A Noose for the Desperado (18 page)

I said, “You might as well get your share of the free drinks.”

But he shook his head. He leaned against the door-jamb, looking
careful and crafty, but not very healthy.

“Well, I am,” I said. I looked at the kid and we went into the saloon
and left Kreyler in the office. He couldn't carry off much of that
silver by himself, if that was what he had in mind.

Everybody had had a round or two by the time we got to the bar, and
it looked like a real celebration was on the way. I motioned to the
bartender and he slid a bottle down, and I guess it was the bottle that
reminded me.

“By God, we forgot Bama!”

I went out the door and the first thing I knew a couple of arms came
out of the darkness and grabbed me. Probably I would have killed her
and learned who it was later, if she hadn't laughed. But she did laugh
and I knew it was Marta.

“Goddamnit, don't you know better than to jump on a man like that?”
She was pawing me and kissing me and she seemed as happy as a pup with
a bone.

“You glad to see Marta?”

“Sure,” I said, “I guess I'm glad.”

But just the same I shook her off and got my back against the wall
and got my gun hand ready. In the back of my mind I was reasoning, that
somebody out there in the darkness could have put a bullet in me while
a fool girl was hanging around my neck. It was just a passing thought,
but I didn't like it.

Marta's laughter lost its bright edge. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing's the matter. I just like to be careful.”

“You no trust Marta.”

“I no trust anybody. That's how I got to be as old as I am.”

“You no like Marta.”

I was beginning to get tired of this. “Sure I like you,” I said. “I'm
crazy about you. Now, just come along with me. I've got a job for you.”

“What job?”

“Never mind, just come along.”

I took her arm and led her around toward the livery barn, the kid
right behind us like a shadow. We found the horse, and Bama was still
lashed to the stubby travois poles. He was pretty shaken up but his
tourniquet was still in place and the bleeding had stopped. We left him
on the travois but untied the poles and lowered him to the ground. The
kid felt of his face and forehead while I loosened the tourniquet.

“He's got a fever.”

“Then he's all right. What we've got to do is get him somewhere and
keep him warm before the chills begin.” I thought for a minute and
began to get an idea. “Kid, do you think you and Marta can get Bama
down to her house without advertising it?”

He rubbed his chin. “Well, sure, I guess so. She can take the feet
and I can—”

“That's all I want to know. Marta, have you got some friends—friends
with strong backs and not too many brains?”

She nodded, frowning.

“Round them up,” I said. “Have them come around to the back of the
saloon where the office is. I've got some things I want them to carry
down to your place, and I want them to be quiet about it. Tell them
it's worth five dollars in silver after the job's over.”

She began to get it then, and so did the kid. Marta's face broke up
in a grin. “Marta think you plenty rich!”

“Marta thinks too damn much.”

“You leave Ocotillo, maybe?”

“My plans are my own. Now, pick up that travois before we have a dead
man on our hands.”

“You take Marta with you?”

“Good God, yes, I'll take you with me. Anything, just get going.”

The last thing in the world I wanted was to be tied down to a girl
like that, but I had to tell her something. And it seemed to satisfy
her.

Johnny Rayburn hadn't decided if he was satisfied or not. He was
thinking about Bama, I guess, and wondering how we were going to get
out of Ocotillo with a wounded man and several hundred pounds of
silver. He didn't know it yet,, but Bama wasn't going with us. I hadn't
figured out a way yet to take care of the silver. But I would.

Using the travois like a stretcher, they picked it up and marched off
into the darkness. I waited a few minutes until I was pretty sure that
they were going to make it, and then I went back to the saloon.

Kreyler was standing in the doorway. I was going to walk right past
him, but he turned and followed me to the bar. His face was grim as he
said: “Wasn't Marta with you out there?”

I had almost forgotten that the Marshal was still crazy about the
girl. Well, he could have her as soon as I got out of Ocotillo.

I said, “There wasn't anybody out there. I was just looking after
Bama.”

“Didn't the kid go out with you?”

“What the hell is this? If you've got something in your craw, spit it
out.”

