The Red Sombrero Read Online Free PDF

personally?”
    Bennie said, “I don’t have to kick a rattlesnake to know what’ll happen if it ever gets its fangs into me!”
    “Calm your fears,” Don Luis smiled. “Tano and I have done business before. While admittedly there is a certain unpredictability about him he’ll come to heel all right with a gun in his ribs.”
    Bennie went to the window and spat out his cud. He cleared his throat raucously and when he turned around his searching look was still disturbed. “What about the girl?”
    Cordray’s eyes lost some of their banter but he said calmly enough, “The girl will come to heel.”
    “You’ve had her here three months and I ain’t seen no ring on her finger.”
    Don Luis shrugged. “These affairs of the heart take a little time. I could not very well press my suit while all her thoughts were taken up with the death of her father.”
    “You can’t stop people’s tongues either and the longer she’s here the more they’ll git to clackin’.”
    “People always talk,” Cordray said. “Where else could she go after they burned all her buildings? She has no confidence; she has shut herself in behind a high wall which has to be removed brick by brick with circumspection.” Tilting back his chair Don Luis smiled with quiet charm. “She is beginning to look upon her father’s friend with clearer eyes — ”
    “If she ever finds out who was back of that business,” Bennie said, and quit when he caught the hard shine of Cordray’s stare.
    A cold stillness closed down, out of which Cordray said, “The day she finds out you will need a fast horse.”
    Bennie squirmed in his clothing. “Hell, she won’t learn from me! It’s — it’s just that talk’s goin’ around and I figured you better know it.”
    Cordray fell back in his chair, again smiling. “Very probably you are right. Engrossed as I’ve been with this affair of Sierra I have doubtless neglected her more than I should have. We will rectify that. You can arrange for Juarez to demonstrate his talents.”
    Bennie looked as though he thought the man had taken leave of his senses. His cheeks sucked in. His eyes bugged out. “Juarez!” he said. “For Christ’s sake, Luis — ”
    Cordray waved an affable hand. “To create an illusion one has to make it convincing.”
    “But that damn studhoss — ”
    “Never fear. I shall be there in time to step in when it’s called for.” Don Luis grinned with amusement. “And when her land has been joined to mine I will see that you are fittingly rewarded.” Leaning forward he suggested a few details. “She will receive a note asking her to meet with one who can reveal the names and whereabouts of the men responsible for the death of her father. The abandoned line shack nearest Mimbres will do admirably for the rendezvous. Say two nights hence at eight of the clock. That afternoon you can wonder in Juarez’s hearing what she finds to take so many evenings in that direction.”
    Bennie stared thoughtfully at the toe of his boot. After some moments he got out his tobacco and bit off a fresh chaw. “Might be smarter to bring in some outsider. She’s maybe seen Juarez around and — ”
    • • •
    “The point is well taken,” Don Luis said equably, “but if I remember correctly, of those who took part in her late father’s misfortune none but this Juarez is still around to tell of it. Except, of course, yourself.” With a long bright look at the dark man’s features the owner of Tadpole rubbed the ash off his cigar.
    The banker’s wife, Minnie Burlingate, in the not far distant town of Columbus, had once described Linda Farrel as ‘mousy’ but the adjective, compounded as it had been of an old woman’s spiteful envy, lacked considerable of being called for. In a more settled country she would never, perhaps, have caused a turning of heads but no one, with justice, could have called Major Farrel’s only daughter an ugly duckling. Her figure was good, her stride free and