Diablo Death Cry

by Jon Sharpe

  “Think he’ll parley if we set up a pole?”

  “He might listen to us,” Cherokee Bob replied. “And if them damn Sash Warriors wasn’t along with him, we might wangle out of a fight. But he’ll be showing off for the Kiowas.”

  “Let’s at least make it look like we’re trying the peace road first,” Fargo decided. “We need to halt them if we can.”

  Diego Salazar, walking ramrod straight and accompanied by Hernando Quintana and Lieutenant Juan Aragon, approached them from the camp.

  “Where’s the gimlet-eyed pig?” Cherokee Bob said.

  “You might say Sergeant Rivera is feeling poorly this morning,” Booger replied. “He’s got him a bad case of whipping cough. By the bye, you Shawnee shit, after this little barn dance, you and me has got a bone to pick.”

  “What is the trouble, Senor Fargo?” Quintana asked, hurrying closer—moving quite nimbly, Fargo noticed, for an old man supposedly stricken with health problems.

  Fargo quickly explained the situation and his advice for handling it.

  “This is a military matter, don Hernando,” Captain Salazar insisted officiously. “I will take command. We will set the cannon and artillery rifle on that low rise in front of us with the men in fighting holes just behind the ridge where the savages cannot easily see them. As soon as they are in effective range, we will open fire.”

  Quintana considered this, then looked at Fargo. “And you say . . . ?”

  “The captain’s got it right, don Hernando, on where to place the men and guns. But he’s confusing Southern Plains warriors with European armies and set-piece battles.”

  “You question my military training?” Salazar demanded.

  Actually Fargo did, but this was no time to be measuring dicks.

  “No. I reckon it’s fine for fighting Napoleon. But these Comanches and Kiowas aren’t stupid—they won’t come to us in a full frontal assault once you open fire on them. They’ll just swing around us on the flanks at the first shots and head right for the camp—they aren’t here to die gloriously. They’re raiders and plunderers.”

  “And you,” Salazar said, “believe you can talk these heathen marauders out of attacking?”

  “Not likely. But Cherokee Bob thinks they’ll at least listen to us first—all Indians are naturally curious. That means they’ll stop and congregate in one spot. Then, when the talk breaks down, you’ll have targets. You’ll have to hit them hard and fast and keep your men out of sight as long as you can. It’s our only chance against a force this big.”

  Quintana said, “It makes sense to me, Diego. Fargo knows this enemy.”

  Salazar surprised Fargo by nodding agreement. He turned to Aragon.

  “Lieutenant,” he snapped crisply, “put Raoul and Alejandro on the big guns. Form the men up with their entrenching tools and have them dig in at five-yard intervals. De prisa! Hurry!”

  Booger snickered when Aragon actually saluted. Fargo, however, wondered what kind of informal “militia” made up of sugarcane harvesters came equipped with entrenching tools.

  “Don Hernando,” Fargo said, “I take it you have a firearm?”

  The viceroy looked startled. “Of course. You wish me to join the battle?”

  Fargo shook his head. “No. You’ll have a more important job. You need to go back and stay in the tent with Miranda and Katrina.”

  “Well, I am no soldier. But certainly I will do my best to protect—”

  “That’s not what I mean. If this battle goes bad for us and those savages take the camp, you do not want women falling into the hands of Kiowas and Comanches.”

  Quintana paled. “You don’t mean . . . ?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Killing them will be merciful compared to the alternative. And make sure there’s a third bullet for yourself.”

  • • •

  Fargo quickly returned to the main camp and tacked the Ovaro before returning to the Indians’ camp. Deke Lafferty and Bitch Creek McDade came out to join Fargo and his companions. Both men nervously watched the boiling, yellow-brown dust cloud move inexorably closer and closer.

  “Trailsman, can I take a squint through the spyglass?” Deke asked.

  Fargo handed them over.

  “Lord,” Deke said after a few moments of study, “it does give the heart a jump, don’t it? Their faces is painted in green and yellow stripes like African witch doctors’.”

  “Battle colors,” Fargo said. “They don’t paint because they think it’s powerful medicine like a Sioux or Cheyenne does. They just know it scares the crap outta their enemies.”

