Stand Up and Die

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Linton nodded at the generous dude, but said, “I’d rather have whiskey. American whiskey.”

  “The whiskey here will kill you,” the dude said. “Please, at least sample my tequila. Well, it is not my tequila, but it is the brand I favor. As you say, one must sample first before paying. Like buying a horse. You see how it runs first.” He nodded, not at Linton, but Bruno, the bartender.

  “All right.” Linton laughed. “But if I spit it out, I ain’t paying for it.”

  The dude grinned, bowed, and Linton heard the splashing of liquor into a clean glass.

  The clean glass surprised him. In fact, it took him by such surprise, that he sipped the tequila before thinking that it might have been poison.

  But it wasn’t. Or if it was, it was a hell of a good way to die. The tequila went down as smooth and as rich as chocolate cake. He always thought that tequila was some sort of kerosene you had to take with salt, but this was—

  “Smooth, is it not?” the dude said.

  “It ain’t what I expected,” Linton said. “That’s the damned truth.” He took another sip, nodded at the dude, then killed the rest of the Mexican brew. Still standing, not coughing, thinking this stuff goes down just like water, he set the glass in front of Bruno, smiled at the dude and the dude’s gunman, and said, “I’ll take another, Bruno. But don’t be so stingy with your pour. I’m a big boy. Fill it to the brim.”

  “You heard the man, Bruno,” the dude said with a smile. Next he gestured at the chair in front of the table.

  Once Bruno had obeyed the dude and poured a good-sized drink, Linton crossed the dirt floor and settled into the uncomfortable chair.

  He sipped. The dude sipped. The gunman rolled a cigarette. Bruno brought over the bottle of tequila, which was another surprise for Linton. He always thought tequila was like corn liquor. It came in jars or stoneware jugs. The barkeep topped off the glasses in front of the two men, and when Bruno moved back to the bar, the bottle of tequila remained on the table.

  This evening might turn out to be fine, Linton decided. He wondered if the dude played poker.

  The dude, though, raised his glass as in toast. “Salud.”

  Their glasses clinked.

  “My names in Don Marion Wilkes. The dude let his glass rest by his side. “This is my associate, Duncan Regret. Don, by the way, is my real name. Short for Donald. Do not mistake me for one of Mexico’s landed gentry. I hail from Missouri.”

  “Well, Don Marion Wilkes, señor, I thank you for your generosity.” Linton did not offer his name. For all he knew, this dude, fancy dresser that he was, could be what passed for a lawdog in New Mexico. Or a bounty hunter.

  “Your accent says you hail from Texas,” Don Wilkes said.

  “Don”—Linton drank more tequila—“I hail from wherever I want to hail from.”

  Don Marion Wilkes smiled and then gestured to the open door.

  “Are you with that caravan of wagons and settlers?”

  “I ain’t with ’em, so to speak. They ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of spud diggers, iffen you ask me. They hired me to guide them to Rapture Valley.” Linton laughed mockingly at the name of their destination.

  “Rapture Valley.” Don Wilkes sipped his tequila, and without asking, topped off Linton’s glass.

  Maybe this dude wants to get me drunk, Linton thought and laughed. Well, he’s in for one rude awakening.

  “Ah, so you are merely hired to see them to a new land, a new home. That is wonderful.”

  Linton just drank.

  “Do you often hire out to guide families to new settlements, señor?”

  “I do what suits me.”

  “As I see.”

  Linton’s glass settled on the dust-covered table. “What do you see, Don Wilkes?”

  “Your true profession.” He reached up and gently fingered one of the scalps that hung on the left sleeve of Linton’s buckskin shirt.

  Linton’s own hand rested on his revolver.

  “I could say I won that off a drunk in Santa Fe in a poker game.”

  Don Wilkes brought his hand back, lifted his glass, and waited until Linton had his. Their glasses clinked, and both men drank while the gunman smoked quietly and minded his own business.

  “You could say that, but you did not come from Santa Fe. I don’t think you’ve ever been to that little dump of a town.”

  “How do you know where I been?” Linton’s pistol came halfway out of the holster.

