The Ridin' Kid from Powder River

  CHAPTER XXI

  BOCA DULZURA

  Just before dawn Pete became conscious that some one was sitting nearhim and occasionally bathing his head with cool water. He tried to situp. A slender hand pushed him gently back. "It is good that yourest," said a voice. The room was dark--he could not see--but he knewthat Boca was there and he felt uncomfortable. He was not accustomedto being waited upon, especially by a woman.

  "Where's Malvey?" he asked.

  "I do not know. He is gone."

  Again Pete tried to sit up, but sank back as a shower of fiery dotswhirled before his eyes. He realized that he had been hit prettyhard--that he could do nothing but keep still just then. The hot painsubsided as the wet cloth again touched his forehead and he drifted tosleep. When he awakened at midday he was alone.

  He rose, and steadying himself along the wall, finally reached thedoorway. Old Flores was working in the distant garden-patch. Beyondhim, Boca and her mother were pulling beans. Pete stepped out dizzilyand glanced toward the corral. His horse was not there.

  Pete was a bit hasty in concluding that the squalid drama of theprevious evening (the cringing girl, the drunkenly indifferent father,and the malevolent Malvey) had been staged entirely for his benefit.The fact was that Malvey had been only too sincere in his boorishnesstoward Boca; Flores equally sincere in his indifference, and Bocaherself actually frightened by the turn Malvey's drink had taken. Thatold Flores had knocked Pete out with a bottle was the one andextravagant act that even Malvey himself could hardly have anticipatedhad the whole miserable affair been prearranged. In his drunkenstupidity Flores blindly imagined that the young stranger was the causeof the quarrel.

  Pete, however, saw in it a frame-up to knock him out and make away withhis horse. And back of it all he saw The Spider's craftily flung webthat held him prisoner, afoot and among strangers. "They worked itslick," he muttered.

  Boca happened to glance up. Pete was standing bareheaded in the noonsunlight. With an exclamation Boca rose and hastened to him. YoungPete's eyes were sullen as she begged him to seek the shade of theportal.

  "Where's my horse?" he challenged, ignoring her solicitude.

  She shook her head. "I do not know. Malvey is gone."

  "That's a cinch! You sure worked it slick."

  "I do not understand."

  "Well, I do."

  Pete studied her face. Despite his natural distrust, he realized thatthe girl was innocent of plotting against him. He decided to confidein her--even play the lover if necessary--and he hated pretense--to winher sympathy and help; for he knew that if he ever needed a friend itwas now.

  Boca steadied him to the bench just outside the doorway, and fetchedwater. He drank and felt better. Then she carefully unrolled thebandage, washed the clotted blood from the wound and bound it up again.

  "It is bad that you come here," she told him.

  "Well, I got one friend, anyhow," said Pete.

  "Si, I am your friend," she murmured.

  "I ain't what you'd call hungry--but I reckon some coffee would kind ofstop my head from swimmin' round," suggested Pete.

  "Si, I will get it."

  Pete wondered how far he could trust the girl--whether she would reallyhelp him or whether her kindness were such as any human being wouldextend to one injured or in distress--"same as a dog with his legbroke," thought Pete. But after he drank the coffee he ceased worryingabout the future and decided to take things an they came and make thebest of them.

  "Perhaps it is that you have killed a man?" ventured Boca, curious toknow why he was there.

  Pete hesitated, as he eyed her sharply. There seemed to be no motivebehind her question other than simple curiosity. "I've put better menthan Malvey out of business," he asserted.

  Boca eyed him with a new interest. She had thought that perhaps thisyoung senor had but stolen a horse or two--a most natural inference inview of his recent associate. So this young vaquero was a boy in yearsonly?--and outlawed! No doubt there was a reward for his capture.Boca had lightly fancied Young Pete the evening before; but now shefelt a much deeper interest. She quickly cautioned him to say nothingto her father about the real reason for his being there. Rather Petewas to say, if questioned, that he had stolen a horse about whichMalvey and he had quarreled.

  Pete scowled. "I'm no low-down hoss-thief!" he flared.

  Boca smiled. "Now it is that I know you have killed a man!"

  Pete was surprised that the idea seemed to please her.

