by John Benteen
The man named Luke growled an obscenity, swinging around on the rail. “Somebody oughta shoot that damned killer stud and maybe I’m jest the man to do it. Fred, lend me that iron of yours—”
“You will like hell!” a woman’s voice cut in.
“Lola, you shut your mouth!” Luke turned, a hulking man with a three-day ginger beard and the reddish eyes of a weasel. “Fred, I said, gimme that Colt!”
“Wait a minute,” the man beside him said. “Looks like Lola’s gonna show us how it’s done.”
“You bet your boots.”
And then Fargo saw her, and softly, soundlessly, he whistled.
She had just slid down off the fence, into the corral, carrying a rope in her hand, the loop shaken out. She was taller than usual for a woman, and big breasts stretched the fabric of a tight flannel shirt. A broad leather belt encircled a waist a man with big hands could have spanned, and Levis so tight they could have been painted on hugged a rounded, insolent rump. From beneath a low-crowned Stetson, long hair so black it glimmered with blue lights spilled down her back. Even approaching the horse, she walked with a sexy hip-slinging gait, as if very much aware of all those male eyes on her.
'“Lola,” Rose breathed.
“So I figured,” Fargo murmured.
Now the stud was aware of her approach. It turned, stared at her, head lowered. One forefoot pawed the earth, and it shook itself so hard the stirrups flew and rosaderos rattled. “Fred, gimme a hand,” Lola said.
“Right.” The man named Fred slid off the rail, one hand on his gun. The stud snorted, trying to make up its mind to charge.
“Hii!” Lola yelled and popped the rope. Instead of charging, the big dun turned, cantered around the corral, sticking close to the fence. Lola turned, following it. Then the rope sailed out, low and fast, and she was leaning back and Fred had it, too, and the stud, neatly forefooted by a double loop went down, hard.
Even as it landed, Lola had looped the rope around the snubbing post and Fred, running forward, dropped on the stallion’s head. Two more men jumped off the rail, helped him, holding the snorting, wall-eyed animal down so it couldn’t rise. Lola, certain the stud was pinned, rolled the rope, shook out the loop, slipped it off the forefeet. Then, running to the kicking animal, she positioned herself, reins gathered in her hand. “All right!” she snapped. “Let him up!”
They did, running for the fence. The stud grunted, came up quick, and when it did, Lola slid into the saddle, feet instantly finding stirrups, hands hauling back on reins. The dun stood motionless for a pair of seconds, every hair standing up. Then it squealed and uncorked with everything it had—and that was plenty.
Fargo watched with admiration as the hammerhead soared straight up, swapped ends, came down stiff-legged. It went up again, sun-fishing, came down, snapped the other way, grunting and squealing, a bronc thoroughly and wholly rank, as horsemen said. Wild and powerful, it fought around the corral, reaching for the sky, kicking, half-rolling, and Lola rode it every jump; and Fargo could see her face now, see the huge black eyes shining with excitement, the white teeth gleaming in a wild grin, raven hair swirling around her head—and spurs raking fore and aft every second. She was a hell of a rider, and it was a hell of a ride she made, and Fargo watched it all, the men on the fence wholly rapt, totally unaware of his and Rose’s presence.
The stud lasted maybe two minutes, which, Fargo knew, could be an eternity when you were up there in the saddle. Then, winded, it began to slow. Mercilessly, Lola raked it with her spurs. It crow-hopped, flanks heaving, head coming up, foam plating its dusty hide. “Buck, damn you!” Fargo heard Lola yell, and she slammed the spurs across its shoulders one more time, and he saw the foam there turn red as rowels sliced flesh. The stud jumped twice more, rocking chair leaps, stood with head down, flanks heaving. Lola jerked it around to put it to the fence—and then she saw the buckboard.
The black eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned!” she cried. Then she’d shoved the dun over to the rails, quit the saddle, and, dusty, disheveled, panting, was outside the corral. “Rose!” She was striding forward, brushing hair back from her eyes. “Rose, is that you?”
“It’s me, Lola.” Rose jumped from the buckboard, stood uncertainly. Now the men on the fence turned, and some slid down. The stud, inside, was forgotten, as the two sisters met.
