Chapter XVII: Mendez Shows His Teeth

Austin and Sands were riding out of town, heading for Indian Wells. Austin cast a worried glance at the old cowboy as they rode past Goober.

“Damn nosey old rat!” snorted Sands angrily.

“I don’t see how he found out about those other two cheques,” said Austin despondently. “Oh, I was a fool to pay them in cheques. Why didn’t I draw the cash and pay them in money?”

“No use cryin’ over spilled milk,” retorted Sands. “But let ’em think what they please about the cheques. They can’t prove anythin’. That damn Cates told Glendon about it. I told him that the two boys nicked yuh in a poker game. That’s all right. Next time I git a chance, I’ll shore tell Mr. Cates a few things about bankers that talk out of turn.”

But this did not seem to reassure Austin, whose nerves were frayed. He struck his fist on the saddle horn and cursed the day he ever came back to Arizona. “I’d almost bet that Rosita is behind this,” he said, when his anger had cooled sufficiently to enable him to make a coherent statement.

“She might,” agreed Sands. “Of course, she hasn’t any love for you.”

“Why should she? Oh, I’m not trying to excuse myself. I did her the worst injury possible when I deserted her--left her flat, without a cent--and a baby coming. But why not injure me personally, instead of striking at me through my wife and daughter? They never harmed her.”

“Mexican idea,” said Sands. “She knows you’ve got money, and she knows that the longer she holds off, the more you’ll pay.”

“Then you think she’s at the bottom of it, Cal?” said Austin eagerly.

“It was your idea. I said it was possible.”

“I’ll see her the minute we----”

“Use a little sense,” warned Sands. “Let her make the first move.”

“Maybe you’re right; you always are. I’ll let her make the first move. But if I could only know that Laura and Betty are all right!”

“So would I,” truthfully admitted Sands.

As they rode into Indian Wells, Porfiro Mendez was at his favourite pastime. In a mean little patio behind a small _cantina_, its rear exit opening into an ill-smelling alley, were Mendez and about twenty-five of his countrymen. They were all seated or kneeling on the hard-packed ground, crowded closely together around an open spot about six feet square. Just now the space was unoccupied. On one side of the circle was a wide-hatted Mexican, boasting a long, villainous moustache and a new serape. In both hands he held a gamecock, almost denuded of feathers, its skinny neck jerking this way and that way, bill half-opened, as though searching for what it might devour.

On the opposite side was Mendez, a reddish-coloured rooster held between his knees, while he jangled a handful of silver _pesos_ between his palms. “_Cinco á dos_,” he chanted. “_Cinco á dos_.”

Mendez was offering to wager five to two on his rooster. But the gambling element was cautious. Mendez had never exhibited this rooster before, having brought it from Piñon. Still, the local gamecock was famous, having won many a battle in that _cantina_ patio. Neither bird wore steel spurs; they were as nature intended them.

“Cinco á dos. Cinco á dos.”

The odds were attractive. A thin-faced Mexican tossed two _pesos_ in the ring, and they were immediately covered by Mendez. Another and another threw their money in, until Mendez was obliged to dig deeply in his pockets. With all bets made, the crowd moved back a few inches, and with a quick flip of their hands, the men tossed the roosters into the cleared space.

It was as though two bunches of feather dynamite had exploded. There was no sparring, no feeling out of each other. Feathers flew under the rip of spurs, as they crashed in mid-air. And then something happened. One of the birds bolted to the top of a wide hat, gave a convulsive squawk and launched itself to the top of the patio wall just to the left of the exit. It was Mendez’s very red rooster, its neck almost bare of feathers--disqualified. In the parlance of the prize-ring, it was a technical knock-out.

“Escamillo!” roared Mendez. “Son of a crow!” And before anybody could move, Mendez whipped out a heavy Colt gun, and the bullet seemed to hit the luckless gamecock dead centre. At any rate it blew Escamillo straight out from the wall. There came a few moments of dead silence. The other rooster was safely in its owner’s hands, the money still on the ground, flashing back the rays of the sun, when Ricardo Gonzales came staggering in through the open patio gate. His face was bloody, and a long reddish feather seemed to have caught in one corner of his mouth.

“_Madre de Dios!_” roared Mendez. “Did you get hit, fool?”

Ricardo assumed an injured air, felt of the knife inside his sash, and answered in his very best English: “Somebody hit me on this face weeth damn died cheecken.”

