by Steve Lee
'Calls hisself El Muerte… That's Spik-talk for Death… Not a bad choice a' name seein' as how he's gone and butchered the Willoughbys and Deke Wallace 'n' his boys and a coupla dozen others on top!'
'You sending a posse out after him?' Billy asked.
The sound the sheriff made was too rueful to be called a laugh. He jabbed his fork in the direction of the young Chinaman.
'Boy, I ain't fixin' to go down in no history books as the sheriff who lost half the menfolk in his town chasin' after a crazy Mexican bandit… That killer's got thirty, forty guns ridin' with him, maybe more and that kinda trouble's a job for the Cavalry not the sheriff of a small town like this!' He shook his head, appalled by the very idea of it. 'And if he skips back across the border, which he sure-as-Hell will do if he's got any sense under that sombrero a' his, then even them bluecoats is gonna be left standin' there at the frontier a'whistlin' Dixie with him wavin' to 'em from the other side.'
The sheriff clattered his fork down onto the empty plate and settled back to pick his teeth with a thumbnail.
'No, sir,' he concluded, 'any man that goes up against a vicious sonovabitch killer like this here El Muerte's just gotta be one dang-blasted fool!'
A short time later, two such fools left town riding south towards the border.
The trail left by El Muerte and his gang was not a difficult one to follow… Burnt-out ranches, looted wagons and the abused, stiffening corpses of whole families and solitary travellers marked their passing.
Sloane and Billy Wang also saw the hanging bodies of many Mexicans along the trail, luckless victims of the wave of fear and hatred that followed in the wake of the bandits. Prejudice was a barrel of explosives at any time and now El Muerte had lit the fuse that could blast the State apart. Seeing the suspicion in the faces of those they passed on the trail, Sloane grew glad his companion was a Chinaman and not a Mexican.
Most of the time they rode in silence, the silence of hooves on sand, creaking saddles and men deep in thought. The silence worried Sloane. Not because he was a talking man, which he wasn't, but because he knew Billy had too much youth and enthusiasm for life in him to be that quiet unless there was something he was keeping back. Something Sloane should know. He made an assault on the barrier of unspoken words.
'How'd you come to be with Chang Fung?' he asked.
'It was my uncle's idea,' Billy replied. 'My Uncle Wu that is — he's a hatchet man for the Red Spears Tong in 'Frisco — Well, he was an old friend of Chang Fung's and when you left, Uncle Wu heard about it and figured maybe Chang Fung could use some help. So he sent me out here… I jumped at the chance… Uncle Wu is so old-fashioned; he goes in for pig-tails and dressing up and ceremonies and all that old Chinese stuff… Me, I'm a first generation American and I was glad to get out here where the action is.
'Well, I guess I was till this happened,' he added with less enthusiasm.
'I always wanted to meet Chang Fung. I'd heard tell he was a master of Chinese boxing, even though he only had one arm. He was just as good as people said he was — a great fighter and a good teacher too.'
Sloane nodded in agreement, remembering the years of gruelling practice at Kung Fu, the many painful exercises Chang Fung had forced on him as a boy because he wanted his pupil to attain that perfection which not even he had succeeded in reaching.
'He could do tricks Uncle Wu never even heard of,' Billy continued. 'There was this one trick he did — maybe you've heard of it — the Grand Ultimate Kick?'
'I've heard,' said Sloane.
'It's so secret most people don't even believe it exists. But Chang Fung knew the secret. I've heard tell he was the only man outside China who knew it. He told me he was gonna show it me some day when I was ready. But he never got round to it.' Billy shook his head, regretful. 'Now I guess I'll never know the secret.'
'He ever say anythin'… 'bout me?' Sloane asked. He'd been thinking about the question for some time.
Billy looked uncomfortable. 'Chang Fung was… Well, he was kind of old-fashioned too, you know,' he said awkwardly. 'He had this big thing about filial devotion. Well, a lot of the old folks do. They all think a son should do what his father says even when it don't make no sense. I guess he kind of looked on you as his son and when you left the way you did, he got pretty sore at you. Guess he thought you was ungrateful or something…'
'I prob'ly was,' said Sloane. He made it sound as if he meant it.
'There's somethin' else you should know too, Sloane,' said Billy in a voice promising bad news. 'I didn't want to tell you this back there at the house but…'
Sloane waited, his face impassive as the scrub-studded wasteland through which they rode.
