The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 28

"Well, I do."

Pete studied her face. Despite his natural distrust, he realized that the girl was innocent of plotting against him. He decided to confide in her--even play the lover if necessary--and he hated pretense--to win her sympathy and help; for he knew that if he ever needed a friend it was now.

Boca steadied him to the bench just outside the doorway, and fetched water. He drank and felt better. Then she carefully unrolled the bandage, washed the clotted blood from the wound and bound it up again.

"It is bad that you come here," she told him.

"Well, I got one friend, anyhow," said Pete.

"Si, I am your friend," she murmured.

"I ain't what you'd call hungry--but I reckon some coffee would kind of stop my head from swimmin' round," suggested Pete.

"Si, I will get it."

Pete wondered how far he could trust the girl--whether she would really help him or whether her kindness were such as any human being would extend to one injured or in distress--"same as a dog with his leg broke," thought Pete. But after he drank the coffee he ceased worrying about the future and decided to take things an they came and make the best of them.

"Perhaps it is that you have killed a man?" ventured Boca, curious to know why he was there.

Pete hesitated, as he eyed her sharply. There seemed to be no motive behind her question other than simple curiosity. "I've put better men than Malvey out of business," he a.s.serted.

Boca eyed him with a new interest. She had thought that perhaps this young senor had but stolen a horse or two--a most natural inference in view of his recent a.s.sociate. So this young vaquero was a boy in years only?--and outlawed! No doubt there was a reward for his capture.

Boca had lightly fancied Young Pete the evening before; but now she felt a much deeper interest. She quickly cautioned him to say nothing to her father about the real reason for his being there. Rather Pete was to say, if questioned, that he had stolen a horse about which Malvey and he had quarreled.

Pete scowled. "I'm no low-down hoss-thief!" he flared.

Boca smiled. "Now it is that I know you have killed a man!"

Pete was surprised that the idea seemed to please her.

"But my father"--she continued--"he would sell you--for money. So it is that you will say that you have stolen a horse."

"I reckon he would,"--and Pete gently felt the back of his head. "So I'll tell him like you say. I'm dependin' a whole lot on you--to git me out of this," he added.

"You will rest," she told him, and turned to go back to her work. "I am your friend," she whispered, pausing with her finger to her lips.

Pete understood and nodded.

So far he had done pretty well, he argued. Later, when he felt able to ride, he would ask Boca to find a horse for him. He knew that there must be saddle-stock somewhere in the canon. Men like Flores always kept several good horses handy for an emergency. Meanwhile Pete determined to rest and gain strength, even while he pretended that he was unfit to ride. When he _did_ leave, he would leave in a hurry and before old Flores could play him another trick.

For a while Pete watched the three figures puttering about the bean-patch. Presently he got up and stepped into the house, drank some coffee, and came out again. He sat down on the bench and took mental stock of his own belongings. He had a few dollars in silver, his erratic watch, and his gun. Suddenly he bethought him of his saddle.

The sun made his head swim as he stepped out toward the corral. Yes, his saddle and bridle hung on the corral bars, just where he had left them. He was about to return to the shade of the portal when he noticed the tracks of unshod horses in the dust. So old Flores had other horses in the canon? Well, in a day or so Pete would show the Mexican a trick with a large round hole in it--the hole representing the s.p.a.ce recently occupied by one of his ponies. Incidentally Pete realized that he was getting deeper and deeper into the meshes of The Spider's web--and the thought spurred him to a keener vigilance. So far he had killed three men actually in self-defense. But when he met up with Malvey--and Pete promised himself that pleasure--he would not wait for Malvey to open the argument. "Got to kill to live," he told himself. "Well, I got the name--and I might as well have the game.

It's n.o.body's funeral but mine, anyhow." He felt, mistakenly, that his friends had all gone back on him--a condition of mind occasioned by his misfortunes rather than by any logical thought, for at that very moment Jim Bailey was searching high and low for Pete in order to tell him that Gary was not dead--but had been taken to the railroad hospital at Enright, operated on, and now lay, minus the fragments of three or four ribs, as malevolent as ever, and slowly recovering from a wound that had at first been considered fatal.

Young Pete was not to know of this until long after the knowledge could have had any value in shaping his career. Bailey, with two of his men, traced Pete as far as Showdown, where the trail went blind, ending with The Spider's apparently sincere a.s.sertion that he knew nothing whatever of Peters whereabouts.

Paradoxically, those very qualities which won him friends now kept Pete from those friends. The last place toward which he would have chosen to ride would have been the Concho--and the last man he would have asked for help would have been Jim Bailey. Pete felt that he was doing pretty well at creating trouble for himself without entangling his best friends.

"Got to kill to live," he reiterated.

"Como 'sta, senor?" Old Flores had just stepped from behind the crumbling 'dobe wall of the stable.

"Well, it ain't your fault I ain't a-furnis.h.i.+n' a argument for the coyotes."

"The senor would insult Boca. He was drunk," said Flores.

"Hold on there! Don't you go cantelopin' off with any little ole idea like that sewed up in your hat. _Which_ senor was drunk?"

Flores shrugged his shoulders. "Who may say?" he half-whined.

"Well, I can, for one," a.s.serted Pete. "_You_ was drunk and _Malvey_ was drunk, and the two of you dam' near fixed me. But that don't count--now. Where's my hoss?"

"Quien sabe?"

"You make me sick," said Pete in English. Flores caught the word "sick" and thought Pete was complaining of his physical condition.

"The senor is welcome to rest and get well. What is done is done, and cannot be mended. But when the senor would ride, I can find a horse--a good horse and not a very great price."

"I'm willin' to pay," said Pete, who thought that he had already pretty well paid for anything he might need.

"And a good saddle," continued Flores.

"I'm usin' my own rig," stated Pete.

"It is the saddle, there, that I would sell to the senor." The old Mexican gestured toward Pete's own saddle.

Pete was about to retort hastily when he reconsidered. The only way to meet trickery was with trickery. "All right," he said indifferently.

"You'll sure get all that is comin' to you."

CHAPTER XXII

"A DRESS--OR A RING, PERHAPS"

All that day Pete lay in the shade of the 'dobe feigning indifference to Boca as she brought him water and food, until even she was deceived by his listlessness, fearing that he had been seriously injured. Not until evening did he show any sign of interest in her presence. With the shadows it grew cooler. Old Flores sat in the doorway smoking.

His wife sat beside him, gazing at the far rim of the evening canon.

Presently she rose and stepped round to where Pete and Boca were talking. "You will go," said Boca's mother abruptly. "Boca shall find a horse for you."

Pete, taken by surprise,--Boca's mother had spoken just when Pete had asked Boca where her father kept the horses,--stammered an acknowledgment of her presence; but the Mexican woman did not seem to hear him. "To-night," she continued, "Boca will find a horse. It is good that you go--but not that you go to Showdown."

"I sure want to thank you both. But, honest, I wouldn't know where else to go but to Showdown. Besides, I got a hunch Malvey was headed that way."

"That is as a man speaks," said the senora. "My man was like that once--but now--"

"I'm broke--no dineros," said Pete.