, with you as trustee and manager. The revolutions have ruined them and I support them now. Socially, I’m proud of them, but the fact remains that they’re damned spendthrifts, and if they had their way they’d sell this ranch and the cattle for fifty cents on the dollar in order to start splurging again. And a Mexican grandee is much too conscientious a splurger to continue on the job indefinitely. Consequently I, with my acquired American conservatism, must look after the poor devils.”

“Don Jaime,” Hobart protested, “I’m your employee now. I’ll wire the governor of Texas my resignation and, without waiting for its acceptance, I’ll ride back in time to be present when Antrim’s sheep come to the guarded water-holes.”

Don Jaime smiled. “As you will, Ken. While I require no additional proof that I have made no mistake in hiring you, still”—he shrugged and grimaced as only a Latin can—“it is nice to have it. As you know, we of the Higuenes tribe are easy-going people. We do not require the services of supermen, for we have never had them, but we have been accustomed to loyalty. Because I know you are loyal to your job I have engaged you.”

“Thank you, Don Jaime.”

They rode away into the southeast together. In a clump of cottonwoods a hundred yards from the sheep camp they parted, Don Jaime waiting while the ranger rode into the camp of the invaders.

A smallish, unprepossessing man, who might have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty years of age, stood under a smoke-discolored fly over a small barbecue pit upon which a side of mutton was roasting. As the ranger rode up, this man placed his arms akimbo, and gazed alertly at the stranger.

“All set for a quick grab for his gun,” Ken Hobart reasoned. “Wily old wretch!” Aloud he said, “Good morning, Mr. Antrim.”

“Hello, yourself,” Antrim replied with an assumption of heartiness. “What’s your name when lunch is ready?”

Hobart grinned. “I’m Captain Hobart, of the Texas Rangers. I suspected luncheon might be ready about the time I was due to ride by, so I’ve invited myself.”

“You’re welcome, ranger. What’s the gossip around your way?”

Hobart dismounted and tied his horse to the breeze. “Nothing much. A little smuggling, a little gun-running, a cattle raid to vary the monotony, a killing. Things are pretty quiet along the Border.”

“What brings you up this way?” Antrim was suspicious as a predatory animal.

“I figured on giving you some sound advice, Mr. Antrim. You’re trespassing on the Higuenes lands and Don Jaime Higuenes doesn’t cheer for that. It looks like a private war to me; and as a ranger I prefer to stop a private war before it starts rather than after it’s started. You’re in the wrong, Mr. Antrim, and I advise you to pull out of here and not come back.”

“You come to arrest me for trespassing,” Antrim asked.

“No, of course not. You’re grazing your sheep on state lands. I can’t arrest you until you drive them on the lands owned by Don Jaime in fee simple—and those lands surround the water-holes whereby Don Jaime controls this range. Even then I’ll not arrest you, because Don Jaime refuses to ask it or swear out a warrant. Says he likes to kill his own rats.”

“Called me a rat, did he?” Antrim’s cold, pale-blue eyes were very bleak.

“Not at all. That was just my way of expressing the situation. I was speaking in the vernacular. Don Jaime isn’t very far from here, Mr. Antrim. He’d like to have one final talk with you. He isn’t armed. Suppose you drop that gun you’re wearing and walk out with me to discuss this situation with Don Jaime.”

“Reckon I can trust a ranger,” Antrim replied, as Hobart exposed his shield. He hung his gun and belt on the projecting snag of a cottonwood and followed the ranger to where Don Jaime Higuenes waited.

“Well, Higuenes,” Antrim saluted him gruffly. His words, his tone of voice, were at once an inquiry and a threat.

“I’ve come to warn you not to attempt to water your sheep at any of my water-holes, Antrim.”

“And if I do?”

“You’ll fight to the death for the privilege.”

“Well, I can do that, too.”

“Then we understand each other.”

“How do I know you own those water-holes?”

“You have my assurance that I do. If you doubt that, look up the records at the county seat.”

“Your surveys are wrong.”

“I am not aware of that. Of course, if they are, you may water your sheep—after you’ve proved your statement. However, your argument is footless. You do not wish to believe me and I wouldn’t believe you under oath. So suppose we have the county surveyor out here to resurvey all the lands I hold in fee simple. If he proves the old surveys to be erroneous, I’ll pay his bill. If he proves them correct, you pay his bill, move out with your sheep and never come back.”

“I’m not taking orders from any damned greaser.”

