Crossroads (17 page)

I
t was as if the spirit of a metropolitan city had descended upon Double Bend. Men, women, and children walked down the crooked street with quick steps as though each one had a business destination, a thing hitherto unprecedented, for usually the pedestrians loitered along, resting between steps, and even the horses trotted through the streets with shambling feet and hanging heads. Stranger still, the activity increased as evening approached. It was, indeed, as if Double Bend were that section of Broadway where the crowds of pleasure-seekers begin to swarm out at a certain late hour in the day, wakening as the sun sets.

So it was with Double Bend. Everyone in the town was on the streets. They gathered here and there in groups. There was a buzzing murmur like the swarming of many hives—the lowered voices of excited men. The cigarettes of the Mexicans, as the gloom of evening began, no longer hung pendant from their lips, requiring continual relighting, but now they glowed like live coals. As the light of day diminished the fire of the cigarettes made a halo on every dark, lean face.

The Mexicans were stirred up about something. The whites could not understand, and they consulted Marshal Phil Glasgow. He advised them to get inside their houses early and to keep guns handy. There might be hell to pay that night, but what was in the air he could not tell.

They followed the advice of Phil Glasgow, who was a prophet of some repute when it came to trouble. The result was that the complexion of the crowd waxed browner and browner after sunset. And then—as if at a preconcerted signal—the crowd drifted toward the center of the town. Numerous flasks had appeared from some quarter, and now they were distributed from hand to hand. One or two more industrious drinkers were already unsteady on their feet. The majority still carried a thirst, edged like a knife. The murmurs grew louder and louder. A rumor sprang up out of the earth that a white man had killed a Mexican on the outskirts of Double Bend. Some loud voices called for immediate vengeance. Others quieted them with the suggestion that there was something to be done right there in the heart of the town. Other rumors went the rounds—quickly—leaping from lip to lip, and leaving a sting of poison behind. Nothing human travels faster than rumor. It seems to be breathed in with the air.

The crowd began to grow more compacted. Finally it was almost impossible to cross any of the streets opening on the little square at one end of which the jail stood. It was at this time, just as the last glow of the sunset was fading, that a woman appeared on horse back, working her way toward the jail, and leading another horse of extraordinary size. She was stopped by the thickness of the crowd, and someone swung a lantern and flashed it in her face.

There was a cry: “She is all right. The daughter of El Tigre. The man who took the
gringo
. Let her pass.”

As if by magic, the crowd melted away before her, and she started at a walk down the square. Almost at the same instant, at an opposite point on the square, someone recognized El Tigre. The Indian walked wrapped to the eyes in a large blanket. He strove to escape from the
throng, but they stopped him, cheering. It was the first time perhaps in the history of the Southwest that a Yaqui had been cheered by Mexicans. But to them he was the captor of Dix Van Dyck first and a Yaqui second. They slipped flasks of whiskey and mescal into his hands. They bid him to supper.

He replied with grunts and continued to work his way among them with the agility of a snake, wriggling through tall grass. He also came to the open space around the jail and went directly toward it. The door was open, and deep in the hall paced the jailer, nervous and pale of face. He had been drinking to support his courage, and at sight of El Tigre he shrank back against the wall and raised his lantern for a surer view of the visitor.

The Indian held back the end of his blanket long enough to show his face, whereat the jailer lowered his lantern with a sigh of relief.

“I have come to see
Señor
Van Dyck,” he said.

“From Oñate?” asked the jailer softly.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not to be the crowd? You’re going to do the work, and they’re going to take the credit, eh?”

The Indian, who only vaguely understood this, shrugged his shoulders and grunted.

“Go ahead,” said the jailer, handing over both key and lantern, “and remember that I haven’t seen you come in. That’s all. Down those steps…open the door at the end, and at the foot of the second flight you find the bars of Van Dyck.
Adiós
.”

He raised his flask to his lips with a shudder. The Indian had already veiled his face with his blanket and started down the first flight of steps to the basement. After he had opened the last door, he paused, as Dolores had done before him, and stared into the dark, scenting
the light, disagreeable odor. His eyes brightened ominously as he descended that flight of steps. He raised his lantern at the foot of the stairs and, looking past the bars, saw the grim face of Van Dyck. He uncovered his face again.

