THE HEAVY PAYS A DEBT
When Threewit and Farrar reached Noche Buena, Pasquale was absent from
camp, but Culvera made them suavely welcome.
"Señor Yeager has recovered and was called away unexpectedly on
business," he explained; adding with his lip smile, "He will be
desolated to have missed you."
"He is better, then?"
"Indeed, quite his self. He nearly died from gunshot wounds, but unless
he suffers a relapse he is entirely out of present danger."
"Shouldn't have thought it would have been safe to travel yet," Farrar
returned.
He was uneasy in his mind, sensing something of mocking irony in the
manner of the Mexican. It was strange that Yeager, wounded to death as
his letter had said, was able in two days to be up and around again.
"We were anxious to have him stop, but he was in a hurry. Personally I
did my best to get him to stay." Culvera's smile glittered
reminiscently: "The truth is that he thought our climate unhealthy. He
was afraid of heart failure."
Threewit scoffed openly. "Absurd. The man is the finest physical
specimen I ever saw. If you had ever seen him on the back of an outlaw
bronc, you'd know his heart was all right."
The door of the room opened and Harrison came in. He stopped, mouth open
with surprise at sight of the Americans.
"Some of Mr. Yeager's anxious friends come down to inquire about his
health, Harrison. Did he seem to you healthy last time you saw him?" the
Mexican asked maliciously.
Like a thunderclap the prizefighter broke loose in a turbid stream of
profanity. It boiled from his lips like molten lava from a crater. The
raucous words poured forth from a heart furious with rage. The man was
beside himself. He raved like a madman--and the object of his invective
was Stephen Yeager.
And all the time the man cursed he stamped painfully about the room, a
sight to wonder at. His face was so swollen, so bruised and discolored,
that he was hardly recognizable. He had managed to creep into another
suit of clothes after the doctor had dressed his wounds and sewed up his
cuts, but these could not hide the fact that every step was a torment to
his pummeled ribs and lacerated flesh. He was game. Another man in his
condition would have been in the hospital. Harrison dragged himself
about because he would not admit that he was badly hurt.
Culvera turned to the Americans and explained the situation in a few
sentences. He was enjoying himself extremely because the vanity of his
companion writhed at the position in which he was placed.
"Your friend Yeager was not pleasing to our general and was sentenced to
be shot. He escaped in the night. Our companion Harrison, also I believe
a compatriot and friend of yours, is a charmer of ladies' hearts, as you
will perceive with one glance at his handsome face. Behold, then, an
elopement, romance, and moonshine. 'Linda de mi alma, amor mia, come,'
he cries. The lady comes. But, alas! for true love, the brutal vaquero
follows. They meet, and--I draw a merciful curtain over the result."
Harrison was off again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his
vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon Threewit and Farrar.
"I'll see Pasquale gets the right dope on you fellows too. You're a pair
of damned fools for coming here, believe _me_. If the old man can't get
Yeager, he'll take his friends instead. Didn't I tell you I'd make you
sick of what you did to me, Threewit? Good enough. I've got you both
where I want you now. You'll get plenty of hell, take my word for it."
Threewit turned with dignity to the Mexican. "I have nothing to say to
this man, Major Culvera. But you are a gentleman. We have been deceived.
I ask for an escort as far as the border to see us safely back."
Culvera was full of bland hospitality. "Really I can't permit you to
leave before the general returns. He would never forgive me. When
friends travel so far, they must be entertained. Not so?"
"Are we prisoners? Is that what you mean?" demanded Farrar bluntly.
The major shook his finger toward him with smiling deprecation.
"Prisoners! Fie, what a word among friends? Let us rather say guests of
honor. If I give you a guard it is as a precaution, to make sure that no
rash peon makes the mistake of injuring you as an enemy."
"We understand," Threewit answered. "But I'll just tell you one thing,
major. Our friends know where we are, and Uncle Sam has a long arm. It
will reach easily to Noche Buena."
"So, señor? Perhaps. Maybe. Who knows? Accidents happen--regrettable
ones. A thousand apologies to your Uncle Sam. Oh, yes! Ver' sorry. Too
late to mend, but then have we not shot the foolish peon who made the
mistake in regard to Señors Farrar and Threewit? Yes, indeed."
Culvera tossed off his genial prophecy with the politest indifference.
The prisoners read in his words a threat, sinister and scarcely veiled.
"You're talking murder, which is absurd," answered Threewit. "We've done
no harm to you or General Pasquale. We came here by mistake. He'll let
us go, of course."
"You sent Yeager down here to spy about those cattle you lost. Now
you've come down here buttin' in to see for yourself. I don't expect
Pasquale is going to stand for any such thing," broke in Harrison.
Farrar looked the prizefighter straight in the eye.
