Valley of Skulls (Fargo Book 6)

by John Benteen

  Now, drinking more Scotch, Fargo considered. He could work his way through the jungle, make Chiapas somehow, buy the mules from one of the logging camps. After that, it would get trickier. Then he looked up, aware that the light had changed; someone was standing in the door. Suddenly, he tensed as he recognized that gigantic breadth of shoulder, the handsome face, the narrow hips, saw the thumbs of big hands hooked in the two crisscrossed buscadero belts that supported Colt .45’s, Frontier Model. “Darnley!” he said.

  “Well, damn my eyes,” the other answered, his voice richly accented in the English way. “Neal Fargo. You bloody bastard, how the hell are you?” And he strode toward Fargo’s table.

  Fargo stood up. Darnley was as tall as he, two years younger, strikingly handsome in contrast to Fargo’s scarred ugliness. He wore a khaki shirt, canvas pants, stockman’s boots. His hand was big, hard. He was the second son of an English lord, a remittance man so wild, rough, and uncontrollable that his family had sent him to this colony to avoid a scandal at home and paid him a monthly wage to stay here. He was one of the best natural fighting men Fargo had ever met; and they had been in combat on the same side a couple of years before in Guatemala. There was a reward on Roger Darnley’s head there, too. As they shook hands, Darnley asked, “Neal, what are you doing back in these parts?”

  Fargo motioned him to a chair. “Drifting, Darnley. Just drifting.”

  The Englishman sat down, reached for the bottle, drank from its neck without waiting for a glass. “Not the way I hear it. You just got off a magnificent big white yacht.”

  Fargo’s mouth twisted. “You really stay in touch, don’t you?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “Oh, is it? And just what business are you in now?”

  Darnley grinned, showing white, even teeth. His pale blue eyes danced with devil-may-care amusement. “About the same as you. A little of this, a little of that, the main thing the money and not too careful about the rest.” Then he sobered. “That was Stoneman’s yacht—Ned D. Stoneman, the American oil man.”

  “Was it? I hadn’t noticed.”

  Darnley laughed, but with less good humor this time. “Funny, you’re not usually that careless. What is it, Fargo? What brings you back down here?”

  “I said I was drifting.”

  “On Stoneman’s yacht? Luxurious drifting.”

  “I go first class.” Fargo took out a thin, black cigar, bit off its end, clamped it between his teeth. “Let’s say I’m doing some oil prospecting for Stoneman.”

  “All right. We’ll say that.” Darnley signaled for a glass. “That doesn’t mean I have to believe it.”

  “That’s up to you,” said Fargo.

  “Oh, sure.” The glass came; Darnley poured whiskey. Then he leaned forward. “What is it, Fargo? Something good? It must be something good to bring you down here.” His eyes were pale and cold now. “And I want in.”

  “No,” said Fargo. “It’s nothing big and there’s only room for one.”

  “You’re wrong. There’s got to be room for me. Otherwise, you don’t operate.”

  Fargo took the cigar from his mouth. “What the hell you mean by that?”

  “Oh, I’ve been busy since you last saw me, Fargo.” The Englishman’s smile came back easy, charming, but it did not deceive Fargo. He had seen Darnley smile just like that as he pulled the trigger to execute a wounded prisoner. “Or haven’t you heard of Darnley’s Raiders?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you will. It’s my own little army, Fargo. Well, not so little, either. Forty, fifty men. And all top-hole fighters, thoroughly experienced and tough as boot leather. You’d be surprised how many good men like that there are down here, Neal; this is a fine place to hide out. Your American Wild West is taming down, and the gunmen are pulling out. There are French outlaws stranded in Panama when the French gave up on their canal... Spanish hidalgos dispossessed by revolutions here and there; English remittance men like myself; plus a few whites who’ve been here all their lives, grandsons and great grandsons of the old pirates and buccaneers. Darnley’s Raiders, Fargo, and it’s as tight and tough a little outfit as you’re ever likely to see—and I run it!” He took out a cigarette. “We operate in British Honduras, on the Yucatan Peninsula or in Guatemala.”

  “You’re wanted in Guatemala.”