It was not a passionate reunion. As Rose raised her hands, perhaps to embrace the other girl, Lola stopped dead, five feet away, put hands on hips. “Where the hell you come from? I thought maybe you’d got yourself killed down yonder with the greasers?”
“No.” Her voice faltered. “Richard did. But I ... have come back.”
“I see. Rich is dead?” Her eyes flickered to' Fargo, then paused, raking up and down the tall, wide-shouldered form, taking in the battered face with its cauliflower ear, a countenance so hard and ugly that a lot of women found it handsome. Lola did, too, judging from something flaring in the depths of those dark eyes. She was, Fargo thought, a lot of woman, and probably continually on the lookout for a lot of man.
Now she touched her hair with a different gesture. “So Rich is dead. Well, it didn’t take you long to find another man—and if you ask me, you did a lot better this go-around. Who’re you, mister?”
“My name’s Fargo. Neal Fargo.”
The breasts rose beneath the flannel shirt. “Fargo. I’ve heard of you.”
He shrugged. “Some have, some haven’t.”
“And so,” her voice was ironic, “you brought my little sister home?”
“That’s the size of it.”
Coolly, she put out her hand. “Okay. Welcome to the Dane Ranch. I guess you know who I am. And—”
“And now you can move on, friend,” the man named Luke growled, coming up beside her.
Fargo stared at him. Luke had enough booze in him to make him sway a little and he was sick with rage and being thrown, out-ridden and made a fool of by a woman. On the prod; and, Fargo saw, he had strapped on the gun he’d taken off to ride the stud. He looked like a man who knew how to use it.
“Well, now,” Fargo said. “That’s up to the two ladies that own the place, ain’t it?”
“It’s up to me.” The man named Luke took a step forward. “And I say move. You ain’t wanted here.”
The others were drifting up, now, spreading out, and Fargo’s first judgment that they were a harder, tougher breed from ordinary ranch hands was reinforced. They were, all of them, cut from the same cloth as the man named Luke. Tall odds, unacceptable ones, if they decided to back Luke all the way.
Then Lola turned on him. “Listen, shorthorn,” she said, as if talking to a servant or an idiot child, “the man’s right. This isn’t your put-in. Now, you go on, ask somebody to give you riding lessons or something and let us be, or I’ll take the skin off of you. Understand?”
Luke blinked and his eyes met hers. “Lola …”
“If he doesn’t beat me to it. I’ve got a hunch he could swallow you for breakfast and still want a second cup of coffee.”
Luke’s face turned red beneath the dust. The others stood waiting to see what he would do. But, as simply and with the same seeing effort as she had dominated the stallion, Lola faced him down. After a long moment, Luke licked his lips, turned away. “Hell,” he muttered. “All right, dammit!” he bawled at the others. “Come on! Help me get my kak off that stud!”
The tension broke. That group of hardcases drifted to the corral. Lola chuckled, a deep, rich sound. “Those!” she said. “Put all their brains together and there wouldn’t be enough to fill a shot glass. Same with their backbone. Well, little sister, since you’re back, you and Fargo come on in the house.”
~*~
It was large and cool and beautifully furnished and once must have been magnificent. Now it was cluttered with masculine gear: rifles, cartridge belts, empty bottles tossed here and there and dust thick on nearly every surface. Lola appeared not to notice, but Rose’s jaw dropped. “Sis,” s
he whispered. “What’s happened here? Why’s the place like ... like this? Where are the horses? And all the old riders we used to have? And where’s Tia Barbara?”
Lola chuckled again. “Let’s have drinks all around, and then I’ll tell you all the sad news.” Going to a cluster of bottles on a table, she poured three glasses of bourbon, handed one to Fargo, another to Rose, raised her own. “Welcome home,” she said, voice and eyes both mocking, and raised her glass and drank. Then she set the glass down hard.
“The horses? Gone. Sold, some of ’em, to pay taxes and expenses. Stolen, a lot of ’em; rustling’s been bad these past few years. Your little greaser friends from below the border need horseflesh and aren’t particular where they get it. And the old riders—? Well, when you’ve got no horses, you don’t need riders. I let ’em go. They weren’t worth a damn anyhow. And as for that bunch out yonder—well, they just sort of drifted in. I let ’em stay because they do what needs to be done for free, just a place to sleep and some grub. They aren’t any petunia blossoms, but we haven’t been bothered by rustlers any more since the place filled up with men who knew how to use their guns.” She looked challengingly at Fargo. “Right?”