There was a general laugh, and the winners began picking up their money. Ricardo wiped a sleeve across his face and looked meaningly at Mendez, who turned to the crowd.

“Next time I shall bring an eagle--not a crow, like Escamillo,” he said humbly. He led the way and Ricardo followed him into the _cantina_.

“Señor Austin arrived,” said Ricardo.

“Alone?”

“With Señor Sands.”

Mendez nodded, gave Ricardo one of his few remaining _pesos_, and went out to the street, while Ricardo went back to wager his silver on the next main. Sands was talking with a Mexican merchant across the street, and as there was no sign of Frank Austin, Mendez guessed rightly that the wealthy cattleman was over at the Casa del Diaz.

Mendez smiled at his good fortune in finding Austin there alone. There was no one else in the place, except the Indian cook. Austin was seated at one of the little tables, waiting for Sands, who had stopped to talk a little with Mexicans he knew who might have a little information.

Mendez bowed graciously and smiled at Austin, who regarded him coldly.

“Thees ees a pleasure,” sighed Mendez, taking the vacant chair.

“What do you want?” asked Austin coldly.

“Who knows, until we talk?” smiled Mendez.

“Eh?”

“To talk ees to unnerstand,” smiled Mendez. “I’m unnerstand many theengs.”

“Damn your understanding,” growled Austin.

Mendez grew sober, shrugged his shoulders. With Austin in his present mood, Mendez decided to come to the point. There was no friendship between them. “You do not spik _español?_” queried Mendez.

“No.”

“Too bad. I do not spik Englis’ so good. But we mus’ unnerstand each other. Now”--Mendez leaned closer across the table; he had been eating much garlic, so Austin leaned back--“now, I’m tell you w’at I know, Señor Austin. One time, long time ago, we marry two seester. Your wife ees name’ Rosita--thees daughter from you ees name’ Juana.”

“Damn you!” snarled Austin. “What is this to you?”

Mendez laughed deep in his thick throat. “Your son ees weesh to marry wit’ Juana, eh? Your wife don’ know thees Juana ees your daughter. Suppose I’m tell thees thing to your wife.”

Austin got to his feet, his jaw shut tightly, his eyes blazing. Mendez stood up.

“You damned blackmailer!” rasped Austin.

Mendez shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “To me thees thing make no difference. I’m love thees Juana--me, myself. You don’t care, eh? All right, I go tell your son. I tell heem that he can not marry weeth this girl, biccause she ees his ’alf-seester.”

“No,” said Austin hoarsely. “Don’t do that. Damn you, how much do you want?”

Mendez smiled slowly, feeling that he had won his point. How much? He was at a loss to know just what to ask. Then: “The price ees twenty thousand dollar--American gold.”

“Twenty thousand!”

“Twenty thousand--now.”

Austin moved closer. “Too high, Mendez; much too high.”

Mendez laughed softly. “Too ’igh, eh? Twenty-five thousand now, señor.”

Mendez had his hands down, totally unprepared, when Austin’s right fist, backed by every ounce of the big man’s body behind it, caught Mendez square on the mouth. The blow would have staggered a steer. Mendez went down in a heap against the wall, blood soaking his moustache from a badly cut lip.

For several moments Austin stood over him, both hands clenched, but Mendez made no move to get up. Slowly the big cattleman relaxed. His right hand was bleeding from contact with Mendez’s teeth, and he wrapped it in a handkerchief as he walked out of the place. Mendez, dazed and badly cut about the mouth, did not move for several moments after Austin had left the patio, and then he merely lifted himself on one elbow.

“_Está la vida!_” screamed a parrot.

Mendez felt tenderly of his cut lips, lifted his eyes and saw Rosita at the table, looking down at him. Her expression was harsh, and her eyes seemed to bore into his soul. He got slowly to his feet, groping at the wall. Rosita handed him his big sombrero, and pointed toward the front entrance.

“I heard what was said,” she told him in Spanish. “Leave this place and never return, Porfiro. A man who would take money for silence is worse than one who steals. Go!”

“You say this to me?” Mendez grinned wickedly with bleeding lips. “You fear I may take all his money, leaving none for you. You call me worse than a thief, eh? Me, Porfiro Mendez! You shall both pay. _Caramba_, such treatment for me!”

