At last I slept, and when I awakened day had come and the coals were smoldering, with only a faint glow of red here and there. The room was empty.
Clasping my hands behind my head, I tried to organize a day that would not organize, for there were too many factors outside my grasp. Before the day was over I would have repd Dun Caffrey what I owed him, or would have taken a fearful beating.
But the greatest danger lay not in losing, but in winning. In losing I would take a beating; in winning, there was every chance I might be shot.
The Tinker and Halloran came in together. "The race will be run at ten o'clock," Halloran said.
"The course is all laid out--one half-mile from a standing start."
"All right."
"The fight will be at one o'clock. Eighteen-foot ring. It's all set up in the stock corral.
Those who cannot get up to the ring will find a seat on the fence."
"How many horses in the race?"
"Five, including your mule. Nobody thinks a mule can run, except a few who came in from Oakville. Right now the betting is seven to one against your mule."
From my shirt pocket I took forty dollars, every cent I had in the world. "At those odds, or anything close," I said, "you bet it on the race. If we win, bet whatever's in hand on the fight.
"Meanwhile," I said, "I'm going to take a walk around."
This here town of Beeville, along about the time we were there--y could walk three blocks in any direction and be out in the country. And some of those blocks you'd walk would be mighty sparse as to buildings.
It was a cattle-trail town and ran long to saloons and gambling houses. The folks who lived in the country around were mostly raising cattle. The rest of them were stealing cattle. Both industries were in what you might call a flourishing condition when we came into town.
There was considerable money floating about town, and not an awful lot to do with it but drink or gamble. When it came to ranching, there were several successful men around Beeville; but in the cattle-rustling business the most successful man was Ed Singleton.
The town was about evenly divided between the ranchers and the thieves, and each knew the others by name and occupation. You could hang a cattle thief back in those days, but the trouble was you had to catch him at it. Singleton and those others, they were almighty sly.
There was a lot of betting on both the fight and the race, some of the folks even betting on me, sight unseen. There's folks will bet on anything, given a chance.
Quite a crowd was in town. Some, like I said, had come over from Oakville, but there was a whole crowd from Helena, too. Helena was an old stop on the Chihuahua trail and, like Beeville and Oakville, it was a rough, wild town, and those men from Helena were as tough as they come.
I walked down the street, keeping away from the knots of men arguing here and there, and finally I stopped by the corral to look at that ring. It looked big enough, and small enough, too.
A man stopped beside me, looking through the corral bars at the ring. He glanced at me out of a pair of hard, measuring eyes, and thrust out his hand, "Walton. I'm sheriff. You fought much?"
"When I had to. Never in a contrivance like that."
"He's an experienced man, and a brute.
I've seen him fight." He paused. "You must think you can beat him."
"A man never knows," I said, "but when we were kids I broke his nose and his jaw. I outsmarted him that time," I said, "maybe I can again."
"This is a grudge fight?"
"If it isn't, then you never saw one. His pa used to beat me, and he robbed me. This one tried to bully me around. I figure he knows a lot more about fighting than I do, but I figure there's a streak of coyote in him. It may be mighty hard to find, but I'm going in there hunting it."
Walton straightened up. "There's fifty to a hundred thugs in town that nobody can account for without considering the Bishop. I'll do what I can, but I can't promise you anything."
"In this country," I said, "a man saddles his own broncos and settles his own difficulties."
Walton walked away, and after a bit I went back to the house and saddled the roan. Time was shaping up for the race.
Manuel had led the mule out. "They want to know his name," he said.
"What did you call him?"
Manuel shrugged.
"All right, call him Bonaparte, and let's hope that track out there isn't Waterloo."
The Tinker came out and mounted up, and Doc Halloran too. One of the others who showed up was a husky Irishman with a double-barreled shotgun.
"I'm a mule-skinner," he said, "and I bet on him. In my time I've seen some fast mules, and I saw this one run over to Oakville."
The Bishop was out there, and Dun Caffrey. I noticed they had at least two horses in the race.
"Manuel," I said, "how mean can you be?"
He looked at me from those big dark eyes.
"I do not know, se@nor. I have never been mean."
"Then you've got only one chance. Get that mule out in front and let him run. Those two"
--I indicated the horses--?are both ridden by tough men. One or both of them will try to block you out if you look like you'd a chance, so watch out."
"I will ride Bonaparte," he said--?x is all I can do, but it is a proud name."
They lined up, and the way Bonaparte walked up to the line you wouldn't have thought he'd anything in mind but sleep. One of those Bishop horses moved in on each side of him.
So I walked across to the Bishop. I walked up to him right in front of everybody.
"Tinhorn," I said, "you better hope those boys of yours don't hurt that kid. If they do, I'll kill you."
He thought it was big talk, but he made a little move with his head and two husky shoulder-strikers moved up to me. "Caffrey will kill you," the Bishop said, his voice deeper than any I'd ever heard, "but these can rough you up a little first."
One of them struck at me, and the Tinker's training was instinctive. Grabbing his wrist, I busted him over my back into the dust, and he came down hard. Coming up in a crouch, the other man missed a blow and I saw the glint of brass knuckles on his hand. My left hand grabbed his shirt collar in front and took a sharp twist that set him to gagging and choking. With the other I grabbed his hand, forcing his arm up so that everybody within sight could see those brass knuckles.
Now, like I've said, I was an uncommon strong man before those years in prison. My fingers wrapped around his hand just above the wrist and began to squeeze, squeezing his fingers right up to a point, then I brought his hand down and let those knuckle dusters fall into the dust. At the same time I slipped my hand up a little further and shut down hard with all my grip.
He screamed, a hoarse, choking scream. And then I put my thumb against the base of his fingers and my fingers at his wrist and bent it back sharply. Folks standing nearby heard it break.
Then I walked out to Manuel.
"You ride it clean, kid," I said. I spoke loud enough so all could hear. "If either of these make a dirty ride, they'll get what he got."
Somebody cheered, and then the pistol was fired.
Those horses taken out of there at a dead run, most of them cutting horses and expert at starting from a stand.
My mule, he was left at the post.
They just taken off and went away from there, but Manuel was figuring right. He held the mule back, and sure enough, those two riders to right and left crashed together. They had risked what I'd do rather than what the Bishop might do. If Manuel had been in there, he'd have been hurt, and bad.
Then Manuel let out a shrill whoop and that Bonaparte left out of there like he had some place to go and it was on fire.
He was two lengths behind before he made his first jump, but I'd never realized the length of his legs before. He had a tremendous stride, and he ran--he ran like no horse I'd ever seen.