by John Benteen
They rode on. Gradually they drew near the barrier Fargo, glassing it regularly, saw the excitement on its crest, the gleam of gun barrels. Its jagged top swarmed with men. It was going to be a tough assault.
Fargo rode on. The drum of hooves filled the afternoon, broke its drowsy silence; Now, too, he could hear the distant thunder of the stamp mill. He was alive, alert, full of juice. Only two miles to the barrier, now ... Still he held them to a trot. But it was a gait that ate up ground. Now the barrier was only a mile away.
Fargo reined in. To Sebastian, he said: “You fire the first shot.”
The Indian made a happy sound; leveled his precious Winchester. The range was much too great; but this was a signal. Sebastian pulled the trigger. The shot crashed, rolled, echoed and re-echoed from rim to rim.
At its sound, the men on the rims began to fire, pouring a fusillade down on the defenders of the barricade. Fargo grinned, stood up in his stirrups, raised his arm. The battle had begun! “Charge!” he roared and struck hard with his spurs.
His mount leaped forward, and hooves thundered behind him. He bent low in the saddle, the barrier moving nearer with magical speed. A half mile, a quarter—Fargo braced himself. And then it came, a withering blast of fire from the canyon bottleneck, filling the air with the ugly ripping sound of lead. Behind Fargo, men screamed, horses neighed, but they kept on into that deadly hail, firing in return. Now the barrier was only a couple of hundred yards. Fargo lined the shotgun, ready…
Then the world blew up in his face.
It went in an explosion that shook the earth, blotted out the sky, cut off the sunlight. Concussion, like the blow of a mighty fist, picked up his horse, threw it down. Fargo hit hard, rolled clear, in a dark world of cascading rock and whining shrapnel. His eyes were full of sand, his ears rang. Even as he scrambled groggily to his knees, he cursed himself bitterly for a stupid fool. Of course! Hernandez and Meredith had mined the outer approach to the barrier, too!
He struggled to his feet. Behind him, the field was a shambles. Men, horses, gutted or blown apart by the massive explosion lay in bloody heaps. There was screaming, moaning—and still the lead ripped around them in a terrible, deadly blast. But in the roiling dust and settling smoke, Fargo saw something that made his heart leap. The explosion had not got them all. And the handful that was left was still coming, on foot or horseback, charging like demons straight into that blast of rifle fire. Fargo yelled and turned, too, and charged the barrier, shotgun blazing. Automatically, without thought, he broke it, reloaded, fired and fired again as he ran, raking the barrier crest ahead with buckshot.
He reached the foot of that great pile of rock, began to climb. His boots slipped on rubble. Above, he saw a man rear up, leveling a rifle. He pulled the right trigger of the Fox. The man screamed, seemed to dissolve. Fargo swung the gun, found another target. Villa’s men were with him, now, all around him, on foot, those who still had horses leading them up the wall. They shouted and cursed as they fired and fired again and raked the wall with lead. Some of them went down, but the rest never faltered.
Sweating, panting, Fargo scrambled on up. There was no time for loading the shotgun now; it was the Colt in his left hand that spoke for him. As he reached the barrier crest, a lean, savage cougar of a man reared up before him, rifle aimed point-blank. Fargo pulled the trigger; the explosive slug knocked the man backward; his gun, fired by reflex, went off straight up. Another Hernandez soldier dived for cover behind a rock; Fargo shot him through the legs just before he made it.
Then Fargo was on the barrier crest. The fighting all around him was hand-to-hand. Men used rifle butts, knives, fists, revolvers. Fargo scrambled atop a rock. Making a perfect target of himself, he stretched upward, whipped off the cavalry hat, waved it frantically.
Lead whined around him. He fired down the reverse slope of the barrier, sent a man sprawling down the rocky wall. Then he heard, above the gunfire, the thunder; Fierro’s men were coming now.
A riderless horse, panic-stricken, scrabbled by Fargo. Fargo seized its reins, swung aboard. A bullet raked the back of his neck as he lashed the animal. It went sliding, stumbling, leaping down the impossible footing of the rubble pile. But somehow it kept its balance; then it soared out in a great jump and landed hard, stumbling, regaining.
