by Lauran Paine
Warfield smiled. The Mexican was an old man and leathery. Once, he had been stockily compact and powerful, but a half century had passed since then. Now he was spare of build, wiry, but still heavy-boned.
“Or early,” said Warfield. “It is either very late or very early.”
The Mexican’s teeth whitely shone. He had a great, villainous mustache that evidently was his one vanity, for it was wickedly stiff and upcurving, showing considerable care, while the rest of the old man was threadbare and colored the identical hue as the desert’s ancient soil.
“You are lost, señor?” the old shepherd asked softly, carefully, his voice making no secret of the fact that he didn’t think Warfield was lost at all.
“Not exactly. But I don’t know the country.”
“Sí. And you travel south?”
“Yes.”
The old Mexican put aside his rifle, clucked at the dogs to silence them, and made a gallant, old-time gesture for Warfield to dismount. “It is breakfast time, anyway,” he said with the philosophical shrug of his race. “A sleepy man misses the greatest gift of God … a new day being born. I will stir up the fire.”
Warfield got down, walked ahead, and draped his reins over a wagon wheel. As the older man went about rekindling his cooking fire, Warfield watched him, wondering what it was that made men voluntarily live this awfully lone and celibate life.
The old Mexican shook his coffee pot, found it half full, set it teetering atop some carefully arranged stones, and lifted the lid from a black, greasy pot to poke with a sage twig at the beans and mutton inside. He then reared back upon his haunches, his cape-like armless overgarment—called by the cowboys a poncho—settling upon the ground, tilted back his ancient face, and put a quiet, careful gaze upon Warfield.
He finally nodded as though to himself and said: “The night is a good time to travel, amigo. The darkness is a man’s friend … along with the coolness, of course.” He looked up again and smiled.
Warfield walked on over, dropped down, and said: “Tell me … how wide is this desert?”
The old shepherd wagged his head. “A long way yet, vaquero. A very long way. Perhaps a hundred miles yet, to where you are going.”
“Oh? And where am I going?”
Those ancient but very clear and knowing eyes faintly widened. “To Mejíco, amigo, where else?”
Warfield chuckled. “And water,” he said. “Where will I find it?”
“Well, first at the village of Fulton that lies in that direction,” replied the shepherd, lifting an arm and rigidly pointing southeast. “And after Fulton … if you stay on the road, you will find another spring forty miles farther along.”
“Another town?”
“No. Only a spring and a stone trough beside the road. You will find no more towns until you reach Hayfork. It is on the far edge of the desert. By then, amigo, you will be only one long night’s ride from the border.”
The Mexican’s coffee started boiling. He reached over, took it off the mesquite fire, and moved the bean pot into its place. He blew on thick fingers and closely examined them, while saying: “Vaquero, if there was another way, I’d tell you not to ride into Fulton. It’s a very bad place. Very bad. The jefe of that town is a man named Lem Bricker.” The old shepherd looked slowly up into Warfield’s face and wagged his head from side to side. “Hombre malo, Señor Bricker. Very bad man.”
Warfield ran this through his mind. “Bad in what way?” he asked.
“He sells water, amigo.” The old Mexican said this as though in his world there was no more deadly sin. “He gives no one a drink unless he has the money to pay for it. But that’s not all. He makes men pay according to what he thinks they can afford. For you, vaquero, riding the back trails in the night … two dollars a gallon. Maybe more.” At the look that came gradually to settle up around Warfield’s eyes the Mexican shrugged and said: “He has pistoleros, señor. Too many for you to fight. Others have challenged him. They are all buried in his cemetery now … every one of them. I know. I’ve been in this desert since before that town was built. Take my advice, pay and ride on. Don’t delay there.”
Warfield nodded. “I’ll take your advice,” he said.
The Mexican smiled. “And now we eat, amigo.”
