Читать книгу The Ranger and Other Stories - Zane Grey - Страница 6

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Vaughn was as much surprised by the command given in English as by this totally unexpected encounter with a dozen or more Mexicans. He knew the type all too well. These were Quinela’s bandits.

Vaughn raised his hands. Why this gang leader was holding him up instead of shooting on sight was beyond Vaughn’s ken. The Mexicans began to jabber like a lot of angry monkeys. If ever Vaughn expected death it was at that moment. He had about decided to pull his gun and shoot it out with them, and finish as many a ranger had before him. But a shrill authoritative voice deterred him. Then a swarthy little man, lean-faced, and beady-eyed, stepped out between the threatening rifles and Vaughn. He silenced the shrill chatter of his men.

“It’s the gringo ranger, Texas Medill,” he shouted in Spanish. “It’s the man who killed Lopez. Don’t shoot. Quinela will pay much gold for him alive. Quinela will strip off the soles of his feet and drive him with hot irons to walk on the choya.”

“But it’s the dreaded gun ranger, señor,” protested a one-eyed bandit. “The only safe way is to shoot his cursed heart out here.”

“We had our orders to draw this ranger across the river,” returned the leader harshly. “Quinela knew his man and the hour. The Uvaldo girl brought him. And here we have him—alive! ... Garcia, it’d cost your life to shoot this ranger.”

“But I warn you, Juan, he is not alone,” returned Garcia. “He is but a leader of many rangers. Best kill him quick and hurry on. I have told you already that plenty gringo vaqueros are on the trail. We have many horses. We cannot travel fast. Night is coming. Best kill Texas Medill.”

“No, Garcia. We obey orders,” returned Juan harshly. “We take him alive to Quinela.”

Vaughn surveyed the motley group with speculative eyes. He could kill six of them at least, and with Star charging and the poor marksmanship of native bandits, he might break through. Coldly Vaughn weighed the chances. They were a hundred to one that he would not escape. Yet he had taken such chances before. But these men had Roseta, and while there was life there was always some hope. With a tremendous effort of will he forced aside the deadly impulse and applied his wits to the situation.

The swarthy Juan turned to cover Vaughn with a cocked gun. Vaughn read doubt and fear in the beady eyes. He knew Mexicans. If they did not kill him at once there was hope. At a significant motion Vaughn carefully shifted a long leg and stepped face front, hands high, out of the saddle.

Juan addressed him in Spanish.

“No savvy, señor,” replied the ranger.

“You speak Spanish?” repeated the questioner in English.

“Very little. I understand some of your Mexican lingo.”

“You trailed Manuel alone?”

“Who’s Manuel?”

“My vaquero. He brought Señorita Uvaldo across the river.”

“After murdering her companion. Yes, I trailed him and two other men, I reckon. Five horses. The Uvaldo girl rode one. The fifth horse belonged to her companion.”

“Ha! Did Manuel kill?” exclaimed the Mexican, and it was quite certain that this was news to him.

“Yes. You have murder as well as kidnaping to answer for.”

The Mexican cursed under his breath.

“Where are your rangers?” he went on.

“They got back from the Brazos last night with news of your raid,” said Vaughn glibly. “And this morning they joined the cowboys who were trailing the horses you stole.”

Vaughn realized then that somewhere there had been a mix-up in Quinela’s plans. The one concerning the kidnaping of Roseta Uvaldo and Vaughn’s taking the trail had worked out well. But Juan’s dark, corded face, his volley of unintelligible maledictions directed at his men betrayed a hitch somewhere. Again Vaughn felt the urge to draw and fight it out. What crazy fiery-headed fools these tattered marauders were! Juan had lowered his gun to heap abuse on Garcia. That luckless individual turned green of face. Some of the others still held leveled rifles on Vaughn, but they were looking at their leader and his lieutenant. Vaughn saw a fair chance to get away, and his gun hand itched. A heavy-booming Colt—Juan and Garcia dead—a couple of shots at those other outlaws—that would have stampeded them. But Vaughn as yet had caught no glimpse of Roseta. He put the grim, cold impulse behind him.

