The Three had chosen their lair wisely.
In the picturesque Spanish phrase, it "situated itself" midway of the
desert, the great Mexican desert that is more varied in its heated
monotony than a land of woods and fields and streams. Here it runs to
sparse grass land under upland _piñon_; there spreads over wide, clean
sands that reflect like burnished brass the intolerable glare of the
sun. Now it marches for leagues with the yuccas that fling crazed arms
and shrunken limbs like posturing dwarfs; again it is dotted with lonely
_mesas_, monolithic masses that raise orange and vermilion facades out
of a violet mirage. A magic land it is, made out of shattered rainbows,
girded with crimson-and-gold mountains that wear around their high
foreheads cooling bandages of snow; a land of deathless calms, cyclonic
storms, torrential rains, peopled only by the vultures that wheel
against the sky and the little golden dust-whorls which dance together
over its heated face. A country where dwells the very spirit of romance;
of which anything might be predicted and come to pass; therefore, as
before said, the very place for a lair.
Secondly, the Three had shown a nice discrimination in the selection of
a site. Its capacities in the way of offense and defense would have
earned the instant commendation of a medieval baron, Mexican bandit,
revolutionist, or "movie" director in search of an ideal robber's roost.
Years ago a Yankee "prospector" with more faith than sense and money
enough to have left prospecting severely alone, had kept a raft of
_peones_ busy for the better part of two years ripping the heart out of
a mountain-top in a feverish search for fabulous gold. Rumors that still
linger in Sonora _jacales_ tell that the _gringo_ worked under the
direction of the spirits--or a spiritualist, which may or may not be
quite the same. The results--to wit, a huge gap in the mountain and an
abandoned adobe powder house, now serving as a residence for the Three
Bad Men--seem to favor the rumor. Spirits were never good miners. But
that is neither here nor there, the Three concerning themselves only
with the natural fortifications they thus inherited.
The adobe stood well back in a semicircular gap, protected on three
sides by the curving walls of the excavation. Behind them, the mountain
dropped almost a thousand feet sheer, and the level bench in front of
the house could only be gained by a narrow path that fell like a yellow
snake down the steep slopes into thick chaparral. From its edge one
overlooked the vast reaches of the central Sonora desert, an ashen sea
of sage and mimosa shored in by far mountains that loomed dusky purple
or stood out stark yellow as they happened to lie to the sun. Since the
Yankee went back on his "controls," or they on him, a _sahuaro_ cactus
had raised its fluted barrel within the excavation, captaining a squad
of dwarf yuccas that poked grotesque arms in pathetic entreaty out of
the rubble. To these natural improvements the Three had added a
_ramada_, broad porch of poles and cornstalks, in the shade of which
they took their ease one hot nooning, two playing _pedro_ at a rough
wooden table while the third dozed and nodded with stool tilted back
against the adobe wall.
It did not require more than a cursory glance to know the Three for
members of that sad colony which is doomed by its past to remain on the
wrong side of the Mexican border. Beginning with Sliver Smith, the
sleeper; his drowsy lids hid blue eyes that were hard as chips of agate
and exactly fitted his reckless face. Just now sleep had softened its
lines and brought a certain underlying good-nature. But for the mouth
and deep creases down each side of the nose, which bespoke passions
violent and unrestrained, one would have put him down now for that which
he had been--a cowman from the New Mexican ranges.
The other two, however, really looked the "bad man." "Bull" Perrin, the
biggest and eldest, might have been especially cast by nature for the
part. Big, burly, black-visaged, and heavy-jowled, excessive drinking
had dyed his face out of all relation to the creamy skin the gods had
given him. The hot brown eyes under straight bushy brows bespoke a
cyclonic temper. But though Bull conveyed the impression of an "ugly
customer" at first sight, a physiognomist would have picked Jake Evers,
his partner, as a far more dangerous man. The cold, bleak sparks of eyes
in his lean, lantern-jawed face scintillated with cunning. But for a
certain humor that lurked about the corners of his mouth, his face would
have been utterly repulsive.
Yet after granting their "badness," there was about them no taint of the
mean, rat-like wickedness of the city criminal. Their composite was of
strong impulses, misdirected forces gone to waste, of men cast by birth
in a wrong age. In the councils of a nation in the olden time, their
strength, ferocity, would have gained them power and place; here, out in
the desert, they exactly fitted their environment. As much as the horned
toad in the sand at Bull's feet, as much as the lizard that coursed
swiftly along the adobe wall above the sleeper's head; as much as the
_sahuaro_ and the tormented yucca, they belonged to the land. Its gold
glowed in their bronze. It were a safe bet that--horses and cattle not
being in question--they would, at a given emergency, live in the letter
of its best traditions.
Looking at Bull and Jake as they sat at play, the former might be
likened to a grizzly; the latter to a tiger, alert, stealthy, cunning,
ferocious; qualities which sprang into evidence with startling
suddenness when a shrill burst of woman's scolding presently disrupted
the heated silence.
Apparently the noise issued from a white cloud that hid the doorway; but
as this settled and cleared away, a buxom slattern of a Mexican girl
stood revealed. While flicking out the last dust of flour from an empty
sack she bitterly reviled the Three. Though delivered in Spanish, the
substance of her complaint was international and goes easily into
English.
"Flojos! Lazy ones! how shall one cook without flour? The coffee, too,
is gone--and the sugar. Of lard or grease there is not a smear for the
pan. You must go forth, to-day."
This was merely the text. While she enlarged thereon with copious
illustrations to prove their worthlessness as providers, the two men at
the table proceeded quietly with their play. It was the third that
finally interrupted the harangue with the irascibility of one aroused
from pleasant sleep.
