Dust of the Desert Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  JUSTICE

  The Mexican theory of the treatment of prisoners, their status beforethe law and the responsibilities of government toward them has fewcomplexities and knows no interference on the part of prisoners'welfare leagues or humanitarian congresses. When a man is arrestedsouth of the Line he straightway ceases to be enumerated among theliving; if, haply, he reappears in the course of weeks or years hisfamily looks upon the prodigy in the light of a resurrection. Suchresurrections do not occur often enough to dull the edge of the popularinterest attending them. There are several dim roads, peculiarlyMexican, down which a prisoner may march to oblivion, with no record ofhis expunction left behind. Officials with easy consciences find theseextralegal methods of clearing the docket handy and expeditious.

  Grant Hickman, new to the Border and utterly ignorant of customs andmanners in the republic of _poco tiempo_, necessarily could notpossess a background of sinister knowledge against which to builddoubts of his immediate future when he found himself locked in a cell.He was in darkness deep as Jonah's. He ached from his scalp to histoes. A gingerly groping hand applied to various parts of his bodytook stock of the exterior costs of that healthy fight in the gamblingpalace. The heat of battle was still on him. He recalled how nobly thebig Arizonan swung his chair from the vantage of the crap table; what avirile call to battle was the stranger's "Ride 'em, Noo Yawker!"

  As for Colonel Urgo's clumsy frame-up--the handful of lead dollars inhis pocket to prompt arrest for counterfeiting--Grant dismissed thetrick as childish spite. When he appeared before a judge in the morninghe could easily prove that the only Mexican money he possessed wasthat given him in change by the fat Chinaman and what he had taken inacross the baize. Some tool of the vengeful little wooer of Benicia had"salted" him during the progress of the game.

  But when morning light through a four-inch slit in the wall rousedhim from a restless sleep long hours of doubt were ushered in. Camea jailer with dry tortillas and water but no summons to appearbefore a magistrate. Three tortillas--clammy rolled cakes of mealtasting strongly of a cook's carelessness in matters of excluding theunessential--were the sum of his receipts from the outside world thatday. The jailer, who had the features of a bandit, merely grunted a "nosabe" at the volley of questions the prisoner launched at him duringthe minute he was in the cell.

  Those hours of solitude in the six-by-ten box of stone gave opportunityfor much thinking. Little by little it was borne in on Grant howcompletely he was a victim of whatever spite Colonel Urgo might careto devise; and recollection of his smiling face seen in the prisonoffice the night before--thin lips parted over teeth in a ferret'sgrin--confirmed the assumption that at devising mischief Colonel Urgowould be hampered by no lack of ingenuity.

  Grant weighed the hope of aid from the other end of the town across theBorder fence. Bim Bagley, the only friend he had in all the Southwest,was still out of town and would not be back until the morrow. DocStooder--small chance! The worthy doctor was velvet drunk when hereceived Grant in his office; for reasons which only his satiric humourcould explain he had elected to consider his visitor an impostor.Little chance that Doc Stooder would pay him a thought until Bagleyreturned and inquired of his whereabouts. Remained just the cobwebcontingency that the Arizonan who had fought beside him had escapedthe clutches of the rurales; Grant was certain the big fellow's simpleloyalty to a fellow countryman would prompt him to set going some kindof inquiry from across the Line.

  Night came, with it three more tortillas and a bowl of _carne_ seasonedwith chili sufficient to burn the gullet of a bronze image. Then,several hours after the scant meal had been shoved in to him, thebandit jailer opened his cell door and motioned him to step into thecorridor. Two men with rifles were waiting there; they stepped to hisside and marched him off between them.

  Down a flight of steps, through a courtyard heavy with shadows, thenup tortuous stairs to a door beneath a dim electric globe. The dooropened from within, and Grant found himself in a chamber which mighthave passed as a courtroom. At its far end on a raised dais was a longdesk lighted from above, three men sitting behind it. A sort of woodencage stood apart on a platform by itself. Six men with serapes overtheir shoulders and rifles hanging by straps across the blanket stripeswere slouching before the judges' dais. A black headed peon crouchedtimorously on a seat to the left and behind the guards.

  Grant's escort halted him before the judges. He kept silence, studyingthe faces of the three. Not pleasant faces. A hardness of eye andcat-like bristle of moustachios over thin line of lips was common tothe trio.

