by John Benteen
Through swollen eyes and a kind of haze, Sundance, panting, stood there, looking at them defiantly, as they encircled him and Whitewolf. The Crow half-breed, his shirt half torn from his body, his cheekbone and mouth dribbling blood, staggered to Sundance; he was still grinning, his eyes gleaming. “Whipped ’em,” he husked.
“Not yet.” Sundance saw hatred, determination, written on those encircling faces in the lantern light. Then what he feared happened. All at once, here and there around the ring, knifeblades gleamed. They were going to come again; and this time it would be with cold steel.
“Cover my back!” he snapped to Whitewolf. “If they come at us, blast ’em; otherwise, don’t kill anybody.” His hand swooped down, came up filled with gun. As one man took a crouched step forward, Sundance fired. The thunder of the Colt was tremendous in the silent room. The bullet punched into the floor at the feet of the man with the outthrust knife, and he jumped back.
“¡Amigos!” Sundance yelled in Spanish. He stood there, moccasined feet widespread, the Colt’s muzzle sweeping the half circle on his side, and hearing the click of Whitewolf’s revolver coming to full cock, knew that the Crow was doing the same behind him. “Amigos, it’s been a damned good fight! But it’s over now, eh? Before somebody really gets hurt—”
There was a long, taut, silent moment.
Sundance’s mouth thinned. “All we want is to leave. Please, let us out peaceably. We’ll go the same way. But if you try to stop us—We can’t kill you all. But some women will mourn before the night is over.”
Again silence. The smell of gun smoke mingled with spilled tequila, the reek of kerosene. On the floor, a man groaned, stirred. “Let’s go,” Sundance said. “Keep me covered.”
“Right.” Back to back, he and Whitewolf edged toward the door, guns up and pointed. The hush still held. Sundance saw men fighting with themselves, wanting to attack, afraid to, those knives still out but held in check. Then Whitewolf said, “Here we are.” They had reached the swinging doors. Sundance backed through them, keeping the room covered until they slammed shut behind him. Then he whirled. “Come on!” he snapped at Whitewolf and began to run.
The Crow followed him as he darted into an alley. There was shouting in the cantina, and men piled out on the street. Whitewolf said, “Wait, Sundance— They’ll be easy targets—”
“Goddammit,” Sundance snapped, “you want to spend the rest of your life in a Mexican jail? I got better things to do! Run, damn you!”
The men from the bar raced down the street after them. Sundance grabbed Whitewolf, pulled him around. Both began to run through the darkness of the alley. Ahead, there was another street, and the houses that edged it were dark. Sundance looked up and down it, found it deserted, raced across it with Whitewolf just behind. He dodged into another alley as the pursuers from the cantina spread out, searching, calling to one another. At the far end of this alley, Sundance halted. Beyond lay an open field with the moon shining all too brightly on its hills of melons; past that, a line of trees marked the Rio’s course. Sundance tapped Whitewolf’s arm. “Head for the river, quick!”
They ran across the field. A melon squashed under Whitewolf’s boot, Sundance kicked another aside. Behind them came a sudden shout. “There they are!” A gun roared, then another, flames winking in the night. But the bullets came nowhere near. Sundance and Whitewolf instinctively dodged, zigzagged. The line of trees and brush was nearer. The men came running after them, firing; but a running man shooting with a pistol at two others hits his target only by luck. Sundance did hear the whine of one bullet fairly close. They reached cover, went tumbling and sliding down the riverbank, through brush and weeds. The thicket closed around them as they brought up just at the water’s edge. Sundance hesitated, then crawled upstream to where the brush was even thicker, making no sound as he went, veiled by the shadow of the trees that edged the river. Aware of Whitewolf just behind him, he made it into a briary covert, stopped there, panting. Whitewolf squirmed in beside him; they sat with heads down.
Farther down the river, on the bank, they heard their pursuers stamping around. A man cried out, “Over there!” and a gun roared as he shot at shadows. There was the sound of crashing brush, a terrified bleating. Somebody else yelled, “You almost killed somebody’s goat, you damned fool!”
Another voice, more authoritative, said, “Listen, more than a goat’s going to die if we keep messing around here like this. Those two have guns and know how to use them. Me, I’m not going in that stuff after ’em in the dark, no more than I would after a tiger.”
There was a pause. “Theo’s right,” a vaquero said. “It would be suicide.” He laughed. “What the hell—the big one with the yellow hair was right. It was a damned good fight. Let’s go back and have a drink.”
A chorus of approval arose. Sundance and Whitewolf sat motionless, with infinite patience, for twenty minutes more. Only when they were absolutely sure that everyone had left did they stir.
“We’d better wade the river and spend the night in Texas,” Sundance said.
“Hell,” Whitewolf protested. “I’m not afraid of those Mexes.”
Sundance turned on him ferociously. “All right, then, go back. Let ’em kill you—or you kill them. You damned fool, don’t you know enough not to mess around with someone else’s woman?”
In the darkness, Whitewolf was silent; Sundance heard his heavy breathing. Then the Crow said softly, “Don’t call me a damned fool. I don’t take that talk from anybody.”