  “You came straight across Texas,” Duncan Regret said without looking away from the open doorway or removing the cigarette from his lips. “The Panhandle. That’s gutsy, what with the Comanches and Cheyennes and every other red-skinned devil except the Navajos raising hell all across the territories and states. At least somewhere south of Adobe Walls and north of Palo Duro. My boys found the trail of the wagons. Where you come along, well, that’s not quite known.”

  “You been followin’ us?” Linton kept his eyes on the gunman, and let his gun slide farther out of his holster until he had the barrel aimed at Duncan Regret’s stomach.

  “I’ve been here. With Don Wilkes.” The gunman removed the smoke and flicked ash onto the dust that coated the table. “My eyes followed you.”

  Linton wanted another drink of that fine tequila, but he thought he might have to pull his knife. Three men were possible enemies, and he wanted to have all of his options open in case he had to start killing strangers. He tried to paint a brave, unconcerned front, telling Regret, “I think you got some explainin’ to do, amigo.”

  The older gent laughed, nodded, and drank more of his fine tequila. “Señor, do not be afraid. Holster your revolver before Bruno gets nervous and kills you with that double barrel scattergun he holds underneath the bar. Buckshot is nasty and messy and I fear it might also kill my dear associate, Señor Regret. And it might ruin my fine jacket and hat.” He drank, smiled again, and leaned forward.

  “You joined this party for reasons of your own, and for reasons that I do not concern myself with.” He used his glass to touch one of the scalps. “This is what intrigues me. From our looks, your outfit, and the way that knife rests in its scabbard on your other hip, I have already pegged your true vocation. We have”—he drank again—“similar interests. For different reasons. I want you to use your knife. To lift scalps.”

  That relaxed Linton as though he had drawn into a straight flush. “Well, we might be comin’ to some sort of an understandin’.”

  “Bueno,” the dude said.

  “Who do you want me to scalp? Apaches? And how much are you payin’? I know what a scalp fetches in Mexico. Even some white ranches in Arizona Territory.”

  “Not Apaches,” said Don Marion Wilkes.

  “Mexicans?” Linton whispered so softly that he did not think Bruno could hear over at the bar.

  The dude’s head shook.

  “The Navajos are at peace, mister,” Linton told him.

  “That is right. For now. But if you do what I say, they will be at war. You will have a fortune in scalps, and a new market—the Navajo market—and I will have the land that now belongs to those ignorant savages.”

  Linton shook his head, suddenly wondering if he couldn’t hold this smooth tequila like he could Taos Lightning or the rankest hooch in West Texas. “You want me to scalp a bunch of peaceful Navajos so they get riled and start a war?” Well, he had killed peaceful Mexicans and passed their scalps for Indians’, but that was different. This was—

  The dude shook his head. “Not at all. If you killed Navajos when they are at peace, the army would hunt you down and hang you or have you shot by firing squad.”

  His glass empty, Linton reached for the bottle and did not bother refilling his glass. He drank straight from the bottle, not even realizing he was doing it at first, and when he did, he saw no look of horror or repulsion in the face of Don Marion Wilkes. “Maybe I ain’t used to this Mexican brew, Donnie ol’ boy, but I just don’t know what you’re gettin’ at.”


  “Rapture Valley, by my understanding, is somewhere near Precious Metal in Arizona Territory,” Don Wilkes said. “Am I correct?”

  “That’s what I been tol’,” Linton said, nodding.

  Duncan Regret laughed. “He doesn’t even know where he’s taking those fools, Don.”

  Linton looked at the gunman, then back at the dude, who said, “It doesn’t matter. Since they shan’t get there.”

  “Ummmm.” Linton set the bottle down. Maybe what he needed was coffee. Or to be in Montana Territory. Or even Canada. Somewhere where he wouldn’t be sweating so much.

  “How do you plan to take these travelers to Rapture Valley?” the gunfighter asked.

  “Well.” That was easy enough. Linton tried to draw a trail on the dust-covered table. “We just head west like we’re bound for the Painted Desert. But cut south. You know. You follow the stagecoach road.”

