AN OBSTINATE MAN
When Richard Gordon came back from unconsciousness to a world of
haziness and headaches he was quite at a loss to account for his
situation. He knew vaguely that he was lying flat on his back and that
he was being jolted uncomfortably to and fro. His dazed brain registered
sensations of pain both dull and sharp from a score of bruised nerve
centers. For some reason he could neither move his hands nor lift his
head. His body had been so badly jarred by the hail of blows through
which he had plowed that at first his mind was too blank to give him
explanations.
Gradually he recalled that he had been in a fight. He remembered a sea
of faces, the thud of fists, the flash of knives. This must be the
reason why every bone ached, why the flesh on his face was caked and
warm moisture dripped from cuts in his scalp. It dawned upon him that he
could not move his arms because they were tied and that the interference
with his breathing was caused by a gag. When he opened his eyes he saw
nothing, but whenever his face or hands stirred from the jolting
something light and rough brushed his flesh; An odor of alfalfa filled
his nostrils. He guessed that he was in a wagon and covered with hay.
Where were they taking him? Why had they not killed him at once? Who was
at the bottom of the attack upon him? Already his mind was busy with the
problem.
Presently the jolting ceased. He could hear guarded voices. The alfalfa
was thrown aside and he was dragged from his place and carried down some
steps. The men went stumbling through the dark, turning first to the
right, and then to the left. They groped their way into a room and
dropped him upon a bed. Even now they struck no light, but through a
small window near the ceiling moonbeams entered and relieved somewhat
the inky blackness.
"Is he dead?" someone asked in Spanish.
"No. His eyes were open as we brought him in," answered a second voice
guardedly.
They stood beside the bed and looked down at their prisoner. His eyes
were getting accustomed to the darkness. He saw that one of the men was
Pablo Menendez. The other, an older Mexican with short whiskers, was
unknown to him.
"He fought like a devil from hell. Roderigo's arm is broken. Not one of
us but is marked," said the older man admiringly.
"My head is ringing yet, Sebastian," agreed Pablo. "_Dios_, how he
slammed poor José down. The blood poured from his nose and mouth. Never
yet have I seen a man fight so fierce and so hard as this _Americano_.
He may be the devil himself, but his claws are clipped now. And here he
lies till he does as we want, or----" The young Mexican did not finish
his sentence, but the gleam in his eyes was significant.
Pablo stooped till his eyes were close to those of the bound man.
"_Señor,_ shall I take the gag from your mouth? Will you swear not to
cry out and not to make any noise?"
Gordon nodded.
"So, but if you do the road to Paradise will be short and swift,"
continued Menendez. "Before your shout has died away you will be dead.
_Sabe, Señor_?"
He unknotted the towel at the back of his prisoner's head and drew it
from Dick's mouth. Gordon expanded his lungs in a deep breath before he
spoke coolly to his gaoler.
"Thank you, Menendez. You needn't keep your fist on that gat. I've no
intention of committing suicide until after I see you hanged."
"Which will be never, _Señor_ Gordon," replied Pablo rapidly in Spanish.
"You will never leave here alive except on terms laid down by us."
"Interesting if true--but not true, I think," commented Dick pleasantly.
"You have made a mistake, my friends, and you will have to pay for it."
"If we have made a mistake it can yet be remedied, _Señor_" retorted
Pablo quietly. "We have but to make an end of you and behold! all is
well again."
"Afraid not, my enthusiastic young friend. Too many in the secret.
Someone will squeal, and the rest of you--particularly you two
ringleaders--will be hanged by the neck. It takes only ordinary
intelligence to know that. Therefore I am quite safe, even though I have
a confounded headache and a rising fever." Gordon added with cheerful
solicitude: "I do hope I'm not going to get sick on your hands. It's
rather a habit of mine, you know. But, really, you can't blame me this
time."
A danger signal flared in the eyes of the young Mexican. "Better not,
_Señor_. You will here have no young and charming nurse to wait upon
you."
"Meaning Mrs. Corbett?" asked the prisoner, smiling up impudently.
"Whose heart your soft words can steal away from him to whom it
belongs," continued Pablo furiously.
"Sho, I reckon Corbett----"
"_Mil diablos!_"
A devil of jealousy was burning out of the black eyes that blazed into
those of the American. It was no longer possible for Dick to miss the
menace and its meaning. The Mexican was speaking of Juanita. He believed
that his prisoner had been making love to the girl and his heart was
black with hate because of it.