  “I’m wanted in a lot of places. So are my men. We don’t let that stop us.” He snapped a match, lit his smoke. “We go where we please, when we please and nobody stands against us.” His eyes met Fargo’s. “Not you, not anyone.”

  “We’ll see,” Fargo said.

  Darnley leaned back, negligently crossed his legs. “Oh, yes, I’m sure we will.” He was abruptly serious again. “Look here, Fargo, I know you. You didn’t come here for a rest cure; you came for money. You’re always where the money is, like a vulture at the meat. Well, I’ll tell you now; you deal us in.”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  “You’re being stubborn.”

  “There’s not enough to go around.”

  “There is if you’re here for the reason I think you are.”

  Fargo rolled the cigar across his mouth. “Which is—?”

  “Stoneman’s yacht. An expedition financed by Stoneman in the place called the Valley of Skulls, in Chiapas. They’ve found what they were looking for, and you’re here to bring it out.”

  “Suppose I was. Some stone statues, that sort of thing. No money in those. Just Mayan relics.”

  Darnley looked at him strangely. Then a curious smile crossed that handsome face. “Fargo,” he said, “you’re slipping.”

  Something in his voice froze Fargo. He looked at Darnley carefully. “Am I?”

  “You sure as hell are if you believe that stone statue business. Damn it, Fargo, you know you’re here because they’ve found the Golden Gun!”

  Neal Fargo neither moved a muscle nor flickered an eye. But suddenly he understood. The memory of a legend, of stories told around a hundred campfires, came back suddenly. All at once it fitted; everything fell into place. Yes, he thought with rising excitement. Yes, that was it. Surely. That was why Stoneman was willing to shell out forty thousand; that was why the cargo he was to bring from the Valley of Skulls took precedence even over the lives of the members of the expedition. It all made sense now. Good sense. From Stoneman’s viewpoint, anyhow.

  “Nothing happens in my territory that I don’t know about,” continued Darnley, bending close, his voice a whisper. “Yucatan, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Guatemala, here ... I have my spies, Fargo, everywhere. I knew that Stoneman had sent an expedition to the Lacandon Forest; I knew they were supposed to be digging for Mayan ruins. And then, a few days ago, I found out something else—something that ties in nicely with your presence here.”

  “Go on,” said Fargo.

  “They hired some Indians to help them dig. Somebody in that expedition—I hear it was Stoneman’s son—played rough with them. Apparently he worked some of them to death and shot some others when they protested. Anyhow, one ran away, fled into the jungle. He made it to a monteria in Campeche, a logging camp where I had a spy. Somewhere in the rain forest, he’d tangled with a jaguar and got himself torn up pretty badly; he lived just long enough to give a hint. Something they’d uncovered there, an old gun, he said, that made young Stoneman go almost crazy, threaten to kill them all if they touched it. I thought then, when I got the word, that it might be … now you show up on Stoneman’s yacht. Two and two make four, Fargo. You’re here to bring out the Golden Gun for Stoneman. Two thousand pounds of pure unalloyed Spanish gold. That’s a lot of gold, Fargo, close to three-quarters of a million American dollars worth.” He leaned back.

  “Don’t tell me,” he finished, “there’s not enough to go around.”

  Fargo said nothing, only poured another drink. His brain raced.

  The Golden Gun. It was a legend in lower Mexico and the Caribbean. Spanish conquistadores, it was said, had prepared a special gift
for the King of Spain. Ten cannons they had cast, not of steel or bronze, but of pure gold from the mines of Mexico and sent them home in a galleon guarded by a company of soldiers. But not even the awesome power of Spain could stand against the hurricanes that racked the Gulf of Mexico. The galleon had been caught in one, slammed ashore and broken up. All but one of its golden guns had gone to the bottom of the sea. One single, precious cannon had been salvaged by the survivors. But the Indians of the coast had attacked them and driven them inland. Southward, under constant attack by vengeful tribes, they had fought their way through the jungle, through what was now Campeche, into Chiapas. They hauled with them the golden cannon, their only artillery, the only thing that kept them alive, as they turned the field piece on the warriors who came after them. Finally, driven into refuge in the Lacandon Forest, caught between tribes from north and south alike, they had halted, forted up, made a last stand. But their gunpowder ran out; they were overwhelmed and slaughtered. Before they died, when they had fired their last charge from the golden cannon, they had buried it. Then they were massacred.

