by John Benteen
And he could not spare the time; it was the lives of four men against two countries. Thanks to her. Fargo said, “Paradisio, you know I trust your judgment. We are old friends and have drunk together. So, of course—”
His right thumb twitched the sling.
Not hard, but with deftness of long practice. The shotgun barrels swung up beneath his right arm, pointed straight at the mounted men. Fargo’s left hand swept across his chest. His fingers tripped both triggers.
The roar of two barrels firing was thunderous in the narrow confines of the wash. Eighteen soft-lead double-zero buckshot hosed straight forward in a spreading, lethal, pattern. Its full blast caught Paradisio squarely in the face and shoulders and nearly, decapitated him. Behind him, two men screamed and fell. The last, shielded by the sergeant’s body, ignored a bleeding arm, raised his rifle. Fargo drew the Colt and put a hollow-point in him before he could fire.
A wounded horse screamed, ran down the wash. The other mounts trampled over the four bodies lying in the dust, then galloped off. One of them stepped on Paradisio Millan’s head and obliterated what was left of it.
Fargo broke the shotgun automatically, thumbed two shells from the bandolier across his chest, replaced the spent rounds. He also reloaded the Colt with another hollow-point. Only then did he swing down, looking at the four mutilated bodies in the gravelly sand.
He spat, sickly. Paradisio Miliàn had been a damned good soldier.
Then he saw what he was seeking: one of the dead men had worn a long, braided, rawhide quirt looped around his wrist. The whip, slightly bloodstained, was stretched out in the sand.
Fargo took it off the warm, still pliable hand. It was nearly three feet long. It had a wrist loop, a fat braided handle of rawhide, a braided stock in length about a foot, and then six dangling twelve-inch lashes, each braided from two thongs and knotted on the ends. Fargo picked it up and hefted it. With it dangling from his hand, he mounted, rode back up the wash. Liz stood there, eyes wide and dazed, mouth open, jaw dropped. Her breasts were heaving. “My God, Fargo, you killed them all!”
“I sure did,” said Fargo.
“That was wonderful,” she whispered. She looked at him with something kindling in her eyes. “Just marvelous, the way you took ’em.”
“I thought it was pretty good,” Fargo said, and he swung down. “Of course, their sergeant was an old friend of mine. And they were all Villa’s men.”
“Well, what difference does it make? They were spics.”
“Sure,” Fargo said, and he swung the quirt and it slashed against his cavalry boot.
She dropped her eyes, stared at it. “What’s that?”
“Something the Mexicans use to train unruly stock.”
“Yeah, well that horse of mine ain’t so—” She broke off. “Fargo,” she said.
“I told you to stay in that goddam cave,” he rasped.
“I wanted to see what was going on.”
“Well, you saw,” he said. “You saw four men die. They were about to turn me loose until you popped out, and then I had to kill them.” He took a step toward her. “Well, nobody’s education ever comes cheap.”
“Fargo!” Her eyes were round. “You don’t intend to—”
“Get in there,” Fargo said, and he jerked his head toward the cave. “Get in there and take your dress off.”
“Fargo—!”
He shoved her, then, and she fell back inside the cave. He was on her like a hawk. She tried to get away, but she was trapped, there was nowhere to run.
At least the confines of the cave muffled her yells.
Chapter Six
For three more nights they traveled north, and Liz Baines suffered, for though he’d kept the whip away from rump and thighs, Fargo had not been gentle with it. She might bear some scars for a long time. He felt no sympathy for her. Vaqueros rode their horses even when their mounts had saddle-sores, and, in the Southwest, when you saw an animal with old scars along its spine, you knew where it had come from, and said it “wore the map of Mexico.” So would she, for a long time.
Meanwhile, she hardly spoke to him, and there was no more foolishness about the beds. That suited Fargo down to the ground. They were riding through Tomas Rinaldo’s whole army, and it took every ounce of Fargo’s concentration, alertness, and skill to dodge patrols that were ever more frequent, and to cover their tracks. He had little time to spare for a hardheaded woman, and as long as she did what he told her to, and promptly, he was satisfied. But, just for insurance, he’d hung the big quirt on his saddle horn.
