Bloom of Cactus Part 28

"Try to be funny with me, will you? I'll skin you alive!"

"You misunderstood me, quite," said Lennon, soothingly. "How could I think other than that you intend to keep your bargain. I mentioned it because I wish to suggest an addition to the terms. If you will release Carmena and postpone your marriage to Elsie until we can get a license and a minister, I shall be pleased to give five thousand toward the bride's trousseau."

For a long moment Slade stood glowering, morosely suspicious of the proposal. When he sensed its precise meaning, he burst into mocking laughter.

"So that's what you're after, huh? Think you can bribe me, do you? Well, just let me tell you, sonny boy--when I want a squaw I take her. As for that she-wildcat, she's going down to Cochise right now. What's more, you're going with her if you don't agree to write that mine report and sh.e.l.l out the whole twenty thousand."

"You devil!" cried Lennon. "I'll give you all--everything I possess--to save the girls from you. But if you harm either one of them--if you refuse to set them both free--you shall not have a dollar of my money."

"Huh--I sha'n't, sha'n't I?"

"Not a cent! You are a thief, a murderer, a liar--and you know it. Your word is not to be trusted. Take your choice. Kill me, or accept my pledge to pay you the money when you have brought me and the girls safe to the nearest town."

The corner of Slade's coa.r.s.e lip drew up in a wolfish snarl.

"Kill you? Just wait and see. Killing's a heap too easy. Wait till Cochise has had a little fun with you. Mebbe you won't agree to be reasonable then, huh?"

The pale eyes of the trader glittered with cold malevolence as he swung around to the window from which Pete was signalling. He boldly thrust his head out and shouted to the Apaches in their own tongue. From below came an answering shout. Slade called down to them for several moments in hissing thick-tongued gutturals.

When at last he drew back and faced about, his mouth was twisted in a grin of evil satisfaction. He stared across the room, blinked, and stared again, with his grin distorted into an angry grimace.

Carmena lay where he had last seen her. But Elsie was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER XXI

TREACHERY

The inaction of the trader was brief. At his harsh question the wounded Navaho thrust out a slim finger toward one of the rear exits from the living room. Slade spoke a fierce command to Pete in the Navaho tongue and rushed out through the opening to which the Indian had pointed.

Carmena uttered a horrified cry and sought to struggle up on her bound feet. As she fell, Pete and the other Navaho caught hold of her. They carried her out into the anteroom, without paying the slightest heed to Lennon's threats and pleadings. He writhed and twisted himself toward the doorway. Before he had reached the opening, the wounded Navaho bounded back into the room. He seized Lennon and dragged him out.

Pete had squatted down to fasten a loop of the hoist rope about Carmena, who lay behind the sacks of corn that barricaded the crane-hoist entrance. She was speaking rapidly to the young Navaho in mingled Spanish and English. At sight of the other Navaho and Lennon she paused.

Pete took the opportunity to mutter a sullen reply:

"_Basta._ Slade, him bad med'cine. Me no fight him. You go Cochise, _muy p.r.o.nto_."

"Wait!" urged the girl. "You want me to be your woman. Remember what I promised if you'd help Slade to get up the canon against Cochise. I'll promise more now. I'll give you all those horses and cattle--and I'll give you myself. Sabe? I'll be your woman."

The Indian's eyes gleamed with avid desire. But he did not falter.

"Woman no good, me dead."

"Afraid--you girl!" taunted Carmena. "He's only a man. A single shot will kill him. You have only to----"

"_Basta._ Him big devil. Me no shoot him. Him say you go Cochise, _muy p.r.o.nto_."

The stubborn coward turned away toward the windla.s.s. Carmena glared after him in agonized desperation.

"All right--all right, Pete!" she cried. "Lower me to Cochise. But listen! You needn't fight Slade or any one. You heard how he fooled Cochise--made him feel good by promising him me and Jack?"

"Me send you down, p.r.o.nto."