"Shut up, Dove!"
In its literal sense the word stands for the most innocent of birds. But
she chose to take the opposite meaning of the sarcastic Spanish.
"Si, señor! I am that or I should not be here now, cooking for three
beasts." After a comparison between them and the lower animals that
greatly favored the latter, she ran on with increasing heat:
"'Dove,' indeed? Then where is my price? Where are they, the fine
clothes, the silks and satins and linen, the jewelry and laces you were
to gain for me? Was it by this I was bought?" She held out her dirty
black skirt. "I, that might be now sitting in the cantina of Ignacio
Flores at Las Bocas, selling aguardiente and anisette to his custom? Si,
señores, _where are they_, the velvets, ribands, and neck chains? I--"
It was at this point that Jake displayed his quality. Swinging swiftly
around, he threw his knife, so hard and quickly that it stuck quivering
in the door lintel close to the girl's throat before she had time to
close her mouth.
"Here! don't be so careless." Bull's bushy brows drew down over his
burning eyes in quick reproof. But his next remark proved that the
interference was not based on altruism. "If you croak her, who's to do
the cooking? Any corn left, Rosa?"
Whereas Sliver's rude interruption had merely stimulated her tongue;
whereas, also, she had stuck out that member at Jake the instant she
made sure the knife had missed, she now caught her breath with a little,
frightened gulp. "Si, señor."
"Then make some tortillas and serve them along with the jerky," he
called after her. "And bring us out a drink."
At this Sliver, who had resumed his doze, sat up again. His lugubrious
exclamation, "Oh, _hell_!" caused the others to look up a moment later.
With an empty demijohn held upside down Rosa stood in the doorway. She
did not speak. But her tragic pose, vindictive nod, said quite plainly,
"Now will you go?"
Neither did they speak. The situation was beyond revilings. Slowly Jake
picked up and pocketed the cards. Sliver rose to his feet. In single
file they marched down the path to find their horses. Indeed, they had
caught the animals, saddled up at the stable on the flat below and were
riding away through the chaparral before they recovered sufficiently to
attempt to fix the blame for the shortage.
Sliver--who, by the way, had gained his nickname under the law of
opposites because he was short and stout--remembered that he had warned
them several times "notter hit it so hard." But his testimony lost force
by reason of certain "lone drinks" in the absorption of which he had, by
the others, been caught. Jake, on the other hand, had pleaded for more
liquor and less flour the last time they stocked up at Las Bocas. By
frank confession, moreover, he reduced the force of Sliver's charge that
he would never be satisfied with less liquor than "he ked swim in."
"That's right. I never really seen at one time more whisky than I felt I
c'd drink."
From this he went on with invectives against the wave of reform which,
by its sudden flooding of the "Territ'ries"--as he still called the
States of Arizona and New Mexico--might be held indirectly responsible
for his present thirst. "For a cowman, like Sliver here, it don't matter
so much, him being used to dry spells out on the range. But for a man
that's dealt faro in a s'loon for a spell of years with two fingers of
bourbon allus under his nose, it comes some bitter. Them was the golden
days. What a man made in beef cattle or gold was his'n to plank down on
a bar or place on a card. Till them pinch-faces from the Middle West
descended like locusts upon the lan', drought was unknown save by a few
fool prospectors that got themselves lost in the desert. Locusts? I
wrong 'em! A locust does live up to its natural instincts. Locusts is a
blessing compared to pinch-faces. Why--" But certain lengthy reflections
that established the place of the "Middle-Wester" beneath even the lowly
bedbug in the scale of creation, must give place to his conclusion. "Si,
señores! 'twas them druv' me to rustling. But for them I'd still be
living honest, dealing straight faro to all comers with on'y an
occasional turn from the bottom of the box for the good of the house."
"Pity for you!"
Bull's pithy comment was enlarged upon by Sliver.
"An' you-all needn't to be howling so loud, either, about them dry
spells on the ranges. We allus had it in the bunk-houses an' 'twas a
poor cook that couldn't hide a keg in the chuck-wagon. As for your
faro--'twas to play the odd card you wolves dealt from the bottom that I
med my first rustle. But for you I'd be taking my copa right now out of
the cook's keg instead of dying of thirst in this lousy desert."
There was real heat in the accusation, but the ex-gambler's lean,
leathery face merely split in a dry grin.
"If your mother bred you a fool, don't blame me. The flea bit the dog,
the dog bit me; I kicked the dog an' killed the flea. Take a drink of
water, Sliver; it all works out in the end. You next, Bull. Which was
it--water, wine, or weemen?"
"None of 'em." The big rustler shook his head. "Early piety did for me.
Prayers morning, noon, an' night; grace before meals; two long sermons
on Sundays, an' two hours, Sabbath-school, and what would you expect? I
was so well brought up I jest had to go wrong. But if we don't jog along
we won't make Las Bocas to-night."
As Bull spurred on ahead, Sliver looked at Jake. "Say, he ain't exactly
what you-all 'd call frank in his conversings. If there's a thing he
don't know about us--well, 'tain't our fault. But him? When you come to
think of it did you ever hear him say how he kem to take up rustling?"
The gambler shook his head. "In a gen'ral way--so gen'ral that I
couldn't tell jest how I got it--I've sorter gathered that he once
croaked a man. But whether 'twas before or after he took up the profesh
I couldn't say. In the natural order of things, a rustler's bound,
sooner or later, to down some prying fool. There's so many that try to
mix in his business. But if it was before, Bull done it--I'll bet you
the gent had it coming."