His watchfulness paid off and their luck held. They made it clear of Rinaldo’s sector without being spotted. Three more days, and if things went well, they should reach the Rio Grande. Fargo fought down a mounting sense of urgency. For all he knew, even now the man called O’Brien might be readying his forces for a raid on Columbus or some other vulnerable border station.
Fargo knew Columbus, indeed knew the whole border from Matamoros to Tijuana like the back of his hand. He tried to stay posted, too, on the disposition of American troops and Texas Rangers along it; such knowledge was vital to a gunrunner. If they were going to hit a place, Columbus was a good choice.
Only two troops of the Thirteenth Cavalry were in the town: the others were scattered up and down the Southern Pacific railroad. They’d been there a long time, nearly five years. After such a stretch in the same godforsaken place, it was hard to stay alert, keep up morale and discipline. At any given time, probably half the officers and as many of the men as could get a pass would be in El Paso, an hour’s trip by the train they called unofficially “the Drunkard’s Special.” A surprise raid, made at night, in force, could give the U.S. Army a damned bloody nose, maybe cut the rail line—and in twenty-four hours, every American in the country would be yelling for Pancho Villa’s scalp.
Camped in a dry wash, the March wind still cold just before sunrise, Fargo poured coffee made on a hidden fire, passed the cup to Liz. “Here.”
She took it without answering, face set as she stared into the flames. He poured one for himself. “All right,” he said. “I want to know more now about Carlos O’Brien.”
She didn’t answer. Fargo sighed. “Listen, right now we’re in a kind of no-man’s land. It ain’t held by Villa, nor by Carranza. They fight each other back and forth. If O’Brien’s planning what we think he is, he might be around the next corner now. Okay, so you like his style in the hay. I want to know some other things. What kind of rank he says he holds. Whether he struck you as smart or dumb. Did his men seem to like him, or did he kick ’em around and run his outfit by fear. What kind of guns does he wear, how’s his English ... everything you can tell me about him.”
“Go to hell,” she said.
“No. Just to my saddle to get the quirt.”
“You can use it on me, sure. You’re a big man, hah? But I don’t care. You can chop me to bits. I still won’t tell you anything. Not a God damned thing.”
Fargo said, “You know what? It’s your life and your country both at stake. I got to know all about O’Brien to dodge him. If he takes you again, you’re finished, don’t you see that? He spouted off his plans to you, he probably knows you’ve been picked up by Villa, he’s had all he wants of you anyhow ... He’ll make you talk about everything you’ve learned from Villa and then he’ll cut your throat.”
“You can’t scare me,” she said.
“And even if you don’t care about your life, what about your country? You want the United States to get mixed up in a useless war? You wanta see troopers die because somebody hit ’em from ambush without warning?”
“My country,” Liz said. “That’s a good one. Whores don’t have a country.” She raised her head, and her eyes gleamed in the firelight as she looked at Fargo. “Look,” she said, and only for an instant, her voice caught. “I told you, my mama was a madam. That didn’t necessarily mean I wanted to be what I am. But they didn’t leave me any choice, you see—all these great Americans
you’re so damned anxious to save. They rubbed my nose in what she was since the day I can remember, all those square johns and their psalm-singing women. I wasn’t even a woman to them, not a person, much less an American. Why the hell should I care what happens to ’em?”
She drank some coffee. “Why do you, for that matter? You spend half your time in other countries. You break their laws right and left to make some money. Sure, you soldiered in their Army, but what did you get for that? White hair, a lotta scars, and maybe seven or ten dollars a month. You make your money, just like I do, any way you can; the only difference is, you’re a man so you can fight. I’m a woman, so I got to do it on my back. But, if I was a man, don’t you think I’d be a man like you instead of what I am? You don’t give a damn for anybody or for anything, why should I? Oh, you spout a lot of talk, but I heard Villa: you’ll make some money, too, out of this. More, in a few weeks, than I could make in a year in the Rio Rest, even if I wasn’t fussy about my tricks. You’ll take me back and you’ll get rich. What do I get? Nothing but a chance to wind up in a parlor house, fair game for every stinking cowboy that’s drawn a month’s pay.”
