by John Benteen
Fargo’s motions were fluid, dazzling. He threw himself aside, landing hard on the dirt floor, even as his left hand crammed in two more rounds and the scattergun snapped shut. There was no time to aim and no need to—the beauty of the weapon. He poked it toward Redshirt and pulled the right trigger, and at that range, it was impossible to miss. Rolling like a cat, Fargo did not wait to see the round’s effect; he bounced to his feet as a rifle slug whined past him, plucking at his shirtsleeve, and turned to face the last man, who was working the bolt on a long-barreled Krag, its muzzle trained on Fargo’s belly. Fargo swung the shotgun and pulled the other trigger; he heard one pellet whine off the Krag’s barrel. Four more caught the rifleman in the chest and threw him back against the wall. He hung there a moment as if his shoulder blades were fastened to it, staring at Fargo with glazing eyes, even as Fargo thumbed more rounds from his bandolier and crammed them in the chambers. Two seconds, three, the gaucho stood there, red spreading all across his shirtfront, the muzzle of the Krag tipping downward slowly. Then his eyes went cold and sightless and the rifle dropped, and the man’s corpse slid down the wall and dropped into a sitting position on the floor, head tilted to one side drunkenly.
Fargo whirled, the reloaded shotgun up, made for the door. Braga might need help with the four outside. In the street, he halted, blinking. Theo sat his pinto calmly, the Mauser pistol-carbine trained on two gauchos with faces full of shock and hands held high. The booted foot of a dead man stuck out from behind the corner of the building.
“Theo!” Fargo rapped. “All right?”
“Perfect,” said Theo. “The lazy bastards were half asleep. I got two of them before they knew what had come upon them. These had less guts for fighting; I think their tongues will wag.” He grinned, white teeth flashing in a terrible smile. “What about it, little birds? Will you sing?”
Fargo’s eyes raked cautiously up and down the street. Curious, frightened faces peered out of windows, doors, as the inhabitants of the miserable little mud huts, aroused from siesta, tried to make sense of what was happening. But there was no other sign of danger.
Fargo grinned. “Watch ’em,” he said. Carefully, he went up behind the two men, frisked them thoroughly. They had thrown down their guns, but their knives were still in their belts. He tossed them out of reach, to fall beside the two dead men in the narrow pool of shadow next to the east wall—the shade that had cost them their lives. Then he stepped well aside, for the first time with a chance to think about Cimarron. He’d not had time to tie the stallion, and the animal was nowhere in sight. Half wild as it was, likely it had been frightened by the gunfire, was somewhere miles away, on the pampa, and he would never see it again. He felt regret, but that was part of the price to pay for killing eight men before they could kill him. There were plenty of horses here, and he’d have to make do with the best of those.
“In the pulperia,” he said, gesturing with the shotgun.
“Señor, for the sake of God—” one blurted in a trembling voice.
“Shut up, you old woman,” the other said tersely. He had hard black eyes, and a jagged knife-scar twisted his weathered face. Fargo nodded with satisfaction. Now he knew which one would talk. He made the motion with the shotgun barrel again, and the two men turned and entered the pulperia. Just inside the door, they stopped involuntarily, awed by the scene of slaughter, but Fargo prodded them on.
The storekeeper had fled out the back door. The place was deserted, save for Fargo, Braga and the two captives, unless one counted the sprawled corpses littering the floor. The room reeked of gun smoke, spilled rum, and the curious characteristic smell of death, blood and excrement. Fargo went to a coil of rope, cut lengths with the Batangas knife. The men made no resistance as he bound their hands.
Then he shoved them into chairs. “Theo,” he said, “keep watch. I’ll ask the questions.”
“Si.” Braga took up station in the door.
Fargo sat down across the table from the men, the shotgun covering them. “All right, you men,” he said. “You people were from the Estancia Hierro, right?”
Knife-scar sat impassively, lips clamped, but the other nodded. “Yes, Señor.” His fellow looked at him with hatred and contempt.
“Who sent you? The German, von Stahl?”
