Over the Border Part 2

But when he learned of their failure, the scorpion showed through the glaze of courtesy like a fly in amber. "_Carambar-r-r-aa_, senores!" His read wagged in a nasty way. "I had counted on the horses-to save your alive. On my desk lies a requisition from your gringo border police, demanding your bodies. Que desgracia!" The spite that scintillated in his beads of eyes gave his words sinister significance. "One would dislike to do it, if 'twere only through hate of your Government. But one has to account to his chiefs. Already they have inquired for you, and always I made answer, 'These are good hombres, useful to our cause.'

But deeds count more than words. Horses for their artilleria would have proved your worth. But now-" a second nasty wag told that their failure left them as other _gringos_, to be despised, hated, persecuted. Having given the impression time to sink in, he suggested, "But there must be others? You will try again?"

"No use." Bull's gloom emphasized the denial. "This is the second time in a month that we've been chased across the border. They're looking for us all along the line."

"Si? Then must you go elsewhere. What of"-pausing, he looked cautiously around-"what of this side? In central Chihuahua there are many horse-ranchos, gringo ranches with fine blooded stock."

"But-"

The _jefe's_ shrug antic.i.p.ated the objection. "Si, si! 'tis Mexico. That is what I have always told my chief-'these hombres bother only the gringo pigs.'" With a covert grin at the safe insult, he continued, "But a gringo is a gringo, whether here or in your United States. If they be despoiled, we shall not shed many tears. There will be a complaint, of course, to and from your Government, and much writing between departments. In the mean time we have the horses. So-"

"But that's Valles's country, isn't it?" Jake put in. "He's a bad hombre to fool with!"

The _jefe_ turned on him his evil grin. "What if the gringo ranchers had caught you last night? Hanging, amigo, is a dog's death. I would prefer the fusilado of Valles's men."

"What if he kicks to your people? Puts in a claim for our heads? You're working together, ain't you?"

Once again the _jefe_ looked around. "Listen, amigos! Between friends one may show the truth. Already there is a cloud, a little cloud, no bigger than a child's hand arisen between us and Valles. If the horses are taken from a gringo _rancho_ in Valles's country, my chiefs will be the better pleased. What they have Valles cannot get in the days when the cloud grows big and black and bursts."

Sliver, who understood more Spanish than he could speak, here nudged Bull. "Ask him if he'll grub-stake the deal."

"Ask nothing!" Bull's hot eyes shot brown fire. "You heard him rubbing it into us, didn't you? If it wasn't that we need him I'd wring the little brown adder's neck." He went on, suavely, in Spanish, "My amigo questions me of the price. It will be the same-fifty pesos apiece, senor?"

Nodding, the _jefe_ glanced impatiently back at his lunch. He appeared to have forgotten his invitation. Pleading an engagement, he bowed them out through the gates, then returned to his gorging while, hungrier, and even still thirstier, the Three rode down the street.

Usually they were not averse to an exchange of glances, or a flirtation-if the _hombre_ was not in sight-with the brown girls who watched them from their doorways. But now their glances sought only the _cantinas_, whose open bars displayed a tempting array of bottles. While they looked their progress grew constantly slower, finally stopped in front of one whose owner was taking his _siesta_ stretched out on the bar.

Jake looked from the sleeper to his companions, then at the bottles of anisette and _tequila_ on the rough wooden shelves. "If he was drunk it 'u'd be easy-" As the Mexican disposed of the doubt, just then, by opening one excessively sober eye, Jake desperately concluded, "Say, kain't we raise the price among us?"

Bull tapped his empty pockets.

Sliver mourned, "All I've got is a Confederate five some one slipped me during my last toot in El Paso. I've carried it sence for a lucky piece."

"An' lucky it is!" Jake extended an eager hand. "After this revolutionary currency that's run off by the million on a newspaper press, these greasers are crazy for gringo bills. What if it has got Jeff Davis's picter on it? This fellow don't know him from Abe Lincoln.

All gringo bills look alike to him. He'll never know the diff."

