'We split ze profit two ways--feefty-feefty,' the Mexican said. 'My share to include--Nan Purdie.'
For a long moment the marshal sat silent, and then suddenly his arms fell apart, a gun in the right hand spat viciously--once; Ramon fell back with a bullet through his chest. Shaking with passion, the assassin scrambled to his feet and bent over his victim, who, twisting in agony on the sand, was making feeble efforts to reach his own weapon. Then he fired again, and the Mexican's body shuddered and was still.
'Know every'ting, huh?' the marshal mimicked. 'One 'ting yu didn't savvy anyways, an' that was when to keep yore mouth shut.'
With trembling fingers he untied his horse, flung himself into the saddle, and with never a backward glance, galloped up the gorge. The shots might have been heard, and though the slaying of a Mexican was no great matter, he had no wish to be seen in the vicinity. The deed itself caused him little uneasiness; his explanation that the fellow had threatened him would be accepted. Upon the two spectators of the drama, the killing had come like a clap of thunder. As the marshal fled, Yago's hand went to his pistol, but his foreman stopped him.
'Let the reptile go--we can get him any time,' he said. 'Mebbe the Greaser ain't cashed.'
A hundred yards further along they found a spot where the bank was less vertical, and the horses made the descent safely, mostly on their rumps.
'We'd oughta fetched skids, my bronc has damn near rubbed his tail off,' Bill complained.
When they reached the Mexican they found that Sud-den's surmise was correct--he was not yet dead, though it was obviously only a matter of moments. He opened his eyes when Yago raised his head and gasped, 'Water!'
'This'll do him more good,' Bill, said, and passed over a small flask of whisky. 'Carry it in case o' snake-bite,' he explained with a wink, when his foreman's eyebrows went up.
The raw spirit put a little strength into the wounded man, and with it came a desire for vengeance; a spark of hatred shone in the glazing eyes.
'The marshal--do--this,' he muttered. 'Write--write --I put name.'
Sudden searched, found pencil and a fragment of paper, and took down the dying man's statement, which they had already heard. Gasping for breath, every word a conscious effort, Ramon told his story, and gripping the pencil in nerveless fingers, scrawled his signature. Then a dreadful smile contorted his features and his head fell forward. They caught a last whisper.
'Gracias, senores. Adios.'
Yago laid the dead man gently on the ground, stood up, and said slowly, 'Well, amigo, yu was a Greaser, but yu shore died fightin', an' I'd sooner call yu `brother' than the vermin what put yore light out.'
'Fightin' an' bitin',' the foreman agreed. 'I reckon he's earned a quiet grave.'
With hands and knives they scooped out a shallow trench, wrapped the corpse in a blanket, and heaped rocks above to prevent a prowling coyote from disturbing the murdered man's last rest.
'Saves us a journey,' Sudden said. 'No need to go snoopin' round Slype's place now.'
'What we goin' to do 'bout that jasper?' Bill inquired, as they rode south along the ravine.
'Nothin'--yet,' his friend decided. 'We'll let him play his hand a bit longer. If he's double-crossin' Burdette, he's on our side, that far.'
'Sufferin' snakes, if King knowed that Slippery bumped off his Ol' Man there'd be proceedin's.'
'Shore would, but until the girl is back at the C P again, King has us where the hair's short.'
The marshal rode rapidly towards the town. Despite the blazing sun, beads of cold sweat oozed from his brow when he thought of the danger he had been in. If the Mexican had taken his tale to King Burdette ...
'I'd be like him--buzzard-meat,' he croaked aloud, and a shudder shook him as he recalled the stark still form he had left in the ravine. 'Oughta planted him, I s'pose,' he continued. 'Hell, corpses can't chatter.' The corners of his mouth came down in an ugly sneer as his mind reverted to the 'leetle story' the dead man had used. 'Coyote, huh? Well, I reckon he knows now that them critters has got teeth.'
He drew his gun, reloaded the empty chambers, and pulled his horse down to a steady lope. He wanted to think. Purdie would go up in the air when he heard about his daughter. The marshal could vision him with his outfit riding headlong for the Circle B. There would be a battle and Purdie would lose it--maybe his life as well. Perhaps King too. ... Ramon had said the mountain lions had slain each other. That might happen--or could be made to; a marksman hidden in the brush. . . . He grinned devilishly; the 'leetle story' might yet come true.
