Read an Excerpt
Death on Treasure Trail
A Rio Kid Adventure
By Brett Halliday OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1941 William Morrow & Company
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2540-9
CHAPTER 1
Midnight on the Big Bend of the Rio Grande was dusted with silver from countless stars overhead, lanced by forked streaks of lightning against the black curtain of thunderclouds billowing up in the west.
Sitting lithely erect on the free-running black stallion, the Rio Kid dragged deep gulps of the clean air of freedom into his lungs and laughed defiantly at the storm sweeping down on the rugged Border country.
The fury of the elements held no fear for him tonight. Behind him was a Texas Ranger who sent him riding westward with a hard, warm handshake, and now the Kid rode with new life surging through his veins and a new vigor in his sinewy body.
True, there were still those yellowed reward posters scattered up and down the Border offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for him, dead or alive; and in Arizona a charge of murder lay against him, but these things didn't matter tonight.
Returning to the States from Mexico only a short time ago after three years of exile from his homeland, the Kid had met his first big test in Broken Spur ... and he had conquered. He had been instrumental in restoring Marge Malloy's ranch to her and releasing her sweetheart from jail and helped to bring a notorious pair of swindlers to justice.
He knew the road leading to Arizona was beset with further tests, that every mile of the road back would be fraught with danger, but with a new self-respect bolstering his courage, he felt strong and capable of facing anything as he rode westward.
A wind whipped up in his sun-browned face, howled down the narrow roadway between the north bank of the river and the foot of the jagged rimrock breaking down from the plateau on his right.
On the wings of the night-wind came the smell of rain ahead, but he rode with loose rein, giving the magnificent Thunderbolt his head, reveling in the liquid flowing motion of perfectly co-ordinated muscles beneath him.
In this long lonely stretch of river road there was not likely to be shelter for many miles ahead. There was no use slackening his pace to look around for a refuge.
Also, he wanted to push on as far as possible tonight, for if he delayed his journey he might be intercepted by officers who, with the reward money in the offing, would shoot on sight.
Lightning flashes struck closer, streaking the gray sky, trembling away to leave the twisting road before him in thick blackness, blotting into darkness the steep cliff rising sheer on his right, making a hazard of screening mesquite bushes on his left.
Giving Thunderbolt his head to pick his own way, the Kid relaxed in the saddle and hooked reins over the horn.
Above the thud of the stallion's driving hooves came the low ominous rumble of thunder, filling the narrow gorge, reverberating from the face of the cliff, jarring the solid ground underfoot.
The Rio Kid's lips came back from his teeth in a grin not unlike the snarl of a wolf on a lonely ridge howling into the teeth of a storm such as the rider faced ahead.
The first heavy drops of rain slanted into his hard young face as he straightened in the saddle and let smoke pour from his nostrils. Vagrant streaks no longer lanced the blackness, but had been succeeded by sheet lightning which hung quiveringly in the damp air while thunder crashed discordantly like a thousand devils beating furiously upon huge bass drums. The wind died away as suddenly as it had come, leaving in its wake a heavy, humid atmosphere, thick and stifling, pregnant with the threat of leashed fury held momently in abeyance by a freakish whim of the storm gods.
The vivid display of the elements ceased for a brief instant following the terrific crash of thunder; and into the awesome silence a piercing scream of anguish knifed through the thick blackness of the night to the Rio Kid's sensitive ears.
Low-pitched, the scream rose sharp and clear to a frightful crescendo, died slowly into an awful moaning gurgle which was inhuman, yet more horrible because such a sound could emanate only from human lips and from a throat contracted by a spasm of unendurable pain.
Then, into the lull, a raging cloudburst struck, drowning out the anguished scream.
The Rio Kid tensed in the saddle. His right hand instinctively dropped to the butt of a low-tied gun on his hip while his left hand caught up the reins and eased them tight on the bit with a gentle, sure touch.
Sensing the urgency of the cry from out of the darkness, the stallion slowed his gait instantly, sliding back on powerful haunches to a dead stop, ears cocked forward expectantly.
The scream was not repeated after another deafening roar of thunder, but to the Kid's strained, listening ears, it seemed to hang in the sultry silence.
There was no way to tell where it had originated. The sound had rushed at him from every direction, echoing and re-echoing from hill and valley.
Again thunder roared and rumbled over the earth. The downpour splashed against the statuesque figures of horse and rider. The wind whipped up with stinging intensity, rushing water down the road in a surging flood.
Straining his eyes in every direction, the Kid caught sight of a flickering gleam of light ahead and to the right before a solid sheet of water blacked out vision completely.
He touched spurs to the black's quivering flanks. The stallion surged forward into the teeth of the storm.
