“Keep your eyes peeled for ’paches!” Quirt Fane said.
“What good will that do? You won’t see ’em until it’s too late,” Porgy Best gloomed. “You’ll know they’re there when the first bullet tears into you. You won’t get no more sign than that.”
“Grow yourself a pair, your guts are leaking down your leg.”
“Shut your mouth, Porgy. That’s defeatist thinking, bad for morale,” Black Angus snapped.
In the wagons, female captives already stunned, shocked, and terrorized now had new reason to fear. Most of the girls were too scared to cry, as if tears and sobbing would call the savages down on them. When one began whimpering, the others darted furious glances at her, hissing at her to shut up.
“They finally found something they fear more than us—the Apaches,” Sime Simmons said. Carmen laughed, but it had a hollow sound.
“Trouble is, there’s no way to sneak through this territory, not with two wagons full of kids. No back trail for smugglers or mountain goats that the Apaches don’t know better,” Quirt Fane complained.
“We got plenty of guns and some salty hombres siding us,” Black Angus said. “If they come on us, we can still outgun the Apaches.”
“One thing we got going for us. ’Paches won’t want to kill any of the captives,” Quirt said.
“Don’t take no comfort from that,” Porgy Best said. “Them red devils can shoot. They never have enough bullets so they know how to make every shot count.”
“Cheerful cuss, ain’t you?” Quirt said sourly.
“Damn it, Porgy, I told you to belay that defeatist bad-mouthing,” Black Angus said.
The convoy was climbing a ridge, its crest screening what lay beyond. “Scouts are coming back, boss,” Rio Jordan said.
Angus Jones raised a hand, signaling a halt. The tread of hoofbeats, pantings of teamed horses drawing the wagons, the rumbling of iron-rimmed, wooden wagon wheels, all such sounds were suddenly stilled.
Wailing winds could be heard whipping through the pass under a hot high sun on a bright, blue sky day.
“Soldiers!” Earl Calder cried out, riding in after scouting ahead. “They’re here, boss. On the other side of the hill, in the valley.”
That was cheering . . . in a way.
“Don Carlos said troops would be guarding the road south into Pago, but I figured it was just talk. I didn’t think they’d do it,” Black Angus said
“Them Mexes can get off their lazy asses when there’s gold in it,” Rio Jordan said.
“Don’t let Dorado hear you talking like that, he’s mighty touchy,” Quirt Fane cautioned.
“The hell do I care?” Rio blustered, but not before looking around to make sure Dorado was well out of earshot before he spoke.
“How many troops, Earl?”
“Looks like a couple dozen, boss.”
Jones gave the signal and the convoy began moving ahead, cresting the ridge.
Beyond, the slope descended into a lens-shaped valley, its long axis running north to south. At midpoint of the flat, east of the dirt road on a flat-topped knoll, stood a ruined mission church.
A hundred years old, maybe more, it was made of stone and adobe. The roof had collapsed, and only parts of the walls were left standing. The structure looked like a brown sugar cube that had partly dissolved.
Clustered around it was a bunch of brown ants and tan stick figures. The ants were horses and the figures were men, soldiers. Government troops. They were grouped on a stony plaza aproning the ruined church. The convoy’s arrival caused no small activity among the troops, setting them into swarming, seething motion.
Seeing the troops, some of the captives took heart. “Soldiers! They’ll save us,” one said.
“No, they won’t, else we’d be running away from them, not to them,” said another, a realist.
Troopers mounted horses and formed up, riding toward the convoy coming down off the hill onto the flat. Halting, they formed a wide crescent shape whose center was in the middle of the road.
“Now what do we do?” Slicker Dupree asked, shouting.
“Keep moving, nice and easy. Nobody do anything stupid, but keep your guard up,” Black Angus ordered, his word going forth to the convoy.
A handful of soldiers rode out to meet them. At their head was a slovenly sergeant, thick bodied, big bellied, seeming as much outlaw as soldier. The same could be said of his troops, those riding forward with him and the rest staying behind. They were a scrawny, ill-fed, piratical looking group. Fodder for cannon, gallows, or firing squad.
“They got rifles pointed at us,” Rio Jordan breathed.