Chapter Eight
The town of Fulton was ugly for lack of paint, ugly for lack of civic pride, and it was ugly by reason of its desolate location. And yet few towns had evoked in failing hearts such enormous relief, for even in wintertime the flat and breathless world for many miles in any direction was sere and lethal.
But with a man’s needs cared for, the sum total of all that ugliness drove all but the permanent residents away from Fulton.
No one recalled how it had gotten its name, and in point of fact no one cared even though above the stage office wooden awning the name Fulton was painted in black bold letters, as it was also painted across Bricker’s Fulton Saloon.
There had always been a clear, blue-water spring at Fulton. The Mexicans still called it by its ancient name: El Ojito—Little Eye—spring. But now there was always a solitary armed man seated nearby under Fulton’s lone remaining cottonwood tree. He was Lem Bricker’s toll-taker.
Bricker had taken over the town years earlier, and, excepting the few Mexican residents, no one cared about that, either. The Mexicans did nothing, which was their way. Under some circumstances they could explode, but none of those circumstances had occurred yet, and wouldn’t occur until someone came along to lead the Mexicans. They inherently suffered indignities; it was in the warp of their remembering blood to be passive. Prior to the coming of the Spaniards they had been slaves to their own Indian empire for thousands of years. They accepted the yoke of domination meekly, and yet deep in their hearts they hated and resented. Still, they paid for their water like everyone else, kept their eyes upon the ground, and abided with their endless patience.
As Curly Harrison had once said. “I have a feeling about these people. They’ll be dogs all right, but you can’t tell when that could change overnight.” Curly Harrison was the stage-line manager at Fulton.
The main vocation in Fulton was to spot strangers. It was a town where dozens of shadowy men came and went. There was no law, no town marshal, no constable, and only rarely did territorial or federal officers visit Fulton. Furthermore, its location made it an ideal place for men of the night, especially in summertime, to take their leisure. It wasn’t very far from the border, and it offered everything that kind of men sought—whiskey, cards, safety from the law. All for a price.
Once, the Army had threatened to burn Fulton to the ground. That was after the assassin of a government official was discovered living there like a desert prince, harem and all. But Lem Bricker had interceded. In those days he’d just begun taking over. He’d saved the town, or so it was said, although it was very doubtful that the Army would have burned the place, and afterward he’d ruled it.
At his saloon in Fulton’s central business section Bricker planned his schemes. There were several back rooms here, and sometimes his five retainers lived in them out of the general sight. Now, there were only two of Bricker’s men on hand. The other three were scouting the southward passes to verify a rumor Lem had heard of a Mexican pack train of mules laden with raw gold coming by stealth into the United States where the price of gold was much higher than in Mexico.
But the two men with Lem were a pair of his toughest brushpoppers. They knew the desert and they also knew the ways of men, so, when Lem set them to rousing that used-up federal lawman, they had no trouble.
First, they cooled Trent with two buckets of tepid water poured over him. Then they got a shot glass of raw whiskey down him, and after that they sat there grinning. It didn’t take long. Trent had come around finally. His eyes were swollen closed, his lips were cracked, and his face was burned nearly black, but, aside from bodily distress, tough John Trent’s mind was clear.
It was after 10:00 p.m. when Lem entered the little back ro
om, turned up the lamp, and strolled over to the cot for a study of the lawman.
“You look like the devil,” he candidly told Trent. “If we hadn’t found you, Marshal, believe me, you’d have been dead by now.”
Trent moved weakly on the cot and tried to peer upward. He couldn’t, so he said: “Who are you? Where am I?”
“You’re in the town of Fulton, Marshal, and my name’s Lem Bricker.”
Trent tried to push upright. Lem put down a big hand restraining him. “Easy, Marshal. You couldn’t stand even if you could get up. Like I just said, you’re in pretty bad shape.”
“Where’s my horse?” Trent asked, screwing up his face in another effort to see around.
“Your horse is being cared for. He’s doing fine. In fact, your horse is a heap better off than you are.”
