Just before he rounded the corner of the building, Cato looked back and saw Jeannie’s white face, her hands clenched at her sides. Early gave her a cold look and turned back towards the house.
“Go to your quarters!” he snapped over his shoulder and moved on into the house.
Cato had been taken to a building behind the main house. It was adobe, square-built and painted white. There was a man with two guns hung on his hips leaning beside the doorway and four men sat on the porch, playing poker on an upturned rain butt. None of them were wearing guns and they all stared curiously as Cato came up with Storm.
“This is John Cato,” Storm told the group. “He’s joinin’ us.”
He nodded to the gun hung man by the door and turned and went back towards the main house. Cato scratched his jaw, looking at the four men. He hoped his face was blank and didn’t reflect the surprise he was feeling. He knew all of these men, mainly by reputation, though he had seen one or two in the flesh in the past. There was Red Sloane, big, thick-chested, freckled, his flaming red hair showing under his leather hat; beside him was George Rainey, dapper, mustached, small, with a woman’s hands and black, glittering eyes; next came Brad Hannis, thick in chest and shoulders and, according to some, in the head, too. Finally, there was Monk Chater, a man who looked like he probably had a wife and three or four adoring kids tucked away some place. He looked kindly and spoke very softly ... but, like the other three, he was a killer. That was what all four had in common they were gunfighters and killers.
And Cato knew now why he had been ‘tested’ back in Austin. He had a standard to measure up to and it seemed like he had done just that, otherwise he would never have been brought here. He still didn’t know why he was at Broken-T and he soon found out that none of the others knew, either, even though Rainey had been there almost three weeks.
“Early’s loco, you ask me,” Red Sloane told Cato. “You never know when he’s gonna show up. Might be in the middle of the night. Mightn’t see him for days. Then he’ll send for you to have supper with him and he won’t hardly say a word.”
“He hasn’t given any hint about why we’re here?” Cato asked.
“Nothin’.”
“It’s obvious enough,” Rainey said. “We’re all gunfighters, though I’ve never heard of you, Cato. He wants us for our gun skill. So that means a fight of some kind.”
“Long as he pays,” Brad Hannis growled.
“He’ll pay,” said the soft-spoken Monk Chater. “One way or another.”
Over the next couple of days, Cato learned that each of the others had faced ‘tests’, too, set up by some of Early’s men. He seemed to be the only one who had had any contact with Jeannie. No one had any real complaints about their treatment at the Broken-T. They could have anything they wanted, except for horse or guns. Their other creature comforts were well catered for, mostly without question.
On the second day of Cato’s stay, they even had their horses and guns. Duke Early appeared, backed by Storm and two men armed with double-barreled shotguns. Early came to the door of the square adobe building and smiled as he nodded a greeting.
“Good morning, gentlemen. It seems I have been remiss with you. Storm has pointed out to me that you are all top men in your field, but only because of constant practice with your firearms. This, of course, makes sense. And I can’t afford to have you go stale on me now. So you will be taken to a target range I have had set up and you may practice with your weapons for up to four hours a day from now on.” His smile took on a bleakness that was reflected in his eyes. “But I must point out that if you are entertaining any notions that you will be able to use your guns to help you get away, then you are seriously mistaken.” He gestured to the men with shotguns. “These men will be standing guard. Each of you will take your turn. As you finish, you will hand your gun back to Storm who will load it for you when it is your turn again. These shotguns will have both hammers on full cock and the men have orders to shoot at the slightest sign that you are attempting to fire at anything but the targets. You can be replaced you know.” The smile took on genuine warmth again. “Now, go and practice. I can assure you that very soon you will be glad that you’ve had this opportunity.”
“What the hell’re we doin’ here, Early?” Cato asked and Early flicked an eyebrow at Storm and Cato wasn’t quite fast enough to dodge the blow from Storm’s gun. It caught him across the jaw and he staggered sideways, mouth bleeding.
“I believe I told you that you may call me ‘Duke’, Cato,” Early said coldly. “That is all you may call me. And you will be told very soon why you are here. Meantime, I have ordered you to practice with your guns. Do so.”
