Lone Star 03

by Ellis, Wesley

  “Lieutenant,” he wheezed. “Looks like you ... caught up with me, didn’t ... you?”

  “Yes. And you know what that means, Henderson. Prison.”

  “Not... for me,” the sergeant gasped. “I ... I’m done for. I seen ... too many men die ... to be wrong.”

  “I think he’s right,” Ki said in a half-whisper. “He must be still bleeding inside, and he’s been lying here—how long has it been since he was shot?”

  Farnam looked up at the sun. It was still midway to the zenith. “It seems like several hours, but it can’t have been more than a half hour since I shot him.”

  “That’s more than enough time for a man to bleed to death,” Ki observed.

  “Maybe you can get him to tell you how he got involved with the rustlers, where their headquarters are in Mexico, which ranch they plan to raid next, things like that,” Jessie suggested. “Anything we can learn from him will be useful.”

  Farnam squatted down beside the dying Henderson. He said urgently, “Henderson. You heard what the lady said. Make up a little bit for the crimes you’ve committed by telling us whatever you can about that bunch of bandits you’ve been helping.”

  “Never did ride . . . with them Meskins, Lieutenant,” the sergeant said, his voice thready. “Just told ‘em ... what the man paid me for... passing on to ’em. That’s why I come here ... this time.”

  “What man?” Farnam asked. “And what did you pass on?”

  “Dude I met in saloon ... at Laredo. Year or so ago. That was just before ... you taken command.” Henderson stopped as a fit of coughing seized him. “Told Meskins about... ranches.”

  “When they were gathering their cattle to drive to market? Things of that sort?” Farnam asked.

  Henderson nodded feebly. “Never stole none ... myself.”

  Jessie whispered, “Joe. Ask him where the rustlers’ headquarters is, in Mexico.”

  “Where’d your rustler friends come from across the river?” Farnam asked.

  “Never did... rightly know. Ranch close to San Pedro ... is all I ever... found out,” the sergeant gasped.

  “What’s the name of the ranch? Or the owner?” Jessie asked quickly.

  “Damn Mex names ... can’t remember,” Henderson replied. “Trays ... some kinda trays.”

  “Any other names you remember?” Jessie urged.

  “Goose ... goose man,” he whispered. “All ... men ...” Henderson’s voice faltered, and he coughed. A gush of blood poured from his mouth. He coughed again to clear his throat, and when he spoke, it was in a voice so faint that in order to hear, Farnam had to lean down with his ear only inches away from the dying man’s mouth. Henderson gasped, “Don’t blame ... nobody else at Fort Chaplin ... for what I done. It was ... just me ...” Another fit of coughing seized him. It ended with a final shudder, then his body sagged with the finality of death.

  “I guess that’s all we’ll ever find out,” Farnain said as he stood up, himself a bit unsteady on his feet.

  “You go with Jessie to the cave,” Ki said. “I’ll do what must be done here. Will you want to take your man’s body to the fort, or shall I bury him?”

  “Better take him back,” Farnam said. “I think my horse is dead, but I know one of those the rustlers left isn’t wounded. I’m not sure about—”

  “Joe,” Jessie broke in, “Ki’s competent to do what he’s offered to do. If we’re going to start back for the fort, you’d better rest a bit before we ride out.”

  Farnam did not protest. He let Jessie lead him back to the cleft, and sat leaning against the stone side of the fissure while she made sandwiches of the beef, cheese, and bread left from last night’s dinner.

  “One reason you’re so weak is that we didn’t have time to eat a proper breakfast this morning,” she said as they sat side by side.

  “That we didn‘t, what with one thing and another,” Farnam said, smiling.

  Jessie smiled too, and took another bite from her sandwich. When she’d chewed and swallowed it, she asked him, “Do you know anything about the town your man mentioned before he died? San Pedro, he called it.”

  “I’ve never been there, Jessie.”

  “But it can’t be very far from Fort Chaplin. From what Henderson said, he knew something about it.”

