Part 1

Chapter 14,102 wordsPublic domain

TREASURE OF THE BRASADA

PERIL AND INTRIGUE ON THE BORDER

By LES SAVAGE, JR.

DELL PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.

George T. Delacorte, Jr. _President_

Albert P. Delacorte _Vice-President_

Helen Meyer _Vice-President_

261 Fifth Avenue New York 16, N. Y.

Printed in U.S.A.

DESIGNED AND PRODUCED BY WESTERN PRINTING & LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Persons this _Story_ is about--

GLENN CRAWFORD, whose pallor and feverishly glowing eyes mark the three months he has just spent in a hospital as the result of an accident he suspects was planned, has the restless animal lines of body and negligible hips of one who has been much in the saddle. Hotheaded, once fearless, he is presently trying to overcome an unreasoning panic and pain which rack his body whenever he goes near a horse.

MERIDA LOPEZ, whose presence at the Big O ranch is surrounded by mystery, has a faintly exotic beauty and slumberous, provocative eyes which both irritate Crawford and stir something primal in him. He isn't sure of her game, but he knows a woman like Merida doesn't trail through the wild brush country just for the scenery.

DR. FELIZ HUERTA, who looks as though he's in the process of disintegration, has strongly arched brows and a graying peak of hair which gives him a satanic cast. His eyes hold a dull, jaded lackluster, and even the slightest movement seems to cost him infinite effort. For his own reasons, he is extremely interested in Crawford's symptoms.

QUARTEL, come to wind up affairs at the Big O, is a huge hunk of thick brown flesh with sensual lips and shoulders like sides of beef. He boasts he can rope better, ride farther, drink more and cuss dirtier than any hombre between Texas and Mexico City.

OTIS ROCKLAND, whom Crawford makes no bones about hating, is the owner of the Big O. As Crawford looks at it, Rockland's dealings with Crawford's pal, old Delcazar, were no less dirty for being legal.

DELCAZAR, who fears his friend Crawford is mixed up in the most dangerous thing that ever hit the wild brush country, is an aged, gnarled, and skinny Mexican who lives alone in the back country. He has rheumy eyes in a face seamed as an old satchel.

CABEZABLANCA, so-called for his head of pure white hair, is one of the Big O crew. He has a reputation for being deadly dangerous, but for some reason Huerta seems to have him under his thumb.

JACINTO (LITTLE HYACINTH) DEL RIO, the big, fat, grumbling cook, listened to his father when he told him there were two sins in the world, working and fighting, and if he avoided both of them he would surely go to heaven.

BUENO BAILEY, a tough bronc-buster, gaunt as an alley cat, has milky eyes, and parts his long yellow hair in the middle, slicking it down with bacon grease. Crawford suspects him of being responsible for his "accident."

AFORISMO, who has a sinister proverb for every occasion, is a thin, stooped man whose eyebrows, slanting toward the middle of his forehead, give him a mournful expression. His favorite motto, cut into his razor-sharp knife, is _Tripe is sweet but bowels are better_.

WALLACE TARANT, Otis Rockland's lawyer, has a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped frame, a square brow and a wide, thin-lipped mouth which should have held a palpable strength. But his eyes won't meet Crawford's, and his voice is small for such a large man.

SHERIFF ED KENMARE, weary lawman of San Antonio, whose duties hang heavy upon him, has a bulbous nose prominent among heavy, weathered features.

FORD INNES, Cabezablanca's saddlemate, is a red-bearded redhead with shrewd little eyes and a short square body which holds all the lethal threat of a snub-nosed derringer.

AFRICANO, a big black devil of a horse, is a killer nobody has been able to break. Just the thought of him drives Crawford into a trembling frenzy of fear, but he knows he must conquer Africano or go crazy.

What this _Story_ is about--

Being caught, bloody gun in hand, leaning over the body of the man he had threatened to kill forces bronc-buster Glenn Crawford to turn up at the Big O ranch, a weary, footsore fugitive with more than one score to settle.

Even the murder of the ranch owner in San Antonio had not prepared Crawford for the state of affairs he finds at the ranch. His sudden presence there seems to scare some of the crew half to death and lead others to try to kill him every chance they get.

