CHAPTER XIV
It was five minutes after Bob Rogeen had gone out of the door beforeReedy Jenkins stirred in his chair. Then he gave his head a viciousjerk and swiped the angling wisp of hair back from his forehead.
"Oh, hell! He can't bluff me."
He sat gritting his teeth, remembering the insulting retorts he mighthave made, slapped his thigh a whack with his open hand in vexationthat he had not made them; got up and walked the floor.
No, he was not afraid of Rogeen, not by a damned sight. Afraid of atwenty-dollar hardware clerk? _Not much!_ He would show him he hadstruck the wrong town and the wrong man for his cheap bluffs. And yetReedy kept remembering a certain expression in Rogeen's eye, a certaintaut look in his muscles. Of course a man of Reedy's reputation didnot want to be mixed up in any brawls. Whatever was done, should bedone smoothly--and safely.
He telephoned for Madrigal, the Mexican Jew. Madrigal could manage it.
While waiting for his agent, Reedy lighted a cigar, but became sobusily engaged with his thoughts that he forgot to puff until it wentout. Jenkins was taking stock of the situation. He had boasted of hisinfluence with the Mexican authorities; but like most boasters he wastalking about the influence he was going to have rather than what hehad. Just now he was not sure he had any pull across the line at all.Of course as a great ranch owner and a very rich man--as he was goingto be inside of three years--he could have great influence. And yet heremembered that the present Mexican Governor of Baja California was anexceedingly competent man. He was shrewd and efficient, and deeplyinterested in the development of his province. Moreover, he wasfriendly to Americans, and seemed to have more than an ordinary senseof justice toward them.
Reedy shook his head. He did not believe he could have much chancewith the Governor--not at present, anyway. But perhaps some minorofficial might help put over his schemes. Anyway, Madrigal would know.
The Mexican Jew came directly, dressed in light flannels, a flower inhis buttonhole. Debonairly he lifted his panama and bowed withexaggerated politeness to Jenkins.
"What great good has Senor Reedy clabbering in his coco now?" Hegrinned impudently.
Jenkins frowned. His dignity was not to be so trifled with.
"Sit down," he ordered.
Reedy relighted his cigar, put his thumbs in his vest holes, and beganslowly puffing smoke toward the ceiling. He liked to keep hissubordinates waiting.
"Madrigal," he said, directly, "I want those two ranches--Chandler'sand Rogeen's."
"_Si, si._" The Mexican nodded shrewdly. "And Senor Jenkins shallhave them."
"We've got to get rid of Rogeen first. Then the other will be easy."
"Et es so, senor," Madrigal said, warmly. He abated Rogeen on his ownaccount, for Senor Madrigal had formed a violent attachment for theSenorita Chandler. And the damned Americano with his fiddle was in theway.
"If," suggested Reedy, smoking slowly, "Rogeen should be induced toleave the country within three weeks--or in case he happened to someaccident so he could not leave at all--we'd make four thousand out ofhis ranch. Half of that would be two thousand."
Madrigal's black eyes narrowed wickedly, and his thick lips rolled upunder his long nose.
"Mexico, senor, is the land of accidents."
"All right, Madrigal," Reedy waved dismissal and turned to his desk andbegan to figure--or pretend to figure.
The Mexican turned in the door, looked back on the bulky form ofJenkins, started to speak, grinned wickedly, and went down the outsidestairway.
On the evening of the third of August Bob came in from the fields andprepared his own supper. Since the arrest of his Chinamen a few weeksbefore Rogeen had not employed any other help. The cotton cultivationwas over, and he and Noah could manage the irrigation. The hill billyhad gone to town early in the afternoon, and would return directly tothe Chandler ranch where he was still on guard at nights. Bob believedhis warning to Jenkins had stopped all further molestation, but he wasnot willing to take any chances--at least not with Imogene Chandler.
Bob had been irrigating all day and was dead tired. After supper hesat in front of his shack as usual to cool a little before turning in.The day had been the hottest of the summer, and now at eight o'clock itwas still much over a hundred.
In that heat there is little life astir even in the most luxuriantfields. It was still to-night--scarcely the croak of a frog or thenote of a bird. There was no moon, but in the deep, vast, clear spacesof the sky the stars burned like torches held down from the heavens. Awind blew lightly, but hot off the fields. The weeds beside theditches shook slitheringly, and the dry grass roof of the shack rustled.
To be the centre of stillness, to be alone in a vast space, eithercrushes one with loneliness or gives him an unbounded exhilaration.To-night Bob felt the latter sensation. It seemed instead of being asmall, lost atom in a swirling world, he was a part of all this lambentstarlight; this whispering air of the desert.