“It is time,” said El Tigre.

“Ah,” said the captive, rearing his great height behind the bars, “they’ve sent the bloodhound again, eh?”

“The heart of El Tigre has been sick,” said the Yaqui, “and he has thought of his white brother.
Señor
Oñate is a dog and the son of a dog. To him also El Tigre owes his life, but shall a dog receive a price? No, El Tigre has come to his white brother. Outside the jail the Mexicans are gathered. They are hungry for
Señor
Van Dyck. Therefore, I have come.”

He unlocked the door of the cell and opened it wide. Dix Van Dyck stepped out and stretched his arms above his head.

“A square-shooter,” he said. “El Tigre, your heart’s white. D’you know the way to get out of this hell hole?”

The Indian raised his hand for silence. From the distance above them came a low mutter like the growl of a watchdog, but even a moment’s perception showed that the sound came from many human throats.

“That is bad,” said El Tigre simply.

“It is,” nodded Dix Van Dyck. “I’ve heard it before. The Mexicans have been drinking, El Tigre?”

“It is true.”

“They’re going to rush the jail and get me?”

“It is true. They would lead you from the town and build a fire of mesquite in the hills and burn you…slowly.”

Van Dyck shuddered violently, and then a fire burned up in his eyes. His captivity had increased his gauntness but had hardly weakened him. With his unshaven face
and his hollow, lighted eyes, he might have stood for the picture of a gigantic madman, a Titan ready to wage war against Jove.

“They’re waitin’ for me, El Tigre,” he said. “Let’s go to meet ’em. I’m hungry, El Tigre. I haven’t eaten for a month.”

The face of the Indian lighted with a smile of infinite grimness. “El Tigre also,” he said in his smooth Spanish, “has many debts to pay to the Mexicans. He thinks that the time has come. But we must have teeth before we can fight.”

He threw down his blanket and exposed around his waist two belts, each with two revolvers suspended from the holsters. One of these he offered to Van Dyck, who buckled it about him instantly.

“And now?” said El Tigre softly.

“Wait,” answered Van Dyck. “I’d rather be with a man I don’t know than a gun I’ve never fingered.” He whipped out the revolvers and balanced them in either hand. Then he spun the cylinders—pushed them open—glanced at the action. “They fit my hands like they were made to order,” he announced as he shoved them back into the holsters. “Hark to ’em roaring, El Tigre! The dogs! They don’t dream we’re coming to feed ’em fat in another way than they think.” He stopped with his foot on the stair. “But you can’t go with me, El Tigre. Start out first and get safely from the jail. Then I’ll follow you. This isn’t your battle. You’ve done your share, giving me a fighting chance.”

“My white brother forgets,” said El Tigre. “He gave me my life even when his hands were empty. His honor could not be bought even by freedom. El Tigre, too, has a strong heart. He has a price to pay. He will fight at the side of his white brother. It is well.”

“You hear me talk,” said Van Dyck with profound emotion.
“El Tigre, when we get past this mess, we’ll team it together. For a pal, you’ll find me straight. Gimme your hand!”

The hand of the Indian closed hard over his.

“It is true,” said El Tigre, “the spirit of El Tigre will follow his white brother, but his body shall lie on the street of Double Bend to night, trampled by many feet with blood on his mouth.”

“By God!” said Van Dyck. “It isn’t possible!”

“It is true,” said the Indian. “It shall be my last fight.”

“You’re thinking on a cold trail,” said Van Dyck. “Buck up, El Tigre. We’ll go through the Mexicans like a hot knife through butter. They can’t stand close work, and I know how to play ’em. Die? Man, you’ll live to a hundred.”

“No,” said the Indian, “there is no heart in El Tigre for living. Those he has loved have turned from him again. Those he would have kept as clean as the white snow have fallen in mud and grown black. He has lived alone, but he has lived long enough. He has found a man. He has found a white brother.” He stiffened, and his head went back. Delirium lighted his eyes. “He has been a lone wolf. He has gone where no men have gone. He has been the tiger in the night. He has come without noise and killed, and without noise he has departed. Nothing has loved him, but there is nothing that has not feared him. El Tigre would rather be feared than loved. He is the tiger in the night. He is the lone wolf who hunts without giving voice on the trail. He will die with his teeth in the throat of his enemy. The Great Spirit shall lean from the clouds to welcome El Tigre when he dies. It is true. El Tigre has spoken.”