  "But my father"--she continued--"he would sell you--for money. So itis that you will say that you have stolen a horse."

  "I reckon he would,"--and Pete gently felt the back of his head. "SoI'll tell him like you say. I'm dependin' a whole lot on you--to gitme out of this," he added.

  "You will rest," she told him, and turned to go back to her work. "Iam your friend," she whispered, pausing with her finger to her lips.

  Pete understood and nodded.

  So far he had done pretty well, he argued. Later, when he felt able toride, he would ask Boca to find a horse for him. He knew that theremust be saddle-stock somewhere in the canon. Men like Flores alwayskept several good horses handy for an emergency. Meanwhile Petedetermined to rest and gain strength, even while he pretended that hewas unfit to ride. When he _did_ leave, he would leave in a hurry andbefore old Flores could play him another trick.

  For a while Pete watched the three figures puttering about thebean-patch. Presently he got up and stepped into the house, drank somecoffee, and came out again. He sat down on the bench and took mentalstock of his own belongings. He had a few dollars in silver, hiserratic watch, and his gun. Suddenly he bethought him of his saddle.The sun made his head swim as he stepped out toward the corral. Yes,his saddle and bridle hung on the corral bars, just where he had leftthem. He was about to return to the shade of the portal when henoticed the tracks of unshod horses in the dust. So old Flores hadother horses in the canon? Well, in a day or so Pete would show theMexican a trick with a large round hole in it--the hole representingthe space recently occupied by one of his ponies. Incidentally Peterealized that he was getting deeper and deeper into the meshes of TheSpider's web--and the thought spurred him to a keener vigilance. Sofar he had killed three men actually in self-defense. But when he metup with Malvey--and Pete promised himself that pleasure--he would notwait for Malvey to open the argument. "Got to kill to live," he toldhimself. "Well, I got the name--and I might as well have the game.It's nobody's funeral but mine, anyhow." He felt, mistakenly, that hisfriends had all gone back on him--a condition of mind occasioned by hismisfortunes rather than by any logical thought, for at that very momentJim Bailey was searching high and low for Pete in order to tell himthat Gary was not dead--but had been taken to the railroad hospital atEnright, operated on, and now lay, minus the fragments of three or fourribs, as malevolent as ever, and slowly recovering from a wound thathad at first been considered fatal.

  Young Pete was not to know of this until long after the knowledge couldhave had any value in shaping his career. Bailey, with two of his men,traced Pete as far as Showdown, where the trail went blind, ending withThe Spider's apparently sincere assertion that he knew nothing whateverof Peters whereabouts.

  Paradoxically, those very qualities which won him friends now kept Petefrom those friends. The last place toward which he would have chosento ride would have been the Concho--and the last man he would haveasked for help would have been Jim Bailey. Pete felt that he was doingpretty well at creating trouble for himself without entangling his bestfriends.

  "Got to kill to live," he reiterated.

  "Como 'sta, senor?" Old Flores had just stepped from behind thecrumbling 'dobe wall of the stable.

  "Well, it ain't your fault I ain't a-furnishin' a argument for thecoyotes."

  "The senor would insult Boca. He was drunk," said Flores.

  "Hold on there! Don't you go cantelopin' off with any little ole idealike that sew
ed up in your hat. _Which_ senor was drunk?"

  Flores shrugged his shoulders. "Who may say?" he half-whined.

  "Well, I can, for one," asserted Pete. "_You_ was drunk and _Malvey_was drunk, and the two of you dam' near fixed me. But that don'tcount--now. Where's my hoss?"

  "Quien sabe?"

  "You make me sick," said Pete in English. Flores caught the word"sick" and thought Pete was complaining of his physical condition.

  "The senor is welcome to rest and get well. What is done is done, andcannot be mended. But when the senor would ride, I can find a horse--agood horse and not a very great price."

  "I'm willin' to pay," said Pete, who thought that he had already prettywell paid for anything he might need.

  "And a good saddle," continued Flores.

  "I'm usin' my own rig," stated Pete.

  "It is the saddle, there, that I would sell to the senor." The oldMexican gestured toward Pete's own saddle.

  Pete was about to retort hastily when he reconsidered. The only way tomeet trickery was with trickery. "All right," he said indifferently."You'll sure get all that is comin' to you."