As they sat down at a table near the dance-floor, Slade glanced through the windows on the far side of the room and saw a small, blunt-nosed river steamer poking her bow toward the wharf.
“The Bravo, she makes the run from Brownsville to Laredo and back,” said Amado. “She’s coming down from Laredo now. Will tie up here till morning, then unload some stuff and cross the river to Brownsville. Often does that. Gives her crew a chance for a night on the town here in Matamoros. Skipper prefers for them to have their bust here, I’ve a notion. Quieter than Brownsville, as a rule.”
“Her crew Mexicans?” Amado shook his head.
“I think he may have one or two Mexicans,” he replied. “Most of his deckhands are old deepwater men who are getting along in years, some of them stove up from accidents. The sort that can’t take the rough seas any longer and sign up with the little Gulf coastwise trading vessels. Some drift up to Brownsville from Port Isabel or even over from Corpus Cristi and go to work on the river steamers. I think some of them live in Matamoros—married Mexican girls. The Bravo carries a rather large crew for her size, for she has a lot of loading and unloading to do at wayside stops. Sort of a river tramp.”
“What does she pack?” Slade asked.
“Oh, most everything, especially on the up-river trip,” Amado replied. “A lot of hides and tallow coming down, and sometimes a good deal of wool. Quite a few sheep ranches between here and Laredo and it’s cheaper for them to ship by boat.”
Formerly, Slade knew, river traffic out of Brownsville had been heavy. Now, however, it was confined to a relatively few small steamers that picked up cargo wherever they could.
Amado glanced around and lowered his voice. “Sometimes those little boats carry a pretty valuable lading,” he remarked. “Gold shipments from the mines, or money being transferred from one bank to another. Usually, however, nothing of any consequence.”
Slade nodded and eyed the approaching vessel with interest.
The dinner arrived, and it was a good one, to which Slade and his host both did full justice.
“That is better,” said Amado, with a sigh, as he poured ruby wine into goblets. “One must hunger to really appreciate good food.” He glanced down at his ample waistline.
“Me, I always hunger,” he chuckled. “And it takes much to tighten such a belt as clasps my middle.”
“So here’s to tighter belts,” Slade said, and raised his glass.
“That toast I will drink with the, how you say it, gusto,” replied Amado, clinking rims.
“And now, Cápitan,” he added, “would it please you to tell me why you have visited Matamoros? There must be a reason.”
Slade told him, in detail. Amado listened attentively without interruption. He shook his head when Slade paused.
“Such a hombre as you describe has not entered my place, of that I am sure,” he said. “But there are other cantinas beside La Luz, my establishment. In one of those he may have been noted. I will make inquiries, and without delay. A moment, please.”
He arose and crossed to the end of the bar, where a tall, slender young man with a dark and savage countenance, and glittering black eyes stood. Aside from his height, he looked more Yaqui Indian than Spanish. Amado engaged him in low-voiced conversation. The other nodded and, a moment after Amado returned to the table, he sauntered out.
“If there is aught to learn, Estevan will learn it,” Amado said to Slade. “A wild young man. Wild and fierce, but a rooted rock beside one in time of trouble.”
“He looks it,” Slade agreed. “Yaqui?”
“His mother’s mother was the daughter of a Yaqui chief, his grandfather and his father Spanish. Well, amigo, I must leave you for a while; I have much to do and it looks like a busy night. Rest, and drink deep. Truly it is a day when El Halcón is my guest. El Halcón, the friend of the lowly, the champion of all who sorrow, who are oppressed and who know wrong. I am honored.”
“Thank you,” Slade replied. “I too am honored, to be the guest of one who is upright and honorable.”
Amado beamed happily and ambled off.
TWO
LEFT TO HIS OWN DEVICES, Slade relaxed comfortably with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and gave himself over to thought. He wondered if his hunch that somewhere in the neighborhood of Brownsville he would contact Veck Sosna was a straight one. It was indeed based on sound reasoning. With all northern Mexico seething because of his depredations and the rurales, the very efficient Mexican mounted police, storming on his trail, it seemed logical that he would slide across the river into Texas till things cooled down a bit.
And there were plenty of pickings in the country surrounding Brownsville. To the north and west were big and prosperous cattle ranches. And there were stage lines, and the transcontinental railroad not far off. Also the narrow-gauge road that had been built from Brownsville to Port Isabel.
All of which spelled opportunity to a shrewd and enterprising bandit leader; and Veck Sosna was both.
He wondered uneasily if Brownsville and its environs might not be in for a reign of lawlessness similar to that inaugurated by Juan Nepomuceno Cartinas years before. Cartinas had terrorized the section and had even raided Brownsville, and held the city captive for forty-eight hours.
Veck Sosna, he believed, was as capable as Cartinas and had the same ability to attract daring and ruthless followers.
Veck Sosna! graduate summa cum laude of a great university, who could write Ph.D. as well as M.D. after his name. A mad genius who had somehow taken the wrong fork of the trail. El Halcón versus Veck Sosna! A saga of the West that would be talked about for many a year to come.
Well, if Sosna had any such notions in mind it was up to him, Slade, to thwart the sadistic devil. Although the wily outlaw leader had so far always managed to elude capture, Slade had already more than once smashed his organization and sent Sosna himself high-tailing to fresh pastures.
“Twice I figured he was dead, and he wasn’t,” he told his unresponsive coffee cup. “And twice he managed to wriggle out of my loop when I felt sure it was tight around him. Oh well, the hellion’s luck can’t hold out forever, I hope.”
With which he dismissed Sosna from his mind for the moment and concentrated on his surroundings, which were calculated to quicken the pulses of a young man who had spent most of the past month in the saddle, and with no time for diversion.
Now the bar was crowded with a colorful gathering. The card tables were occupied, a roulette wheel spun gaily, the faro bank was going strong. A good orchestra played soft music and there were a number of pretty señoritas on the dance-floor.
“It is fiesta, a feast day,” remarked Amado Menendez as he paused for a moment at Slade’s table. “Many people from the other side of the river join in the celebration.”
Inconsequentially, Slade recalled that it was the morning after just such a celebration in Matamoros, aided and abetted by citizens from across the river, that Cartinas had swept into Brownsville where the town folk were placidly sleeping off the effects of the hilarious night’s entertainment. It didn’t seem likely that history would repeat itself, but Veck Sosna was more unpredictable than Cartinas had ever been.
Oh, the devil with Sosna! Slade again put the disturbing side-winder out of his mind and vowed to keep him out the rest of the night, discounting the fact that Sosna himself might have something to say about that.
As Slade was debating a whirl on the dance-floor with one of the attractive señoritas, Estevan, the young man Amado sent to try and gather information returned. His dark hawk face was impassive, but Slade thought the glitter of his black eyes was