All sense of direction vanished from the Kid's mind. A screaming whirlpool of wind and rain flattened him in the saddle, chilling him to the bone, but the black stallion galloped steadily forward on the course his rider had set.
The Kid felt movement beneath him and was thrilled by the realization that Thunderbolt was forging ahead into the fury of the elements as a lesser animal would not have done. Lying low, close to the warmth of the magnificent black body, he had a recurrence of that strange feeling of horse and rider alone in a world of nothingness galloping into the unknown.
From the beginning, the Kid had sensed a kinship between the animal and himself, and now a new bond of understanding was sealed between them. Without words and without guidance of bit or spur, the black sensed his rider's wish and was carrying him unerringly toward that single gleam of light momentarily glimpsed.
The Rio Kid suddenly straightened in the saddle. He took the full lashing force of the driving rain in his face and laughed aloud. With a horse like Thunderbolt beneath him, a man would indeed be a weakling who would not respond wholeheartedly to that challenge.
He knew they had left the smooth road because of the black's retarded progress. Thunderbolt had turned in toward the rimrock and was finding his way sure-footedly along the boulders leading toward that gleam of light, toward the shrill cry of distress that seemed echoed yet in the raging wind.
There was no break in the wall of blackness closing them in on all sides. Every sound was drowned in the sullen and unceasing roar of the rain. A thousand voices might be crying for help within a few feet of the Kid and he would have heard nothing.
Yet, he waited without impatience for Thunderbolt to carry him to the source of that single cry. Between man and beast there was now such perfect unity that the Kid no more doubted the horse's ability to succeed than he doubted his own ability to cope with whatever situation awaited his arrival.
Thunderbolt came to an abrupt halt. The Kid leaned forward, shielding his eyes and attempting to pierce the watery veil before him.
It was impossible to see anything, but the black nickered softly. Sliding from the saddle, the Kid dropped reins to the ground and took a cautious step forward on slippery boulders.
He discovered at once why the black had stopped. Directly in front of him was a shoulder-high wall of rocks which had evidently been piled by human hands. A wall, he quickly surmised, built to shut out storms from a natural cave on the other side. A shelter somewhere near the road in the desolate reaches of the rugged Border country.
Leaning over the wall, the Kid shielded his eyes to peer through the rain and was rewarded by seeing a faint blur of light directly ahead.
Stepping back, he grimly felt his way around the wall, stumbling over boulders and encountering the sharp thorns of mesquite, his clothes and flesh ripped by the vicious embrace of catclaws before he found a break in the wall affording a smooth pathway toward the light.
Safely shrouded by the storm and the darkness, the Kid moved up the path boldly until he stood at the edge of an overhang jutting out from the face of the cliff. Far back against the wall of the sheltered enclosure a bright mesquite root fire burned, and in the light the Kid clearly discerned the figures of five persons.
Four of the figures were masked, bandannas covering the whole of their faces with only two holes cut for vision. The roar of the rain all about him beat out the sound of voices which might have drifted from the cave. It was like watching a fearsome pantomime to stand outside and witness the lighted scene within.
The fifth person inside the cave was unmasked, a pitiable figure writhing before the dancing flames, slim wrists lashed overhead to an iron bolt driven into the crevice of the rock roof; thin brown face distorted with pain and defiance, long black hair hanging down on either side of a face framing enormous eyes which stared with the light of fanatical determination.
He was merely a lad, a Mexican youth of sixteen or so, barefooted and bareheaded, clad in too-big overalls and a loose shirt ripped and bloodstreaked across the shoulders from the lash of a quirt which now dangled from the hand of one of the masked ruffians.
It was a macabre, blood-curdling sight to come upon suddenly out of the night and in the lonely Border region.
In the back of the Kid's mind, he had expected to find a girl or a woman in distress, but he knew now that it was from the pain-twisted lips of the lad that the high-pitched scream had come just before the storm struck.
The youth's mouth was clamped tight now as one of the masked men spoke to him, and the Kid had a feeling that the helpless victim was afraid to part them to answer lest he let out another scream for the pleasure of his masked captors.
The Mexican boy kept shaking his head obstinately, his slender body sagging laxly downward from the ropes binding his wrists, his spirit apparently unbroken by the beating already inflicted.
While the Kid crouched there, taking in every detail of the scene without being observed, the interrogator stepped back with an impatient gesture toward the man who waited with the quirt lifted.
As plainly as though he had heard the words, the Rio Kid sensed the growled command: "Go ahead and beat some sense into the boy."
The Kid crouched down in the darkness outside the cave and pulled a bandanna from his pocket. Without taking his gaze from the scene before him, he hastily ripped two holes in the cotton handkerchief and began adjusting it over his face in imitation of the men inside.
