by John Benteen
He was just about to lie down when he heard the bugle.
It sounded startlingly close, not more than two miles away. He recognized the call at once: Boots and Saddles. Instantly he came up, frowning. The cavalry. A goddamned cavalry patrol. All right. Maybe he was clean; maybe there was nothing they could pin on him. Possession of twenty thousand dollars in gold was no crime. All the same, they were cracking down on gunrunners. If they found him down here with that much money, it’d be sticky.
Better to cut out ahead of them. He rolled up his gear quickly, deftly, lashed it on the back of the bay after he’d cinched the saddle. He had already scrambled into his gun and cartridge harness. Then he mounted.
The weary horse grunted in protest at being asked to move again without rest. It had given about all it had; subsisting on scant grama, drinking infrequently, stiff in the hindquarters from the scabbing bullet slash Lopez’s men had laid across its rump. Now it jibbed. Fargo had to fight to make it climb eastward up the sharply-sloping draw.
Nor did the weight of the twenty thousand in gold behind the saddle help, either. That was nearly forty pounds of money, a lot of extra burden for a tired horse. Fargo knew that, if it came to a chase, the bay had nothing left to give.
Yet, if the cavalry closed in on him, he could not fight them with guns. Something in him balked at that; he had, after all, learned his hard trade as a horse soldier. Besides, there was the inscription on the shotgun. It had been earned in service of his country. Of course, Roosevelt had paid him well. Nevertheless, he had taken on jobs for the former commander of the Rough Riders that he would not have done for anyone else at the same price. If there were one man in the whole world whom Fargo truly admired and loved, it was Theodore Roosevelt, once commander of the Rough Riders and former President of the United States. So far, Fargo had managed to keep that man’s respect. He would not sacrifice it now.
Maybe he would not have to, if he could only swing into the even rougher country of the Chisos foothills in time. Maybe—then the horse came out of the draw. As it labored up onto the flat, Fargo saw that he was too late. The horse soldiers had mounted and ridden earlier than he had counted on. They had scattered. Even now, three of them galloped toward him across the level ground. If the bay had been fresh, there would have been no difficulty in outrunning them. Even as Fargo spurred it, it stumbled. He knew what that meant. His hand went to his shotgun, pulled away. No. Turning in his saddle, he saw more soldiers coming from the other direction, riding at the extended trot, crisp khakis and olive-drab hats clear in the transparent desert air. A twelve-man patrol, but he could not outrun them and he would not shoot at them.
With resignation, knowing he was caught, Fargo reined in his mount. He waited for the three closest riders to come up.
Their leader was a staff sergeant, tall, Irish, with a square, mean, ugly face baked to the color of cedar wood, and shoulders like an ox. He signaled for his outriders to halt and spurred forward alone to meet Fargo, Springfield rifle tilted up, lined. Suspicion was written all over his craggy features.
“All right, mister.” His little, muddy blue eyes ranged over Fargo. “You look like a one-man army. Suppose you account for yourself.”
“Sure,” said Fargo easily. “My name’s Neal Fargo. I’m bound north for the El Paso Road.”
The sergeant’s mouth twisted. “That ain’t enough. What you been doing down here on the border?”
Fargo grinned coldly. “Picking cactus flowers.”
The sergeant sat up straight in his saddle, thrusting the gun forward. “Not accordin’ to Captain Fallon. My orders are to check out every rider we run across.” His eyes went to the bulging saddlebags behind Fargo’s cantle. “And you look damned suspicious. What’s in them things? Open ’em up.”
“No,” said Fargo flatly.
The other soldiers had come up around him now, all enlisted men. Evidently the sergeant was leading the patrol. In an army short of officers, that was not unusual. They ringed around Fargo.
The non-com’s scowl deepened. “Well now, we got a tough one here, ain’t we?” He shoved his horse closer to the bay. Leaning out, he made a grab for the saddlebags. “I’ll open ’em myself—”
That was when Fargo hit him.
It was a short right jab straight to the man’s jaw. It carried tremendous, practiced force. When it connected, the sergeant lurched halfway out of his saddle, saved himself only by a quick grab at the pommel. In the same instant, Fargo’s left hand shot across his body, twitched the shotgun sling. When the sergeant came erect on his mount, he found himself looking into the twin, enormous bores of the weapon.