Fargo said quietly, “You talked different a while back. Seemed proud of what you were.”
“What I say and what I fed can be two different things. All whores are liars, don’t you know?”
Fargo said, “I still got to know about O’Brien.”
“And you can still go to hell. No matter how hard you beat me with that quirt.”
Fargo said, “I can do worse than beat you with a quirt.”
“You try it, big man,” she said. “You see how far you get. You need me to talk to the Army. Well, I’ve changed my mind. I just may not talk at all. Or maybe I’ll say everything you tell ’em is a lie. I’ll put it another way. You need me worse than I need you.”
Fargo said, “You think like that, you could get bad hurt.”
She laughed, a brassy sound. “I been hurt worse by men than anything you could do. Let’s put it like this. I been scared by experts. Maybe you don’t know how it feels. But there comes a time when nothin’ anybody can do to you can scare you any longer. It all depends on whether you give a damn whether you live or die. I don’t much care.”
Fargo was vaguely bothered. “You ought to,” he said. “Hell, you’re too young to talk like that.”
“No. No, I’m old. Maybe I’m older than you’ll ever be.” She drained the cup. “I was old the day I was born to a mother that ran a cathouse. On that day, I quit havin’ any future. Go get your quirt, big man. Use it as hard as you can and see where it gets you.”
Fargo was silent for a while. Presently he said, “I don’t like your style, Liz. I don’t like it a damned bit. But I’ll give you this. You got guts, iron-clad and brass-bound.”
“Why? Because I ain’t scared of you?”
“Just in general,” Fargo said. “There’s a lot of people ain’t scared of me.”
“You bet your boots there is. And Carlos O’Brien’s one of ’em.” She set the cup aside. “Given a choice, I’d take him. But now I’m goin’ to bed.”
Fargo opened his mouth, closed it again. For the first time on this trip, he felt a thrust of desire for her. He had been about to tell her to make their beds together, but he had snapped off the thought. Women were complicated; she was still playing her own game. Trying to make him feel bad, repent for what he had done to her. Well, four men lay eaten by buzzards and coyotes in a wash down the line because of her, and one of those men had been his friend. He would play no games with her.
“Suit yourself,” he said. He gestured to the great dump of boulders in which they were holing up. “You, stay there and don’t move out. I’m gonna take one more look around before we sleep.” He carefully damped the fire, then arose, cradling the shotgun in his arm.
He worked outward from the boulders in a pattern of circles, tense and silent as a hunting panther. Everything seemed all right. He checked the horses. He climbed a ridge, and, careful not to skyline himself, looked out across the sleeping desert. He came back down, explored a couple of dry washes feeding down the slope. He saw a coyote, a few sidewinders, two jerboas—kangaroo rats—and nothing else. Then he relaxed a little. He slung the shotgun, lit a cigar, smoked half of it, thinking about Liz Baines.
She had a point. Just for getting to El Paso, he’d collect ten thousand out of Villa’s account. He’d make a pile more buying ammunition for the Colt machine guns later. For the risk he took, he’d likely bank thirty thousand dollars, which he’d spend with women, at poker and roulette, and generally on high living, and have a carefree time before he went back to work.
At the Rio Rest, she’d pull down five dollars a trick, because it was a good house, and net maybe one and a half of that herself. If she worked hard, ten men a night, she’d make fifteen dollars. That was a week’s pay for a secretary of course, and not to be despised, lots of women worked longer and harder hours for lots less. Well, hell … that was her problem, not his. He had problems enough. He ground out his cigar, went quietly back to camp.
He approached the boulders cautiously, shotgun at the ready, weaved inside the great labyrinth of rocks, some, split by wind and elemental forces, towering rawly far above his head. As he edged up toward where the fire had been, he saw nothing amiss: his own blankets were spread out; hers were humped up by her sleeping form. He went to his saddle, shucked the shotgun, took off the gun belt, removed the knife, laid his weapons and his bandoliers close by the head of his bed. He sat down on his blankets, in the shadow cast in the moonlight by a huge boulder. Taking a swig from the mescal bottle, he pondered whether to remove his boots, decided against it. A barefoot man in the desert was in a hell of a shape. He corked the bottle, set it aside and then he heard the whisper of sound.