  “All I know about San Pedro is that it’s about thirty miles on the other side of the river, which makes it nearly forty miles from the fort. Remember, Mexico’s out of bounds for anybody in the U.S. Army. And don’t remind me of Henderson. He probably broke regulations just as he broke the law.”

  “Surely you mut have heard something?”

  “Not that I can recall. To tell you the truth, most of what Henderson said was just so much gibberish to me. I can’t really believe what he said about some man in a saloon—a man he’d never seen before, whose name he didn’t know—making an offer to bribe him to get information about the ranches around here. Didn’t you find that hard to swallow?”

  Knowing what she did about the cartel’s method of operating, Jessie hadn’t doubted Henderson’s story for a moment. Whoever the man might have been, he’d undoubtedly found out all he needed to know about Henderson before making the offer. The thought of trying to explain this to Farnam defeated her, though.

  “I don’t suppose it’s totally impossible, Joe. Cattle are big business around here—all over Texas, in fact. And there’s more profit in selling cattle that are stolen than in selling those you’ve had to raise.”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess that’s true.”

  “But I was asking you about San Pedro. You’re sure you can’t remember anything about it that would help Ki and me?”

  “You’re not going there, I hope?”

  “Of course we are. Just as soon as we get you back to the fort and make sure you’re all right. Sergeant Henderson said the gang’s headquarters is close to San Pedro, and I don’t intend to stop until we find it.”

  “Jessie! Don’t you know you’re taking a big risk?”

  “Everything’s a risk, Joe.”

  “If you want to look at it that way, I suppose it is. But it’ll be late in the day when we get to the fort. Surely you’ll stay there tonight?”

  Jessie looked at Farnam and smiled. “For a man with a bullet hole in his shoulder, you’re very persuasive, Joe. All right. Ki and I will stay at the fort tonight, but we’re going to start for San Pedro early tomorrow morning, and if you think youcan persuade me differently, you’ll find out you’re wrong.”

  From a distance, San Pedro appeared to be a prosperous and thriving community. Jessie and Ki reined in beside the winding, rutted dirt road at the first shady spot they reached after they saw the twin towers of its church. For a moment they sat without speaking, welcoming the shade; the sun had beaten on them all day with unabated ferocity, though it was now declining.

  They looked down into the saucerlike valley in which the town stood. The village was still three or four miles distant, and the massive bulk of the church loomed above the roofs of the smaller buildings around it. The church and its towers had been built from blocks quarried out of the light yellow stone formations they’d seen all along the road, bulging out of a thin layer of poor soil. The towers were topped with domes rather than spires, and surmounted by crosses.

  The plaza was outlined by a half-dozen large buildings made from the same stone used in the church, and the dwellings that radiated from the plaza looked like the small, compact houses typical of most of the small villages of northern Mexico.

  “At least looks as though it’s big enough to have a hotel,” Jessie commented. “And a restaurant or two.”

  “And small enough to make inquiries easy,” Ki said. “We may be able to find out this evening where the rustlers’ hideout is. At least Henderson gave us a clue.”

  “Yes. When he talked about ‘trays,’ I thought right away that the ranch must be tres something or other—‘three trees’ or ’three streams’ or ‘three hills,’ perhap
s.”

  “With that much to go on, it shouldn’t be too hard. But we won’t find out by sitting here.”

  Ki toed his horse forward, and Jessie followed his example. They rode on, not hurrying, knowing they’d break their journey in the town that night.

  It was only when they reached the town’s outskirts that they saw that their view from the valley’s rim had been an illusion. San Pedro was a ghost, a shell, the result of the wars, uprisings, guerrilla battles, and revolutions that had torn Mexico during the sixty or so years since it won its independence from Spain. The small core of the original settlement that outlined the plaza was an island of good buildings in a sea of near-ruins.

  Poverty was apparent in the tumbledown jacales, many of them once solid middle-class houses, that made up the bulk of the town. A semblance of streets as they must at one time have been could be seen in the handsome two- and three-story buildings of dressed stone on the streets nearest the square.

  Surrounding this core was a hodgepodge of crude huts made from flattened kerosene tins, barrel staves, scraps of lumber mixed with stone blocks and adobe bricks—any materials that would enclose a few square feet of space and form a semblance of a roof. Though they served as habitations, they could not really be called houses.