Fargo had only one thought in his mind. The detonator! For surely the inside of the barrier was still mined, too; and then the rest of the men came down off the wall. The rifle pit that Meredith had used was across the canyon neck, under a protective overhang. Fargo saw two sombreros protruding from it; the detonator would be there.
He bent low, lashing the horse toward the pit The men in the pit saw him coming. Fargo just had time to thumb two more rounds into the Fox as they fired at him. Then his horse reared above the pit; one-handed, he shot straight down into it, both barrels.
The horse was killed with a bullet in its belly from beneath; fired from the gun of a dying man. It fell heavily, but Fargo was off it before it hit. He plunged into the pit. A face contorted with agony was so close to his that he could smell its breath. He caught a flash of a closed hand on the plunger of the detonator; the buckshot riddled man was about to have his vengeance—
Fargo’s own hand slipped about the plunger, blocked its downward movement. Then the hand of the Mexican fell away, strengthless. Shuddering with reaction at the closeness of it, Fargo ripped loose the trailing wires from the box’s poles. He picked up the detonator and threw it far out into the canyon.
Reinforcements were riding down the center of the canyon from the mine. Fargo scrambled out of the pit, covered with the blood of the men he had killed. He saw another horse, reins trailing, eyes walled and wild, skittering toward him. He made a leap for the reins; the animal shied and he missed. The second time, he caught a stirrup, was half-dragged along the ground until he could get a grip on the mane. Somehow he struggled up behind the cantle, then into the saddle itself, avoiding the kick of the terrified animal’s powerful hind leg as he did so.
The men on the rim were firing now at the riders from the mine. As lead laced into them, the reinforcements pulled up, milled. Then, behind him, Fargo heard a triumphant, bloodcurdling screaming that was like a chorused blare from the throats of all the devils in hell. He looked back; Fierro’s men had gained the barrier crest, were pouring down the other side. The band, of Hernandez’s riders saw them, too, reined around; and as they did so, Fargo’s heart gave a kick. He recognized Hernandez’s charro-clad figure, and the man on the roan beside him was Ted Meredith!
Fargo spurred the horse. But Hernandez, Meredith, and their men were already racing back toward the mine. Fierro’s men swept around Fargo in a great, pursuing tide. Fargo joined them, as they thundered up the canyon toward the mine complex. But he had eyes for only one man in Hernandez’s fleeing bunch—and that man was Meredith.
The big man rode hard, bent low in the saddle, lashing his mount. He neither looked back nor tried to fire. The range was too great for shotgun or pistol; Fargo groped for the saddle scabbard; but there was no rifle in it
Now Hernandez’s men had almost reached the mine. They scattered there, seeking cover. Fargo caught a glimpse of white on the porch of the main house: Crystal Delaney stood there, staring, hand at her throat. Then she whirled, ran inside. Fargo paid her no attention. He wanted Meredith.
Meredith never slowed. As Hernandez’s men dismounted, began to fire at the attackers, his horse pounded on past the corrals, up the trail toward the stamp mill, the smelter, the mineshaft entrance. Fargo reined after him, merciless with spurs. Lead whined around him; one of Hernandez’s soldiers appeared, head and shoulders, behind a watering trough just in front of Fargo. Fargo dug in hard again with spurs; his horse lifted itself in a leap. Its forefeet caught the man in the head before he could shoot as the animal soared over the trough, came down without a break in pace,
The trail to the mine was steep. Meredith flogged his horse, looked back over his shoulder. He saw Fargo t
hen, and even at that distance, two hundred yards or more, Fargo read the dismay and fear on Meredith’s face. The big man levered a round into the carbine from his saddle scabbard, fired at Fargo wildly. The bullet came nowhere near. Meredith fired again, with no more luck, as his roan plunged on,
The roan scrabbled past the stamp mill, the smelter. Now the canyon wall, the dark, timbered face of the mine shaft, loomed up before Meredith. The roan’s feet slipped on the mule-cart track that tongued out of the vast hole in the wall toward the smelter. Then Meredith rode the horse straight into the mine.
Fargo jumped off the horse just in time. From impregnable cover, now, Meredith shot at him with the Winchester. The bullet whacked into the horn of the saddle as Fargo’s feet hit the ground. Fargo drew the Colt; bent low, keeping to cover, he scuttled up the dusty, rocky, slope toward the shaft entrance, zigzagging as he went.
