by Lauran Paine
Trent looked at that greasy, dark, and frantic face and was puzzled. The Mexican’s swift sentences had struck a responsive chord. He didn’t understand, yet he felt he could somehow trust this stranger, so he put up his gun and paced over and stepped into the cooler.
Chapter Thirteen
It is the way with men, brown or white, that in times of gravity and peril, they do not show fear or worry so much as their faces reflect a stony disapproval, and if a stranger, seeing those faces for the first time, has difficulty reconciling this unpleasant regard with something else he had expected to see, it is because he doesn’t understand how it is with men, usually with families and loved ones, to whom resentment and resistance mean, perhaps, also death and departure from a life, which, although it is neither pleasant nor easy for them, is still dear.
That was the impression Warfield got the moment he stepped out of the churchyard and saw those ragged, armed Mexicans standing loosely and motionlessly around there, out of sight, with their black eyes and granite faces. Their eyes moved liquidly to consider him, to run up and down him with a wooden inscrutability, while their faces showed this look of strong disapproval—not for Warfield, but rather for the thing they were sworn now to oppose with their flesh and their guns. It didn’t look this way to Warfield, who had never before been part of any kind of organized insurrection, so his instant reaction was one of doubt and suspicion.
But that tall, handsome man who had been in the chuchyard spoke to the eight or ten others, and Warfield understood enough rough border Spanish to get the gist of the orders this man was giving. From here on, he told the others, he would relay orders from Señor Warfield, who had consented to be their chieftain, and their success or their failure would depend upon the exactness with which each order was obeyed. Did the men understand this?
They did by murmuring soft assent in Spanish; they would do exactly as they were instructed.
Warfield looked at his companion, saying in English: “Is this all of them … what of the men you told me were around in the roadway?”
“They are as I explained,” answered the Mexican. “These are only our messengers. They will carry your orders to the others.”
Warfield felt relieved. “Tell them to instruct the others not to expose themselves … that Bricker’s men are seasoned pistoleros.”
“Señor,” said the tall Mexican dryly, “they already know this.”
“Tell them anyway, we don’t want any casualties if it can be helped. Tell them to impress this upon the others. Also tell them to remain hidden while you and I go around through town to face Bricker’s saloon, and, afterward, not to fire a single shot until we give the order.”
These directions were quickly relayed. The messengers gravely listened, gravely nodded at Warfield, and began to glide away through the falling dusk. When the last man was gone, the tall Mexican brushed Warfield’s arm with his fingers, turned, and struck off in the opposite direction. Warfield followed after, still uneasy in his mind about this thing he was committed to—this pitched battle between Fulton’s inhabitants.
The tall Mexican knew every inch of ground. He took Warfield through gloomy, refuse-littered passageways between and among adobe hovels, bearing constantly toward Fulton’s broad main roadway. The first glimpse Warfield caught of that avenue was from far southward where the town petered out and the desert began. Here, he led Warfield on across to the opposite part of town, into another alley, but this one was broader, then swung northward and kept walking until he and Warfield were well into the American part of town.
Up here, there was more spaciousness between buildings, and none of the adobe houses of Mexican town remained. Here, the stores and houses were of rough and badly warped lumber.
Warfield saw two Mexicans standing in shadows behind what appeared to him to be the town’s livery barn. Farther along he sighted another pair of armed Mexicans at the rear of the stage office. Once, as he glanced up at the sky to estimate how much daylight remained, he spotted several dark and villainous-looking faces atop roof tops.
When his guide halted, finally, one building north of the stage office, he said softly: “Just how many men are in this with us?”
The tall Mexican carefully looked out through an opening between two buildings before he turned and said: “One can never be sure, but I think not less than fifty.” He smiled, showing those large, perfect white teeth again. “Enough, amigo, enough.” He pointed out through that gloomy runway and said: “That is Bricker’s bar over there.”