  After they had gotten a close look at the few people on the streets, Jessie turned to Ki and commented, “Such a poor town, Ki! The people look as poverty-stricken as the houses. I’m not sure now that we’ll find a hotel or even a restaurant here.”

  “There’ll be a place to stay and eat. All we have to do is find it,” Ki said. “The square would be the best place to look, don’t you think?”

  They rode on through the mean streets to the plaza, and as Ki had predicted, on the east side of the plaza, opposite the church, a hand-painted sign swinging from a wrought-iron bracket identified the two-story corner building as La Posada Mendoza.

  “You see?” Ki pointed to the sign. “And it looks as though it might even be comfortable. I will go and see.”

  Leaving Jessie to hold the reins of both horses, Ki went into the hotel. A three-step stairway just inside the door took him into a tile-paved lobby, scantily furnished with a single divan and three chairs. A desk stood in one corner beside an arched doorway that led into a second room, only part of which was visible. The room beyond the arch was furnished with several long tables, each with four chairs on either side—the dining room, Ki thought. There was no one in sight in either room, but as Ki started to go into the dining room, a smiling man bustled through the arched doorway. He stopped short when he saw Ki, and the smile became a puzzled frown.

  “Qué quiere usted,Señor?” he finally asked.

  Though both Ki and Jessie had a fair command of Spanish, they’d found it to their advantage to use it only when vitally necessary to do so; in the Southwest and much of the West, Spanish was almost officially a second language.

  “Do you speak English?” Ki asked.

  “Of certainty, Señor. It is that you wish a room, no?”

  “Two rooms,” Ki replied. “And supper for two later on.”

  Looking around, his face puzzled, the man asked, “You are not alone, then?”

  “There’s a lady waiting outside. My ... my employer.”

  “Ah, to be sure. Two magnificent rooms I have, overlooking the plaza. Or, if you wish more quietness, two equally fine chambers at the rear.” He indicated a broad stairway at the side of the lobby. “Would you care to inspect them?”

  Ki debated for only a few seconds; the chance was great that he was in San Pedro’s only hotel, and if there was another, the odds were equally great that it would be no better than La Posada Mendoza. He shook his head. “It won’t be necessary. You have a stable, I suppose, for our horses?”

  “Indeed yes, even a courtyard in the rear for carriages,” the man said. “But permit me. My name is Pierre Salazar. I am the proprietor of the posada.”

  “I am Ki.” Ki smiled inwardly as he watched Salazar’s face when he heard the unusual name. The proprietor’s eyebrows went up as he waited for the surname, then he regained his aplomb with a visible effort and bowed.

  “Señor Ki.”

  “My employer is Miss Starbuck. I will suggest that she come in while I take the horses to your stable.” Ki took a double eagle from his jeans and handed it to Salazar. “This will cover tonight’s accommodations and our dinner, I’m sure.”

  Salazar bowed as he took the twenty-dollar gold piece. “Adequately, Señor Ki.”

  “We will settle accounts when we decide to leave.”

  Leaving Salazar bowing for the third time, Ki went out to tell Jessie of the arrangements he’d made. “It’s better than I thought we’d find here. Go on in, Jessie. I’ll bring up our gear after I take the horses to the stable.”

  When Ki came back into the lobby several minutes later, he was carrying a pair of saddlebags over each shoulder; in one hand he carried the saddle scabbard holding Jessie’s rifle; in the other he held his own bulging scabbard, which had two compartments, one for his rifle, the other for his best teak bo. Ki shook his head at the offer of help. He said, “Just tell me where my room is, and when your dining room will be open.”

  “I have to Miss Starbuck explained the hours of service,” Salazar replied. “And you will find the door of your room open; it adjoins that of your employer. The conveniences are at the end of the hallway.”

  Ki acknowledged the information with a nod, and went up the stairs. He found the open door, dropped his burdens on the mahogany four-poster that stood at one side of the room, and tapped on the door that he assumed connected with Jessie’s. She opened it at once.