  And yet the legend had lived after them—that somewhere, in the vast depths of that great rain forest, lay hidden a huge cannon of purest gold worth a king’s ransom. And that, Fargo realized now, was the secret the archeologist must have discovered in the Library of Madrid; perhaps one survivor had made it back to Spanish civilization and lived long enough to tell his story. That was the inducement the scientist had used to persuade Stoneman to finance the expedition: that was what the six mules were to bring out of the Valley of Skulls, the cargo more precious than any life save that of Stoneman’s son.

  Fargo took a drink. He had, in a sense, been taken. He saw that now. What he had figured on having to bring out was more of the statues, slabs, other relics of the sort with which Stoneman’s town house was crammed. Such things were so common down here that no one really gave a damn for them—not the Mexican bandits and revolutionaries, not the Indians, not soldiers of fortune like Darnley. Still, it was tough enough to haul even those out of that terrible jungle; forty thousand was a fair price for such a job. But three-quarters of a million in gold? Good God, thought Fargo, if Darnley were right, that golden gun would bring down on him every buzzard, every gun-toter and robber and soldier of fortune in this end of the world!

  His mouth twisted. He’d let himself be taken, all right; this was a job worth twice what he’d agreed to. And yet he’d given his word, and the value of his word was as important as his skill with guns when it came to making a living the hard way he had chosen. But, damn! The prospect of the Golden Gun had already drawn Darnley to him, Darnley and his army. And now he would have to fight them all to get the gun to Stoneman.

  His face never changed; he reached for the bottle again. He knew Darnley; not even he would stand a chance against the Englishman backed up with the kind of soldiers the remittance man had gathered. He couldn’t fight Darnley; and so there was only one other thing to do: he would have to use him …

  There was a way he could do that: let Darnley and his men help him bring out the gun. Then it would be up to him to get it away from them when they had come back to civilization.

  And so, without the flicker of an eye, he made his decision. “You know,” he said, “there might be something in what you say. Maybe there’s enough to go around after all. Why don’t we talk some business?”

  “Now, that’s better.” Darnley grinned. He shoved back his chair. “But not here. I’ll have a mozo rustle up a horse for you. Then we’ll have one more drink and ride.”

  Chapter Four

  “This is the way I see it,” Darnley said, as they loped along a sandy road between alternate stretches of jungle and swampy grassland. “Nobody could reach this Valley of Skulls through Mexico now; that’s a damned bucket of rattle-snakes. You’d have to go in through the narrow part of Guatemala. Bring the people and the gun out the same way, by the back door, so to speak. Well, I’ve got connections all along the line. If we work together, I can make it a lot easier, Fargo. Then, when we get the cannon out, we can cut it up, melt it down—”

  “No,” said Fargo.

  “No?” Darnley twisted in the saddle, looked at him.

  “You melt it down, it’s three-quarters of a million in gold. Leave it like it is, bring it out intact, it’s a million, maybe more.”

  “Damned if I figure that.”

  Fargo grinned tautly. “You don’t know Stoneman. Money he’s got. He loves it like his life’s-blood, true. But, more than that, he wants something nobody else has got—he wants the only golden Spanish cannon left in the world; it’s his lifelong dream. He makes a million every week, maybe sooner; I don’t think he’ll balk at putting up a week’s pay for a gun like that.”

  “You mean he wants the cannon as a museum piece, not for the gold in it?”

  “He’s a collector, a pack rat. He wants that cannon whole, complete, and he’ll pay any price to get it.”

  “So, if we bring it out, we hang on to it, hold it for ransom, he pays the ransom.”

  “That’s the size of it,” Fargo said. They reined in, let the horses drink from a rivulet that trickled across the road. In the jungle that made walls on either side, monkeys and strange birds screeched; it was near dusk and the animals were more active.

