The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2)

by John Benteen

  She only looked at him wordlessly. Then he said, “Come on, Cutler.”

  When they went out of the cantina, leaving Sharon arid Gorman alone in there, the people were running toward them, Hernando in the forefront. Cutler halted them with upraised hands, spoke quickly. He saw their triumph turn to dismay. Then Hernando said, “Yes. We must accept the bitter fact that for now he has won. It must be exactly as he says.” He turned and spoke to the crowd with authority, and, reluctantly, its mood changed to sullen bitterness, it retreated up the street to the plaza, Mansilla urging it along.

  The villagers had caught up half a dozen of the Gunhawks’ surviving horses and tied them to the rail of the burro pen. “Come,” Hernando said, “let’s get a mount and the weapons that he wants and waste no time. We can take no chance on the girl doing a crazy thing.”

  Cutler snatched up a Colt from a dead man’s hand. He loaded it with shells from his own belt. At the burro pen, Calhoon selected the best mount, a big, strong sorrel. A Winchester was already in its saddle, a canteen of water slung around the horn. Cutler checked the Winchester to make sure it was loaded and in working order; Hernando unscrewed the canteen, looked into it closely, then replaced its cap, hung it back on the horn. “Is everything ready?” Calhoon asked anxiously.

  “Everything he could want,” Hernando said. “Guns, water, a good fast horse. Now, if he will only keep his promise—”

  They led the horse down to the cantina. Calhoon cried out, “Gorman! Here it is, everything you want. Come out, mount up, and for God’s sake, let her go.”

  “Not until you three clear out. Up to the plaza!”

  “Come on,” Cutler said hoarsely. There was no other way. But in him, there was a deep dread. Gorman was the bear in his mind, or the jaguar, the creature that lived to kill; and Gorman had a victim, and Cutler knew that he would not let that victim go unharmed. He knew the way a killer’s mind worked too well. He could not meet Calhoon’s eyes as they tied the horse and the three of them trotted to join the sullen crowd in the plaza.

  That was where they watched it from, helplessly, Gorman emerging from the cantina, Sharon still clasped to him as a shield, his knife against her throat. They saw him drag her to the horse, saw him snatch the Colt from the holster on the saddle horn. Then he stepped back a little, letting her go, but keeping her covered at point blank range with the gun. She tensed, and for a moment Cutler’s heart almost stopped as it seemed she would make a hopeless break for it.

  “No,” Calhoon muttered beside him. “No, Sharon, please—”

  Under the threat of Gorman’s gun, she froze. Then Gorman gestured, holding the horse’s reins. Sharon protested. Gorman jerked the gun, and she swung up into the saddle and in a single lithe leap, he was up behind her and had done all that in such a way that never had he presented a target. Now he put his arm around her, the gun barrel boring into her flank, gathered the reins. The horse sidled down the street, and there was no chance of shooting Gorman without hitting the girl.

  “The bastard!” Calhoon roared. “He’s reneging! He’s taking her with him!” He started forward. Hernando seized his arm. “Billy, wait!”

  Calhoon flung the old man aside so hard Hernando fell into the dust. Then Gorman spurred the horse. It broke into a gallop, and Gorman turned, presenting a target for the first time, and his mocking laugh boomed down the street. “So long, brothers! See you in hell!” Then he had dodged behind a house and the sound of hoof beats faded.

  Billy Calhoon whirled, snatched Mansilla’s gun from his hand, ran toward the horses at the burro pen. Hernando raised himself on his elbows. “Cutler! Stop him! You hear? Stop him! The girl will be all right!”

  Cutler was after Billy, caught up with him in two long strides. “Calhoon, hold it. You chase him, he’ll kill her.”

  “He’ll kill her anyway!” Billy Calhoon cried, anguish on his face.

  “Stop him!” Hernando yelled again. “I promise, she will be all right!”

  Cutler reached for Calhoon. “Let me go!” Billy yelled, and raised the gun. Cutler knocked it aside and in one smooth motion smashed his fist into Calhoon’s face. The boy went down without a sound, sprawling into the dust, lying motionless. Cutler stood over him, panting. Then Hernando limped up. As Calhoon opened his eyes, the old man said gently: “Only wait. Say a half hour. Then we will go after her and find her and she will be alive and you can hold her in your arms.”

