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This book is fiction. No resemblance is intended between any character herein and any person, living or dead; any such resemblance is purely coincidental.
Copyright, © 1962 by Pyramid Publications, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ONE
FROM WHERE RANGER WALT SLADE, whom the Mexican peones of the Rio Grande river villages named El Halcón—The Hawk—sat his tall black horse, the vista was as of some raw planet in its earliest and wildest state, rather than of the homely earth.
Behind him were the silver mines of Shafter, and hidden trails frequented by smugglers and raiding bandit gangs. To the left, the rugged Cienaga Mountains. Mesquite, creosote, sagebrush, and bunch grass grew on the floor of the narrow valley of Cibolo Creek which he had traversed, with, higher up on the slopes, the eternal green of the piñon and juniper blending into the soft haze of thickets and oaks. Here the trail skirted the foothills of the Chinati Mountains to the west to drop over the cap rock.
The transition was startlingly abrupt. On the tableland he had just passed over were grass and timbered slopes. Then suddenly the heights slid away, in a rubble of debris, to the edge of a stark desert hundreds of feet below. On this dead expanse the sun beat down with a scorching, dazzling heat, reflected blindingly from the gleaming sands. On the rock-strewn desert there was no shade and no vegetation other than cactus, sage, and the ghostly snake-like arms of the ocotillo.
Like to a country of burned marl extending forever.
But man was there. The blazing sun shone down on his handiwork. Paralleling southward were twin steel ribbons, shimmering, hovered over by dancing heat waves. And against the southern horizon was a dark smudge staining the clear blue of the sky. Which marked, Slade knew, a great railroad construction camp.
And in the nearer distance was a long line of crawling dots—one of the cart trains that carried goods from Mexico via the Chihuahua Trail to the Old Spanish Trail which, east and west, traversed the breadth of Texas.
“Well, Shadow, guess we’d better be moving,” Slade told his horse. “Sun’s low in the sky and will be behind the mountains before long; but we should be able to make it to the construction camp by a little after dark, where I figure there’s a chance for us both to put on the nosebag. Then, if we can’t tie onto a place to sleep, we’ll go on to Presidio, where I’m pretty sure we can. Let’s go.”
Shadow skated and slithered down the slope, his snorts undoubtedly equine profanity expressing his opinion of such rough going. However, he reached the desert floor without mishap.
Here, late in the day though it was, the heat was withering, the dazzle of the sands hard on the eyes; but both horse and rider were accustomed to such terrains and paid little mind to its discomforts.
As he rode, Slade watched the vehicles of the cart train grow larger and larger. Before long he would meet them. He shook his head as they drew near. Their route paralleled the railroad right-of-way, the rival that would doom or at least greatly reduce their lucrative activities. For hundreds of years the cart trains had been the sole means of transportation from the south and vice versa.
As the foremost vehicle of the train reached him, Walt Slade got a surprise. He had expected the carters to be Mexicans, but they definitely were not. They were hard-eyed, alert looking men who showed no indications of Spanish or Indio blood. They nodded shortly to the lone horseman, swept a searching gaze over him, then faced to the front. Slade waited until the train had creaked and rumbled past, then resumed his southward course.
“That’s a funny one, Shadow,” he remarked. “We’ve been down in this section several times and this is the first time I’ve seen carters who weren’t Mexicans. Those gents certainly were not. Salty looking jiggers, too, and they sure gave us a thorough once-over, although not seeming to do so. Wonder what’s the meaning of it? May be a tie-up with the reason for us being here. I wonder, now.”
After riding a little distance, he halted Shadow and gazed back at the cart train, now dwindling away into the northern distance.
He made a striking picture against the flame of the sunset. Very tall, more than six feet, with broad shoulders and a well-developed chest which slimmed down to a lean, sinewy waist. His bronzed face was dominated by rather large eyes of a very pale gray—cold, reckless eyes that nevertheless always seemed to have little devils of laughter lurking in their clear depths, devils that, if occasion warranted, leaping to the fore, could be anything but laughing.
His rather wide mouth, grin-quirked at the corners, relieved somewhat the sternness, almost fierceness evinced by the prominent hawk nose above, and the powerful jaw and chin beneath. His pushed-back “J.B.” revealed thick, crisp hair, so black that a blue shadow seemed to lie upon it.
Slade wore the simple, efficient garb of the rangeland with the careless grace with which the Conquistadores wore steel. Bibless overalls, soft blue shirt with a vivid neckerchief at the throat, well scuffed half-boots of softly tanned leather and the broad-brimmed, neatly creased and dimpled rainshed.
Around his waist were double cartridge belts, with carefully worked and oiled cut-out holsters from which protruded the plain black butts of heavy guns.
And from the butts of those big Colts his slender, powerful hands seemed never far away.
Shadow, the horse, was a fitting mount for his rider. Nearly eighteen hands high, his satiny coat was black as a starless night. His body was long, his legs slender rods of steel. His glorious mane was a black ripple that caught the light. His eyes were large and liquid, filled with fire and intelligence. His lines bespoke not only speed but great endurance.
A picture to catch the eye, and hold it, a gallant man on a gallant horse.
Slade watched the retreating cart train for a moment, then, with a shrug of his shoulders, turned his face to the south and spoke to Shadow, who ambled along over the hot sands.
El Halcón would have been interested in the conversation taking place between the drivers of the two rearmost carts.
“Who the devil is that big ice-eyed hellion, I wonder?” one remarked.
“Chuck-line-riding cowhand, the chances are,” returned his companion.
“Maybe. Sort of dresses like one, but somehow he don’t look like one.”
The other shrugged. “Looks, too, like a gent with places to go. Mexico ain’t far off and sometimes his sort find it convenient to put the Rio Grande between them and Texas.”
“Uh-huh,” the first speaker admitted, “but somehow he don’t look like that sort to me, either; not the runnin’ sort. Wish I could get him outa my mind. Somehow he bothers me. Hey, now what?” he exclaimed, glancing ahead.
Midway along the line a cart had pulled out and come to a halt. The driver held his position until the rear cart was abreast of him.
“What’s the matter?” asked the driver of the rearmost cart.
“Oh, nothing,” the halted driver replied as he spoke to his mules, and the cart moved on. “Nothing, except I figured you might be wondering about that feller we just passed.”
“Was talking about him,” the other conceded.
