Curtin had come to and had told the villagers what had happened to him. He said robbers had shot him from ambush. He did not mention Dobbs, for he didn’t want Dobbs to be pursued, on account of the packs, which might get lost some way or other. He knew that with the help of the old man he would get that scoundrel soon enough without any outside assistance.
When he had given Howard a true account, he asked: “What do you think, Howy, of that deal he gave me? Would you ever have expected anything like that from a pal? He bumped me off in cold blood without even giving me a dirty dog’s chance.”
“But I can’t see why!”
“Quite simple. I didn’t want to join him in robbing you and making off with your goods. He played the old racket, pretending he had to shoot in self-defense, that rascal did. Well, I could have agreed to his plans until we reached the port, and there I could have said that the deal was off. But there was one thing I thought of: you might have come sooner than we expected and have believed that I wanted to betray you. It would have been difficult for me to explain things as they really were. He might have bumped me off anyway, to make sure that he would get the whole load.”
“That’s a pal, a great pal!”
“You’re telling me! He slugged me in my left breast and left me lying in the woods. But now I can’t quite figure one thing. I’ve got another wound I can’t account for. I almost think that the beastly rascal came again in the middle of night and slugged me another one to make sure of the job.”
“How did you get out?”
“During the night I came to, and thinking he would come in the morning to see if I still had a flicker of life, I crawled away. As I inched along the ground, I came upon my gun, which he seems to have thrown beside me to make it look like suicide or a decent fight. There were four empty shells in it, so I think that dirty rat slugged me with my own gat.”
“Now keep quiet and don’t get overexcited or it won’t be so good for your lungs,” Howard warned.
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right, if only to get that stinking funker. Well, to finish up. I staggered along in the opposite direction from the place where he camped. Early in the morning I came upon an Indian coalburner. When he first saw me he wanted to cut me into pieces with his machete. Then he tried to run away. I had quite a bit of trouble convincing him, weak as I was, that I was as harmless as a snail and that he should help me out and take me with him to his home. But then, on realizing that I was in terrible need, he was the finest guy you can think of, whiter than plenty of our own mugs. Without his help I certainly would have died a most miserable death, worse than a rat in a gutter.”
“So it appears that our fine Mr. Dobbs has made off with the whole train, leaving us cold.”
“Apparently, old man.”
Howard meditated for a while; then he said: “Come to think of it, you can’t blame him.”
“Meaning what?” Curtin asked, as though he had not heard right.
“Meaning that I think he’s not a real killer and robber, as killers go. It’s rather difficult to explain it to you, with the slugs in you. You see, I think at bottom he’s as honest as you and me. The mistake was that you two were left alone in the depths of the wilderness with almost fifty thousand clean cash between you two. That is a goddamned temptation, believe me, partner. Being day and night on lonely trails without ever meeting a human soul—that gets on your mind, brother. That eats you up. I know it. Perhaps you felt it, too. Don’t deny it. You may have only forgotten how you felt at certain times. The wilderness, the desolate mountains, cry day and night in your ears: ‘We don’t talk. It will never come out. Do it. Do it right now. At that winding of the trail do it. Here’s the chance of your lifetime. Don’t miss it. You have only to grasp it and it is yours. No one will ever know. No one can ever find out. Take it, it’s yours for the taking. Don’t mind a life, the world is crowded with mugs like him.’ If you ask me, partner, I’d like to know the man on earth who could resist trying it without nearly going mad. If I were still young and I had been alone with you or with him, to tell you the truth, Curty, I might have been tempted too. And I wonder, if you search your mind very carefully, if you won’t find that you had similar ideas on this lonely march. That you didn’t act on them doesn’t mean that you felt no temptation. You may have got hold of yourself just before the most dangerous moment.”
“But he had no scruples, no conscience, I know. I knew it long before.”
“He had as much conscience as we would have had under similar circumstances. Where there is no prosecutor, there is no defendant. Don’t forget that. All we have to do now is to find that cheat and get our money back.”
4.
Howard wanted to go after Dobbs at once so as to overtake him in Durango or at least in the port and so prevent him from crossing the border. Curtin was to stay in the village until fully recovered, when he would join Howard in port at the Southern Hotel.
When Howard told his Indian friends that he had to go to look after his property, as Curtin was sick, the Indians agreed, though they were sorry to have him go.
Next morning Howard was on his way to Durango on a good horse. His brown friends did not allow him to go alone. They insisted on going with him to protect him against any accident of the sort Curtin had encountered.
They had passed the next village when they met on the trail the alcalde don JoaquIn, who, accompanied by six of his men, were bringing Howard his burros and the packs.
Howard, seeing his train complete, asked the alcalde: “Well, amigo mio, where is the American who was with the train? I don’t see him. His name is Dobbs.”
“He was slain by bandits not far from Durango,” the alcalde answered. “We buried him with prayers and with a cross. He is resting in a blessed grave.”
“Did they get the bandits?”
“Yes, senor doctor, we caught them in our village, where they wanted to sell the burros. They were taken away yesterday by the Federales and will be shot for banditry.”
Howard looked at the packs and found them smaller than he remembered them.
He dismounted in a hurry, ran to the nearest pack, and opened it with nervous haste. The hides were there, but no little bags. He ran to another pack and opened it with trembling fingers. No bags were inside.
“Friends,” he shouted, “we must overtake the bandidos. I must ask them something. I want to know what they’ve done with a number of little bags made of rags and sackcloth which were in these packs. They contained sand and dust which we meant to take to town to be tested by learned men so as to find what sort of minerals the soil holds.”
“It may take us two days to reach the soldiers who are marching the bandits to the military post. They must be at the post by now. We will have to take a different direction and be quick, for once these bandoleros have arrived at the post, it will be only two hours before they are court-martialed, and after two hours more they will be shot,” the alcalde explained. “Then it will be too late to ask them anything.”
He gave orders to four of his men to take the train to his brother-in-law’s house in the pueblo where Howard was living, telling them that he and the white doctor would come a few days later as they were going after the soldiers.