  Calhoon struggled to his feet. “What the hell you talking about, old man?” he mumbled savagely. “Magic?”

  “Something like that, perhaps,” Fernandez, the brujo, said.

  Chapter Nine

  A half hour, Fernandez insisted; and it was interminable. Billy Calhoon raged and swore and had to be jerked away from the horses twice, but Cutler did not have to hit him again. The crowd dispersed, looting the bodies that were strewn along the street, then lining the corpses up in rows. The women and children came out of the huts, into daylight, blinking, as if they could not believe that they could walk abroad in safety. Hernando stood like something carved from wood, watching the sun. Cutler retrieved his own and Billy’s guns and reloaded them.

  “God damn it,” Calhoon cried out at last, “it’s got to be time!”

  “It is time,” Hernando said. “Let us mount up, the three of us. Juan, you will ride ahead and pick up his trail. I think the tracks will be easy to follow.”

  “Hell, yes,” Cutler said, and swung up into the saddle. Mounted, Hernando restrained Calhoon with a touch. “Do not ride ahead and blot the sign ...”

  They galloped to the other end of the village, and Cutler immediately picked up the tracks of a running horse carrying double. Easy as they were to read, he followed them slowly and carefully, scouting ahead for fear of ambush, until Fernandez said, “You need not fear him. Go swiftly. He cannot hurt you now.”

  Cutler looked at him narrowly; but he trusted the old man. After that, he moved along more swiftly.

  They crossed the grassy plateau, and the trail led into the hills beyond. The forest closed around them. Cutler’s shorthair prickled; according to the sign, Gorman’s horse was slowing. Certainly Gorman would not handicap himself by making it carry double much longer. He would be looking for a place to—

  Then Cutler reined in, hand flashing to his gun. Ahead, screened by brush and jungle, there was the sound of a horse trotting toward them. “Spread out!” Cutler rasped and raised the Colt and Calhoon dragged his Winchester. But Hernando’s voice lashed at them with authority. “Do not shoot! It is not Gorman!”

  They sat there tensely; the hoof beats approached steadily; now, through the brush, Cutler saw a flash of sorrel. He could not help tightening his grip on the Colt. Then the horse broke through the greenery and Cutler let out a long gusty breath. Beside him, Calhoon made a sound in his throat and spurred forward. “Sharon.”

  As he came up to her, she, the only rider on the sorrel, looked at him dazedly, and then she almost fell into his arms. He dragged her from the saddle, held her closely, dismounted. She leaned against him. “Sharon, oh, damn, Sharon . . .” Calhoon whispered. Then he asked wonderingly: “He let you go? Gorman really let you go?”

  “No.” The girl’s voice was muffled. “No. He’s dead.”

  Calhoon stepped back. “Dead?” he blurted. “You got his gun and killed him?”

  She shook her head groggily.

  “What happened then?” Cutler snapped.

  “I . . . don’t know. One minute he was alive . . . about to shoot me. The next ... he was dead.” She turned, pointed. “Up there . . . not far ... in a clearing.”

  “Show us.” Cutler lifted her to the saddle.

  As if regaining strength, she turned the sorrel, went back the way she had come. They followed in single file. In less than a quarter of a mile, they broke out into a grassy clearing.

  The body lay in the middle of it, face up, black frock coat fanned out beneath it. Its right hand held a Colt; by its left hand, a canteen from wh
ich all the water had poured when it was dropped lay open. Cutler, Calhoon and Fernandez swung down.

  Gorman’s eyes were wide open, his mouth gaped in a weird smile. Flies already crawled on his face. Hernando bent quickly, took the canteen, poured the last few drops out of it, then threw it far into the brush.

  From the saddle of the sorrel, Sharon said numbly, “All I know is that he pulled up here . . . made me get down ... He was laughing . . . called me the Whore of Babylon and said I had to die ... All the while he was talking, he was unscrewing the canteen top with his left hand . . . had the gun on me with his right. Never took his eyes from me, even when he drank ... He just took one long swallow . . . and then he ... It was so fast. He just fell out of the saddle and he was dead before he hit the ground.”