“You risk getting shot or winding up in a Mex prison, that’s all you are,” Sundance rasped. “You ever seen a Mex prison?”
Another silence. Then Whitewolf let out a long breath. “I guess you’re right.” There was warmth in his voice now. “And—thanks. If you hadn’t lent a hand, they’d have really worked me over. That’s twice you’ve saved me. Okay, Texas it is. Tomorrow, they’ll all be back where they came from and Piedras Negras ought to be all right for us.”
They slid down the bank into the water, waded the wide but shallow stream, climbed out on the Texas side. The lights of Eagle Pass winked in the darkness nearby. Whitewolf said, “Come on. Let’s find a bar. I’ll buy you a drink or two.”
“No,” Sundance said. “I’ve had all the bars I need tonight. I’m going to find a room somewhere.”
Whitewolf laughed softly. “If I hadn’t seen you in action tonight, I’d swear you were gettin’ old. Okay, Sundance, you have your rest; me, I’m not through with my high lonesome yet. See you in Piedras Negras tomorrow, eh?”
“Maybe.” They walked toward the town.
“After that, where you bound?”
“I’m not sure,” Sundance said.
“Sure you don’t need a sidekick? We make a good team, proved that tonight.”
“Like I said, I work alone.”
“Suit yourself. Just thought I owed you something, could pay it off by making myself handy to you.” At the edge of town, Whitewolf halted. “I go this way,” he said.
“Yes,” said Sundance. “But me, I’m headed uptown.”
“Well,” Whitewolf said, “see you around, eh, Sundance?”
“Right,” Sundance said, and he took Whitewolf’s outstretched hand. After that, he stood there and watched the Crow ’breed walk lithely toward the section of honky-tonks and deadfalls near the river. Then he turned away and went uptown to find a rooming house which would admit a man who looked as if he’d tangled with a team of runaway mules.
Chapter Four
Early next morning, Sundance left the shabby rooming house in Eagle Pass, walked back across the bridge to the posada in Piedras Negras. The Mexican town was quiet and pretty in the clean light of sunrise. At the inn, Sundance cleaned himself up, changed clothes again. Inspecting his face in a mirror, he smiled ruefully and a little painfully. It was pretty well battered. Not a countenance to inspire confidence in a woman living alone on a failing rancho; but he had not forgotten Teresa Sanchez, and, face or no face, he in
tended to see her today, for there was no time to waste. After paying his bill, he saddled and loaded Eagle and rode south out of town.
Once the Hacienda del Carmen must have been an impressive ranch. Now, though, it was obviously mismanaged, in the grip of poverty, going to seed. Following the long track to the main layout from the road, Sundance saw slick-eared cattle that should long since have been earmarked and branded, prime stock that should already have been shipped and paid for. Occasional fields in cultivation showed indifferent care, their crops choked with weeds.
The ranch itself was a big adobe house with a tile roof, its flanks urgently needing paint or whitewash. Around it, like chicks around a mother hen, were clustered the little jacales of the workers and riders, plus some rickety corrals and outbuildings. Tethering Eagle at the rack, Sundance mounted the veranda steps, pulled the bell rope.
A mestiza, a dark-skinned servant girl, answered, then drew back in instinctive fear at the sight of the big, copper-colored man with the blond hair and a face puffed, bruised, and cut. But when Sundance asked to see her mistress, she told him to wait and disappeared into the depths of the house obediently. A long moment passed, and then the door opened once again, and Sundance stared at the woman in the doorway.
Teresa Sanchez was tall, olive-skinned, probably in her late twenties, and beautiful enough to take any man’s breath away. Her hair, piled high on her head, was a lustrous blue-black color, her eyes enormous and dark, her mouth full and red. Beneath a crisp white dress, the curves of her body were ripe and round—large breasts, slender waist, a tempting sweep of hips. She looked at Sundance with curiosity, but with none of the fear her servant had displayed.
He swept off his hat. “Señora Sanchez. My name is Sundance, Jim Sundance. I have come on a matter concerning a certain man—”
Her eyes widened, her hand went to her breast. “Roberto—You have news of him?”
“Perhaps.”
Teresa Sanchez stepped aside quickly, eagerly. “Please come in,” she said a little breathlessly.
If a little shabby, the house was cool and nicely furnished, the woman’s touch and good taste everywhere. She led him at once to an office off the main hall. It contained a desk, easy chair, sofa, a few shelves of books. She gestured with a hand that shook for him to sit down. Then she said, softly but shakily, “Will you have some coffee or some tea?”
“No, thanks,” Sundance said. “I prefer to get down to business.”
Dona Sanchez stood before the desk, her hands laced together. “I know who you are, now. The big one who fought so terribly in the cantina at Piedras Negras last night. A couple of my riders told me of you. What … what news have you of Roberto?”
“The news,” Sundance said flatly, “that he is wanted very badly by the Anglos for the bank robbery in Piedras Negras.”
She stared at him. Then her face changed, suddenly full of anger. “So that’s it,” she whispered. “You’re a lawman. You look for him to jail him, kill him.” Her voice rose. “Get out! I will not talk to you; get out, do you hear?”
