3

Dawn was streaking the eastern sky, angrily reflected against the murky cloudbank westward and ahead of the Rio Kid when Thunderbolt arched his neck and pricked small ears forward, increasing his smooth lope to a faster gallop as his keen nostrils caught the scent of human habitation ahead.

Half-asleep in the saddle, the Kid yawningly aroused himself to look around him. As yet, he could see nothing to cause Thunderbolt’s interest. The road twisted along the bank of the Rio Grande ahead, still following the narrow shelf between the base of the rimrock and the water’s edge, but the river made a sharp bend to the left, and the road twisted around a sharp point of the cliff. Beyond that point there must be the village or ranch house which Thunderbolt had scented, and the Kid shook himself out of his lethargy to decide whether he wanted to ride on boldly or skirt the village or ranch to avoid being seen.

He pulled the black stallion down to a prancing trot and weighed the possibilities of danger. Horse and rider had covered a lot of miles since leaving Broken Spur last night, in spite of the delay at the cave. He was certain that no rider could have passed them to warn those ahead that the outlaw Rio Kid was riding that way.

Thunderbolt needed a rest and feed. No animal could keep up the killing pace much longer. It would be best, he decided, to ride on boldly and bluff it out.

He loosened his guns in the holsters which were still soaking wet from last night’s rain, and let the eager black have his head again.

Rounding the point, they came abruptly on a tiny village nestled in the bend of the river. There was one two-story frame building with hitch rails in front, surrounded by half a dozen adobe shacks, all of them seemingly deserted at this early hour of the morning.

A weatherbeaten sign across the front of the large building told the kid that it was JUDKINS GEN’L STORE AND POSTOFFICE and STAGE DEPOT.

He pulled the black down to a walk, then to a stop, as the front door of the store opened and a fat little man waddled out. The man stopped on the boardwalk to stare suspiciously at the two-gunned stranger mounted on the magnificent stallion, and the Kid pushed his black hat far back on his forehead and said:

“Howdy, stranger. Yo’re up and about mighty early.”

The fat man nodded and spat tobacco juice through a gap in his front teeth. “Might say the same ’bout you,” he observed drily.

The Kid grinned and reined over close to the walk. “I haven’t been to bed. My hawss and me could both use some rest. Any place hereabouts we could put up a few hours?”

“There’s a stable in back where you could feed and rest your hawss. Dollar for a feed of oats. They ain’t no hotel.”

“I reckon yuh got a bale of straw I kin stretch out on,” the Kid suggested. “Yo’re Mr. Judkins, huh?” He glanced up at the sign over the store.

“Naw. Pop Judkins won’t be outta bed for two, three hours yet. I’m just the handy man ’bout tuh sweep out the store.”

The Kid swung out of the saddle and looped reins over his arm. “I’ve got a dollar that’s beggin tuh be spent for a feed o’ oats.”

The fat man spat again and led the way around to the back of the store where a lean-to stable adjoined the building. The Kid led Thunderbolt inside and pulled off the saddle, slipped bits from his mouth and gave him a drink at the watering trough; then led him into a stall where the fat man apportioned out a generous feed of oats and pocketed the Kid’s dollar in payment.

“They’s a stack of loose hay jest in front of the stall,” he pointed out. “I reckon you kin lay down there for a time if you wanta.”

“No charge?” the Kid asked, grinning.

“Nope. That’s free for nothin’.” The fat man waddled out, leaving the Kid to find the hay and stretch his tired frame on its luxurious softness.

He lifted both guns from their holsters and put them under his head for a pillow, tipped his hat down over his face and lay quietly, listening to the steady chomping and crunching of the stallion’s jaws feeding on the oats.

Disconnected thoughts drifted through the Kid’s mind. The furious storm in the night … the scream of pain from the Mexican lad’s throat … the brief fight in the cave, and the strange story Ramon had told of the hidden treasure … the gold store of the Padres.

He dropped off to sleep thinking about the lost gold. An hour later he was awakened by the sound of voices, and his drowsy mind caught the end of a sentence:

… it’s the gold of the Guadalupe Padres, that’s what it is.”

For a moment he thought he had been dreaming and that the spoken words were part of the dream, but a different voice beyond the thin board partition aroused him to full wakefulness:

“Sposin’ the old Mex has found the key to the map? How’s that gonna he’p us if he’s afeered of the Colter gang an’ won’t dig it up?”