“Easy—if they’re planning a cross, they’ll try to buffalo us first, flanking us for a clear field of fire to avoid hitting the girls,” Jones said.
Dorado scrutinized the oncoming riders, relaxing to a degree, though still watchful. “It is well,” he said. “It’s that pig Sergeant Sancho. He knows not to go against Don Carlos. He knows better than to go against—Dorado.”
Jones and Dorado rode forward, halting when face to face with Sergeant Sancho and his squad. Except for Sancho and a corporal, the soldiers gawked at the wagonloads of girls, craning for a better look. They shouted familiarly, making lewd remarks, and wet kissing noises.
“Shut your filthy mouths, you dogs,” Sergeant Sancho said matter-of-factly, and the men fell silent.
Longish dark hair curled out from beneath Sancho’s flat, short-billed cap. He was moon faced, with bulging pop eyes, thin mustache, and a double-chin. A jowly face was grizzled with a three-day growth of beard. His swelling belly strained the buttons of a tan military tunic.
Black Angus, Dorado, and Sergeant Sancho exchanged glances as knowing and jaded as that of three old bawds in a bordello of sin. Sancho nodded at them with recognition, but no joy.
“I know you,” he said to Jones, “and you,” to Dorado. “What are you doing with so much gringos?” he asked Dorado.
“Bound for Pago.”
“Too much gringos,” Sancho said. He shook his head dolefully, and spat into the dust.
“A man needs many friends,” Black Angus said.
“And so many guns.” The corporal tsk-tsked. He was undersized, weaselly.
“This is hard country,” Jones said.
“Very hard, and bad—for some,” Sancho agreed.
“Not for friends of Don Carlos, surely.”
“You, gringo, are a friend of Don Carlos, eh?”
“As you well know, sargento, you’ve seen me in Pago before. Don Carlos is expecting us, and he’ll be greatly disappointed if we’re late.”
“You bring pretty little young songbirds for to sing on the stage of his opera house, no?”
“That’s right.”
“Don Carlos does not like for strangers to have his name in their mouths, especially not when they’re gringos. This is his land. You got a pass from him, maybe?” Sancho demanded.
Dorado had been watching the exchange with mounting irritation, eyes flashing, lips compressing into a thin line. He rested a hand on the butt of his gun, patting it significantly. “This is all the pass we need.”
The corporal flinched, as if struck in the face. Coloring, he clawed for his gun. The golden pistol cleared Dorado’s holster, filling his hand and pointing at the corporal’s middle. The corporal froze.
Soldiers stirred, swinging rifles to cover Jones and Dorado and the convoy, working bolt-action levers.
Black Angus turned in the saddle, facing his men. “As you were, men, as you were! Nobody draw yet. We don’t want to set off a whole shooting match here!”
Sancho smirked, seeming otherwise unexcited. He took off his cap, fanning his face, brushing away flies. “You want to kill my Corporal Cruz, Dorado?”
“He’ll be the first, not the last,” Dorado said. Corporal Cruz sat rigid in the saddle, upright.
“A good joke,” Sancho said, chuckling throatily. “But do not kill him, please. He is not worth much, but I would not l
ike to have to train another to take his place. I am a lazy man.
“Put up your gun, Golden Man. It’s too hot to fight.”
“Tell your men to put up theirs first.”
“Why not?” Sancho said, shrugging. “Stand down, hombres!”
The troops obeyed, rifle barrels lowering with obvious reluctance.
“See? Nothing to worry about. We are all friends here. Now put away your gun.”
“Tell that chicken thief of a corporal to take his hand away from his gun first,” Dorado said.
“Do what the Golden Man says, Corporal.”
“Sí, mi sargento.” Cruz complied, hand crawling away from his gun. Dorado dropped his pistol in the holster.
“You’re a fair piece from Pago, sargento,” Black Angus remarked, as if nothing had happened.
“We are on patrol, in search of Victorio and his bronco Apaches.”
“Yes, I saw how hard you were looking for him,” Jones said pointedly.
Sancho was a man who could not be insulted. A man of the world, broadminded, genial. “Catch the Apache? Try to catch the wind. Instead, we protect the road for travelers like you. The road is safe. Victorio fears us, he stays away. If you had met up with Victorio or his bravos we would not be talking now.”
“We were lucky,” Jones said, meaning it.