Suddenly he smiled, and I didn't like that at all. What if he had his
boys out there laying for the kid? It was something to worry about, but
there wasn't much I could do. Of course, I could have gone running
after them, but that would have given the whole thing away. There was
still the silver to be taken care of. Not even Johnny Rayburn came
ahead of that.

I went back to the office and locked the door and put a chair against
it. Then I walked the floor, waiting for something to happen. From the
sound of things, the men were getting pretty drunk in the saloon. But
there was still Kreyler, goddamn him.

Well, I could still take care of him. When he ran out on me I swore I
would kill him. And I might do it yet.

Somewhere in that confusion of thoughts there was a knock at the back
door. I opened up and there stood four grinning Mexicans, all teeth and
eyes in the darkness. They all started jabbering that spick lingo at
me, and I told them to shut up and start moving those bags.

They grunted, surprised at the weight
6i
the stuff. But I
finally got them loaded up and they went staggering off into the
darkness. They only got about half of it the first time around, and I
waited for what seemed a week for them to come back. What if they got
curious as to what was in those bags? You can't trust Mexicans. You
can't trust anybody with that much money.

But I guess they weren't the curious kind. They came back finally,
puffing and grinning, and I loaded them up again. I went around to the
livery barn and got that black horse of mine and a sturdy little bay
for the kid, and I headed down the alley toward the Mexican part of
town.

I knew that part of town pretty well by now, so I went around the
back way and came in between the high adobe walls to the back door of
Marta's place. Through the open door I could see the Mexicans puffing
and wiping their faces as they stared blankly at the pile of silver on
the kitchen floor.

“Mr. Cameron?”

“Are you all right, kid?”

“Sure,” he said, and came out into the little walled-in yard where I
was.

“How's Bama?”

“He looks pretty good,” he said. “That girl washed the wound and
bandaged it up and gave him some broth. He looks better than he did on
that travois.”

“Let's go in and look at him,” I said. “We haven't got much time,
though.”

The kid held back as if he weren't any too anxious to go back inside.

“What's the matter?”

“It's the old man,” he said. “Marta's pa. He doesn't like gringos to
start with, and he especially doesn't like them coming in and taking
his house over.”

We could fix that, I thought. I'd give him a handful of silver and
that would shut him up. Anyway, we went in and there was Bama stretched
out on the earth bed with a cigarette between his lips. His face had
been washed and his leg had a clean bandage. He looked like a new man.

But he hadn't really changed. He spat the cigarette out and drawled,
“Welcome to our little sanctuary, Tall Cameron,” and I remembered that
long spiel he had made the first time I saw him. “Welcome to Ocotillo,
the last refuge of the damned, the sanctuary of killers and thieves and
real badmen and would-be badmen; the home of the money-starved, the
cruel, the brute, the kill-crazy....” At the time I thought he had been
joking. But it was no joke. I had seen them and lived with them. I was
one of them.

“How's the leg?” I cut in on him.

He closed his eyes. “The leg's all right. It's a hell of a thing,
isn't it, to have a body that's seemingly indestructible, when you're
dead inside?”

“I guess you're all right. You still talk crazy, which is normal for
you, I guess.”

Bama laughed. “How about Kreyler and the boys? Are they going to let
you just walk out with their silver?”

“They don't know yet that I've walked out with it. By the time they
find out, I mean to be on my way to Mexico.”

Bama had no comment to make on that. He just lay there with his eyes
closed. All the time we had been talking there had been a lot of
jabbering going on in the other room. I went to the door and saw that
it was Marta paying off my baggage boys. They backed out of the house,
grinning and bowing, clutching the silver in their hands.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

Marta laughed. “They go cantina.”

That was fine. Tomorrow morning they would wake up with a headache
and a bad memory.

I wondered how long it would take Kreyler to discover that I had
pulled out with the silver. Not long, probably, but after he did find
out he would have to find us to do anything about it. We had an hour, I
figured, to take care of the silver and get out of Ocotillo.

