“Why not?”
“Search me. Maybe he just doesn’t like Yankees.”
“Gotcha,” Pete said cheerfully.
Moving lightly On the balls of his feet, he started past the young man. The Mexican swung at him. If his fist had landed on Pete’s face, it would have knocked him flat. It never reached him. As the man struck, Pete hit him hard just below the shoulder with a knife-hand strike, the shuto-uchi. The leather-covered arm stopped in mid-swing as though paralyzed. Then it fell slowly to the man’s side. He grabbed his own shoulder with his other hand and faced Pete.
Pete waited, his legs slightly bent, his hands flat in the ready posture.
The Mexican looked at him, startled. He was still gripping his own shoulder, trying to knead some life back into it.
Pete raised his right hand, ready to chop at him again.
The man shook his head. “Okay,” he muttered in Spanish. “Okay. Enough. I’m not going to get my neck broken. Not even for a million pesos.”
He was still shaking his head as he walked away.
At that moment Jupe burped. The tension broke as Bob and Pete hooted with laughter. Jupe’s face burned.
“Chicken tacos staging a comeback?” Bob teased.
“Hey, let’s move it,” Pete said. “Our bus is ready to go.”
The Three Investigators climbed onto the bus. They hadn’t seen the woman with the purple shawl in the cafe. But there she was again in a back seat.
They watched her take several peso bills out of her purse and hand them out the window beside her. A brown hand reached up and grabbed them. As the hand closed over the money, the guys caught a glimpse of the sleeve of a leather jacket.
They settled into their seats as the bus started forward.
It was the last leg of their long trip. All three guys fell into an uneasy doze that lasted all night. They found it difficult to sleep much. Every village they passed through had concrete mounds a foot high stretching right across the main street. The bumps kept people from driving too fast through the town — and from sleeping on buses.
They arrived in Lareto around nine o’clock in the morning. The bus stopped in a small square with trees and benches grouped around a bandstand.
The guys had phoned Dusty from the border. He was waiting for them in his Jeep, obviously pleased to see them. But he seemed strangely impatient, too. As he helped them stow their bags in the Jeep, he kept saying it wouldn’t be long before they got to the ranch — as though it couldn’t be too soon to suit him.
As they drove out of the square, Jupe turned and looked behind him.
The woman in the purple shawl was standing on the sidewalk staring after them. Jupe waved at her in a friendly way. She didn’t wave back.
He couldn’t blame her for being sore at them. The way he figured it, she had given several thousand pesos to that Mexican in the leather jacket to stop the Three Investigators from getting to Lareto.
And here they were.
They drove for two hours before they reached the ranch. Most of the time they were on a dirt road that wound up through wooded hills. Ahead of them in the distance they kept glimpsing a range of tall mountains. Dusty explained they were part of the Sierra Madre.
That reminded Bob of an old movie he had seen on television. “That’s where Humphrey Bogart and his pals found the treasure of the Sierra Madre, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile.
Dusty didn’t seem to realize Bob was kidding. He shook his head seriously. “
Pete looked at the lake. He guessed it was about two or three miles long and maybe half a mile wide. Should be a great place for fishing, he thought, glad he had brought his rod and tackle with him. He couldn’t see any houses on the other side of the lake, only a clump of trees. But way beyond the trees he could make out what looked like the tower of an old church. So probably people did live over there.
Dusty led the way across the porch and into a large, pleasant room with an open fireplace and comfortable chairs.
“I guess you’re hungry, aren’t you?” he asked.
“You’ve read my mind,” Pete agreed. Dusty clapped his hands and almost immediately a Mexican man appeared through the archway at the end of the room.
“This is Ascencion,” Dusty said. “He’s the cook around here.” He didn’t bother to introduce the three visitors by their names.
Ascencion was about fifty, sturdily built, with a deep brown craggy face and straight black hair. He was wearing cowboy boots and jeans and a denim shirt. He looked more like a ranch hand than a cook, Jupe thought.
Dusty spoke rapidly to him in Spanish, Jupe caught the words “breakfast” and “at once.” Ascencion nodded. His brown eyes were so dark, they looked almost black. Bob noticed that he never looked directly at Dusty. The tension between them reminded him of rival rock stars.
Ascencion was a great cook. He soon brought in a big platter of ham and eggs, hash browns, and hot rolls. Pete and Bob settled down to everything with healthy appetites. Jupe stuck to the ham and eggs.
Proteins were okay with Keil Halfebrot. Carbohydrates were the killers.
Dusty sat at the long table with them but didn’t eat anything. He kept picking the dough out of a roll in a nervous way. He seemed to be waiting for his three guests to finish so he could get on with something. Something that was worrying him.