He breathed slowly and deeply of the dry, clean wind, rose, andstretched his tired muscles, and turned in. So accustomed had hebecome to the heat that scarcely had he stretched out on the cot beforehe was asleep. And Bob was a sound sleeper. The sides of the shackwere open above a three-foot siding of boards, open save for a mosquitonetting. An old screen door was set up at the front, but Bob had noteven latched that. If one was in danger out here, he was simply indanger, that was all, for there was no way to hide from it.
A little after midnight two Mexicans crept along on all-fours betweenthe cotton rows at the edge of Bob's field. At the end of the rows,fifty yards from the shack, they crouched on their haunches andlistened. The wind shook the tall rank cotton and rustled the weedsalong the ditches. But no other sound. Nothing was stirring anywhere.
Bending low and walking swiftly they slipped toward the back of theshack. Their eyes peered ahead and they slipped with their hearts intheir throats, trusting the Americano was asleep.
He was. As they crouched low behind the shelter of the three-foot wallof boards they could hear his breathing. He was sound asleep.
Slowly, on hands and knees, they crawled around the west side towardthe entrance. In the right hand of the one in front was the dull glintof a knife. The other held a revolver.
Cautiously the one ahead tried the screen door--pushing it open an inchor two. It was unlatched. Motioning for the other to stand by thedoor, he arose, pushed the door back with his left hand very slowly soas not to make a squeak. In the right he held the knife.
Bob stirred in his sleep and turned on the cot. The Mexican stoodmotionless, ready to spring either way if he awoke. But the steadybreathing of a sound sleeper began again.
The Mexican let the door to softly and took one quick step toward thebed.
Then with a wild, blood-curdling yell he fell on the floor. Somethingfrom above had leaped on him, something that enveloped him, thatgrappled with him. He went down screaming and stabbing like a madman.His companion at the door fired one shot in the air, dropped his gun,and ran as if all the devils in hell were after him.
The commotion awoke Bob. Instantly he sat up in bed, and as he rose hereached for a gun with one hand and a flashlight with the other. In aninstant the light was in the Mexican's face--and the gun also.
"Hold up your hands, Madrigal." Bob's tone brought swift obedience.Around the Mexican and on him were the ripped and torn fragments of adummy man--made of a sack of oats, with flapping arms and a tangle ofropes. Bob had not felt sure but some attempt might be made on hislife, and half in jest and half as a precaution, he and Noah had putthis dummy overhead with a trip rope just inside the door. They knewthe fright of something unexpected falling on an intruder would be moreeffective than a machine gun.
"Get up," Bob ordered, and the shaken Madrigal staggered to his feet,with his hands held stiffly straight up. "March out." Rogeen'sdecision had come quickly. He followed with the gun in close proximityto the Mexican's back.
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p; Madrigal was ordered to pick up a hoe and a shovel, and then wasmarched along the water ditch toward the back of the field.
"Here." Bob ordered a stop. They were half a mile from the road, atthe edge of the desert. The Mexican had recovered enough from hisfirst fright to feel the cold clutch of another, surer danger. "Dig,"ordered Bob. And the Mexican obeyed. "About two feet that way." Bobsat down on the bank of the water ditch and kept the digger covered."Make it seven feet long," he ordered, coldly.
Slowly Madrigal dug and shovelled, and slowly but surely as the thingtook shape, he saw what it was--a grave. His grave!
He glared wildly about as he paused for a breath.
"Hurry," came the insistent command.
Another shovelful, and he glanced up at the light. But the muzzle ofthe gun was level with the light! A wrong move and he knew the thingwould be over even before the grave was done.
For an hour he worked. Off there at the edge of the desert, this gravelevelled as a part of the cotton field--and no one would ever find it.His very bones seemed to sweat with horror. Was the American going tobury him alive? Or would he shoot him first?
All the stealth and cruelty he had ever felt toward others now turnedin on himself, and a horror that filled him with blind, wild terror ofthat hollow grave shook him until he could no longer dig. He stoodthere in front of the flashlight blanched and shaking.
"That will do," said Rogeen. "Madrigal," he put into that word all thestill terror of a cool courage, "that is your grave."
For a full moment he paused. "You will stay out of it just as long asyou stay off my land--out of reach of my gun. Don't ever even pass theroad by my place.
"Your boss has had his warning. This is yours. That grave will stayopen, day and night, waiting for you.
"Good-night, Senor Madrigal. Go fast and don't look back."
The last injunction was entirely superfluous.
After the night had swallowed up the fleeing figure Bob rolled on thebank and laughed until his ribs ached.
"No more oat sacks for Senor Madrigal! I wonder who the other onewas--and what became of him?"