“You’re not getting the message, farmer,” Deeter said, contemptuously eyeing Cullen Baker in his shapeless straw hat, blue denim overalls, and bare feet.
Bill Longley thought then that it was easy enough for somebody to mistake Cullen for a farmer, especially when he had his work clothes on as he did now. Cullen wasn’t wearing a gun that day, either, although there was a half-dozen or so of them, his and Bill’s, ready to hand on the barge and around the landing.
“We’re busy men and we don’t have time to explain the facts of life to yokels like you,” Deeter went on. He stood face to face with Cullen, less than an arm’s length distance between the two of them. He came up to about the same head height and outweighed him by twenty-five pounds or more, though a lot of that was fat not muscle.
“We don’t waste time on hardheads. You get one chance to start making your installment payments. This is your one chance, here, today, now.”
“And if I don’t pay?” Cullen Baker asked, smiling tightly.
“Then we take action and no fooling around. I take action,” Deeter said. “If you don’t catch my drift by now—and some of you farmer boys and manure spreaders are dumber than fence posts—here’s something that’ll get the message across.”
Deeter made a big show of sweeping back his jacket flap on one side, baring the Colt .45 holstered on his hip and resting the palm of his gun hand on the gun butt. The gun was a fancy showpiece with inlaid white horn handle plates and the metalwork gleaming with a shiny silvery finish.
“See this?” He smiled toothily.
Cullen Baker was smiling, too. He made a fist, bringing it up to shoulder height. It was as big as a milk bottle, a mass of bone, sinews, and tendons, dominated by a row of knuckles that looked like kids’ round playing marbles sewn up inside the flesh.
“See this?” Cullen Baker asked.
If you’d been watching closely that day like Bill Longley had, and knew what to look for as Bill Longley did, you would have seen Baker getting set and ready. His big feet were shoulder length apart, right foot leading by about a half a step. His left hand hung down by his side, all loose and relaxed.
Deeter saw Baker was in motion and went for his gun. Cullen Baker lashed out with a wicked right-hand jab.
When he delivered the blow he rose up on the balls of his feet. There was a slight but telling twist of the hips that put the entire force of the body and his considerable weight into it.
There was an audible crack!—the sound of Deeter’s jaw snapping under the blow. More than a broken jaw, it was fractured, broken in several parts.
Deeter flew backward and fell down, marshy ground cushioning the impact, absorbing the shock. Mercifully he had been knocked out cold, for the pain would have been excruciating—
Thissel turned his head to watch his partner go down for the long count. When he looked back, Bill Longley was standing there with a gun in his hand, held leveled on Thissel, gun cocked and ready for action.
Bill had tucked the gun into his pants at the small of his back, covering it with his shirt before coming to see what the two strangers were all about.
Thissel raised his hands into the air slowly.
“How about you, buddy? You got something you want to show me, too?” Cullen Baker said.
“No, sir, that is, nothing but the sight of me getting away from here as fast as I can,” Thissel said quietly.
“You got guts, friend”—Baker laughed—“and smarts, too.”
Bill went to Thissel and patted him down with a quick search that yielded nothing of interest but a small-caliber pocket pistol, a notepad, and a thin billfold.
“They make me carry a gun for the job, but I’ve never used it,” Thissel said.
“I believe it; this is a piece of junk,” Bill said, tossing the pistol into the river.
“Let him keep his money. Tax collector with that little cash must be honest,” Cullen Baker said.
Bill returned the billfold and notepad to Thissel, then went to Deeter to search him. “I think you busted this fellow’s jaw, Cullen.”
“I believe I did!” Cullen Baker said happily.
Bill fished out a fat wad of cash, thumbing through it. “I knew this one couldn’t be honest. Must be a couple of hundred dollars here!”
“You can go,” Baker told Thissel, “and take your trash with you.” He indicated Deeter. “We don’t want him around here littering up the place.”
“Yes, sir!” Thissel hesitated, anxious.
“Something bothering you?” Cullen Baker asked.
“Sorry, sir, I can’t move him by myself. Sorry.”
“We’ll give you a hand.”
