Maddened by thirst, hundreds of people rushed for the tank, and Perez had to flee to avoid the wild stampede. The noise from the crowd rose to a harsh, whining growl... a primitive cry of fear and despair.
The riflemen guarding the water were swept aside and frenzied men jumped into the tank, more and more of them, until the displaced liquid cascaded wastefully over the side.
Ignoring the distraught pleas of their wives and children, men drank deep, fighting one another for space, cursing and punching, and now glittered the honed iron of drawn blades.
Mickey Pauleen had seen enough.
His face empty, he slid the .44-40 Winchester from the boot under his knee. Pauleen threw the rifle to his shoulder, sighted on the biggest man struggling in the tank, and fired.
He didn’t wait to see the Mexican go down.
He shifted his aim to another man, fired. Then again... aim, fire!
The blood of the three dead peons slid across the surface like scarlet fingers... then slowly stained the water red.
Appalled, the crowd drew back, cringing in the face of death.
“Sancho!” Pauleen yelled. “Don’t just stand there wringing your hands. Order them to sit and then water them one at a time.”
Perez stared at the man on the horse, distant enough that he wavered in the heat haze.
Pauleen held the Winchester upright, the butt on his right thigh. Outlined by dazzling sunlight, he looked like the wrath of God.
“Damn you, do it!” the little gunman roared. Pauleen pushed his horse forward, Hugh Gray, shotgun in hand, riding close behind him.
Perez shook himself and finally responded.
He had no idea how long the peons would remain cowed, but now was not the time to take chances. He ordered his riflemen into the crowd, then yelled to his other bandits to give everyone a full cup of water, half that amount for children.
The bodies were dragged out of the tank and cups filled.
Pauleen rode up and glanced at the red-tinged water.
He grinned. “Look, Sancho, I’ve turned the water into wine,” he said.
“Ver’ good, Mickey,” Perez said. “You make a funny joke.”
The Mexican smiled, but inside he seethed with resentment, and his growing hatred for gringos, how they killed his people like animals, spiked at him. “They may not stay, Mickey,” Perez said.
Pauleen glanced over the peons, sitting or lying on their backs, spread over a couple of acres of ground.
“They’ll stay,” he said. “They’re thirsty, hungry, and exhausted. If they had any fight in them to begin with, it’s long gone.”
“Sí, long gone,” Perez said. “Is so sad.”
Pauleen’s eyes lifted. “Looks like there’s more a-comin’, Sancho,” he said.
The bandit’s gaze moved to the sun-spangled water where it sprang from the limestone cliff. “I hope the water lasts, Mickey,” he said.
“It’s probably been here for a thousand years,” Pauleen said. “It’ll last a thousand more.”
Perez turned his head and stared silently at the approaching dust. Then, spreading his hands, “Poor Sancho. How can he handle so many?”
“Kill a few. The rest will fall in line,” Pauleen said. He swung out of the saddle. To Gray he said, “Help Sancho’s men keep an eye on the greasers.”
“Sure thing,” Gray said.
Pauleen watched him leave, then took off his hat and ran his fingers through his damp, thin hair. He replaced his hat and said, “Sancho, I sent three guns to help you. Did you talk to them?”
Perez shook his head. His face looked like a round, red apple just beginning to go bad. “I never saw them, Mickey.”
“Strange, that.”
“Not so strange. The desert has a hundred ways to kill young men.”
“How did you know they were young?”
Perez didn’t miss a beat. “There are no old pistoleros, Mickey.”
Pauleen let it go. For now. “Looks like a couple hundred coming in,” he said, staring beyond Perez.
“The drought to the south is bad, many dead, peons and animals.”
“Get them watered and bedded down with the rest. Talk to them tomorrow when they’re in a mood to listen.”
“What do I tell them?”
“That golden fields of grain, fruiting orchards, and fine homes wait for them over the river—fat cattle, too. Tell them whatever the hell you want, but get them across the river on July fourth.”