'Well, it's like this. After you left Su Fan didn't know if you were ever comin' back again. Well, she and me, we were planning on getting married…'
'Married!' Sloane repeated the word. It fell from his lips like a hot stone. His hands tightened on the reins, became white, knuckled fists, tightly clenched.
He turned his face from Billy's, his eyes narrowing, searching the vast plains for something, he didn't know what. His eyes fixed on a distant mountain range but his gaze was inward-turned. The mountains were remote, grey, massive, unfeeling. A man could spend a lifetime swinging an axe at a mountain and never hurt it Sloane thought enviously.
'That's why I didn't think you should come along,' Billy went on. 'If you want to turn back now, I'll understand…'
'No,' said Sloane, his voice almost casual, 'I got other reasons than Su Fan for findin' El Muerte…'
'The old man and woman…?'
'Chang Fung said to me once — "A man may not live under the same sky as his father's killer!"'
Billy raised a nervous laugh. 'That sounds like my Uncle Wu. Or a fortune cookie!'
The laughter died in Billy's throat when he saw Sloane's expression. It was dark as a storm-threatening sky.
'You understand, don't you?' Billy appealed. 'About Su Fan, I mean?'
'Sure, I understand,' said Sloane in a voice completely empty of understanding.
It was many miles before either of them spoke again.
It was their fifth day on the trail and the sun was dragging itself down towards the foothills like a wounded animal leaving a bloody trail across the sky. Sloane sniffed the dry air, the suspicion of woodsmoke becoming a certainty.
'Probably some saddle-tramp brewing himself a pot of coffee,' Billy suggested.
'Maybe, maybe not,' said Sloane.
He nudged the Morgan with his heels, urging the horse towards a point in the distance where a thin column of smoke curled lazily upwards. Billy hesitated a moment, then followed on the pinto.
The smoke drew them to a shallow-bottomed arroyo snaking across the plains like a knife-wound gouged deep into the earth's dry flesh. They rode into the arroyo, following the boulder-strewn track that unwound raggedly before them. After a few minutes they cleared a sharp bend in the gulley and found themselves looking at the source of the smoke — a neat campfire atop of which eggs spluttered in a pan of grease. A chestnut mare stood ground nearby, muzzling a clump of salt-grass. She raised her head at the intruders, favouring them with a jaundiced look. There was no sign of her owner.
'Where d'you think he's gone?' Billy asked as they drew slowly near to the fire.
'Nowhere,' said Sloane, climbing down from his horse. He strolled over to the fire, feeling hungry.
Billy followed, looking anxiously about, turning full circle as he walked. There were plenty of boulders around but none of them large enough to hide a man.
'I don't see him,' Billy announced.
'But he sees you…'
Sloane cupped both hands to his mouth and raised an upwards-leaping shout — 'Come on down or we'll start without you!'
Above them, on the rim of the arroyo, a man suddenly appeared.
'Grab a cloud — both of you!' he yelled with the authority of a man behind a .44 Henry rifle.
Sloane cast an appraising gl
ance at the rust-coloured sky. 'There ain't no clouds,' he observed.
"Then you better reach a mite higher an' see if you kin find one quick!' returned the man with the rifle.
Sloane and Billy obligingly raised their hands heavenwards. The man with the rifle slid-scrambled down the sandy wall of the arroyo. He moved towards them, rifle-ready.
'Now don't you be tryin' nothin',' he warned,' 'cause old Henry here'll open you up, easy as spit…'
He stooped and with his free hand took the pan of eggs off the fire.
'Hell!'
Pan and eggs hit the dirt. The man blew on scorched fingers, keeping Sloane and Billy covered the while.
Whichever way you looked at him, upwards or sidewise, he was a big man, big and clumsy-looking as the Walker Colt on his hip. Sloane guessed him to be nearer fifty than forty but his wide shoulders and the way he carried himself suggested there was a lot of fight left in him yet. His face was more jaw than anything else. Rugged as an Indian rock carving, it was a face that looked like it had gotten in the way of trouble with painful regularity. Only a life-time of fistfights could have shaped such a face, Sloane decided. The eyes in the face were grey and honest-straight with a mellow sadness in them that spoke of too many disappointments. The grey eyes seized on Billy Wang.
