Bare Hands

Chapter V “The Devil of the Hands.”

What followed came too rapidly. Harder had no chance to interfere.

For a moment he caught a silhouette of the dagger as it was poised over the back of Robert Standish’s stool. Then there sounded a blow, the thud of a heavy object slumping to the ground, the shriek of a girl, and the laugh of a sentry.

Evidently the man on guard had been listening for that thud.

Upon the white canvas there showed a mass of struggling shadows. Once more there was the scream of the girl, and then men tramped upon the floor of the tent.

“Take him away,” said Huerta Hidalgo Martinez, and his voice was thick.

The men left the tent.

“And now I will leave you,” said Juan Ayala, his voice purring, the words in English.

The tent flap dropped, and there were two shadows facing each other. The girl’s profile showed with startling clarity, delicate, sensitive, frozen with horror.

The shadow of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez was more distorted by the light and the slope of the tent. He looked much like a huge black spider moving slowly but very surely indeed toward his prey.

Dan Harder fancied that other eyes than his were watching the shadows on the canvas. He prayed the girl would have sense enough to strike the light from the table. Dan advanced, his great hands spread before him.

The Wolf sprang forward. The girl upset the table, either consciously or accidentally. From within sounded little struggle noises.

Dan Harder pinched the canvas between thumb and forefinger. His great wrists snapped back and down and a long rent ripped in the back of the tent.

Harder crawled through. His hand rested for a moment upon the bare arm of the girl and then slipped along the smooth flesh to the coarse neck of Huerta Hidalgo Martinez.

“Eh?” grunted the dictator. “Who—”

He never finished.

For a few moments there was the sound of struggling feet beating a tattoo upon the floor.

Outside the guard laughed again.

The girl’s hands moved over the bulky form, rested for a moment upon the backs of Dan Harder’s hands.

“You!” she whispered.

“Yes,” said Dan Harder.

He hoped she would not realize just what those hands were doing.

The tattoo of the fluttering feet died away and all was silence.

“This way,” whispered Dan.

He led her from the tent, crawling through the rent he had torn in the back. The form of the dictator lay still. His feet had ceased their rapping.

Outside the sentry had stopped laughing. He was bent forward, listening.

“Quick, this way. There’s a horse over by that tent.”

“It’s Ayala’s horse,” she said.

They ran swiftly.

Behind them they could see the flare of light as some one threw the beam from an electric flash light about the tent.

Then there came a hoarse cry of rage.

“Look! Look at his neck! It is the Devil of the Hands. See the rip in the canvas. Quick!”

The startled horse jerked back. Dan Harder’s great hand caught the reins, held him, plunging and snorting. Dan swung his bulk into the saddle, gripped the girl by the waist, lifted her through the air as though she had been but a feather.

It was the horse of Juan Ayala. The saddle was strong, the horse was fleet They thundered along the trail. Behind than the camp burst into uproar.

“I’m sorry,” said Harder, “that I couldn’t have been a few minutes sooner.”

He made no further reference to the death of her father.

The sentry sprang out into the trail. Harder swung the horse directly at him.

At the last minute the galloping animal veered instinctively. The sentry’s rifle flashed and the horse gave a side-wise leap, a scream of pain.

And then they were in the trail, thundering up the dark canon. Behind, the camp was confusion. Guns spattered forth, bullets flew singing overhead. Cries and shouts added to the confusion. More rifles rattled forth.

The horse wavered, missed a stride, staggered, then ran on.

“Hard hit,” said Dan.

“Then — there’s no chance?” she asked softly, and her arm slipped around Dan’s neck.

“Never give up,” he said, missing the significance of the words and her circling arm. “The bunch at the mine have horses, and they should be where we can get ’em. The soldiers there are pretty drunk. The horses back at the main camp are up on a plateau. It ’ll take ’em a little time to get ’em ready.”

The slope to the mine loomed ahead. The horse beneath them slowed, sank to his knees, groaned, and Dan lifted the girl clear.

“Thanks, old man,” he said to the horse, then rushed on foot up the incline to the mine.

“Que es, que es?” asked a Mexican hurriedly.

Dan answered him in his own language. “The Federals, a surprise attack. The Wolf has been killed. The troops will soon be here. Flee for your life.”

The soldier was confused by drink. His clouded wits groped with the situation. From behind came the stabbing bursts of flame that marked the rattling rifle fire. Following their custom, the Mexicans were registering excitement by lavish gunfire.

Two other men appeared in the dark. It was their companion who passed on the news.

“We are defeated. The Federals. Flee for your lives!”

Dan clung to the shadows. A horse snorted. The great hands reached for the bridle.

“This way,” he said, and led the horse along the edge of the shadows.

Ahead there loomed the ’dobe house. Before it was tied another horse.

“Hold this one,” said Dan, and went to the second animal.

Up the trail, toward the mountains, came the sound of swift hoofbeats. Dan chuckled. “Some of the drunken soldiers beating it in a panic. They’ll pass the word on to the bunch that are guardin’ the pass. Looks like luck’s comin’ our way.”