  "Grant 'Ickman?" challenged the man in the middle.

  Grant nodded. His interrogator gave a sign to one of the rurales. Thelatter turned to the peon on the bench, dragged him to his feet andhustled him to the cage-like affair to the left of the dais, evidentlya witness box. The little fellow's head hardly showed above the toprail that fenced him in; his eyes were all whites.

  The examining judge jerked a thumb toward Grant as he shaped a questionin Spanish for the witness. The peon bobbed his head emphatically.Another question and, "_Si_," chirped the witness. Then a lengthy flowof interrogation prompted by reference to some dossier in hand.

  "_Si! Si!_" The witness hurried to oblige. Cat whiskers lifted in asmile as the judge turned back to Grant.

  "You unnerstan'?"

  "I don't," bluntly. More twitching of the spiked moustachios.

  "Zeese man, 'oo's make confession of counterfeiting and 'oo eesto be shot to-day, says 'e sells you thirty pesos made with badmetal--counterfeit. An'--"

  "He lies!" Grant interrupted.

  "_Quieto!_" The judge banged his fist on the desk and fixed theprisoner with a savage glare. "'E says, zeese man, 'e meets with youlas' night on Calle San Lazar outside Crystal Palacio gambling 'ousean' for ten veritable pesos 'e gives to you thirty pesos of bad metal.Then zeese man 'e says 'e sees you enter Crystal Palacio. What remarkyou make for zeese?"

  The monstrous farce of this accusation numbed Grant. Judicialsubornation fabricated to give colour to what was already determined inthe minds of these three puppets. As clearly as if they were bearingon him he could see the cold, mocking eyes of Colonel Urgo behind theshoulders of his pawns on the bench. Perception of his peril steadiedhim.

  "I demand a lawyer if I am to be tried on this outrageous charge. And Idemand that the American consul in this town be told of the accusationagainst me."

  The interrogating judge turned to his confreres with a blandoutspreading of the palms. Then to Grant:

  "American consul 'as no business with crime against state of Mehico.You will 'ave lawyer when you are tried before court at Hermosillo.Zeese court ees not court of condemnation. Court of condemnation ees atHermosillo. W'en you arrive there, w'ere you make for a start to-night,Senor 'Ickman, you ask for American consul if you desire."

  "But you cannot send me to this Hermosillo place without trial." Granttook a step toward the bench in his vehemence. He was roughly jerkedback by his guards. The interrogating judge beamed on him.

  "In Mehico, Senor 'Ickman, it ees folly to say 'you cannot.' Much eespossible in Mehico. To-night prisoners make start for Hermosillo. Yougo weeth them."

  He nodded to Grant's guards and they closed in on him. He heard afarewell, "Adios, Senor 'Ickman," from the bench as he was rudelyhustled out of the courtroom.

  An hour later he stood with seven other shadows in the _carcel_courtyard. About them were the rurales with their rifles; four weremounted on horseback and a pack mule, lightly laden, slept on threelegs behind the horsemen. Men came with lanterns and heavy loops ofsomething which chinked metallically when it was dropped. They fixed abroad steel shackle on the left wrist of each prisoner and linked themall to a bull chain. Then the door of a courtyard swung inward, themounted rurales closed in and the eight chained men went clinking outto the dark street.

  A few midnight dawdlers paused to watch the shadowy processionstumbling over the cobbles. No word was spoken. The clink
of thehorses' hoofs, the patter-patter of the short-legged pack mule andthe metallic whisperings of the chain fitted into a measured cadence.Despite the presence of the pack mule, Grant first had thought thejourney would be a short one, ending at the railroad station. Butafter fifteen minutes' marching no railroad line was in sight and thehouses began to be scattered. Suddenly houses ceased; nothing but thehump-shouldered shapes of mountains about; clear burning stars andahead a dim ribbon of road leading out into the desert.

  To Hermosillo, a town unheard of and at a distance unknown--across thedesert to Hermosillo afoot and chained in line with seven men. In theslim rifle barrels so carelessly slung under shadows of sombreros wasthe sullen emblem of that unwritten law of Mexico which stills so manyaccusing mouths: _ley de fuga_--law of flight.

  Out into the desert of Altar marched the American, whose name appearedonly upon a secret cachet in the hands of the puppet judges--a mangone, as a German once put it, "without trace."