by John Benteen
“Two down by the gate, the rest in the quarters!”
Mounted gunmen were pouring through the gate, now, firing as they came, fanning out toward the town. Lucas seemed to have forgotten his questioning of Fargo. Fargo ripped his shotgun from the lieutenant’s grasp. “Get ’em out and set ’em up!” he screamed. Then he ran forward along the track, as Lucas sheered off.
It was like a dam breaking as O’Brien’s men poured across the border, big hats silhouetted against the star-shot sky, their spurious cries of Viva Villa ringing from five hundred throats. They fanned out, some up and down the track, others riding straight into town. They met almost no opposition: they had ridden straight through the astounded company at the gate, and now they were thundering through the city streets. Fargo searched frantically for the machine gun that should have been somewhere here by the gate—and then he saw it.
A Lewis gun. Protected by sandbags. And both men of its crew lay dead beside it. They had taken the first fury of O’Brien’s charge.
As lead slapped around him, Fargo dived for the emplacement. He made it, losing the Villista hat he’d stolen. That was good; it would have made him a target for the troopers. From his shirt, he took his U.S. Cavalry hat, clamped it on his head. Then he slid behind the gun, checked the mounting of its drum, loosed its pintle, and at that moment, Columbus burst into flame.
They’d fired buildings downtown. All right, Fargo thought, as Columbus came alive, orange against the sky. He could wait. He probed in his pocket, found his last cigar, bit off its end, lit it, hunkered down behind the gun. They would make good targets as they poured back through the gate, silhouetted against those flames. And he would bide his time.
Anyhow, he thought, O’Brien failed his examination. I would have held this whole line before I fired the town ... That will cost him ...
The cigar smoke was good and satisfying. “Those guns!” somebody yelled up the track. “Place those guns!”
Fargo turned, saw Lucas disposing of two gun crews. “Down behind the tracks!” Fargo yelled. “Wait’ll they come back against the flames!”
Lucas heard him, turned, saw Fargo behind the gun. There was a moment when he stared, confused. Then the sense of Fargo’s advice jelled. He made a gamble, let Fargo have that gun, placed his others to interlock its field of fire.
Meanwhile, all hell was breaking loose in Columbus. Gunfire jarred the night: horses whinnied, screamed, women and children shrieked, Mexican buscaderos yelled and shouted slogans. Viva Villa! They had been well rehearsed in that, Fargo thought. Wanted to make sure that the Americans knew who to blame. He cleared the gun with a short burst, then, satisfied, another drum of ammo at hand and his shotgun against the sandbags, settled down to wait.
Hardly fifteen minutes passed before the tide turned. It flowed into Columbus, reached high-water mark, flowed out again. The night rang with gunfire, shouts and the thunder of pounding hooves. And now they came, O’Brien’s men, the town shot up, and they were ready to funnel across the border.
Fargo gave them time to get within easy range. His gun covered the border gate and the ripped down panels by it. A stream of horsemen, big-hatted, riding hard, guns brandished. And outlined against the flaming town, outlined so beautifully. Fargo leaned into the machine gun and tripped the trigger, and as he opened fire, the guns behind him began to talk in their staccato language.
And the damage that the Lewis guns dealt was awful. They harvested riders from the saddle, mowed them like ripe wheat, easy targets against the flames. Men fell, and horses, and there was a pile-up at the gate and along the tracks. Fargo swung his gun its full traverse, emptied that drum and clamped on another and emptied that one too, and then he was out of ammo for the Lewis gun. That did not matter.
What mattered was O’Brien.
Fargo had looked for him, and he had not passed. Fargo had not expected him to. He would be with the rear guard, in the most dangerous place. Where Fargo himself would have fought if he had brought off this raid.
Only, Fargo told himself, as he ran forward with the shotgun, I wouldn’t have botched it like this.
He dodged up Taft Street, through the light of burning buildings. The dusty street was full of mounted, shooting Mexicans. Fargo lined his shotgun, emptied both barrels, reloaded, fired twice more. He reached for more rounds, and his hands touched only empty loops. So. He was out of ammo. He dodged into 1he shelter of an unburnt saloon, its interior lit only by the fires outside. He slung the shotgun, drew the Colt, and checked its loading. This was as good a place to wait as any.