'Great God-a-Mighty — a Chinaman! As if murderin' Mexicans wasn't bad enough, we've now got the Yellow Peril roamin' free to boot!' The rifle-barrel and the man behind it veered from Billy to Sloane. 'And the other one a penniless drifter by the look a' him… Nowlhere's as suspicious a combination as ever I seen!' The man had a slow drawling manner of speaking with as much of Dublin in it as Dallas.
'Now perhaps you'll tell me what you mean by breakin' in on a man's dinner uninvited?'
'We didn't mean no harm,' Billy threw back. 'We thought you might've been in trouble!'
'And what kind of trouble would that be that I'd be needin' help from the likes of you two?'
'Bandit trouble,' said Sloane.
'What would you be knowin' 'bout that?' the big man asked, his voice tightening a notch.
'Just that you've been trailin' them for as long as we have, maybe longer.'
The big man considered the men at the end of his gun-barrel anew, as if he'd seriously misjudged them. His searching gaze lit on the three big metal stars which studded Sloane's belt.
'Is it lawmen you are?' he asked.
'No,' said Sloane. 'Two men with a score to settle.'
'What kind of a score?'
'A blood score.'
'The only kind worth havin',' the big man acknowledged. He lowered his rifle and the other two lowered their hands.
'Looks as if I'm owin' you boys an apology.'
'Forget it,' said Sloane. 'A careful man lives longer.'
'Amen to that, Mister…?'
'Sloane.'
'Joe's the name, Joe Hardy.'
Sloane matched the man's hand and shook it.
'That's a powerful strong hand you got there, Mister Sloane. Reckon I'd rather be shakin' it than feelin' it on m' jaw.'
Billy Wang stepped forward and made himself known.
'A pleasure to meet you, Billy. And now perhaps I can interest you gentlemen in a plate a' grub an' some coffee?'
As they ate, Sloane and Billy told Joe about Chang Fung and Hsiao Yu and how they were aiming on getting back Su Fan.
'It's a cruel world to be sure,' Joe sympathised. 'But yer no doubt wonderin' for what reason it is that I am meself on the trail a' this mangy polecat, El Muerte. Well, he's got somethin' a' mine too, somethin' dear to me heart. Only it ain't a woman, God forbid, but a horse.'
Joe sensed the surprise his guests tried to conceal.
'That's right, lads, a horse! And no ord'nary horse neither but the prettiest most golden palamino that ever raised hoofs to the moon.'
'Sounds like quite a horse,' laughed Billy.
'That it is… Why if you was to see that horse runnin' in the wind, proud as a peacock with its mane all flowin' behind, you'd think you was watchin' a sun-beam come down from Heaven above to play on God's own Earth.'
'No horse is worth dyin' for,' said Sloane bluntly, helping himself to a third cup of coffee from the pot.
Joe Hardy looked across the fire at the unshaven man in the dirty white suit. The man was young, half his age, but there was a hardened sureness in the cold blue eyes meeting his that made Joe feel like a child. He lowered his gaze to the dancing flames between them, more quickly than he would have liked.
'Well, maybe you're right there, Mister Sloane,' he allowed. 'Maybe there's more to it than the horse.'
He pul'ed a cigar from the top pocket of his leather vest and lit it from the fire. It seemed to give him encouragement to open up.
'Well, boys, it's like this,' he began. 'You see afore you a man who's spent his life chasin' a pot a' gold. And everytime I've gotten near that pot a' gold, I've reached out an' grabbed for it and taken it in me arms — and always it's turned out to be a crock a' shit!'
Joe looked round for reactions. There was a suspicion of a smile in Sloane's eyes and Billy Wang was grinning like a loon.
'Laugh you may,' Joe chided, 'but it's the God's honest truth an' that's how it's always been with me. It's damn near the story of me life!'
He contemplated the gray smoke wafting from his cigar for a moment before launching deeper into his story.
'Y'see, I came over from the Old Country when I was but a young lad with empty pockets an' a head full a' dreams. I was a worker though an' fightin' mad to succeed. In no time at all I'd found meself a wife and a patch a'land to call me own. Oh, I was a proud man in them days — I had everythin' a man could wish for includin' a son.'
Joe's face lit up in a warm smile of happy memories. Then the smile froze, flawed by sadness. The sadness eroded the smile from his face. He took a deep puff on his cigar and the smoke billowed out in a sigh.
