HARRISON OVERPLAYS HIS HAND
Through the barred window Farrar watched the guard drag Cabenza back. He
was very despondent. They had been prisoners now nearly a week and could
see no termination of their jail sentence in sight. The food given them
was wretched. They were anxious, dirty, and unkempt. Though he would not
admit it even to himself, the camera man was oppressed by the shadow of
a possible impending fate. The whim of a tyrant regardless of human life
might at any hour send them to a firing squad.
Threewit sat gloomily on the stool, elbows on knees and chin resting on
his fists. He could have wept for himself almost without shame. For
forty-five years he had gone his safe way, a policeman always within
call. Not once had life in the raw reached out and gripped him. Not once
had he faced the stark probability of sudden, violent death. Clubs and
after-theater suppers and poker and golf had offered him pleasant
diversion. And now--a cruel fate had thrown him in the way of a
barbarian with no sense of either justice or kindness. He felt himself
too soft of fiber to cope with such elemental forces.
"Look! What is that, Threewit?"
Farrar was pointing to something on the table that gleamed white in the
moonlight. He stepped forward and picked it up. The article was a stone
around which was wrapped a paper tied by a string.
"The Mexican must have thrown it in with the dirt. It wasn't there
before," replied the director quickly.
Farrar untied the string and smoothed out the paper, holding it toward
the moonlight. "There's writing on it, but I can't make it out. Strike a
match for me."
His companion struck on his trousers a match and the camera man read by
its glowing flame.
Keep a stiff upper lip. Cactus Center is on the job. Don't know
when my chance will come, but I'm looking for it. _Chew this up._
S. Y.
Farrar gave a subdued whoop of joy. "It's old Steve. He hasn't forgotten
us, good old boy. I'll bet he has got something up his sleeve."
"Hope that greaser doesn't give us away to Pasquale or Harrison."
"He won't. Trust Cactus Center. He's bridle-wise, that lad is. I feel a
lot better just to know he has got us on his mind."
"What do you suppose he is planning?"
"Don't know. Of course he has to lie low. But he pulled off his own
getaway and I'll back him to figure out ours." The camera man was
nothing if not a loyal admirer of the range-rider.
They talked in whispers, eager and excited with the possibility of
rescue that had come. Somehow, of all the men they had known, they
banked more on Steve Yeager in such an emergency than any other. It was
not alone his physical vigor, though that counted, since it gave him so
complete a mastery over himself. Farrar had seen him once stripped in a
swimming-pool and been stirred to wonder. Beneath the satiny skin the
muscles moved in ripples. The biceps crawled back and forth like living
things, beautiful in the graceful flow of their movement. Whatever he
had done had been done easily, apparently without effort. This reserve
power was something more than a combination of bone and sinew and flesh.
It was a product of the spirit, a moral force to be reckoned with. It
helped to make impossible things easy of accomplishment.
* * * * *
The panic of Cabenza vanished as soon as he was out of sight of the
guards. As he turned down toward the sandy river-bed a little smile lay
in his eyes.
From the place where it was buried beneath the root of a cottonwood, he
dug out a bandanna handkerchief containing several bottles, little
brushes, and a looking-glass. Sitting there in the moonlight, he worked
busily renewing the tints of his hands and face and also of the
coffee-colored patch of skin that peeped through his torn trouser leg.
This done, he sauntered back to the little town and down the adobe
street. A horseman cantered up to the headquarters of the general just
as Pasquale stepped out with Culvera. The latter snapped his fingers
toward Cabenza and that trooper ran forward.
"Hold the horse," ordered the officer in Mexican.
Cabenza relieved the messenger, who stepped forward and delivered what
had been given him to say. The hearing of the man holding the horse was
acute and he listened intently.
"Señor Harrison sends greeting to the general. He is in touch with the
play-actor Lennox and hopes soon to get the Gringo Yeager. If Lennox
plays false...."
The words ran into a murmur and Cabenza could hear no more.
The messenger was dismissed. Cabenza stooped to tie a loose lace in his
shoe. Pasquale and Culvera passed back from the end of the porch into
the house. As they went the trooper heard another stray fragment in the
voice of the general.
"If Harrison crosses the line after him at night...."
That was all, but it told Cabenza that Harrison was negotiating with
Lennox for the delivery of Yeager in exchange for Threewit and Farrar.