Mendez stumbled from the Casa del Diaz, mopping his lips and muttering curses. He saw Austin and Sands together on the street, but he did not give them a second glance. Ricardo stepped out of the _cantina_ and met Mendez, stopped short at sight of his master.

“_Dios_, what ’appen to you?” he asked.

Mendez mopped his lips as his hands fumbled with the tie rope of his horse, but he did not reply. As he swung into his saddle, Sands started across the street.

“Wait a minute, Mendez!” he called.

Mendez turned his head and looked full at Sands. “Go from hell, will you?” he snarled, and galloped down the street.

Sands went back to Austin and shook his head sadly.

“Bad break on yore part, Frank.”

“Perhaps it was, but I’ll not let any damned Mexican blackmail me. Why, he had the unlimited gall to ask twenty-five thousand; so I just knocked half of his teeth out.”

“Might be expensive dentistry.”

“Do you think for a minute that I’d pay him that much?”

“That ain’t the point. You should take it under advisement. You could drag out the negotiations for weeks. In the meantime, all this might be straightened out, the women back in San Francisco. Now, you’ve got an enemy--and a damn bad one. Mendez is a bad hombre, Frank. Oh, I don’t like him any better than you do, but right now we can’t afford to make enemies.”

“I won’t be blackmailed--damned if I will!”

Sands shrugged his shoulders. “You know your own business.”

“I wonder where Hal is?”

“Did you ask about him at the Casa?” Sands asked.

“Nobody there except the cook--until Mendez showed up.”

“Maybe we can find him around town. You didn’t see Rosita?”

“I told you there wasn’t anybody there!” Austin snapped in irritation.

“That’s right, Frank. Well, I dunno what good we can do here. I wish I’d had a chance to talk with Mendez. I had an idea of offering him a good price to see if Mrs. Austin and Betty might not be in Mexico.”

“Do you suppose he’d go and tell Hal that--that Juana is his sister?”

“Might. He’s mad enough. Still, he knows that would ruin any chance he might have to collect from you. No, I don’t believe he will. Mendez is not exactly a fool.”

“I’ve a good notion to go down to Piñon and----”

“Forget that,” interrupted Sands. “Mendez is the big guy in Piñon. What he’d do to you would be plenty. You want to stop and remember that when you cross that line, you haven’t any U. S. A. backin’ yuh. All that would be left would be a memory of a danged fool that went where he wasn’t wanted.

“Not that Mendez wouldn’t welcome yuh. He’d probably turn out the Chamber of Commerce, or whatever passes for such things down there, and greet yuh. He might hand yuh the key to the city--and then use it to lock yuh in their pet hoosegow. I may be all wrong, but I feel that Mendez is a jigger that believes in _ojo por ojo y diente por diente;_ meanin’ ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ Only he might take a few extra teeth for good measure.”

Austin nodded gloomily. But an instant later he brightened as he saw Hal ride into town.

“You better talk with him alone,” suggested Sands.

Austin nodded and strode up the street to the little stable where Hal kept his horse. They met at the doorway. “Any news?” asked Austin anxiously. Hal shook his head gloomily.

“We haven’t heard a thing,” sighed Austin. “I felt sure some of us would hear something by to-day.”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Hal. “I laid awake all last night, trying to puzzle out some reason for it, and the only reason I could find was that somebody prevented mother and Betty from meeting Mrs. Diaz and Juana.”

“Why would they?” queried Austin cautiously.

“If you don’t know--I’m sure I don’t, dad.”

“Do you mean to--why, Hal, you don’t mean that I had any----”

“I’m not accusing anybody,” his son said doggedly. “But you didn’t want them to meet. You’ll have to admit that part of it.”

“But that--that was merely because I didn’t want you to marry this girl. I was afraid your mother and Betty might be influenced by meeting them.”

Hal laughed bitterly. “You came here to stop me from marrying her. Well, I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Then you’re not going to marry her, Hal?”

“So you don’t know anything about it, eh?”

“About what?”

The lines on Hal’s face deepened, eyes half-shut, as he looked at his father. He had come to that country a young, smooth-cheeked young man; now he was years older, hard-faced, bitter. Perhaps dissipation had caused some of it.

“You say you don’t know anything about it,” Hal said evenly. “I’ve got to accept your word for that.”

“Hal, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what you don’t know; Juana disappeared last night. She never slept in her bed, and no one knows where she went.”

“No!”