  From the main camp came the shouted command “Adelante!”

  Fargo watched Aragon quick-march the fifteen “plantation workers.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Cherokee Bob said. “All of ’em in perfect step.”

  “At least they can drill,” Fargo agreed.

  “Fuerza . . . alta!” Aragon barked, halting the men. “Orden . . . armas!”

  The men crisply brought their Volcanic rifles to order arms.

  “Hazlo!” he snapped, and they grounded their weapons, using their spade-bladed entrenching tools to dig rifle pits.

  “Fargo, those look like soldiers, sure enough,” Cherokee Bob said. “I wonder if they shoot as good as they march.”

  “Let’s hope so. Those Volcanic repeaters don’t have much stopping power, but the magazine holds thirty rounds.”

  Fargo nodded toward the gun wagon, now parked in place near the line of Spanish troops.

  “Pretty quick now, you two get out of sight behind that wagon,” he told Deke and McDade. “You, too, Booger.”

  “Teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” Booger shot back. “Old Booger is riding out with you and the Injins.”

  “Forget it. That ox of yours is too slow and we’ll be beating a hasty retreat. They’ll shoot you to rag tatters and eat Ambrose.”

  Cherokee Bob peered through the glasses. “I was right. It’s Iron Eyes leading them. I recognize his scalp cape.”

  The rolling thunder grew louder as the attackers continued to pound their steeds across the arid landscape. Fargo had borrowed Salazar’s saber as a parley pole, tying his red bandanna to the hilt and jabbing the weapon point first into the ground about a hundred yards out ahead.

  Booger’s bravado was wearing a little thin.

  “Fargo, where is your mind? Them red sons ain’t likely to parley—look at ’em! Bouncing up and down on them scrubs and actin’ crazier’n dogs in the hot moons.”

  “Looks like they got liquor from the Comancheros,” Fargo surmised.

  “’R mebbe et peyote,” Deke said. “C’mon, Bitch, we ain’t no Indian fighters. Let’s get hid ’fore they swarm us. They’re headed for us straight as a plumb line.”

  “Catfish, if you figure you can just ride out and talk to this bunch,” Booger insisted, “you’re putting your thumb on the scale. They’ll fill you and them flea-bit redskins so fulla arrahs you’ll look like porky-pines.”

  “Hell, I don’t plan to live forever,” Fargo replied. “Anyhow, we have to make them halt or they’ll break for the camp. Just get behind that gun wagon and make your North and Savage sing when the time comes to open the ball. Let’s make tracks, boys!”

  Fargo slapped the Ovaro’s rump. A minute later the three men halted their mounts, Fargo on one side of the parley pole, the Shawnee and Delaware on the other.

  Cherokee Bob had to raise his voice to be heard above the rataplan of rapidly approaching hooves.

  “Christ, Fargo, I hope them sons of de Soto behind us can shoot straight. We’re smack dab between them and Iron Eyes’s bunch.”

  “Cheer up,” Fargo said. “We’ll likely never survive the Coman—”

  Fargo halted midsentence, staring in disbelief at All Behind Him. The Delaware calmly sat his mule, sh
oving handfuls of parched corn from a hide sack into his rock-crusher mouth. He saw Fargo staring.

  “No like die hungry,” he explained.

  Cherokee Bob grinned proudly. “Ain’t he a pip?”

  He was forced to shout now because the wave of war-greased Kiowas and Comanches was about to engulf them. Despite Fargo’s calm exterior, he could feel his heartbeat throbbing in his palms. These next few seconds would determine whether he lived or died. All tribes were highly notional, even more so when they were liquored.

  The mules stood calmly, but the Ovaro wanted to break and run, and Fargo couldn’t blame him. He patted the side of the stallion’s neck, but couldn’t keep him from repeatedly rearing.

  Closer, ever closer, so close now that Fargo could see the hard metallic eyes that had earned the Comanche war chief his name. The Comanche ponies ran strong, their uncut tails streaming out behind them and so long they would touch the ground at a standstill. Red human hands painted on the horses’ hips symbolized the riders’ battle kills.