“Not so long a time,” Perez said.
“I know, but get them there, Sancho.”
The bandit watched his mounted men settle the newcomers, a couple of other bandits already carrying cups of water among them.
This lot was in much worse shape than the others. They’d come from farther south and were living skeletons, faces as thin as paper, their clothing in tatters. The Mexicans threw themselves on the sand, too weak to stand or even cry out for water.
A woman among them broke into a piercing scream, then held out a limp baby to the man beside her.
The man wailed and held the baby close. The baby did not move or make a sound.
“Keep them alive, Sancho,” Pauleen said, his eyes cold. “Can you feed them?”
“With what, Mickey? How to cook tortillas for so many, huh?”
“Well, do the best you can. Just keep them alive for another few days.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A lantern cast orange light onto Sancho Perez’s round face, giving him a look of a pumpkin man from a child’s nightmare.
As was his duty as a host, a bottle of mescal stood upright in the sand between him and Mickey Pauleen, even though the little gunman would not drink.
Out in the moaning, muttering night, half of Perez’s bandits guarded the peons, working two hours on, two off. It was a hardship for the men, but it helped quell Sancho’s uneasiness.
“A great host will cross the river,” he said. “Never fear.”
Pauleen nodded. “You’ve done well, Sancho.”
“Will Abe Hacker let them stay?”
“Of course. Then, after a while, most will return to Mexico.”
“But Hacker will take possession of a ravaged land.”
“He has money. He can bring the land back quickly. The Big Bend country will support vast cotton fields, and the peons that remain will work them for him.”
Pauleen glanced at the starlit sky.
“Understand this, Sancho—to Hacker, the land around Last Chance is a small matter, just another business property,” he said. “He wants much money and many worldly possessions to leave his son.”
“But he has no son.”
“He plans to make one.”
Perez laughed. “Hacker can’t make a son. His belly is too big... like mine.”
Pauleen sighed and shook his head.
“Where there is a will there’s a way, I guess.”
“I’d like to see that,” Perez said, grinning. “Abe Hacker on top of a young woman.”
Pauleen thought of Nora. “I reckon he manages,” he said.
Perez let his mirth subside, then took a drink from the bottle.
He burped loudly, cocked his butt and farted, then said, “The people of Last Chance will fight, I think.”
Pauleen shook his head. Perez, you’re an ignorant, greaser pig. “The rubes have grown too fat,” he said. “They’ve forgotten how to fight. If they ever knew.”
“Ahhh... this is true. People who live in towns grow soft and weak.”
“They don’t all live in town. Maybe the ranchers will stand.”
Perez smiled. “If they do, my compadres will take care of them.”
“I’d like to take a couple of your men back to town with me,” Pauleen said.
“Why?”
“As an insurance policy, Sancho, on account I don’t know where the three men I sent to you are. Who among your men are fastest with the iron?”
“You will leave me short, Mickey.”
&nb
sp; “Damn it, you’ve got fighting men acting as sheepherders. You can spare me a couple.”
Perez sighed dramatically.
“Ver’ well, Mickey. To you, my dear friend, I can deny nothing. I will give you—”
A scream bladed into the desert silence like a thrown lance.
Out in the moon-dappled darkness a shotgun roared, followed by another scream and the shouts of angry men.
“Rebellion!” Perez yelled, his face alarmed.
He and Pauleen wakened the sleeping bandits, who cursed as they scrambled groggily for their weapons.
Rifles at the ready, the bandits formed a semicircle around Perez and Pauleen and stared into the night.
“Do you see anything?” Perez whispered.
“¡Mire!” one of the younger bandits yelled, excitedly pointing with his rifle.
Every eye shifted to that patch of night.
The darkness parted and two bandits appeared, their rifles slung as they dragged a man across the desert, his toes gouging the sand.
It was Hugh Gray, his left cheek bloodied by four parallel talon marks.
