“No reason not to—but don’t understand. Glad no harm done. Did my best—under circumstances. But—you should have told us where you were going—last night.”
“Sometimes,” Lance said, “a man has to keep his ideas to himself. Maybe you understand how it is, Professor.”
Jones’s angular features flushed embarrassedly. “Quite so, quite. Every man has his own ideas. Mine—strictly cacti. For instance, this
Katherine said, “Sensation? Wait until you hear about Fletcher.”
“You’ve heard something new about Fletcher?” Jones asked, lifting his gaze from the beloved cactus. “I’ll be glad—learn what it is.”
Lance related the story of the night’s happenings. About the time he had finished Cal Braun stuck his face through the doorway. “Breakfast’s on, folks. Better come get it before I throw it away.”
“It’s this way, Lanky,” Lance was saying, “if we can find Horatio and make him see what a fake Fletcher is I figure we can bust up this game. Once he sees the snake it should convince him that Fletcher is just using the Yaquentes for some motive of his own—though I don’t know just yet what it is.”
The two were loping their ponies along the trail that led to Muletero. It wasn’t more than an hour past breakfast. The sun was climbing rapidly above the rim of the eastern mountains. Brush and cholla and prickly pear flanked either side of the dimly defined roadway they were following.
Lanky nodded moodily. “I don’t know just how much luck we’ll have. I can take you down through that Yaquente village, but if we have any luck finding this Yaquente friend of yours I can’t say. You say his name sounds like Horatio?”
“Horatio.” Lance tried to pronounce the name as nearly like he had heard it as possible.
“Oh”—Lanky’s frown cleared—“you mean Huareztjio. That’s quite a common name among Yaquentes. Well, we’ll see what happens when he looks into this burlap sack—if we find him.” Lanky motioned toward the bulky burlap sack he carried on his saddle. From the sack came an occasional movement.
The horses pounded on. The houses of Muletero came into view. The town proved to be a typical Mexican settlement with adobe huts placed helter-skelter along either side of a dusty roadway. There were a couple of shops and a cantina. A few chickens and dirty-nosed, nearly naked children moved in the dusty roadway. In the shadows between buildings sat a number of seraped Mexicans who paid no partic u lar attention to the
The dust settled behind as the two riders moved swiftly through the town, then turned right along a descending, rock-cluttered way that led for half a mile down into a canyon running between high granite walls.
Lanky said, “There’s your village. Now to see if we can locate this hombre named Huareztjio.”
Lance looked ahead and saw a string of shabby huts built along each side of the canyon. Some were of adobe and rock construction. A few had corrugated iron roofs; the skins of animals were stretched across the roof beams of other dwellings. A pair of goats was tethered before one house. There weren’t many Yaquentes in sight. A few men, in their loose cotton clothing, were seen here and there. Several women, bearing firewood on their backs and wearing flopping, shapeless print dresses, scuffed through the dust in their bare feet. Their faces were brown and wrinkled; their straight black hair was gathered in an odd double knot at the backs of their heads. There were a large number of mangy-looking curs running about; these, at the sight of the riders, immediately set up a shrill yapping and barking.
“If you value your legs,” Lanky advised, “don’t get down from your horse. Them dogs just love calf meat.”
The riders pulled rein at the first house before which they saw a Yaquente man sitting. The Indian glared at them but relaxed somewhat when Lanky spoke in the Yaquente tongue. After a moment of listening the Indian shook his head, rose and turned into his house.
“Nothing to be got from that hombre,” Lanky told Lance.
They walked the horses until they came to the next man. This one was sprawled in the shadow of a big adobe oven built in the form of a half-sphere. The horses stopped. The Indian eyed them listlessly from his position on the earth. Lanky spoke to him but received no answer. Lanky said disgustedly, “C’mon, that Injun is still hopped up on peyote. You notice, Lance, all these Yaquentes is wearing guns?”
“I noticed it,” Lance said grimly.
They went on through the village, Lanky asking questions here and there while the pack of mangy curs yelped at the horses’ heels. Now and then Lanky found an Indian who would talk, but even those who talked denied they knew anyone named Huareztjio. Finally they had arrived at the end of the village street with no success. “Damn pack of liars,” Lanky grumbled. “Right now your Horatio knows we’re looking for him. But we can’t make ’em talk. Oh yes, Horatio knows by this time. The Indians have a grapevine system that carries the news along faster than we moved. From now on it’s up to Huareztjio. If he wants to see you he will. Otherwise we’re out of luck.”
They turned the horses and started back, Lance feeling extremely disappointed at the failure. They were more than halfway through the village when a Yaquente emerged from the house before which the pair of goats was tethered.
“There’s Horatio now,” Lance exclaimed.
“That’s him, eh? And he owns goats. Must be he’s a sort of chief of the tribe. All right, we’ll give him a try.”
The horses were pulled up when they reached Huareztjio’s dwelling. Lance smiled. “Howdy, Horatio.”
The Indian eyed him warily, no sign of recognition in his beady eyes. “What want?” he grunted. “Better go ’way—queeck!”
Lanky spoke a few words of Yaquente greeting. The Indian eyed him in stony silence. Lance and Lanky didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Lance said, “Better give him the whole story, Lanky. Tell him we saw what happened in the temple last night. Tell him what a fake Fletcher is. Tell him Fletcher is bad clear through and that he’s just using the Yaquentes for his own purposes. Then show him that feathered snake with its mouth sewed shut. That should convince Horatio if nothing else does.”
Lanky started to speak. Now and then he was forced to use a word of Spanish or En glish but he was getting the idea across to Huareztjio. For a time the Indian listened in stony silence. Abruptly his eyes flashed, and an angry look passed across his flat brown features. Lance couldn’t decide whether he was angry because of Fletcher’s duplicity or because the scene in the temple had been spied on the previous night. Abruptly the stolid mask reappeared on the Yaquente’s face.
Suddenly with a quick dramatic movement Lanky seized the burlap sack on his saddle, opened it and spilled the contents onto the earth at the Indian’s feet. The feathered snake writhed, coiled, then straightened out to attempt escape. Huareztjio jumped back in alarm, then approached the reptile. Cautiously he stooped and seized the diamondback in both hands. His sharp, beady eyes took in the cruelly sewed mouth and the fake ridge of feathers along its back. The expression about the Yaquente’s lips tightened, then suddenly he opened them in a wild, eerie cry that echoed along the village street.
The call brought an instant response. From every house along the way Yaquente heads appeared. Indians came leaping from all directions.
“What do we do now?” Lance asked.
“We ride like hell!” Lanky snapped. “They may not like the idea of us being in their temple last night when your Horatio explains matters. Me, I’m not aiming to stay and learn what their attitude is. C’mon!”
Wheeling their ponies, they jabbed in spurs and went dashing out of the Yaquente village.
XXII Action in Muletero
Once Lance glanced back over his shoulders. There weren’t any Yaquentes following him, though back in the canyon village he could see the street filled with a packed mass of gesticulating white-clad forms. At the end of a quarter of a mile, when they were drawing near to Muletero, Lanky signaled for Lance to slow down.
They pulled the ponies to a walk. Lanky said, “Maybe we’re lucky. Maybe their intentions would have been all right. Me, I wasn’t taking any chances.”