“Had enough?” he asked as soon as Pete had swallowed his last mouthful.
“Yeah. It was great,” Pete said. He could have eaten another whole plateful, but Dusty had already started toward the door.
“Come on,” he called. “I’ll show you over the ranch.”
Outside, he quickly led the way around the end of the house to a wide fenced-in field. On one side of the field was a small wooden shed.
“Like to see my burro,” Dusty said. He wasn’t asking them. He hurried the three guys toward the shed. Before they reached it a small donkey, what Mexicans call a burro, stumbled out of the shed and skittered shyly away from them.
Except for a black line down its back and across its shoulders, it was so light-skinned it was almost white. It had huge ears, which it kept twitching nervously, and a long tufted tail. Its front legs had been hobbled with a rope so that, although it seemed anxious to run away, it could move only with short, unsteady steps.
Pete, who liked all animals on sight, started quickly forward. He held out his hand to pat the burro’s neck, Dusty stopped him.
“Don’t touch her and don’t say anything,” he told the three guys in a low, urgent voice. “She’s very young. Less than two years old. And she hasn’t been tamed yet.”
The burro had managed to get several yards away by then. She kicked out suddenly with her hind legs as though warning them not to come any closer.
“Quite a lot of wild burros live in the mountains. This one strayed onto my land a couple of months ago and I decided to keep her,” Dusty explained. “I call her Blondie. You can guess why.”
He looked at Pete. “You can try calling her now if you like,” he said. “Just say, ‘Come here, Blondie.’ Let’s see what she does.”
Here he goes again, Pete thought resentfully, telling us what to say like we were third graders. But Pete really liked the little animal, so he played along.
“Come here, Blondie,” he called in a gentle voice. “Come here.”
The burro laid her long ears back so that they were almost touching her neck. Pete knew from his experience with horses that this meant Blondie was wary. Or angry. He called her again, but all she did was hobble a few more feet away from him.
“You try,” Dusty told Bob.
“What for?” Bob shrugged. “All I’ll get is the same put-down from her.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Dusty did his best to smile. He looked at Jupe. “You mind trying to call her for me?” he asked politely.
Jupe could take animals or leave them. He didn’t care if the burro came to him or not. But he could tell from the worried look in Dusty’s eyes, the way the rancher suddenly gripped Jupe’s arm, that this mattered a lot to Dusty. Jupe was curious.
He freed his arm. “Come here, Blondie,” he called in a bored voice.
The effect was astonishing. The burro’s head swung around instantly. She looked straight at Jupe. Her ears twitched once and then pointed forward.
“I don’t believe it!” Pete said.
“Again!” Dusty whispered excitedly. “Say it again!”
“Come here, Blondie.” This time Jupe’s voice sounded a bit more interested.
The burro strained against the rope that hobbled her front legs and ambled toward Jupe as quickly as she could. She stopped less than a foot away from him. Stretching her neck, she prodded his chest gently with her nose.
“She’s fallen for you!” Bob said, slapping his friend on the back. “How do you do it, Jupe? Three little words and she’s crazy about you.”
Jupe stepped back. The burro’s response to him had caught him by surprise. And Bob’s kidding made him feel embarrassed.
“Stroke her.” Dusty was gripping his arm again. “See what happens if you touch her.”
Out of sheer curiosity, Jupe stretched out his hand and stroked Blondie’s neck. Her ears stood straight up. She rubbed her nose against Jupe’s chest again.
Dusty let go of Jupe’s arm. He was smiling like a man who had just won first prize in a quiz show.
“I bet she’d even let you ride her,” Dusty said. “Go on. It’s okay. Even at her age, she’s a very strong little animal. She can carry you. Easily.”
Jupe hesitated. He didn’t particularly want to ride the burro. But Dusty’s excitement had started a whole train of questions in his mind. Something was going on here that he didn’t understand. As an Investigator, he had to follow every possible lead.
He swung his right leg over the burro’s back and settled astride her. Blondie turned her head and tried to look up at him with her huge soft eyes. Her ears were bolt upright. She seemed to like the idea of having Jupe as her jockey.
“Say, giddyup,” Dusty whispered urgently.
The words stirred a sudden memory in Jupe’s mind.
“Giddyup,” he said. “Giddyup, Blondie.”
He had to hold on to the burro’s neck to keep his balance as she clumsily ambled forward. Memory had given him a clue. He decided to try a little experiment.
“Whoa, Blondie,” he said. “Whoa!”
The burro obediently came to a stop.
“Well, she certainly seems to have taken a shine to you,” Dusty told Jupe as he got off the burro’s back.