“Ah, but we have delayed you long enough with our foolishness. You may pass,” Sancho said, gesturing grandly at the road south.
“Gracias . . . cigar?” Jones offered.
“Why not?”
Jones handed Sancho a cigar, the latter rolling it between his fat fingers. He held it under his nose, sniffing appreciatively. “Ah, fine tobacco, a good cigar, señor.”
“Have another for later,” Jones offered.
Sancho took it, saying, “I would rather have one of those bonitas, a pretty little chiquita to warm my bed at night.”
“Come to the auction at Pago, and you’ll have a chance to bid.”
“I am but a poor soldier, señor. That is too rich for me.”
Black Angus shrugged. “Is the road to town clear?”
“It seems to be. We were not bothered by the Apache on our way here. Victorio was last seen high in the mountains to the west,” Sancho said, “but that means nothing. The Apache goes where he likes.”
“We’ll be moving on, then. We’ve still got a fair piece of ground to cover before nightfall.”
“May God go with you, señor—that is, if He is to be found in this wilderness, which I sincerely doubt,” Sancho said.
He shouted orders to his men, the crescent breaking apart in the middle, leaving the road south open and unbarred. “Hasta luego, señor. Perhaps we will meet again,” the sergeant said.
Black Angus hoped not. He signalled the convoy to proceed. It lurched into motion, mule skinner whips in the hands of drivers cracking above yoked and harnessed teams. Wooden wheels clattered, churning up yellow-brown dust.
Sergeant Sancho and his squad turned aside, leading the rest of the troops back toward the mission.
The convoy rolled south. Sancho and Cruz sat their horses on top of the church knoll, watching the caravan pass.
“Dog of a Dorado! I should have killed him,” Cruz said feelingly.
“You? You could not kill such a one in a thousand years,” Sancho said, puffing on his cigar. There was no insult in his remark, merely a statement of fact.
“He’s not so much. A bullet in the back, and it is done, he is a dead man.”
“You know nothing of the Legend of the Golden Gun, then, eh, Cruz?”
“I know only that it is a waste of good gold, mi sargento. With so much gold, a man could have many pretty women and an ocean of tequila to bathe them in.”
“No, no. The golden gun is accursed. When it was forged, the gunsmith melted down an old golden mask of the Aztecas, the Aztec Indians. A mask of one of the heathen devil-gods of old, a God of Death.
“Death and black magic, pagan sorcery—something of the death-god entered into the gun. It protects its owner against harm. No pistolero can defeat he who wields the golden gun. In exchange, the souls of those killed by the golden gun become slaves to the dark god.”
“You believe that, sargento?”
“I neither believe nor disbelieve, Cruz. I relay the legend as it was told to me. There is more: It is said that the owner of the golden gun cannot die by gunfire. He must be killed by knife, noose, lance, fire, yes, even by bare hands—but not by bullets. That is part of the magic.”
The corporal stroked his pointy chin, eyes narrowed with thought. “Even if it is as you say, there must be a remedy. A gun holds but six bullets. When it is empty, the owner must fall.”
“Try if you dare, Corporal,” Sancho said, “if you dare. After the auction, Dorado and the gringos will have much gold. They may pass by here. Perhaps we shall meet again.”
“This is good thinking.” Corporal Cruz grinned, showing yellowed horse teeth.
“That is why I am sergeant. We must keep an eye open for the Golden Man and his friends. The gringos will have to ride north sooner or later.”
The convoy was a dwindling blot to the south, almost out of sight. Sergeant Sancho stubbed out the cigar butt against the pommel of his saddle, putting it away in a breast pocket for later. He took out the other cigar given him by Black Angus. He bit off the tip, spitting it away.
Corporal Cruz was quick with a lit match, holding the flame to one end of the cigar while Sancho puffed away. A haze of rich, aromatic tobacco smoke wreathed Sancho’s head.
“Perhaps we will cross paths again, yes,” he mused, “and if we do . . . We shall see, we shall see.”
SIXTEEN
They came to Candido’s. Candido’s Cantina, in Fronteras, Mexico.
Fronteras was a border town, located not too far south of the dividing line separating Arizona Territory from the state of Sonora, the United States from Mexico.
