The clerk was cynical. “That’s how these Yaquis live, sir. I mean the outfit that hang around the fort.” He paused. “I’ve often thought we should recruit them, sir, train them into good soldiers. They have the makings.”
“Bloodthirsty savages.”
“Some of them.”
The Indian took his money and turned away, and as he did so he saw Dan Rodelo. For an instant their eyes held, the Yaqui recognizing the dislike showing in Rodelo’s eyes, and letting his own gaze travel down over Rodelo’s outfit. For a convict, which the Yaqui knew he was, he was dressed very well. The new boots were polished and shining.
The Indian pointed at them. “I have.” He looked up at Rodelo. “You see. Someday I have.”
“Sorry,” Rodelo replied, “I’m going out the gate. I am free.”
Rodelo walked past the Yaqui and stopped in front of the warden’s desk. Something in Rodelo recognized the warden for what he was, and almost instinctively he stood at attention.
“Well, Rodelo?” The warden studied him for a moment. “You were in the Army?”
“Yes, sir. The Fifth Cavalry, sir.”
The clerk came to the desk with a brown paper sack and placed it before Rodelo. Dan glanced down … the sack contained his possessions, and they were very few. He put them in his pockets without comment, then belted on the holster and gun belt that came with the sack.
The warden took a five-dollar gold piece from a drawer and handed it to Rodelo. “Here’s your discharge money. I am glad to see you leaving here, Rodelo, and I hope you do nothing to bring you back.”
“I’ve had enough, sir.” He hesitated. “It was nothing criminal, when it comes to that.”
“I know. I checked your record.”
The warden seemed reluctant to let him go. “Rodelo, these are trying times. Any time of transition is sure to develop situations that are difficult to handle, but remember that our country is changing. We cannot live by the gun any longer.
“We have settlers coming from the East every day, we have businessmen wanting to invest. We must learn to settle our disputes without gunplay, and we must leave the apprehension of criminals to the law.”
“I know, sir.”
“I hope you do Rodelo, for I think you’re a good man. Stay out of trouble.” He looked directly into Rodelo’s eyes. “And stay away from bad company.”
Dan Rodelo backed off a step, then did an about-face and walked out of the office. He was tight inside with apprehension. Did the warden know something? Yet how could he?
Nevertheless…
The guard who walked beside him signaled for the gate to be opened as they approached it. They paused there briefly.
“I’m glad to see you out of here, Dan,” the guard said.
“Thanks, Turkey. I won’t say I’ll miss it.”
Dan Rodelo nodded his head toward the east. “I’ve got a good horse waiting for me over there.” He turned back. “Want to do something for me?” He took the five-dollar gold piece from his pocket. “This is for you if you’ll tell Joe Harbin I gave it to you.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all.”
Turkey stood in the open gateway watching Rodelo walk down the hill, then he glanced at the gold piece, shrugged, and put it in his pocket. Now what did all that mean? For a moment he considered reporting it to the warden, but on second thought it seemed too trivial. He stepped back and the gates closed behind him.
Thoughtfully, he walked back to the prison yard. Joe Harbin, he knew, would be in the quarry. A prisoner, Turkey was thinking, who could give away five dollars for nothing must be a man who had money—or expected to come into some. And that might be just what he wanted Harbin to know.
It was hot.
Dan Rodelo paused and wiped his hand across his forehead. It was going to be a long walk to the ghost mining town toward which he was headed, and he would be better off to wait until after sundown. He wanted to avoid Yuma, with its curious stares for anyone who came down the hill from the Territorial Prison. It had been a year since they had seen him, and only a glimpse then. He wanted no one remembering him in future years as a man who had done time in Yuma.
He turned off the road and came to the shade of an abandoned adobe, where he sat down to wait for the coolness of the evening. Taking his six-shooter from its holster, he tried the balance of it and checked the loads. The cartridge belt held only eleven loops that were carrying shells. He would need ammunition, and he would need a rifle.