Gordon looked at him steadily, then summed up with three derisive words.
"You damn fool!"
Something in the way he said them shook Pablo's conviction. Was it
possible after all that his jealousy had been useless? Juanita had told
him that all through his delirium this man had raved of Miss Valdés.
Perhaps---- But, no, had he not with his own eyes seen the man bantering
Juanita while the color came and went in her wild rose cheeks? Had he
not seen him lean on her shoulder as he hobbled out to the porch, just
as a lover might on that of his sweetheart?
With an oath Pablo turned sullenly away. He knew he was no match for
this man at any point. Yet he was a leader among his own people because
of the force in him.
Gordon slept little during the night. He had been so badly beaten that
outraged nature took her revenge in a feverish restlessness that
precluded any real rest. With the coming of day the temperature
subsided. Pablo brought a basin of water and a sponge, with which he
washed the bloody face and head of the bound man.
Dick observed that his nurse had a few marks of his own as souvenirs of
the battle. The cheek bone had been laid open by a blow that must have
been made with his knuckles. One eye was half shut, and beneath it was a
deep purple swelling.
"Had quite a little jamboree, didn't we?" remarked Gordon, with a grin.
"I'll bet you lads mussed my hair up some."
Pablo said nothing, but after he had made his unwilling guest as
presentable and comfortable as possible he proceeded to business.
"You want to know why we have made you prisoner, _Señor_ Gordon?" he
suggested. "It has perhaps occur to you that it would have been much
easier to shoot you and be done?"
"Yes, that has struck me, Menendez. I reckon your nerve didn't quite run
to murder maybe."
"Not so. I spare you because you save my brother's life after he shoot
at you. But I exact conditions. So?"
The eyes of the miner had grown hard and steelly. The lids had closed on
them so that only slits were open. "Let's hear them."
"First, that you give what is called word of honor not to push any
charges against those taking you prisoner."
"Pass that for the present," ordered Dick curtly. "Number two please."
"That you sign a paper drawn up by a lawyer giving all your rights in
the Rio Chama Valley to Señorita Valdés and promise never to go near the
valley again."
"Nothing doing," answered the prisoner promptly, his jaws snapping
tight.
"But yes--most assuredly yes. I risk much to save your life. But you
must go to meet me, _Señor_. Is a man's life not worth all to him? So?
Sign, and you live."
The eyes of the men had fastened--the fierce, black, eager ones of the
Mexican and the steelly gray ones of the Anglo-Saxon. There was the
rigor of battle in that gaze, the grinding of rapier on rapier. Gordon
was a prisoner in the hands of his enemy. He lay exhausted from a
terrible beating. That issues of life and death hung in the balance a
child might have guessed. But victory lay with the white man. The lids
of Menendez fell over sullen, angry eyes.
"You are a fool, _Señor_. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy.
Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And Pablo
snapped his fingers airily.
"Maybe--and maybe not. I figure on living to be an old man. Tell you
what I'll do, Menendez. Turn me loose and I'll forget about our little
rumpus last night. I'd ought to send you to the pen, but I'll consent to
forego that pleasure."
Sulkily Pablo turned away. What could one do with a madman who insisted
on throwing his life away? The young Mexican was not a savage, though
the barbaric strain in his wild lawless blood was still strong. He did
not relish the business of killing in cold blood even the man he hated.
"If you kill me you'll hang," went on Gordon composedly. "You'll never
get away with it. Your own friends will swear your neck into a noose.
Your partner Sebastian--you'll excuse me if I appear familiar, but I
don't know the gentleman's other name--will turn State's evidence to try
to save his own neck. But I reckon he'll have to climb the ladder, too."
Sebastian pushed aside his companion angrily and took the American by
the throat.
"_Por Dios_, I show you. If I hang I hang--but you----" His muscular
fingers tightened till the face of his enemy grew black. But the
eyes--the steady, cool, contemptuous eyes--still looked into his
defiantly.
Pablo dragged his accomplice from the bedside. The time might come for
this, but it was not yet.
It had been a close thing for Gordon. If those lean, strong fingers had
been given a few seconds more at his throat they would have snapped the
cord of life. But gradually the distorted face resumed its natural hue
as the coughing, strangling man began to breathe again.
