“Thanks, ” Johnson said as he climbed back inside.
The stage got under way again, but Johnson pulled his hat down over his head, leaned back, and pretended to go to sleep.
CHAPTER 5
Back in the Calabasas jail, Fargo Ford was lying on the bunk with his hands folded behind his head, staring at the bottom of the bunk above him.
“Easy pickin’s, you told us,” Dagen growled. “There wouldn’t be nobody around at six in the mornin’, you said. There won’t be nobody there but just the expressman and his wife,” you said.
“Yeah, well, how the hell was I to know that the sheriff and both deputies would be there havin’ breakfast?” Fargo replied.
“You’re supposed to know things like that,” Dagen said. “That’s why you’re the leader.”
“Anytime you want to be the leader, Dagen, why you just be my guest,” Fargo invited.
“Yeah,” Ponci said. “How ’bout you leadin’ us, Dagen? You can lead us right up to the gallows!” He laughed out loud.
“Shut up, Ponci. That ain’t funny,” Dagen said. Almost unconsciously, he put his hand to his collar and pulled it away from his neck.
Ponci laughed again, but when Fargo heard the sheriff talking, he put his hand out as a signal to the others to be quiet.
“Shh,” Fargo said.
“What is it?” Ponci asked.
“Be quiet, I want to listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“To what the sheriff’s got to say. Now shut up,” Fargo ordered with a low hiss.
“Wilcox, keep an eye on things until Baker gets back,” Sheriff Ferrell was saying from the front of the office. “I’m going down to the Western Union and send a wire off to Judge Norton up in Tucson.”
“I’ll keep an eye on things, Sheriff,” Deputy Wilcox said.
The men in the cell heard the front door open and close.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” someone said from just outside the jailhouse. “You and your boys sure did a fine job this mornin’. You done the whole town just real proud. Yes, sir, that was a fine job you and the deputies done.”
“Thank you, Mr. Allen,” Ferrell answered. He chuckled. “Hope you remember that come next election day.”
“Oh, I’ll ’member it all right. The whole town will remember it, if you ask me. So, how about it? Are we goin’ to get to see us a hangin’ soon?”
“Looks that way,” Ferrell replied. “It sure looks that way. Course, that’ll be up to Judge Norton, but if I was a bettin’ man, I’d say we’ll be building a gallows within a week or so.”
“All right, that’s good,” Fargo said. He looked at the others.
“Good? What the hell are you talking about? All I heard the son of a bitch talking about was us hangin’,” Dagen said. “I’d like to know what the hell is good about that.”
“What’s good about it is, he was outside when he was talkin’,” Fargo replied.
“So he was outside. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Didn’t you hear the sheriff when he told Wilcox to watch things until Baker gets back?” Fargo said.
“Yeah, I heard it.”
“That means Wilcox is the only one here.”
“Hell, Fargo, it wouldn’t make no never mind if there wasn’t no one here at all. Case you ain’t noticed, we’re locked up in this here cell. And they don’t none of us have a key,” Dagen said.
“One of us has a key,” Fargo said.
“Who?”
“Wilcox.”
“Wilcox has a key,” Dagen said, scoffing. “That don’t make a lick of sense. What the hell good does it do us if Wilcox has a key?”
“I got me an idea,” Fargo said.
Up in the front of the sheriff’s office, Wilcox used a folded-up cloth to keep from burning his hand as he picked up the blue coffeepot from the top of the stove. He poured himself a cup of coffee, and had just taken a swallow when he heard a loud commotion coming from the cells in the back. Everyone was shouting at the same time.
“Deputy! Deputy Wilcox! Get back here quick! Hurry!”
Wilcox put the coffee cup down, then started toward the back.
“What the hell is goin’ on back here?” he called. “What’s all the shoutin’ about?”
As soon as he opened the door, he saw what had them all excited. One of the men had wrapped a blanket around his neck, then looped it over one of the overhead pipes. He was now hanging by the neck, twisting slowly in the cell.