They say that money can be a burden, and for a minute it looked as if
that was what that silver was going to be to me. We couldn't load our
horses down with it. And we couldn't put it on a pack horse and take it
with us, because that would slow us down, too. The only thing to do was
to go somewhere and have the silver shipped to us.

But now? No freighting company would touch it, even if there had been
a freighting company in Ocotillo. We could bury it, maybe,, and come
back after it later. But we needed the money now. Anyway, I'd had
enough of Ocotillo to last a lifetime.

Then the whole thing exploded pretty and clean in my mind and I knew
how we were going to take care of that silver.

I yelled, “Marta!” and she was standing right at my elbow. “Look,” I
said, “do you still want to go with me?”

Her head bobbed. There was nothing she would like better—especially
since I had come into a fortune of silver. Marta's old man had been
quiet through the whole thing until now. He had been sitting at a rough
plank table holding his head in his hands. Every once in a while he
would fumble at some wooden beads around his neck and mumble a prayer,
and from the look of hate in his eyes I figured he was praying for
lightning, to strike us all. Now his head jerked up and he glared at
me. He didn't understand a word of what I had said, but somehow he
knew.

“This is what we're going to do,” I said. And I was talking to the
old man as much as to Marta. “We've got to get out of Ocotillo and
we've got to leave the silver here. The old man's got some burros,
hasn't he?” She nodded, puzzled.

“All right, we'll go somewhere—” And then I remembered a place on
that map that Bama had drawn for me. “We'll go to Three Mile Cave down
near the border. Do you know where that is?” She knew. “We'll go there
and wait two days, and in the meantime Papacito can load the silver and
bring it to us. He can cover it with wood or something to fool anybody
who may get curious. I don't care how he does it, just so he does it.”

She was beginning to get it now. Her eyes lit up, and I guess she was
seeing herself as the belle of Sonora, dressed in silks and satins and
cutting quite a figure. The real reason I wanted her along never
occurred to her.

But it did to the old man. He jumped up from the table and began to
jabber in that spick language, and I could see that he was telling
Marta that he wasn't going to do it. But Marta was still seeing herself
with all the things that silver could buy. That was one picture that
she liked, and she wasn't going to have it ruined, Papacito or no
Papacito. Before I knew it, the whole thing got out of control. Marta's
eyes spat fire and they stood there in the middle of the room yelling
at each other.

I had to break it up myself. I stepped in and shoved Marta against
the wall. The old man yelled louder than ever, so I shoved him down in
his chair and whipped my hand back and forth across his mouth, crack,
crack, like a mule skinner two days behind schedule and laying on the
leather.

That quieted things down for a minute. Marta stood against the wall,
her eyes still flashing. She hadn't liked the way I shoved the old man
around, and I hadn't enjoyed it much myself. But sooner or later
somebody was going to have to step in and declare himself boss. So that
was what I did.

I got hold of Marta's arm and quieted her down. “I'm sorry,” I said.
“But we can't stand here yelling at each other. We haven't got time for
it. For all I know, Kreyler and his boys may be right outside the door
getting ready to shoot hell out of everything.”

I said, “Has the old man got it straight what he's to do with the
silver? We pull out of here tonight and head for Three Mile Cave.
Tomorrow he loads the silver on his burros and meets us at the cave the
next day. Tell him again.”

She shrugged and told him again, and the old man didn't like it any
better this time than he had the first.

“We'd better do something to impress it on his mind,” I said. “Tell
him we're taking you as hostage. If he doesn't show up with the silver
he'll never see you again.”

She wasn't so sure that she liked that, but she understood that it
was the only way of being sure of that silver. So she told him.

The old man stared at me for a long while with those hate-filled
eyes, and then he started breaking up in little pieces. He dropped his
head on the table and his shoulders began shaking. The silver would
arrive on time.

But in the meantime we couldn't just leave it piled up in the middle
of the room. I walked around the house, but there wasn't any place
there to hide it. I went out in the yard and kicked around for a few
minutes, waking up a hound dog and a few chickens. The chickens gave me
an idea.