He pointed above him with a stiff finger. “The dog pack howls. White brother, let us go to them.”

T
hey passed quickly through the basement and up the stairs to the main floor of the jail. At the entrance to the corridor at the end of which the gate of the jail stood—wide to the night—El Tigre touched the shoulder of his companion.

“The jailer,” he said, “sits in a chair down the hall. He is waiting for the dog pack. El Tigre will go to him and whisper in his ear. If El Tigre should miss his spring, his white brother must know that the daughter of El Tigre sits on a horse at the side of the square, to the left from the door. She holds another horse also, very tall. It is the horse of
Señor
Van Dyck.”

“Good,” nodded Van Dyck.

El Tigre stepped out into the hall and walked with a swift step down toward the jailer. At the end of the hall the jailer, waiting with beating heart for the coming of the mob, had so far fortified himself against the crisis that he was now past the stage of any fear. He raised his flask to his lips again and then leaned back in his chair. As El Tigre reached him, a patter of feet began, and the jailer sprang up. He stared back at the sight of El Tigre.

“For God’s sake, they are coming!” he cried. “Protect me, El Tigre.”

“It is true,” said the Indian. “El Tigre is thirsty.”

He took the flask from the hand of the unfortunate jailer, raised it toward his lips, and then completed the
movement by swinging it sharply to the right. It struck the head of the jailer, crashed in a thousand pieces. After he had stared a stupid second at the tall form of the Indian, the Mexican sank in a formless heap on the floor. At the same instant the night beyond the open door was black with faces—black, for every man wore a mask.

“Now!” cried El Tigre, and Dix Van Dyck leaped into the hall.

First to enter the hall and leaders of the mob were the tall form of García and a stocky man beside him. They carried rifles. As for those behind the leaders, the majority brought no weapons whatever. The word had been passed by García that weapons were not wanted at this festival. All that was needed would be numbers to conceal identity, for a hundred men might do safely what six would never risk. Moreover, if many were armed, there would be great chances that one of them would send a bullet into the captive before he could be taken to the fire.

For these and other reasons García had issued his suggestion about arms, and the majority had followed his order. They had expected a helpless captive. Instead, they saw the most feared man on the range before them, armed to the teeth. Yet they were courageous men and quick with their weapons. In spite of the unnerving surprise, they jerked their weapons to their shoulder and fired. Both shots were wild. Van Dyck, standing tall and confident with the courage of the desperado who dares not miss, fired twice in return.

García sank to the floor without a word, but his squat, broad-shouldered companion tore at his face with both hands and staggered back through the open door, screaming horribly. He had been shot through the mouth. His fall back blocked the way of those behind and threw them into confusion. They had not dreamed of resistance.

Before they could recover, the Indian was at the door. He leaped low—among their very legs—and, dropping his revolver, he swung his heavy knife and buried it to the hilt again and again. Shrieks answered him, shrieks and the beginning of a panic. Those behind halted, dumbfounded at the check. Those in front swirled back with the picture of red death before them. Then the bull-like bellow of Dix Van Dyck ran on them like thunder, and the big man leaped through the door into their midst, a gun barking in each hand. Firing into that compacted swarm, the bullets could not miss. They ploughed their way through solid walls of flesh.

Shrieking rose to a ghastly crescendo. Those in front turned their backs on the horror in mad terror and fought to dive into the safety of the mob. They made a barrier of flesh through which it was impossible for those behind to fire effectively at Van Dyck or the Indian. They began to brandish knives and revolvers over their heads—the few that had them—and shots were fired wildly in the air.

Van Dyck loaded his guns again and emptied them a second time. Then he sprang like a Norseman, gone berserk with fighting madness, on the backs of all the fugitives. He used the barrels of his revolvers as heavy clubs, and in his strong hands every blow nearly brought down a man.