“I got to get up from here, Bricker.”
Lem chuckled. Back behind him those two gunmen broadly smiled. “Not for a couple days you don’t,” said Lem. “It’ll maybe take that long for the swelling around your eyes to go down, and until that happens, you’ll be blind as a bat.”
Trent dropped back down.
Bricker reached around for a chair, brought it up beside the bed, and eased down upon it. He leaned forward, saying: “Marshal, who is he? Who you after?”
Trent seemed on the verge of answering this. Then he didn’t reply, saying instead: “I remember now. There were three of you blocking the road.”
Lem leaned back upon his chair, the slight amusement leaving his eyes. “Marshal, I asked you a question. Who is he, and what’d he do?”
“He killed a man, Bricker, and his name’s Troy Warfield.”
Bricker digested this, his expression for the first time showing doubt. “Killed a man. What the hell … that happens every day. How come to put a full-fledged U.S. marshal on his trail? How’d he kill this man … during a bank robbery, maybe?”
Trent, listening to that voice, heard its brittle undertones. He wanted in the worst way to get a good look at Lem Bricker, wanted to see if the face matched the cruelty he detected in that voice.
“Speak up, Marshal. I want to know about Warfield?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Bricker turned bland. “Well, we sure don’t want no killer loose in Fulton. Besides that, though, maybe we can get this Warfield for you. We’ve helped the law before, plenty of times.”
“I’ll get him,” said Trent. “Friend, I’ve been on his trail for seven hundred miles. He’s my goal. I’ll get him.”
“Or he’ll get you, Marshal Trent. You’re still a long way from Mexico. A lot of things have happened to lawmen between here and there.”
Trent went silent. He explored his split lips with the tip of his tongue and put up a hand to gingerly feel the swelling around his eyes. He muttered: “That damned sun. I should’ve known better.”
Bricker agreed. “You sure should have, Marshal, because it’s beginning to look like you rode seven hundred miles for nothing. Now Warfield’ll get clear of you without any sweat.”
“No he won’t.”
“How do you know he won’t, Marshal?”
“Because he let his horse get tired back at a place called Lincoln, and that let me get even with him.”
“You sure he’s around here?” Bricker asked, his close interest inclining him to lean forward on the chair again.
“I’m sure, Bricker. My guess is that we’re traveling parallel. He could be about six hours behind me or he could be even with me. But I’ll bet money he isn’t ahead of me. For that matter, he could be right here in Fulton.”
“Could he now?” murmured Lem Bricker, and looked around at his listening companions, and winked. “Tell me about that man he killed?”
Trent rolled his head weakly from side to side and didn’t reply for a long time. Eventually he said: “You got a doctor in this town, Bricker?”
Bricker shook his head. “That’s one thing we never get much call for. When we find ’em like we found you, they’re usually too far gone for a sawbones to help. Otherwise, they come out of it by themselves. Anyway, there’s not enough patching up to do around here to pay to keep one. About that feller this Warfield killed ….”
“Forget it, Bricker,” said Trent. “Warfield belongs to me.”
Lem’s face darkened and he stood up. He considered Trent for a moment, then turned on his heel, beckoned to one of Trent’s guards, and passed on out of the room with him.
The remaining outlaw said: “Marshal, it don’t make no difference whether you tell us or not. We’ll find Warfield. You see, don’t no strangers ever ride into this town we don’t know about ’em within an hour after they arrive.”
“Maybe he won’t come here,” muttered Trent, probing the sensitive flesh of his face.
The gunman chuckled. “He’ll come here. They all come here. They got to. There’s no more water for forty miles, and, if they try to be cute and by-pass Fulton, we find ’em dead between here and there. This Warfield’ll come here all right, don’t you worry none about that.”
Trent said: “I’m not worrying, friend, but you’d better start worrying if he does … and if you fellers try to jump him.”
