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CHAPTER 4

      THE FARM workers were getting out of the trucks and moving into the fields when Rand and Doak got to the farming village of Hill a little after five.

      The morning was crisp and clear in the early light. Entire families moved along the rows of stripped brown cotton plants to where they had left off yesterday. They plucked the white puffs and cloves of cotton and dropped them into long sacks that dragged behind them. When the sacks were full, their cotton was weighed and each picker's poundage carefully recorded. The cotton was then emptied into a truck with a chickenwire cage that kept it from blowing away. While their cotton was being weighed, the workers rested and drank from canvas water bags that hung from nails driven into the tree that held the scale. The moisture that evaporated through the canvas made the water cold during the hottest part of the day.

      The scene looked peaceful, the workers moving among the plants, their hands working in an easy rhythm, the bright clothes some of them wore, the soft conversation. But Rand knew it was exhausting, boring work, and the pay was very low, even for the fastest picker. It was the last resort for many people in these bad depression years. Rand was glad he hadn't had to do it.

      The village of Hill was a small cluster of adobe houses and sheds with a tiny church, a general store, a cotton gin and a cafe with a couple of cars parked in front.

      "Let's try the cafe," Rand said.

      Inside, they sat at the counter and ordered coffee, a couple of fried eggs over medium, and some bacon. The cook, who wore an apron over his overalls, was smoking a hand-rolled Bull Durham cigarette. "I just made up some nice buttermilk biscuits," he said. "Want them, too?"

      "Sure," Doak said.

      The cook picked up an egg, cracked it on the stove and swung his arm around to deposit it on the grill, but the yolk and white slipped out of the broken shell and fell on the floor. "Shoot," he said. He bent down with a spatula and scooped it up. He looked at Rand and Doak and decided not to put it on the grill, so he dumped it into an old lard can he was using for waste. He made a show of cracking two eggs simultaneously, one in each hand, and this time he succeeded in getting them both on the grill, but half an eggshell accompanied them. He picked it off carefully with his fingers, and repeated the process with two more eggs, even to picking out another piece of eggshell.

      He raked some half-cooked bacon onto the hot part of the grill and it began sizzling. He got four smallish biscuits out of a greasy paper sack, split them, and laid them, split sides down, on the grill so they could sop up the bacon grease. Ash from his cigarette fell into the eggs and he stared at it for a minute, then looked at Rand to see if he noticed. Rand looked impassively back at him. The cook got a couple of cups out and poured coffee into them, slopping it on the counter. He wiped up the spill with his apron which was encrusted with grease and food particles. While he was wiping the coffee up, a cockroach leaped off the cloth and landed on the counter.

      "Shoot," The cook said. He balled up his fist and slammed it down on the roach, then used his apron to wipe up the insect's remains from the counter and his hand. Then he wheeled around suddenly and scraped the eggs up with the spatula he'd used to pick the egg off the floor with, and turned them over, then pressed down on the bacon which was turning an ominous brown color. The biscuits were saturated with grease and had turned gray. He picked up two plates and blew on them to get a dribble of cigarette ashes off them, then slid the eggs, bacon, and biscuits on the plate.

      "Good eats," he said, setting them on the counter.

      "I can't eat this," Doak said.

      "Why not?" the cook asked, alarmed.

      "I ain't got a fork."

      "Shoot," the cook said. He got knives, forks and spoons from a box by the grill. Something was stuck on a fork, so he wiped it off with his apron and set it down by Rand's plate.

      Doak dove into the food while Rand probed glumly at a piece of the bacon that was as hard as the plate.

      "Aren't you gonna eat?" Doak asked.

      Rand shook his head. "I'm not very hungry. You want it?"

      "Sure," Doak said, exchanging plates with him.

      The cook said, "Your son's got a fine appetite, ain't he?"

      "Yep, if he keeps eatin' like that he'll weigh 130 pounds in no time," Rand said. He started to take a sip of coffee but saw something floating in it and put it down. "Say, we were following some of our friends going up to Albuquerque, but we got separated. Any strangers stop here askin' about us?"

      The cook shook his head. "You're the only strangers that come in here for days. Business is pretty slow."

      "Things will pick up," Rand said cheerily, staring at the cook's apron.

      When Doak finished eating they paid up, and as they got in the car Doak said, "You're gonna be hungry."

      "There's got to be a cafe in the next town."

      Doak said, "Those guys we're lookin' for wouldn't be coming to a town like this. They're probably crossing into Juarez right now."