  Billy Calhoon rubbed his face, turned to stare at the withered old Mexican in the dirty, tattered white clothes and the filthy sash. “You knew,” he whispered in awe. “You knew . . .”

  “Let us say I hoped,” Hernando said. “But I knew that if you chased him, her death was certain.”

  Calhoon shook his head, baffled.

  “It was like . . . like magic,” Sharon said.

  Cutler looked at Fernandez. Then his eyes went to the bushes where the old man had thrown the canteen. Hernando saw the direction of his glance and grinned.

  “Let us say,” he began, “that so far as the people of Villa Hermosa are concerned, it was indeed magic. I made the prophecy that he would die, and the prophecy was fulfilled. It is necessary that the people have no more knowledge of what happened than that, for they need a leader, and the power of my leadership must be restored. So, yes. It was a kind of magic.”

  “It was something in that canteen,” Cutler said. “I remember, now; I saw you open it.”

  Hernando nodded. “Yes. And I did not want anyone else to touch it or get a drop from it on his fingers.” He drew in a deep breath, and now his face was grave. “You will remember that if they had caught me, they would have burned me alive. That is a painful death and one I had no desire to endure. I am not afraid of dying, but why do so by burning when—” He shrugged, touched his sash. “Always, here, I carried a little bottle. It was my intention that, if they ever caught me, to drink of it before they could put the fire to me.”

  “What was in it?” Cutler asked.

  “I told you that witchcraft is nothing but a knowledge of the ancient wisdom. There is a kind of frog, no bigger than so—” He indicated the first joint of his thumb. “The old Yaqui hunters called it the arrow-poison frog, for it has in its skin something so deadly that a single drop of it will kill a man before his eyes can blink. They used to put it on their arrow points. I had enough in that bottle to kill all of Gorman’s Gunhawks. And when I saw the canteen on the horse’s saddle, the idea came to me. Battle makes a man thirsty and Gorman had been fighting hard. I put the poison in the water. I knew that at the first sip of it, he would die immediately, and I knew that it would not be long before he drank—as soon as he was sure he had time to halt ...”

  Billy Calhoon whirled on him. “But, damn it, how did you know he wouldn’t give it to her first?”

  Hernando looked at him gravely. “I did not think a man like Gorman would ever give anyone anything first. But that was a chance I had to take.” He paused, then added very softly, “If she had drunk first, at least her death would have been quick and painless.”

  Calhoon stood there tensely. Cutler put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Billy, it’s over,” he said quietly.

  Calhoon relaxed, let out a long breath. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s over. Hernando ...” His voice failed. Then he went to the old man and hugged him.

  When Calhoon released him, Hernando grinned. “Not me. Her.” He pointed to Sharon. “Go to her, boy.”

  And Billy Calhoon did.

  When they reached Villa Hermosa with Sharon alive, the town erupted into joyful celebration, despite the deaths of half a dozen of its citizens. Now they were free again, and the men who had given them their freedom were Cutler, Calhoon, the dead Hitchcock—and Hernando Fernandez, whom they had been ready to burn as a witch. It was plain, Cutler thought, that his prestige was restored, the town ready again to follow his leadership, its citizens in awe of the powers which had killed their chief oppressor as if by magic. When he gave orders, they jumped to obey. And the first order he gave was for the women to attend Sharon Hitchcock, who was still numb with shock and grief and reaction. They led her into a hut. Calhoon tried to follow, but they closed the door in his face.

  Cutler saw that. Bone weary himself, he dodged through the crowd to the cantina. It was jammed, as the people of Villa Hermosa made free with Perez’s stock. Cutler shoved through them, found a bottle of tequila, pulled its cork with his teeth, poured a quarter of it down his throat in one long, scalding gulp. Then he strode through the celebrants, carrying his bottle, and went out the back door. He walked down behind the houses to the burro pens and climbed up on the fence, perched on the top rail, and he drank some more. The sun was high and it was hot and the tequila worked swiftly. From where he sat, he could see the jaguar’s corpse dangling from the well. People made high carnival around it.

  He sat there for a long time. Then someone touched his knee. “Juan.”

  Cutler looked down at Hernando Fernandez. The old man climbed the pen, sat on the rail beside him. “You do not celebrate.”

  “No,” Cutler said. “I’m tired. Besides, I’ve got a lot of unfinished business.”