“All right,” Fargo said thinly. “If anybody lays a hand on those saddlebags, I’ll blow the hell out of you, Sergeant.” He knew the old army game as well as they, could guess the extent of their orders and how far the big Irishman was overreaching them. “That’s private property, and you’ve got no right to touch it.”
“He’s right, Murphy,” a corporal said. “We can take him into Terlingua, but we can’t shake him down.”
“Shut your goddamn mouth!” Murphy rubbed his chin. His eyes focused on Fargo, twin jets of blue flame. “I’m in command here. Captain Fallon—”
The second time, Fargo caught the name. “Tom Fallon?”
“That’s him,” the corporal said.
Fargo grinned. “Tom Fallon and I served together in the Philippines. I saved his life once. All right, Sergeant, if he’s the big dog of your company, I’ll go in with you. But you keep your hands off my saddlebags, you hear?”
Murphy’s gaze locked with Fargo’s cold eyes. “You know Fallon?”
“Take me in, find out.” Fargo let the gun slide back into position behind his back. “But don’t touch me or my weapons. You do, somebody’ll get killed. And I won’t be responsible.”
Murphy stared at him a moment more. “Feller,” he growled, “I’ll take you in. But you hit Sean Murphy, and nobody gets away with that. I don’t care how good a friend of Captain Fallon’s you are, you and I got a score to settle.” He reined his mount around.
“All right, goddamn it,” he bawled, face the color of brick. “You lousy bastards ride. We’re going to Terlingua. And if this scissorbill makes a false move, you drop him in his tracks, you hear?”
“Hold your water, Murphy,” the corporal said quietly. He was small, intelligent, and his hatred for the sergeant freighted his controlled voice. “We’re with you. But we follow regulations all the way. This is a United States citizen, and you can’t work him over without permission. He’s not doing anything but riding through.”
Murphy turned on him. “Damn you, Lunsford . . .”
The corporal sighed wearily. “We been out in the desert for two days and seen nothin’ but roadrunners. Let’s take him into Terlingua and turn him over to the captain. At least it gives us an excuse for goin’ back.”
The men grumbled assent. Fargo realized that Murphy, even though he bore authority on his sleeve, was not liked. There was a tense moment as the big sergeant hesitated, face working as he looked at Fargo with hatred.
Then he pulled his horse around. “All right,” he rasped. “Terlingua it is.”
Chapter Four
It took them half a tense day to reach the town—if it could be dignified by that name. It was even humbler than Santa Rosa, nothing more than an adobe general store and a few miserable Mexican huts spaced on the trail to the El Paso Road. Now, though, pup tents were ranked around its outskirts. Near the store, Fargo saw the cone of a Sibley tent. It had to be the command post, the Captain’s headquarters.
Outside that tent, Murphy signaled the command to halt, then swung down. “All right, Fargo. Dismount.”
Fargo dropped out of the saddle. “Watch my horse and goods,” he said to the corporal.
“They’re in the custody of the United States Army,” the two-striper said. “The captain will have to give orders before anybody tampers with ’em.” He shot a glance at Murphy, ful
l of the hatred born of a barracks feud, and Murphy’s stare in return matched it. Then the sergeant growled: “Come on, Fargo.” He threw open the flap of the Sibley tent. Fargo entered and Murphy followed.
Inside, the sergeant’s hand snapped up in a salute. “Beggin’ the Captain’s pardon,” he rasped, “but we’ve picked up a civilian comin’ up from the border. Says his name is Neal Fargo, won’t account for himself, and he’s got some saddlebags he won’t let nobody touch. On top of that, he hit me while I was in the execution of my duty, then throwed down on me with that double-barreled shotgun. I coulda fought back, but I didn’t want no men to get hurt, so when he agreed to come in peaceable, I swallowed that . . .”
The man behind the table in the tent was at least five years older than Fargo. He had black hair heavily winged with gray, a tall frame maybe thirty pounds overweight, face lined and seamed, cheeks mottled with the heavy drinker’s network of blue veins. Slowly, black eyes shuttling from Fargo to the sergeant, he got to his feet, the silver bars on his sweat-stained khakis glinting. He grinned faintly. “Murphy, if he threw down on you with any kind of gun, you’re lucky to be alive. Hello, Neal.”