The harangue went on, ending only when Garcia had been cursed into sullen agreement.

“I’ll take them to Quinela,” cried Juan shrilly, and began shouting orders.

Vaughn’s gun belt was removed. His hands were tied behind his back. He was forced upon one of the Mexicans’ horses and his feet were roped to the stirrups. Juan appropriated his gun belt, which he put on with the Mexican’s love of vainglory, and then mounted Star. The horse did not like the exchange of riders, and there followed immediate evidence of the cruel iron hand of the outlaw. Vaughn’s blood leaped, and he veiled his eyes lest someone see his savage urge to kill. When he raised his head, two of the squat, motley-garbed, and wide-sombreroed Mexicans were riding by, and the second led a horse upon which sat Roseta Uvaldo.

She was bound to the saddle, but her hands were free. She turned her face to Vaughn. With what concern and longing did he gaze at it! Vaughn needed only to see it flash white toward him, to meet the look of gratitude in her dark eyes, to realize that Roseta was still unharmed. She held her small proud head high. Her spirit was unbroken. For the rest, what mattered the dusty disheveled hair, the mud-spattered and dust-covered vaquero riding garb she wore? Vaughn flashed her a look that brought the blood to her pale cheeks.

Juan prodded Vaughn in the back. “Ride, gringo.” Then he gave Garcia a last harsh command. As Vaughn’s horse followed that of Roseta and her two guards into the brook, there rose a clattering, jabbering melee among the Mexicans left behind. It ended in a receding roar of pounding hoofs.

The brook was shallow and ran swiftly over gravel and rocks. Vaughn saw at once that Juan meant to hide his trail. An hour after the cavalcade would have passed a given point here, no obvious trace would show. The swift water would have cleared as well as have filled the hoof tracks with sand.

“Juan, you were wise to desert your gang of horse thieves,” said Vaughn coolly. “There’s a hard-ridin’ outfit on their trail. And some, if not all of them, will be dead before sundown.”

“Quien sabe? But it’s sure Texas Medill will be walking choya on bare-skinned feet mañana,” replied the Mexican bandit chief.

Vaughn pondered. Quinela’s rendezvous, then, was not many hours distant. Travel such as this, up a rocky gorge, was necessarily slow. Probably this brook would not afford more than a few miles of going. Then Juan would head out on to the desert and try in other ways to hide his tracks. As far as Vaughn was concerned, whether he hid them or not made no difference. The cowboys and rangers in pursuit were but fabrications of Vaughn’s to deceive the Mexicans. He knew how to work on their primitive feelings. But Vaughn poignantly realized the peril of the situation and the brevity of the time left him.

“Juan, you’ve got my gun,” said Vaughn, his keen mind working. “You say I’ll be dead in less than twenty-four hours. What’s it worth to untie my hands so I can ride in comfort?”

“Señor, if you have money on you it will be mine anyway,” replied the Mexican.

“I haven’t any money with me. But I’ve got my checkbook that shows a balance of some thousands of dollars in an El Paso bank,” replied Vaughn, and he turned round.

The bandit showed his gleaming white teeth in derision. “What’s that to me?”

“Some thousands in gold, Juan. You can get it easily. News of my death will not get across the border very soon. I’ll give you a check and a letter, which you can take to El Paso, or send by messenger.”

“How much gold, Señor?” Juan asked.

“Over three thousand.”

“Señor, you would bribe me into a trap. No. Juan loves the glitter and clink of your American gold, but he is no fool.”

“Nothing of the sort. I’m trying to buy a little comfort in my last hours. And possibly a little kindness to the señorita there. It’s worth a chance. You can send a messenger. What do you care if he shouldn’t come back? You don’t lose anythin’.”

“No gringo can be trusted, much less Texas Medill of the rangers,” replied the Mexican.

“Sure. But take a look at my checkbook. You know figures when you see them.”

Juan rode abreast of Vaughn, impelled by curiosity. His beady eyes glittered.