Sundance stood up. “I hear, but I’m not going. Not until we’ve talked some more.” He looked down at her, eyes boring into hers. “Roberto. Joker Bob Chester, the Anglos call him. And what they say of him is—”
“I know what they say of him!” she snapped, turning away. “And it is lies, all lies!”
“Is it?” Sundance’s voice was low, hard. “You’re a widow. Maybe you should ask two more widows in Eagle Pass if it’s lies. The Chesters shot down two men in that bank in cold blood.”
She whirled, eyes wide. “I tell you, it is not true. Roberto could not do such a thing! Always he was so gentle, so soft-spoken, and always smiling.”
“That’s true,” Sundance said. “They say he was smiling even when he pulled the trigger of the shotgun that tore a man apart.”
Teresa Sanchez looked at him wordlessly, swallowing hard.
Sundance went on, merciless now. “I’ve seen pictures of him. Oh, he’s a handsome man, yes, always smiling or laughing. That’s how he got his nickname. But inside, he’s as cold-blooded as a snake. If he isn’t, why did he use you—?”
“He did not use me.” She drew herself up. “As a matter of fact, this is all a farce. I know nothing of this man.”
“That’s not what I heard from one of your vaqueros. What I heard was that he used your ranch for headquarters before the robbery. Oh, I’m sure he was very, shall we say, agreeable? And you were a lonely woman and—It’s understandable. What’s not understandable is why you should protect a man like that now that you know what he is.”
She kept on looking at him, her face pale, her hand at her breast again. “Two men,” Sundance went on tonelessly. “Young men, family men, both with children. Going about their work in the early morning, harming no one. And he could have given them a chance. Nobody fights a sawed-off shotgun. All he had to say was ‘Hands up!’ and they would have obeyed and still be alive today. But he didn’t; he just walked in and pulled the trigger, he and his brother—”
“Coy,” she whispered. “Yes, the little one, he was hateful. But Roberto was so different from him.”
“A smile doesn’t make one wolf different from another wolf,” Sundance said. “Have you ever seen a snarling wolf? It looks just like it’s grinning.”
Now she could meet his eyes no longer. She turned away.
Sundance went to her, put his hand on her shoulder, pulled her around. “Listen, Doña Teresa. Tell me if this is true or not. The Chester brothers came here to your ranch, used it as a jump off to cross the river and rob the bank. You gave them shelter because Roberto told you certain things and made love to you.”
“Shut your filthy mouth,” she almost moaned.
“Told you that he loved you. But he didn’t tell you that he was going to rob a bank and kill two men, did he? Or tell you afterwards that he was going to hightail it south and vanish into Mexico without ever seeing you again or sending word to you. So now you wait in suspense, wondering when you will hear, when he’ll come and prove to you he didn’t do the things he’s accused of. Well, he won’t come, and you know it. He did do those things, and you know that, too. And somewhere down in Coahuila or Nuevo Leon, he’s still smiling all right. Hell, he’s laughing—at the way he made a fool of you.”
She tried desperately to turn away. Sundance gripped both her arms, held her, forced her to face him. Their eyes met. “It’s true, isn’t it? You were a fool. And he’s never coming back and you know it. Not unless he decides to rob the bank again next year and thinks he can use you again, make you accessory to murder and robbery again.”
Under his grasp, she began to tremble. Her eyes filled with tears, her mouth worked. Sundance went on coldly. “Because, you see, you’re responsible, too. If you continue to protect him, you’re as much responsible for those two deaths, those two fatherless families, as if you’d walked into that bank and shot those men down yourself.”
“Stop it,” she husked. “Please.”
“And you know that. It’s something you’ve lived with three weeks already and tried to hide from yourself, refused to believe. That he’s a murderer and has made a murderess of you.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Please.” Then she dropped her head. For a moment, as her knees gave way, she was dead weight in Sundance’s hands. “Who are you?” she said thickly. “The voice of my conscience? All those things I have said to myself inside my mind and—” She broke off in a half sob.
Sundance swung her around, gently put her down on the sofa. “You can’t be blamed for what you did before the robbery. You had no way of knowing. But now you do know, and unless you want to live with guilt all your life—”
“Stop it,” she said, and she put her face in her hands and began to cry.
Sundance sat on the edge of the desk and watched her impassively as her shoulders shook convulsively and racking, grief-stricken sobs seemed wrenched from the very depths of her. She cried for a lon
g time, confronting the truth which he had hammered into her and which until now she had not dared face, as no woman, seduced and abandoned, can bear to believe that the man she loved has only used her. He felt a certain compassion for her, but more than that, he felt a satisfaction at breaking her so easily. There was a possibility, just a long chance, that now her love for Bob Chester would turn to hatred and she would seek revenge.
Minutes later, exhausted, she raised a harrowed face and haunted eyes. Her lips worked soundlessly before words came at last. “I—I must think. I need time, don’t you understand? All this I must think about. What do you want from me?”
“I want to know if he gave you any idea of where he may be hiding now. If he ever said anything to indicate where he might go after he robbed the bank.”
“I can’t remember.” She brushed distractedly at her hair. “My mind won’t seem to work. I don’t know what to do or say.”