‘Sounds fair; getting a bunch of drifters to toe the party line is not a problem as long as I have a free hand to deal with them as I choose.’
‘They are restless and bored at present, but shortly they will be doing the job they were actually hired on for. Currently they are encouraging the small ranchers – nesters, homesteaders, call them what you will – to move on with a few dollars in their pockets or else possibly be buried there.’ He coughed long and hard, wiping his thin lips with a silk handkerchief and, taking another sip of his drink, got to his feet unsteadily. ‘Margaret will explain all that you need to know at present about our major project and show you to your room here in the main building. But I, Max, am weary and will retire for my rest, and if you have no questions, we will assume your contract to be in order.’
Max Hadley was in no hurry for bed.
‘One thing, Mr Vagg: I don’t like to walk into trouble blind. You mentioned one particular problem that will need my attention immediately, and that would be. . . ?’
Vagg paused, looked at Jack Temple, and said, ‘There is a man in town. A troublesome drifter arrived recently and he has proved to be a pain in the ass. Mr Temple here, my bodyguard and friend, is reluctant to deal with him for very personal reasons, but I think once you have surveyed the territory then that man should be you first objective.’
‘This drifter have a name?’
‘We believe it to be Louis Bassett of Wichita, but that may not be so. The local law thinks he might be the Peaceful River Kid. A foolish name if I ever heard one; the man must be over forty years old.’
Hadley set down his drink. ‘Describe this Louis Bassett to me.’
Vagg gave an irritable cough and sat back down, thinking. ‘About five ten or eleven tall. He’s lean, dark haired, but greying at the temples with a close-trimmed moustache. Wears a fancy Colt in a cross-draw holster. Strange man; seems to have a penchant for ravens. I would like him dead.’
Margaret Vagg said, a chuckle on the very edge of her deep voice, ‘Don’t forget his lovely blue eyes, Frank; they have seen a lot of yesterdays.’
‘But not too many more tomorrows, I hope.’ Vagg said.
Hadley whistled, sat back in his seat and laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ Vagg asked, his voice agitated.
‘You want that man dead, it will cost you an extra five hundred.’
‘Why would that be?’ Vagg asked after a long silence.
‘That man is not Louis Bassett of Wichita. That man is Lucas Santana, a sometime Pinkerton agent and deputy US Marshal. He gave me this limp in a dirty little town called Dry Water, and I have tried before to put him in the ground without success. The man is almost bullet proof. You want him dead? It will cost you.’
‘Are you absolutely certain of those facts? A detective, a federal officer?’
‘No question.’
‘That could prove disastrous for everyone, ruin everything.’ Vagg’s tight skinned white forehead crinkled with a worried frown. ‘Damn the man; put him down.’
‘And the five hundred?’
‘You certainly do not come cheap, Mr Hadley,’ Vagg whispered.
‘No, sir, I do not. That man is going to be hard to kill. He seems to like critters more than human beings. Has himself a small ranch in Wyoming called the Wildcat. It’s posted land. Wyoming, no hunting, would you believe that?’
‘It is settled, then,’ Vagg said, getting to his feet unsteadily and nodding to Jack Temple. ‘Give me your arm, Jack. I need some fresh air before bed. Margaret, I’ll leave you to outline the Diablo Project as far as it concerns Mr Hadley, but only as far as it concerns Mr Hadley. Leave the rest of it to me. We will see how things work out first.’
‘What do you think of him, Jack?’ Vagg asked once they were clear of the room and smoking late night smokes: Vagg a cheroot and Temple a quirly.
‘Just another hired gun, smarter than most and better dressed, maybe, but underneath all that is just a cheap gunman who will likely take Bassett or whatever his name is from some dark alley.’
‘Bassett is a threat; you have to admit that.’
‘Hadley may turn out to be a bigger one further down the pike.’
‘To me?’
‘You can never tell with a man like that.’
