‘Serious charges have been brought against you, Señor Sundance,’ he said. ‘Lieutenant Novela has already told you what they are, so there is no need to repeat them.’
‘Novela is a liar,’ Sundance said quietly.
‘Lieutenant Novela is a fine young officer,’ Colonel Almirante said, ‘and he is no liar. Why talk like that and make it worse for yourself?’
‘How much worse can it get, Colonel? Where’s the military trial I’m supposed to get?’
‘Must you persist in that tone, my friend? I’ll be frank with you. You would still be in the guardhouse awaiting trial if you did not have a powerful friend. Do you understand?’
Sundance said, ‘You mean General Crook?’
‘No one else. And I might add that Mr. Bannerman here has interceded on your behalf.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Now it was Bannerman’s turn. ‘I don’t know anything about these charges, but it’s possible the soldiers you had the trouble with heard of your friendship with Jorge Calderon. That man, for reasons of his own, has been stirring up the Indians all over Sonora. If an Indian war breaks out, those men and others will have to fight it. Wait, let me finish. Calderon has been spreading wild stories about Indian slavery. For God’s sake, man! In this day and age! And he’s been spreading stories about me. I know what I stand accused of back in the States. I’m not a man who tries to justify myself, but that isn’t true either.’
‘What is true? They say you worked Union prisoners until they dropped or died of swamp fever.’
Bannerman threw his cigar in the fire with a gesture of impatience. ‘Damn it to hell! Everything produced on my plantation was at the disposal of the Confederate Government. It wasn’t producing enough so I was ordered—yes, ordered—to take Union prisoners from several camps. Many of them came from Andersonville and were glad to get out. I know what Wertz did at Andersonville, and they hanged him for it. Properly so, in my opinion, and I’m as loyal a Southerner as ever lived. If men died it was none of my doing. Everything was in short supply all over the Confederacy—food, clothing, doctors, medical supplies. If a man got sick he died because there was no way to treat his sickness, be it swamp fever or anything else. But we lost the war and someone had to be blamed. I was blamed. I ask you, do I look like that kind of man?’
Sundance didn’t answer that. ‘Jorge Calderon says you’re enslaving Indians. I say that because you already know it.’
Bannerman said, ‘Calderon is a dying man with a mind rotted by mescal. Why do you believe these stories of his?’
‘Because he was an honorable soldier in the revolution. I know because I fought with Juarez too.’
Bannerman took out a leather case and selected a cigar. Between the puffs of lighting it, he said, ‘The revolution was a long time ago. Times change, men change, men go crazy with too much liquor. Today he sees himself as another Juarez. By his own word he has declared war on the rich and powerful.’ Bannerman smiled. ‘At least I’m rich and I’m a foreigner.’
Colonel Almirante protested. ‘Not a foreigner. You are a respected citizen of the Republic.’
Bannerman smiled again. ‘To Jorge Calderon I’m an enslaver of poor Indians.’
‘Then you didn’t send those two gunmen to kill him if he didn’t leave Las Piedras?’
‘Those men worked for me. Why try to deny it? But they acted on their own. No doubt they heard the stories he was spreading about me. All my people are loyal.’
‘Even the killers?’ Sundance said.
‘Not killers. Call them gunmen if you like. That’s what they were. This is hard country here and you have to be just as hard to keep what you have. I do my own fighting, but I can’t do it alone. Does that make sense to you? It should. You’ve been fighting and killing all your life.’ Sundance decided that Lucas Bannerman was the smoothest liar he had met in his life. ‘Colonel Almirante says you interceded for me. Why is that?’ Bannerman had an easy answer. ‘Because you killed my two men and your trouble with those soldiers may have had something to do with that. I didn’t want to be blamed for one more thing.’
‘You mean I’m free to go?’
Colonel Almirante felt it was his place to answer that. ‘Not yet, Señor Sundance. Two generals, both fine men and fine soldiers, have spoken up for you. But I must warn you against associating with this madman Calderon. It’s not only Mr. Bannerman he has accused of this unspeakable crime. Other big ranchers and mine owners have been named by him. He will only get you into serious trouble if you continue to associate with him. Unless he stops—and I do not think he will—someone is sure to kill him. You do not want to be killed too.’