"Your--friend--is--impetuous," Dick suggested to Pablo as soon as he
could get the words out one at a time.
"He will shake the life out of you as a terrier does that of a rat,"
Pablo promised vindictively.
"There's no fun--in being strangled, as you'll both--find out later,"
the prisoner retorted whimsically but with undaunted spirit.
Sebastian had left the room. At the expiration of half an hour he
returned with a tray, upon which were two plates with food and two cups
of steaming coffee. The Mexicans ate their ham and their _frijoles_ and
drank their coffee. The prisoner they ignored.
"Don't I draw even a Libby Prison allowance?" the American wanted to
know.
"You eat and you drink after you have signed the paper," Pablo told him.
"I always did think we ate too much and too often. Much obliged for a
chance to work out my theories."
Gordon turned his back upon them, his face to the wall. Presently, in
spite of the cramped position necessitated by his bound arms, he yielded
to weariness and fell asleep. Sebastian lay down in a corner of the room
and also slept. He and Pablo would have to relieve each other as
watchmen so long as they held their prisoner. For that reason they must
get what rest they could during the day.
Menendez found himself the victim of conflicting emotions. It had been
easy while they were plotting the abduction to persuade himself that the
man would grant anything to save his life. Now he doubted this. Looking
clown at the battered face of the miner, so lean and strong and virile,
he could not withhold a secret reluctant admiration. How was it possible
for him to sleep so easily and lightly while he lay within the shadow of
violent death? There was even a little smile about the corners of his
mouth, as if he were enjoying pleasant dreams. Never had Pablo known
another man like this one. Had he not broken the spirit of that outlaw
devil Teddy in ten minutes? Who else could shoot the heads off chickens
at a distance as he had done? Was there another in New Mexico that
could, though taken at advantage, put up so fierce a fight against big
odds? The young Mexican hated him because of Juanita and his opposition
to Miss Valdés. But the untamed and gallant spirit of the young man went
out in spite of himself in homage to the splendid courage and efficiency
of his victim.
Not till the middle of the afternoon did Gordon awaken. He was surprised
to find that his hands were free. Of Menendez he asked an explanation.
Pablo gave him none. How could he say that he was ashamed to keep him
tied while two armed men were in the room to watch him?
"Move from that bed and I'll blow your brains out," the Mexican growled
in Spanish.
Presently Pablo brought him a tin dipper filled with water.
"Drink, _Señor_" he ordered ungraciously.
Dick drank the last drop and smiled at his guard gratefully. "You're
white in spots, Mr. Miscreant, though you hate to think it of yourself,"
he said lightly.
Odd as it may seem, Gordon found a curious pleasure in exploring the
mind of the young man. He detected the struggle going on in it, and he
made remarks so uncannily wise that the Mexican was startled at his
divination. The miner held no grudge. These men were his enemies because
they thought him a selfish villain who ought to be frustrated in his
designs. Long ago, in that school of experience which had made him the
hard, competent man he was, Dick had learned the truth of the saying
that to know all is to forgive all. He himself had done bold and lawless
things often enough, but it was seldom that he did a mean one. Warily
alert though he was for a chance to escape, his feelings were quite
impersonal toward these Mexicans. Confronted with the need, he would
kill if he must to save himself; but it would not be because he was
vindictive.
Dick's mind was alert to every chance of escape. He studied his
situation as well as he could without moving from the bed. From the
glimpse of the house he had had as the two men carried him in he knew
that it was a large, modern one set in grounds of considerable size. He
had been brought down a flight of steps and was now in the basement. Was
the house an unoccupied one? Or was it in the possession of some one
friendly to the scheme upon which the Mexicans had engaged?
A suspicion had startled him just after the men finished eating, but he
had dismissed it as a fantasy of his excited imagination. Sebastian,
carrying out the dishes, had dropped a spoon and left it lying beside
the bed. Dick contrived, after he had wakened, to roll close to the edge
and look down. The spoon was still there. Two letters were engraved upon
the handle. They were A.V. If these stood for Alvaro Valdés, then this
must be the town house of Valencia, and she was probably a party to his
abduction.
He could not without distress of heart accept such a conclusion. She was
his enemy, but she had seemed to him so frank and generous a one that
complicity in a plot of this nature had no part in the picture of her
his mind had drawn. He wrestled with the thought of this until he could
stand it no longer.
