Gone to Texas by Don Worcester Read Free Book Online

the house of my friends the Romeros,” Ellis told him. “They’ll care for you like you were their own son and nurse you back to health. I can do little for you here.”
    â€œNo. I can’t possibly recover. I prefer to die here with you.”
    At that moment the cell door opened again and the guards pushed a big man with Indian features and shackled arms into the room. “Why is he here?” Ellis asked the guard.
    â€œHe killed a man.”
    The prisoner took a jew’s-harp from his pocket, held it to his mouth, and twanged on it continuously until Joel was writhing in agony, holding his head with both hands.
    â€œHe’s sick. See what you’re doing to him,” Ellis said. “Why don’t you stop?”
    The man stopped twanging while he answered. “I’ll play whenever I want to,” he said.
    Enraged, Ellis snatched the little instrument from his hand and tore out the tongue. The man arose and attempted to grasp Ellis by the throat. Ellis raised his shackled arms and brought both fists down hard on the man’s head so that the irons around his wrists struck his skull. He went down hard and lay on the floor moaning. Joel tried to rise, but fell limply back on his mat. Two days later he died, and Ellis mournfully watched the guards carry his wasted body away for burial. He thought of Joel’s wife. She must have given up hope of ever seeing him again long ago, he thought. It’s better if she lost hope and forgot him.
    Three months passed, when Ellis was released without explanation and allowed to return to Chihuahua. “I knew you were in prison,” Duncan told him, “and I’d have come to see what I could do for you, but Tom House is in bad shape. I was sure he’d die if I left him.”
    â€œThe first thing I aim to do is see if Jonah isn’t too yellow to fight me with pistols,” Ellis growled. “He doesn’t deserve to live.” They found him the next morning.
    â€œYou sorry son-of-a-bitch,” Ellis greeted him, “get a pistol and meet me outside of town. Then you kill me, or I’ll sure as hell kill you.” The shifty-eyed Waters turned pale and ran.
    Knowing a house that Waters frequently visited, Ellis got a stout club and waited for him. When Waters came out, Ellis stepped from around the comer and blocked the way back to the house. “If you won’t fight me with guns, I’ll get my satisfaction another way,” he growled.
    â€œPlease don’t hit me,” Waters begged in a quavering voice. “I didn’t mean you any harm.”
    â€œLiar!” Ellis laid on with the club until Waters lay badly bruised and whimpering on the ground.
    Ellis and Duncan went to the paseo most nights to admire the young ladies. “That one’s makin’ eyes at you,” Duncan said, as a fancily dressed girl walked by with her chaperone, probably an aunt. Ellis watched them walk on—the girl turned her head and looked hard at him with the one eye that was exposed.
    One night Ellis went alone to the paseo while Duncan took food to House. The young lady was there, as usual, and somehow she slipped away from her chaperone and hurried to where Ellis stood under a tree. She shamelessly pulled the shawl from her face.
    â€œWhat’s your name, señor?' she asked. “Mine’s Elena,” she said before he could reply. Just then the chaperone charged up like a buffalo bull after a wolf, crossing herself when she saw the breach of moral conduct. She dragged the girl away and informed her father, who was a colonel under Salcedo. The next day he sent a soldier to Ellis with a note.
    â€œYou have compromised my daughter’s honor,” it said. “You must marry her at once.”
    â€œBe damned if I will,” Ellis told Duncan. “After I saw her face she didn’t look all that great to me. And all we did was talk. I didn’t get in her pants. I