He spun on his heel and strode away towards the main house. Storm and the shotgun guards remained. Cato rubbed slowly at his swelling jaw.
“You’re right, Rainey,” he said quietly, looking after Duke Early. “He is loco. Acts like he’s a king or, somethin’.”
“Out here that’s just what he is,” Storm said curtly. “You remember it and you’ll live to spend some of the gold.”
The others came alert at Storm’s words and the big man realized the slip he had made. He glanced quickly towards the shotgun guards. It was clear that he was afraid word would get back to Early about his slip, and if Early could scare a tough hombre like Storm, Cato figured he must be a dangerous man and he had better watch his step.
Cato’s Manstopper stirred up a good deal of interest amongst the gunfighters but Storm wouldn’t give him a shot-shell to demonstrate. And he could only load six of the eight chambers in the fat cylinder. There was no chance for any of the gunfighters to turn their guns on anything other than the targets, with the cocked and loaded shotguns covering their every move. And there were four other men with rifles standing by, backing up the guards. It seemed that Early had covered all angles.
Camping out overnight in the brasada had been an unnerving experience for both Yancey and O’Hara. They had found themselves a clearing on the edge of a swamp and built up a large fire, hoping the heat and flames would keep any predators at bay. But the night had been full of rustlings and blood-curdling screeches and once O’Hara had awakened from a fitful doze, screaming that something had slithered across his blankets. They had seen the tail of some sort of reptile disappearing into the shadows and Yancey had sent a shot after it but had missed.
The gunshot had echoed and slapped around the thicket and afterwards there had been a silence that was worse than the secret rustlings and other sounds. Gradually, the night noises of the brasada thickets had come back and Yancey had thrown more brush onto the fire, making it flare up.
Neither man had slept much and O’Hara pleaded with Yancey to give him some cartridges for his gun. But Yancey remained adamant: he had let O’Hara carry an empty gun in his holster when riding out of Santa Rosa so it would not look as if he was Yancey’s prisoner. He figured it might be best in case O’Hara’s friends in town had any notion of following.
In the morning, O’Hara told Yancey that they were lucky: the real snake thickets were much closer to Broken-T.
“The ground’s crawlin’ with rattlers there,” O’Hara said, nostrils flared at the thought. “So thick a hoss can hardly find a place to put his feet.”
Yancey figured that would be one place he would take care to steer clear of.
They rode along a fairly well defined trail through the thicket and, as the hours passed, O’Hara seemed to get some of his confidence and cockiness back. He told Yancey that Duke Early didn’t take kindly to anyone trying to get to Broken-T without his express invitation and that Yancey could expect a hot welcome.
“You’ll be lucky if you get time to tell him that you want to sell him some guns,” he sneered. “He’ll have you cut down, pronto, mister.”
“Let me worry about that,” Yancey said easily. “You just get me there.”
“Sure, I’ll get you there, all right. But you could be mighty sorry!”
They rode on, eatin
g hardtack in the saddle, following O’Hara’s directions. They left the trail as they approached thick timber and thorn brush. Yancey reined down and whipped out his Peacemaker.
“Hold up, O’Hara!”
The outlaw pulled rein and hipped in the saddle, starting when he saw the gun in Yancey’s hand.
“Why are we leaving the trail?” Yancey asked.
“’Cause the trail don’t lead anywheres. Goes straight into the swamp. It’s a blind trail for anyone tryin’ to locate Broken-T. The Duke’s a careful man.”
Yancey stared levelly at O’Hara and, after a spell, figured he was likely telling the truth. But he wandered, seeing he was such a careful hombre, if Early might have armed guards posted along the way as well. This could be the reason that O’Hara had regained his confidence and not just because they were moving away from the snakes.
Yancey gestured with his gun for O’Hara to move on. When the man put his mount slowly through the brush, Yancey lowered his gun hammer to half-cock before putting the weapon back in the holster. It was a dangerous way of carrying a gun, but with brush closing in thickly around him and restricting his movements, and those of his horse, Yancey figured he would take the risk, just to be able to shave fractions of a second off his draw if he had to get the gun out in a hurry.