Sundance knew a threat when he heard one, even when it was put in very careful English.
Bannerman didn’t say anything. Colonel Almirante went on. ‘Señor Sundance, take my advice and stay away from him.’
Bannerman stood up rubbing his hands together. ‘Before you leave, Sundance, I’d like to point out one more thing. Calderon will tell you, maybe has told you, that there are Indians working on my ranch, in my mines. All true. The difference is they’re there of their own free will and get paid just like any other man. I wouldn’t make this offer to any other man, but your Crook’s friend so I’ll make it to you. Come on out and see for yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ was all Sundance said.
‘You came here to go hunting with General Crook,’ Colonel Almirante finished. ‘Wait for him and enjoy your hunt. The Sierra Madre is wild and beautiful. I hope I will have the pleasure of the general’s presence at dinner some night.’
Crook, Sundance thought, would just as soon as eat off the same plate as a snake than eat dinner with this fat thief.
‘I sincerely hope so,’ Colonel Almirante said. ‘And now your horse has been brought from town and is waiting for you outside.’
On the way back to Las Piedras, Sundance checked several times to see if he was being followed. He wasn’t, but he knew they would be watching him from now on. Years back in the Colorado Rockies, Three Stars—as Sundance always called the general—had saved his life by shooting down a maddened grizzly that was coming at him full tilt. Now, once again, he owed the old soldier his life. What puzzled him was how Three Stars had known he was in a Mexican jail. There was no telegraph office in Las Piedras. The fort had a telegraph line, but no one had sent a message from there. The only town of any size was seventy or eighty miles to the north. He knew that because he had passed close to it on his way south. And yet Three Stars knew where he was; he had used his fame and power to stop them from killing him.
Red was streaking the sky by the time he got back to Las Piedras. The town was still asleep except for a rooster crowing now and then. In front of a closed-up cantina a drunk lay snoring, an empty bottle in his hand. All the way back from the fort he wondered if he would find Jorge dead. The arrest and the two nights in the guardhouse could have been a plan to get him out of the way. He vowed that if they had killed Jorge, Bannerman and Almirante would die—no matter how many soldiers and gunmen they put between them and death.
He put his horse away and walked back to Jorge’s quarters. When he got there he looked up at the windows. No lights. He drew his gun and went up the stairs quietly. The door was open a few inches, and there were no sounds inside. There was almost no light in the hall, so he had as much of an advantage as any killer who might be waiting inside. It didn’t make sense that they would let him go just to kill him here, but you never knew what kind of twisted scheme Bannerman had worked out.
Standing to one side of the door, he kicked it open and waited. Nobody shot at him. He went in fast and waited again, standing in the semidarkness with the Colt cocked in his hand. Then he reached into his pocket and found a sulphurhead match and struck it on the wall. The light that flared showed nothing but the clutter of his friend’s rooms. He lit the lamp on Jorge’s desk and carried it into the next room. Empty like the other one. No blood anywhere, no sign of a struggle. He bolted
the door and sat down to think. He had to face the cold fact that Jorge could long be dead, buried far out in the hills, or stripped and left for the buzzards. The buzzards would leave nothing but a skeleton in a single day. He would wait for a while and then search for his friend. But how long would he wait and where would he look?
An hour had passed when someone tried to open the door. There had been no footsteps on the stairs. Now the door handle was being moved. Then a voice called out, ‘Jorge, are you in there?’ The question was repeated, louder this time.