Don Jaime’s white teeth flashed in a smile of vast amusement. “No intelligent man takes a civet cat in his hands, Antrim. I have warned you, in the presence of Captain Hobart, not to trespass on the lands I hold in fee simple.”

Without a word Antrim turned and walked back to his camp.

“It’s war,” said Don Jaime Miguel Higuenes.

“The man must be a trifle insane, Don Jaime.”

“Not at all. He’s running a bluff because he thinks I’m weak. He is willing to be arrested for trespass, provided his sheep may drink. He will bail himself out of jail—all his men, too—and trespass again and again. The season is a dry one and the feed on his own range is depleted. He must get through the summer some way and hold his flock intact.... Well, I’ll ride back home and organize my defense.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Don Jaime. I shall. As assistant general manager it is my duty to command. Besides, I know how. Your life is much too precious to risk it in a brush with these sheepmen. Arrests and trials will follow this fight, and if you are not alive to protect your men, who, then, will protect us? Who will bail us out of jail?”

Don Jaime smiled his lazy smile. It was easy to see he was very fond of the ranger. “There is sound reason in your argument,” he admitted.

Hobart went on.

“Permit me to return to the hacienda and organize your forces, Don Jaime. Meanwhile, you ride on to Los Algodones and file my telegraphic resignation to the governor. Here it is. I wrote it out last night. It requests immediate acceptance by wire. The governor is a friend of mine and will do this. Wait for the answer. Meanwhile, make your arrangements to provide bail for twelve of your men. What men do you advise for this expedition?”

Don Jaime named them promptly, and Hobart realized that the force he was to defend the water-holes with was equally divided between Mexicans and Americans.

“Now, then,” Hobart continued, “we’re going to lick the Antrim crowd, and some of them and perhaps some of us are going to get killed. More of them, I think. The survivors will prefer a charge of murder against any of the men they have recognized during the fight, and the bail will be about twenty-five thousand dollars each in cash or fifty thousand in bonds. We will assume that four of our men will be recognized. That means you must provide one hundred thousand in cash or two hundred thousand in bonds.”

“I’m good for that in bonds.”

“Well, then, make your arrangement in advance with the district attorney. You’ll be in Los Algodones this afternoon, all night and tomorrow forenoon. Tomorrow afternoon you will ride back, with the sheriff, who will be on his way out to your ranch to arrest your men. You will have a perfect alibi, because this fight will have been pulled off in your absence, so you will be quite free to look after the comforts of your defenders.”

Don Jaime pondered. He much preferred, when his men were in danger defending the master’s interests, to share that danger with them. On the other hand he realized that the issue was not to be fought entirely at the water-holes; that in the courts he would be needed much more than in any other arena of battle. He knew Ken Hobart was talking sense, and that the sensible thing to do would be to heed his advice. So he heeded it. And in heeding it he experienced no qualms of conscience, no feeling that he was playing safe while others fought his battles.

The employees of the Rancho Valle Verde were scarcely employees in the modern sense. Rather were they retainers, fierce partizans of the Higuenes tradition, men to whom it was a religion to fight for the master in defense of their bread and butter. This tribute of loyalty the ancestors of Don Jaime had demanded as a right; with the passage of time it had come to be accorded without compulsion and become a commonplace thing, to be accepted as Don Jaime accepted hot weather and cold, good fortune and evil.

“Very well, Ken,” he agreed. “Enrico Caraveo knows every foot of this range; once he locates the sheep he’ll know what water they will try for this evening. The rest I leave to you. Perhaps you had better loan me your rifle, in case I should run into some of Antrim’s herders after leaving you here. When you return to the ranch help yourself to my arsenal. I have every brand of rifle my foolish fancy coveted; select the one you like best, then let your men help themselves. Better use steel-jacketed bullets. I have dum-dum ammunition for use on the bandits that favor me with an occasional raid, but a sheep-herder is such a pitiful creature, perhaps we had better be as kind as we can.”

He helped himself to the ranger’s rifle and scabbard and fastened it along his saddle. It was a Mauser carbine, and the ammunition was carried in clips of five in pockets on a buckskin vest. Don Jaime donned the vest and, with a nod to the ranger, headed his horse across country in the direction of Los Algodones.

It was some months since he had ridden a horse. For many years his trips around his ranch, between his ranch and the county seat had been made by automobile. He paused now, thinking of the twenty-mile ride back to the ranch; deciding he would spare himself that hardship he shouted to Hobart:

“Ken, send one of the boys into Los Algodones with the motor and the horse trailer attached, to bring my horse and me home.”

“Seguro,” Hobart shouted back.