Warfield had already seen the black-lettered sign and knew what building he was facing. He stepped past the Mexican, paced on up through the runway, halted just short of the wooden walkway out front, and made a very careful appraisal of the town. It seemed drowsy and unsuspecting. Across the way two cowboys ambled out of the saloon to halt just short of the plank walk’s edge and look right and left. One of them started to trough a wheat-straw cigarette paper and pour tobacco into it. As he did this he spoke, and so complete was the suppertime stillness of the place that Warfield heard every word.
“Wish Lem’d come up with somethin’. I’m gettin’ bored hangin’ around doin’ nothin’.”
“He will,” said the other man, and spat into the roadway dust. “I learnt a year back to take it easy when I could, ’cause, when Lem says ride, pardner, you’re likely to be a long time between drinks.”
The smoker lit up and exhaled. He put one shoulder against an overhang post and looked dully at the town. “Too bad that Mex mule train didn’t pan out. If they’d really been carryin’ gold, there’d have been enough to set us all on easy street for ten years.”
“He’s got somethin’ else on the fire.”
“How do you know that?”
The second man turned toward his friend and wolfishly grinned. “I can tell. I been with him long enough to know. When he’s as quiet as he is now, the wheels inside his skull are turnin’.”
“Maybe,” grunted the smoker. “It’s probably got somethin’ to do with that damned lawman in the back room.” The smoker straightened up, flung down his smoke, and put a disinterested look at the pair of hip-shot horses standing under saddle at the saloon hitch rack. “Reckon I’ll put up my critter,” he said, and stepped down off the plank walk.
The other man said casually—“Yeah, me, too.”—and headed for the other animal.
Warfield squeezed around in his dingy place and motioned for the tall Mexican to go on back out into the rear alleyway. When they were both there, he said: “Quick, into the livery barn. We want those two.”
The Mexican asked no questions. He flung around and hastened toward the barn’s doorless, broad rear opening. The moment he stepped inside here, Warfield heard voices on up toward the front roadway entrance. They seemed to be coming from a little room just inside the front doorway. He made the sign for silence and took the lead again, made his way carefully and silently on up to the last stall, and faded out back where heavy gloom lay with strong and pungent permanence. There, he and the tall Mexican waited.
It wasn’t a very long wait. Those two gunmen came ambling on in, leading their horses. They halted and one of them made a growling call toward the little office. A man stepped out, mopping his fat, creased neck with a dirty handkerchief, threw the gunmen a look, and walked over.
A second man also emerged from that little office. He was younger, taller, and leaner than the liveryman, and didn’t appear to be any part of the business. This one was armed, booted, and spurred. He seemed thoroughly familiar with the other two for he said: “Why don’t you guys put up your own damned animals? You interrupted a checkers game right when I was winnin’.”
Warfield drew his .45 and waited for the man in the doorway to step on out. He never did. He stood there, slouching and waiting for the liveryman to walk off with the horses, and meanwhile one of the other gunmen said to him: “Checkers? Who the hell wants to play checkers?”
The man in the doorway shrugged. “Better’n sittin�
�� over there at the saloon doin’ nothin’ all day and all night.” He paused, corrected himself, and said: “Not all night … not this night, anyway. Hey, did Lem say anythin’ to you about how far out we got to take that U.S. marshal?”
The liveryman walked past Warfield without looking up. He shuffled along leading those two horses like a man to whom the eternal heat was something to be borne but which had long ago sucked out all his initiative, all his ambition and will.
Out in the runway one of those two gunmen said back to the man in the office doorway: “Naw, he didn’t say, but then he don’t have to draw no pictures anyway, does he?”
Warfield, waiting impatiently for that man in the doorway to step clear, finally could wait no longer. Off on his left the liveryman had turned into a pair of adjoining stalls. Any moment now he would raise his head, look around. Warfield shot his companion a look and nod, stepped forth into plain sight where he had an unimpaired view of those three men, and cocked his leveled gun. Behind him, the tall Mexican stood back a little, watching the astonished liveryman.
That sound of a gun being cocked turned those three cowboys completely still. They stared at Warfield, dumbfounded.