“Hello, Tom.” Fallon had changed since the last time they had seen each other—changed a hell of a lot. It was as if some sort of dry rot had gotten started in him, was eating him up from the inside out.
Fallon looked at Murphy. “Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir. But that shotgun—”
“I’m not afraid of the shotgun. I said get out!”
“Yes, sir.” Murphy obeyed. Fallon went to the flap of the tent, cinched it tightly. Then he turned. “Well, it’s been a long time, Neal.”
“Yep. Captain Fallon now, eh? You were a platoon sergeant like me last time I heard.”
Fallon nodded. “Battlefield promotion. Pershing gave it to me on Mindanao after the Moros killed off every officer in the troop. Made me a second lieutenant.” His voice was bitter. “Now I’m the world’s oldest living captain.” He sat down behind the table, and his voice changed, was businesslike. “All right, Fargo. What the hell you up to?”
“I don’t know that’s any of your business.”
Fallon’s eyes went hard. “It is if I make it mine. I command here, and my orders are to maintain law and order and protect all civilians—and watch out for gunrunners violating the embargo on arms to Villa. Now. Those saddlebags Murphy talked about. What’s in ’em?”
“Twenty thousand in gold,” Fargo said promptly, knowing that, in any event, he could not keep Fallon from looking.
But he was startled by the way Fallon sat up straight, the naked greed suddenly kindling in the captain’s eyes. Fallon tried to mask it and failed. ‘Where’d you get it?”
“Sold some cattle in Mexico,” Fargo lied baldly.
“The hell you did.” Fallon stared at him. Then he smiled coldly. “Guns. That’s what it was—guns.”
“Prove it,” Fargo said.
“I don’t need to,” Fallon said. He took out a cigarette, lit it. Then he went to a footlocker, opened it, produced two tin cups and a bottle, set all that on the table between them and sat down again. “Fargo,” he said, “you and I are gonna do some business.”
“Are we now?” Fargo accepted the drink Fallon poured. But he did not taste it. “What kind?”
“Profitable business.” Fallon drank, then gestured. “I told you, I command here. This whole end of the Big Bend—hell’s own country, no matter how you look at it. I’ve served in a lot of places, but this is the meanest, the hottest, the wildest, and the rottenest. All the same, I control it. Every foot of it. And if I catch a man running guns through here, I can make him wish he’d never been born. You understand? I can see that he winds up in Leavenworth—if the buzzards don’t eat him first.”
“Is that a fact?” Fargo murmured, and now he drank.
“It sure as hell is. On the other hand—” Fallon leaned back in the canvas chair, rubbed his chin, looked at Fargo. “On the other hand, a man in the business of running guns would have it a lot easier if he didn’t have the Army to dodge when he came through here. Wouldn’t have to worry about having his guns confiscated, wouldn’t have to worry about standing trial or serving time. A man who had the right connections and could come and go through my territory like he pleased—why, he could make a lot of money in the gun business.”
“I see.” Fargo reached for the bottle again. “And how much would he have to pay you for that kind of safe conduct?”
“Twenty per cent,” Fallon said promptly. “Twenty per cent of everything he made.” He poured more whiskey, too. “Lemme tell you something, Neal. Like I said, I’m the oldest captain in the Army and I always will be a captain. You know why? Because I ain’t got a chance against the Club—the West Point boys. They control the promotions and it don’t matter how good a soldier you are. If you didn’t go to the Point, you’re out of luck. You do the work, get shot at all over the world, rot away in a stinkin’ place like this, and they get all the glory and all the gravy.”
His voice was thickening now from liquor. “Well, I’m tired of it! I ain’t gonna starve to death when I retire! One way or another, I’m gonna get my share, too! I’m already gettin’ it and I’m gonna get more. Now, if you want to bring guns through here, you got to play my game. To the tune of twenty per cent. You get the picture?”
“I get it,” Fargo said. “But I’m not gonna play, Tom.”