“What the hell?” Wilcox asked. “Who is that? What is he doin’ up there?”
“That’s Casey and what he is doin’ is, he’s hangin’ hisself,” Fargo said.
“Son of a bitch, what’d he do that for? Couldn’t he wait for us to do it?”
Wilcox stepped up close to the bars, his eyes on the hanging prisoner. But his curiosity got the better of him, and he got too close. He was paying too much attention to the hanging man to see what happened next.
Dagen reached out to grab him by his gun arm while, at the same time, Fargo got a handful of his hair. Fargo jerked the deputy’s head hard against the iron bars, and though it didn’t knock Wilcox out, it stunned him enough for Dagen and Monroe to twist him around until his back was against the bars.
Fargo took a leather shoestring and looped it around Wilcox’s neck. He began tightening the string ... drawing it so tight that it cut into the deputy’s neck, causing blood to flow down on his shirt.
Fargo held it until Wilcox stopped struggling. Then he let him fall.
“Is he dead?” Casey asked.
“If he ain’t dead, he’s goin’ to be sleepin’ for about a thousand years,” Fargo replied.
Ponci laughed. “Sleepin’ for a thousand years. That’s funny.”
“Get me down from here,” Casey said.
There were three belts hidden behind the blanket that connected Casey’s neck to the overhead bars. Those three belts were buckled together, and attached to Casey’s own belt so that his waist, and not his neck, had borne the weight of his body.
Dagen and Ponci lifted Casey up to release the pressure on the belt; then they pulled the blanket down and let him down.
“Does he have the keys on him?” Monroe asked.
“Yes,” Fargo said. “They’re hanging from his belt. Help me get him twisted around here.”
The men moved Wilcox’s body around until Fargo could reach the keys. It took but a moment to get them, then open the cell door.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before Baker or the sheriff gets back,” Dagen said.
“No, not yet,” Fargo cautioned.
“What do you mean not yet? What are we hanging around here for?”
“We’re goin’ to wait until Baker gets back.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“No,” Fargo said. “Think about it. If we leave now, the sheriff and Baker will form a posse and come after us.”
“So? We need to put as much distance between us and this place as we can.”
Fargo shook his head. “No, not yet.”
Baker opened the door to the sheriff’s office, then hung his hat on the peg. When he saw Wilcox sitting in the chair, leaning back against the wall with his hat pulled down over his eyes, he chuckled.
“Damn, Wilcox, you better be glad it was me caught you sleepin’ and not Ferrell,” Baker said. “Get your lazy ass up and make a few rounds.”
When Wilcox made no move, Baker started toward the desk. “Didn’t you hear me? Come on, get your ass out of that chair.”
When Baker reached the desk, Fargo Ford suddenly jumped up from the other side of the desk.
“What the hell are you doin’ up here?” Baker shouted in alarm. That was as far as he got before Fargo brought a hammer down on his head. So severe was the hammer blow that the head of the hammer sunk into Baker’s head, allowing blood and brain matter to ooze out around the point of the blow. Baker fell, instantly dead, across his desk.
“
Now we’ve got only one more person to take care of,” Fargo said. “Sheriff Ferrell.”
“Well you better get ready ’cause here he comes now,” Ponci called from the window.
“Quick, get out of sight,” Fargo said. He pointed to Baker. “Get him behind the desk.”
The others moved Baker’s body down behind the desk; then they hurried quickly into the back. Fargo went to the door, then stepped to the side so that as the door opened, he would be hidden. He raised his hammer and waited.
“I got the telegram off,” Ferrell said. “We’ll prob’ly get an answer sometime this after ...” Something about Wilcox’s still form alerted him, and he stopped in mid-sentence and started for his pistol.
He never reached his gun. Once again, Fargo made use of the hammer, hitting Ferrell so hard that the hammer made a popping sound as the sheriff went down.
“Now,” Fargo said. “We can go down the alley to the livery, get ourselves some horses, and get on with our business without worryin’ about the sheriff or anyone else.”