Neither did he. The note, when thrown with elaborate carelessness on the bar, brought in exchange at current ratios thirty-two _pesos_ and some _centavos_, along with three stiff _copas_. Deceived by the size of the roll, the Three now proceeded to order from the _tienda_ behind the bar coffee, sugar, maize, the grease of Rosa's desire, and other necessaries. With half a dozen bottles of _tequila_, it made a goodly pile on the counter, but the offer of the roll brought a second lesson in finance-to wit, that cheap money buys few goods. After segregating the _tequila_ from the groceries, the merchant explained with a bow and shrug that the thirty-two dollars and some _centavos_ aforesaid represented the value of either.

From the groceries, the glances of the Three pa.s.sed to the _tequila_; then, with one accord, their hands went out and each closed on the neck of a bottle. They were already outside when, looking back, Sliver happened to catch the merchant's eye.

He grinned, answering Sliver's wink. "Si, senores, this time you shall drink with me."

That which followed was quite accidental. While the Mexican was setting out three gla.s.ses, Jake drew a pack of cards from his pocket and began to throw two kings and an ace in the "three-card trick." So deftly he did it that Sliver, who was really trying to pick the ace, failed half a dozen times in succession. Their backs being turned, only Bull noticed the Mexican's interest in the performance. Fascinated, he watched the flying cards.

"Looks easy, don't it?" Bull suggested. "Here, Sliver, give this hombre a chance."

Of course he succeeded, and, being Mexican, his conceit prodded him on to try again. He could do it! He'd bet his _sombrero_, his horse, his store, that he could do it every time! The Three being possessed of no other stake, he finally wagered the pile of goods, which still stood on the counter, against their bottles of _tequila_-and lost! In the course of the next half-hour, being judiciously led on by occasional winnings, there were added to the groceries six other bottles, the original thirty-two _pesos_ and some _centavos_, a bolt of lace and linen for Rosa; but for a large, greasy, and infuriated brown woman who charged them suddenly from the rear of the store he would undoubtedly have lost his all. Further acquisitions being balked by her unreasonable interference with the course of nature as applied to fools, the Three packed their winnings in the saddle-bags and rode on their way.

As a rule a certain fairness is inherent in the externally masculine.

Even a Mexican expects to pay his losings, and, of his own impulse, the _comerciante_ would probably have let things go with a shrug. But not so his woman! The eternally feminine is ever a poor loser-perhaps because she has usually no hand in the game-and as the Three rode off she let loose an outcry that brought a gendarme running from around the corner.

"It is that honest Mexicans are robbed by gringo thieves while thou art lost in a siesta!" she a.s.sailed him. "After them, lazy one, and recover our goods!"

By her violence she might have lost her case. With an answer that was quite ungentlemanly the gendarme had already turned to go, when the two girls whom Jake had robbed of their lingerie came tearing up the street and added their outcries to the woman's clamor. And now the Three were surely out of luck. It chanced that for a week past this very gendarme had been making sheep's eyes at the larger of the two girls, and now the saints had sent this chance for him to gain her favor.

"They stole thy-" Delicacy gave him pause; then, his natural indignation increased by the nature of the robbery, he hot-footed it up the street and overtook the Three.

Ordinarily the arrest would have been accomplished with lofty Spanish punctilio, but in his heat the gendarme allowed his zeal to exceed his discretion, and thereby invited disaster. For as he seized Bull's bridle, the rustler reached over, spread his huge hand flat over the man's angry face, and sent him toppling backward into the kennel. He was up, the next second, long gun in hand. But in that second Jake's bleak eyes squinted along his gun, Sliver had him covered, Bull's rifle was aimed from the hip.

To give the Mexican policeman his due, he does not easily give up. If one man cannot bring in a prisoner, ten may. If they fail, perhaps a company can-or a regiment. The man's shrill whistle was really far more dangerous than his absurd long gun. Instantly it was taken up on the next street and the next; went echoing through the town till it finally brought from the _carcel_ a squad on the run.

By that time the Three had backed up against a wall and stood with rifles leveled across the backs of their beasts. Every particle of human kindness, humor, that had showed in their dealings with one another was gone. Jake's long teeth were bared in a wolf grin. Sliver's reckless face had frozen in stone. Bull's head and huge shoulders rose above his breast, his face dark, imperturbable, fierce. Grim, silent, ferocious as trapped wolves, they faced the squad which took cover while messengers brought an officer and company from the barracks.