‘Then you had best keep your eye on him, Jack.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rider from the past
After what turned out to be another pretty fruitless day checking on the possible homestead Henri had staked out for me, and surveying even more of the rugged countryside, I headed back to San Pedro. It was clear to me that I would not learn anything more by continually pounding my backside on hard leather. Any thoughts of using the homestead as a base were dismissed at first sight of the place; it had been torched. Only the stone-set chimney still stood as a testimony to the long, backbreaking hours of arduous work put into the place by a dreamer – a man, or a family from the east, perhaps – with bright hopes for a future along the mighty Rio Grande. I wondered just how many dreams Frank Vagg had shattered during his long life.
The sky was a blaze of deep red as I stabled the Morgan. The coal oil street lamps were lit and flickering in the light breeze, but the street was deserted and the only lights burning were in the saloon and the hotel. Even the diner and billiard hall were closed. It was a Monday and not uncommon for a town to take a long sleep after a busy weekend. I walked the tired Morgan into the grey light of the livery, unsaddled her, rubbed her down, fed her some grain and checked the water. I arched my back, massaged my backside and turned toward the door. My hand dropped to my Colt as the dark figure of One-Eyed Jack Temple emerged from the deeper shadow.
‘Easy, partner. I like a man who cares for his animal.’
I leaned back on one of the stalls, took my pipe from my shirt pocket and filled it; it made a change from cheap cigars and quirlys. ‘A man needs to be careful, Jack; you know that.’
The big man set himself down on a straw bale, extracted a tailormade from a leather case and lit it.
‘That’s why I am here, Kid. You have come a long way since that night in Cheyenne, but it seems you left a trail behind you, and this one leads back to a town called Dry Water. You remember that?’
‘Not a happy memory, Jack.’
‘You recall a hombre named Max Hadley? White scar on his face and walks with a limp?’
‘I remember him; I gave him the limp to remember me by. I think Old Nick gave him the scar.’
‘That may not have been a smart move; sometimes it’s better to kill a man than to shame him.’
‘Good advice; someone else gave it me onetime and I do not doubt it, but now, as then, a couple of years too late.’
‘He arrived at the Circle V yesterday. Vagg is planning on having him as his top hand.’
‘Hadley doesn’t know one end of a cow from the other.’
‘That may be so, but he surely knows you, though. He enlightened us somewhat as to your Pinkerton career and other attachments to federal law enforcement. The Vaggs were not impressed or best pleased.’
‘And you, Jack, how do you feel about it?’
Temple shrugged. ‘What I feel does not really matter. Those people mean to do you harm, Kid, maybe more than even you can handle.’ He smiled a crinkled smile and pushed the patch up onto his forehead, rubbed the eye, blinked hard and dropped it down again.
‘And you?’
‘I’m on my way to New Orleans. I like that old river. I figured if I stayed around here, it would only be a matter of time before Vagg asked me to help Hadley take you down, and I am not too sure I am that good. Hadley will do you from cover and that is not my style.’
‘You could stay and help.’
‘Not my style, either. I took Vagg’s coin and I will not go against him, but I will tell you this, Kid: stay away from Diablo Canyon. I do not know for sure what is going down there below the line, but I feel a darkness about it whenever it is mentioned.’
&nbs
p; ‘What do you think?’ I asked.
‘I think things are never quite how they seem.’
‘Like people,’ I said.
‘Yes, just like people. You behind a badge: who would have believed that?’ He dropped the stub of his cigarette onto the dirt floor and ground it out with his boot heel. He turned his back on me and disappeared into a stall, and remerged leading a big bay, saddled and loaded with bedroll, a war bag and draping duster.
‘So long, Kid. I guess we will meet again. In the meantime, you watch your back. Sometime maybe I will visit you at your Wildcat ranch up there on the Peaceful.’
‘How do you know it’s called Wildcat?’
‘Hadley told us. Seems he knows one hell of a lot about you.’
That needed thinking about.