“Yeah, it’s your animal magnetism, Jupe,” Pete put in. “That’ll do it with blondes every time.”
“Very funny,” Jupe said. “Maybe I remind her of somebody.” He was looking at Dusty.
“How could you?” Dusty shook his head. “That burro was quite wild when she strayed down here. The only people she’s ever known in her life are me and Ascencion. And you don’t look anything like either of us.”
“No, I don’t look like you,” Jupe admitted. He reached up and pinched his lower lip. It was a habit he had when he was trying to figure something out. He claimed it helped him to think.
He was still pinching it half an hour later as he sat on his bunk in the large, comfortable room he was sharing with his two friends. Looking out the window, he could see the field with the shed in it. The white burro was standing close to the fence. She looked toward the house and brayed softly, as though calling to Jupe, wanting him to come back and stroke her again.
“Blondie!” Pete, who was assembling his fishing rod, said suddenly. “Dagwood’s wife. In the comic strip. ‘Blondie’ was one of the answers in that crossword puzzle.”
“Yeah, it was,” Jupe agreed. “But it isn’t just Blondie. There are the other clues too.”
“What other clues?” Bob was unpacking his tote bag. He folded his spare jeans neatly away in a drawer. “Clues to why this blonde finds you irresistible?”
Jupe ignored him. “The words Dusty asked us to say to that little burro just now. They were all answers in that crossword puzzle.”
“Yeah?” Pete said. “Which ones?”
Jupe leaned back against the wall and half closed his eyes.
“Come. Here,” he said. “Giddy. Up. Woe. Not ‘woe’ meaning sorrow and misfortune. But w-h-o-a, Blondie. Meaning ‘stop.’ And Blondie obeyed every one of those orders.”
Bob walked over to his own bunk and sat down. He was frowning thoughtfully.
“You’re onto something, Jupe,” he said. “But when Pete called her, he used some of those same words and she didn’t give him the time of day.”
“I know,” Jupe admitted, sounding as puzzled as Bob. “I realize it’s impossible, but you’d think that little animal had met me before somewhere. She seemed to recognize my voice!”
That night, after a good steak dinner that Ascencion barbecued for them, the Three Investigators went to sleep early.
Jupe was awakened a few hours later by a rubbing sound against the window beside his bunk. Raising his head, he saw that Blondie was outside. She was doing her best to push her nose in through the glass.
Jupe grumbled to himself and shook his fist at her, but she wouldn’t go away. If Pete and Bob woke up and saw this, they’d never stop teasing him. Still mumbling, he got out of bed and walked to the door that led straight into the back yard. The moment he opened it, the burro stuck her head into the room. Jupe pushed hard against her chest, trying to keep her out. The little animal was as solid and unyielding as a sandbag. He couldn’t move her. He finally slipped past her and, stepping outdoors, softly called her name.
She turned at once and trotted toward him. In the moonlight he could see that the hobbling rope was gone from her front legs. She was free. If he went back to his bunk, she would probably try to follow him.
You little pest, he thought. How am I going to get rid of you? The only answer seemed to be to lead her back to her own field. He started toward it, then suddenly stopped dead.
He could hear the sound of Spanish from the back porch at the far end of the house. A man’s voice and then a woman’s. Although Ascencion never said a word to Dusty, he had been quite friendly to the three guys at the barbecue. Speaking Spanish to Jupe, he had asked them questions about the United States, talked about the lake, and warned them not to swim in it. He had told them the mountain water was ice cold and no one could last more than a few minutes in it. Jupe instantly recognized Ascencion’s gravelly voice now, but he was too far away to hear what the Mexican was saying.
Wondering who the woman was, Jupe moved closer to the back porch. Blondie walked beside him. Jupe stroked her neck to keep her from braying.
The woman was talking now. “You must help me, Ascencion,” Jupe heard her say in Spanish. “You know what Rice will do if he finds them. He might even kill them.”
Ascencion replied with several Mexican swear words describing the rancher. “All right. I’ll do everything I can to help you,” he promised. “You can count on me.”
The woman thanked him. Jupe quickly withdrew into the darkness as he heard her light footsteps coming down into the yard. He caught a glimpse of her before she vanished around the end of the building.
She had her back to him so he couldn’t see her face. But the moonlight shone briefly on her blond hair.
The burro was rubbing her shoulder against Jupe. From where he was standing he could see that the gate into Blondie’s field was open. He led her through it, closing and latching the gate after him. Then he climbed back into the yard. The burro hung her head over the fence, braying complainingly. Jupe was relieved to see she was no jumper. He went back to bed.