“Oh,” said the gunman drolly. “A real hell-roarer, is he? Well, Marshal, too bad you ain’t got the use of your eyes, or you’d see that we aren’t exactly shrinkin’ violets, either … and there’s six of us against one of him.”
Trent said no more. The longer he lay there, the clearer his mind became, and, except for his face and eyes, the better he came to feel. He recalled all the guarded things Chalmers had said about this place, and Lem Bricker, back in Daggett. He also fleshed out this lean picture with what he could now figure out for himself. It didn’t make him feel particularly good. Not that he worried about these men apprehending Warfield, that didn’t bother him in the least. But he sensed that never before in his lengthy career had he ever visited a more completely lawless town, and, as his strength and vigor returned, he cursed the blindness that kept him helpless here.
“If he gets away this time,” he said aloud, speaking more to himself than to his guard, “he’ll get a forty mile lead on me, for certain. I can’t lie around here for two days waiting for my sight to return.”
“Well, now, Marshal,” drawled that gunman over by the door, “you just ain’t got no choice.”
Trent muttered an oath, put out a hand, and felt the wall on his right, the cot he was lying on, and the empty space on his left where a vacated chair stood.
The gunman stood by the door, watching. Eventually he said: “You want a drink of water?”
Trent nodded. “Yeah, and make it half whiskey.”
The gunman turned, opened the door, and passed casually out of the room. Trent listened, then propped himself up and felt his hip holster. It was empty; they had taken his .45. He felt inside under his shirt. They had also found his hide-out Derringer and had also relieved him of that. Even his badge, wallet, and personal papers were gone. He lay back. Bricker was thorough. Chalmers hadn’t mentioned that, but then Chalmers had never been flat on his back like this in Bricker’s town, either.
Trent heard his guard coming back and waited until the man’s booted feet stopped beside the bed. He then raised up, propped himself with one elbow, and held forth his hand. The gunman put a glass into it. Trent sipped, felt the sharp tang of that whiskey in the water, and went on sipping.
“Where’s your pardner?” he asked the guard. “There were two of you in here before Bricker came around.”
“Gone huntin’,” said the gunman pleasantly. “Gone to poke around town for Warfield.”
Trent finished drinking, handed back the glass, and wagged his head. “Friend, I sure hope he doesn’t find Warfield.”
The gunman chuckled. “Must be a powerful big reward, Marshal. Or maybe this Warfield’s got his saddlebags stuffed with bank money … or stage-line money, eh?”
“Nope. I wasn’t thinking like that, friend. I was thinki
ng that, if your pardner jumps Warfield, you’ll be going to your friend’s funeral.”
The guard walked back to his chair by the door.
Trent heard him put the empty glass upon a table, then drop down over there and slam the door.
“Marshal, there’ve been lots of hardcases come to Fulton with blood in their eye and a tied-down gun. We got quite an assortment of wood headboards over at the bone orchard. Hasn’t a gunman tried this town since Lem Bricker took over.”
“There could be a first time, friend, there could be a first time. But I’m not worrying too much. I don’t think you boys’ll find Warfield, anyway.”
“Hah! You’re dead wrong, Marshal. Like Lem said … there’s water here. What he didn’t say was that there’s a guard at that well day and night and there’s no other way to get a drink here than to walk right up to that spring.” The guard paused to let all this sink in, then he said: “Warfield’s as good as got right now, so, if I was in your boots, lawman, I’d make a deal with Lem.”
“A deal?”
“Yeah. If Warfield ain’t got a satchel full of bank money on him, why then he’s worth a fortune in rewards. Why else would they send a full-fledged U.S. marshal seven hundred miles after him? Make a deal with Lem, split the take, and we’ll deliver this Warfield feller to you when you’re able to ride, tied, face down, over his saddle. You can take him back and be a big hero.”
Trent lay back on his cot. He drew in a big breath and he blew it out. Nice place, Fulton. Nice people in it, too.