We shook hands and he gave me a scrap of paper with a couple of scribbled lines on it. ‘If you are ever down by the Big River, look me up: that address will find me. We’ll maybe share a beer and talk about old times.’
I watched as he swung his tall frame into the saddle, touched his wide-brimmed hat and rode out into the starlit Texas night, Louisiana and the Mississippi bound.
She was waiting in the darkness of my room for me, standing by the window, silhouetted against the dying evening red sky.
I tossed my hat and saddlebags on the bed and said, ‘I locked the door. How did you get in?’
‘Picked the lock; very simple.’
‘Why have you always bothered to knock?’
‘More ladylike.’
‘This the sort of thing Beaufort is teaching his female agents in San Antonio, how to pick locks?’
‘That, and how to drink whiskey. They teach us a lot at the agency.’
I took the hint and poured us a pair, passing one to her. Our eyes met briefly and she did not blink as I started to turn away. ‘You are a Mr Grumpy this evening. Are you regretting what happened last night? Because I am not.’
I gave her a tired smile, stepped closer and touched her cheek with my fingertips, dancing them along her cheekbone and gently brushing her lips with them before turning away.
‘What troubles you, Lucas? Are you confusing me with Kathleen Riley? If so, do not.’
‘You are an astute young woman, Henri, and I want like hell to hold you, but I cannot afford to. My soul could not take the weight of losing someone else as close to me as you have quickly become. Maybe when this is over . . .’ My words tailed off and dried up. When this is over, I thought to myself, more dead men and perhaps even me among them. Would these kinds of days ever be over for me? More to the point, did I actually want them to be?
‘I heard from Beaufort today.’ Her voice was suddenly very businesslike and pitched slightly higher than it had been only moments before. Her words broke my reverie.
‘And?’ I said.
‘He knows, or thinks he knows, what Diablo means.’
‘Gold?’ I said.
There was a hint of a smile as her voice softened again. Two agents on the job, the night before between the cool sheets of my bed put on one side. ‘It’s always gold, isn’t it? It seems to be the grease that lubricates the bearings of this country and is probably the main reason we are needed. Power and gold: either way, one buys the other, always.’
‘How much are we talking about, Henri?’ I asked.
‘Only the Mexican government or, to be more precise, only President Porfirio Diaz can answer that question.’
‘Is he getting ready to run?’
‘Beaufort doesn’t think so; simply moving some of his eggs from one basket to another just in case.’
‘From where to where?’
‘Mexico City to San Antonio.’
‘And Diablo?’
‘A canyon to the south of here; it’s on the Mex side of the border and on the eastern side of San Pedro. Moving it by pack mule, escorted by army or federales all of the way to San Antonio by special dispensation from Washington. Seems el president may invest a large chunk of it in stock for the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, which, by the way, again according to intel gathered by Beaufort, will not be coming this way but much further to the west.’
‘To El Paso.’
‘Very likely.’
‘That will make our friend Vagg very unhappy.’
‘You think he is going to try for the gold?’
‘I do. He has a small army littered around the Circle V, enough I would think to handle an ambush in Diablo Canyon. Map it for me and I will take a looksee tomorrow. You happy to hold the fort?’
‘Beaufort will be here by the time you return. He wants to be hands on with this one; he aims to stop it before it begins. Apparently Washington will not be happy if this gets out of hand. I think he plans to ride out and meet the gold shipment before there is any real trouble.’
‘That might be a greater task that he bargains for,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Does that bother you? Him taking over, I mean.’
‘Not in the least. I am a hired hand, a mercenary, not even a full-time agent such as yourself. It’s his call, and when the bugle sounds, I march.’
‘You, sir, are a liar.’