"You're a liar and you know it, Harrison. Let me tell you something
else. You've stood here and cursed Yeager to the limit. Why? Because
he's a better man than you are. I don't know just what's happened, but I
can see that he has given you the beating of your life. And he did it in
fair fight too."
Harrison interrupted with a scream of rage. "I'll cave his head in when
we meet sure as he's a foot high."
"No, you won't. He's got your goat. What I've got to say about Yeager is
this. If you put over any of your sculduggery on us, he'll wipe you off
the map no matter in what lonesome hole you hide. Just stick a pin in
that."
The bully moved slowly toward Farrar. His head had sunk down and his
shoulders fallen to the gorilla hunch.
"You've said enough--too much, damn you," he roared.
With catlike swiftness Culvera sprang from where he sat, flung his
weight low at the furious man from an angle, and tipped him from his
feet so that he fell staggering into a chair.
"None of that, amigo," said the Mexican curtly. "These gentlemen are
guests of General Pasquale. Till he passes judgment they shall be
treated with ver' much courtesy."
Panting heavily, Harrison glared at him. Some day he intended to take a
fall out of this supercilious young Spanish aristocrat, but just now he
was not equal to the task. He mumbled incoherent threats.
"I don't quite catch your remarks. Is it that they are to my address,
Señor Harrison?" asked the young officer silkily.
Heavily Harrison rose and passed from the room without looking at any of
them. For the present he was beaten and he knew it.
The Mexican smiled confidentially at his prisoners. "Between friends,
it's ver' devilish unpleasant to do business with such a--what you
call--ruffian. But ver' necessar'. Oh, yes! Quite so."
"Depends on one's business, I expect," replied Farrar.
"You have said it, señor. A patriot can't be too particulair. He uses
the tools that come to his hands. But pardon! My tongue is like a
woman's. It runs away with time."
He called the guard and had the prisoners removed. They were put in the
same adobe hut where Yeager had been confined a few days earlier.
Threewit lit a cigar and paced up and down gloomily. "This is a hell of
a fix we're in. Before we get out of here the old man will be hollering
his head off for that 'Retreat of the Bandits' three-reeler."
The camera man laughed ruefully. "I ain't worrying any about the old
man. He's back there safe in little old New York. It's Frank Farrar
that's on my mind. How is he going to get out of here?"
The director stopped, took the cigar from his mouth, and looked across
questioningly at him.
"You don't really think Pasquale will hurt us, do you?"
"No; not unless the breaks go against us. I don't reckon Pasquale has
anything much against Yeager any more than he has against us. Of course,
Harrison will do his darndest to make him sore at us. Notice how he
tried to put it over that we had come about that bunch of cattle he
stole?"
"Sure I did. But it is not likely that Harrison is ace high in this
pack. What I'm afraid of is that the old general will soak us for a
ransom. He's nothing but an outlaw, anyhow."
Within the hour they were taken before Pasquale. He was still covered
with the dust of travel. His riding-gloves lay on the table where he had
tossed them. His soft white hat was on his head. As rapidly as possible
he was devouring a chicken dinner.
It was his discourteous whim to keep them waiting in the back of the
room until he had finished. They were offered no seats, but stood
against the wall under the eye of the guard who had brought them.
The general finished his bottle of wine before he turned savagely upon
them.
"You are friends of the Gringo Yeager. Not so?" he accused.
It was too late for a denial now. Threewit admitted the charge.
"So. Maldito! What are you doing here? I've had enough of you Yankees!"
he exploded.
Before Threewit had more than begun his explanations he brushed aside
the director's words.
"This Yeager is a devil. Did he not crawl up on me unexpect' and strike
me here with an axe?" He touched the back of his head, across which a
wide bandage ran. "Be sure I will cut his heart out some day. Gabriel
Pasquale has said it. And you--you come here to spy what we have. You
claim my cattle. Am I a fool that I do not know?"
"We are sorry--"
The Mexican struck the table with his hairy brown fist so that the
dishes rang. "Sorry! Jesu Cristo! In good time I shall see to that. If I
do not lay hands upon this devil Yeager, his friends will do instead. Am
I one to be laughed at by Gringos?"
Threewit spoke as firmly as he could, though the fear of this big,
unshaven savage was in his heart. "We are not spies, general. We were
brought here by the lie that Yeager lay here dying and had sent for us.
In no way have we harmed you. Before you go too far, remember that our
Government will not tolerate any foul play. We are not stray
sheepherders. Our friends are close to the President. They have his ear
and--"
Pasquale leaned forward and snapped his fingers in the face of Threewit.
"That for your President and your Government. Pouf! I snap my fingers. I
spit on them. Mexico for the Mexicans. To the devil with all
foreigners."
He nodded to the guard. "Away with them!"
As they left they could hear him roaring for another bottle.