Moving silently on moccasined feet, Sundance drew his gun and shifted it to his left hand. Now! He pulled the bolt back and the door open at the same time. He found himself looking at one of the biggest men he had ever seen, an Indian taller and heavier than he was. Their eyes met and locked for an instant, then the Indian’s huge hand shot out and trapped his left hand in an iron grip. He felt the Colt being torn from his hand. The Indian’s huge left fist knocked him back into the room as if he had been hit by a club. His spine jolted against the edge of the desk and he went down. The Indian threw the gun away and tried to jump on him with both feet. He twisted out of the way and the floor shook under the big man’s weight. He jumped to his feet while the Indian bored in after him, both fists swinging. Sundance pulled the Bowie knife from his belt and made a thrust for the Indian’s belly. For all his bulk, the Indian moved as gracefully as a panther. He drew his own knife, another Bowie, and came at Sundance again. In the early morning light they fenced back and forth with the great killing knives, more like short swords than anything else. Steel clanged on steel as they tried for the soft parts of their bodies. Sundance nearly lost a hand when the Indian changed his fencing tactics and tried for a downward chop. He caught the chop on the back of his own blade. The impact sent pain vibrating all the way up to his shoulder. Then they circled in the cramped little room . . .
Suddenly Jorge Calderon was in the doorway and rushing toward them, white faced and horrified.
‘¡Alto! ¡Alto! Stop! Stop! You crazy men.’
The frail lawyer got between the two powerful fighting men and tried to push them apart. They separated before his trembling hands, and suddenly his terror turned to the fury that often comes with relief. He punched Sundance in the chest, then he turned and slapped the Indian in the face. Neither blow had any force and the two men, coldly trying to kill each other a moment before, began to smile.
Jorge raged on for a while, then he smiled too. ‘You crazy men! You fools! You cretinos! What were you trying to do?’
‘I think we were trying to kill one another,’ Sundance said, still smiling.
‘¡Imbecil! You are the same, Silvestra. My heart jumped in my chest when I saw what you were doing. How did this stupid and terrible thing come to happen?’
Sundance told him. ‘Now calm yourself, Jorge,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s even nicked. Your friend here knows how to handle a knife. You were very good, Silvestra.’
The Indian acknowledged the compliment. ‘And you too, Sundance,’ he said with grave politeness.
Jorge was ready to flare up again. ‘Stop this stupid talk of who is good with a knife. In a civilized world there would be no guns, no knives meant to kill other men. I think I am going to fall down. I am sick, I am tired. I have ridden seventy miles and back in two days and what do I find? The only two friends I have in the world ...’
Jorge’s voice trailed off and he slumped into a chair, gray faced with exhaustion. He lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Por favor, a drink, a big drink.’
Sundance poured from the bottle of mescal. Jorge gulped it down and the glass was filled again. ‘I am so tired, so tired.’
‘What else could I do but ride to Meseta after I heard the soldiers had taken you,’ he said a few moments later. ‘And every mile I prayed you were still alive. I cursed myself for getting you mixed up in my troubles.’
‘Go easy,’ Sundance said. ‘You’ve got to rest, sleep. We can talk later.’
‘No! No! We will talk now. What did they do to you at their cursed fort?’
‘Nothing,’ Sundance said. ‘They were very polite after the colonel got the telegraph message from General Crook. I think I’d be dead now if it hadn’t been for you.’
Jorge said wearily, ‘I knew reaching the telegraph office at Meseta was the only chance. I am not a religious man, but now I am ready to give thanks to God that you are still alive. Those dogs! Those filthy animals!’
‘Bannerman was there,’ Sundance said. ‘He said you have made yourself crazy with mescal. He’s right. You are crazy. To ride seventy miles and back in two days!’
‘It was nothing,’ Jorge said with fierce Mexican pride. ‘I still have some money. I changed horses three times.’
‘It was a ride of great courage,’ Silvestra said gravely. It was the first thing he said since the fighting stopped.
Jorge opened his eyes and looked at the Indian. ‘Let us stop all this foolish talk of courage. What did you find out? Did you discover where they will strike next?’
‘Yes. It is as you thought,’ Silvestra said. ‘At the Pima village on the far side of the desert. A pueblo of farmers and hunters, with eighty or ninety Pimas, maybe more. They live high on the mesa and farm the valley below. The slavers will start for this place in three or four days. It will be a bigger party than before, with many guns.’