I laughed. I could not help myself. I reached out for her and pulled her to me, kissing her softly on her lips, feeling them part briefly as she pushed me away, and then pulled me back to her again. Women. . . . Why must they always feel the need to be in charge?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Billy Bob Hunt
It was typically seasonal Texas weather: a few days burning you black, the rising heat creating thunder and rain, and the cycle beginning all over again when that had passed. It was passing now and I was in the dry for a change. I had been in San Pedro for two weeks, and in that time I had shot the same man twice: first time taking off his ear and the second time sorely wounding him. I had nearly crippled another with my boot, insulted the head honcho, and freed a raven. I had seduced or been seduced by a fellow agent near young enough for me to be her father, drunk several fifths of whiskey and conjured up a man from the past who hated my guts. And now, having been on the wrong trail for the most of that time, I was about to be play second fiddle to the agent in charge. So much for Lucas Santana: private detective. I was pondering these things over my coffee, following a scrambled egg on toast breakfast in the Blue Parrot, when Billy Bob Hunt walked through the open doorway. He hung his dripping slicker on a peg and beat his rain-soaked derby against his leg, bending it back into shape and sitting it back on his grey head. He settled his eyes on me and walked over to my table and, without being invited, pulled a chair and thumped his hefty backside down on to it with a sigh and a smile.
‘Any objections?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Mind if I smoke?’ he asked, pulling a stogie from his vest pocket.
Again, I shook my head.
‘This going to be a one-sided conversation?’
I shrugged and poured some sugar into my coffee cup.
‘OK then, shall I do the talking?’
‘What’s on your mind, Sheriff?’
‘Just this morning I got a letter from Tad Jones up in Sentinel. We go back a’ways, Tad and I. He doesn’t think too highly of me, I know, but we are kind of neighbours and I guess he feels guilty about something.’
‘Something?’
‘Yes, something, like holding out on me and sicking a federal backed detective on my trail.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Damned right, it is, but I’ve been a lawman long enough to know you are not who you make yourself out to be. Just wish you had given me the chance to let you know I am not a fancy badge carrier for a high roller like Frank Vagg. I’m past retirement and if I turn my back now and again, it isn’t for money: it’s for a quiet and, I hope, longer life.’
‘And you are telling me this . . . why?’
‘Why, because if there is a way to clean up this burg without getting my ass shot off, then I would like to be in on it and get out from under Vagg’s
thumb. But damn it, I don’t want to horn in where I am not wanted.’ His face got a little red and his eyes a little brighter as he stood up and pushed his chair back, staring down at me.
‘Sit down and shut up, Billy Bob.’ I waved to the waitress. ‘Two more coffees please, miss.’
He sat staring at me for a long while over his coffee and I waited. I have found the best thing to do with an angry man when you sense that that man does not really want to be angry is to be patient and let the storm pass quietly.
‘I was town marshal here for three years, employed by the town council before Vagg came along. Riverton is one small county and he got me elected county sheriff. I could have said no, but my age ruled out my starting over, so I took it but I never took anything other than my fair wages. Like I said, it was safer to go fishing now and then. It never bothered me if they shot one another, just so long as the townsfolk were not harmed.’
‘And the settlers, the onetime owners of the deserted homesteads littered about the place?’
‘You are right, and I always will feel bad about that, but I wasn’t about to die for something that has been happening all over Texas since the end of the war, and that was a long time back.’
‘And now?’
‘Now, I’m tired of it all.’ He stood up, calmer than the first time, and pushed his chair await from the table gently. ‘I can ride and I am better than most with a Winchester: you need me, you holler.’
He started to turn for the door, but I reached out and touched his shoulder. As he turned I offered him my hand and said quietly, ‘Lucas Santana. I’m the Pinkerton man Tad told you about, and for the record, he did not speak ill of you.’
‘Thanks for that,’ he said, gripping my hand before turning back toward the door.
I watched as he shrugged into the long mackinaw before touching his battered hat and walking out into the pouring rain. I wondered what it must have been like, being in his situation at his late age, and I did not envy him his conscience or condemn his reaction to it. A man can only do so much, and knowing your limitations is a vital part of survival in a place where you might find yourself to be the only badge around.
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