“And just what business would that be, other than gettin’ the hell out of here?” Casey asked.
“The same business we come into town for in the first place,” Fargo replied. “Since we didn’t get the money before they put it on the stage, we’ll get it now.”
“How the hell are we goin’ to do that? The stage left three hours ago.”
“Yeah, well, you can go faster on a horse than you can on a stage. Besides, come noon they’ll be stoppin’ at Pajarito for an hour or so to change teams and eat. We’ll be caught up with ’em by then, and we can hit’em just as they reach the top of Cerro Pass.”
“Yeah,” Dagen said. “Yeah, they won’t be suspectin’ anything. That’s a damn good idea.”
“So, Dagen, does that mean Fargo’s our leader again?” Monroe asked jokingly. “Or do you still want to lead us onto the gallows?” He laughed.
“That ain’t funny,” Dagen said. “I told you, that ain’t funny.”
“Get your guns and let’s get out of here,” Fargo said, using the ring of keys to open the weapons locker. There, the men found their holsters and pistols, and quickly they put them back on.
“Damn, this feels good,” Ponci said. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, I was feelin’ plumb naked without my gun.”
Casey laughed. “Ponci, don’t be talkin’ about you bein’ naked. You want to give the rest of us nightmares?”
The others laughed.
“Hey, back when Ponci was a butcher, you think he got naked with them cows?” Dagen asked.
“Only with them pretty young calves,” Monroe replied.
More laughter.
“You know too much about pretty young calves, if you ask me,” Casey said.
More laughter.
“What are we hangin’ around here for? Let’s go!” Dagen said as he started toward the front door.
“Not that way,” Fargo called out.
“Why the hell not?”
“You want the whole town to see us? Out the back door, then down the alley to the liver y.”
“Yeah,” Dagen said. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
The five men left the back of the jail, then darted up the alley. Not one person saw them leave the jail.
Behind them lay the town’s entire law-enforcement contingent ... all dead.
Fargo was the first one to reach the vicinity of the livery. He stopped just behind the feed store, which was right next to the livery. Holding out his hand in a signal for the others to be quiet, he leaned around the edge of the building to check out the livery.
“Well, I’ll be damn,” he said.
“What is it?” Ponci asked.
“It looks like they got our horses in there,” Fargo said. “That’s good. If I’m goin’ to be doin’ a lot of ridin’, I don’t want to be breakin’ in no new horse.”
“What’s our horses doin’ here? I thought they run away.”
“I thought they did too, but they must’a drifted back. Horses’ll do that sometimes, you know,” Fargo said. “Anyway, they got ’em all in there. The even got Pete’s horse.”
“How many folks they got watchin’ ’em?”
“Looks like they’s just one in there now, an’ he’s nothin’ but a kid,” Fargo said. “Ponci, go in there and take care of him.”
Ponci nodded, but said nothing. The others watched as Ponci started toward the kid. The kid, seeing Ponci, started toward him.
“Yes, sir, mister,” the kid said. “Something I can do for you?”
“Hey, kid, you see that sorrel over there?” Ponci asked, pointing toward the paddock.
“Sorrel? Where?” the kid asked.
“Come here, I’ll point him out.”
The kid came closer, then tried to look where Ponci was pointing.
Ponci was pointing with his left hand. As the kid tried to pick out the nonexistent sorrel, Ponci pulled his knife with his right hand. It took but one quick slice to cut the boy’s jugular. The boy slapped his hands over his neck in surprise, then went down as the blood streamed through his fingers.
Ponci signaled the others.
“What about Pete’s horse?” Dagen asked.
“Leave him.”
“An extra horse might come in handy.”
“Leave him,” Fargo said. “One extra mount ain’t goin’ to do the five of us any good. And it’ll just be a pain in the ass to keep up with him. Leave it.”
“Whatever you say,” Dagen said.
Fargo glared at Dagen. “Yes,” he said more forcefully. “It is whatever I say. And if you don’t like it, you can ride out of here on your own right now.”