Baker and Bill slung Deeter facedown across the saddle of his horse while Thissel held the animal’s reins to steady it. Baker tied the unconscious man to the saddle so he wouldn’t fall off during the ride.
Thissel mounted up. “I must say, you gentlemen have been quite decent about this whole unfortunate affair. You have my apologies. I’m a hireling and I must go where the county sends me.
“Since the recent change in county governance with the Paulus administration going out, the situation has become most deplorable. My ‘partner’ as you call him, Lester Deeter, was forced on me by the new board of directors—all of whom who were personally installed by Commander Barbaroux himself. This oaf Deeter knows nothing about economics, tax tables, or even basic fundamentals of civics.”
“That makes two of us,” Bill Longley cracked.
“Yes, sir, but you are not a tax collector,” Thissel pointed out.
“Lord forbid!” Bill said, shocked. “Sorry, I said that without thinking. No offense.”
“None taken. Those in my profession are used to it,” Thissel said sadly.
“If they was all polite and well spoken like you, there wouldn’t be no problem,” Cullen Baker said.
“Thank you, sir. Very kind of you to say so.”
“We still wouldn’t pay, but there’d be no cause for anybody to get a busted head,” Baker said.
Thissel tsk-tsked. “I fear we’ll hit a new low with the people the Commander is bringing in. Why, for example, this man Deeter is more than incompetent, he’s an out and out crook!”
“He’ll be out of commission for a good long time with that broken jaw,” Baker said with grim satisfaction.
“There’ll be more like Deeter to replace him, many more, and some possibly a great deal worse,” Thissel said. He leaned forward and down in the saddle, toward Cullen Baker and Bill.
“A word of warning, gentlemen. I’m afraid you’ve made yourself a very bad enemy today.”
“Who, Deeter?” Cullen Baker scoffed.
“No, not Deeter, he’s nothing. I mean the Commander, Barbaroux himself. He’s a dangerous man, more pirate than county administrator. Some of the things I’ve seen in the last few months would be almost unbelievable if the war hadn’t hardened us to all sorts of horror.
“I tell you, gentlemen, this Barbaroux will stop at nothing. He was able to take over the county so easily because so many of the old administration died off suddenly, very suddenly, all at once.”
“Yes, word of that even reached us up here on the Torrent,” Cullen Baker said, nodding. “Food poisoning, they said, but nobody buys that. I never heard of so many people dying so fast, not rich folks with clean kitchens and the best food and drink—and doctoring—money can buy.”
“You’re right to be suspicious, sir,” Thissel said. “The victims were all top men in the Paulus administration, attending a political banquet at Patriot’s Hall in Old Clinchfield. Barbaroux was expected to attend but canceled at the last minute. Most fortunate that he did so, because twenty people died outright of food poisoning, not least of whom was County Administrator Paulus himself. Dozens more were seriously ill and weeks in recovering.
“Most of those killed outright at the banquet were high-level office-holders, backers, and donors belonging to the Paulus administration, including Paulus. County gove
rnment was unable to function with so many vacancies in the top offices. Barbaroux simply stormed in and had his people installed in the posts. The rumor is that Barbaroux bribed the chief of staff in the governor’s office to make the appointments—the state governor’s office, the governor of Texas—to secure the takeover.”
“I believe you, but nobody will ever prove it. Not when the county judges here all answer to Barbaroux,” Cullen Baker said.
“True, which is a pity,” Thissel went on, “because the most damning piece of evidence in the case has never been investigated or even put on the record. The fact is that a woman who was hired on at the Hall to help with the cooking the night of the banquet, a vicious old crone named Malvina, helped prepare the fatal seafood gumbo which caused the illnesses. Malvina was hired on the express recommendation of Commander Barbaroux. Since then she has been his honored guest at the so-called Great White Boat, living in luxury in that floating palace, the Sabine Queen, the steamboat moored at Clinchfield docks where Barbaroux resides with his fancy women and his entourage of flatterers, toadies, and thugs.