For the moment, however, Crawford is more interested in the state of affairs in his own body than in those of the Big O and the murderer he is sure the ranch harbors. A veteran of the saddle, Crawford discovers that since an accident which he suspects was planned, he goes into a frenzy of pain and trembling panic whenever he gets near a horse. But in spite of the torture it costs him, Crawford stays on at the ranch. He knows he cannot be a free man until he finds the murderer of Otis Rockland. Nor can he be a whole man until he conquers the black devil of a killer horse, Africano. After he meets Merida Lopez, an exotic beauty whose presence at the Big O is surrounded by mystery, he has a third motive for staying around, although he stands to lose his reason if not his life.

Trapped by forces which he cannot understand, and half-crazed by the torturing pain and panic which he tries desperately both to overcome and to hide, Crawford gets himself more and more hopelessly entangled in what, as old Delcazar points out, looks like the most dangerous thing that ever hit the wild brush country. Crawford is offered a strange proposition by sinister Dr. Huerta; he listens to Merida's spellbinding tale of Santa Anna's chests--and as he listens, the jagged third of a map he possesses, plus a dying man's painfully gasped out words, take on a new and important meaning; he waits, trapped, weaponless, for a killer to come nearer, nearer--And he delivers to his other pursuers the body of one sent out to kill him--only to become more deeply enmeshed in new and still more terrifying trouble. Crawford's irritation at being stirred by Merida, whom he alternately respects and suspects of playing him for a fool, doesn't prevent him from riding secretly with her in the night in search of a place so malicious few men have ever stepped foot in it. Nor does it later prevent him from risking an agonizing death to follow her into it.

Before the true murderer reveals himself, and before Crawford can again call himself a whole man, much violent action takes place. Set against the exciting background of the untamed Texas border country, this is a thrilling brew of suspense, quick death, adventure, and love.

List of Chapters--

I. Circumstantial Evidence

II. Santa Anna's Chests

III. Huerta Was Right!

IV. Unreasoning Fear

V. Huerta Makes a Proposition

VI. "Tell Us What Happened."

VII. Sunday Celebration

VIII. Best Roper in the World

IX. Still in the Throes of Fear

X. Flight From Snake Thickets

XI. Old Friends Reunited

XII. Conqueror and Conquered

XIII. Violence in the Bunkhouse

XIV. Challenging Snake Thickets

XV. Treasure Hunt Climax

Treasure of the Brasada

_Chapter One_

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Crossing Alamo Plaza, Glenn Crawford was almost to the Manger Hotel when he became aware of Sheriff Ed Kenmare standing in the entrance to the patio. Crawford felt the hesitant break to his stride. Then, deliberately, he went on, feeling for the first time the sweat glistening on his unshaven upper lip and forming dark blue spots in the armpits of his faded ducking jacket. It might have been the sun. It was a hot spring for San Antonio.

"How about the riding, Glenn?" asked the sheriff, casually.

"My legs are all right, Ed," said Crawford, halting momentarily.

"I noticed you still limped a bit," Kenmare told him. "You got off easy, I guess. Horse mashed my cousin's legs rolling on him that way up in Deaf Smith. He never did heal so he could ride any more."

"My legs are all right," said Crawford, turning to go past him and through the patio gate.

"You got other things to heal besides your legs," said Kenmare, shifting his dusty, tobacco-odored bulk in front of Crawford. "Why don't you think things out a bit longer before you see Otis Rockland again?"

"This isn't my idea," said Crawford. "Otis sent me word he was here and wanted to talk."

Kenmare's watery gray eyes met Crawford's, and he put a gnarled hand on the younger man's arm. "Then give me your gun, Glenn, before you go up."

A strange, defiant withdrawal drew Crawford's body up, accentuating for the first time its restless, animal lines. In his brass-studded levis, he had the lean catty legs and negligible hips of a man whose work had been much in the saddle, and though his shoulders were narrow, their muscularity was apparent beneath the denim jacket. His forehead was high and bony and pale below the short curling black hair; and, set deep within their sockets, his eyes held a sunken, almost feverish glow, which could have come from the recent sickness, or something else. His rope-marked fingers tightened about the brass receiver of his old Henry.