He gave them no chance to recover. With a curt wag of his gun barrel, he said—“Into the office, all three of you.”—and paced forward to be close as the gunmen obeyed.
Behind him the Mexican was gesturing for the liveryman to come along, also, but since this lethargic individual wore no gun, there was no danger.
Bricker’s killers entered the office while their astonishment was still uppermost, but, once inside with Warfield standing beside the inside opening, they turned around and showed coldly calculating expressions. Their amazement was past now and gone.
The liveryman trudged past Warfield, went to a nail keg, and resignedly sank down there. He looked at Warfield from dispassionate eyes. He also studied the tall Mexican. He appeared to know the Mexican because he sadly shook his head at him, but said nothing.
“Their guns,” said Warfield. “Don’t cross in front of me.”
The Mexican stepped around to the right, approached Bricker’s men from the rear, and disarmed them one at a time. After that, he stayed back there, his gun up and steady.
That tallest gunman, the one who’d been teetering in the doorway, said suddenly: “Hey, you’re that Warfield feller, ain’t you?” He sounded more interested now than angry. “What the hell you think you’re doing? You got the same stripe on you the rest of us got around here. Bricker’d like to see you.”
“I can bet he would,” responded Warfield dryly. “Now listen to me, you three, and listen good because I’m only going to say this once. Two of you stay here as hostages. One of you goes over to the saloon and tells Bricker I want Marshal Trent turned loose. Tell him, if Trent doesn’t walk out of there into the roadway, I’ll come over and fetch him out.”
One of the gunmen who had been silent up to now put a scornful glare at Warfield and growled at him. “You fool, in the first place Lem Bricker don’t take no orders from some tinhorn brushpopper. In the second place, that U.S. lawman belongs to him, and in the third place you got to be out of your damned head to think you can sneak into this town with one lousy greaser to help you, and throw your weight around.”
That word greaser triggered a reaction in the tall Mexican standing behind Bricker’s men. He looked past the gunmen at Warfield, slowly holstered his .45, reached forth, and lightly tapped the outlaw who’d said that on the shoulder. As this man turned, the tall Mexican dropped his right shoulder, raised up on to the balls of his feet, and swung. The sound of that blow was like a rawhide whip striking stone; it was meaty and solid and smashing. It knocked the outlaw the length of the office and dumped him half in, half out, the office doorway.
For a second no one moved or spoke, then the seated, callous liveryman shook his head dolorously again and muttered: “Vidal, that was the stupidest thing you ever done in your life … you with a family and all.” He kept gazing stolidly at the sprawled, unconscious gunman in his doorway.
The remaining pair of Bricker’s gunmen lifted their cold, reserved glances and put them gently back upon Warfield. They stood there waiting, resolved in their innermost minds what they would do to Warfield the moment this unnatural situation was reversed, but content now simply to wait. They had time on their side, they obviously thought, and would therefore use it.
The liveryman finally looked up, but he ignored Warfield and Warfield’s gun. He gazed steadily at the tall Mexican. It was as though he were stolidly sad about something.
Warfield leathered his gun and nodded at that tallest gunman. There was a look to this one that was uncompromisingly deadly but not vicious. For one thing he was still young.
“You go on over and tell Bricker what I said. I’ll keep your friends here with me. I want Marshal Trent sent out into the roadway.”
The outlaw nodded, then checked up short. “Hey,” he said with sudden enthusiasm, “I think I got you figured, Warfield. You want Trent out in the roadway with a gun … is that it?”
Warfield was uncomprehending for a moment, but it struck him how this tall gunman was thinking, so he nodded. “Yeah, with a gun.”
“Well now,” said the gunfighter, beginning to slowly smile, “why in hell didn’t you say that right off? I think Lem just might agree to that. You see, he wants that marshal dead, too. I think he might agree to a shoot-out.”
Chapter Fourteen
Warfield went as far as the front barn entrance with the tall gunman. There, he said—“Make it good, cowboy.”—and gave the gunman a little shove out into the settling evening.
