Twenty-Four Hours/Chapter 4

ABLO BENITO, faithful citizen, having performed the small service for his country recently imposed on him as conclusive proof of loyalty, squatted in a dark corner and nervously washed his hands with perspiring palms.

The motion was involuntary, but incessant; prompted, perhaps, by a subconscious yearning to cleanse himself of participation in the trickery of the jefe civil. For the aforesaid jefe was not a noble, bold, resolute hero and an illustrious caballero, after all; he was a mean, sneaking, underhanded liar, an oily hypocrite, a slimy serpent—in short, utterly despicable. He had permitted—indeed, must have surreptitiously commanded—that Pablo, the valiant patriot who at great risk to himself had performed a notable deed in capturing two dreaded guapos, be locked up in the same jail with those same desperadoes. And now, with the terrible Tigre and the man-slaying Toro likely to regain their senses at any moment—he fidgeted and squirmed, while, despite the oven-like heat of the mud pen, the sweat trickling down his back ran cold.

The scheme of the wily Gordo had worked out to perfection. Carrying the expected gasoline and several bultos of cassava, a small procession of peons had gone to the port, accompanied by Pablo and Claudio the stone-thrower. In answer to Kelly's growling question as to the whereabouts of his two companions, Pablo had glibly declared that they still were selecting supplies, but would return pronto. After a sharp look at the weaponless, expressionless mestizos, El Toro had stood at ease, bossing the stowage of the cans and the leaf-wrapped bundles. Then Claudio had silently cast his stone. Thereafter there was nothing to do but to carry the supplies back to the shops and transport the fallen man to the jail.

Pablo, having no other burden to bear, had—by request—assisted Ramon and Claudio in their allotted task of portaging the heavy body. They had maneuvered him into entering the lock-up first. A sudden shove, a mocking laugh, a thud as the door shut; and Pablo had scrambled from under Kelly's dead weight to find himself imprisoned. Poundings and pleadings and promises had brought in response only guffaws and ribald advice as to the most pleasant way of passing his time. Ah, what a vile, treacherous nest of snakes was this town of Caicara! And what a horrible hole was this in which to imprison an honest man!

The honest man now had been confined in the horrible hole for perhaps a quarter of an hour. In that time, however, he had lived at least half a day. The first five minutes had gone in howls for release and in a futile eye-search for any possible line of escape. The adobe walls were solid, the floor of immovable stone, the two high windows heavily barred and too small for even a child to squirm through. Wherefore the ensuing time had been devoted to miserable cogitation, the while his panicky gaze remained glued to the senseless Americanos. What would they do to him when they revived? Caramba, what would they not do? Although one was a cripple and both were disarmed, he felt that when they finished with him he would resemble nothing human.

All at once his hand-massage halted. A quick light flitted across his face. From his hunched position he started up as if jabbed by a scorpion. His glance darted to the hard wall, switched to the recumbent forms, returned to the adobe, hung there. He stepped away a couple of paces; clenched his fists in desperate resolution; and suddenly, with head lowered, launched himself against the unyielding barrier.

The shock stunned him, as he well knew it would. He crumpled to the dirty floor. For a few minutes he lay there motionless; not totally unconscious, but dazed, and feeling but vaguely the bum of the resultant contusion. Then his brain cleared, and at once his hands rose to explore his scalp. As the fingers pressed his crown he winced; but into his recently troubled visage came a look of relief—almost of peace. Under his ebon hair was mushrooming a large bump.

Without rising, he awaited with new-found serenity the recovery of his companions. At length the long Tigre, lying flat on his back, opened his eyes and stared blankly at the roof; lifted his head, scowling as a stab of pain streaked through it, but swiftly surveying his surroundings; then started up to a sit, his hand sliding at once to his holster. A blacker scowl creased his brow as he found the leather scabbard empty. He fixed a dire gaze on the Venezuelan.

Thereupon Pablo, watching through his lashes, allowed his lids to rise; squinted with feigned amazement at El Tigre, El Toro, and the yellow walls; shoved himself up, groaned, and clasped his head.

“Ajo! Where are we, señor?”

Hart made no answer. His narrow gaze bored into the pilot's eyes until the latter began to quake again. Then Kelly voiced a grunting groan, rolled over, reeled up and glowered about him. Pablo shrank back as the hard eyes of the Bull also fastened on him.

“Ah, the vile snakes—they have thrown us into prison!” he bleated, once more wincing as he rubbed his bruise. “Cra! My head is broken!” And with that, unable longer to meet that double glare, he sank back and wrapped both arms around his head.

