The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 33

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Of a truth, no!" said Boca, and she swung the bottle.]

Back in The Spider's place men grouped round a huddled something on the floor. The Spider, who had fetched a lamp from his room, stooped and peered into the upturned face of Boca. A dull, black ooze spread and spread across the floor.

"Boca!" he shrilled, and his face was hideous.

"Did them coyotes git her?"

"Who was it?"

"Where's the kid?"

The Spider straightened and held the lamp high. "Take her in there,"

and he gestured toward his room. Two of the men carried her to the couch and covered her with the folds of the serape which had slipped from her shoulders as she fell.

"Say the word, Spider, and we'll ride 'em down!" It was "Scar-Face"

who spoke, a man notorious even among his kind.

The Spider, strangely quiet, shook his head. "They'll ride back here.

They were after Young Pete. She smashed the lamp to give him a chance to shoot his way out. They figured he'd break for the back--but he went right into 'em. They don't know yet that they got her. And he don't know it." He hobbled round to the back of the bar. "Have a drink, boys, and then I'm going to close up till--" and he indicated his room with a movement of the head.

Young Pete, riding into the night, listened for the sound of running horses. Finally he pulled his pony to a walk. He had ridden north--up the trail which the posse had taken to Showdown, and directly away from where they were searching the desert for him. And as Pete rode, he thought continually of Boca. Unaware of what had happened--yet he realized that she had been in great danger. This worried him--an uncertainty that became an obsession--until he could no longer master it with reason. He had ridden free from present hazard, unscratched and foot-loose, with many hours of darkness before him in which to evade the posse. He would be a fool to turn back. And yet he did, slowly, as though an invisible hand were on his bridle-rein; forcing him to ride against his judgment and his will. He reasoned, shrewdly, that the posse would be anywhere but at The Spider's place, just then.

In an hour he had returned and was knocking at the door, surprised that the saloon was closed.

At Pete's word, the door opened. The Spider, ghastly white in the lamplight, blinked his surprise.

"Playin' a hunch," stated Pete. And, "Boca here?" he queried, as he entered.

"In there," said The Spider, and he took the lamp from the bar.

"What's the use of wakin' her?" said Pete. "I come back--I got a hunch--that somethin' happened when I made my get-away. But if she's all right--"

"You won't wake her," said The Spider, and his voice sounded strange and far-away. "You better go in there."

A hot flash shot through Pete. Then came the cold sweat of a dread antic.i.p.ation. He followed The Spider to where Boca lay on the couch, as though asleep. Pete turned swiftly, questioning with his eyes. The Spider set the lamp on the table and backed from the room. Breathing hard, Pete stepped forward and lifted a corner of the serape. Boca's pretty mouth smiled up at him--but her eyes were as dead pools in the night.

The full significance of that white face and those dull, unseeing eyes, swept through him like a flame. "Pardner!" he whispered, and flung himself on his knees beside her, his shadow falling across her head and shoulders. In the dim light she seemed to be breathing. Long he gazed at her, recalling her manner as she had raised her gla.s.s: "I drink to the young vaquero, with whom is my heart--_and my life_."

Dully Pete wondered why such things should happen; why he had not been killed instead of the girl, and which one of the three deputies had fired the shot that had killed her. But no one could ever know that--for the men had all fired at him when the lamp crashed down--yet he, closer to them than Boca, had broken through their blundering fusillade. He knew that Boca had taken a great risk--and that she must have known it also. And she had taken that risk that he might win free.

Too stunned and shaken to reason it out to any definite conclusion, Pete characteristically accepted the facts as they were as he thrust aside all thought of right or wrong and gave himself over to tearless mourning for that which Boca had been. That dead thing with dark, staring eyes and faintly smiling lips was not Boca. But where was she then?

Slowly the lamplight paled as dawn fought through the heavy shadows of the room. The door swung open noiselessly. The Spider glanced in and softly closed the door again.

The Spider, he of the shriveled heart and body, did the most human thing he had done for years. At the little table opposite the bar he sat with brandy and a gla.s.s and deliberately drank until he felt neither the ache of his old wounds nor the sting of this fresh thrust of fate. Then he knew that he was drunk, but that his keen, crooked mind would obey his will, unfeelingly, yet with no hesitation and no stumbling.