“I’ve been looking for her--looking all around.” Hal shook his head wearily.

“You haven’t notified the sheriff or----”

“What’s the good of that? Rosita didn’t want me to--I mean Mrs. Diaz; everybody calls her Rosita.”

“Isn’t she worried?”

“Not outside. She’s wonderful,” Hal said.

“Does she suspect any one?”

“Who knows?”

“What are you going to do now?” asked Austin.

“Do? What can any one do?”

“Come back to the ranch with us, Hal. Bury the hatchet with Sands. He is willing to be friends--forget everything. We’ve got to stick together in this, son. I’m half crazy over it.”

Hal shook his head. “No, I can’t do that. With you--yes; but not with Sands.”

Austin sighed and looked gloomily at Hal. “I suppose you heard that Nolan, the sheriff, and those two men of the 7 Bar 7 were killed yesterday.”

“Killed? Who killed them?”

“No one seems to know. It seems there’s a blind cañon north of the 7 Bar 7, where a corral had been built. The two men were shot down at the corral, and Nolan was killed at the top of the trail, just at the rim of the cañon.”

“Rustlers?” Hal asked.

“Except Nolan.”

“Why except Nolan?”

“He was the sheriff!” Austin snorted.

“Accepted money to cover up a--a murder, didn’t he? Is rustling worse than that?”

“Forget that. It’s all past and done. You don’t seem to appreciate the fact that you are not being tried for murder.”

“I suppose I am pretty ungrateful. Still, I’m grateful for one thing.”

“What is that?”

“The fact that mother and Betty believe me innocent.”

“I’m glad they do. But won’t you come back with us?”

“You know why I won’t.”

“Well, I’m sorry. You misjudge Sands badly. Still, you always were stubborn; so I guess there’s no way out, except to leave you here.”

Austin turned on his heel and went back down the street, anxious to tell Sands the latest developments. The tall foreman whistled with astonishment, and his face grew grave. “Mendez,” he said harshly. “I’ll betcha that damned greaser is to blame.”

“Damn him, he wasn’t looking for ransom--he was trying to blackmail me.”

“Mendez is no fool. Do yuh think for a minute he’d ever let you know he kidnapped ’em? If we don’t get word from ’em by to-morrow night, we’ll go down to Piñon. I’ll take Elkinson and Britton, and we’ll whip the whole town.”

“Won’t Mendez be looking for you?”

“Of course he will. Nothing nor nobody ever crosses the line here without Mendez knowing it. He’s got a dozen Yaqui Indians on his staff, and yuh might as well try to dodge death or taxes. But we’ll go, in spite of that.”

They stopped in Keno City, and told the sheriff about Juana’s disappearance. Goober was with the sheriff, and seemed greatly interested in Sands’s narrative. After Sands and Austin went on, Goober talked seriously with La Plante. Apparently the sheriff was ignorant of the fact that Austin had ever been the husband of Rosita Diaz and consequently hadn’t the least suspicion of any reason for the kidnapping.

“I think them women are in Mexico,” said Goober.

“Who in the devil would take ’em to Mexico?”

“Safer than on this side, Pete.”

“Yuh mean that some Americans took ’em across?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Mebbe they paid a Mexican to do it.”

“What white man or white men would do a thing like that?”

“I dunno,” Goober admitted. “You ever been in Piñon?”

“Shore--quite a while ago.”

Goober thought it over a long time. Finally he nodded to himself, saying: “It’s worth tryin’, anyway. Suppose that you and Smoky and Johnny and me slide down across the line about to-morrow night and have a look at Piñon.”

“Hell, I can’t do that,” La Plante protested.

“Not officially; but yuh might leave yore badge at home.”

La Plante shook his head. He didn’t care to mix into any Mexican trouble.

“Suppose,” said Goober, “that them three women are held down there. That is more against the law than the fact of a U. S. sheriff goin’ across lookin’ for ’em. And when all is said and done--what does Piñon amount to? Jist another of them little Mexican villages, more outlaw than law-abidin’. That gaudy old Mendez runs it. What does the law mean to him--even Mexican law? There ain’t even a point of entry to his town.”

“That’s true enough. Half a dozen good shots could take the town.”

“Four,” corrected Goober, grinning. “I’ve done it with one feller.”

“Smoky’d like it.”

“Johnny would love it.”

“Let’s go and git a drink, Goober--I’m pretty dry.”