“I do not know, Señor. All I know is that Mario here came to our camp and got me for a job. Mario is our leader. He brought us to Estancia Hierro and talked to the people there and hired us out to fight, to guard the ranch and to kill anyone who tried to enter it. With whom he talked or what the situation at headquarters is, I don’t know.”
“I see.” Fargo looked at Knife-scar. “So you’re the one we have to make sing.”
Mario stared back. Then he turned his head and spat on the dirt floor.
Fargo’s mouth twisted. “I don’t have a lot of time, and there’s plenty I need to know.” He thumbed his watch from its pocket, laid it on the table. “You have one minute, hombre, to start talking—the easy way. Otherwise, we’ll have to get the information out of you the hard way.”
Mario did not move.
Fargo watched the second hand tick around the circle. The room was very silent. The hand completed perhaps three-quarters of its journey when, in the doorway, Braga swore softly. At the same instant, there was a loud, familiar trumpeting from the street. Fargo shoved back his chair, picked up the watch. “Theo. El Cimarron?” His heart beat faster.
“Yes, Neal! By God, he’s come back!”
“Watch these men.” Fargo waited until Braga had turned, gun pointed. Then he went to the door. Reins trailing, the huge stallion pranced up and down the street, wild-eyed, nostrils flaring, steel-colored flanks lathered. He saw Fargo, threw up his head, bared his teeth. Fargo halted. It was not love of him that had brought the frightened horse back; it was the band of animals belonging to the gauchos and tethered before the store. His eyes raked over them; most of them were geldings, but two were mares.
He lowered the shotgun, perfectly aware that, in Cimarron’s wild state, he might still have to use it to save himself.
Then he put out one hand and began to walk toward the horse.
“Cimarron,” he said quietly. “Hello, Cim. Hello, nino. Come here, horse; come here, fellow.” His voice droned on, soft and crooning, as he advanced step by step toward the stallion.
Cimarron pinned back his ears and walled his eyes and sidled away. His loud snort was a blast of warning. But his head was still high. When a stallion charged, he lowered his head, stretched his neck full-length, bared his teeth.
“Cimarron. Cimarron.” Fargo kept saying the name over and over. He had worked hard with this horse the whole length of the journey, trying to win its trust, its affection. Inasmuch as he loved anything other than money, he loved horses, but that was not the main reason for trying to bind to him every mount he rode with a mixture of discipline and kindness. In his business, the loyalty of a horse could be as vital as a bullet for a gun. It could make the difference between life and death.
But Cimarron was a special case. Whether he had made any progress in so short a time was a question to be answered now. Forty feet separated him from the stallion. In a moment or two, he would know. Fargo moved on slowly, inch by inch, one hand out in friendship, the other ready to use the shotgun if the stallion charged him.
The horse kept backing. Ears still laid flat, it lowered its head, stretched its neck. Then it halted, forefeet planted wide. Fargo was very close, now, so close that there might not even be time to use the shotgun.
But he kept on moving, kept up that soft talking. Fifteen feet, ten ... In a moment more, he could reach the reins. Now Cimarron was planted like a rock, motionless save for a strange trembling. He was like a coiled spring ready to explode in action.
Fargo was only five feet now from those bared teeth, that snorting muzzle. If he had allowed himself to, he might have felt some fear. But he let himself feel nothing; a horse could scent fear, and the smell of it would be all ne
eded to trigger Cimarron into attacking.
One yard, now, and Cimarron stepped back a pace. Fargo came on smoothly, murmuring as a father might to a frightened child. A couple of feet, one foot; his hand was close to the stallion’s muzzle. A lunge of those mighty jaws could snap it off ... Then his fingers wrapped around the trailing reins.
Cimarron reared high, pawing; Fargo stepped aside. The big horse came down hard. Then stood there, shivering. Fargo smiled at it, hands still tight on the reins. “Okay, boy,” he said in English. “That’s a good boy, easy … ” And the stallion shuddered once more, then relaxed, as Fargo came up beside it and stroked its head, scratched between its ears, patted its neck. Then Cimarron snorted softly and wiped sweat against Fargo’s arm, and once more he was Fargo’s horse.