Meredith fired and fired again. A bullet raked Fargo’s cheek, another puffed dust within two inches of his heel. Fargo threw himself down, fired three rounds from the Colt into the entrance of the mine. Then he sprang up, ran on. For the moment, the shooting had stopped.
Fargo reached the rock wall, the side of the shaft. He threw himself flat against the rock, just beside the entrance. This was going to be bad. He would not be able to see Meredith in the darkness within, but the moment he stepped into the entrance, he would be a prime target, silhouetted against the bright outside light. One-handed, Fargo broke the shotgun, ejected the empties. His fingers went to the bandolier, sought new shells.
There were none. He had burned a lot of ten gauges over the past chaotic weeks. He cursed, tugged the bandolier around. Then his fingers found a single fat load, the last of his fifty. Fargo thumbed it out shoved it into the Fox’s right barrel.
Just as the shotgun clicked shut, Meredith’s voice came from within the mine. Echoes, acoustics, gave it a hollow sound, as if it came from a tomb. “Fargo!”
Fargo’s dusty lips peeled back from his teeth in an evil grin. “I’m here, Meredith!”
“Don’t try to come in here after me. Minute you step in that hole, I’ll kill you. I can see you, you can’t see me.”
“That won’t save you,” Fargo said. Now he reloaded the Colt.
“I’m warning you, Fargo—”
“No. I’m warning you. You got one minute to come out with your hands up.”
There was silence. Then Meredith said: “You go to hell.”
Fargo laughed. “One of us will, no es verdad?” And suddenly he put his hand around the wall and fired all six rounds from the Colt into the mine entrance, spraying lead blindly. And as he did, he slipped around the corner, hard against the timbered walls of the shaft, the shotgun up, ready to be loosed at the first flash of rifle fire.
But when the bullets came, there was no flash. They came hard and viciously, a burst of them, as fast as Meredith could lever the rifle. They were not aimed, but spanged against the side of mine away from Fargo, then ricocheted and ricocheted again, lacing the shaft with a deadly network of lead.
Fargo crouched back against the rock as they laced about him. One tanked into a timber by his head; but his luck held. He knew what had happened. Up ahead, the shaft turned, and Meredith had dodged behind the shelter of the bend. From there he could fire in safety, bouncing his slugs off the shaft in billiard fashion. Each would bounce a couple of times in that narrow tunnel, its deadliness multiplied.
Fargo edged silently along the shaft wall, loading the Colt as he went. Two could play at that game. Meredith fired three more shots; they whined and spanged and screamed back and forth down the corridor; then, his eyes adjusted to the light now, Fargo could see the turn in the mine, and he fired four shots from the Colt back, designed to ricochet up the shaft toward Meredith.
But it didn’t work. The hollow-point slugs fragmented when they hit the rock face, blew apart A few fragments whined into space, but they were too small to kill a man. Fargo cursed softly. Meredith fired three more times, as Fargo went forward, cat-footed, in the darkness toward the bend. But Meredith was firing too far down the mine, now; the slugs crisscrossed near the entrance, well beyond Fargo.
And now Fargo had almost reached the turn.
With the shotgun raised, he crouched back against the wall.
“Meredith!” he yelled. “I’m still here!”
“God damn you!” Meredith screamed and fired again.
The voice, the angle of fire, told Fargo what he wanted to know. He thrust the shotgun around the bend, pulled the trigger. Its roar was like a charge of dynamite in that hole. Fargo heard nine buckshot strike the wall, shriek off, flattened, mushroomed, in a deadly, bouncing spray of lead.
Meredith screamed.
Fargo stepped around the corner, Colt up and ready.
In the center of the ore-cart track, Meredith was on his knees, his rifle in his hand. But even as Fargo lined the Colt, Meredith fell forward, the Winchester clattering on the rails.
Bent low, Fargo scuttled toward him through the darkness. He could hear Meredith’s breathing, a bubbly rasp. Fargo crouched over the body, seized Meredith’s shoulder, pulled the big man over.
Only one buckshot had found its mark—but one had been enough. The flattened slug had torn a hole in Meredith’s chest.
In the darkness, Fargo could barely see Meredith’s eyes as they came open. Meredith’s voice was a hoarse, ghastly whisper.
