The Ridin' Kid from Powder River Part 30

"It is the devil-wind. One may get drunk and forget. One may then sleep. And if one sleeps, it is not so bad."

Pete shook his head, but tasted the wine that Flores poured for him.

If the old man would only get drunk enough to go to sleep . . . The Mexican's oily, pock-marked face glistened in the flickering candle-light. He drank and smacked his lips. "If one is to die of the heat--one might as well die drunk," he laughed. "Drink, senor!"

Pete sipped the wine and watched the other as he filled and emptied his gla.s.s again. "It is the good wine," said Flores. The candle-light cast a huge, distorted shadow of the Mexican's head and shoulders on the farther wall. The faint drone of the hot wind came to them from the plains above. The candle-flame fluttered. Flores reached down for the jug and set it on the table. "All night we shall drink of the good wine, for no man may sleep.",

"I'm with you," said Pete. "Only I ain't so swift."

"No man may sleep," reiterated Flores, again emptying his tumbler.

"How about the women-folks?" queried Pete.

Flores waved his hand in a gesture indicative of supreme indifference to what the "women-folks" did. He noticed that Pete was not drinking and insisted that he drink and refill his gla.s.s. Pete downed the raw red wine and presently complained of feeling sleepy. Flores grinned.

"I do not sleep," he a.s.serted--"not until this is gone"--and he struck the jug with his knuckles. Pete felt that he was in for a long session, and inwardly cursed his luck. Flores's eyes brightened and he grew talkative. He spoke of his youth in Old Mexico; of the cattle and the women of that land. Pete feigned a heaviness that he did not feel.

Presently Flores's talk grew disconnected; his eye became dull and his swarthy face was mottled with yellow. The sweat, which had rolled down his cheeks and dripped from his nose, now seemed to coagulate in tiny, oily globules. He put down a half-empty tumbler and stared at Pete.

"No man sleeps," he mumbled, as his lids drooped. Slowly his chin sank to his chest and he slumped forward against the table. Pete started to get up. Flores raised his head. "Drink--senor!" he murmured, and slumped forward, knocking the tumbler over. A dark red line streaked the table and dripped to the floor.

Something moved in the kitchen doorway. Pete glanced up to see Boca staring at him. He gestured toward her father. She nodded indifferently and beckoned Pete to follow her.

"I knew that you would think me a lie if I did not come," she told him, as they stood near the old corral--Pete's impatience to be gone evident, as he shouldered his saddle. "But you will not ride tonight.

You would die."

"It's some hot--but I aim to go through."

"But no--not to-night! For three days will it be like this! It is terrible! And you have been ill."

She pressed close to him and touched his arm. "Have I not been your friend?"

"You sure have! But honest, Boca, I got a hunch that it's time to fan it. 'T ain't that I'm sore at your old man now--or want to leave you--but I got a hunch somethin' is goin' to happen."

"You think only of that Malvey. You do not think of me," complained Boca.

"I'm sure thinkin' of you every minute. It ain't Malvey that's botherin' me now."

"Then why do you not rest--and wait?"

"Because restin' and waitin' is worse than takin" a chanct. I got to go."

"You must go?"

Pete nodded.

"But what if I will not find a horse for you?"

"Then I reckon you been foolin' me right along."

"That is not so!" Boca's hand dropped to her side and she turned from him.

"'Course it ain't! And say, Boca, I'll make it through all right. All I want is a good hoss--and a canteen and some grub."

"I have made ready the food and have a canteen for you--in my room."

"Then let's go hunt up that cayuse."

"It is that you will die--" she began; but Pete, irritated by argument and the burning wind that droned through the canon, put an end to it all by dropping the saddle and taking her swiftly in his arms. He kissed her--rather perfunctorily. "My little pardner!" he whispered.

Boca, although sixteen and mature in a sense, was in reality little more than a child. When Pete chose to a.s.sert himself, he had much the stronger will. She felt that all pleading would be useless. "You have the reata?" she queried, and turning led him past the corral and along the fence until they came to the stream. A few hundred yards down the stream she turned, and cautioning him to follow closely, entered a sort of lateral canon--a veritable box at whose farther end was Flores's cache of horses, kept in this hidden pasture for any immediate need.