"Yes--yes. Only first, if you want me to be your woman, listen. You lower me, I make bargain with Cochise and----"

The rest of the fiercely urgent proposal was in Spanish. Pete came to a pause and cast a stealthy glance at his fellow Navaho. The man had dragged Lennon out past the windla.s.s and turned back to grasp the crank handle.

"You d.a.m.n sure Cochise him no kill me? You no lie?" demanded Pete.

"Won't you be proving you are his friend?" countered the girl. "You know Slade only half trusts you. He'll be sure to shoot you, soon as his punchers come. How about it? Do you promise? It's your only chance to get me, so long as you daren't tackle Slade yourself."

"Slade, him big devil. Injun no can----"

"Just wait and see," broke in Carmena. "Remember, there'll be tizwin for you--all you can drink--heaps of tizwin!"

"Ugh!" grunted Pete. "Slade no come. _Bueno_--me do him you say."

He grunted to the other Navaho and swung the crane outward as the tightening rope lifted the girl above the sacks of corn. She disappeared from view below the barrier. The Navaho lowered away with a deliberation that set Lennon's teeth on edge. The strain on his nerves was not lessened by the total silence of the waiting Apaches down below.

At last the rope slackened. After a brief pause it was rapidly wound in on the barrel of the windla.s.s. Pete had already dragged Lennon to the opening and heaved him up on the barricade. When the rope loop came up to the crane, he jerked it in, made fast to Lennon, and shoved him off into s.p.a.ce.

Lennon plunged down nearly a dozen feet before the tautened rope stopped his fall with a violent jerk. He hung dangling, with nothing between him and the wreckage-strewn ledges of the cliff foot, thirty feet beneath.

The first jerk had started his body to gyrating. The rapidity with which he was lowered increased the movement. By the time he reached the cliff foot he was spinning like a roast before an old-time fireplace.

At first he had been able to make out Carmena standing in the midst of a close group of Apaches. But she and the Indians and the cliff wall had all merged into a blurred whirl before his dizzy eyes by the time he struck the cliff foot. With the slackening of the rope he rolled over, too giddy even to attempt to steady himself with his bound hands.

While his eyes were yet too dazed for clear vision, he heard Carmena's voice, low-pitched and vibrant with pa.s.sionate pleading:

"... And him too, Cochise. I'm not asking you to give up your fun with him. Only wait till you've made sure of Slade. There's not a second to lose. You have us. We can't get away. But if you don't do what I ask, you won't get Slade. He'll be up there--safe--with your woman! And his Navahos will trap you here in the Hole."

"You lie!" grunted the young Apache. "Slade send you down to git his noose on me. I haul up pony lift--hit out h.e.l.l Canon--take you and white fool. Heap fun with you and him!"

"What then?" queried Carmena. "You know you'll have Slade on your trail--Slade and a posse and the soldiers. Slade will have to wipe you out to cover up what we've been doing here. He'll lay it all on you and your bunch--all the stealing. Can't you see? If he can't wipe you out himself, he'll set the soldiers on your trail."

Lennon looked up and saw before his clearing eyes the dark evilly handsome face of the Apache leader. It was as stolid as the faces of his incomprehending followers. But his black eyes were fierce with hate.

"You lie!" he repeated. "You say, kill Slade. You say you no care what become of you."

"Because I know you, Cochise," cajoled the girl, her voice soft and confiding. "Weren't we friends before Slade came? Weren't we good to you? Remember how we kept you hid in the Hole and never told the Indian Agent? You'll not forget that. You'll treat me and Jack, my new pard, all right when I've helped you kill Slade."

"Dam' friend--you," jeered the Indian. "You kept my woman."

"What if I did? How about now? Do you want Slade to have her? You know he has been scheming all along to take her from you. Are you going to let him do it? Think about her--and about the tizwin--that tizwin hidden from you by Slade--barrels of tizwin! All yours if only you have the nerve to go up after Slade!"