The Mexicans pounded down the street, heading for the border. Their numbers thinned, and Fargo knew: O’Brien, if he were still alive, must be along any minute now. The fires made the street as bright as day, and it should be no trouble to pick him out.
And then he was there: a big man on a bay stallion—he seemed to have a liking for stud horses— with a Colt in either hand, a Dorado sombrero on his head. Firelight gleamed on handsome face, black eyes, the conchos on his charro suit. In Spanish, he yelled: “Move out! Move out, Villistas!” Then he turned in the saddle, fired. Fargo saw a khaki-clad soldier sprawl from an alley. O’Brien laughed leaned forward in the saddle, and spurred his mount.
Fargo, standing behind the swinging doors of the saloon, lined his Colt and shot the horse.
It went down in a heap. O’Brien catapulted over its head. He was like a cougar, though, landed on his knees, was up at once, guns in either hand. He looked around dazedly for a horse, saw none. So he looked for shelter. His eyes landed on the swinging doors of the saloon. Quickly, Fargo stepped aside.
O’Brien charged up the porch, inside the darkened building. Fargo was in the corner, now, gun half-lowered. O’Brien brought up against the bar, panting. “Damn it,” he said in Spanish. “But I’ll find a horse. First... I’ll have a drink. I’ve earned it. It’s worked. We’ve lost men, but it’s worked damned fine.”
Fargo stood motionless, breath held. He vaguely saw the form of O’Brien go around the bar. “Bourbon,” O’Brien said. The word was gusty as he uncorked a bottle, took a drink. “Now...” He sighed, rubbed his mouth. Still, he was unaware of Fargo.
“So, now,” he said aloud, “I’ll get a horse. Cut through an alley; there’ll be plenty along the tracks. By God, it did work. It really did.” He started for the door.
“O’Brien,” Fargo said from the darkness in the corner.
O’Brien halted, whirled, and his spurs clanked. He raised his Colt. “Who’s that?”
“Fargo,” Neal Fargo answered.
O’Brien stood there for one frozen second. “It can’t be,” he rasped.
“It is. You’re not even a fair imitation.” Fargo raised his gun.
O’Brien hurled himself backwards into a pool of shadow. Now, though the firelight played down the middle of the barroom, he was invisible. Fargo heard a table scrape as O’Brien pulled it over, used it for cover.
The man’s voice was husky, trembling, when it came. “Fargo. Is it really you?”
“Yes,” Fargo said.
“I sent men to kill you.”
“I killed them instead,” said Fargo.
“The girl is still alive?”
“That’s right. And the two of us will make sure this don’t get laid on Villa.”
O’Brien laughed. “No way you can stop that.”
“I think so,” Fargo said. “It’ll be me, her, and you testifying.”
“No. Only her. You won’t live and I’ll go back to Mexico after I kill you.”
O’Brien sucked in breath.
“Oh, God, Fargo, you don’t know how I’ve looked forward to this day. Dreaming about meeting you straight up, just the two of us. It’s funny, you know? I’ve had it fixed in my mind for so long. I kill Fargo, then I am Fargo.”
“Nobody’s Fargo but me,” he said and moved, into the light.
He made a target of himself, and an instant after he did that, he threw himself to the floor and by then O�
��Brien had shot from darkness. Fargo hit hard on the planks, changing the gun to his left hand, spotted O’Brien’s muzzle flame, and fixed directly over it.
Even against the tumult in the town, O’Brien’s scream was loud and clear and terrible.
There was a convulsive kicking in the shadows. Fargo arose, and with cold confidence moved into the darkness. There O’Brien’s big spurs rang as his heels drummed on the floor and he cursed in incoherent agony.
Fargo found a match and snapped it.
In its flickering light, O’Brien lay in a puddle of blood. He could not fight because of the terrible shock and pain. Fargo’s hollow-point, aimed above and inside his gun-flash, had hit his shoulder-joint squarely. The exploding lead had nearly torn O’Brien’s arm off: white bone gleamed in ragged meat.
O’Brien tried to staunch the bleeding and looked up at Fargo with a blanched face. Fargo grinned down at him.