"I'll keep the rifle, Ed," he said. "Now let me by."

Kenmare did not release Crawford's arm. He dropped his gaze to one side, reaching up to rub the sweat exuding from the large, greasy pores of his rather bulbous nose.

"Something I never did get straight, Glenn," he said, looking at the worn boot he was scuffing in the earth. "This whole thing between you and Rockland seems to have started with the way Rockland got hold of Delcazar's land."

"Del was--"

"I know, Glenn, I know." Kenmare's fingers tightened momentarily on Crawford's arm. "You and Delcazar was pretty close friends. And you think Rockland gave Delcazar a raw deal."

"You know he did," said Crawford. "Del had a small spread, but it had the best water in that section of the brush. Rockland had to have that water. And he got it."

"But he did it all legal, Glenn."

"Legal." Crawford's voice was bitter. "He knew Del only held his spread with one of those old Spanish grants they call a _sitio_. His lawyers found out that this one was so mixed up through the years that Del couldn't prove ownership. He petitioned the state, had it declared public domain, and got it for a song. Yes, it was legal all right."

"Those things happen," said Kenmare wearily. "It wasn't your spread, Glenn."

"No. But Del was my friend. I was busting broncs for Otis Rockland at the time. I went to him and told--"

That hand tightened again. "I know what you told him, Glenn. Maybe you were right. Maybe Rockland even had that cinch cut on the black killer so it would roll you. But listen, Glenn--" Kenmare took a weary, wheezing breath--"this ain't the way."

"What isn't the way?" said Crawford with growing heat. "I told you Rockland sent for me, Ed."

"There must have been half a dozen Big O hands heard you threaten to kill Rockland after that bronc rolled you under," Kenmare told him heavily.

"Don't you think three months in the hospital cools a man off some, Ed?" said Crawford. "Now get out of my way. It's too hot for an argument. I'll buy you a beer on the way out."

He shoved past the sheriff and into the tiled patio. The alamo tree dropped its deep, dappled shade over the cattlemen sitting tilted back in the line of peeling cane chairs against the adobe wall. Their lazy, sporadic conversation died abruptly, and the only sound was the hard beat of Crawford's heels against the tiles. His lips formed a thin, bitter line against his teeth as he passed the speculation in their lifted gazes and entered the foyer. The cool, inner chill struck him with a distinct physical force, after the stifling heat of the day without, and caused him to draw in a quick breath. He skirted a potted palm and went up the broad, carpeted stairs to 211, the room Otis Rockland always took when he came to San Antonio.

He had lifted his hand to knock, when the sound came from inside. It was muffled and dim at first, rising to a thumping crescendo, with someone calling something, the whole thing ceasing then, abruptly. After a moment of silence, Crawford seemed to hear heavy breathing. He let his knuckles strike the pine panel of the door. It rattled mutedly. That was his only answer.

"Otis?" he called.

He waited a moment longer, then turned the knob. The door opened into the sumptuous parlor of the suite. The wine overhangings were drawn across the windows against the sun, casting into semi-gloom the spidery pattern of white and gilt furniture in the room. He heard a shutter clack in the bedroom and knocked his knee against a low marquetry table in front of the sofa as he headed for the door. He took his Henry in both hands and shoved open the door with its tip. The first thing he saw was a pile of blue chintz on the floor. It was the hanging, torn off the tester of the four-poster, and Otis Rockland must have clutched it when falling, for his hand was still gripping it in terrifying desperation. The portieres had been pulled back by an opened shutter, and the avenue of bright light, splashing across the rich Brussels carpet, touched Rockland's feet and led Crawford to turn momentarily toward the window.

"No--Crawford--"

He wheeled back to see Rockland's eyes open. The man made some feeble effort to rise. Crawford dropped to one knee beside him, laying the rifle down.

"Delcazar?" he said.

Rockland's lips twisted in what could have been a smile.

"Like you, to think of that."

"I guess more than one has good cause to want you dead, Otis," said Crawford.

"Yes." It came out of the man in a hoarse, strained way. But there was a look of macabre humor or malice, or both, in his face as he spoke. "They'll think it was Delcazar, won't they? Or you, Glenn."