  “Yes,” said the gunman. “The Little Colorado and the crossing at Horsehead. St. Joseph. Pine Springs. All that rough country to Beaver Head and past the army boys at Camp Verde. Move your way in to Precious Metal and, hell, anybody there could direct you to Rapture Valley.”

  “Well . . .” Linton started.

  “What you need to do,” Don Marion Wilkes said, “Is take them to the Dead River.”

  “Dead River?” Linton shook his head. “That’s—”

  “Part of the Navajo country,” the dude said, “And a place where no white men will be venturing. So when the Navajos attack, no one will be there to see all of those poor people from Missouri—”

  “Arkansas.” Linton wasn’t that drunk.

  “Good,” the dude said with a smile. “I was feeling somewhat poorly at the thought of massacring people from the state where I was born.”

  “Wait.” Linton leaned back in his chair. He realized he had holstered his revolver, though he didn’t remember doing it. “You want to wipe out them homesteaders.”

  “Yes,” Don Wilkes said.

  “Scalp ’em?”

  “Exactly, my understanding, erudite companion.” Don who wasn’t a don reached over and patted Linton’s shoulder. “Now you know our intentions.”

  “Those scalps you don’t want to keep,” Duncan Regret said. “But you’re welcome to any money those folks might be carrying. We’ll take the scalps to plant in a few Navajo villages.”

  Linton got the idea. “I take the scalps.”

  “You know how.”

  “But that’s a passel of people. Some kids, too.”

  “You have scalped Indian children,” Don said with a grin. “Perhaps even Mexican children,” he whispered, shooting a glance toward Bruno at the bar.

  Linton swallowed. He wondered if he should take another swing of tequila.

  “Duncan Regret, noble servant that he has been for the past two years and two months, has rounded up a number of men about the size of a Navajo war party back in the day. Before they were rounded up by mighty Kit Carson and forced to surrender. Spent a while at some infernal place in the darkest hell of this territory, then returned—like Moses leaving the desert—to their own land. Land that I wanted for myself. And have wanted for far too long. Now I see an opportunity.”

  Linton saw it, too. “The Indians . . . Navajos, that is . . . they get blamed for this . . . massacre.” He couldn’t wait, nor could he hold back. He found the bottle and emptied it into his roiling gut.

  “We ride unshod ponies,” Duncan Regret said. “We dress like Navajos, black wigs and all. We leave enough sign in the desert that when the cavalry comes to investigate, they follow tracks that lead them straight to the Navajos up north of here.”

  The dude laughed. “We have even captured a couple of Navajos that will be left at the scene. They shall be killed before the attack begins on the wagon train.”

  Regret let his head nod. “We want to make any relatives of those dead homesteaders feel something good about them. That they took at least some of those bloodthirsty savages with them.”

  “Like Crockett at the Alamo,” Linton said, trying to put it into perspective.

  “Maybe they won’t feel that good,” the dude said.

  “But I got to kill them,” Linton said.

  “No, my good man.” The dude reached over and patted Linton’s buckskin arm. “You don’t have to fire a shot. But we would like you to watch with us as we wipe out those fools. From within the wagons. You will be fine. No harm will come to you if you do exactly as we say.”

  “And,” Regret said, “If you think about turning us in, we can name you as an accessory.”

  “And you hang with the rest of us.” Don Wilkes laughed heartily. “Terrible way to die.”

  “We will kill them,” Regret said. “Every last one of them.”

  “There’s a pretty girl,” Linton said. “Actually, a couple of them.”

  “Alas, they must part ways with their hair, as well,” Don Wilkes said.

  The wind blew more dust into the miserable saloon, and with it came the music of a banjo and harp, of women and children, boys and men, young and old singing. The travelers to Rapture Valley were throwing some sort of shindig.

  “I would offer you another bottle of the most exceptional tequila,” the dude said, “But in matters like this, a certain amount of sobriety is needed, I fear.”

  “Yeah.” Linton wished he were back in Texas.

  Don Marion Wilkes snapped his fingers, slapped the table, and pushed back his flat-crowned, flat-brimmed, fancy straw hat. “I fear I have left out the most important part.”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his fine, trim, well-fitting baby blue coat, and pulled out a pouch that jingled. This he dropped on the table as Linton wet his lips.