The leading man was, of course, playing for time until Steve, under the
guise of Cabenza, could arrange to win the freedom of the prisoners.
This would take time, for success would depend upon several dove-tailing
factors. To attempt a rescue and to fail would be practically to sign
the death-warrant of Farrar and Threewit.
Yeager, alias Cabenza, returned to the stable where he and a score of
patriots of the Northern Legion had sleeping-quarters. He would much
have preferred to take his blankets out into the pure night air and to
bed under the stars. But he was playing his part thoroughly. He could
not afford to be nice or scrupulous, for fear of calling special
attention to himself.
As for the peons beside him, they snored peacefully without regard to
the lack of cleanliness of their bedroom. The first day of his arrival
Yeager had knocked a hole in the flimsy wall and had given it out as
the result of a chance kick of a bronco. This served to let air into a
building which had no other means of ventilation. It also allowed some
small percentage of the various concentrated odors to escape.
The Arizonian was a light sleeper. But like some men in perfect trim he
had the faculty of going to sleep whenever he desired. Often he had
taken a nap in the saddle while night-herding. Fatigued from eighteen
hours of wrestling the cattle to safety through a bitter storm, he had
learned to fall easily into rest the instant his head hit the pillow. It
was a heritage that had come to him from his rugged, outdoor life. So he
slept now, a gentle, untroubled slumber, until daylight sifted through
the hole in the wall at his side.
He was on duty that day herding the remuda, and it was not until late
afternoon that he returned to camp. From a distance, dropping down into
the draw which formed the location of the town, he saw a dust cloud
moving down the street. At the apex of it rode a little bunch of
travelers, evidently just in from the desert. Incuriously his eyes
watched the party as it moved toward the headquarters of Pasquale. Some
impulse led him to put his scarecrow of a pony at a canter.
The party reached the house of Pasquale and the two leaders dismounted.
Yeager was still at some distance, but he had an uncertain impression
that one of them was a woman. They stood on the porch talking. The
larger one seemed to be overruling the protest of the other, so far as
Steve could tell at that distance. The two passed together into the
house.
It was not at all unusual for women to go into that house, according to
the camp-fire stories that were whispered in the army. Pasquale was an
unmoral old barbarian. If he liked women and wine the Legion made no
complaint. The women were either camp-followers or visitors from the
nearest town. In either case they were not of a sort whose reputation
was likely to suffer.
Yeager cooked his simple supper and ate it. He sat down with his back to
an adobe wall and rolled a cigarette. The peons, loafing in the cool of
the evening, naturally fell into gossip. Steve, intent on his own
thoughts, did not hear what was said until a word snatched him out of
his indifference. The word was the name of Harrison.
"This afternoon?" asked one.
"Not an hour ago."
"Brought a woman with him, Pablo says," said a third indifferently.
"Yes." The first speaker laughed with an implication he did not care to
express.
One of the others leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. "This
Harrison promised the general to bring back with him the Gringo Yeager.
Old Gabriel is crazy to get the Yankee devil in his hands. Not so?
Harrison brings him a woman instead to soften his bad temper, maybe."
The American gave no sign of interest. His fingers finished rolling the
cigarette. Not another muscle of the inert body moved.
"A white woman this time, Pablo says."
The first speaker shrugged. "Look you, brother. All is grist that comes
to the mill of Gabriel. As for these Gringo women"--He whispered a bit
of slander that brought the blood to the face of Steve.
The peons guffawed with delight. This kind of joke was adapted both to
their prejudices and their lack of intelligence. They were as ignorant
of the world as children, fully as gay, irresponsible, and kindhearted.
But they had, too, a capacity for cruelty and frank sensuousness that
belongs only to the childhood of a race.
Presently Yeager arose, yawned, and drifted inconspicuously toward the
stable that had been converted into a bedroom by the simple process of
throwing a lot of blankets on the floor. But as soon as he was out of
sight, Steve doubled across the road into the alley that ran back of the
house where Pasquale was putting up.
The news about Harrison's return was disquieting. Ever since Yeager's
second arrival at Noche Buena he had been gone. What did his appearance
now mean? Who was the American woman he had brought back with him? Steve
was inclined to think she was probably some one of the man's dubious
acquaintances from Arixico. But of this he intended to make sure.