He holstered his pistol and, tilting his hat over his eyes, settled back to rest. It was very hot, but there was a faint breeze from off the river.
As he dozed he remembered the Yaqui in the beat-up old cavalry hat, and for a moment felt a twinge of chill. What was it they said caused that? It was when somebody stepped on your grave.
Two
The prison rock quarry was like an oven. Tom Badger turned the drill for Joe Harbin, who swung the double-jack. It was a heavy sledge hammer, and he swung it viciously, without the easy rhythm of a practiced driller.
“Take it easy, you damn fool!” Badger said irritably. “You miss that drill and I might lose a hand.”
Badger was squatted at the drill in such a way that he could keep an eye on Ferryman, their guard. Tom Badger was an old hand at both rock drilling and prisons, and he knew that a prisoner could not choose his cell mates, nor even those he would include in an escape. Circumstances did that for you, and then you made the best of it.
“I’m doin’ life,” Harbin said, “and that damn Rodelo walkin’ out—just one year! I could do that standin’ on my head.”
“You killed a man to get that payroll.”
Joe Harbin took a fresh grip on the handle of the double-jack. His anger was suddenly gone, and in its place was a cold, careful calculation. “What payroll?”
Badger turned the drill. “That mine payroll. Fifty thousand dollars in gold.”
“You talk too much.”
“It burns you to see Dan walk out of here and pick up that loot,” Badger said.
“He don’t know where I hid it.”
“He’s got a good idea. He told me so. He said when his time was nearly up you’d try to break out and beat him to it, and that’s exactly what you did.”
“What about you?” Harbin said roughly. “You didn’t make it either.”
Badger spat on the ground suddenly, the signal that the guard was turning. Harbin swung the heavy sledge, gathered it and swung again. When the guard had turned back to the other convicts, Badger said quietly, “My break failed when I tried to go it alone. Yours failed because you weren’t smart, but if we had been partners …”
They worked in silence. Finally, Harbin said grudgingly, “You got any ideas?”
“Uh-huh … I’ve got several, and I can make them work, but I need a partner.”
“I’d like to get down to Mexico,” Harbin muttered. “I like them Mexican women.”
“We could pick up that payroll, split it two ways, and—”
“Split? You crazy? D’you think I stood up that payroll to split it with somebody?”
“We’d be partners.”
Joe started to speak again and Tom Badger spat swiftly into the dirt, but Harbin, too irritated to think, spoke out angrily. “Yeah? You think—”
Ferryman was suddenly beside them. “There’ll be no talking here!”
Harbin turned on him, ugly with rage. “You—!”
Ferryman’s reaction was swift. He had handled too many tough cons and he knew what was coming. The butt stroke with his rifle was chopping, vicious, and it caught Harbin coming in. He was knocked to his knees, blood flowing from a split scalp.
Backing off, Ferryman looked at Badger. “What about you?”
“We were havin’ an argument, Ferryman. Don’t blame Joe—the heat got him.”
Ferryman hesitated, but Tom Badger was smiling deprecatingly. “Joe’s feelin’ the heat. He’s Montana-born, y’ know, and can’t take it like you an’ me.”
Mollified, Ferryman stepped back. “All right. I’ll make no report on him this time. But if you’re a friend of his, you keep him in line, d’you hear?” He mopped his forehead. “It is hot, damn it! I can’t scarcely blame him.”
He walked away, and Badger helped Harbin to his feet. The blood was not much more than a trickle, but Harbin was still glassy-eyed. “You saved my bacon,” he said.
“Why not? Ain’t we partners?”
Harbin still hesitated. “What about those ideas you got?”
“I can put you in Mazatlan … with that gold … in ten days.”
“All right—partner.”
“Here,” Badger held out the drill. “You turn the drill. And by all that’s holy, don’t get that guard sore. If they separate us now, I’ll go out of here alone.”