"Did Miss Valdés come to town herself, or is she letting you run this
abduction, Menendez?" he asked suddenly.
Pablo repeated stupidly, "Miss Valdés--the _señorita_?"
The keen, hard eyes of Gordon did not lift for an instant from those of
the other man. "That's what I said."
It occurred to the Mexican that this was a chance to do a stroke of
business for his mistress. He would show the confident _Americano_ what
place he held in her regard.
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. "You are clevair, _Señor_. How do you
know the _señorita_ knows?"
"This is her house. She told you to bring me here."
Pablo was surprised. "So? You know it is her house?"
"Surest thing you know."
"The _señorita_ trusts me. She is at the ranch."
"But you are acting under her orders?"
"If the _señor_ pleases."
Dick turned his back to the wall again. His heart was bitter within him.
He had thought her a sportsman, every inch a thoroughbred. But she had
set her peons to spy on him and to attack him--ten to one in their
favor--so that she might force him to sign away his rights to her. Very
well. He would show her whether she could drive him to surrender,
whether she could starve him into doing what he did not want to do.
The younger Mexican wakened Sebastian late in the afternoon and left him
to guard the prisoner while he went into the town to hear what rumors
were flying about the affair. About an hour later he returned, bringing
with him some provisions, a newspaper, and a handbill. The latter he
tossed to Gordon.
"Señor, I never saw five hundred dollars dangling within reach before.
Shall I go to your friend and give him information?" asked Pablo.
Dick read the poster through with interest. "Good old Steve. He's
getting busy. Inside of twenty-four hours he'll ferret out this spot."
"It may be too late," Pablo flung back significantly. "If they press us
hard we'll finish the job and make a run for it."
They were talking in Spanish, as they did most of the time. The prisoner
read aloud the offer on the handbill.
"Please notice that I'm worth no more alive than you are if I'm dead. I
reckon this town is full of friends of yours anxious to earn five
hundred plunks by giving a little information. Let me ask a question of
you. Suppose you do finish the job and hit the trail. Where would you
go?"
"The hills are full of pockets. We could hide and watch a chance to get
out of the country."
"We wouldn't have to hide. Jesu Cristo, who would know we did it?"
chipped in Sebastian roughly.
"Everybody will know it soon. You made a bad mistake when you didn't
bump me off at the start. All your friends that helped bushwhack me will
itch to get that five hundred, Sebastian. As to hiding--well, I was a
ranger once. Offer a reward, and everybody is on the jump to earn it.
The way these hills are being combed this week by anxious man-hunters
you'd never reach your cache."
"Maybe we would and maybe we wouldn't. We'll have to take a chance on
that," replied the bearded Mexican sullenly.
To their prisoner it was plain that the men were I growing more anxious
every hour. They regretted the course they had followed and yet could
see no way of safety opening to them. Suspicious by nature, Sebastian
judged the American by himself. If their positions were reversed, he
knew he would break any pledge he might make and go straight to the
sheriff with his story. Therefore they could not with safety release the
man. To kill him would be dangerous. To keep him prisoner was possible
only for a limited time. Whatever course they followed seemed precarious
and uncertain. Temperamentally he was inclined to put an end to the man
and try a bolt for the hills, but he found in Pablo an unexpected
difficulty. The young man would not hear of this. He had made up his
mind riot to let Gordon be killed if he could prevent it, though he did
not tell the American so.
Menendez made another trip after supplies next day, but he came back
hurriedly without them. Pesquiera's poster offering a reward of one
hundred dollars for the capture of him or Sebastian had brought him up
short and sent him scurrying back to his hole.
Gordon used the poster for a text. His heart was jubilant within him,
for he knew now that Valencia was not back of this attack upon him.
"All up with you now," he assured them in a genial, offhand fashion.
"Miss Valdés must be backing Pesquiera. They know you two are the guilty
villains. Inside of twelve hours they'll have you both hogtied."
Clearly the conspirators were of that opinion themselves. They talked
together a good deal in whispers. Dick was of the opinion that a
proposition would be made him before morning, though it was just
possible that the scale might tip the other way and his death be voted.
He spent a very anxious hour.
After dark Sebastian, who was less well known in the town than Pablo,
departed on an errand unknown to Gordon. The miner guessed that he was
going to make arrangements for horses upon which to escape. Dick was not
told their decision. Menendez had fallen sulky again and refused to
talk.