  “This is much better than I’d expected, Ki.” She looked around the square, high-ceilinged room. “And the dining room should serve something besides chili and tamales, since I gather from his name that the proprietor is at least part French.”

  “We’ll have to see.” Ki glanced out the window; the sun was setting in a red glow, an arc of its rim visible behind the church towers. “But while it’s still daylight, I think it might be wise for me to go and look quickly at the town.”

  He was picking up Jessie’s saddlebags and rifle as he spoke; he carried them into her room, and she followed him.

  “Yes. That’s a good idea.” With a frown gathering on her face, she went on, “But be careful, Ki. If that sergeant was telling us the truth, San Pedro is very close to the rustlers’ headquarters. We don’t know anything about the gang, but if it’s a cartel operation, someone here might know about us. And in a town this small, strangers are always noticed.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ki said. “I remember the precept of Tsai Tau, who said, ‘When a lion enters a room, all eyes turn to loo,, but a fly crawling on the wall is noticed by none.’ This evening, Jessie, I shall be the fly on the wall.”

  Chapter 10

  Opening his saddlebags, Ki took out several small cloth-wrapped packages and laid them on the bed.

  “I thought you were going to be a fly, not a hornet,” she said, indicating the parcels.

  Absorbed in unwrapping one of the bundles, Ki did not look up as he replied, “When a fly suddenly becomes a hornet, the one who is about to swat the fly is not prepared for it to sting.”

  He took a stack of a dozen shuriken from the bundle he held, and rewrapped the cloth around those remaining. The thin, palm-sized octagonal blades with razor-sharp edges made a stack less than an inch thick.

  Picking up a thin leather sheath that lay in the heap of packages he’d laid on the bed, Ki slid the blades into it and strapped the sheath on his right forearm, near the elbow. The sheath was ingeniously made; a spring mechanism pressed against the flat blades and dropped one blade at a time into his hand when Ki snapped his arm down sharply.

  Taking off the creased and worn leather jacket he had on, Ki felt the thin cord of the lead-tipped surushin that he wore as a belt. Satisfied that it had no frayed spots, he wrapped another surushin over it; this one h
ad a thicker connecting line and heavier weights. The two surushin were almost hidden by the fold that Ki arranged in his shirt at the waist. Anyone giving his costume a casual glance would mistake them for a rope belt.

  Now Ki unfolded a second bundle wrapped in a lightly oiled cloth, and from it took a few shuriken smaller than those in the sheath. These were star-shaped and no bigger than silver dollars. Ki dropped them into the side pocket of his shirt.

  Patting his waist to give his shirt the proper drape, Ki took his bo from the carrying case that formed the odd bulge on the saddle scabbard that held his rifle. The bo was made from teak. Its wood had been soaked for a year in tung oil before the sides were planed to form the staff’s octagonal shape and to taper it from a diameter of more than an inch in the center to three quarters of an inch at each end.

  The artisan who’d fashioned the bo had sawed it into two sections of equal length and created an ingenious mechanism whereby one of the two ends could be affixed to the other and locked in place with a single twist.

  As a final step, the bo had undergone a second year of soaking in light oil kept constantly warm, and allowed to dry in the hot sun for a final year to drive out the excess oil. Then, buffed and polished until its surface glowed, the bo was declared finished except for a final test. The test was to shatter a sword blade with one blow.

  When Ki locked the two sections of the bo together, he held a staff five feet long. In the hands of an expert such as he’d made himself by long hours of rigorous training, the bo was a fearsome weapon indeed.

  Though she’d seen Ki preparing for the unexpected many times in the past, Jessie still watched his meticulous movements with fascinated interest. When Ki took off his headband and picked up his bo she said, “While you’re gone, I’ll see if the conveniences here include a bathtub. You will be back in time for dinner, I suppose?”

  “Of course.” Ki pushed aside the hat he’d worn while he and Jessie were traveling, and took a plain black headband from his saddlebags; he knotted the band to hold his straight glossy hair in place. He’d noticed that a short man with a hat on his head feels taller than a taller, bareheaded man standing beside him.