FOR a while after his visitors had gone Luce Burdette sat slumped in a chair, fists clenched, eyes staring into vacancy, his heart filled with a bitter fury against the man who had done this thing. The darkly handsome, satirical face, with its mocking smile of triumph, rose before him, and coupled with this knowledge of King's cruel, callous nature, suggested fearful possibilities.
'An' he's kin to me,' the boy groaned. He struck the table fiercely. 'He shan't have her, damn him, not while I live.'
Two hours later he was threading a thicket of live-oaks which masked the slope at the rear of the Circle B ranch-house. Fortunately for his purpose the night was dark. Leaving his horse among the trees and carrying his lariat, he approached on foot, walking Indian-like on the balls of his feet and testing each step lest a cracking twig should betray him. It was a slow business, but presently he reached a strip of open ground where he would have to risk being seen. Here he paused, scanning the building. There was a lighted window just opposite to where he was crouching--the kitchen, which was his objective. For the rest, the place was in darkness, so far as he could tell. Light shone from the bunkhouse, fifty yards distant, and he could hear voices; some of the outfit would be there, playing cards, and yarning. Stooping, he sprinted across the shadowy space, reached the window and looked in. As he had expected and hoped, Mandy, the old coloured cook, was alone. Familiar taps on the pane brought her waddling hurriedly; she peered out and then cautiously raised the sash.
'Foh de Ian's sake, it cain't be yo, Massa Luce,' she whispered tremulously.
'Shore is, Mammy,' he replied, calling her by the name he knew she liked him to use. 'Say, who's in the house?'
'Dey ain't nobody but me,' she told him. 'Dem King an' Sim done went out; mebbe dey is in de bunkhouse wid de boys. Yo don' oughta be hyar, honey; dat King, he massacree yo if he cotch you aroun'.'
There was a mingling of fear and affection in her voice --Luce had always been her favourite; for his brothers she had little but dread.
'Good old Mammy,' the boy said. 'I ain't goin' to be `cotched.' ' He bent forward so that he could see her face and said earnestly, 'Are yu shore there is no one in the house but yoreself?'
At this question Mandy recoiled and the whites of her eyes showed big. 'Lawdy, ain't I tol' yo?' she quavered, but Luce interrupted sternly :
'Come clean, Mammy; it ain't like yu to lie to me.' Still she hesitated, pulled two ways by affection for the lad before her and terror of his elder brother; the former triumphed.
'King'll sho'ly take the hide off'n my back if he knows,' she said huskily. 'Dey's a gal locked up in yo ol' room. I dunno who she is--they done hustled me outa de way when she was fotched in.'
'It's Nan Purdie, Mammy,' Luce told her. 'God! It makes me ashamed to know I'm a Burdette.'
The deep disgust and anguish in his voice made the old Negress look at him strangely. This was not the merry lighthearted lad to whom she had been a mother. A sudden decision firmed her face.
'Yo needn't to be, honey. Yo ain't a Burdette, an' yo nevah was one,' she said, and then, as she read his expression, 'No, I ain't out o' ma haid--I'm tellin' yo true. Long time back, when we was crossin' Injun country on de way hyar, Ol' Man Burdette fin' yo cryin' in de brush--yo was 'bout knee-high to a jackrabbit. Pretty soon we light on a burned cabin an' two bodies; dey was white an' dat was all we--but I don' need to tell yo 'bout dem red devils. Mis' Burdette figured dey was yo folks an' 'lowed she'd 'dopt yo. The Ol' Man say, `Brand an' throw him in de herd, de damn li'l maverick; he'll make a Burdette one day.' But yo nevah did, honey; allus dere was a difference. Now, don't yo care ...'
To the boy the revelation and all it meant to him swept everything else from his mind. He did not doubt the story, and, looking back, found much to confirm it. Father and brothers had always treated him with a sort of good- natured contempt, an attitude he had put down to his age. Even after the Old Man's death he had not been admitted to the family's councils, nor invited to join in those periodic mysterious expeditions from which the men returned weary with riding and sometimes wounded. These things had hurt him, but now he was glad. Nameless
