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Bloom of Cactus, a fiction by Robert Ames Bennet |
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Chapter 20. Into The Fire |
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_ CHAPTER XX. INTO THE FIRE Carmena rallied and smiled up at the big trader with a show of trustful confidence. "I knew you'd keep your part of the deal, Mr. Slade," she said. "You've fought off Cochise and saved us, and there's a good big hole in his bunch. All we need do now is wait for your punchers to come in and wipe out the rest." "Sure!" agreed Slade. "I done it. Now I got a dead cinch all 'round." He drew his revolver and twirled the cylinder as if to make certain that it had been fully reloaded. "Yep--a dead cinch. With me up here, Cochise won't try no more pole ladders. You and my Cookie Gal better hustle up some feed. Ain't had nothing but bacon and flapjacks since I left." Elsie fluttered across to light her charcoal brazier. But Carmena lingered beside Lennon. "Huh," muttered Slade. "Where'd sonny boy git hit? Ain't plunked bad, is he?" "Oh, no. I----" "No, not fatal," Carmena broke in on Lennon's disclaimer of serious injury. She gave Slade a significant side glance. "No, I'm sure it won't prove fatal--just cut the bone a bit. Jack'll get over it all right if he keeps perfectly quiet." Slade's big face took on a look of solemn concern. "Quiet--huh? Can't let him take no risks. He's worth ten thousand to me. Here, you, Pete--and you----" A guttural command in Navaho and a careless wave of the revolver brought Pete and his wounded but still active companion hurrying forward. Carmena sprang up and held out her arms to the trader. Lennon failed to see her face. He saw only how Slade swept his left arm about the girl and swung her around in a bearlike embrace. Lennon sought to leap up. The Navahos seized him on either side and forced him down again. He caught a glimpse of Carmena futilely clutching for Slade's throat. The big man burst into a bellow of contemptuous laughter and flung her from him. "Bah!" he jeered. "What you bucking about? Don't figger I want you any more, do you?" "No--no, of course not. I---- But Jack's head--If you hogtie him----" "Got to be kept quiet, ain't he? You said it yourself. What you hanging fire for, Pete?" The heavy revolver swung around in another seemingly careless gesture. Pete and the wounded Navaho hogtied Lennon with expert quickness. Slade shifted around to nudge Farley in the ribs with the toe of his cowhide boot. The badly wounded man stirred and opened his haggard eyes to blink at the disturber. "Has--Cochise---- What! you?" he murmured. "You have run off the devils? Girls safe?" "You bet they're safe, Dad. How you feeling? Looks like they plugged you pretty bad." "Very--very bad," gasped Farley. "I--do not expect to--survive." "Aw, keep a stiff upper lip. You'll pull through." Farley's discoloured eyelids quivered and drooped. Slade had been peering sideways at the rigidly posed Carmena. He laughed good-humouredly, put up his revolver, and grinned toward Elsie. "I smell grub--real grub. Carmena, you git over to the far window and keep a lookout while I feed up. Just leave your gun lie. We don't want to rile up Cochise till we git him cornered." The girl looked at Lennon and hesitated. Slade rested his hand on his hip. She hurried off to the window toward which he had pointed. Seated alone at the table, the trader feasted upon the food set before him by Elsie. While he gormandized he tormented the shrinking girl with his coarse gallantry. When at last his gluttonous appetite was satisfied he called for another pie. Elsie obediently brought the last of her baking and bent over the corner of the table to set it before him. With the quickness of a striking grizzly, Slade lunged forward and clutched her soft round arm. At her startled shriek he wrenched his massive body half around and menaced everyone in the room with a sweeping wave of his revolver. Lennon had been bound too tightly to do more than writhe. Pete and his fellow Navaho stood as if turned to stone. But Farley had twisted about on the floor, and Carmena was springing away from her outlook window toward the table. The revolver barrel paused in line with her forward-rushing figure. "Stop!" bellowed Slade. The savage roar threatened instant death. Carmena came to a sudden halt. She stood panting and quivering, her face white, her eyes dilated with horror. "Huh! Thought you'd rush me, did you?" growled the trader. "You didn't stop any too soon to save your bacon, you she-wildcat. Stand still now, or you'll git gentled with a club." "But--but, Mr. Slade----" gasped the horror-stricken girl. "Blossom--she's only a child. She's so young and--and innocent! Oh, won't you--won't you please take me instead?" "You?" sneered the trader. "Jealous, are you? Well, you're too late now. Wouldn't take me when you had the chance. Now I wouldn't have you even if I couldn't git her." "But she--little Blossom! Oh, you can't--you can't be so heartless! You promised to wait----" "Wait?" Slade jerked the half-fainting Elsie around the corner of the table. "Ain't I waited all this time? This is same as Injun country, and squaws mate-up young. I'm going to take my Cookie Gal now. Sabe? Injun marriage is good enough 'round these parts for any woman, white or red." "You--beast!" cried Carmena, and she flung herself at him in a fury of despair. A few seconds before he would have shot her down. Now, instead of firing, he released his hold on Elsie's arm and thrust out to meet the frantic rush of her