Pete heard the quick trampling of hoofs and the snort of startled horses.

"We will drive them on into the corral," said Boca.

Pete could see but dimly, but he sensed the situation at once. The canon was a box, narrowing to a natural enclosure with the open end fenced. He had seen such places--called "traps" by men who made a business of catching wild horses.

Several dim shapes bunched in the small enclosure, plunging and circling as Pete found and closed the bars.

"The yellow horse is of the desert--and very strong," said Boca.

"They all look alike to me," laughed Pete. "It's mighty dark, right now." He slipped through the bars and shook out his rope. The horses crowded away from him as he followed. A shape reared and backed. Pete flipped the noose and set his heels as the rope snapped taut. He held barely enough slack to make the snubbing-post, but finally took a turn round it and fought the horse up. "Blamed if he ain't the buckskin,"

panted Pete.

The sweat dripped from his face as he bridled and saddled the half-wild animal. It was doubly hard work in the dark. Then he came to the corral bars where Boca stood. "I'm all hooked up, Boca."

"Then I shall go back for the cantina and the food."

"I'll go right along with you. I'll wait at the other corral."

Pete followed her and sat a nervous horse until she reappeared, with the canteen and package of food. The hot wind purred and whispered round them. Above, the stars struggled dimly through the haze. Pete reached down and took her hand. She had barely touched his fingers when the horse s.h.i.+ed and reared.

"If Malvey he kill you--I shall kill him!" she whispered fiercely.

"I'm comin' back," said Pete.

A shadow flung across the night; and Boca. was standing gazing into the black wall through which the shadow had plunged. Far up the trail she could hear quick hoofbeats, and presently above the drone of the wind came a faint musical "Adios! Adios!"

She dared not call back to him for fear of waking her father, in spite of the fact that she knew he was drugged beyond all feeling and sound.

And she had her own good reason for caution. When Flores discovered his best horse gone, there would be no evidence that would entangle her or her mother in wordy argument with him for having helped the young vaquero to leave--and against the direct commands of The Spider, who had sent word to Flores through Malvey that Pete was to remain at the rancho till sent for.

At the top of the canon trail Pete reined in and tried to get his bearings. But the horse, fighting the bit, seemed to have a clear idea of going somewhere and in the general direction of Showdown. "You ought to know the trail to Showdown," said Pete. "And you ain't tryin'

to git back home, so go to it! I'll be right with you."

The heavy, hot wind seethed round him and he bent his head, tying his bandanna across his nose and mouth. The buckskin bored into the night, his unshod hoofs pattering softly on the desert trail. His first "fine frenzy" done, he settled to a swinging trot that ate into the miles ceaselessly. Twice during the ride Pete raised the canteen and moistened his burning throat. Slowly he grew numb to the heat and the bite of the whipping sand, and rode as one in a horrible dream. He had been a fool to ride from comparative safety into this blind furnace of burning wind. Why had he done so? And again and again he asked himself this question, wondering if he were going mad. It had been years and years since he had left the Flores rancho. There was a girl there--Boca Dulzura--or had he dreamed of such a girl? Pete felt the back of his head. "No, it wa'n't a dream," he told himself.

A ghastly dawn burned into Showdown, baring the town's ugliness as it crept from 'dobe to 'dobe as though in search of some living thing to torture with slow fire. The street was a wind-swept emptiness, smooth with fine sand. Pete rode to the hitching-rail. The Spider's place was dumb to his knocking. He staggered round to the western side of the saloon and squatted on his heels. "Water that pony after a while,"

he muttered. Strange flashes of light danced before his eyes. His head pained dully and he ached all over for lack of sleep. A sudden trampling brought him to his feet. He turned the corner of the saloon just in time to see the buckskin lunge back. The reins snapped like a thread. The pony shook its head and trotted away, circling. Pete followed, hoping that the tangle of dragging rein might stop him.

Half-dazed, Pete followed doggedly, but the horse started to run. Pete staggered back to the hitching-rail, untied the end of the broken rein and tossed it across the street. He did not know why he did this; he simply did it mechanically.