The Frighteners by Donald Hamilton Page A

tires—that took a little doing, but they made it—and even hacking up the body metal. They were also, of course, looting the luggage and demolishing everything that couldn’t be pocketed or carried away. Soon the car was a total wreck, and the area looked as if the trunk had exploded, blowing fragmented suitcases and rags of clothing, male and female, in all directions.
    At last the man in khaki called them to order and gave them their instructions, finishing with a wide sweep of his machete that encompassed all of northern Mexico. I couldn’t hear the words, and I might not have understood them if I had heard them, but the meaning was obvious: You’ve had your fun, now find me the lousy gringos, pronto.
    “But I don’t understand!” Gloria whispered plaintively. All the sulky resentment had gone out of her as she watched the scene across the way. “I just don’t understand! Our rendezvous . . . Why would anybody send us into a . . . a deathtrap?”
    I said, “Isn’t it obvious? I wasn’t really selected for this bridegroom spot because I was such a bright and competent fellow. I was selected because I’d make a swell dead body that, after a little judicious machete work by our friend over there, could be buried as Horace Hosmer Cody, another unfortunate victim of those murdering Mexican bandidos who specialize in Texas millionaires and their dames.”
CHAPTER 9
    Strangely they had only one tracker worth a damn. You’d think that among a bunch of mountain ruffians there’d be hardly anybody who didn’t know how to work out a simple trail; but they obviously weren’t hunters, they’d had no training as military scouts, and they didn’t think in those terms at all. Anyway, by the time they’d finished doing a job on the car and luggage and got themselves organized, they’d milled around so much that there were no clear footprints except theirs left near the vehicles. The khaki-clad leader never even looked at the ground; he just sent them off to hunt for us in every direction, apparently figuring that, dressed as unpractically as we were, we couldn’t have got far.
    They might never have found our tracks, the tracks I’d been careful to leave for them, if it hadn’t been for one man, the one who’d driven the van, who’d finally got out where I could see him clearly. Another Little Boy Blue, in jeans, blue work shirt, and a short blue denim jacket, except that he was a Big Boy Blue. He must have been close to my six-four in height, and in width he had shoulders that just had to give him trouble going through small doors. He was the kind of specimen that, when you meet him in my line of work, you toss aside the .38 and reach for the .44 Magnum if there isn’t an elephant rifle handy. He wore no hat and his light hair was cut quite short, giving him a bullet-headed look. Some kind of a revolver was stuck into the front of his pants, but it was obvious that he didn’t take it very seriously. With those shoulders, and hands to match, he didn’t need to.
    He exhibited no signs of Latin blood that I could see at that distance. As far as we were concerned at the moment, he was the one to watch, even though I got the impression that finding us wasn’t really his job; he served the headman as driver and bodyguard and hadn’t been included in the search-em-out orders. But there were apparently brains inside all the beef; and after a while he got bored watching his compadres thrashing around mindlessly in the sparse, spiny brush, so he got out of the van and wandered down the dirt road toward the highway, finally spotting the mark of one of Gloria’s spike heels. Then he found another. Reaching the paved highway, he made a cast along the shoulder to the east and then, returning, to the west, discovering no more of those distinctive feminine shoe signatures. He was looking across the road thoughtfully, obviously considering an examination of the other side, when the man in khakis called to him,