      Rand thought he was probably right. "Brennan would have a lot more chance of catching them if he'd call the sheriff. Wonder why he didn't?"

      "He don't want the law to know what was stole," Doak said.

      Rand thought Doak was right about that, too. "Do you know what it was?"

      Doak shook his head. "I dunno. But I do know - they shouldn't have killed the dog. You'd think that Mr. Brennan would have a mean dog, sort of like Petrie is his mean man, but that dog was a honey."

      They got to La Luz about fifteen minutes later. The cafe was in a general store that sold everything the town's residents would need, but it seemed to Rand especially heavy on hoes and cotton-picking sacks, clothes, guns, and fishing tackle. There was fishing in drainage ditches, and Elephant Butte Dam, being built by the WPA up near Hot Springs, already had some decent bass fishing.

      They ordered coffee and Rand asked the proprietor for a couple of eggs over medium and some bacon. The proprietor went around the counter and prepared a perfect breakfast for him. The eggs were hot right through, with clear yellow yolks and solid whites that were crisp around the edges. The toast was cut at an angle and served still hot, with a dab of butter on each slice. Although the bacon was well done, it was soft enough to bend. Rand felt grateful to the man who cooked them.

      Doak looked at the meal hungrily.

      "You want anything," Rand asked him.

      "Got any pie?"

      The proprietor said, "Apple or peach?"

      "Peach," Doak said.

      The peach pie was a perfect wedge, taken from under a clean white towel to keep the flies off.

      "I'll have one of those, too," Rand said when he saw it. In an offhand tone, he asked, "Any strangers besides us come in here since you opened? We were following some friends up to Albuquerque but we got separated."

      "Not that I noticed," the proprietor said, pouring them more coffee. "But if you're going up to Albuquerque, you ought to get a water bag to sling over the mirror in your truck. I got a shipment of new ones in. They're dandy!"

      "No, that's okay," Rand said.

      "Frankly, if I was you, I'd stop off at the dam by Hot Springs. Bass are bitin' like crazy now. I just got a new shipment of plugs an some real nifty poles."

      "Can't take the time," Rand said.

      "Mosquito repellent? I got some fresh citronella."

      Rand grinned at him and paid for the food, including Vance's coffee and pie. "That was a good breakfast," he said.

      As they started to drive away, an old flatbed truck about half-loaded with bales of hay jolted to a stop. The driver, a wispy Anglo in his late fifties got out and limped toward the front door, nodding as he passed them. Rand and Doak saw the cut boot at the same time. Doak started to go back in, but Rand said, "keep going." This time Rand got behind the wheel.

      "I'm sure that's one of 'em," Doak said.

      "Looks like it." Rand lit a cigarette. "Let's see where he goes. Brennan won't be back at the ranch for hours, and by then this guy will be gone."

      "What if we lose him?"

      "We'll come back and ask these folks who he was. He can't drive a haytruck around here without people knowing who he is."

      Rand drove about a hundred yards and parked under a cottonwood where they waited. After about twenty minutes the hay-truck's driver came out and got back in the truck and started up to road heading north.

      "He's probably been up all night, if he's our man," Rand said.

      They followed him about a two miles beyond Dona Ana, the next farming village up the road, where he parked the truck in front of a sagging unpainted barn and went in. They drove up beyond the barn, where they could see his truck, and waited a couple of hours but he didn't come out. They decided he was sleeping, so they drove back to get Brennan.

      It was early afternoon when Brennan and Petrie returned in a glum mood. But they perked up considerably when Doak told them what they had found.

      They left Doak behind with Benedict, and got into Brennan's Hudson with Rand in the front seat so he could lead them to the barn.

      The hay truck was parked in the same place as before.

      Brennan, holding an old revolver, said nervously, "Rand, you stay here by the car unless we call you, or you hear shots or something," Then he and Petrie, who carried a rifle, walked softly into the barn.

      Rand waited a couple of minutes, then went to the barn and leaned against the wall by the open door so he could hear.

      Brennan said, "We don't want to hurt you, just so long as you answer our questions. What's your name?"

      A thin, frightened voice answered, "A-Albert Jackson, sir. Look, I'll tell you what you want to know, only please quit stickin' me with that knife."

      "It's a deal," Brennan said. "Quit stickin' him with the knife, Tom, unless he doesn't answer our questions. You were one of the men who robbed me last night?"

      "I was along there. Yessir, but I was only a innocent bystander," Jackson said.

      "What happened to my merchandise. Have you got it?"

      "Merchandise?"

      "What you stole from me."