About the remains of a fire were sprawled motionless figures, bandits who had drunk deeply and were dead to the world.

There came the sound of a horse scrambling up the trail from the canon. Before they realized it, the animal was upon them. The beams of the electric flash light stabbed their way through the night, rested full upon Dan Harder.

“Ah-h-h-h,” purred the voice of Juan Ayala. “The Devil of the Hands, and he is unarmed.”

They could see his right hand rise with the pistol.

The girl screamed softly.

Dan Harder charged squarely at the stabbing flame which spurted from the pistol. The girl could see him rushing up the beam of light.

Ayala was on the horse. The advantage of the weapon was his. The girl shuddered, tried to close her eyes, but they remained open, glued to the strange spectacle.

Dan’s hands reached the horse’s head. She saw one thumb and forefinger pinch the animal’s nostrils. The other arm swung upward and over the back of the horse’s head.

As Dan’s weight suddenly bore down upon the horse’s neck, the animal winced, dropped to one knee. It shook vigorously, trying to regain its balance, get air through the pinched nostrils.

The flash light snapped out, described an arc and settled in a clump of sage, showing the actors in the strange scene as great blobs of grotesque shadows.

The horse crashed to the earth.

She heard swift motion, saw once more the stabbing spurt of orange red flame, and then she heard an oath from Juan Ayala.

“I always wanted to take you to pieces,” she heard Dan Harder grunt.

“Help! Help! The hands! The Devil of the Hands!” shrieked Ayala, and then his voice gurgled into a rattle.

“Ready?” asked Harder’s voice, startlingly close to her.

For answer she swung into the saddle of the horse whose bridle she held. Harder swung to the other.

“Did you get his gun?” she heard her voice asking.

He gave a laugh which sent shivers down her spine.

“Gun, hell! My bare hands have got me through this far, and they’ll go the rest of the way!”

They clattered down the slope, hit the canon.

Behind them was a great commotion of shots and shouts. The girl realized that there was mounted pursuit, but whether they were gaining or not she could not tell.

Dan Harder knew every inch of the trail. He pushed the horses forward at top speed.

Half an hour passed. They were in the mountain pass now, working their way upward between great dark walls which shut out the stars.

A horse whinnied ahead.

“Who is it?” called a voice in Spanish.

“The Federals. Surrender at once!” yelled Harder.

There was no further conversation from ahead, but they could hear the pounding hoofbeats of the horse.

“Here’s hoping he stampedes the others,” muttered Harder.

The sounds of pursuit were dropping behind. It had been the grim personality of The Wolf, the subtle cruelty of Juan Ayala, which had kept the bandits in some semblance of military organization. With those removed they lacked the incentive to push onward.

The canon walls came closer together. The trail wound upward in a series of zigzags.

“You remember the letter you wrote me?” asked the girl softly.

Harder thought of her remarks about his hands.

Perhaps, he thought, she was going to break it to him easy now, let him down gently. Perhaps she was going to try to apologize for her feeling.

He would forestall all that.

“No,” he said shortly.

She became silent.

They rode upward. All pursuit had quit or dropped so far behind it could not be heard. Through the silence of the calm night they pushed their jaded horses.

The summit showed before them. There was no guard. The men ahead had spread the alarm of the defeat, the pursuing Federals. The bandits had scurried away from the main trail, taken to the mountain wilderness. They knew full well what capture would mean.

The trail sloped gently downward.

The east changed color. The stars shrunk to pin-points.

“I heard what you said to your father about my hands,” said Dan, blurting forth the words sullenly.

She looked at him in surprise.

“Come on, faster,” he said, and spurred his wearied horse to greater speed.

The east became golden, crimson. The sun burst into view. Below them lay the white buildings of a city, the place into which Rita had come by railroad. The bandit troops would never come within striking distance of the railroad.

“Safe now,” said Harder, but did not slacken the speed of his horse.

An hour later they clattered through the street, went directly to the railroad station.

Harder swung stiffly from his mount, helped the girl from hers. Once more he felt her eyes upon his hands.

They showed cruel bums. Great blisters had been formed and had had broken. The hair had been singed away. One of Ayala’s pistol bullets had grazed the flesh, leaving a seared streak of red.

Harder moved his hands uncomfortably.

The girl’s slender hands grasped one of his great paws, raised it swiftly to her lips.

Dan Harder stood stupefied. Then he caught the direction of the girl’s eyes, and followed her gaze.

Standing against a corner of the railroad station, his white face mirroring incredulity and shame, stood Vincent Shaffer.

As Harder’s eyes rested upon him he slunk around the corner, away from their sight.

The girl’s eyes turned to Dan’s.

“I meant that. I think they’re wonderful, those hands!”

And then he caught her to him, for her eyes showed that she meant what she had said. The events of the past twenty-four hours had taught her much of character.

And as they embraced in the warm sunlight of early morning, Vincent Shaffer, the fastidious dresser, owner of the shapely hands, slunk down the side streets like a whipped cur, ashamed to face them, ashamed to face himself.