He was reaching for his shotgun, but his hand never touched it. The cold muzzle of a pistol’s bore pressed against his temple was all too familiar.
“Don’t move, Fargo,” a soft voice said in English. “You do, you’re dead.”
Fargo froze. He did not even try to look up at the men above him. He said, only: “Who are you?”
“Take his weapons, men,” the voice said in Spanish and then the boulder clump was alive with shadowy figures. Fargo’s shotgun, pistol, knife and rifle were snatched up. Still the gun barrel pressed just above his ear. Fargo saw that the figures wore big hats, like Villa’s men. Most of Carranza’s were now uniformed and wore army caps.
But he was not deceived. He knew now who had him. “O’Brien?”
“Why, yes,” the soft voice, very musical, said with a certain amusement, “It’s I, Neal Fargo. And I don’t think even you, the great Fargo, can fight me and five hundred soldiers.”
“Five hundred—”
“They’re not all here, of course. Only myself and six men, and the rest are camped some distance away. But, you’ll see them soon enough. Now … On your feet and face me.” The pressure of the gun muzzle eased.
Fargo arose, very carefully, aware that he was covered by other weapons. He turned to confront the man behind him. Moonlight struck down through the rocks, as a cloud shifted: he could not have seen Carlos O’Brien better if it had been full daylight.
~*~
The man who stood there with a Colt trained on Fargo was even taller than Neal Fargo and wider in the shoulders and likely five years younger. He was a great, handsome stallion of a man, with brows like crayon-marks above deep, lambent, dark eyes, a cleanly chiseled face with long nose, hard chin, thin black mustache above a full mouth. His chest was deep, his waist narrow, his legs long and lean. He wore the great golden hat of a Villa Dorado, and charro clothes, richly embroidered with gold and silver braid. He said, his English good, precise, “This is a moment I’ve waited long for, Colonel Fargo.”
“Is that a fact?” asked Fargo calmly.
“It is. In a sense, you could say I’ve patterned my whole career on yours. I was just a kid in Panama when you came in with those gue
rrilla troops of yours and overthrew the government. So, of course, your President Roosevelt could set things up to dig his canal ... I hated you and fought against you, but I admired you, too, and I thought—There. There is the man I want to be like someday.”
Fargo stared at him, feeling the intensity of the man, not having expected this.
“So I’ve worked at it,” O’Brien went on. “Worked at it hard to make myself just as strong as you and as good at what I do, we both do, and … ” His voice rose slightly. “And now this is the pay-off. Here we are together. And you’re disarmed and I’m the one holding the gun.”
“Yes,” Fargo said quietly. “And how did you find me? I thought I’d covered my tracks pretty good.”
“How did we find you? By accident. Or luck. If it hadn’t been for her, we might have ridden right on by you.”
“Her?” Fargo glanced toward the bed; then he understood, even as he realized that there was a dummy in it and Liz Baines stepped out from behind a boulder.
“Yes,” she said, her voice with that brassy ring. “I made sure they found us, Fargo. They were riding by when I called out.”
Fargo stared at her. Then he said, “You fool. You little fool. You got any idea what you got yourself into?”
“All I know is this,” she answered exultantly. “That, you’re gonna pay double for every quirt mark you put on me. For every time you rubbed my nose in the dirt, yours is gonna get rubbed twice as hard. That’s all I care about. Nothing in ibis world but that.”
Fargo spat. “Hell, I hope you get your money’s worth.”
O’Brien chuckled softly, steel clinking against steel “Don’t worry, Colonel Fargo. She will.” Then his voice was harsh. “My men are bringing up your horses. We’ll mount and ride. And if you try any of the tricks you’re so famous for, I’ll blow a hole right through you. My gun doesn’t carry hollow-points. But a .45 slug should stop even you.”