  “Yes. The horses and the dog. I have sent men after the horses, and tomorrow, when you have rested, you and I will go after the dog and the other mule. It will be all right until then.”

  “I know,” Cutler said.

  “And your wagon. It remains where it was. Nobody has stolen anything from it. Is there room in it for some very high-grade silver ore?”

  Cutler shrugged.

  “The people want to pay you. There is no way they can repay you, really. But there is much silver left at the mine . . . They want to be rid of it as soon as possible.”

  Cutler looked at him. “Rid of it?”

  “Yes.” Hernando paused. “It was my mistake, and a costly one. Before I allowed Hitchcock to reopen that mine, we were not wealthy, but we were happy. We tended our fields and we got along. Then we got silver, and the silver drew . . . Gorman and his Gunhawks. There will be others like him if the mine stays open. So we will close it, in such a way that it can never be re-opened. All have agreed to that.”

  Cutler only shrugged again. Then he drank.

  Fernandez said, “Even now. You cannot forget the bear.” Then he added: “Especially now.”

  “Especially now,” Cutler said, thinking of Billy Calhoon holding Sharon Hitchcock. It was not that he wanted her; it was the memories it conjured of how he had once held Doreen. And besides—

  “The bear,” he said. “It is still in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Before the snow melts there, I must go back for it. And ...”

  “The Calhoons. Yes.”

  “They’re not going to stop me,” Cutler said harshly. “Not any of them. Not even Billy. I’m going to get him if I have to kill them all to do it.”

  “Do you think it will come to that?” There was fear in Hernando’s voice.

  “All I know is that he promised to take my ears back to his father. I promised him that after this was over, he could have his showdown. Straight up, gun-to-gun.”

  Hernando let out a long breath. “He is a very fast young man. And he is no longer green and untried.”

  Cutler drank and said, “That don’t matter. Nobody is going to kill me before I get the bear.” Then he slid off the fence.

  “Cutler, where do you go?”

  Cutler’s voice was sharp. “To find Calhoon. To give him what I promised and get it over with. Then I’m gonna get drunk for a week.”

  “Juan, wait—” Hernando said, but Cutler paid him no attention. He loosened his Colt in his holster, strode around a h
ouse to the street, walked through the festive crowd that sought to make him join them, pushing away the men who tried to shake his hand, the women who sought to kiss him.

  Then he halted. Billy Calhoon was coming out of the cantina, walking toward the hut where Sharon had been taken. He went to the door, was about to knock on it, when Cutler called: “Billy.”

  The young man turned. He saw Cutler, and he saw Cutler’s stance, and his own changed.

  “Billy,” Cutler said. “There’s something we’ve got to settle between us.”

  Calhoon stared at him.

  “Billy, I’m goin’ back up in the Big Horns come spring, after that bear, and neither you nor any of your clan is gonna stop me. If you want my ears, you better take ‘em now, if you’re man enough.” He moved out into the middle of the street.

  Instinctively, Calhoon did the same; and now they were facing each other at a distance of twenty yards. Cutler’s hand dangled near his Colt. God damn it, he thought, with a kind of grief, I don’t want to kill him. But he’s not gonna stop me—

  “You’re drunk, Cutler,” Calhoon said.

  “That won’t slow me down none,” Cutler said. “You want your chance or not?”

  Calhoon stood motionless. Presently, he said: “I made my Daddy a solemn promise. No dead Calhoon ever went un-revenged. No Calhoon ever broke a promise to his daddy. But I’ll swear to God, Cutler, I don’t want to do it. Even though I got to.”

  “Neither do I,” said Cutler, “but I want that bear and I’m gonna git him.”

  He and Calhoon looked at one another for a long, tense moment. Cutler was watching Calhoon’s eyes, waiting for the change that meant the draw. Calhoon’s gaze was steady, his hand poised by his gun.

  Then Calhoon’s eyes changed, and Cutler drew. But instead of going for his own gun, Calhoon’s hands flew up, high above his head. Cutler, with the hammer eared back, froze.

  “No,” Calhoon said. “No, put the gun away, Cutler.” He smiled slowly. “You’ve kept your promise. We’re quits.”

  Cutler shook his head. “You don’t want your chance?”