The bandits threw the groaning Gray at Perez’s feet and one of them babbled in rapid Mexican Spanish that was too fast and colloquial for Pauleen to understand.
After the man stopped speaking, Pauleen said, “Sancho, what the hell?”
Perez’s anger flared. He kicked Gray in the face and screamed, “Pig!”
“What happened?” Pauleen said.
Perez’s red-rimmed eyes were bulbous, and saliva flecked his lips. “He lured a señora into the desert, promised her food. He tried to take advantage. When her husband came to her assistance, this man shot him.”
“Well, his name is Hugh Gray, and Hacker will deal with him when we get back to Last Chance,” Pauleen said. He looked at the bandits around him, smiled, and said, “Excitement’s over, boys. Go back to sleep.”
No one moved. The surrounding Mexicans were grim-faced, a powder keg waiting to explode.
“The woman’s husband is dead,” Perez said. “I will deal with this man.”
“Mickey,” Gray said, raising his head, turning his raked cheek to the moonlight. “Look what she did to me.”
“Yeah, I see it,” Pauleen said. “And that pretty much evens things up, I reckon.”
To Perez he said, “Sancho, I’ll see to it that Hacker fines this man fifty dollars. You can give the money to the widow.”
The bandit ignored that and yelled, “Get the gringo dog to his feet.” When that was done, Perez said, “Strip him! Then tie his hands behind his back!”
Gray’s angry face was distorted in the moonlight. He cursed as relentless hands tore off his clothes and he tried to kick out at Perez.
The bandit backhanded Gray across the face and the huge jeweled ring he wore on his middle finger opened up a gaping cut at the corner of the man’s mouth.
Blood running down his chin, naked, Gray pleaded with Pauleen. “Mickey, you ain’t gonna let greasers do this to a white American, are you?”
The black eyes of the bandits around him glittered with hostility, and Pauleen knew it would be dangerous to push it.
“Sancho,” he said, “how much for Gray?”
“Restore the peon to life. That is my price.”
“You don’t give a damn for these people. A white man is worth saving.”
“Not if he killed a Mexican.”
“Five hundred dollars,” Pauleen said. Then, desperately, “In gold.”
“I tire of you, Mickey,” Perez said. “I warn you not to weary me any longer.”
Pauleen was beat and he knew it.
Perez was insane, but right now he was also dangerous. The little gunman let it go.
“You should have kept it in your pants, Gray,” he said.
Gray spat at Perez, then said, “Damn your eyes, then shoot me and get it over.”
The bandit’s voice was low, level—ominously quiet.
“Give this gringo pig to the women,” he said.
It took a while for those words to sink into Gray’s slow brain.
But once they did, he shrieked in mortal terror.
Beyond the limits of the lantern light, beyond the small music of the water tumbling into the tank, stood a line of Mexican women, young and old, still and silent, as menacing as tigresses.
The moon hung high behind them, silvering their shoulders and the tops of their heads, here and there glinting on steel.
Bandits dragged the kicking, screaming Gray toward the wall of women... it opened, parting slowly like a great gate.
Gray, thrown to the ground, screamed as the gate closed...
And the ravening pack descended upon him.
To Mickey Pauleen, how long it took several hundred women to kill a man became a matter of academic interest.
To his surprise Gray’s screams choked off after just half a minute, and the women stepped away about twenty seconds afterward, leaving a bloody, mangled thing on the sand.
There would be nothing left of Gray worth saving, but Pauleen stepped closer to take a look.
Around the torn carcass, which looked as though it had been set upon by wolves, stood the circle of women, their still-savage faces spattered with blood, arms scarlet to the elbows.
When Pauleen drew close, hostile eyes that glowed like candlelit amber in the gloom turned to him. He saw the gleam of bared teeth and felt a sudden stab of fear, an emotion strange to him.
“Mickey, I think you better go now. Step away, but don’t turn your back on them.” Perez stood at Pauleen’s elbow. “You are the one who brought the gringo, and your life is in peril,” he said.