He came with what was almost docility as Fargo led him toward the pulperia. “Braga,” Fargo called. “Bring those two men out here.”
A second more and they were in the doorway, Braga behind them with his gun. Fargo saw their eyes widen at the sight of the stallion; obviously they recognized him. Mario’s composure broke a little. “Hell and devils! El Cimarron!”
Fargo grinned coldly.
“You know him, eh, Mario?”
“I know him,” Mario said. “He killed my brother, the bastard.” His gaze raked over the stallion with a mixture of fear and hatred. “We were hunting horses south of Dos Caminos. This devil charged without warning out of a draw, knocked over my brother’s horse, bit and trampled him to death.”
“Sad,” said Fargo. “You know what it’s like, then, to die that way.”
Mario’s eyes shuttled toward him.
“I see a corral down the street,” Fargo said. “It’s not big, but it doesn’t have to be. We won’t need much room with just you and Cimarron inside it.” His lips were thin, his mocking grin cold as death. “You smell like fear, Mario. That’s all it takes to get a horse like this to charge, and once he’s after you, there’s no escape.”
Mario drew himself up. But his face was pale beneath its weather burn.
“The choice is yours,” Fargo said. “Talk—or into the corral with the stallion. He’s only been under saddle three or four days, so he hasn’t forgotten how to kill.”
“No man would do a thing like that to another,” Mario said, but for the first time, his voice faltered.
“You think not? All right, Braga. Let’s move him down to the corral.” There was no doubt that he meant exactly what he said.
Theo prodded Mario with the gun. “Move, hombre.”
Mario only stood there, staring at the horse. Cimarron caught the smell of fear, threw his head high, trumpeted a blast that jarred the silence, and one flinty hoof pawed dust.
Then Mario began to shiver. Suddenly he clasped his bound hands over his face. It was as if the sight of the stallion were more than he could bear. “No,” he muttered thickly. “No, I still remember how my brother died. What is it you want to know? I will tell you what you want to know.”
“That’s more like it,” Fargo said. “I’ll tie the stallion. Then we’ll go back inside.”
Chapter Five
Theo Braga stood guard while Fargo questioned Mario in the pulperia, which remained deserted except for them. Once the gaucho’s tongue had been loosened, the man talked freely, reading, perhaps, something in Fargo’s eyes that made him answer all queries put to him by this hard-faced gunman.
“The German himself I do not know much about,” the gaucho said. “My men—” He looked at the corpses strewn around the store “—and I make ... made ... our living by fighting, and between jobs we are changadores.” This was the Argentine equivalent of cattle rustler, Fargo knew. “We have done other work for von Stahl, at times when he took over other estancias. But, except that he is very rich and very dangerous, not a good man to cross, I cannot tell you much about him. All I know is that he wanted the estancia of Caesar Hierro and hired us to help get it for him, along with other men, other bands, like us. Together, we made a great army, gathered secretly on the pampa, struck the ranch so quickly and with such force that Hierro’s men had no chance to resist. We wiped them out. Now the German has complete control of it.”
“And what about Hierro himself, and the girl, Carla, from Mexico?”
“They are both still alive. It seems there are some papers which must be signed by Don Caesar before the German will have clear and legal title to the place and all its cattle. Hierro will not sign, even though he has been tortured, and von Stahl cannot kill him until he does. The girl, meanwhile—” Something flared in Mario’s eyes. “Ah, she is a great beauty. In that respect, von Stahl is a true gaucho. The best women are those taken by force, you know. He has taken her in such a way, amuses himself with her while he waits to bring Hierro to terms.”
“You had ten men. How many more are left at the estancia?” This was a vital question, and Fargo emphasized it with a twitch of the shotgun barrel.
“I don’t know the exact number. Plenty, and all damned good fighters. At least forty, maybe more. The layout of the place is this.” He traced an outline on the tabletop, which was damp with spilled rum. “Here, along this section, facing east, the boundaries are always guarded tightly. Of course, the entire ranch is too large to guard completely, but the approaches to it are very difficult elsewhere, and von Stahl keeps his men concentrated facing Rio Carmen.”