“You ain’t Fargo,” he said, “and you never would be, on the best day you ever had. But I think I can fix you up so you’ll live to talk. What you’ll say will interest a lot of people.”
“Damn you,” O’Brien rasped.
“And when you’re finished,” Fargo said, “likely you’ll be turned over to Carranza. You know what he’ll do with you?”
O’Brien bit his lower lip. “Firing squad,” he husked.
“That’s right,” Fargo said, and he bent and took O’Brien’s weapons and began to bandage the wound, as the noise of the Columbus raid died down outside.
Chapter Ten
Pershing said, “Well, we still have to go after Villa.”
He was a lean, gray-faced man, a good soldier, one of the best Fargo had ever known. Fargo had sized him up when, years before, sent to tame the southern Philippines, Pershing had begun by learning the local dialects. They had known each other a long time, but Fargo was never wholly easy in Pershing’s presence. The man lived inside himself in some secret place; maybe because his wife and three children had died in a fire back east not long ago. Nevertheless, he and Pershing could talk frankly and had. “I told you it wasn’t Villa. So did Mrs. Baines here, and so did Carlos O’Brien. He sang like a bird. You know it was all O’Brien’s doing. Not Villa’s, not Carranza’s, not anybody’s, but his.”
“And Germany’s,” Pershing said.
“And Germany’s,” Fargo added. Liz and O’Brien had been taken from the room, their testimony transcribed. Now, three days after the Columbus raid, he was alone with the General in his Fort Bliss headquarters.
“Nevertheless,” Pershing said, “we’ll have to go after Villa.” He leaned forward across his desk. “O’Brien succeeded to some extent. Because of the President’s delicate manipulation to keep us out of war, we don’t dare reveal the true story. That might mean war with Germany and we’re not ready for that yet. So Villa still has to be the bad man, Fargo, do you see?”
“No, I don’t,” said Fargo. “We killed about two hundred of the raiders, with those machine guns Lucas set up, and they killed less than a dozen soldiers and about that many civilians. We came out on top—”
“Thanks to you and Lucas ... The fact remains that if the truth came out, the country would clamor to go to war on Germany and we’re not prepared. We won’t be for a couple of years. Meanwhile, a little war against Villa could be very helpful.”
“You’ll never catch Pancho,” Fargo rasped.
Pershing almost smiled. “Maybe we don’t intend to. Maybe it’s just a kind of drill. We go into Mexico, but we stay clear of Villa and Carranza both. We just chase around and give our troops experience for the big war that may come later—and chase Germany out of Mexico. She’ll back off when we come in, especially when she hears we have O’Brien. Meanwhile, we’ll have maneuvers, get appropriations from Congress we badly need, and—we won’t hurt Villa and he won’t hurt us. We’ll get the practice, he gets to be the hero who is to get Germany out of Mexico. This will do it. It’ll be a fake war, Fargo, but useful to all the factions.”
“That’s the damndest thing I ever heard,” Fargo said.
“Maybe, but it’s practical. We won’t carry rifles, only side-arms. We’ll stick to the countryside, not go into the villages. We’ll do our best not to catch Pancho Villa, Fargo. And he’d have to be slope-headed and club-footed to let us. In short, we go into Mexico to satisfy the American public. We don’t catch Villa, don’t irritate Carranza, train our troops, and President Wilson gets re-elected. After that, he’s got a free hand to do what he thinks is best.”
“It’s a hell of a way to run a country,” Fargo said. “But maybe it makes sense.”
“War with Mexico and Germany right now doesn’t. Neither does the request from Theodore Roosevelt that you be made second in command, head of civilian scouts, of the expedition. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“No,” Fargo said, “Because then I’d have to choose between you and Villa.”
“Right, and it would present me with a choice as well. I’d have to bring you under military discipline, and ... You might wind up the scapegoat.”
Fargo blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“If we don’t catch Villa, somebody will have to suffer. I don’t want it to be you. But it would be easy, too easy, to designate you as a spy, a double agent, working for us and Villa both. And then ... I’d have no choice but to bring you before a firing squad. It’s like chess, Fargo; do you play chess?”
“Never had time to learn. But I’ve already been before a firing squad.”
