Free The Red Sombrero by Nelson Nye Page B

afterwards, he’d had a hasty look at that strap himself. It didn’t make sense that a man would wear his hat buckled into one hole of its chin strap for years and then let it out two whole notches. When they had picked the general up that night at the shack the strap had been snug around his chin, he’d seen that much. The quirt had fit snug around his left wrist, too — a damned sight too snug for proper comfort.
    While Bennie was not quite ready to believe the man an imposter, being unable to think of any sufficiently plausible motive, he was pretty well satisfied that Don Luis himself had reached that conclusion. Cordray was fond of cat-and-mouse games and would treat with the man for as long as it amused him. Or perhaps there was some deeper purpose back of Cordray’s dalliance.
    Bennie said, “You could keep him in the house and maybe still get hold of that money.”
    “Eh?” Cordray stared. “Are you still worrying that bone?”
    “After Sierra gets here you might have no chance to get hold of it.”
    Don Luis said, looking around, “What do you suggest?”
    “Well,” Bennie said, rasping a cheek with his knuckles, “I ain’t got the head to put no polish on the fine points but if you could use the right prod — and he’s got it hid anywheres near that shack — seems like he might git the girl to dig it up for him. If we laid out to watch her don’t it look mighty likely she would lead us right to it?”
    Don Luis stared thoughtfully out across space. He had already done some private hunting. “I don’t think he’s fetched it — ”
    “What the hell would he come for then?” Bennie scoffed.
    The boss of Tadpole scowled. It was what he had been asking himself all this while. And, not having found any answer, he said, “I’ll think about it, Bennie,” and went into the house.
    • • •
    Strain put an intolerable burden on Reno as he stood with cocked muscles waiting for the door to open. The labor of his heart was like a locomotive chuffing and he was reminded of the time he’d waited up one night for Santa. Sweat broke out along his cheeks and in his guts a nerve started thumping. Then, suddenly, the door was open and it was the girl’s startled eyes Reno found himself glaring into. With a disgusted grunt he lowered the bottle.
    Linda closed the door, smiling nervously. Still silent, she smoothed the skirt around her hips and looked self-conscious and awkward. She found her voice. “It wouldn’t have done much good you know. You couldn’t have got outside the house.”
    “I’d have got outside if I’d got hold of a pistol.” Reno put down the bottle and, turning away, dropped into the chair he’d dragged up to the window.
    She said, “I’ve talked with Don Luis.”
    Reno paid her no attention. He scowled morosely into the dust of the yard, foreseeing how he would wind up this affair as he had so many other things, taking the path of least resistance, handing over the onzas to Cordray and going back to his job of being chore boy for Tano.
    “I showed him the letter from the bank,” she said; and Reno snarled irritably, “All right — now beat it, will you?”
    He didn’t want to be listening to someone else’s troubles. He had problems enough of his own to keep track of and preferred to survey them without distraction. How was a man to work up a proper sorrow for the things that might have been while being heckled by a woman!
    He seethed with a maudlin resentment, aware that she had not moved, was still standing there watching him, determinedly waiting for that undivided attention every female figured to be her God-given due.
    He hunched protective shoulders, settling deeper into his chair.
    The silence finally got on his nerves. He twisted his head around, hating her, furious. “Go on — beat it. Stir your stumps. Get rolling, will you?” The look of her eyes was like a kicked dog’s, he thought; and he got up as though he would strike her.
    But when she stood her