  Fargo had trained the Ovaro to hate the smell of bear grease, which many Indian braves smeared through their hair. Now Fargo had all he could do to control his stallion. Just when it seemed the raiding party must overrun the three men flanking the parley pole, Iron Eyes thrust his red-streamered lance into the air and the Indians halted their mounts in a choking cloud of dust.

  Most Comanches spoke some Spanish and English, necessary in their dealings with traders, gunrunners, and others in Mexico and the United States.

  “Cherokee Bob,” Iron Eyes greeted the Shawnee. “Now you play the dog for your new gauchupine masters?”

  “The food is damn good, Iron Eyes. It was Fargo who hired me, not the gauchupines.”

  The Comanche’s lips curled back off his teeth in contempt. His eyes shifted to Fargo. “So this is the great hunter, scout, and Indian killer whose fame stretches from here to the place where the sun rests? Fargo, you have killed many Comanches, uh?”

  Fargo feigned boredom. Comanches, like most braves, despised fear or shows of respect from their enemies.

  “Kill one fly, kill a million,” he replied.

  Iron Eyes grunted. “El Lobo Flaco will pay me in whiskey and guns for your severed head. Perhaps you will pay even more to keep it on your shoulders.”

  Fargo noted that the Kiowa Sash Warriors, five of them, rode directly to Iron Eyes’s right in the place of honor. He resolved to kill all of them first. He had to because once the fandango started, only death would stop them—and he would be their first target. The brave who killed Skye Fargo would be sung about for generations to come.

  “What kind of pay do you ask?” Cherokee Bob said. “We’re here to talk terms.”

  “Good fire sticks made in the land of the beefeaters. Powder and lead. Whiskey. Mules to eat.”

  Fargo shook his head. “You can have a few mules. Food, coffee, sugar. But no weapons and no whiskey.”

  Iron Eyes glanced quickly toward the Sash Warriors, then again at Fargo. His eyes glowed with murderous rage. “Fargo, would you put the shawl on me while my braves look on?”

  As he said this, the Comanche leader glanced past Fargo to the gun wagons. His evident curiosity told Fargo he knew little or nothing about those two big guns.

  “No weapons or whiskey,” Fargo repeated, knowing full well that Iron Eyes had no intention of bargaining in good faith—he intended to sack the camp and would settle for nothing less. He was simply buying time while he sized up the situation and nerved up for the command.

  “Have ears for my words, hair face. Perhaps I will kill the white legend and his Shawnee dog now.”

  “Bad idea, Iron Eyes,” Cherokee Bob said. “Let’s all be friends, huh? I’ve got some good tobacco. Let’s smoke a pipe to the four directions.”

  Iron Eyes ignored this. “I see two gauchupine soldiers behind you. El Lobo said there are more.”

  Now Fargo realized the “Red Raiders of the Plains” had not spotted the men in the rifle pits.

  “They’re protecting the main camp,” Fargo lied.

  Again Iron Eyes glanced toward the Sash Warriors, a glance that seemed to be a signal. Fargo caught Cherokee Bob’s eyes and nodded.

  “Crick,” the Shawnee said quietly.

  “Crack,” All Behind Him responded.

  Fargo’s heart sat out the next few beats. The readiness is all, he reminded himself.

  Cherokee Bob fired his big hand cannon from behind his tatty corduroy jacket, smoke and flame and burning cloth belching just ahead of a crack-booming roar that instantly panicked many of the Comanche horses.

  A fist-sized hole was punched through Iron Eyes’s bone breastplate, chunks of flesh, organs, and shattered spine spraying out behind him. The roaring detonation was still ringing in Fargo’s ears when All Behind Him flipped his moth-eaten blanket aside and opened up at near point-blank range with his Manhattan Arms pepperbox. In a blur of speed he fired, rotated the next barrel in place, fired again.

  At the same time Fargo’s Colt seemed to leap into his fist and he fanned the hammer, rapidly killing or wounding the deadly Sash Warriors with lightning speed. All three defenders had opened up so quickly that not one enemy brave had fired back before the six-pounder boomed behind Fargo.