  “Your advance, amigo. Our partner,” the dude said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “Just a mere token payment. I understand the rates for lifted hair south of the border. Two hundred pesos for an Indian brave, a hundred for a woman, fifty for a boy. We won’t be quite so . . . economical. Well, I won’t be called a miser. Your payment, less your advance, will be two hundred dollars, not pesos, but American dollars, for every damned scalp—man, woman, child—that you take.”

  Linton smiled and held out his hand to seal his bargain with the devil himself.

  Bruno brought over another bottle of tequila.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Wooden Arm dismounted, holding the hackamore by his right foot, which pinned the braided horsehair to the dirt. He knelt down. With his good hand, he pawed the earth with his fingers. The other arm remained entrapped within the splint. It probably would have come off already, had Wooden Arm not taken a few spills—common for cowboys or anyone else who had spent far too much time on the back of a horse, especially a Comanche horse or a damned mustang pony.

  McCulloch waved Breen ahead to take over his position. “Keep them headed west,” he said, and then spurred his horse ahead of the trotting mustangs and rode to the teenaged Comanche boy. Still in his saddle, McCulloch kicked his feet out of the stirrups and swung one leg over, hooking it on the horn.

  Looking up, the boy studied McCulloch and waited.

  McCulloch signed, The tracks of the wagons still lead west.

  Wooden Arm nodded his head up and down and whispered a guttural, “Yes.”

  The former Texas Ranger smiled, thinking, Well, hell’s fires.

  McCulloch himself had picked up a few Comanche words over the past few weeks, months, that had turned into an eternity. He could say puhi tyait (dead grass), Kusiokwe (Pecos River), isawas (poison) and puku (horse, pony, mustang . . . something like that). Hell, he could even say kaawosa (jackal)—if it ever came up in conversation.

  “It’s a free country,” McCulloch said, knowing that would never come out right no matter how hard he tried to sign it to a Comanche. “Military road, maybe, but it’s open for all travelers.” He pointed, made some vague signs that loosely translated to They go their way. We go ours. As long as they don’t poison any water holes. He frowned at that
thought, twisted in the saddle, and stared at the woman on the left side of the mustang herd, her handcuffs rattling as she kept hold of the reins.

  Wooden Arm stood and used his good arm to point to the mesa that paralleled the road. McCulloch frowned. The Comanche kid had taken off after a mustang that decided it wanted to find those proverbial greener pastures, even if McCulloch doubted if any mustang would find anything other than juniper and a clump of brush here and there.

  Speaking in Comanche, Wooden Arm pointed and eventually turned to McCulloch and said through his hands, even using his fingers on the hand of his busted arm.

  When the boy was finished, McCulloch looked up at the top of the mesa. “Show me,” he said while signing the words.

  A moment later, he turned and yelled at Sean Keegan. McCulloch pointed at the mesa, then at the boy and himself, touched the spurs to his horse’s hide, and followed Wooden Arm, who had mounted his wiry Comanche pony quickly. Off the trail they rode, into an arroyo, up the side, and climbing the rough, red-stoned rise that flattened out about three hundred feet above the trail.

  Letting the Comanche kid hold the reins, McCulloch stepped out of the saddle and studied the tracks of two horses, shod, carrying medium-sized riders. He stood and walked along the trail, noticing that the junipers and cactus would have hidden the two riders from anyone traveling below. He moved to the rim’s edge and peered through the brush, saw his mustangs, his party, his wagon, even his—dare he call them—friends?

  But those tracks had been left by men who were not following the mustang herd. They were at least a day, possibly two, ahead. They were following the wagon train.

  “This is none of our concern,” he told Wooden Arm with his English and his hands. But they continued to follow the trail left by the riders. A half mile west, McCulloch dismounted again and picked up the crushed out remnant of one of those slim, stinking small cigars the Mexicans favored. And he found the marking of a spur’s rowel on a rock where a rider had dismounted and almost tripped. All right. That meant that the two riders were likely Mexican.