'If you aren't killed,' pa said.
'I'm too durned ornery to die,' I said.
'Anyway, we got to go back to Tennessee and talk to Caffrey, you and me together.'
Gin convinced him, and they taken those two steers and drove them off ahead of the herd.
They hadn't been gone more than a few minutes when we saw that dust cloud come a-helling up the road after us. The Tinker and me, we just looked at each other, and then the lead began to come our way. I was sort of glad, for I'd not wish to start shooting at folks when I ain't sure of their plans.
That old Henry came up to my shoulder sweet and pretty, and my first shot taken a man right out of the saddle. At least, I think it was my shot.
We both fired, and then we turned tail and got away from there, racing past the herd like Jonas and Miguel were doing.
We started to swing the herd and in no time at all had them turned between us and those men after us. We tried to stampede them back into those fellows, but only a few of them started--the rest were too almighty confused.
All of us were shooting, riding and shooting, and then they cut around both sides of the herd at us and our horses were too blown to run. We made our fight right there.
Dropping off my horse, I swung him around and shot across the saddle. There were guns going off all around me, and I'd no time to be scared. his'Lando!' the Tinker shouted, and grabbed at me. 'Ride and run!'
Both of us jumped for the saddle, and as we did so I saw a man wearing a black suit come out of that bunch. He had a shotgun in his hands, and as Jonas turned toward his horse he let him have both barrels.
Miguel was down, and now Jonas, and it needed no sawbones to tell me Jonas was dead. Before I could more than try a shot at that rider in the black suit, he was gone.
But not until I'd seen him.
It was Franklyn Deckrow. The Tinker had seen him, too.
We lit out. We were running all out when I felt my horse bunch up under me, and then he went head over heels into the sand, pitching me wide over his head.
Last I saw was the Tinker giving one wild glance my way, and then he was racing away.
From that look on his face, I was sure he figured me for a dead man.
Reaching out, I grabbed for my Henry, which had fallen from my hand. A boot came down hard on my knuckles, and when I looked up Antonio Herrara was looking down at me. And from the expression of those flat black eyes, I knew I'd bought myself some trouble.
It was going to be a long time before I saw Texas again ... if ever.
Chapter Eight.
The bitter days edged slowly by, and weeks passed into years, and then the years were gone, and still I remained a prisoner.
By day I worked like the slave I'd become, and was fed like an animal, and by night I slept on a bed of filthy straw and dreamed of a day when I would be free.
Always I was alone, alone within the hollow shell of my mind, for outside the small world in which I lived with labor, sweat, and frightful heat, no one knew that I lived, nor was there anyone about me to whom I could talk.
The others with whom I worked were Indians---
Yaquis brought to this place from Sonora, men self-contained and bitter as I, yet knowing nothing of me, nor trusting anyone beyond their own small group.
A thousand times I planned escape, a thousand times the plans crumbled. Doors that seemed about to open for me remained closed, guards who showed weakness were replaced. My hands became curved to grip the handles of pick, shovel, or mattock. My shoulders bulged with muscle put there by swinging a heavy sledge. Naturally of great strength, each day of work made it greater, building roads, working in the mines, clearing mesquite-covered ground.
Sometimes alone in my rock-walled cell I thought back to that first day when, in a square adobe room, I was questioned by Herrara. My wrists bound cruelly tight, I stood before him.
He stood with his feet apart, his sombrero tipped back, and those flat black eyes looked into mine. He smiled then, showing even white teeth; he was a handsome man in a savage way.
'You put a gun upon me,' he said, and struck me across the face with his quirt.
It was the beginning of pain.
'There is gold. Tell me where it is, and you may yet go free.'
He lied ... he had no thought to let me go, only to see me suffer and die.
'The gold is gone. They took it with them.'
'I think you lie,' he said and, almost negligently, he lashed me again across the face with the quirt, and the lash cut deep. I tasted my blood upon my cut lips, and I knew the beginning of hatred.
That was the beginning of questioning, but only the beginning.
There was gold. He knew it and was hungry for it, as the others had been before him. The original commandant, whose name I never knew, had been his uncle. In the telling, the amount of gold supposedly hidden on the shore had grown to a vast amount.
To tell him was to die, and I lived to kill him, so I told him nothing. After each questioning I was taken to a cell and left there, and each time I feared I would die; but deep within me the days tempered a kind of steel I had not known was there.
Herrara I would remember, and another man, too. I would remember Franklyn Deckrow, who had betrayed us to them, and who had killed Jonas, his brother-in-law. It was something to live for.
And I would live. No matter what, I would survive so that these men might die.
No help could come to me, for they believed me dead. Jonas had fallen, and Miguel too, although he might have somehow gotten away. They had forced me to bury Jonas, but Miguel's body was nowhere around. I hoped for him. But the Tinker had looked back and seen me lying there, and I knew he believed me dead.
Suddenly, one night, I was moved. Out of a sound sleep I was shaken awake, jerked to my feet and led away. Herrara rode beside me.
'Your friends do not give up,' he said, 'and they have powerful friends in Mexico, so we must take you where you will never be found.'
The place to which they took me was a ranch owned by an outlaw named Flores, an outlaw who raided Texas ranches for their stock and so was ignored by the law of the province.
Duty called Herrara away to the south, so the beatings ended, but I was put to work among the Yaqui slaves. Most of the Yaqui prisoners had been sent away to work in the humid south where they soon died. Only a few were kept in the north.
The work was preferable to the cell, and I gloried in my growing strength. We were fed corn and frijoles and good beef, all of which was cheap enough, and they wanted my strength for the work I could do.
A dozen times I tried to smuggle messages across the border. Twice they were found and I was beaten brutally.
'Tell me,' Herrara said to me on one of his sudden visits, 'tell me where is the gold and you shall have a horse and your freedom.' But I did not tell.
Herrara had become powerful. The outlaws supported him and he protected them and derived income from their raids into Texas. Night after night men rode away from the Flores ranch and raided over the border, returning with cattle, horses, and women.
No other Mexican came to the ranch to visit, and I gathered the outlaws were hated by those who lived nearby, but they were people cut off from authority who could do nothing.
When I looked down at my hands, I saw them calloused and scarred, but powerful. My shoulders and arms were heavy with muscle, and my mind sharpened by endless observation and planning, was cunning as an animal's is cunning.
No day passed without its plan for escape, no possible opportunity went unnoticed by me.
Always my senses were alert for the moment.
Then came another Herrara visit. The heavy oaken door grated against the stone, and he stepped inside. He