The first voice, a thin high-pitched whisper, replied: “That’s why I sent for you to come from El Paso. You’ll get in on the ground floor, see? Nobody knows you hereabouts. Instead of being Joe Elliot, you’re goin’ to be Steve Fisher … th’ son of old Timothy Fisher that usta be a compadre of Juliano Navarro in Mexico a lot o’ years ago. You see what I’m gettin’ at?”

“No,” the harsh voice admitted. “I shore don’t, Pop. This Juliano Navarro, he’s the old Spick that’s huntin’ thuh gold, huh?”

The Rio Kid was sitting erect in the dimness of the feed room, alertly drinking in every word that was being said beyond the partition. Like the man from El Paso, he didn’t understand the set-up, but it was clear that some devilish plot was being hatched against the Mexican father and his young son who had given their lives to seeking the treasure.

“That’s right,” the thin voice replied to the question from Joe Elliot. “And Juliano Navarro wrote this here letter about a month ago. Take it with you and read it when you get time.”

“It’s addressed tuh Steve Fisher, Rincon, New Mexico. How’d you git holt of it, Pop?”

Pop’s laughter was high-pitched and exultant. “I’m postmaster here, ain’t I? How’d yuh think? Juliano made the mistake of taking one too many snorts of tequila the day he mailed it, and he bragged around town that he was writin’ to a friend of his to come and he’p him get the gold out. Lem Colter heard him braggin’ and now Lem’s on the lookout for said Steve Fisher to come ridin’ in from New Mexico.”

“And you never sent thuh letter?” guessed Joe Elliot. “You kep’ it an’ sent for me to come instead.”

“Thass right. You’ll be Steve Fisher, see? It says in the letter that Juliano ain’t never seen Steve Fisher. Him and Timothy Fisher separated in Mexico twenty-five years ago. Fisher come to the States and got married. He must have wrote to Juliano about his son Steve bein’ born. If you go ridin’ out with that letter in yore pocket like you got it through the mail all in order, there ain’t no way Navarro can tell you ain’t actually Steve Fisher.”

“I get it.” The sound of Joe Elliot’s palm slapping his thigh was loud in the stable. “He’ll trust me with thuh secret thinkin I’m the son of his old pard. And there ain’t no way for Steve Fisher tuh come ridin’ in and spoil the deal ’cause that letter never went tuh Steve a-tall?”

“Thass right. The real Steve Fisher is in New Mexico and don’t know nothin’ about all this. The old Mexican’ll take you to the gold … and you and me’ll have a few millions to split up between us. There ain’t nobody but the old man and his boy to be reckoned with. You can shoot them after they show you the gold.”

“Wait a minute,” Joe Elliot protested. “How aboot Lem Colter? He knows aboot thuh letter Juliano thought he was sendin’ to Fisher. He’s on thuh lookout for Steve Fisher, huh? Well, if I pertend tuh be Steve Fisher, this Colter’ll be on my tail, won’t he? An’ I’ve heered of him all the way up thuh Border to El Paso. Him an’ his gang are purty tough hombres.”

“You’re shore right about that. They’re the meanest gang of killers in the Big Bend,” Pop agreed. “Lem and three others, and not one with lessen a dozen notches in his gun. Thass the reason I pulled you in here where we could talk private ’thout bein’ overheard. Don’t tarry none here in town. And don’t tell nobody you’re Steve Fisher till you get out in thuh hills and meet Navarro. If anybody asks, you’re Joe Elliot from El Paso. Come on in the house with me now and get some breakfast. Then you can ride on into the hills … maybe before Colter’s gang rides into town this mornin’. They’ll keep right on watching for Steve Fisher … and you’ll be out there gettin’ your hands on the gold. Millions of it, Joe boy! Them old Padres of the Guadalupe mission worked a mine on this side of the river for two generations, storin’ up the gold in bars ’til they had a chanct to sneak it back into Mexico. They were on Maximilian’s side against Benito Juarez, and when Juarez come in power, they refused to tell where the gold was hid to keep him from gettin’ it. It’s still there where they buried it. Millions!”

“U-m-m. My mouth’s a-waterin’,” Joe Elliot muttered. “Gimme somethin’ tuh eat and I’ll be a-ridin’.”

The Rio Kid sank back on his pile of straw as the clank of spurs and the sound of shuffling footsteps died away through the wide doors of the stable.

He lay on his back and stared up at a narrow crack that let sunlight through the roof, mentally going over and over the diabolical plot he had just overheard.

