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Updated: June 21, 2025
Incidentally Pete realized that he was getting deeper and deeper into the meshes of The Spider's web and the thought spurred him to a keener vigilance. So far he had killed three men actually in self-defense. But when he met up with Malvey and Pete promised himself that pleasure he would not wait for Malvey to open the argument. "Got to kill to live," he told himself.
After supper the men sat out beneath the vine-covered portal Malvey and Flores with a wicker-covered demijohn of wine between them and Pete lounging on the doorstep, smoking and gazing across the cañon at the faint stars of an early evening. With the wine, old Flores's manner changed from surly indifference to a superficial politeness which in no way deceived Pete.
A rifle snarled in the draw. Malvey jerked straight as a soft-nosed slug tore through him. Another slug shattered his thigh. Cursing, he lunged sideways, as Blue Smoke bucked. Malvey toppled and fell an inert bulk in the dim light of the stars. The chief deputy struck a match and stooped. "We got the wrong man," he called to his companions.
He heard The Spider moving about the room. The door closed softly. Pete raised his head. The room was dark. He thought of Malvey and he wondered at The Spider's apparent solicitude. He was in The Spider's hands for good or ill . . . Sleep blotted out all sense of being. Late that afternoon he awoke to realize that there was some one in the room.
"And he's in El Paso now," concluded Malvey, "at the hospital. He writ to The Spider for money and The Spider sure sent it to him." "Who was he fightin' for?" queried Pete, interested in spite of himself. "Fightin' for? For hisself! Because he likes the game. You don't want to git the idea that any white man is down there fightin' just to help a lot of dirty Greasers on either side of the scrap."
Malvey, when not operating a machine gun for Mexican bandits, was usually busy evading a posse on the American side of the border. Needless to say, he knew the country well and the country knew him only too well. He had friends of a kind and he had enemies of every description and color from the swart, black-eyed Cholas of Sonora to the ruddy, blue-eyed Rangers of Texas.
Well, so far he had played his hand with all the cards on the table card for card with The Spider alone. Now there would be a new deal. Pete would have to play accordingly. When he again entered the saloon, from the rear, The Spider and Malvey were standing out in the road, gazing toward the north. "I see only three of them," he heard The Spider say in his peculiar, high-pitched voice.
"Well, there's nothin' doin'. I ain't no killer or no hoss-thief lookin' for a job. I got in bad up north but I ain't lookin' for no more trouble. If Malvey and me lock horns that's my business. But you got me wrong if you reckon I'm goin' to throw in with your outfit. I kin pay for what I eat a couple of times, anyhow. But I ain't hirin' out to no man."
The young stranger with Malvey was good-looking quite worth changing her dress for. She hoped he would think her pretty. Most men admired her she was really beautiful in her dark, Southern way and some of them had given her presents a cheap ring, a handkerchief from Old Mexico, a pink and, to her, wonderful brush and comb.
While cruel, treacherous, and a killer, The Spider had nothing small or mean about him. And subtle to a degree, he hated the blunt-spoken, blustering Malvey, but for reasons unadvertised, called him friend. "Have a drink?" "Thanks." And Pete poured himself a noticeably small quantity. "This is Malvey Bull Malvey," said The Spider, hesitating for Pete to name himself. "Pete's my name.
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