"I'll get someone--"

"No. No." Rockland reached up to grab at his shirt as Crawford started to rise. "Won't do any good. Too late." He fought for breath for a moment, then went on, slowly. "Reach--inside--coat."

Crawford could see the thick, viscid blood forming beneath the back of Rockland's iron-gray head now. There was a brutal slash across the man's face, slicing deep into the bridge of his dominating, avaricious nose. Even as Crawford watched, the eyes closed and the breathing grew stertorous. The man was obviously beyond help. With a swift movement Crawford reached beneath Rockland's expensive steel pen, drawing a wallet from the inner pocket. He was starting to go through it, when Rockland's eyes opened.

"Rip lining, Glenn," he whispered. "What he was after--you scared him off--'fore he could find it."

Crawford fumbled with the soft doeskin flap of the wallet, finally managing to rip it out, revealing a piece of faded, yellowed paper. He pulled this out. Unfolded, it formed a triangle, the bottom straight, the other two sides jagged and torn. "Looks like some kind of a map," he said.

"Yes," said Rockland, feebly. "_Derrotero._ Santa Anna's chests."

"Whose chests? What are you talking about, Otis?"

Rockland's lip drew back over his teeth, more a grimace than a smile. "Don't lie, Crawford," he murmured. "Why else were you so het-up when I got Delcazar's spread? You knew about this _derrotero_ then."

"About what?" said Crawford hotly, clutching him. "How is Del mixed up in this?"

But Rockland's head had fallen back once more; and for a moment Crawford thought he was gone. Suddenly he found himself shaking Rockland in a fever of impatience. "Otis," he cried, "Otis, did Del give you this? Where did you get this map?"

Once more Rockland's eyes opened, but a glaze was on them. "Mexico," he whispered. "Mexico City."

Suddenly Crawford knew. The Delcazars had come from Mexico City originally. And their family papers must have been in the hands of a lawyer there. When Rockland got Delcazar's spread, he had sent his own lawyer down there to make sure there was nothing to obscure his title to the land. Evidently Tarant had found this part of the _derrotero_ among the papers. But this was only a third of it. Where was the rest of it? The light grew brighter. So this was why Rockland had sent for him. He thought that he, Crawford, knew about the map--knew, perhaps, who held the missing pieces. Santa Anna's chests, Rockland had said, Santa Anna's chests. All at once he found himself muttering the words aloud, "Santa Anna's chests--"

As though the words were a magic Sesame, Rockland opened his eyes. Drawing on some hidden reservoir of strength, he pulled himself to a sitting position. "Where's the rest of it, Glenn?" he gasped. "Does Delcazar know? Glenn, Glenn, where's the rest--"

Crawford caught at the man as Rockland sank back. "Otis?"

It was the muted footsteps, then, coming across the Brussels carpet in the outer room. Crawford had allowed Rockland to drop back when Ed Kenmare's bulk filled the doorway. A vague pain moved over the sheriff's heavy weathered features.

"The manager heard a ruckus up here," he said. "I guess he was right. No, Glenn--"

"Yes, Ed," said Glenn, violently, scooping up his Henry and whirling back toward the man. Kenmare had his own six-shooter only half out of its holster. He stopped that way, staring at the .44. There were other men behind the sheriff now, several of the cowmen from the patio and lobby, the hotel manager in a white morning coat.

"I guess there's no use denying it, is there?" said Crawford, through his teeth.

Kenmare let his eyes drop to the Henry's wooden butt. Crawford felt it then, sticky against his fingers, and realized the wood must have been lying in the blood from Rockland's head. A nausea swept him.

"Ed," he said, unable to keep from it, "I didn't, I didn't--"

His bitter voice trailed off as he saw resignation in Kenmare's faded eyes. "Listen, son," the man told him. "It won't do you no good this way. Give me that gun now."

"No." The finger lever made a sharp click, cocking, and with his hand holding it down, Crawford started backing toward the window. "Think I'd have a chance? It's all here, isn't it? All right here, cinched up tighter'n a bucking rig. No loose lashings even. Everything to hang me. I'm not going to be taken for that, Ed."