  The exploding ball struck on the left end of the skirmish line, launching two screaming braves skyward on a plume of fire and dirt. The Parrot artillery rifle added to the mayhem, each whistling shell killing or wounding men and horses.

  Not even ten seconds had passed before the scene was absolute bedlam. But the coup de main came when, with a collective battle cry, the Spanish soldiers opened up with their Volcanic rifles. It sounded as if a giant ice floe were slowly cracking apart as they emptied their thirty-shot magazines into the panicked and retreating enemy.

  Fargo didn’t even bother to break out his Henry. The withering fire made him and his two Indian companions cringe with the expectation of getting killed in the lead bath. But the highly disciplined and skillful marksmen held tight beads. Incredibly, when Salazar shouted the cease-fire command less than a minute later, the surviving renegades were fleeing to the west having never fired a bullet or nocked an arrow.

  The ground in front of Fargo was littered with dead and dying braves and their horses, more than one-third of the force. Gray-white smoke hazed the battlefield, and the acrid stench of spent powder mingled with the sweet tang of blood.

  Fargo met Cherokee Bob’s eyes, then gigged the Ovaro closer to his position.

  “Benicia.” Bob greeted him. “It’s got to be the naval armory they’re after. These Spanish devils mean to take over California, Fargo. Damn but they are fearsome.”

  Fargo watched as the soldiers fanned out and tossed finishing shots into the wounded.

  “Sure looks that way,” Fargo agreed. “But good as they are, they won’t take that marine garrison.”

  “Not by themselves. But you’re forgetting about los otros.”

  “Yeah. The others.”

  Fargo watched Booger emerge from behind the gun wagon carrying his North & Savage. The Trailsman doubted that he had even gotten off a shot. He appeared to be shocked speechless by what he had just witnessed—a rare condition for Booger.

  “Hey, McTeague,” Cherokee Bob called out, “you said you got a bone to pick with me?”

  “I was mighty mistaken, Catfish,” Booger replied. “If I was stupid enough to think Daniel Boone’s wife was named Betty, there’s others I can slicker with that watch.”

  For a moment Fargo’s eyes met Salazar’s. The Spanish officer sent him a smug stare before he turned away.

  “Bob,” Fargo said quietly, “we are in a world of shit.”

  13

  During the next fifteen days, the Quintana party, now traveling the old San Antonio Road, made excellent progress.

  Terrain was mostly fl
at or only slightly hilly across the vast Edwards and Stockton plateaus, although they now faced increasing heat and stretches of water scarcity. More and more Fargo was forced to search out potable water, and at times he imposed rationing.

  The Guadalupe Mountains, east of El Paso, would pose their first real brush with steeper terrain, but Fargo knew the trail was well routed through good passes.

  Food supplies were still plentiful, but the diet was growing more monotonous as some staples gave out.

  “I hope we spot a buff herd that’s gone too far south,” Deke said wistfully at suppertime one evening. “Hump steak cooked in kidney fat, and hot biscuits dripped in the pot liquor—you can’t beat fixin’s like that.”

  Fargo heartily agreed, but like the others he settled for salt junk and pemmican, supplemented occasionally with rabbit, antelope, or quail.

  More important, to Fargo, was the lack of any additional Indian attacks. Word of the astonishing defeat of Iron Eyes and his warriors, just west of San Antonio, must have spread like a grass fire across the rest of Texas because there was no more trouble from renegade raiders.

  “Is the serious Indian threat behind us now?” Hernando Quintana asked Fargo one morning as the Trailsman prepared to ride out on the day’s first scout.

  By now Fargo was far more worried about the nefarious treachery planned by the viceroy and these efficient killers traveling with him. But he opted for discretion and kept that thought to himself.

  “I gave up trying to predict Indian thinking a long time ago,” Fargo replied. “It’s like trying to write your name on water. They know we’re here, all right. But there’s better than even odds we’re safe until we get to the New Mexico Territory beyond El Paso.”

  “Apache country?”

  Fargo nodded. “But they make forays into Old Mexico for months at a time. And when they’re north of the Rio they tend to stay in the mountains and raid on the peaceful Pueblo villages. But if we catch their attention, they might probe us.”