Like most border towns, it was tough, rowdy, wide open, a meeting place of smugglers, rustlers, fugitives, and outlaws. Ringo and Curly Bill knew it well.
Most of Tombstone’s Cowboy faction actually were or had been working cowboys, cowboys who’d jumped the fence between law and outlawry. Cattle rustling was their meat and potatoes, the heart and soul of their larcenous enterprise.
The Cowboys rustled livestock on both sides of the border, stealing stock in Arizona and selling it in Mexico, stealing stock in Mexico and selling it in Arizona. There was plenty of hijacking and robbery, too. Contraband was constantly being moved across the border: gold, silver, guns, women, and whiskey.
Fronteras was a place where deals were made, where horses and cattle were bought and sold. There were a number of corrals and stock pens where animals could be held and transferred with no questions asked. Fronteras put the buyers and sellers together. By nature it was a magnet for bad men and outlaws, a town whose only law was the gun and the knife.
Here information, too, was a commodity to be bought, sold, or traded: knowledge of what gangs were working in the region—who killed whom, who was double-crossing whom, the going rate to bribe government officials and army officers, hideouts and where to find them, and suchlike.
Commerce of this sort was a specialty of the house at Candido’s Cantina. Of all the brokers in the latest word/news, few were better informed than the cantina’s proprietor, “Candy” Candido himself.
To him came Matt Bodine and Johnny Ringo.
The Tombstone rescue raiders made brief camp at a secure and isolated spot outside Fronteras. They kept a low profile to avoid attracting notice of their descent into Sonora. Ringo and Curly Bill Brocius knew the campsite well. They had used it before during some of their own rustling schemes and deals. It was an oval park hidden among low, rounded, wooded hills. A stream ran through it and there was good grazing grass for the horses.
“We’ll be in Fronteras just long enough to make some contacts and pick up some intelligence about Black Angus and how things sta
nd in Pago,” Matt Bodine said. “Ringo, you know Candido best so you should be the one to meet him. I’ll go with you to hold the horses and watch your back.”
“Let’s ride,” Ringo said.
He and Matt rode into Fronteras, following an indirect route little traveled, one known to Ringo. They threaded narrow, dusty dirt streets through blocks of one-room, flat-roofed adobe houses honeycombed by corrals, huts, and backyard gardens.
Candido’s Cantina was one such whitewashed rectangular cube. It had small square windows; its open front door was an oblong of murky blackness. It was aromatic with the scent of baked corn tortillas and coffee. A line of horses was hitched in front of the cantina.
Matt and Ringo rode around to the back of the building. They stepped down from the saddle, hitching their mounts to the top rail of a skeletal wooden-pole fence. “The horses okay here?” Matt asked.
“Anybody dumb enough to steal a horse from Candy’s would be found in an alley with his throat cut, and everyone knows it,” Ringo said.
“That’d be scant consolation if it left me without a horse.”
“They’ll be okay.”
A massive, wide-bodied woman sat on a three-legged stool in the shade of a wooden awning overhanging the back door. She weighed about as much as Matt and Ringo put together. A golden moon face showed heavy-lidded, black-button eyes, a flat wide nose, and a tiny, puckered, cherub mouth.
Thick black hair tied up in a bun was held in place by a knotted strip of rainbow-colored cloth. She was adorned with oversized silver-and-turquoise earrings and a necklace made of the same materials. She puffed on a corncob pipe, and whatever she was smoking, it didn’t smell like tobacco.
“Hola. I’m Ringo.”
She looked up, eyeing him. Her eyes were very red. “I know who you are,” she said in thick, heavily accented English.
“Tell Candy I want to see him.”
“Tell him yourself,” she said, indicating the back door. Matt and Ringo exchanged glances, Matt shrugging.
“Gracias,” Ringo said to the woman. She resumed puffing on her pipe. He and Matt went in.
Candy Candido was drinking tequila by himself in a back room. The room was warm and shadowy, filled with dark brown shadows like pools of warm muddy water. Candido was short and stout, of indeterminate origins and nationality. He had a wide, thick black mustache, jug ears, and a lot of chin and jaw. He wore a baggy white Mexican long-sleeve shirt, a thin reddish-brown leather vest that barely reached down below his armpits, white pantaloons, and sandals.
Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 20