Comanche Peak glowed crimson and violet. Gradually the dusk sifted its blue film of beauty over the farm lands. The bonfire stars of Texas blazed overhead, and it was night.
Slade rode on. Shadow quickened his pace in anticipation of something with which to line his empty belly. And soon the lights of Clint sparkled in the decreasing distance.
Mayor Tomas Cardena, whose duties as Clint’s chief executive were not onerous, owned a hospitable cantina which was frequented not only by the townspeople but by sprightly young vaqueros from south of the Rio Grande, bronzed and bearded farmers and grape growers, and quite a sprinkling of Texas cowhands. With now and then gentlemen who looked to be punchers but who had not recently known the feel of rope or branding iron. For Clint was in the nature of a “passing through” town and at times frequented by those who preferred to do most of their riding during the hours between sunset and dawn.
At the hitchrack in front of the cantina Slade drew rein. He tied Shadow securely to the evening breeze and entered. Cardena, plump, jovial and efficient, spotted him at once and gave vent to a joyous exclamation. He hurried forward, hand extended, his rubicund features wreathed in smiles.
“Capitan!” he exclaimed. “You have returned!”
“Looks sorta that way,” Slade admitted, returning the other’s grip.
“Ha! This is a day!” chortled Cardena. “We will celebrate with the dinner beyond compare, and the wine of the best. Come, Capitan!”
“First,” Slade replied, “I want to care for my horse. Chances are you’ll remember him, too.”
“The beautiful caballo, how could I forget?” returned the mayor. “We will take him to my barn at once. Come, I will accompany you.”
Outside, Cardena made much of Shadow, who evidently remembered him. Then he led the way to his commodious stable.
“The best,” he ordered the old keeper, who also remembered both Slade and the horse. After which they returned to the cantina. Having seated his honored guest, Cardena hurried to the kitchen to give instructions for the preparing of the meal. He returned to the table and occupied a chair, his black eyes twinkling.
Slade liked Tomas Cardena, who was an excellent example of Mexican courtliness and Texas vigor, a combination hard to beat. He spoke both English and Spanish fluently, and in moments of excitement or when he wished to swear with unusual vigor, he resorted to both languages, with an occasional pungent Yaqui expletive thrown in for good measure. Also, there was plenty of stringy muscle beneath his plump-appearing exterior, and he was capable of keeping order in his establishment if the going should happen to get a mite rough.
His cantina, although not overly large, was excellently appointed and softly lighted without being gloomy.
After a while the dinner arrived, and it was all the host had promised for it. He and Slade enjoyed it to the full, for Cardena had not yet dined and El Halcon had been eating sketchily for some days.
The wine, poured with ceremony commensurate to the occasion, was a product of the valley’s golden grapes, and Slade considered it the peer of the best France could boast.
“And now,” said Cardena, after the dishes had been cleared away and they were left alone over coffee and cigarettes, “and now, Capitan, what brings you here?”
“Trouble,” Slade replied, “or so I have been given to understand.”
“Aye,” nodded Cardena, “there is trouble here.”
“Just what is the trouble, Tomas?” Slade asked.
“The trouble,” Cardena replied sententiously, “is the Starlight Riders.”
“Starlight Riders,” Slade repeated. “Quite poetic.”
“Yes,” Cardena agreed grimly, “very poetic. It was given them by some loco hombre because they commit their depredations chiefly under the stars. There is nothing poetic about those devils. Not that they aren’t artists—with rifle and sixgun. They exact tribute from the farmers and grape growers of the valley, and from the small ranch owners to the east. Those who do not pay suffer.”
“Extortion through fear,” Slade observed. “It has happened in other parts of Texas.”
Cardena nodded. “Back in the old days,” he said, “bandidos from the south preyed on the valley dwellers in similar fashion. And the attempt to collect a ‘tax’ on each bushel of salt taken from the Salt Lakes by Mexican carters resulted in the Salt War, in the course of which men died.
“And here,” he added, his face hardening, “men have also died.”
“So I have heard,” Slade remarked. “And have shopkeepers and cantina owners here and in El Paso been approached?”
“So far, not here,” Cardena replied. “But I have heard that some cantina owners in El Paso and in Juarez across the river have been approached.”
Slade nodded thoughtfully. “Something of like nature was attempted in San Antonio a few years back,” he observed.
“Si, and I heard that El Halcon visited San Antonio and strangely those practices suddenly ceased to be, and that certain ladrones also ceased to be,” said Cardena.
Slade smiled, but did not otherwise comment. “Just what all has happened here, Tomas?” he asked.
“Workers in the field have been shot at,” Cardena answered. “Barns have been burned, and haystacks. One small farmhouse was burned. And the bodies of the two farmers who lived there were found amid the ruins. They had been shot to death. The whisper goes that they refused to pay when approached by an emissary of the Starlight Riders. Because of the fear of reprisals, it is difficult to get anybody to talk.”
“An old owlhoot method—rule by terror, get the inhabitants of a section demoralized and afraid to open their mouths,” Slade said. “And Sheriff Serby has been unable to do anything about it?”
“So far,” Cardena replied. “He has tried. He visited me here a couple of times, and we discussed the matter and tried to gain information, with no success.”
Slade’s black brows drew together, and he shot a glance at his table companion. If the situation was as bad as the mayor outlined it, he was developing fear for the safety of Tomas Cardena. Not at all impossible that his cooperation with the sheriff had been relayed to the Riders. Cardena didn’t scare easily, was impetuous and outspoken. If the wrong pair of ears had overheard his conversations with Serby, he might well be singled out for retaliation.
Abruptly Slade wondered if he’d already had a brush with some of the Starlight Riders. Began to look a little that way. He reviewed the happening on the trail. An undoubtedly wounded man apparently fleeing for his life, with three others in hot pursuit. And he was revising his former opinion that the throwing of lead at himself might have been but the reaction of nervous trigger fingers. More likely it had been a deliberate attempt to eliminate a witness to a crime or to remove a possible obstacle from their path.
Well, if so, he had taken the first trick, which developed a feeling of satisfaction. He decided to acquaint Cardena with the incident and proceeded to do so.
“What do you think?” he concluded.
