William MacDonald - The Battle At Three-Cross

Lance was still laughing when he entered the sheriff’s office a short time later. Lockwood was back at his desk. Oscar Perkins had gone down to the general store for a fresh supply of lemon drops. “What you grinnin’ at?” Lockwood demanded.

“I had a tele gram to send,” Lance chuckled. “It was in code, so I had to give old Johnny Quinn an explanation.” He related what had happened.

The sheriff’s laughter merged with Lance’s. “Johnny’s always boasting about how many different diseases he’s had,” Lockwood said, “so I reckon it wa’n’t hard to convince him he had this here—uh—hemo—uh—what was that word? What’s it mean?”

“Hemoglobinuria.” Lance explained, “That’s just a more scientific name for Texas tick fever.” Lock-wood went off into renewed gales of laughter. When he had quieted Lance asked, “Say, who’s this Malcolm Fletcher staying at the hotel? I went to see Jones, but he was away digging cactus. Fletcher claims to be a friend of his.”

“He might be, at that,” Lockwood conceded. “I don’t know. He’s been right friendly with Miss Gregory—you know, Jones’ niece. The two of ’em have gone riding a lot. Anyway, I told you the girl’s father owned a ranch down in Sonora. Malcolm Fletcher was Jared Gregory’s pardner in the ranch. I meant to tell you all this today. Then we got talking about those Yaquentes we saw, and it slipped my mind.”

“You told me about Jared Gregory being murdered and brought in by the Yaquentes.” Lance’s eyes narrowed. “It couldn’t be that Fletcher had a hand in the death of Miss Gregory’s father?”

“If he did, I couldn’t say. He had an alibi, at least.”

“The same being?”

“Fletcher claims to be interested in both mines and ranches. At the time Jared Gregory was killed Fletcher was this side of the border driving around and looking at properties for sale.”

“You just got his word for that?”

“We got the word of Banker Addison. Addison was showing the properties which the bank had foreclosed on some time before.”

“Apparently,” Lance said slowly, “that clears Fletcher.” Then he added, “Apparently.”

Shortly before suppertime Lance entered the railroad depot, a bottle of bourbon under one arm. He placed it on the counter behind which old Johnny Quinn stood waiting with a yellow sheet of paper in his hand. “Johnny, there’s your medicine. Did you get an answer for me?”

“Sartainly,” Johnny replied. “I had it rushed right through.”

Lance took the yellow paper and quickly perused the code message it contained. A frown gathered on his face.

“Aunt Minnie must be worse,” Johnny said anxiously.

“Aunt Minnie,” Lance replied solemnly, “has plumb passed away. You’d better drink your medicine regular, Johnny.”

Three minutes later Lance was back in the sheriff’s office. “I got an answer to my tele gram,” he said tersely. “I had a little checking up done on Professor Ulysses Z. Jones of the Jonesian Institute at Washington, D.C. According to my reply there never was any such organization as the Jonesian Institute, and no one down there has ever heard of Professor Jones!”

“Somebody,” Lockwood said grimly, “is a blasted liar.”

Lance nodded. “I figure that I’m going to get acquainted with that somebody right after supper. I’ll bet he doesn’t do any cactus digging at night—though he may have other activities. That’s something I’m aiming to find out with no more waste of time.”

VII Guns and Mezcal Buttons

It was shortly after six o’clock that evening when a worried-looking Johnny Quinn locked the doors of his station and took his departure, with an already partly depleted bottle of bourbon under his arm. Muttering something under his breath about the sad end of poor Aunt Minnie, he hurried off in the direction of his lodging house to fortify his system against the dread disease that had carried off Aunt Minnie.

The rapidly descending sun touched a line of fire along the high peaks of the Saddlestring Mountains. The crimson line turned to purple, then disappeared altogether. Darkness filled the ravines and hollows, spread swiftly overhead, and night came down. A few stars twinkled into being in the eastern sky, the first vanguard of the millions to follow. Off in the hills a coyote barked suddenly and as suddenly fell silent.

In the Mexican huts and adobe houses across the railroad tracks lights shone from windows, and a smell of cooking food mingled with the fragrant odor of mesquite roots ascending from dozens of chimneys. A door opened here and there and then closed abruptly on soft snatches of conversation in Spanish. Somewhere could be heard the strumming of a guitar. For a time quiet settled on the Mexican district. Then, gradually, as meals were concluded doors commenced to open and close again as small knots of men and girls started walking toward Main Street to end up at Tony’s Saloon or the Mexican Chili Parlor, with dance hall attached, which was located across the street from the sheriff’s office. There weren’t so many lamps burning in the houses now.

One, two, three hours passed. It had grown darker by this time. The moon wasn’t yet up. By twos and threes soft-stepping, white-clothed forms in huge straw sombreros were commencing to cross the railroad tracks, flit silently past the scattered Mexican dwellings and take their steps in the direction of a squat adobe-and-rock building situated on the southern outer fringe of Pozo Verde at the very edge of the open range. The door of the building was locked, so the white-clad figures congregated silently about the building or conversed in low, guttural tones while they waited for the white man who had promised to come.

Chiricahua Herrick, followed by several other men, suddenly took form in the darkness. He jerked out a few low words of greeting in Spanish to the waiting Yaquentes, unlocked the door of the rock-and-adobe building and stepped inside. The Indians made no move to follow. Chiricahua found a bottle with a candle stuck in one end and touched a match flame to the wick, filling the room with soft light. Chiricahua spoke to two of his followers, and burlap sacks were fastened at the two windows of the single-room building which was furnished only with a table and a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs.

Chiricahua went to the doorway. “Johnson,” he said softly, “you and Ordway stay out there and keep those Injuns quiet. Tell ’em they won’t have to wait long and keep your eyes peeled to tip us off if anything goes wrong—though I don’t reckon it will. Anvil should be along pretty soon.”

He shut the door and sat down at the table. George Kilby took a chair by his side, and Bert Ridge found a seat on the floor with his back to the wall. Cigarettes were rolled and lighted.

Chiricahua said, “George, where’d you put that box?”

“Right behind you,” Kilby said, “where it will be within easy reach.”

Herrick laughed a bit uneasily. “For a moment I thought you’d forgotten it.”

“Not that box,” Kilby stated definitely. “I might have forgotten one in the past, but that damn box of buttons caused us too much trouble to be forgotten easy.”

“By Jeez!” Ridge commented. “That was once we nearly got caught. That damned Bowman would have had us dead to rights——”

“That reminds me.” Chiricahua Herrick frowned. “I think that blasted Oscar Perkins has something in mind——”

“If it’s anything but lemon drops”—Kilby grinned—“I’ll be a heap surprised.”

“Don’t you grade Perkins down none.” Herrick frowned. “That deputy has more sense than we give him credit for, unless”—he paused suddenly, struck by a new idea—“unless that Tolliver hombre is back of it——”