Three of the masked men drew back to one side while the man with the quirt stepped closer to their young victim and braced himself on widespread legs.
The Kid fumbled with a knot at the back of his head as he watched the braided rawhide whistle over the ruffian's head and lash down viciously upon the Mexican youth's thin shoulders.
The youngster writhed under the terrific impact, danced on tiptoe, but his lips remained firmly clenched.
Even as the Kid adjusted his mask and loosened .45's in their holsters of watersoaked leather preparatory to taking a hand in the grossly unfair game, he saw one of the masked men dart forward and seize the whipper's wrist as he swung the quirt aloft.
There was a fierce struggle between the two men, and a gun came out of its holster behind the man who had intervened in behalf of the victim.
The Rio Kid lunged forward into the circle of firelight with both guns drawn.
The two men were straining together over possession of the quirt while the other two apparently watched fixedly through the holes in their bandanna masks, then one of them slowly aimed his revolver at the back of the man who had interfered with the punishment of the Mexican lad.
The silence grew strained and ominous, and into that deadly quiet the Rio Kid's snarled threat crashed with the shock of a thunderclap.
"Don't none of yuh move. I'm takin' a hand in this here game."
The muzzles of his guns covered them unwaveringly as they whirled to stare in consternation at the masked stranger who had been spewed up by the storm.
CHAPTER 2
Crouched low, with both .45's held hip-high, the Rio Kid dominated the scene. The two men who had been struggling for possession of the quirt stood in the tense attitude of Greek wrestlers, their bodies bowed against the backdrop of yellow flickering light.
Backed against the wall of the cave, the other two stood in attitudes of fear and surprise. The one drawn gun among them remained leveled at the back of the man who had halted the quirting party just before the Kid's unexpected entrance.
Above the sullen and monotonous roar of the storm the Kid heard quickened breath wheezing through the Mexican youth's clenched lips.
The tableau held for some seconds without words or movement, the eyeholes in bandanna masks regarding the newcomer unwaveringly.
The Rio Kid spoke harshly to the one man among them who had shown compassion for the victim:
"You can let go o' that man's wrist, feller. He ain't gonna use that quirt no more. Step back here slow so when I start shootin' you'll maybe be in thuh clear."
The briefest of nods indicated that the man understood. His fingers relaxed their hold on the forearm that had been swinging the quirt. The Kid's eyes shifted to the leveled gun back of him, and he warned softly:
"Don't pull that trigger, Mister. You'll drop first if yuh do."
The man didn't pull the trigger. The muzzle wavered and slanted downward. The heavy-bodied ruffian with the quirt found his voice as the one who had opposed him stepped backward toward the Kid's side:
"Who're you to come bustin' in on a private party? You wanta git a bellyful of lead?"
The Kid shook his head. "I'm figgerin' on bein' on the handin' out end of any lead slingin'." His voice grated harshly into the cavelike enclosure. "Drop that quirt on the ground and step back against the wall with yore friends."
Sullenly, the man obeyed. With three of them in a group where his guns covered them easily, the Kid let his eyes slide to the figure who had backed up to his side.
"How do you stand in this deal?" he asked. "I saw you step in and stop the quirt from cuttin' the life outta that kid."
The masked man beside him dragged in a deep breath and answered in a shaky voice that betrayed his youth and inexperience at this sort of thing:
"I ... was in it with them, but ... I couldn't stand it no more. Ramon ain't goin' to tell 'em where the gold is. He'll die right here before he tells them a thing. I couldn't ... stand any more of it."
The burnished steel of a .45 barrel reflected firelight in quick movement from the trio against the wall. Without appearing to look toward them, the Kid's left-hand gun roared in the low confines of the cave with a deafening sound.
The man who had tried to draw against him staggered back against the rock wall with a sharp cry of pain, clutching at his wounded shoulder while his gun clattered to the ground.
While the echoes of the Kid's single shot reverberated in their ears, he said casually:
"That's Ramon, I reckon. Tied up in front of thuh fire. You got a knife on you?"
"Y-yes."
"Cut him down," the Kid ordered. "I'll kill the next gazabo that thinks he's fast enough to pull on me."
He straightened up from his gun-fighting crouch and sheathed both guns with a lightning movement.
The young masked man stepped forward, getting a knife out of his pocket with shaking fingers. The Kid watched somberly while he cut the rope holding the slender Mexican youth's hands above his head.
The boy pitched forward, face down, onto the rocks when the supporting rope was cut. He crawled toward the Kid with the last remnants of his strength.
Hooking his thumbs in his gun-belts, the Kid strolled forward directly in front of the three masked men.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Death on Treasure Trail by Brett Halliday. Copyright © 1941 William Morrow & Company. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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