foster-sister. The big red hand clutched fast on Carmena's throat and held her off at arm's length. Contemptuously heedless of her frenzied struggles, he fixed a hard stare on Pete. "You," he ordered, "git a hustle on. Rope this hellcat, pronto." Though Pete's hesitancy was almost imperceptible, Slade's revolver swung up toward him. The young Navaho sprang forward, jabbering to his fellow tribesman. As the two seized and started to bind Carmena, Slade grinned at her, derisively. "Guess you wish you hadn't," he jeered. "I'll learn you who's boss. How'll you like being let down to Cochise, huh?" The danger to Elsie had horrified and enraged Lennon no less than Carmena. He had been writhing in his rawhide bonds, in a furious struggle to break loose. Now he lay exhausted and hopeless, his wrists and ankles cut and bleeding from the cruelly tight thongs. Even the hideous threat against Carmena could not goad his flaccid muscles to renewed efforts. Behind him he heard a peculiar wheezing. He twisted his head about to look. Farley was creeping along the floor. As Lennon caught sight of him, the desperately wounded man clutched his rifle and straightened up on his knees. His ghastly face was blotched with angry purple. His sunken eyes flamed with vengeful fire. He raised the muzzle of the rifle toward Slade with the last flare of his failing strength. "You scoundrel!" he shrilled. "Harm my daughter, would you?" Slade's savage bellow was drowned in the crash of the rifle. The bull-like roar of the trader sharpened to a yell of pain. An instant later two answering shots came back at the swaying avenger. Farley fell upon his back, with his arms outflung crosswise and his glazing eyes upturned. As he lived, so he had died--futilely. Yet he had at least made the attempt to rise above his weakness and degeneracy. He had died like a man. Slade stood at the end of the table, mopping the base of his neck with his dirty neckerchief. The rifle had missed his jugular vein by little more than an inch. He cauterized the wound with sangre de dragon sap, cursing blasphemously and barking commands at the Navahos. Pete ran to signal from the nearest window. His companion hurried to make certain that Farley was dead. Slade shouldered past the half-bound Carmena and came to stare gloatingly down at Lennon. Between his thick legs Lennon saw Carmena twist about and roll over toward her terror-stricken sister. Slade was too intent upon mocking his other prisoner to look about at the girls. "Well, son, you seen what happened to Dad, trying to murder his pard," he admonished. "Hope it'll be a warning to you. I'm a peaceful man. I got to have law and order. Cochise ripped loose with his bunch. You seen how I smashed his play. 'Fore night my Navahos'll clean up what's left of 'em all." Lennon choked down his rage and loathing. Not he alone was in the power of this brutal scoundrel. For the sake of the girls he must play for time. "Yes, to be sure!" he said. "That was clever generalship on your part, Slade. As for Farley--you of course had to shoot him, in self-defense. But now all is settled. You will keep your word to go through with your bargain." "I will, will I, huh?" "How else? We have had our little misunderstandings. But you are a white man and you gave your word to go through with our deal." The trader's face blackened with a ferocious scowl. "Try to be funny with me, will you? I'll skin you alive!" "You misunderstood me, quite," said Lennon, soothingly. "How could I think other than that you intend to keep your bargain. I mentioned it because I wish to suggest an addition to the terms. If you will release Carmena and postpone your marriage to Elsie until we can get a license and a minister, I shall be pleased to give five thousand toward the bride's trousseau." For a long moment Slade stood glowering, morosely suspicious of the proposal. When he sensed its precise meaning, he burst into mocking laughter. "So that's what you're after, huh? Think you can bribe me, do you? Well, just let me tell you, sonny boy--when I want a squaw I take her. As for that she-wildcat, she's going down to Cochise right now. What's more, you're going with her if you don't agree to write that mine report and shell out the whole twenty thousand." "You devil!" cried Lennon. "I'll give you all--everything I possess--to save the girls from you. But if you harm either one of them--if you refuse to set them both free--you shall not have a dollar of my money." "Huh--I sha'n't, sha'n't I?" "Not a cent! You are a thief, a murderer, a liar--and you know it. Your word is not to be trusted. Take your choice. Kill me, or accept my pledge to pay you the money when you have brought me and the girls safe to the nearest town." The corner of Slade's coarse lip drew up in a wolfish snarl. "Kill you? Just wait and see. Killing's a heap too easy. Wait till Cochise has had a little fun with you. Mebbe you won't agree to be reasonable then, huh?" The pale eyes of the trader glittered with cold malevolence as he swung around to the window from which Pete was signalling. He boldly thrust his head out and shouted to the Apaches in their own tongue. From below came an answering shout. Slade called down to them for several moments in hissing thick-tongued gutturals. When at last he drew back and faced about, his mouth was twisted in a grin of evil satisfaction. He stared across the room, blinked, and stared again, with his grin distorted into an angry grimace. Carmena lay where he had last seen her. But Elsie was nowhere in sight. _ |
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