Smiling with commiseration, Ace Fernandez made his next-to-last gesture in a misspent life. He reached for the pot.
As his eager hands shot out there was a sharp, tearing sound, and the white sleeve of the elder Fernandez ripped loudly, and there snugly against his arm was what is known in the parlance of those aware of such things as a sleeve holdout. In it were several cards, among them the missing nine, ten, and queen.
For one utterly appalling instant Ace Fernandez froze, with what sinking of the heart you can imagine. Then he made the second of his last two gestures. He reached for his gun.
It was, of course, the only thing left to do. Nobody from the Gulf to the Colorado would have denied it. Martin Jim, as we have said, wore a six-gun for use, and moreover he had rather strict notions about the etiquette of such matters as poker.
He looked, he saw, he reached. By the manner of presentation, it must not be inferred that these were separate actions. They were one.
His gun came level just as that of Se@nor Ace Fernandez cleared his holster, and Martin Jim fired twice right across the tabletop.
Lead, received in those proportions andwith that emphasis and range is reliably reported to be indigestible.
The test of any theory is whether it works in practice, and science must record that theory as proved. They buried Se@nor Ace Fernandez with due ceremony, his full house pinned to his chest over the ugly blotch of blood, the torn sleeve and holdout still in evidence. If, in some distant age, his body is exhumed for scientific study, no poker player will look twice to ascertain the cause of death.
Now, as we have said, the Cactus Kid was giving no thought to the abrupt departure of Ace Fernandez, nor to the manner of his going. Nor did he think much about the fact that he might be considered a responsible party. The Kid was largely concerned with random thoughts anent the beauty and the grace of Bess O’ationeal, the Irish and very pretty daughter of the ranching O’ationeals, from beyond the Pecos.
It was the night of the big dance at Rock Creek School, and Bess had looked with favor on his suggestion that he meet her at the dance and ride home with her. What plans were projected for the ride home have no part in this story. It is enough to say the Kid was enjoying the anticipation.
Twice, the Kid had agreed to meet Bess, and twice events had intervened. Once he had inadvertently interrupted a stage holdup and in the resulting exchange of comments had picked up a bullet in the thigh. Not a serious wound, but a painful one, so painful that he missed the dance and almost missed the funerals of the two departed stage robbers.
On the second occasion, someone had jestingly dared the Kid to rope a mountain lion. The Cactus Kid had never roped a lion and was scientifically interested in the possibilities. Also, he never refused a dare. He got a line on the cat, but the cat reversed himself in midair, hit the ground on its feet, and left the ground in that same breathtaking instant, taking a leap that put him right in the middle of the Kid’s horse.
It is a scientifically accepted fact that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time, and the resulting altercation, carried on while the frightened horse headed for the brush at a dead run, left the Kid a bedraggled winner.
His shirt was gone and he was smeared, head to foot with mingled lion and human blood. The Kid had handled the mountain lion with a razor-edged bowie knife, and regardless of their undoubted efficiency, they simply aren’t neat.
Accordingly, Bess O’ationeal, with Irish temper and considerable flashing of eyes and a couple of stamps of a dainty foot, had said he either must arrive on hand and in one piece or no more dates. Should he be in no condition to dance with her, he could go his way and she would go hers.
Hence, the Cactus Kid, wearing a black buckskin jacket heavily ornamented with silver, black-pearl inlaid gunbelt and holsters, black creased trousers, highly polished boots and a black, silver-ornamented sombrero, was bound for Rock Creek School.
His gelding, a beautiful piebald with a dark nose and one blue eye, stepped daintily along doing his best to live up to his resplendent master as well as to the magnificent saddle and bridle he wore.
These last had been created to order for Don Pedro Bedoya, of the Sonora Bedoyas, and stolen from him by one Sam Mawson, known to the trade as “One Gun” Mawson.
Mawson decided they would look best on the Kid’s horse, and attempted to effect an exchange by trading a bullet in the head for the horse. He failed to make allowances for an Irishman’s skull, and the bullet merely creased the Kid, who came to just as Mawson completed the job of exchanging saddles and was about to mount. The Cactus Kid spoke, Mawson wheeled and drew … One Gun was not enough.
The outlaw’s taste, the Kid decided, was better than his judgment. He departed the scene astride a one-thousand-dollar saddle.
With Rock Creek School a bare six miles away where Bess O’ationeal would be looking her most lovely, the Cactus Kid, a gorgeous picture of what every young cowhand would wear if he had money enough, rode along with a cheerful heart and his voice lifted in song.
“Lobo” Fernandez was big, rough, and ugly. He had loved his brother Ace—but then, Lobo never played poker with him. With Miguel, a younger brother, he waited beside the road. Someone had noticed and commented on that deft movement of the Kid’s fingers that foretold the demise of Ace, and then, Lobo had never liked the Kid, anyway.
Out in the West, where men are men and guns are understood, even the bravest of men stand quiet when an enemy has the drop. The Kid was a brave man, but Lobo and Miguel Fernandez, two men on opposite sides of the road, had the drop on him, and clearly the situation called for arbitration.
He reined in the piebald andfor one heart-sinking, hopeless instant he realized this was the third and last chance given him by Bess O’ationeal.
“Buenas noches, se@nores!” he said politely. “You go to the dance?”
“No!” Lobo was more emphatic than the occasion demanded. “We have wait for you. We have a leetle bet, Miguel and I, he bet the ants finish you before the buzzards. I say the buzzards weel do it first.”
The Cactus Kid studied them warily. Neither gun wavered. If he moved he was going to take two big lead slugs through the brisket. “Let’s forget it, shall we? The dance will be more fun. Besides, ants bother me.”
There was no humor in the clan Fernandez. With hands bound behind him, and one Fernandez six feet on his left, another a dozen feet behind, the Cactus Kid rode away.
He knew what they planned, for the mention of ants was enough. It is a quaint old Yaqui custom to bind a victim to an anthill, and the Fernandez brothers had been suspected of just such action on at least two occasions. On one of these the Kid had helped to remove from the hill before the ants finished the body. It had been a thoroughly unpleasant and impressive sight.
The moon he had planned for Bess
(by special arrangement) was undeniably
gorgeous, the lonely ridges and stark boulders
of the desert seemed a weird and fantastic
landscape on some distant planet as the Cactus
Kid rode down a dim trail guided
by Lobo. Once, topping a rise, he
glimpsed the distant lights of Rock Creek School, and even thought he heard strains of music.
The trail they followed dipped deep into the canyon of the Agua Prieta and skirted the dark waters of the stream. The Cactus Kid knew then where they were taking him—ffthe old medicine camp of the Yaquis. With the knowledge came an idea.
Suddenly Miguel sneezed, and when he did, his head bobbed to the left.
“Ah!” the Kid said. “Bad luck! Very bad luck!”
“What?” Miguel turned his head to stare at him.
“To sneeze to the left—it’s the worst kind of luck,” the Kid said.
Neither Fernandez replied, yet he had a hunch the comment on the old Yaqui superstition impressed them. He knew it had been a belief of many of the southwestern tribes that if the head bobbed left when one sneezed, it spelled disaster. He had a hunch both men knew the old belief.
“Tsk, tsk,” he said softly.
Miguel shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. The high black cliffso of the canyon loomed above them. Both men, he knew, had been here before. Being part Yaqui, they would be impressed with the evil spirits reported to haunt the old medicine camp of the tribe.