Fallon looked at him for a moment, batting his eyes. “Oh,” he said at last. “That so?”
“Gospel. I don’t operate that way. Nobody shakes me down, Tom. Nobody.”
Fallon’s face twisted, turning red. “Neal, you forget you’re in my territory.”
“And you’re forgettin’ money don’t testify in court, Tom. Maybe I didn’t sell cattle; maybe that twenty thousand was a debt somebody paid me or maybe I won it gambling. But it ain’t against the law yet to ride through here with twenty thousand dollars. And God help the man that tries to take a slice of it.”
“You can’t fight the whole Army,” Fallon rasped.
“I don’t have to. I don’t know how many non-coms you got in on this deal, but you can’t afford to let your whole command know what you’re up to, or you’d be the one to wind up at hard labor in Leavenworth. I’m taking my twenty thousand out whole. And as for bringing in guns back down through here . . . well, if I decide to, I’ll take my chances on bein’ caught.”
“If you decide to ... ” Fallon’s lip curled. “Don’t hand me that, Fargo. You’re in the gun trade up to your ears, just like Finch—” He broke off.
Fargo stiffened. “Finch,” he said casually. “You talkin’ about Sam Finch?”
“Never mind who I’m talkin’ about,” Fallon said quickly. But now Fargo knew. Finch and the others had already made a deal with the Captain. Mentally, Fargo cursed. That was going to complicate matters. Fallon would be waiting for Finch to come back from Mexico with the gold, pay over his twenty per cent. When the site of the massacre was finally discovered, as it would inevitably be, Fallon would go crazy wondering what had happened to that money. He’d start turning the country upside down to find it. Suddenly Fargo realized that he could not linger in El Paso. He had to get back down here and get his hands on that fifty thousand before Fallon stumbled across it.
And then . . . the Apaches. Apparently, Fallon was unaware of their presence, had received no official word about that many bucks having jumped the Reservation. Otherwise, the camp would be like an overturned beehive instead of a calm site of routine business. But surely that many Indians had been missed; why had Fallon not been notified? It didn’t make sense. Fargo was eager to get to El Paso to learn what he needed before he laid his plans to return for the gold.
“Well,” he said, “Finch or no Finch, I’m going, Tom. And I’d advise you not to try to stop me.” He stood up. I’ll be leaving soon as I can feed my horse.”
Fallon also arose. He looked hard at Fargo. “All right,”
he said finally. “You get away with it this time. But, I’m warning you, Neal, you better not let me catch you with any guns down here unless you make the right arrangements with me first.”
Fargo grinned coldly. “If I bring any guns down here, you won’t catch me, Tom. Don’t worry about that.” Then he turned, went out. As he left the tent, he heard Fallon curse. He also heard the splash of more whiskey being poured.
In the Terlingua store Fargo ate ravenously of canned meat, canned tomatoes, and hardtack, washing it down with cold beer. As was his custom, he had already taken care of the bay. The horse’s welfare always came before his own, for his life often depended on it. When he had finished the meal he picked up the saddlebags. They had not been out of his sight since he had come out of Fallon’s tent. He stepped out of the store into the midday sun.
The encampment seemed to drowse in the heat of the day. Listening carefully, Fargo had caught no word of gossip about Indians among the miners, soldiers, and refugee civilians hanging around the store while he ate. Apparently, no one else knew they were there. It was weird, uncanny he thought as he went to the horse lines where the bay was tied with the cavalry mounts; it was, indeed, as if Sam Finch and his companions had been killed by ghosts.
He saddled the bay and was knotting its cinch when he became aware of a towering presence behind him. Even as he turned, Murphy, the big staff sergeant, was there with his hands on his hips and his legs widespread. Murphy’s lips curled in contempt. “So, big man with a shotgun. You cuttin out, huh? Ain’t got the guts to stick around until I’m off duty so I can pay you for that sock you gave me . . .”
“Sorry,” Fargo said. “I’ve got a long way to ride, and I can’t wait.”
Murphy’s little blue eyes flared. “All right then, damn it!” he snapped. “Far as I’m concerned, I’m off duty now!” His big hand flashed out, seized Fargo’s saddlebags. “And I’ll take a look in these!”