18

The Kid stood there awkwardly with Ramona’s stifled sobs sounding loud in the stillness. There was an uneasy sense of guilt within him, and with it a stronger and more stubborn determination to play the game out single-handed.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have stood up to Slim-Jim like that and told him off, but it was not the Rio Kid’s way to evade an issue. They’d all knocked him around too much when he was unarmed and helpless against the four of them, and with his guns buckled into place, he felt strong and sure of himself again. A lone hand was the only one he knew how to play.

In a sense, every moment of their present safety depended upon Slim-Jim’s silence to the other members of the gang, and for that reason the Kid realized it might have been best to pretend to join forces with him … but he couldn’t quite stomach that sort of deception unless they forced him to it to save his life, as he had done back there at the deserted ranch house.

Ramona’s attitude perplexed and worried him. She knew Slim-Jim was one of the outlaws who had been hanging around like vultures waiting for her father to find the gold. She knew that he was a member of the masked gang that had tied her up in the cave and flogged her. She knew that Slim-Jim’s present attitude was because he wanted her as well as the gold, yet she was sobbing because the Kid had quarreled with him.

It didn’t make sense to the Kid. Helplessly, he realized that he knew mighty damn little about the workings of the feminine mind.

Maybe she wanted Slim-Jim to have her. He was handsome and dressed like a dandy and knew how to speak the English language correctly as Ramona did. The thought struck him with hurricane force. He leaned weakly back against the wall to consider it.

No reason why she shouldn’t feel that way. Besides all his other attainments, he was a tough fighter. The Kid winced in recollection of the crushing impact of Slim-Jim’s fists in the saloon.

He slowly rolled a cigarette, thinking it all out. If Ramona had fallen for Slim-Jim’s undeniable charms, it wasn’t right for him to interfere. He was not prepared to offer her anything in exchange except possible safe-conduct across the Border. True, from the beginning she had stirred a strange new emotion inside the Rio Kid, but he was determined to fight it back. He couldn’t afford to think of getting married. Not while the old charge of sheriff-murder still hung over his head in Arizona.

He flung away his cigarette and went to her slowly. She looked up at him, blinking tear-wet lashes and trying to smile.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered miserably. “It is not for me to say what you should do. You have been so kind, Señor. You know what is best.”

“That’s the hell of it,” he told her angrily. “I don’t. We got the rest of daylight to make some plan for tonight. Without food, we can’t none of us stay here very long.”

She stood erect, rubbing her eyes with a tanned fist. “I am thinking about the map my papa had,” she told him slowly, wrinkling her forehead in an effort to remember clearly. “In the room where the gold is stored there is a mark showing the doorway into the gold room, and a mark just like that on the other side … back of where the gold is now piled. A line like a tunnel led away from it into the side of the mountain, and there were other small rooms marked along it. Oh … if Papa were only here,” she ended in a choked voice.

The Kid grasped her wrist excitedly. “A secret doorway and tunnel leadin’ out of thuh gold room! Where did it go on the map? Think hard, Ramona.”

“To … nowhere,” she faltered. “On the map it seemed to end in a big square room. Papa thought it was perhaps where they melted the gold.”

“There might be an opening out the other end,” the Rio Kid argued excitedly. “We gotta find that door an’ see. And we gotta find it ’thout them others knowin’.”

Ramona shivered slightly. “Would you escape … and leave them here to die?”

“Why not? God above! don’t you see it’s yore only chance tuh get across the Border safe? If they got out with us, first thing they’d do would be tuh kill us both so’s we wouldn’t be in the way of them gettin’ the gold.”

“I do not think so.” The Mexican girl lifted her head proudly. “The others, maybe yes. But not Señor Slim-Jim.”

The light was dim where they stood back from the entrance so that Ramona’s features were not clearly outlined, but they were mistily lighted by an inner luminescence as the Kid stared down at her. She met his hard gaze unblinkingly with a trace of defiance, yet there was a note of supplication in her voice when she went on softly:

“I have the feeling here that he is good and wishes to help us.” She touched her slender hand to her bosom. “I think he would save me from those others if he could. He is brave, of that I am certain.”