"Glenn," said Kenmare, with that same weighty reluctance, "for once, don't be a hothead. You go off half-cocked like this and bugger your bronc every time. This just won't do you any good--"

"Don't do it, Jason," Crawford shouted, turning his gun toward one of the cattlemen behind Kenmare. Harry Jason stopped trying to shift back of Kenmare where Crawford wouldn't see him draw his gun, and moved his hand carefully away from the wooden butt of the weapon. There was no intelligent reasoning in Crawford now. Only a terrible consciousness of that dead body on the floor, and a blind, animal urge to escape this. He lifted his leg over the iron railing of the balcony onto the ledge outside. There was the first violent movement among the men in the room as he crouched down to drop off the ledge, and he heard someone shout. Then he jumped.

It was not a long fall, and he broke it by catching the edge of the balcony with his free hand and hanging there till his arm was stretched out with his weight, then letting go. One of his high heels turned under him as he struck the flagstones below, and he let himself go down on his knees and then roll it off to keep from spraining an ankle. As he leaped to his feet, Kenmare appeared on the balcony, gun out. Crawford was already running toward the front entrance, past the line of cane chairs. There were still half a dozen cattlemen sitting there, and two of them were standing at the end, and Kenmare was apparently fearful of hitting them if he shot.

"Stop him," shouted the lawman. "Crawford. He killed Rockland. Get him, you fools--"

The men standing made an abortive shift to block Crawford's passage, but he was already opposite them, and surprise held the other men in their chairs till he was almost to the door. He saw several pulling at their guns, but Mexicans and cowhands were passing by outside in the street, or stopping farther beyond in the Plaza to gape curiously, and a bullet might have struck one of them. There were half a dozen cow ponies at a cottonwood rack in front of the Manger, and as Crawford reached them he noticed that the reins of the first were tied in a hitch that could be knocked free. He did it with the tip of his gun, throwing the ribbons over the animal's neck. Excited by Crawford's running up like that, the hairy little black started to whirl inward. Crawford jumped for the stirrup with one foot, letting the centrifugal force slap him into the saddle as the horse whirled on around.

"Hey," shouted one of the cattlemen, streaming out of the patio behind him. "Get off that horse, Crawford, he's mine--"

But Crawford was already turning the animal into Blum Street. Halfway down the block he cut through an alley onto Commerce and turned at the corner of Commerce and Alamo, wheeling into another alley that led directly down to the river. He crashed through a line of washing hung behind a squalid Mexican hovel and scattered a bunch of cackling hens, tearing a white _camisa_ off his head, his hat going with it. A Mexican woman ran from the hut, waving her arms and squealing at him, and behind that he could hear the dim sounds of running horses. He had gone down Blum to make them think he was heading west out of town, and hoped they would not discover his true direction till he had left by the south. He slid the pony down the stone coping banking the river, letting the current carry him beneath the Market Street bridge before trying to reach the opposite bank. He got out of town following back alleys and side streets, and then broke into South Flores Street. And now, as he pushed the laboring pony toward the twin spires of Mission Concepción, it began to come.

There had been no room for it in the violent excitement of those first few minutes, with all his concentration on escape. But now, with the steady beat of running hoofs beneath him, it began to grow in him. First, perhaps, it was a consciousness of that steady shuddering pound of hoofs beneath him. Then, the constant, heated movement of the horse's muscles, the dim sense of its flanks, rising and falling with the heavy breathing, the feel of its shoulders beneath the saddle moving back and forth. And finally, more than the movement and the sound outside him. Something within. He did not know where it started. In his legs, perhaps. Or his groin. Somewhere down there. A strange, thin, hollow sensation.

"No--"

He didn't know whether it had been in his mind or whether he had said it. He turned in the saddle, staring down the road behind, trying to blot it from his consciousness. He was past the fields of white niggerheads about Concepción, and was approaching the second mission, San José de Aguayo, which had been established by the Spaniards here in 1720. But it was growing in him. He was sweating beneath the armpits now. It was recognizable now. Pain. More than that--hollow, nebulous sickness at the pit of his stomach. Pain. Pinpricks of it, shooting up his legs. A hoarse, strained sob escaped him. How could it be? They had told him, no. He was healed. How can it be? _I'm healed, damn you, I'm healed._