Pauleen needed no convincing.
He slowly backed away, trying not to hurry as his fear demanded.
Wasting no time getting into the saddle, he saw two Mexicans already mounted, slim young men with hard, violent faces and low-slung guns.
“These men will go with you, Mickey,” Perez said. He glanced anxiously over his shoulder at the women. “I will see you again when I cross the river.”
Pauleen nodded and gathered up the reins. Perez put a restraining hand on his leg.
“Last Chance has a bank, yes?” the bandit said.
“Yeah, it has.”
“Tell Hacker it is Sancho’s bank, huh?”
“We already made a deal,” Pauleen said.
“The bank was not mentioned. Now I mention it.”
“I’ll talk to Hacker.”
“And I will talk to him... when I ride into town with my men.”
Pauleen recognized the implied threat.
“Then so be it,” he said.
His lips drew into a thin, white line.
It seemed that Hacker had made a deal with the devil, and his price was steep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ranger Hank Cannan had not expected a reply to his letter this soon, if at all.
But there it was in his hand, in his wife’s fine copperplate, all the way from El Paso by stage in a stained, travel-worn envelope.
Cannan read the letter again, as though the words might miraculously change.
They did not.
My Dearest Henry,
How distressed I was to learn that you are sorely wounded and confined to a sickbed.
Thus, I believe it is a matter of the greatest moment that I hasten to your side in your hour of need, and, by my Loving and Tender Administrations, restore you to good health.
I have therefore undertaken to hazard the journey from El Paso to Last Chance on the Butterfield Stage to arrive—Oh, most fortunate happenstance!—on the afternoon of July Fourth, the day of our Great Nation’s independence.
Until then, my dearest one, you will be always in my thoughts and prayers and I am most eager to once again behold your Noble and Manly countenance.
I am,
Your Respectful and Loving Wife,
Then, with a fine flourish...
Jane
Cannan only lifted hi
s eyes from the paper when the door opened and Roxie stepped inside.
“Good morning! Are we ready for our walk?” she said, smiling.
Without a word, Cannan passed her the letter.
Roxie read it, then said, “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy she’s coming here.”
“I’m not,” Cannan said. “As soon as she steps foot in Last Chance her life will be in danger.”
“I don’t think so,” Roxie said. “There’s been town committee meetings and the agreement reached is that Abe Hacker can stay till the day after the Independence celebrations, and then he must leave.”
“Has anyone told him that?”
“Yes, of course. And he’s agreeable. Mayor Curtis says Hacker is even donating a couple of hogs, a barrel of whiskey, and three barrels of beer.”
Cannan shook his head, a quick, jerky gesture that communicated his frustration. “What the hell is Hacker up to?” he said.
He swung his legs out of the bed. “Mickey Pauleen was about to kill Ed Gillman, remember?” he said.
“It’s forgotten,” Roxie said. “The town wants Hacker and his gunmen to leave peacefully. No more dead men.”
“Hacker and Pauleen won’t leave, because I plan to arrest them,” Cannan said. “They’ll hang for the murder of Sheriff Isaac Dixon or spend the next twenty years in Huntsville.”
“Ranger, you’ll throw your life away, and your wife will be here to toss the first handful of sand onto your coffin.”
“I’ll do my duty,” Cannan said, his face stiff.
“I don’t know if I want to help you walk,” Roxie said.
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
“I never asked you this before, Ranger... are you good with a gun?”
“Fair.”
“Fair doesn’t cut it.”
“I’ll have right on my side, and I’m big enough and mean enough to take my hits and keep on a-comin’.”
“You’ve already taken too many hits.”
“I’m willing to take more. A Texas Ranger doesn’t eat crow for any man.”
Roxie sighed, a frown creasing her beautiful face. “Ah, well, on your feet, Texas Ranger Cannan. Let us promenade.”
She helped the lawman stand, and said, “I really don’t know why I’m doing this.”
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