"Par-r-ragraph Two: The killing, for any parpose whatever, and the assault, molestation, capture, imprisonment, sale, purchase, possession, transportation, importation into or exportation out of the Federation of Democratic and Libertarian States, or any territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof ..."
"Okay, okay!" shouted Osborn, as the Patrolman carefully set down the evidence and with his free hand snapped a handcuff on the culprit's wrist. "I know your damned law, and I think it's a lousy invasion of my personal liberty—"
"I am sorry, sir," purred the Indian. "I merely carry out my orders. Now let us go; it is about a mile to my car."
Osborn groaned, mentally consigning Mr. Clarence Streit to the most elaborately sadistic Hell he could imagine. He thought of yelling for Kenny, but decided that it would be better not to involve his boss; Charley could do more for him from outside the bars.
The thought that most pained Homer Osborn was the recollection of how cocksurely he had brushed aside his wife's cautions before leaving. Gladys would kid him about this in front of their grandchildren, if they lived that long.
He let the Sikh tow him gently up the infinitesimal rise that passed for the bank of the Neuces River. Better, he thought, make enough noise to warn Kenny, so that the department head should not blunder into them.
He declaimed: "Who the Hell are you, to come halfway around the world to butt into our affairs?"
"I am Guja Singh, sir, Patrolman Number 3214. As for the mixing, surely you know that the Federation government was forced to send us of India to enforce the anti-vaccicide law, because none of your American officials could be trusted to do so."
"Yeah, but what the hell business is it of yours in the first place? I'm not hurting—"
"Ah, but you are," continued the soft, slightly accented voice. "The sacrilege of vaccicide harts us of India to our very souls."
"Well, but aren't you a Sikh? I thought they didn't take this cow-worship business seriously."
"We of the Udasi sect take it seriously, sir. Obsarve this branch and duck, please. Please, sir, do not think too harshly of me because I do my duty. Do you think we enjoy patrolling this hostile land, where we dare not go out in your cities except in pairs?"
"Well, why do it, sap?"
"You mean me personally, sir? I joined the force largely because my father, though he could have secured me a position at Delhi, was reluctant to do so lest the charge of nepotism be brought against him."
"Who's your father?"
"Arjan Singh, sir. You have heard of him?"
"Sure. A politician." Osborn put scorn into it.
Guja Singh sighed unhappily. "I fear we shall never understand the mysterious West. Nothing appears to please you ..."
They walked on in silence. Osborn cooled off somewhat, and was thankful that his captor was not a really tough guy, despite his formidable appearance. Still, Homer Osborn knew better than to try to get away; he had met Fodals cops of this superficially humble type before.
They reached the road, and a few rods away Osborn made out the bullet-shape of a patrol car parked by the side. They were halfway to it when Guja Singh halted and stood with his head up silently, as if sniffing the air. Osborn strained his cars, and thought he made out a whisper, unintelligible but urgent, from the trees.
"Put those up!" came a voice.
The Fodals released Osborn, jerked out his pistol, and fired. Osborn had already started to run when the flash and report from behind him were mixed with a tinkle of glass. Something struck his body a light blow and shattered, and as he took his next step he smelled geraniums.
He knew what that meant, and tried to stop breathing ...
But not quickly enough. His muscles all at once began to jerk uncontrollably, as if he had St. Vitus' dance, and the sand came up and hit him with a thud.
The convulsion—more exasperating than painful— died, and hands tried to heave him to his feet. His legs buckled, and a couple of men picked him up and carried him, not too gently.
He tried to talk, but he could not control his tongue: "Th upp sh mwa-a-a th uh uwzze idea?"
No answer. Somewhere in the darkness another contingent was breathing heavily as it toted six-feet-three of Sikh patrolman. The sound of a door-latch compounded this, and Osborn made out the shape of a vehicle, not Guja's patrol-car. Somebody had a flashlight. Osborn saw dimly that the conveyance looked like a rather large delivery-truck.
"Don't bother with him; he's already got one handcuff on."
The response to this advice was to pull Osborn's un-manacled hand behind him and snap the empty half of the pair of handcuffs over the wrist. Next he was boosted into the body of the truck, and the door boomed shut behind him.
As it did so, a light flashed on, penetratingly, right into his eyes.
"Sit down, you two."
There were wisps of straw under Osborn's feet, and a definite smell of cow. Osborn knew that he was in a cattle-runner's truck. He sat, and was aware of Guja Singh beside him. They were seated on a bench built into the inner side of the door at the rear of the body. At the front end were that damned searchlight and—when his eyes got accustomed to the glare—a pair of powerful-looking dark-men with submachineguns under their arms.
The body jerked and swayed into motion; there was no sound from outside. Sound-insulation that would keep the moo of a smuggled steer in would likewise keep the noise of the external world out.
"Who the hell do you think you are and what the hell do you think you're doin—" began Osborn, but soon gave up when no response was coming from the men with the guns. He pushed himself into the angle of the corner to keep from being thrown about by the motion of the truck.
So his imagination had not played him tricks! Next question, whose was the gang? Not one of the indigenous steakleggers; they were mostly individuals or small concerns, on amicable terms with the local Texan police forces and hence constrained to the more seemly forms of illegality. Hijackers? The method suggested it, but such downright criminals would hardly concern themselves with anything so recondite as the synthetic-protein experiments of the San Antonio branch of the Federal Research Laboratories.
That left the great Mexican critter-kings; shadowy but sinister figures: the modern equivalent of the old political generals who had run the country before the great period of Mexican prosperity and peace in the middle of the century. Some of Osborn's scientific Mexican acquaintances were bitter about the vaccicide law for having conjured this robber-baron class out of its feudal graves.
The truck-body bounced and shuddered silently over invisible miles. Homer Osborn thought a great volume of private thoughts, and at last out of sheer boredom went to sleep on Guja Singh's shoulder.
The motion was easier, though as far as one could tell from the dark interior of the truck it might have been up, down, or sideways. Then it stopped altogether.
"Stand up," commanded one of the guards.
They did, and the door swung open. The searchlight winked off automatically, and was replaced by the vaster but more diffused light of early morning on the desert.
Osborn had narrowed the list of kidnapper suspects down to the big Three: Ximinez, Dualler, Stewart.
Endless, arid, gently rolling plain; patches of white rock on brown dirt; occasional sage, mesquite, cactus—the last with bright red or yellow flowers; a hint of low mountains to the west, already shimmering in the heat: that meant Harmodio Dualler, even though Homer Osborn had never before been in the Bolsom de Mapimi.
"Jump down."
Osborn gave the guard a venomous look and jumped.
He avoided falling, and, with Guja Singh, was herded toward one of a small city of adobe house and barns. He saw that there were a great many trucks parked about, most of them with appropriately deceptive signs painted on their weatherbeaten sides: "Ft. Worth Express Co.," "Lone Star Cleaners & Dyers," "Jerrehian, the House of Rugs." An Indian cowboy with a pink ribbon around his black hair trotted by on a horse.