  “And even though he’s paid you down, you’re willing to go against him.”

  “I hired out to bring out the members of the expedition and cargo for six mules. I didn’t count on that cargo being something that would bring down every man with a gun in this end of the world on me. I’ll deliver the expedition to Belize, to his yacht. I’ll deliver six mules of statues and such like, too. The gun comes extra—mighty extra.”

  Darnley laughed. “That sounds like the old Fargo I used to know.”

  Fargo gathered rein, touched the horse with his heels. They rode on. “If you knew about the gun, why did you declare me in? Why didn’t you just go after it yourself?”

  “Because that would put me up against you. I’d rather have you with me than against me, Neal. I know you too well. I might have an army, but if I had to fight you, that might not help me too much. This way, partners, we’re both sure of success … and profit.” He gestured. “The ranch is right around the bend.”

  They made the turn. The jungle gave way to a wide, grassy clearing studded with palms. In its center was a sprawl of log buildings, corrals with horses. “I bought this place quite legally,” Darnley said, “with the scores I made outside the colony. I don’t want His Majesty’s government on me if I can help it, and I mind my manners reasonably well here in British Honduras. In fact, my men occasionally serve as special police when there’s trouble in the back country. We don’t really ranch here; it’s just our barracks, so to speak.”

  “Nice layout,” Fargo said, as they rode into the yard.

  “Yes,” said Darnley. “Incidentally, I’m the only one who knows about the Golden Gun. Until our plans are firm, let’s not mention it among the others.”

  Fargo grinned crookedly. “Leaves you leeway for a double cross if you need it.”

  “I play honestly with my men. But they’re pretty hard customers. Some of them might not return the compliment. I don’t want them to get any ideas of double-crossing me and going into business for themselves.” He touched one of the Colts on his hip. “I’m faster and harder than any of them, so far. That’s how I stay on top.” He pulled up before the largest structure of the place. “This is my headquarters. You’ll stay here with me.”

  They swung down and a mozo, half Indian, half black, came to take the horses. The building before them was big, solid, built of fine mahogany. Darnley pushed open the door and they went in.

  The room was long, dim; there were several trestle tables, and men sat around them playing cards, drinking. One or two of them had Indian girls on their laps and pawed them. Everybody stopped what he was doing and looked up as the two men entered.

  “Gentlemen,” Darnley said,
standing there with widespread legs, thumbs hooked in gun belts. “Gentlemen, a new member of our mess. Some of you may have heard of Neal Fargo, from America.”

  Fargo’s eyes swept the lamp lit room alertly. Darnley had been right; they were hard customers, all right: men with the stamp of outlawry on them, guns and knives draped all over them. Then he stiffened as a blocky, familiar figure shoved an Indian girl off its lap and stood up.

  “Neal Fargo,” the man said. He was short, thick, muscular, and his beard was iron gray. He wore a Panama hat, a blue work shirt, canvas pants. His eyes were like gray, steel marbles beneath thick brows, his nose craggy and often broken. On his right hip hung a Bisley Colt in a half-breed holster; on his left was a huge, old-fashioned Bowie knife in a fringed sheath. “By God.”

  Fargo stood loosely. “Hello, Brassfield. Long time no see.”

  The man’s voice was deep, harsh. “You’re goddamn right long time no see. Not since you killed my brother in Cheyenne.”

  “He shouldn’t have come after me with that knife,” said Fargo. “He didn’t know how to use it.”

  Suddenly the room was silent. A kind of corridor formed on either side, so that Brassfield and Fargo were looking straight up and down it at one another. Even Darnley stepped aside a pace or two. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

  “Yes,” said Fargo. “The Brassfields were pretty good train robbers in their time. But they outlived their time.”

  “You were bounty hunting,” Brassfield rasped.

  “I needed cash. The reward on you two was fat. Nothing personal, Brassfield. If your brother had come along peaceable.”

  “Peaceable,” Brassfield said thinly. “And the rest of his life in prison.”

  “A man does what he has to when he needs to earn a buck. You robbed trains. I collected scalps. The reward for your brother was payable dead or alive. I would have taken him in alive if he’d let me.”