He shrugged. To him, the whole thing stank like a dead fish in the sunshine; apparently deliberately, she had allowed the Dane Ranch to fill up with drifters and gunmen; but it was, for the moment, not his affair. He had only promised Angelita to deliver Rose safely to El Paso and see her well established, not settle all her affairs and arrange her life. To do that, he could see now, would involve a lot of fighting, and though that was his trade, like any professional he never worked for free. With plenty of money in the bank and a bunged-up left arm, he was ready for a spree, not more trouble. And this outfit was trouble if he’d ever seen it—especially Lola Dane. Rose had tagged her exactly: bitch on wheels.
“And,” Lola finished, “Tia Barbara didn’t like the company, so she walked out in a huff. Which is why the place looks the way it does. You know me; I can handle horses, but I never was a housekeeper.”
“No.” Rose’s face was pale, and her mouth worked as she looked around. “But ... everything is so run down, so ... gone to ruin.”
“Well, if you don’t like it, maybe you should have stayed,” Lola said bitingly. “You could have kept things tidied up and hauled your share of the load instead of leaving me stuck with everything while you went prancing off to Mexico. Anyhow, if you’ve come back figuring there’s a fortune waiting for you, forget it. This place is broke, dead broke ...”
“I just don’t understand.” Rose shook her head. “With the market at Fort Bliss and ...”
“Dead broke. We don’t have a dime.” Lola hammered the words home. She drained her glass. “Now, what are you going to do? Stay here with me on the old homestead? Or does the big man here have other plans for you?” She looked at Fargo with something smoldering in her eyes.
“Stay here? I—No,” Rose said thickly. “No, I can’t do that. Neal, please. Will you take me back to El Paso? I’ll go to the hospital tomorrow, get my old job back. But—I can’t stay here. I just can’t.”
“You always were fussy,” Lola said sardonically.
“Please.” Rose took his hand. “Let’s go, right now.”
“Sure,” Fargo said. “So long, Miss Dane.”
“So long,” Lola said. “Come back to see me when you get a chance—Fargo.”
He did not answer that. Rose was trying to contain her emotions as he led her from the house, back to the buckboard. And he was aware of Lola standing there by the table, glass in hand, watching him with those huge, dark insolent eyes as he went out.
“Neal,” Rose murmured as he helped her up. “I knew it would be bad, but not ... this bad.”
“Okay,” Fargo said. “Take it easy. We’ll—” Then, starting to unlatch the tethers from the hitch rack, he halted. Luke was leaning against the side of the house, picking his teeth with a wooden match and staring at him with those weasel eyes. Slowly he straightened up.
“I been waiting for you, big ugly,” he said hoarsely.
Fargo tensed. “Have you, now?”
“Yeah. You may have figgered I was scared of you back yonder. I jest want you to git one thing clear. I ain’t scared of any man ever pulled on a boot.” His right hand dangled at his side, near his Colt.
“That’s a bad way to be,” Fargo said. “A little fear’s healthy, sometimes. Keeps a man from being hurt.”
“If anybody hurts me, it won’t be you,” Luke said, and then his hand moved.
So did Fargo’s, flashing across his chest, under his coat. “Luke!” he roared. “Stand fast!”
Luke gaped, gun half drawn, at the muzzle of the .38 that covered him. “Christ,” he whispered, and his face went the color of spoiled tallow. He had been fast, but he had also been drunk. Besides, it was Fargo’s business always to be faster; that was why, meticulously, he practiced every day. On the day he was second best, he would be out of business—and buried.
“Now,” Fargo said, “finish liftin’ that gun. And pitch it over yonder in the dirt.”
Slowly, carefully, Luke dragged his gun the rest of the way from leather, staring as if fascinated at the unwavering bore of the .38. He threw his Colt into the yard.
“Now,” Fargo said, stepping forward, gun still lined. “You remember what I said about a little fear? Now you get hurt.” The .38 moved with blinding speed, making a dull th-wunk! as its barrel slugged against Luke’s head. Luke’s knees buckled and he fell limply on his face.