It could mean the difference between living and dying.
They rode for another hour and Yancey detected a growing tension in O’Hara. The man seemed to be sitting more stiffly in the saddle and was increasing the pace almost imperceptibly.
Suddenly, without warning, O’Hara jammed in his spurs and set his mount leaping wildly forward, as he yelled:
“Ranger, Pete! Cut loose!”
Yancey was crouched low over his mount’s neck as O’Hara yelled and he was already getting his half-cocked Colt out of leather. The first rifle shot burned across his back and he made a snap decision to roll with it and dropped from his horse into the thickets, hoping any rattlers would have moved out of the way with the wild passage of O’Hara’s mount. His horse ran on as the guard’s rifle hammered twice more and he hit the thickets, feeling the thorns rip his clothing and his flesh. Then he rolled off onto the soft ground as a bullet tore up a handful of moist leaves and clods of dirt.
He rolled onto his belly, firing high at a cluster of rocks, where a gray pall of gunsmoke hung. He heard his bullet ricochet and then the rifle cracked twice more, the lead seeking his cover, rattling hard berries loose above him. He had the guard’s position pinpointed now and gripped his Colt in both hands, wrapping them round the butt, steadying the foresight, waiting. He flinched but did not move the gun barrel as a six-gun bellowed from the rocks and he figured O’Hara had joined the guard and got some cartridges from him. But he wanted to nail the man with the rifle: he presented the greatest danger to him right now.
He saw the rifle barrel come into view and there was a blurred movement behind it. He laid the foresight in the center of that movement just as something began to crawl across his legs. He froze, feeling the weight of the snake transfer from his right leg to his left and then he could feel it on both legs. The rifle fired and he dared not move in case the snake turned and struck. The rifle whiplashed again and the lead fanned his cheek. Another shot from O’Hara’s six-gun thudded into the ground beside his elbow where it was braced into the soft earth. The sweat was pricking his brow and trickling down his face. Goddamn it, that snake must be ten feet long! Wouldn’t it ever get off his legs?
He couldn’t wait any longer. They would pick him off next time. Yancey drew bead again, held his breath, tried not to think about that weight still slowly slithering across his legs, and fired at the blur behind the rifle that was being sighted carefully on his position. His Peacemaker roared and he felt the snake accelerate at an incredible rate and suddenly there was no more weight across his legs and he heard the snake slither into the brush. He triggered three times into the brush after the snake, and then he was up on one knee, firing his last shot at the volcanic rocks and hurling himself sideways and back onto a bare patch of ground.
O’Hara’s six-gun boomed wildly up there and the lead sang high through the brush as Yancey thumbed fresh loads into the cylinder of his Peacemaker. He threw himself behind a slim tree trunk as O’Hara fired again and the lead chewed bark close to his head. He waited, gun cocked and ready. There was no rifle fire. Maybe he had nailed the rifleman with that shot after all.
He pulled his head back fast as the rifle up there fired four swift shots and he heard three of the bullets thud into the tree. There was a pause, a long pause, and then the rifle cracked again. Yancey figured it then. Sounded as if he had nailed the guard with that shot and now O’Hara had taken up the rifle, for there was no six-gun shooting from up there now. Yancey whirled at a sound behind him in the brush but saw no one. He was sweating in cold fear; snakes gave him the creeps and they seemed to be all around him. He would rather face a hostile gun than a rattler any day.
Decision made, he fired twice towards the rocks and then lunged back into the thicket, making as much noise as he could. The rifle whiplashed and lead followed his noisy passage through the thicket but he cut around in a wide half circle and came in on the rocks from the side. O’Hara hadn’t been expecting that and was actually standing up, rifle at the ready. Yancey snapped a shot at him but missed, even if only by a hair. But it was enough to warn O’Hara and he whirled towards the Enforcer, rifle butt braced into his hip, hand working the lever, firing fast.