He rose and hobbled to the outer door. A vagrant breeze stirred the stale air in the room. Back in the patio his Mexican, Manuelo, lay snoring, wrapped in a tattered blanket. The Spider turned from the doorway and gazed at the sanded spot on the floor, leaning against the bar and drumming on its edge with his nervous fingers. "He'll see her in every night-fire when he's alone--and he'll talk to her. He will see her face among the girls in the halls--and he'll go cold and speak her name, and then some girl will laugh. He will eat out his heart thinking of her--and what she did for him. He's just a kid--but when he comes out of that room . . . he won't give a d.a.m.n if he's b.u.mped off or not. He'll play fast--and go through every time! G.o.d! I ought to know!"

The Spider turned and gazed across the morning desert. Far out rode a group of men. One of them led a riderless horse. The Spider's thin lips twisted in a smile.

CHAPTER XXV

"PLANTED--OUT THERE"

Malvey, loafing at the ranch of Mescalero, received The Spider's message about the posse with affected indifference. He had Pete's horse in his possession, which in itself would make trouble should he be seen. When he learned from the messenger that Young Pete was in Showdown, he fumed and bl.u.s.tered until evening, when he saddled Blue Smoke and rode south toward the Flores rancho. From Flores's place he would ride on south, across the line to where he could always find employment for his particular talents. Experience had taught him that it was useless to go against The Spider, whose warning, whether it were based on fact or not, was a hint to leave the country.

The posse from Concho, after circling the midnight desert and failing to find any trace of Pete, finally drew together and decided to wait until daylight made it possible to track him. As they talked together, they saw a dim figure coming toward them. Swinging from their course, they rode abruptly down a draw. Four of them dismounted. The fifth, the chief deputy, volunteered to ride out and interview the horseman.

The four men on foot covered the opening of the draw, where the trail pa.s.sed, and waited.

The deputy sat his horse, as though waiting for some one. Malvey at once thought of Young Pete--then of The Spider's warning--and finally that the solitary horseman might be some companion from below the border, cautiously awaiting his approach. Half-inclined to ride wide, he hesitated--then loosening his gun he spurred his restless pony toward the other, prepared to "bull" through if questioned too closely.

Within thirty feet of the deputy Malvey reined in. "You're ridin'

late," he said, with a forced friendliness in his voice.

"This the trail to Showdown?" queried the deputy.

"This is her. Lookin' for anybody in particular?"

"Nope. And I reckon n.o.body is lookin' for me. I'm ridin my own horse."

It was a chance shot intended to open the way to a parley--and identify the strange horseman by his voice, if possible. It also was a challenge, if the unknown cared to accept it as such. Malvey's slow mind awakened to the situation. A streak of red flashed from his hand as he spurred straight for the deputy, who slipped from his saddle and began firing over it, s.h.i.+elded by his pony. A rifle snarled in the draw. Malvey jerked straight as a soft-nosed slug tore through him.

Another slug shattered his thigh. Cursing, he lunged sideways, as Blue Smoke bucked. Malvey toppled and fell--an inert bulk in the dim light of the stars.

The chief deputy struck a match and stooped. "We got the wrong man,"

he called to his companions.

"It's Bull Malvey," said one of the deputies as the match flickered out. "I knew him in Phoenix."

"Heard of him. He was a wild one," said another deputy.

"Comin' and goin'! One of The Spider's bunch, and a hoss-thief right!

I reckon we done a good job."

"He went for his gun," said the chief.

"We had him covered from the start," a.s.serted a deputy. "He sure won't steal no more hosses."

"Catch up his cayuse," commanded the chief deputy.

Two of them, after a hard ride, finally put Blue Smoke within reach of a rope. He was led back to where Malvey lay.

"Concho brand!" exclaimed the chief.

"Young Pete's horse," a.s.serted another.

"There'll be h.e.l.l to pay if Showdown gets wise to what happened to Bull Malvey," said the deputy, who recognized the dead outlaw.