A quick look around showed Fargo that no one had witnessed the incident. He went quickly to the buckboard, swung up, gathered the lines, popped them, and the team went into a trot. As they left the ranch yard, Rose looked at him, frowning. “That was pretty brutal. Did you really have to do it?”
“If I hadn’t,” Fargo said, “he’d have been ahead of us in no time, waitin’ to blow me out of this rig from the top of some cutbank. I never do anything without a reason—remember that.”
He kept the team at a smart pace for a long time, glancing over his shoulder often, then searching the terrain ahead; but they made it off the Dane property without incident and at a fork he swung left instead of right, taking the long way around to El Paso. Then he pulled the horses off the road and let them rest. Above their snorting, he became aware of another sound and turned; Rose, quietly, was crying.
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “Some homecoming, eh? You were right. She is a bitch on wheels.”
“I don’t understand it,” the girl whispered. “The place used to be so fine, so profitable, and we had riders who had been with us for years, and Tia Barbara almost raised us. And now ... gone, all gone. Horses, men, and the old woman, and all those ... buscaderos.”
“Yeah, that’s what they are, all right. Gunslicks. You’ve seen enough of ’em in Mexico. It looks like your half-sister has turned your outfit into a hangout for ’em. And as far as that business about your stock bein’ rustled is concerned, that’s a lot of crap. There’s plenty of rustlin’ along the border, but not this close to a post like Bliss and a city like El Paso. She sold your horses, and she’s holdin’ out the money.”
“Then I’m not crazy? Something strange is really going on there?”
“Something that stinks to high heaven,” Fargo said.
“What can I do about it?”
Fargo shrugged. He felt a certain pity for her, but he was not in business for his health and he saw no prospect of any tangible reward. He’d discharged his obligation to Angelita and to Villa, and he had other fish to fry. Still, what the hell. He was flush. He could gamble a thousand.
“First thing you better do is hire yourself a lawyer. I’ll lend you a thousand bucks so you’ll have something to operate on. You hire a lawyer, have him get a court order, make Lola pony up all the books and records, account for the missing horses, and the profits from their sale, have the sheriff chase all those buscaderos off the place, and take over your half of the pl
ace and run it as you see fit. It’ll take a while, but you got to work through the courts, do everything legal. This ain’t Mexico, and if you get the law on your side, you’re okay.”
“I couldn’t take your money.”
“It ain’t a gift, it’s a loan. You can pay it back with interest when you get the place on your feet—or sell your half for what you can get. Meantime, you can get that job you talked about. The main thing is, to start making your sister mighty uncomfortable—and not ever to go out to that ranch without a lawman along to side you until things get straightened out. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said at last. “And ... thank you very much.”
“’sta nada,” Fargo said. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s a great deal. And you ... what will you be doing?”
Fargo grinned as he put the team in motion. “Well, I’ve got nigh sixty thousand in the bank. Half of that I save as capital to buy more guns for Villa when the time comes. The other half—well, it’ll buy some good whiskey and some high-rolling at the poker tables, and I’ll buck the tiger, too. Long as it lasts, I’ll enjoy it. When it’s gone, I’ll go back to work.”
Rose looked at him. “Is that how you live, all the time? Fighting, running risks, then blowing everything you make on a spree?”
“It’s a way that suits me.”
“But don’t you think about the future? Don’t you want a home, a wife, a family ... What about when you get old?”
“In my business you don’t get old,” said Fargo.
“Neal—”
“And I don’t want to,” he went on harshly. “I said it’s a way of life that suits me. Most people, they got steady jobs, they know what they’ll be doin’ from one day to the next, nothin’ ever changes for ’em, and the most excitement they have is readin’ a book or seein’ a play or goin’ to one of these movin’ pictures. For a little while, then, they can pretend that they’re alive. Me, I don’t pretend. I got things arranged so I know I’m alive—every damn minute of the day. I may not live to git old and feeble, takin’ my medicine like a good little boy and careful not to git a chill, but, by God, I pack more livin’ into one day than most of the people I see around these towns get into a lifetime. And when that bullet with my name on it finally gits me, I’ll know I’ve played every turn of the wheel there was, and there’ll be no regrets. And that’s how it stacks up with me.”