Not that they all fled blindly. There were brave men in that crowd, though all were at first unnerved by the unexpected attack. Here and there men began to turn—fire—or raise a knife. But they met either the bullet of Van Dyck or the deadly steel of the Indian. El Tigre was drunk with delight. He leaped here and there like a leaf jerked about by a crazy wind that blows from all directions. Wherever he leaped, he struck, and whenever he struck, he yelled in a way that curdled the blood and rose over the confused raging of the crowd.

The gigantic white man fought with his lips writhed back from set teeth, and through set teeth he laughed continually—a strange, ghastly sound. He broke the barrel of one gun, and then he threw them both aside and fought with his bare fists—weapons scarcely less terrible, for though they might not kill, they drove out with the force of pistons, and, where they struck, men groaned and fell.

It was one of these who had fallen who recovered his senses almost at once and, raising himself on his belly with his hands, saw the two destroyers, raging on the heels of the crowd that gave back in a rapidly widening semicircle. A thousand strange deeds had been performed, and yet the entire fight had covered only a small space of seconds. He saw them fleeing, struggling to get away from the nameless danger behind them. The little man noted that there were only two who drove so many. He noted that, and it gave him courage. His throat was burning with a recent draught of mescal. So he drew a long-bladed jackknife and, running low like a four-footed animal, came behind El Tigre in the midst of his work, leaped into the air, and smote the Indian in the middle of the back to the full length of his blade. The Indian turned and struck at his assailant, but the knife dropped from his hand. He coughed blood and fell forward on his face.

That was the turning point of the battle. The vast majority were fleeing. There remained only the armed men who had the courage to fight. These now turned their faces and rushed at Dix Van Dyck. A dozen shots whirred past him, but his thought was vengeance for El Tigre. It was not long in coming. The little man who had struck the blow came again and leaped once more into the air, like a cat. In the midst of his leap the piston-rod arm of Van Dyck plunged out and met him in the face. The blow smashed his nose and gashed his cheek. He went back
as though recoiling from a spring and landed, head-first, on the ground.

A fury was on Van Dyck—a frenzy that trebled his enormous natural strength. For he caught up the fallen man by the heels, whirled him high over his head, and cast him into the faces of his foes. It checked them. It sent their shots wild, but the life of Van Dyck was limited to a matter of seconds when something like Providence struck for him. It was Dolores. At first she saw only a confused mass of struggling figures as the two men plunged out of the jail and met their assailants. Then the semicircle nearest the door cleared, and she watched the terrible fighting of her father and the big white man. A grim thing but glorious to the wild heart of Dolores. She had stood in her stirrups and yelled her delight. Now she saw the crowd surge back against the two men, saw her father struck down from behind, saw Van Dyck smite down the slayer, and then cast the senseless body in the faces of the crowd.

At that deed her blood drove from her heart to her brain. She swung the head of her horse about, looped the reins of the great charger of Dix Van Dyck over the pommel of her saddle. Driving the rowels of her spurs deep into the flanks of her own tall horse, she galloped against the fighters. She caught her own rein over the crook of her arm, snatched out her two revolvers, and fired blindly to left and right, yelling at the top of her shrill voice.

It was too much for the courage of the crowd. Already they saw the ground before them littered with the bodies of dead, wounded, and stunned men. There were some among them who had already felt the knife of El Tigre or the fist of Dix Van Dyck. At this sudden onslaught from the side, they raised a shout of dismay and split before the coming of Dolores like water before the prow of a ship.

Into the mass she drove. Her horse, rearing, struck out in a panic of terror, and men went down before those ponderous, armed hoofs. She felt the horse reel and stagger as his hoofs sank in something horribly soft—and then there stood before her only the bloody figure of Dix Van Dyck.

The tearing hands of a hundred men had rent his shirt from his back. He stood naked to the waist, splashed with crimson, his hands red as a butcher where he had taken a wounded man by the throat. He gave her a yell of welcome and, without touching the pommel, leaped into his saddle and caught his reins from Dolores.

“Now!” he cried. “Now, now!”

There were new guns in the holsters of his saddle. Dolores had seen to that. And with the yelling Indian girl at his side, he galloped straight through the crowd, firing to right and left among the last of the panic-stricken fugitives. Men melted away before them. The road stretched suddenly bare and blank. They thundered away into the thick heart of the night.