“Luck played a considerable part,” Slade replied. “I just happened to sit down by the window at just the right time and spotted the hellions sliding up the gangplank.”
“And tackled them all, singlehanded,” Amado observed dryly.
“And I slipped a bit there,” Slade added. “I was careless and neglected to be on the watch for a lookout posted by the cabin door, and very nearly got my comeuppance in consequence. Well, I guess you can’t think of everything.”
“Nobody has been able to so far, I would judge,” Amado agreed. “and you believe the ladrones crossed the river to Texas?”
“That’s my opinion,” Slade conceded. “By way of the ford to the west of Matamoros, I’d say.”
“And you intend to pursue him?”
“I do,” Slade stated. “That is,” he added grimly, “if it doesn’t turn out he’s pursuing me, which has been the case more than once in the past.”
Amado chuckled. “Sounds like the carrousel, the—merry-go-round,” he said.
“It goes around, all right, but there’s not much merry about it,” Slade smiled.
El Halcón versus Veck Sosna! The ablest and most fearless of the Texas Rangers pitted against the most cunning, most ruthless outlaw Texas ever spawned!
Slade pushed his empty coffee cup aside and stood up. “I’m going to take a little ride,” he announced. “Tell Dolores I’ll see her later.”
“I’ll do that,” Amado promised. “She will await you eagerly.”
When Slade reached the stable, Shadow whinneyed joyfully. The old keeper bowed and smiled.
“He likes not to be inactive,” he observed, apropos the tall black.
“I’ll give him a chance to stretch his legs a mite,” Slade said as he cinched the saddle into place. “We’ll be back.”
“Adios, Cápitan,” said the keeper. “Vaya usted con Dios—go you with God.”
Leaving Matamoros and Brownsville behind, Slade rode west on the Camino Trail, which ran close to the river’s edge. After a while the flat lands on the far side of the stream gave place to low rises thickly grown with brush, continuing to the ford and beyond.
At the ford, Slade reined in and gazed across to the heavy chaparral growth that ran close to the water’s edge.
The ford was a narrow ridge beneath the water, something like the Indian Crossing at Laredo, which is a ledge of limestone rock lying just below the surface of the water, and in dry seasons becomes exposed. Here there was never any exposure and the water was deeper. And, similar to the Indian Crossing, below the ford the river swirled and eddied, flashing and glittering and spuming rainbowed arcs of spray.
Such peculiar geological phenomena interested Walt Slade. He knew that this eastern section was on the fringe of the earthquake belt, the manifestations of which were often disturbing to the west coast. Such formations as the ones just mentioned evidenced subsidence or elevation not far in the past, geologically speaking, and it was with the eye of a geologist that he studied and understood them.
Shortly before the death of his father, subsequent to financial reverses which entailed the loss of the elder Slade’s ranch, young Walt had graduated from a famous college of engineering. He had planned to take a post-grad course in special subjects to round out his education and better fit him for the profession he had determined to make his life work.
However, at that time it became economically impossible and he was sort of at loose ends and trying to make up his mind as to just which course of action to pursue. So when Captain Jim McNelty, his father’s friend, the famous Commander of the Border Battalion of the Texas Rangers, who recognized good Ranger material when he saw it, suggested that he come into the Rangers for a while and pursue his studies in spare time, Slade decided the idea was a good one. Long since he had gotten more from private study than he could have hoped for from the post-grad and was eminently fitted for the profession of engineering.
However, in the meanwhile Ranger work had gotten a strong hold on him, which doubtless canny Captain Jim figured would be the case, and he was loath to sever connections with the illustrious body of law enforcement officers. Engineering could come later, he was young; he’d stick with the Rangers for a while longer.
Which explained his professional interest in such terrestrial manifestations as the Indian Crossing and the ford on which he gazed.
“Well, horse, here goes,” he said. “Maybe we can pick up a trail over there that will lead us to something. Not much travel on the north bank and half a dozen gents riding fast should have left some marks of their passing.”
Shadow didn’t argue the point and sloshed along in water that rose almost to his barrel.
As they neared the middle of the stream, where the water in the channel below the ford was very deep, Slade constantly studied the approaching north bank.
It was El Halcón’s inherent watchfulness and meticulous attention to details, plus his keen eyesight, that saved him from the drygulcher’s bullet. He saw the gleam of reflected sunlight as the hellion shifted his rifle the merest trifle before pulling trigger, and was already going sideways and down in the saddle, almost to the water, when the slug yelled through the space his body had occupied the instant before.
But Slade knew he was a setting quail in the full blaze of the sunlight and outlined against the water. To try and shoot it out with the rifleman holed up in the brush would be tantamount to suicide. There was but one thing to do, a devil of a chance to take, but he had no choice. He whirled Shadow downstream. His voice rang out, “Take it!”
Shadow took it, with a squeal of protest. Straight into the swirling, eddying waters below the ford he plunged, casting up a cloud of spray, going clear under. Slade slipped from the saddle and went under with him.
Up they came, blowing and gasping, and as they broke surface, bullets smacked the water beside them; but the drygulcher could see little to shoot at and none of the slugs found a mark. Then the current seized them and hurled them downstream toward a bend a few hundred yards distant.
But as he battled with all his strength to reach the nearer north shore, Slade began to fear that he had just traded a quick death from lead poisoning for a somewhat slower one by drowning. For here the ever unpredictable Rio Grande ran like a millrace and the water in the channel was deep and cold. For half the distance to the bend he did not gain a yard. Weighted by his guns and his clothes, he could barely keep his head above water, and Shadow was having trouble, too. Slade gripped the bridle iron with one hand and paddled furiously with the other. His arms were growing heavy as lead, there was a band as of hot steel about his chest, tightening, tightening, shutting off his laboring breath. His heart was pounding, red flashes stormed before his eyes.
He went under again, broke surface gasping and retching; looked like it was curtains.
They reached the bend and with a surge of renewed hope, Slade realized that they were in an eddy that was whirling them toward the north shore. A moment later Shadow’s irons clashed on stones. He gave a prodigious snort and surged forward, Slade clinging to the bridle iron. Another instant and his boots scraped on the bottom and he was reeling and stumbling through the shoaling water. Together they struggled ashore, Shadow to stand gulping and gurgling, Slade prone on the warm sands.
Gradually his strength returned. He regurgitated some of the water he had swallowed and felt better. Sitting up, he hauled off his hat, which had been kept in place by the chin strap, and batted it free of water. Removing his boots, he emptied them and managed to struggle back into them. Then he stood up, shook himself and wrung out his clothes as best he could. Fortunately the sun was hot and he was already beginning to steam.
All the while he was keeping a sharp watch upstream, against the chance the drygulcher might put in an appearance around the bend. He made sure his Winchester was free