The Kid nodded glumly. “Yeh. He wants to keep you for himself. Is that what you want too?”

“I do not … understand,” she faltered.

The Kid paused, considering his words. It was difficult to explain his meaning to the young girl. Yet, he felt that he had to come to an understanding with her about Slim-Jim.

He said: “You know why your father thought it was best for you to wear overalls and be called Ramon?”

“Yes. Because he wanted all the men to think I was a boy. Because there are few girls here, and the bad men of the Border would want to make love to me if they knew I was a girl.”

“All right. That’s exactly what I’m tryin’ tuh tell you about Slim-Jim,” the Kid exploded.

“But he … is not bad. He is very gentle.”

“He’s running with a tough crowd,” the Kid growled.

“But he is not bad,” she averred passionately. “I can feel it … here … just as I felt that you were not bad.” Again she touched her bosom.

“All right,” the Kid agreed gruffly. “If that’s the way you feel about him. Le’s be driftin’ back to them. If they start arguin’ about dividin’ up the gold, maybe they’ll get mad an’ shoot each other. That’s what mostly happens when a gang of toughs lays their eyes on gold.”

“Why is that?” Ramona asked as they started back along the tunnel together. “There is more than enough for all. Why should they fight over the share of each?”

“Just greedy nature, I reckon. Gold does it worse’n anything else. Take the same amount of silver or any kinda money, an’ it wouldn’t have that effect. Gold is a sorta disease that gets in men’s blood and makes ’em want to kill. I don’t reckon there was ever a rich strike made nowhere that murder didn’t come out of it. Which is what I’m hopin’ for now.”

“But … you have not the greed,” she persisted. “You would not kill for a larger share.”

“Nope, I’m funny. Money’s no good tuh me. I got nothin’ tuh spend it for. I’m on the dodge from the law like I told you … an’ I gotta get back tuh Arizony where I’ll most likely swing from a cottonwood. All I’m aimin’ for is tuh get you outta here safe an’ sound.”

“You are so kind, Señor,” she murmured.

They were approaching the treasure room and could see the flickering light of a fresh fire. Moving nearer, they could hear loud voices raised in argument, Pete’s surly tones and the thunderous growl of the half-breed.

Reaching the doorway, they looked in on a strange sight. The outlaws had found dry sticks of wood for the fire, and a quantity of it was stacked up in the middle of the room. The quartet had rolled a number of the bars of gold close to the fire and ranged them side by side on the floor and were using them as a surface upon which to deal hands of poker from a greasy deck of cards. They were using matches for chips, squatting around with looks of intense concentration on their faces.

The object which drew the Kid’s attention most forcibly and hopefully was a dusty wicker-covered wine-jug sitting at one end of the table. With no idea how it had gotten there, he realized that if the beleaguered outlaws drank enough of the ancient wine it was likely to be a simple matter for one man to overcome them.

He entered as Lem Colter began dealing a new hand. Slim-Jim looked up with a sardonic smile. “Would you care to sit in with us? Each match represents a bar of gold, and here’s a jug of wine that can’t be less than a hundred years old. Imported from Spain if I’m any judge. I’m wondering what other treasures this cave will disclose.” He reached out and deftly lifted the jug with his left hand, let the weight of it lie across his biceps while he put his mouth to the open spout and drank deeply.

Lem Colter glared over his shoulder at the Kid and muttered. “Don’t pay no ’tenshun to Slim-Jim’s funnin’. This here’s a serious game an’ yo’re not invited. You don’t get no share of the gold, so yuh cain’t sit in.”

The Kid laughed easily as he advanced into the room. “I’m more worried about gettin’ out alive than I am about takin’ any gold with me. Where’d yuh find the wood and the wine?”

Slim-Jim set the wine jug down with a sigh of pleasure and it was immediately grabbed up by Pete. “We found it cached back in the corner behind the gold. The old Padres liked their wine, you know. There’s probably more back there when this runs out.”

Remembering what Ramona had said about the possibility of there being a secret passageway in the wall behind the gold, the Kid suggested casually:

“Suppose me and the boy take a look-see back there while you-all go on with yore poker game. An’ we can be countin’ the bars for yuh so you’ll know how rich yuh are when the game’s over.”