For a moment he watched his impromptu messenger walking along toward the saloon with his long stride and his slight swagger. Just before the gunman passed beyond sight through the saloon’s louvered doors, Warfield had a broad, boyish smile.
There was a reddish brightness to the world now. A hot and breathless stillness that invariably accompanied days’ end upon the summertime desert. It was so quiet that the silence itself seemed loud. The hurting brilliance was gone but that far-out smoky haze lingered, softening the desert’s cruelty and deadliness.
Warfield stood a moment, taking all this in, before he turned and paced back to the little office, stepped over the unconscious gunman, and considered their remaining captive.
“Tie him up,” he said to the tall Mexican. “And the liveryman, too. Pretty quick now all hell’s going to bust loose.”
As the Mexican obediently went to work, none too gently, Warfield dragged the unconscious man inside and used a pair of reins to lash the man’s ankles, and used his own belt to secure both arms behind his back.
He then rolled the limp body over into a corner and stood up to run sweaty palms down his trouser legs and study the liveryman, who was quietly talking to the Mexican, his voice as lacking in spirit as his eyes were.
“You can’t bring it off, Vidal,” the liveryman was muttering, never once looking at Warfield. “Whatever made you think you could? You and I always been sort of friends, boy, so I’m tellin’ you … get on a horse and get out of town as fast as you can fly. They’ll kill you if it’s the last thing they ever do.” The liveryman suddenly sat straight up and swore. “Hey, not so tight, dang it.”
The Mexican finished his chore and stepped around in front of the liveryman. He was smiling. “You have your faults,” he said, “but, as you said, we’ve been friends. That’s why I tied you tightly, amigo, so you won’t get loose, rush out of here, and get killed. This man and I are not alone. There are fifty more, all armed and waiting.”
The liveryman’s rheumy eyes widened slowly. His mouth dropped open. “Fifty …?” he whispered. “Vidal, what the hell are you talkin’ about?”
Vidal didn’t reply. He turned toward Warfield, still softly smiling, and there was a hard, primitive light in his black glance. It was the same glazed look of a man who has been thirsty too long and finds water, or a man who has loved not enou
gh and who has at last found love. It was also the look of a man who has been around a long time but who has never lived. A man willing to kill or be killed.
Warfield felt solemn as a judge, but he smiled at Vidal. He understood. He walked on outside and waited in the aromatic stillness. His companion also came out. He stood listening. Then he said—“It’s like the dead calm before a storm.”—and ambled over closer to the roadway opening, but stood back in shadows there.
A man’s strong, defiant, arrogant voice roared from across the roadway. “Hey, Warfield, come out where we can see you, and bring that Mex! Warfield, you hear me? Step out into the road.”
Vidal turned his head. “Bricker,” he murmured, and watched Warfield.
The silence returned and ran on, but now it was different. Now it had a sourness to it. Warfield moved up closer to the roadway and called forth, his voice sounding thin and booming where the barn’s vaulted depths gave it echo. “Bricker, you got my message! You going to send Trent out or aren’t you?”
“He’s gone!” yelled Bricker. “He got away. He was faking. He beat the hell out of one of my men and got out the back way. Listen, Warfield, step out where we can talk. I want you to help me run him down. He can’t get out of town … I got men guardin’ every path and trail. Warfield? You want to kill him, that’s fine with me. But we got to team up. I know this town, but you know Trent. How about it?”
Warfield and Vidal exchanged a long look. It was clear to Warfield what the tall Mexican was thinking: Would Warfield settle for Trent’s escape, or would he continue to help the Mexicans?
“You want to talk to me!” Warfield called back. “Come on over here to the barn, Bricker.”
This silenced the other man across the roadway. With his silence the total hush of the town came down over Warfield like a solid weight. Everyone roundabout knew now something was badly wrong here, that somehow Lem Bricker had been faced up to, and the people were standing behind doors and windows, listening and waiting.