'Yes, an' then it started… Sickness took our little Tyrone from us an' Kathleen soon after, an' Injuns burned our cabin to the ground an' with it everythin' in the world I owned. I looked round for a way of workin' meself back up again. In them days everybody was lookin' for gold. It was like a fever. I joined in the rush an' got meself a good-sized claim — or so I thought till me thievin' Judas of a partner jumped the claim. Then I tried me hand at sheep-rearin'. Cattlemen slaughtered me flock, so I became a cattleman meself. Rustlers ran off with the herd… and so it went on, just one run a' rotten bad luck after another. Then I set meself up as a horse-breeder an' I was doin' so well at it I thought f sure me luck had changed — an' then along comes this El Muerte an' helps himself to me best horses. Well, that was it I can tell you, the straw that broke the camel's back! Now I reckon every man's got his own Alamo inside a' him, that moment when he says to himself that he's taken all the crap he's goin' to an' the time has come to make his stand even if it's his last!'
'This is your stand, right?' Billy asked. 'Damn right it is! Oh, I'm very fond a' that golden palamino — it's a fine horse an' with my own bare hands I helped bring him into this world, God help me. But no, it's not just the horse, it's more the principle a' the matter! So I'm ridin' out to find this bandit feller an' when I find him I'm goin' to walk up to him like a man an' say, "Thank you very much, Mister El Muerte, sir, for lookin' after me horse for me, but now, if it's all the same to you, I'll be takin' him back off of you!'
'Maybe he'll be of a mind to keep the horse,' said Sloane.
'In that case there's two things likely to happen — he can kill me or I can kill him… And if it's me that has to go, well, I can't think of a finer way for a man to die than with his boots on fightin' for what he believes in — like Davey Crockett an' a lot of other grand lads at the Alamo. It would be a noble gesture, to be sure, a magnificent gesture!'
'I'd sure like to be there and see his face when you ask him for the horse back,' said Billy grinning.
'Well, now, me fine yeller lad, why don't you be comin' along with me an' yo
u can ask him for your woman back at the same time?'
Billy's head lifted in surprise. 'I don't know about that…' Uncertain, he looked over for Sloane's opinion.
'Why not?' said Sloane carelessly. 'The more the merrier.'
'Then it's settled!' Joe exclaimed, slapping his thigh. 'Three against forty instead a' one against forty — why the odds is in our favour already!'
Chapter Four
Sloane and Billy rose with the dawn to go through the routine of Kung Fu exercises each of them practised daily. The series of exercises they followed had been designed to keep men mentally alert and their bodies at the peak of physical condition. Properly carried out the exercises would also increase their speed and help perfect their fighting skill. The two men practised alone, unaware of anything but their own striving towards perfection. Each knew his abilities as a fighter were going to be tested as they had never been before. A weak kick or a clumsy fall could no longer be tolerated. A mistake during a work-out meant a moment's shame. In the battles ahead it would mean certain death.
Joe watched their sweeping arms, their leaps and jumps and their whirling kicks — high-reaching as a can-can dancer in a saloon. He threw back his head and hooted with amusement.
'I never was a dancin' man meself but I don't mind seein' a bit of a jig,' he laughed. 'Too bad I don't have me fiddle with me or I'd give you a tune to set the feet a'flyin', f'sure!' Clapping his hands and beating one foot on the ground, Joe launched into a spirited rendering of an old Irish jig.
Ignoring his laughter, their faces fierce with concentration, Sloane and the Chinaman continued their exercises, flowing through the intricate patterns of movement with practised grace. Faster than Joe could follow, their fists flew out and pummelled the air and their kicks scythed through whole armies of imaginary enemies. To Joe it looked like the grandest barn-dance ever.
For forty minutes they followed the elaborate sets of exercises developed hundreds of years before by priests who had lived the other side of the world. The techniques of Kung Fu had been devised by the priests of the Shaolin Temple in Honan Province, China with two purposes in mind. First as a reliable means of self-defence for weaponless monks in times of war and disorder. Second as a way of complete integration of mind and body. In their wisdom the priests realised that it was worthless to sit cross-legged all day in devout meditation if the body was wasting away from lack of use. So they developed Kung Fu, a system which demanded a healthy body as well as an agile mind. And in the combination of the two displayed by skilled masters of Kung Fu, the monks discovered a sublime harmony, a harmony that expressed the perfect balance of the creative life forces more potently than any prayer.