Slim-Jim darted him a quick look of suspicion as though probing beneath the casual offer for an ulterior motive, but Colter said heartily:

“Shore. That’s a good idee. You might’s well make yoreself useful. You and Ramon dig out all the wine there is. We’ll be needin’ it afore the night’s over. If we git drunk enough we won’t give a damn whether we’re cooped up here or not.”

“That,” said the Kid drily, “was what I was thinkin’.” He blandly ignored Slim-Jim’s suspicious gaze, turned to call to Ramona who had stayed back in the doorway.

“C’mon, Ramon. I’ll need help movin’ this gold. We’ll count it up an’ see how many millions of dollars these fellers is gonna steal from you.”

No one paid any attention to them as the jug went on around and they made their bets as the cards fell on the gold bars.

Ramona circled around them timidly to the Kid’s side, and they went to the corner of the room where the man had moved a number of bars out of the way and found the cache of dry wood and the jug of wine against the wall.

The firelight didn’t reach the corner very well, but by feeling around in the darkness, the Kid was able to determine that the bars had been carefully stacked to leave a narrow space between the back of the stack and the wall … a space of less than two feet, just enough for a slim man’s body to wriggle through.

On his hands and knees, he felt forward in that narrow gap, and his hands first encountered faggots of dry wood. Pulling them out, he passed them back to Ramona and instructed her in a low tone to take them out near the fire and pile them up as he passed them out.

On his hands and knees, he advanced farther into the narrow opening, making a way for his body as he went, and soon he encountered three more of the wicker-covered wine jugs which he handed back carefully to Ramona, and which were received with loud shouts of acclaim from the card players when she carried them out and set them around the improvised card table of solid gold.

When she returned, the Kid squatted back on his haunches and whispered: “Where’d the map show the opening was located?”

“Near the center, I am sure. About where you are now.”

The Rio Kid carefully began feeling along the rock wall but found it disappointingly solid. He moved farther ahead in the cramped space, then stood up, feeling over the surface of the rock as he arose.

He had difficulty repressing an exultant exclamation when his fingers encountered a threadlike crack in the solid wall.

Fearful that it was only a natural crevice, he followed it around with his fingers, along a horizontal line about two feet above the floor level to a square corner where it turned upward vertically.

When he had finished feeling all around it, he knew without a doubt that he had discovered the secret opening shown on the map. There was one solid block of rock set in the opening … about four feet high and three feet wide.

In whispers he communicated the news to Ramona who was pressed close to him, while he cautiously put his shoulder against the huge block and exerted his full strength in an effort to push it in.

It did not give a particle. It seemed as immovable as though it were a solid portion of the wall.

Panting, he gave up pitting his strength against it, and began feeling in the darkness for some sort of cunningly contrived latch or lever which would release the huge stone.

There was no outward indication of any such contrivance, but he was convinced that the Padres must have had some way of opening it easily, and would not give up. Feeling around patiently, pressing each tiny protruding nubbin of rock with sore and aching fingers, pushing and probing at every minute depression, he kept up the search.

After long minutes of this, his patience was finally rewarded by finding a tiny smooth piece of metal apparently solidly embedded in the rock a few inches above the top center of the door.

Pressing on that, he felt a slight tremor in the huge block. He held the metal strip down with one hand and put the other against the rock. Bracing himself, he gave a mighty heave, and almost lost his balance which would have plunged him into the opening, when the perfectly balanced rock tipped forward and lay flat at the first slight pressure of his hand.

He drew back, breathing hard, with the musty smell of stale air in his nostrils. He caught Ramona’s hand and pulled her close, showed her the opening. Then his attention was caught by Slim-Jim’s voice beyond the barrier of gold bars:

“I wonder what Ramon and that fellow are doing back there behind the gold and being so quiet. Deal me out this hand while I investigate.”

The Kid frantically began trying to close the gap in the rock while Slim-Jim strolled back to the end of the narrow space where they were trapped.

It was useless. Weighing tons, the solid slab could only be moved back in place by some other trick device which he had not yet discovered. Slim-Jim was coming toward them. They would be unable to keep the secret from him.