      "I don't even know what it was. I was having a few beers in this bar in Las Cruces, an' I met a guy who talked me into goin' with him. He said he'd give me a third of what we got - said he was recovering something you stole, and we wasn't going to break the law or nothing like that."

      "He didn't tell you what it was?"

      "Sir, he didn't say diddly squat about anything."

      "What was his name?" Brennan asked.

      "He said he was Mr. Smith, but that was probably a lie. He drove a '34 Ford, black-painted - real nice car."

      Rand peered into the dim barn and saw they were up in the loft where Jackson had been asleep on a cot. Now he sat on a bale of hay, with his hands tied behind him, and a rope they had run over a beam looped around his neck. Petrie held a knife close to his throat.

      "Was he Mexican or an Anglo?" Brennan asked.

      "Mexican, but classy, you know. Spoke good English, wore good duds."

      "Tell me what happened."

      Jackson was trembling. "We started out and I didn't know where we was goin'. Then we came on this Mexican hitchin' a ride, and after a time Mr. Smith offered him one-third of what we got, after we stole his stuff back, and the Mex agreed. Mr. Smith gave the Mexican an old single-action Colt to carry. He had some old sacks in the car and he cut eye holes in them with his knife. I had my old Colt, I carry under the seat in my truck."

      "You didn't think it was funny, your Mr. Smith starting off with all of what he was going to steal and then splitting it so he only had one third left himself?" Brennan asked.

      Jackson looked puzzled. "I didn't think about it, sir. Anyway, it didn't matter. He didn't mean to split one damned thing with us. After we left you, he drove into the desert, saying it was a shortcut over to where the Mexican said he lived, and he pulled out his big .45 automatic and covered us, and told the Mex and me to get out and start walkin'. I heard that hammer click back, and it just plain come on me suddenly that he was gonna kill us." Jackson's voice broke and he started snuffling.

      "Get ahold of yourself," Brennan said kindly. "We aren't going to hurt you, so long as you tell us the truth."

      "You gonna let me go?" Jackson asked.

      "If you tell the truth."

      The little man brightened considerably. "Well, I could practically feel them bullets piercing me, and I started runnin' like I never thought I could before with my bum leg, and he started shooting. Bullets were zinging all around me. Then he quit firing, and I hid behind some mesquite, and in the moonlight all I could see was the Mexican standing there. Then the car left, and when I went back there, I saw that the Mex had dashed Mr. Smith's brains out with a rock while I was being shot at. The loot was all gone, along with the Mexican, and I was stuck with that dead outlaw and a hell of a long walk back to the road. The Mexican had even cleaned him out - took his billfold. Even the change he had in his pockets."

      Jackson paused. When neither Brennan nor Petrie said anything, he asked, "Want me to tell you where the Mexican lives?"

      "Yes, I'd like to know that," Brennan said gently.

      "You ain't gonna call the Sheriff on me, or something like that? You said you'd let me go, right?"

      "I give you my word," Brennan said. "Where does he live?"

      "He said he had a little farm near Radium Springs, below the downhill side of the rimrock. There's a little crick up there that runs all year. He said the road leading to his place is right past the hotel, about a mile north of where the people go to take the hot baths.

      Brennan was familiar with the area. "You're telling me the truth?"

      "I swear to God," Jackson said piteously.

      "He was telling you this in English or in Spanish?"

      "Spanish."

      "You speak Spanish?"

      "Si, yo hablo." Jackson said.

      Brennan sighed. "All right, I said I'd let you go and I am a man of my word. Let him go, Petrie."

      Rand felt a sudden chill. He saw Petrie push the surprised, struggling man over the edge of the loft and let him go. He heard Jackson's neck snap, and his body went swinging like a pendulum at the end of the rope around his neck, his feet about ten inches above the barn's dirt floor.

      Brennan glared at Petrie. "Dammit, I said let him go. I meant take the rope from around his neck and untie him."

      Petrie looked blank. "Oh, I thought you meant let him go over the edge. I'm sorry, Uncle Bill."

      But he didn't look sorry. He looked pleased with himself.

      Brennan saw Rand watching them. "I thought I told you to wait in the car!" he yelled. "That man stole my goods. He killed my dog! You haven't seen anything, understand!"

      When they came down from the loft, Petrie pushed Rand against the barn wall and held his knife against his ribs, saying, "Remember, the same thing could happen to you, if you open your mouth, Okie."

      Rand didn't need Petrie to tell him that. That was not the sort of thing he would forget . . . or forgive.

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