He passed quietly up the alley and into the yard back of the big house
the insurgent general had appropriated for his headquarters. A light was
shining from one of the back upper rooms. From it, too, there came
faintly the sound of a voice, high and frightened, in which sobs and
hysteria struggled.
By means of a post the Arizonian climbed to the top of the little back
porch. Leaning as far as he could toward the window of the lighted room,
he could see Pasquale and Harrison. The woman, whoever she might be, was
in the corner of the room beyond his vision. The prizefighter showed
both in face and manner a certain stiff sullenness. He was insisting
upon some point to which there was determined opposition. As the general
turned half toward him once, the range-rider saw in his little black
eyes an alert and greedy cunning he did not understand.
The woman broke out into violent protest.
"I won't do it. I won't. If you are a liberator, as they say you are,
you won't let him force me to it, general, will you?"
At the sound of that voice Yeager's heart jumped. He would have known
it among ten thousand. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his
forehead. The primitive instinct to kill seared across his brain and
left him for the moment dizzy and trembling.
There was a grin on Pasquale's ugly mug. His tobacco-stained teeth
showed behind the lifted lips.
"If young ladies will insist on running away with officers of mine--"
"I didn't. Ask the men. I fought. See where I bit his hand," she
protested, fighting against hysterical fears.
"So? But Señor Harrison says you were engaged to him."
"I hate him. I've found him out. I'd rather die than--"
Yeager caught the arm fling that concluded her sentence of passionate
protest.
Pasquale, little black eyes twinkling, shrugged broad shoulders and
turned to Harrison.
"You see. The lady has changed her mind, señor. What will you?"
"What's that got to do with it? She's mine. Send for a priest and have
us married," the other man demanded bluntly.
"Not so fast, amigo," remonstrated Pasquale softly. "Give her time--a
few days--quien sabe?--she may change her mind again."
Harrison choked on his anger. He was suspicious of this suavity, of this
sudden respect for a girl's wishes. Since when had the old despot become
so scrupulous as to risk offending one who had served him a good deal
and might aid him in more serious matters? The prizefighter could guess
only one reason for the general's attitude. His jealousy began to smoke
at once.
"She can change her mind afterward just as well. If we're married now,
then I'm sure of her," the prizefighter insisted doggedly.
Impulsively the girl swept into that part of the room within the view of
Steve. She knelt in front of Pasquale and caught at his hand.
"Send me home--back to my mother. I'm only a girl. You don't make war on
girls, do you?" she pleaded.
Had she only known it, the very sweetness of her troubled youth, the
shadows under the starry eyes edging the wild-rose cheeks, the allure of
her lines and soft flesh, fought potently against her desire for a
safe-conduct home. The greedy, treacherous little eyes of the insurgent
chief glittered.
He shook his head. "No, señorita. That is not possible. But you shall
stay here--under the protection of Gabriel Pasquale himself. You shall
have choice--Señor Harrison if you wish, another if you prefer it so.
Take time. Perhaps--who knows?" He smiled and bowed with the gallantry
of a bear as he kissed her hand.
"No--no. I want to go home," she sobbed.
"Young ladies don't always know what is best for them. Behold, we shall
marry you to a soldier, one of rank. From the general down, you shall
have choice," Pasquale promised largely.
Harrison scowled. He did not at all like the turn things were taking.
"Not as long as I'm alive," he said savagely. "She's mine, I tell you."
The Mexican looked directly at him with a face as hard as jade. "So you
don't expect to live long, señor. Is that it? We shall all mourn. Yes,
indeed." He turned decisively to the white-faced girl. "Go to sleep,
muchacha. To-morrow we shall talk. Gabriel Pasquale is your friend. All
shall be well with you. None shall insult you on peril of his life.
Buenos!"
With a gesture of his hand he pointed the door to Harrison.
The eyes of the two men clashed stormily. It was those of the American
that finally gave way sulkily. Pasquale had power to enforce his
commands and the other knew he would not hesitate to use it.
The prizefighter slouched out of the room with the general at his heels.
With a little gesture that betrayed the despair of her sick heart the
girl turned and flung herself face down on the bed. Sobs shook her
slender body. Her fingers clutched unconsciously at the rough weave of
the blanket upon which she lay.