Before his eyes in the dimness of the hay-mow, he could see the strained and tortured features of young Ramon Navarro who had stoutly refused to give up the secret of the Padres’ gold even while enduring the agonies of a beating such as most strong men could not endure.

That scene in the cave was vividly before the Kid’s eyes. The masked men were the Colter gang of Border outlaws, he supposed.

The tortured features of young Ramon were displaced by the pleading softness with which he had begged the Kid to go with him to his father in the mountains and join them in their search for the treasure.

It seemed to the Kid that he could hear the lad’s voice speaking now in the silence:

“My father trusts no man to help … I think, Señor, my father will trust you when I tell him what you have done tonight … for me, Señor, will you not stay? I have dreamed that some day a man like you would come to help us.…”

If the old man was as frail and weak as the boy, they would need a strong man to help them, all right, for now a man was coming to help the Navarros. A man whose name was Joe Elliot, a scoundrel from El Paso, but whom they would accept and trust as Steve Fisher, the son of Juliano Navarro’s old American friend. They would show Joe Elliot the fortune in gold, and he would shoot them down in cold blood to obtain possession of it for himself and for the man who had plotted with him to trick the Mexicans. Fate had thrown him into the middle of something that no decent man could sidestep. Fate had decreed that he should ride past the cave under the rim-rock last night in time to hear Ramon’s cry of distress. Again, this morning, after resolutely turning his back on trouble, Fate had sent the two men into the stable to discuss the plot against the Navarros where he couldn’t possibly avoid overhearing.

There wasn’t any escaping it. Regardless of personal danger, the Rio Kid knew he wasn’t going to let the bogus Steve Fisher victimize the old man and the frail young boy without doing what he could to prevent it.

The simplest way would be to halt the plot before it had a chance to go any further by having a showdown with Joe Elliot right now before he got out of town.

When he reached this decision, the Rio Kid lithely arose to his feet and brushed the clinging straw from his clothing, picked up his guns and slid them loosely into their holsters, then stepped outside into the bright sunlight and made his way around the side of the store to the street in front.

A single rider was loping up the road westward when the Kid reached the boardwalk. He stared at the cloud of dust kicked up by the horse’s hooves, then turned to see a shrunken little man standing in front of the store regarding him through slitted black eyes.

The little man had a long bony face and a pointed bald head. His cheeks were the color of ancient leather, lined with deep crevices. He stood with his small head hunched forward at the end of a long neck like a vulture hopefully inspecting a morsel of decayed flesh.

His beady eyes were unblinkingly fastened on the Kid as he strolled toward him.

“Who’re you, stranger?” He spoke in the high nasal tone the Rio Kid recognized as belonging to the man called Pop by Joe Elliot.

“I reckon,” the Kid said softly, “that ain’t none of yore damn business, Pop.”

The old man stopped five feet in front of him. “How’d you know my name?”

“Yo’re Pop Judkins, I reckon? Storekeeper an’ postmaster an’ all that, hereabouts.”

“Yes, I am,” the old man snapped. “But where’d you come from?”

The Kid pushed his black hat far back on his forehead and smiled grimly down on the little storekeeper. “A lotta people have wondered that, off an’ on. I got a way o’ turnin’ up where I ain’t wanted. For instance, right now I’m honin’ for a little talk with Joe Elliot … late of El Paso.”

Pop Judkins’ slitted eyes closed for an instant. He sucked in his thin lips, then pushed them out with a loud plopping sound. He whined:

“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about, Mister.”

“You lie,” said the Rio Kid gently. “An’ that’s bad medicine. Where’s Joe Elliot?”

“If you mean that feller from El Paso,” Pop whined, “that’s him ridin’ down the road there. So, I reckon you’ll have to put off your talk with ’im.”

The kid wheeled to look at the cloud of dust that was fast disappearing in the morning haze hanging over the Rio Grande. The thud of many galloping hooves attracted his attention, coming from the east, as he turned back to face Pop Judkins grimly. He looked past the little old man and saw a body of riders approaching the village at great speed.

Pop turned his head to watch them. He said, “That’ll be Lem Colter and his gang, I reckon.”

The Rio Kid checked what he was going to say, nodded indifferently, and slouched back against the weatherbeaten store front to roll a cigarette and watch impassively a quartet of heavily armed, hard-faced riders sweep up and come to a rearing stop in front of the store.