A minute or two of ominous silence. Hart and Kelly looked at each other, both involuntarily passing hands through their hair and feeling the huge swellings left there by the stone of Claudio. Abruptly Kelly strode across to the supine guide, stooped, wrenched his arms away, and clawed rough fingers over his scalp. Pablo yelped and strove to wriggle aside.

“Uh-huh,” rumbled the Bull. “He got slugged, all right. But there's somethin' fishy here, at that. Hart, did you send this guy down with gas and grub?”

“No. I got knocked out in the jefe's office. Somebody crowned me from behind.” The hard jaw set harder, and El Tigre got to his feet. “And the only man within arm's length of me at that minute was this sneak! Pablo, you crooked—”

“Santisima Maria! It was not I who did it!” squealed Pablo, scrambling into a corner. “For what should I strike you, and with what should I strike? I had no weapon, you know it! The foul deed was done by that doubly foul Jaime Gordo! He had a treacherous scoundrel of a peon throw a stone, señor—a wicked stone that flew from a doorway behind us. And the instant you fell he—Gordo—sprang upon you and snatched your revolver and thrust it into my face as I leaped to aid you! Sí! In another second I should have avenged you most bloodily! But the filthy wretch held me at the point of death while all the rest leaped upon me, and I could do nothing. All the world was against me, señor, and I with not so much as a stick in my hands! And so they carried you out, and the traitor still held me at bay, and—what could I do against such a guapo as he? If he were a mere official from Caracas— But that bandido, that killer, that turncoat who shot his own brother—”

He ran out of breath and paused an instant to gasp. Hart gave a snort.

“Bandido? That fat toad?”

“But yes, compañero! Of a truth! He is fat now, fat of body as of name, but he was thin enough three years ago. Have you not heard? He is brother to Federico Gordo, the daring revolucionario—the one who is called Veinte Cuatro. And with Veinte Cuatro and his fellows Jaime used to ride and fight the government. But the two quarreled over something, and Jaime sneaked off and gave himself up and told to the federals the plans of his brother for the next attack. And at that attack the revolucionarios were beaten and many were killed and the rest must ride for their lives, and Veinte Cuatro himself was wounded almost to death, and it is said that the bullets which made those wounds were fired by Jaime! Sí! He is that kind of man, señores; he now would murder his own father if he thought it would please the higher officials. A fawning slave of the government, he is. So the government made him jefe civil at Mapire, and later he was sent here. Cra! We are lucky to be still living!”

ART and Kelly glanced again at each other. This part, at least, of Pablo's yarn rang true. Both had heard of the rebel leader Veinte Cuatro, who was so called for two reasons; because he was big, black-eyed, and fierce in attack, thus bearing some resemblance to the huge black veinte cuatro ant; and because, in attacking a town, he invariably completed his operations and was gone within twenty-four hours. They had heard also of a deadly hatred between him and a brother, but the identity of that brother had escaped them. As for the appointment of a former rebel to a minor government post, that was by no means a new thing in the Venezuelan hinterland; and, more often than not, such an official proved intensely loyal, just as a reformed profligate may become a zealous evangelist.

“And then, señores,” Pablo rushed on, “some things were said between the misborn Gordo and the other men which I did not hear. And you will remember, Señor Tigre, that he had ordered gasoline to be taken to the lancha. Do you not recall it?” Hart nodded. “And he said again, 'Let those things be carried to the port, and I myself shall escort this señorita to Bolívar. And you, Pablo, go with the peons, but say nothing, or you shall die a thousand times!' And so I went, thinking, 'I will warn the Señor Toro, and we shall free El Tigre.' But on the way a peon said to me, 'Hombre, open your mouth to that man in the boat and I will cut out your heart,' and he tapped a long knife inside his breeches. So I could only speak as I did, Señor Toro, telling you the others would come soon; but I was watching for my chance to give you a signal or to seize that murderous peon and shout to you the truth. And then, caramba, we should have made these sons of dogs run howling to the wilderness! But all at once—pamt you fell, and—pam!—something struck me also, and I knew nothing. Nothing, amigos, until I came awake and saw where we are now—in this horrible jail. Ah, diablo, my head!”

Once more he wrapped his arms over his cranium, affecting a pain which he did not feel. Once more Hart and Kelly looked at each other, this time dubiously. How much of truth and how much of falsehood was in this tale? Neither of them believed the fellow's rant regarding his intention to fight for the fallen Tigre; and both were suspicious of the rest of his story. Yet the facts that he was imprisoned with them and that he bore indisputable evidence of a blow weighed heavily in his favor.