“Malvina the Gypsy now styles herself as the Conjure Woman. Where she entertains the guests and turns a tidy profit by giving private fortune-telling sessions on the boat: ‘Have your future read by the Conjure Woman, Sees All, Knows All’—that sort of thing.”
“That’s a hell of a story, friend, but I wouldn’t worry too much about me and young Bill here. We don’t get invited to too many banquets,” Cullen Baker said.
“We sure don’t!” Bill Longley agreed, laughing.
Thissel’s face was set in hard lines, eyes narrowed. “Poisoning is reserved for those Barbaroux considers too important to be removed by the ordinary means of assassination. Others get the gun, knife, strangler’s cord, or the common everyday blunt instrument.
“Beware the Combine police patrols, they’re worse than any gang of brigands or river pirates. That’s who Barbaroux uses for his dirty work, the rough stuff. When he comes at you he’ll use them. When the Combine police come for you, shoot first if you want to live!”
“That’s good advice, we’ll keep it in mind,” Cullen Baker said.
Thissel said his good-byes and rode off, leading Deeter in tow across his horse. Cullen Baker and Bill Longley watched them go.
“Nice fellow,” Baker said.
“Wonder why he spilled so much to us?” Bill asked.
“He’s probably been aching to unload on someone he could trust. We went against Deeter and the Combine, so we fit the bill. He put out a lot of good information, but I think he worries too much.”
“I’m not so sure,” Bill said. “You haven’t been going into Halftown or Clinchfield much since you’ve been married.”
“With good reason—I’m still a newlywed!” Baker cracked.
“But I have and I’ll tell you this: I’ve been hearing a lot of talk, too, along the lines Thissel was giving us. Now that Barbaroux has Clinchfield in his pocket, he’s looking to expand along the river. And now comes Deeter looking to enroll us on the tax rosters and shake us down. They’re closing in on us already.”
“They don’t know who they’re messing with, Bill.”
“No, but they’re liable to find out when they start looking into Deeter getting whomped, and they will come looking!”
“You worry too much, Bill. When they come in force, then I’ll start worrying with you and not before,” Baker said. “Hey, you think Julie will like that fancy-Dan pistol of Deeter’s I kept?”
“Julie likes anything you give her, Cullen. She’s crazy about you,” Bill said.
“I know. I don’t deserve it,” Cullen Baker said blandly. “Ain’t I a dog?”
* * *
Bill Longley returned to the present that had been the beginning of Cullen Baker’s private war with Rufus Barbaroux. The most recent installment had come just yesterday, when the Vard gang, acting at the behest of Barbaroux, had attacked him at Dead Lake basin.
Bill had managed to get the stub lit. The cigar smoke tasted raw and harsh in his throat at first, but now he was getting to it and it was starting to ease his jangled nerves.
Sam Heller sat nearby, staring out into the distance, thoughtfully puffing on his pipe.
Now was a good time to bring up a subject that had been bothering Bill since he first awoke. The fact was that the long hours of fever-racked delirium last night were a blur in his head.
“I went off my head last night, the fever and all,” Bill began tentatively, lightly probing. “Reckon I said a lot of crazy talk that made no sense . . .”
“Who could tell? It all sounded like gibberish to me. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it,” Sam said like he meant it.
But did he? Bill couldn’t be sure because he didn’t remember what he’d said and done the night before.
The hell with it, he decided. He’d just carry on the way he had and assume he hadn’t cracked to a thing, that he’d kept his secrets.
“Whatever I said, you just pay no never mind to it. It didn’t mean a thing, not a damned thing,” Bill Longley said.
FIFTEEN
The mist began to thin out and break up. Great rifts and gaps opened up, like canyons and ravines of emptiness in a low-hanging cloud, so that within a quarter-hour the basin was clear of all but a few scraps and shreds of mist.
It was very early in the morning. The moon had long set in the west and the stars above were paling, fast giving way to a thin wash of brightness steadily creeping in from the east. Blue-black shadows pooled in the basin, looking like real water. The air was still cold, causing Bill to huddle deeper into the blankets covering him where he sat by the fading fire.
Sam Heller watered Dusty with several hatfuls of canteen water. He saddled the horse and mounted up.