“Inside vest pocket,” directed Vaughn. “Don’t drop the pencil.”

The Mexican procured the checkbook and opened it. “Señor, I know your bank,” he said, vain of his ability to read, which to judge by his laborious task was limited.

“Ahuh. Well, how much balance have I left?” asked Vaughn.

“Three thousand, four hundred.”

“Good. Now, Juan, you may as well get that money. I’ve nobody to leave it to. I’ll buy a little comfort for myself—and kindness to the señorita.”

“How much kindness, señor?” asked the Mexican craftily.

“That you keep your men from handlin’ her rough—and soon as the ransom is paid send her back safe.”

“Señor, the first I have seen to. The second is not mine to grant. Quinela will demand ransom—yes—but never will he send the señorita back.”

“But I—thought—”

“Quinela was wronged by Uvaldo.”

Vaughn whistled at this astounding revelation. He had divined correctly the fear Uvaldo had revealed. The situation then for Roseta was vastly more critical. Death would be merciful compared to the fate the half-breed peon Quinela would deal her. Vaughn cudgeled his brains in desperation. Why had he not shot it out with these yellow desperadoes? But rage could not further Roseta’s cause.

Meanwhile the horses splashed and clattered over the rocks in single file up the narrowing gorge. The steep walls were giving way to brushy slopes that let the hot sun down. Roseta looked back at Vaughn with appeal and trust—and something more in her dark eyes that tortured him.

Vaughn did not have the courage to meet her gaze, except for that fleeting moment. It was only natural that his spirits should be at a low ebb. Never in his long ranger service had he encountered such a desperate situation. More than once he had faced what seemed inevitable death, where there had seemed to be not the slightest chance to escape. Vaughn was not of a temper to give up completely. He would watch for a break till the very last second. For Roseta, however, he endured agonies. He had looked at the mutilated bodies of more than one girl victim of these bandits.

When at length the gully narrowed to a mere crack in the hill, and the water failed, Juan ordered his guards to climb a steep brush slope. There was no sign of any trail. If this brook, which they had waded to its source, led away from the road to Rock Ford, it would take days before rangers or cowboys could possibly run across it. Juan was a fox.

The slope was not easy to climb. Both Mexicans got off their horses to lead Roseta’s. If Vaughn had not been tied on his saddle he would have fallen off. Eventually they reached the top, to enter a thick growth of mesquite and cactus. And before long they broke out into a trail, running, as near as Vaughn could make out, at right angles to the road and river trail. Probably it did not cross either one. Certainly the Mexicans trotted east along it as if they had little to fear from anyone traveling it.

Presently a peon came in sight astride a mustang, and leading a burro. He got by the two guards, though they crowded him into the brush. But Juan halted him, and got off Star to see what was in the pack on the burro. With an exclamation of great satisfaction he pulled out what appeared to Vaughn to be a jug or demijohn covered with wickerwork. Juan pulled out the stopper and smelled the contents.

“Canyu!” he said, and his white teeth gleamed. He took a drink, then smacked his lips. When the guards, who had stopped to watch, made a move to dismount he cursed them vociferously. Sullenly they slid back into their saddles. Juan stuffed the demijohn into the right saddlebag of Vaughn’s saddle. Here the peon protested in a mixed dialect that Vaughn could not translate. But the meaning was obvious. Juan kicked the ragged peon’s sandaled foot, and ordered him on, with a significant touch of Vaughn’s big gun, which he wore so pompously. The peon lost no time riding off. Juan remounted, and directed the cavalcade to move forward.

Vaughn turned as his horse started, and again he encountered Roseta’s dark intent eyes. They seemed telepathic this time, as well as filled with unutterable promise. She had read Vaughn’s thought. If there were anything that had dominance in the Mexican’s nature it was the cactus liquor, canyu. Ordinarily he was volatile, unstable as water, flint one moment and wax the next. But with the burn of canyu in his throat he had the substance of mist.

Vaughn felt the lift and pound of his heavy heart. He had prayed for the luck of the ranger, and lo! a peon had ridden up, packing canyu.