“Wal,” growled Kelly, “we're here, and there ain't no use in scrappin' amongst ourselves. But lemme tell ye, Pablo, we're goin' to check up on your yarn, and if ye've been givin' us a line o' bull ye'll wish—” He paused; then repeated in Spanish. The veracious pilot began to suffer new chills.

“Ajo! You would not believe the lies told you by these Caicarans, señor!” he protested. “They would tell you most outrageous falsehoods! They are misbegotten creatures born in sin and bred in treachrey—”

“Never mind that!” broke in Hart. “What of the señorita? What did she do?”

“She? Do? Nothing! She is no strong man like us, amigo—a frail woman, hardly more than a child—and she could do nothing, of course. She was at the office as I left, saying nothing at all.”

“You lie! She's not the kind that wilts. I'll gamble that she had something to say—”

“Ah! True, señor—my head aches so hard that I was forgetting. She told Gordo that you were Americanos and he had no right to attack you, and he must not interfere with her voyage or her boat. He said it was not her boat, and he would use it himself to go to Bolívar, and she should go with him.”

“Huh! So that's the lay!” Kelly nodded understandingly. “This guy Gordo is goin' to beat it to safer country. He takes her along because he dasn't treat her rough; he'd git himself in Dutch with the governor if he didn't use her right. And us guys either go along in chains or stay here and rot in the calabozo. Must be somethin' stirrin' round here that he's got wind of, and he wants to do a quick fade-out. But he's S. O. L. The transport's clean out o' commission.”

“How?”

With a grim smile, the engineer drew from a trousers pocket a small section of greenish-yellow metal. Hart peered at it in puzzlement.

“The switch,” enlightened the other. “It ain't been workin' right; all dirty, see? So while I was waitin' I disconnected the battery and took off this here little arm to scrape it clean. Then the gas parade showed up and I shoved this in my pocket for the time bein'. And until it's put back in place all the gas in the world'll never move that tub; no ignition. And there's only one guy can put it back right, and that's me. So Mister Jaime Gordo will stay right here in town till I git to talk to him—and a long time after that, too. Here's another little thing I've got that he don't know about.”

His big right hand slid inside his half-buttoned shirt and emerged gripping a short but heavy-calibered Colt.

“A handy little tool that I carry under me arm for accident insurance,” he grinned. “It's got me out o' more than one hole. Half the time these guys down here don't frisk a feller clean; they take off his outside artillery and think they got it all. And betwixt this misplaced switch and this masked battery—Pablo, how would you like to be Jefe Gordo?”

The gun darted to an aim, gaping straight at Pablo's right eye. And that valiant warrior, who had understood only the last few words, arose with a wild yell.

“Dios mio! Do not shoot! Put away the gun, señor! Have mercy! I am a poor—”

“Aw, shut up!” Kelly scowled fiercely, sliding the weapon again within his shirt. “Ye howlin' hyena, d'ye want to tell the world about it? Shut your mouth!”

The pallid rascal gulped, cowered, and was silent. His companions turned from him in disgust.

“Slobberin' pup! He's so yeller that if a rabbit kicked him he'd fall dead! Say, Hart, when we git out o' this we'll ditch him. Leave him right here. We don't need him from here on. River's so big now we ain't likely to run aground. What d'ye say?”

“I'm with you. He's crooked as a corkscrew. But when we do get loose, Bull, I want that gun of yours a few minutes. That Gordo sneak is my meat!”

“Yeah?” The gray eyes slid to the blond profile, noting the ominous tightness of lips and lids. “Why, now, feller, ye ain't intendin' to git rude with him, are ye? Thought ye'd swore off on that rough stuff, same as me, and was goin' to be a perfect lady.”

“I did, and I am—until I get loose.”

“Uh-huh.” El Toro chuckled softly. “Looks like we'd both backslid since we got religion. Wal, I was leery o' that soft stuff anyway, but I didn't want to argue with the kid. 'You boys are goin' straight now,' she says, 'and ye want to show the officials ye mean it. So don't ye go holdin' up anybody for the gas, but let's git it in the proper way.' And so we tried that proper way, and here we are. Proper ways are all right in their place, but this ain't the place. And as quick as somebody opens that door to slip us our bread and water, blooey goes the proper stuff.”

“You said it.”

They fell silent, scanning the whole miserable pen. After convincing themselves of its invulnerability they sat down on either side of the single stout door, Hart frowningly pressing his aching shoulder, Kelly glooming at nothing in particular. At the other end, Pablo, avoiding their gaze, alternately congratulated himself on his cleverness and worried over impending possibilities. All three could do nothing but wait.

And then, outside, a loitering listener stole silently away to inform Don Jaime Gordo that he had heard Pablo screaming for mercy and begging one of the guapos to put away a gun.