Now it was really dangerous. The tragedy that lurks behind all Mexican comedy might break at any moment. In its uniform, that ragged soldiery set forth the history of three revolutions. The silver and gray of Porfirio Diaz's famed _rurales_, the blue and red stripes or fatigue linen of the Federal Army, even the _charro_ suits of Orozco's Colorados, were all represented. But in spite of their motley the men were all fighters, tried by years of guerrilla warfare. Their dark brown faces showed only eager savagery. If it had depended on them, tragedy would have burst forth there and then. But the word had to come from the officer, who found himself looking down the barrels of three leveled rifles. It took him just five seconds to make up his mind on this fundamental truth-whoever else survived, he would die. The game was not worth the candle! Very politely he addressed Bull.

"Did I not see you, senor, at the jefatura just now?"

With Bull's nod tragedy resolved into comedy. Swinging round on the _comerciante_ and his woman, the officer p.r.o.nounced on their complaint.

"They that gamble must expect to lose. Off, fool! before I throw thee in carcel."

Having driven in the moral with the flat of his saber across the merchant's back, he next took up the complaint of the girls. "How know ye that these be they that stole your garments? Only that they pa.s.sed while you were at the wash? Then back, doves, to your cotes! These be friends of the jefe and no stealers of women's fripperies."

Stiffly saluting the Three, he marched his ragged soldiery away.

Five seconds thereafter the Three were again on their way-to the _cantina_ where they usually put up.

"All we've gotter do now," Sliver chuckled as they rode on down the street, "is to rope a stray calf or a pig on the way home, an' Rosa'll be fixed for a month."

But, alas for Rosa! After they had stabled their horses and eaten, followed one of those debauches that occur when men with natural "thirsts" turn loose after a period of deprivation. During its course they spent first the thirty-two _pesos_ and some _centavos_, drank up their own _tequila_, finally bartered the groceries to buy still more liquor for the rabble of _peones_ and brown girls that flocked to the _cantina_ like buzzards to carrion.

The "drunk" went through the customary stages from boisterous conviviality, singing, loud boasting, quarreling, fighting. Three times Sliver and Jake locked and rolled on the floor, tearing like tigers at each other's throats, nor let go till pried apart by Bull. Worse, because really terrible, was it to see the giant rustler, after the other two had lapsed into sottish sleep, sitting with his broad shoulders against the adobe wall, huge hands squeezing an imaginary throat, while his drink-crazed brain rehea.r.s.ed the details of some past tragedy. Shortly thereafter he also rolled over in drunken sleep.

As they lay there, crumpled, limp, breathing stertorously, there was nothing edifying in the spectacle. It would be unfair to hint at a likeness between them and the swine that snored in the kennel outside; unfair to the swine, which never descend through drink from their natural estate. Drunkards and outlaws, they were probably as low, at that moment, as human beings ever go. Yet when they awoke, _sans_ groceries, _sans tequila_, _sans_ money, but plus three splitting headaches, they faced the situation with saving humor.

"Tough on Rosa," Jake said, with a rueful grin.

"If she's still there," Sliver doubted. "An' I'll bet a peppercorn to a toothpick she ain't."

"Chihuahua, now, or starve," Bull succinctly summed the situation. He added, grinning, "Anyway, we'll travel light."

IV: THE TRAIL OF THE COLORADOS

Five days later the Three looked down from a mountain shoulder upon the first and greatest of the Chihuahua _haciendas_.

Far beyond the limit of sight its level ranges ran. From the crest of the blue range in the distance, their glances would still have traveled on less than half-way to the eastern limit. The Mexican Central train, then running southward in the trough between two ranges thirty miles away, had been speeding all day across lands whose ownership was vested in one man. The half-score of towns, hundred villages, in its environs were there only by his consent. Until the bursting of the first revolution had sent him flying into El Paso with other northern overlords, their thousands of inhabitants, shopkeepers, muleteers, artisans, _peones_, drew by his grace the very breath of life.