“Hey, where you going?” Bill called to him.
“See that hill rising over the south rim wall?” Sam asked, indicating a wooded hilltop that thrust up above the ridgeline in its southeast quadrant.
“I see it,” Bill said, his tone challenging. “What of it?”
“I’m going to cut some wood there for a traveling rig.”
“Traveling rig?”
“To transport damaged goods.”
“If you say so. What about me?”
“You stay here.”
This easy assumption of dominance and command irked Bill. It more than irked him; it burned raw along his nerves. “Not afraid I’ll run out on you?”
“Run? You can’t even stand up,” Sam answered.
Which burned Bill all the more but he kept a poker face. Damned if he’d let this arrogant, high-handed Billy Yank know he was getting to him.
“You’re not going to leave me here without a gun?” Bill asked in a voice of disbelief.
“I am,” Sam said.
“What if some Weatherford friends of Vard track us here and come on me? Or some hostile Indians happen along?”
“I’ll be up on the hilltop, I’ll see them coming from a long way off.”
“You’re staking me out here like live bait!”
“Not a bad idea,” Sam said, chuckling.
“What if a rattlesnake comes along and me unable to get away?” Bill said.
“Bite him,” said Sam. “My money’s on you against the snake.”
Sam rode to where the Vard gang’s horses were picketed. He cut Big Taw’s dappled gray quarter horse out of the bunch, fixed a lead rope to it, and went south to the rim wall with the quarter horse in tow.
They climbed the inner slope, crested the top, and disappeared on the far side.
“You’ll be laughing out of the other side of your mouth before I’m done, Bluebelly,” Bill muttered, watching Sam go.
He didn’t have to make plans. His course of action was ready made, the only move he could make. He needed a gun. He felt naked without one. That feeling of helplessness was repellent to his deepest nature. Bill Longley had spent most of his life since age twelve if not before arming himself for t
rouble.
He had no idea of what Sam Heller was all about. The man was a mystery to him. Bill couldn’t get a handle on what Heller’s ultimate goal was. True, he had saved Bill’s life more than once, but not out of the milk of human kindness. He kept Bill alive because he wanted to know why Loman Vard was dogging him. Heller had been hard on Vard’s trail, that was clear, but the reason why was cloudy.
The Yankee was playing a deep game, but to what end?
Had Vard squirreled away a prize of gold, riches in stolen loot, that Heller was determined to find? But then if Vard had that kind of money hidden away, why would he bother hunting down the likes of Bill Longley? Greed, to squeeze out another payday? It was possible, some badmen were greedy beyond the bounds of all common sense, but Bill didn’t read Vard that way based on their brief acquaintance.
Vard had wanted to know why Barbaroux wanted Bill dead. Maybe it all tracked back to Barbaroux in some way . . . ?
Sam Heller was in the dark where Barbaroux was concerned, or so it seemed to Bill Longley. That’s where Bill meant to keep him. Barbaroux was a hole card for Bill to draw upon if and when needed. Until then he’d hold the secret tightly to himself.
Bill’s status with Heller was unclear, at least to himself. Was he the Yankee’s prisoner? Heller wore no badge, was no lawman, and had no more legitimate authority over Bill than the guns he had and Bill lacked. In the real world, though, that counted for plenty. Heller was calling the shots; he could move Bill around on the board pretty much as he pleased.
There were too many unknowns in this game, and trying to sort them out was giving Bill a headache. What he needed to do was act, not think. But he couldn’t make a move yet, he still had to play a waiting game, vexatious though it might be.
After what seemed a too long while, Bill saw a pair of blurred dots emerge into view from below the south rim wall, climbing the north slope of the hill Sam had pointed out earlier. The moving dots that were Sam and the trailing quarter horse angled upward to the wood’s edge, entering it and vanishing from sight.
Time for Bill to make his move now that he was free from Sam Heller’s watchful eyes. He needed a gun. The Vard gang had guns, lots of them. From what he’d seen the day before, a number of them carried more than one gun. Surely there was a loaded gun to be had among the bunch, and Bill meant to have it.
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