‘How did you discover this?’ Jorge asked, now alert in spite of his fatigue. ‘You must be sure. It is a pitiless desert we must cross to get there.’
Silvestra said with a savage smile, ‘I know because one of the slavers told me. I had been watching the Bannerman hacienda with the catalejo—the telescope—you gave me. New men I had never seen before were arriving, so I thought something big is about to happen. One night I caught one of the slavers on the road between this town and the hacienda. Then I took him to a quiet place in the hills. At first he did not want to talk, but finally he did. In the same quiet place I buried him along with his horse. I buried everything. I hated to bury the saddle. It was a fine saddle.’
‘You buried a horse!’ Jorge was so amazed he said it again. ‘You buried a horse, Silvestra?’
Sundance smiled. Looking at the huge Indian, he almost felt sorry for the dead slaver. His death had not come quickly.
‘It had to be done,’ Silvestra answered. ‘Nothing could be found or they might suspect the truth. It took much digging.’
‘He’s right,’ Sundance agreed. ‘If they even found his hat it would tell them too much.’
‘Of course. I am not disputing that, Sundance. You know, Silvestra, for a good Indian who was raised in a Franciscan mission you have turned out very badly.’
Jorge and Sundance laughed. ‘So it has been said,’ Silvestra said with only the trace of a smile.
Jorge unrolled his map of Sonora and tapped it with his finger. ‘There it is, Canon de Nutria. That’s where we must go to plan your surprise. ¡Dios! What country we must cross to get there, but cross it we will. Have you made a plan?’
‘After you eat and sleep we’ll talk about the plan,’ Sundance said.
‘I will sleep first, then I will eat,’ Jorge decided, sounding very definite about it.
Sundance was just as definite. ‘No, Jorge, first you will eat, then you will sleep. That’s the best way.’
Jorge hadn’t drunk very much, but the mescal added to his fatigue made him drunk. Now his black eyes blazed with anger. ‘Who are you to give orders to me? There are no generals in this army. You can be a general when the fighting comes. Here we are all equal.’
‘Not so, old friend. Just for this day I have appointed myself general of the cook stove and I say you eat before you sleep.’
Jorge saw Silvestra smiling gravely and got mad again. He shook his fist at the big Indian. ‘What are you grinning at, you undertaker for horses?’
But, in the end, he did what he was told.
Five
Jorge slept all that day and half the next night. Now h
e was up again and they were sitting by his desk talking about the fight to come at Canon de Nutria. They all knew it wouldn’t be easy, and some of them might not come back. Jorge was drinking a bottle of beer, still irritable that Sundance had poured
out the rest of the mescal. He still looked tired.
‘Of course I’m up to it,’ he said. ‘I’m a Mexican and I know this desert.’
Sundance shook his head. ‘You don’t know this desert. If you can’t make the trip, say so now. Silvestra and I can do this alone. We don’t want to have to carry you. You’re tired and you’re sick. That ride to Meseta nearly killed you. Crossing that desert, the way you are, could finish you off.’
Jorge didn’t like beer, but it was all he had to drink. ‘I’m finished anyway, so what’s the difference? A few days from now or a few months. I tell you I’m all right.’
Silvestra, like Sundance, didn’t agree. ‘You are sick, Jorge, and you know you are sick. We can take you to a safe place and you can rest there until we return.’
Outside it was dark and the town was quiet. They had turned the lamp down to a glimmer. They had been talking for an hour and there was still much talking to be done.
‘What do you know about my sickness?’ Jorge asked the Indian. ‘Since when did you get to be a doctor?’
Sometimes it was hard to be patient with Jorge. ‘He doesn’t have to be a doctor,’ Sundance said, but before Jorge could snap back at him he added, ‘and you wouldn’t listen anyway. All right, it’s settled—you’re coming along. Silvestra says the dead slaver told him twenty men or more will be in the raiding party. That’s just about every gunman Bannerman has on his payroll. Not every man but almost. If we do this right—kill every last man—it will set Bannerman back a long way. You sure they’ve been watching this place, Silvestra?’
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