“I won’t ask about that. Just stay clear. We’ll be in Mexico several months, walking on eggs. Just take a holiday somewhere else. Hawaii, Australia, anywhere. But don’t go back to Mexico. If I find you there, I might have to shoot you.”
He sat down. “You understand? You’re not stupid, you’ve got to understand. This is a fake war, not a real one. The real one comes later, with Germany and Austria, if you don’t push us into, the fake one.”
Fargo understood, all right. It was not what he had counted on, but he’d been in enough wars and revolutions to understand complexities. And this was his old commander. “All right, sir. I’ll stay clear of Mexico for a year.”
“Good,” said Pershing. “May I suggest Australia? It’s a fine country for a man with talents like yours.”
“I’ll think about it," Fargo said.
“We’ll be glad to pay your fare.”
Fargo laughed. “I make up my own mind where to go and pay my own way. But no Mexico for a year.” He came to attention. “General.”
“Yes, Fargo?”
“O’Brien goes back to Carranza?”
“In due time, and Carranza will surely shoot him.”
“Then that ends it,” Fargo said, and he saluted. Pershing returned the salute briskly. Then he stared. “Sergeant Fargo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That old hat looks like hell. I think you’d better turn it in and draw a new one.”
Fargo gave his wolf’s grin. “General, you try to take my hat away, you might have a real war on your hands.”
Pershing looked at him and then a rare grin broke the gray face. “Forget it. Goodbye, Sergeant, and good luck.”
“Goodbye, General.” Fargo about-faced and went out.
~*~
It was the best uptown hotel in El Paso. When Fargo shut the room’s door behind himself, Liz Baines was sitting on the bed in the best and sheerest nightgown the town’s stores could afford. She stood up, flesh shimmering through the translucent fabric. Came to Fargo, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him hard. “Neal, how did it go?”
“Not like I expected,” Fargo said. “But well enough. It made sense. What you said, I said, and O’Brien said, swung the balance okay. They’ll chase Pancho, but they won’t catch him. And they’ll be no war between Mexico and the States.”
“Thank God,” she said, body pressed against his. Then she pulled away. Going back to the bed, she sat there cross-legged. “Well, where does that l
eave us?”
“Me,” Fargo said, “I’ve got to stay out of Mexico for a year.”
“And me? Madame Lucy from the Rio Rest has already been here. She wants me back.”
Fargo took out a cigar. “What did you tell her?”
“I said, I’d let her know tomorrow.”
Elizabeth Baines’ breasts swelled beneath the nightgown’s lace. Then she sighed, slumped back on the pillows. “But, of course, I suppose I’ll have to go. I’ve got to go somewhere, and I’m dead broke.”
“No, you’re a lot of things, but dead broke ain’t one of them.” Fargo reached in his pocket. “I went by the bank.” He tossed the packet of greenbacks in her lap. “Ten thousand, in five hundreds.”
Liz’s jaw dropped as she stared down at the money. “Ten thousand—”
“My rake-off from Pancho Villa. I can’t go to Mexico, but I’ve got friends who can. I’ve made arrangements to get his machine gun ammunition to him, and I draw another twenty thousand later. Meanwhile, I got plenty.”
Liz kept on staring at the money, and her face worked convulsively. When she raised her head, her eyes were full of tears. “But … But Neal. Don’t you understand? This is the stake I’ve always wanted. With this much money I can go somewhere where no one knows me or my mother. Start all over. In a respectable business … somewhere … ”
Fargo said, “Have you ever thought about Australia?”
“Australia?”
“It’s a growin’ country, and awfully tough. General Pershing just suggested I might spend a year there myself. The idea appeals to me. It’s horse and cow country, and that’s my style.”
“Australia.” Her hands played over the money. “A fresh start. Nobody to know I’m a whore, and—Jesus!”
“You earned it,” Fargo said. “From now on, you can be anybody you want to be.”
“In Australia, yes. And … you’ll come?”
Fargo nodded. “I might as well. Yeah. We’ll go together.”
“Oh … Neal!”
He thought of Carlos O’Brien. Eventually, O’Brien would be turned over to Carranza’s forces up the line, in Coahuila. His right arm had been amputated, but he could hold the cigarette in his left hand as, inevitably, later on, he faced the firing squad.