“No, no,” Dagen said quickly. “I don’t have no trouble with you bein’ the leader of us, ’n I don’t think there’s no one else what has any trouble with it either.”
“No one else has questioned it,” Fargo said, gruffly. “You have.”
“Yeah, well, you done good, gettin’ us out of jail and all. I won’t be questionin’ it no more,” Dagen said. “I promise.”
All the time they were talking, the men were also putting saddles on their mounts.
“Everyone saddled?” Fargo asked, swinging onto his own horse.
“All done here,” Dagen said. Ordinarily Dagen was the last to do anything, but right now he was straining to stay on Fargo’s good side.
“Here too,” Ponci said, and his response was echoed by all the others.
“Then get mounted. We’ve got a stage to catch.”
CHAPTER 6
Timmy’s mother’s name was Jane Stockdale. At Oro Blanco, she would be connecting with another stage going on to Providence Wells, where her husband owned a ranch.
“What is your name?” Timmy asked the Indian girl.
The Indian girl smiled. “My name is Yaakos Gan.”
“Yak ... ?” Timmy couldn’t repeat it.
“Ya-kos Gan,” the Indian girl said, pronouncing the word phonetically. “Yaakos Gan. That means ‘Cloud Dancer.’”
Timmy smiled. “Cloud Dancer. I like that. I can say that.”
“For our first year at school, we lived with a white family, and the white family gave us all white man’s names. I lived with the Walkers, so they gave me the name Nina Walker.”
Timmy shook his head. “No, I like ‘Cloud Dancer’ better. It’s prettier.”
Cloud Dancer laughed. “I like it better too, because it is my name. But when we go away to school, we are given white man’s names ... white man’s clothes”—she made a motion with her hand, taking in her yellow dress—“and we are told we can only speak the white man’s tongue. If they caught us speaking in our native language, they punished us.”
“But you can still speak Apache, can’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Say something in Apache for me,” Timmy asked.
Cloud Dancer pointed to Timmy’s mother. “That is your mother. Mother is shimaa.”
“Shimaa,” Timmy r
epeated.
Cloud Dancer pointed to her head. “Head is bitsitsin. Hair is bitsizil; eyes, bidaa; ears, bijaa; hand, bigan; feet, bikee. It’s easy. Just remember that each part of your body starts with the ‘bi’ sound, as in the word bit.”
Timmy repeated each word several times, until he was able to say them.
“Very good!” Cloud Dancer said, clapping her hands enthusiastically.
For the next few hours, Cloud Dancer taught Timmy her language while his mother looked on. Johnson stared out the window, his disapproval evident but not spoken.
Watching the interplay between Cloud Dancer and Timmy, Falcon MacCallister thought of his own wife, dead now for many years. Had she lived, it might be her sitting next to him now, and Timmy could be his own son, learning the language.
Marie Gentle Breeze, as she was called, had been captured by a band of Indians who tried to take her north with them as a slave. She fought them all the way, until they killed her. They crushed her head with a war ax, raped her many times, and threw her body in the river. Jamie MacCallister, Falcon’s father, rode and walked for many miles on either side of the river, searching for Marie. He finally found her body wedged between a large rock and a tree, a few feet away from the west bank of the river.
Falcon stared across the coach at the drummer. Johnson’s obvious Indian bias had triggered Falcon’s memories of his own wife, and what happened to her. It was the memory of his wife’s murder that had caused him to throw Johnson from the stage, and he had to fight against the urge to do it again.
Up on the driver’s seat, Gentry and his shotgun guard were talking.
“As many times as Johnson has made this trip with us, you’d think he’d have better sense than to fall out the door,” Kerry said.
Gentry chuckled. “He didn’t no more fall out that door than the man in the moon.”
“What do you mean? He got off the stage somehow. You seen him come runnin’ up alongside.”
“Well, think about it, Kerry. Has he ever fallen out the door before?”
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