“Always knew,” he husked, “that …I’d die in Mexico.”
Then his knees drew up suddenly, convulsively; his feet kicked out—and he was dead.
Fargo stood there a moment with the rifle in his hand. Then he left the darkness of the mine and went out into the light.
Chapter Eleven
Meredith’s roan stood outside the mine shaft, reins trailing. Fargo gathered them up, swung aboard, turned the animal down the hill. He headed straight for the main house, the Winchester ready—but there was nothing on which to use it. The few survivors of Hernandez’s command were already gathering in the yard, around the corral, with their hands raised high.
Fargo spurred the roan, it galloped.
Men made way for him as he rode across the yard, pulled up before the house. He threw the reins aside, slipped off and ran up on the porch. The door was open. He ran into the corridor, stopped. “Juanita!” he bellowed.
He was answered by a scream, a woman’s shrill cry. It came from a room at the end of the hall. Fargo raised the Winchester. Then Fierro appeared in the hall, Juanita struggling in his grasp.
Fierro’s eyes glittered. “Ah, Fargo! See the prize of war I’ve taken!”
Juanita quit struggling at the sight of Fargo. She was suddenly motionless, eyes widening. Her lips formed, soundlessly, his name.
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “I came back for you.” Then he said, “Let her go, Fierro. She’s mine.”
Fierro stared at him. “What? What do you say, Yanqui? Yours?”
“That’s right,” Fargo said. He pointed the Winchester. “There are two women here. Villa gave me the choice―” Before he could finish, a woman screamed his name.
“Fargo!” In the grasp of another Mexican, Crystal Delaney was shoved into the hall, arm hammer locked behind her back. “Oh, God, Fargo! Thank heavens you’re here!” Her coppery hair was loose, tousled all around her face; her blouse had been torn. “Make him let me go! Make him let me go, Fargo!”
Fargo said, “Meredith’s dead, Crystal, I killed him.”
“The hell with Meredith! I don’t care about Meredith.” All at once, her face changed. Even with her arm locked behind her like that, she managed to get that look into her eyes, she licked her lips, her voice dropped, became husky. “Meredith wasn’t half the man you are, Fargo. I’ve been waiting for you to come back, hoping you would. The minute I saw you, I knew—” She broke off. Fargo was just looking at her. A tremor of fear came into her voice. “I can make you happy, Fargo,” she said desperately. “I can make you feel so good―”
; Fargo smiled. “Could you now, Crystal?”
“Oh, God, yes.” Hope flared in her eyes, confidence. “If you’ll take me away from this place, back to El Paso. When we get to El Paso, Fargo—”
Her voice trailed off. “Fargo,” she said. “Please.”
Fargo smiled faintly. “No, Crystal. You’re not going to El Paso. Not with me, anyhow.”
There was a moment’s silence in the corridor. Then, as Crystal understood, her voice became a screech. “You son of a bitch! You can’t do that to me! You can’t!”
Fargo turned to Fierro. “Like I said. Villa promised me my choice.” He pointed at Juanita. “I claim her.” Then he jerked his head toward Crystal. “You want a prize of war,” he said, “there she is.”
Crystal howled: “Damn you, Fargo!”
Fierro looked at Crystal. He looked at her flawless white skin, at the big breasts beneath the tattered blouse, the coppery hair swinging free. Something kindled in his eyes. “You mean you do not want the Yanqui woman? You mean she is mine?”
“Yours and your army’s,” Fargo said. “There’s enough to go around.”
“By the saints,” Fierro said, “I’ll bet there is.” He released Juanita. Her knees gave way, and Fargo caught her, held her fast before she fell. Hernandez, he saw, had not been gentle with her. Her face was bruised; so were the slopes of her breasts, where they showed above the low cut peasant blouse.
“You are all right now,”‘ Fargo said. “Don’t worry. You are all right.”
Behind him, he heard Crystal snap the words in Spanish: “Who are you?”
Fierro laughed softly. “I am General Rodolfo Fierro of Pancho Villa’s Army of the North.”
Fargo did not even look around as Crystal’s voice changed. “Oh. Oh, a general.” The fear had gone out of it. “A general. Well, that’s different…” It became soft, seductive. “Yes, a general. That’s very different.”