“How long would it take us to circle the guards?”
“Several days. You would have to make a wide loop, through very bad country.”
“Too long,” Fargo said, to himself, not Mario. “We’ll have to go through the guards, then.”
Mario shook his head. “Man, you could never do it. Always twenty men, maybe more, riding patrol; and these men are real gauchos. Nothing gets past them. Then, at the ranch headquarters—” He made a dot, probably twenty miles inside the boundary he had drawn “—as many more. And only the two of you?” Again, he looked at the bodies on the floor of the store. “You are great fighters, yes; but not that great. The minute the alarm is given, there will be forty gunmen hunting for you, at the very least, and these are men who can track any animal anywhere, day or night, and who know that country like the back of their hand. Even if you made it to the mansion, the great house of the estancia, you would have to overcome tremendous odds, von Stahl always keeps a reserve there.”
Fargo nodded, stuck a cigarette between his lips, smoked thoughtfully. Maybe Pamela had been right; maybe he would have to raise an army after all.
“Besides,” Mario went on, “the guards who ride the boundary do not have to cover the whole stretch of it. Nobody can get through the pasture of the bulls.”
Fargo sat up straight. “What?”
“The great pasture in which the fighting bulls of Hierro are kept.” Mario indicated a segment of the boundary. “It is fenced with barbed wire, very strong, and it contains a hundred of those damned black cattle; and believe me, they are better than any guards. A stranger, even on horseback, could not get through there; the bulls are scattered all over it, and they will charge anything that moves. Especially the old one of the ganado, the one they call the Black Devil. He is truly a devil; I have seen him lift horse and rider both on those great horns of his and throw them as if they weighed nothing.”
Fargo took the cigarette from his mouth. “How long is the pasture?”
“Five miles. And two wide. No one goes in there except men experienced at handling those beasts. Some came from Mexico with the herd, perhaps a half dozen. They were the only ones on the ranch von Stahl spared, because he needed them.”
“And this pasture’s not patrolled.”
Mario spat on the dirt floor.
“I tell you, man, a stranger would not last five minutes in there unless he killed the animals as they came at him. Which, of course, would give the alarm.”
Fargo looked guardedly at Mario, then at Manuelo, who sat wordless, bound to a chair. He nodded. “We’ll see,” he said, and then arose. “
How far from here to the pasture of the bulls?”
“Not more than ten miles.”
“Braga,” Fargo said.
“Si, Neal.” Theo turned from the door.
“Por favor, get our horses. Two for these, also. We ride at once.”
“I say—” Mario began.
Fargo grinned, and something in that grin made the gaucho’s face go pale.
“I know what you say. And I say, we ride.” He jerked the shotgun barrel. “Up.”
Fifteen minutes later, with the two captives bound to their saddles, they traveled hard and fast out of Rio Carmen.
~*~
It was very quiet around the waterhole. Fargo had scooped up a few canned goods from the store, dropping pesos on the counter as he went out; and, in total darkness, they made a scanty supper off of these.
Braga had found this place, only a seepage of moisture between two folds of ground; it had made a fine hiding spot in which to wait for nightfall. That had come now and Fargo thought, running the ropes of the bolas he had appropriated from Mario’s saddle through his fingers, it was almost time to move on.
He looked across the hollow at the two captives, feet tightly bound, hands more loosely so. Almost, he could feel pity for them. Almost, but not quite. Despite what lay ahead, the manner in which they must die, ghastly as it was, the fact remained that, if it had suited their purpose, they would have used him in the same way, without mercy. Ten against two; there had been no mercy in that sort of odds, either; and if he and Braga had been lesser men, Mario and Manuelo would be laughing and spitting on their corpses now. It was, nevertheless, a rough thing to have to do, and he would rather not be faced with the necessity of it. But, in this business, you did what you had to, whatever it took to stay alive and accomplish the job you’d hired out for.
He checked his railroad watch. Nine o’clock; time to begin. Their hiding place was five miles from the ranch’s boundary; and there would be another twenty to go if they made it across. Every second was precious if his plan was to work. They had to reach the headquarters of the estancia well before dawn.