He worked desperately with his cramped fingers, trying to get the rawhide thongs looser. A stone rattled somewhere, and he jumped.
“What was that?” he said, in a startled voice.
Lobo Fernandez looked up, glared at him,
then glanced around uneasily. There was no moonlight here, and nothing could be seen. The Kid’s gun belt hung over the pommel of Lobo’s saddle, andwitha free hand a lot might be done.
“Wait!” he said suddenly, sharply.
The brothers reined in, and he could almost feel
their scowls. “Listen!” he said sharply. Their heads came up with his ^w, and he had a hunch. When one listens for something at night, there is invariably some sound, or seeming sound.
Somewhere, rocks slid, and the canyon seemed to sigh. Lobo shifted uneasily in his saddle, and spoke rapidly to Miguel in Spanish, and Miguel grunted uneasily.
“Ah?” the Cactus Kid said. “You die soon.”
“Huh?” Lobo turned on him.
“You die soon,” the Kid repeated. “The
Old Gods don’t like you bringing me here. I’m no Yaqui. This here is a Yaqui place. A place of the spirits.”
Lobo Fernandez ignored him, but Miguel seemed uneasy. He glanced at his brother as if to speak, then shrugged. The Kid worked at the rawhide thongs. His wrists were growing sweaty from the warmth and the constant straining. If he could get rid of them for a while, or if he had a little more time—
Then suddenly the trail widened and he was in the flat place beside the stream, the place where the Yaquis came, long ago. Once before, chasing wild horses, the Kid had been through here. There was an old altar, Aztec, some said, at the far end in a sort of cave formed by the overhang. The Mexican rider he had been with had been fearful of the place and wanted very much to leave.
“Maybe you die here,” the Kid said. “My spirit say you’ll die soon.”
Lobo snarled at him, and then they halted. About here, the Kid recalled, there was a big anthill. They had certainly brought him to the right place, for no one would ever come by to release him. This was a place never visited by anyone. Probably only two or three white men had ever descended to this point, and yet it was no more than fifteen miles at most from Rock Creek School.
Lobo swung down, and then walked over to the Kid and, reaching up with one big hand, dragged him from the horse. The Kid shoved off hard and let go with all his hundred and forty pounds.
It was unexpected, and Lobo staggered and fell, cursing. Miguel sprang around the horse, and the Kid kicked out viciously with both feet and knocked the younger Fernandez rolling. But the Kid’s success was short-lived.
Lobo sprang to his feet and kicked the Kid viciously in the ribs, and then they dragged him, cursing him all the while, to the anthill. He felt the swell of it under his back. Then, as they bound his feet and Miguel began to drive stakes in the ground, Lobo drew his knife and leaned over him. He made two quick gashes, neither of them deep, in either side of the Kid’s neck.
Then he drew the sharp edge of the knife across the kid’s stomach, making no effort to more than break the skin, and then on either of his ankles, after pulling off his boots. It was just something to draw enough blood to invite the ants. The rest they would accomplish in time, by themselves.
The two brothers drew off then, muttering between themselves. His talk of evil spirits had made them uneasy, he knew, and they kept casting glances toward the cave where the altar stood. Yet there seemed some other reason for their hesitation. They muttered among themselves, and then walked away, seeming to lose interest in him. Yet as they left he heard one ^w clearly above the others: se@norita.
What se@norita? He scowled, still struggling with the thongs that bound his ankles. They were growing slick from perspiration now, and perhaps some blood. The ants had not discovered him, and probably would not until morning brought them out.
He was lying across the anthill, lying on his side. Stakes driven into the ground on either side of his body, but some distance off, tied him in position so he could not roll away. The rawhide thongs binding him to the stakes were tight and strong. Other stakes had been driven into the ground above his head and below his feet. From the stake above his head a noose had been slipped under his jawbone and drawn tight, so his head was all but immovable. His ankles had been roped tight down to the stake below his feet.
It was with no happiness that the Cactus Kid contemplated his situation. Yet two factors aroused his curiosity; the se@norita the brothers had talked about, and why they did not mount and leave the canyon.
Their work here had been done. Neither brother was immune from superstition, and in fact, both of them were ignorant men reared in all that strange tangle of fact and fancy that makes up Yaqui folklore. This place had a history, a weird history that extended back to some dim period long before the coming of the red man, back to those pre-Indian days when other peoples roamed this land.
Artifacts had been found in the caves, and back there where the idol was, there were stone remains of some kind of crude temple built under an overhanging shelf. A professor who explored the canyon had once told the Kid that the base of the supposedly Aztec god had provided a base for some other figure before it, that it was another type of stone, and one not found nearby.
Yet there was nothing in all this to help him. What he had hoped for, he did not know, but any uncertainty on their part could act favorably for him, so when the idea came to him, he had played on their superstition and the natural feeling all men have when in a strange, lonely place during the dark and silent hours. It had come to nothing. He was strapped to an anthill, and when the sun awakened them to full vigor and they began their work, they would find the blood, and then they would swarm over him by the thousands.
Doggedly, bitterly, almost without hope, he worked at the rawhide that bound his wrists. Fearful of what he might do if they had been freed even for a moment, the brothers Fernandez had left his hands tied when they threw him on the ground and staked him out. Yet despite the blood and perspiration on his chafed and painful wrists, the rawhide seemed loosened but little. Nevertheless, he continued to work, struggling against time and against pain.
Then suddenly, in a bitter and clarifying moment, he realized what they had meant when they spoke of a se@norita. They had been talking about Bess.
The instant the idea came to him he knew he was right.
Not over a week ago when he rode up to her home and swung down from the saddle, she had told him about Lobo Fernandez and his brother, the smooth, polished one, the one called Juan. They had stopped her in front of the store and tried to talk. Juan had caught at her arm. She had twisted away, and then Ernie Cable had come out of the general store and wanted to know what was going on, and they had laughed and walked away. But she had noticed them watching the house.
They had been talking about Bess O’ationeal.
But what? What had they said?
Where were the other brothers? Where were Juan and Pedro?
The low murmur of voices came to him, and as he lay on the low mound of the anthill, he could see the glow of their cigarettes. They were sitting on the ground not far from the image, smoking. And waiting.
Using all his strength, he tugged at his bonds. They were solid, and they cut into his wrists like steel wire. He relaxed, panting. He could feel sweat running down his body under his shirt. This was going to be hell. Even if he got free, he still must get his hands on a gun, and even then, there would be four of them.
Four? There were only two, now. Yet once the idea had come to him, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Juan Fernandez was no fool. It was such a good chance, they could kill two birds with one stone. Juan wanted Bess O’ationeal. If the Cactus Kid and Bess vanished at the same time, everyone would shrug and laugh. They would believe they had eloped. No one would even think to question the opinion. It was so natural a thing for them to do.