Yancey launched himself in a headlong dive, hit, rolled over and over and came wrenching around on his belly, Colt held in both hands, elbows thumping into the soft earth for support, foresight dropping into line with O’Hara as he levered yet another shell into the rifle’s breech. Yancey’s Peacemaker bucked in his hands and O’Hara jerked with the striking lead. The Colt roared a second time and O’Hara spun off the rocks, throwing the rifle nearly three yards in reflex action. He crashed face first across the rocks and Yancey knew he was dead even before he ran up and, holding his smoking gun barrel only inches from O’Hara’s head, pulled the man around.
Yancey relaxed some. O’Hara was dead, right enough, but what about that guard? He approached the nest of rocks warily but there was no need. He found the other man sprawled out on his back, arms spread wide, a hole right through the center of his face. It had been a lucky shot, all right, Yancey thought as he punched out the empty shells from the cylinder of his Colt and replaced them with fresh cartridges.
He looked around and saw both his own horse and O’Hara’s mount standing in a clearing behind the pile of volcanic rocks. They were nervous, ears pricked high, but they weren’t running, which was something. He would have no trouble catching his mount, he figured.
Then, looking down at the two dead men, he realized he was on his own now. He would have to try to locate Broken-T by himself. And he didn’t know how many miles of snake-ridden thickets he would have to traverse before he reached the mystery ranch.
If he reached it, he thought, as he saw a rattler slide lazily across the rocks not ten feet away. The sweat rolled down his face and drenched his shirt. He whipped his Colt up suddenly and blasted the head off the slithering rattler with a single shot.
One less, he thought, feeling the cold knot forming in his belly. One ... out of how many hundreds?
Must have been Old Nick himself who made this corner of Texas, he figured. God had sure forsaken it, anyway.
It was the first time Cato had been in the big house and he was impressed. He would never have figured to find such furnishings way out here in this wild land. God alone knew how Early had shipped them in through those thickets and swamps. The man believed in living well and he had a staff of Mexican servants to wait on table in the big room where they were all seated. Duke Early had invited them all to supper but Jeannie was not present. There was Early, the gunfighters, and Storm, and one swarthy man who stood by the bureau, holding a loaded shotgun, his face deadpan.
The m
eal was excellent and eaten mainly in silence. Early said little, even when one of the servants spilled some chili on the white damask tablecloth and Early merely stood up, taking a quirt with a shot-loaded butt from a hook on the side of his chair, and motioned the terrified man to approach. As soon as he was within range, Duke Early struck him across the face four times, laying open the flesh like a sliced melon. The man stood there, whimpering and weeping, until Early gestured curtly for him to get out. Then he sat down and continued his meal as if nothing had happened.
Plumb loco, Cato thought, as he ate.
When the meal was over, Early passed around fat cigars and glasses of brandy that he claimed came from France, by way of Mexico. It sure tasted smooth, anyway, Cato allowed silently, sipping. When the cigars were going and everyone was more relaxed, Early ran his cold glance around the hard-faced men.
“It’s time for you to know why you are here,” he announced and smiled faintly as he saw the men tense in anticipation. “No doubt you have felt that you are prisoners here. In one sense this is true. But only because I did not want you to leave after the trouble I had taken to bring you here. I am satisfied with the choice made by my various—ah—agents. Each of you measures up to my requirements and so now I will tell you how I am going to make you all rich men.” He drew on his cigar before continuing.
“It is rumored that I run guns into Mexico.”
He had their full attention now and he knew it. Early smoked slowly, drank some brandy before going on:
“I will tell you now, gentlemen, that there is money in guns, big money. Rebels and bandidos will take all kinds of risks to get money to pay for the latest American guns. Our repeaters, of course, are far superior to anything they can lay their hands on below the Rio, outside of government armories. But the Mexican Government, too, is not averse to doing a little deal under the table, as it were, to obtain guns that our government does not see fit or think wise to sell to them. Relations between the U.S. and Mexico are always sensitive, to say the least. Well, the thing is, gentlemen, I have been approached because of my reputation, by certain parties to deliver a consignment of the latest U.S. Army weapons to a band of Mexican Nationals whose political beliefs I neither know nor care about. The thing that interested me most about the offer was this …” He leaned forward and gazed at the others, looking at each man singly all round the table. “These men are willing to pay twenty thousand dollars in gold for the consignment!”
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