by Judd Cole
Josh wrung his hands like a helpless midwife.
“Aww, please don’t cry, Miss Emmerick,” Josh said awkwardly. He looked a plea at Hickok. “Maybe Bill will change his mind about us going.”
“Don’t let her tears dupe you,” Bill said, though his tone was playful. “This young woman isn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill actress. She’s trained to cry right on cue.”
Bill was mostly teasing, and despite her distraught state, Connie realized this. She actually smiled briefly through her tears.
“For a rough frontier fellow,” she told Bill, impressed, “you seem to know something about the theater.”
“Well, let’s see. I know that you threw me out of one.”
She looked surprised, drying her tears with a fold of her dress. “I? When and where?”
“Umm, back in summer of ‘70. In Frisco.”
Connie actually blushed. “Yes, I remember! But ... that man was you?”
He nodded. “I look different in a topper and swallow tails.”
“Well, you might have sent in your card. And I’m always somewhat ... aloof after an exhaustive performance, Mr. Hickok.”
“Please call me Bill.”
“At any rate, you didn’t have to leave so meekly, Mr. Hick—Bill.”
Hickok’s eyes took her measure. “I’ll remember you told me that.”
She flushed again. “Well, of course, I’m engaged now,” she hastened to qualify.
“I’ll still remember it,” Bill assured her. “Jim Paxton’s range is big, but it doesn’t include a man’s thoughts. Now, get ready to ride. You insist on staying, so we’re all three going after your sister.”
Even in the vast Sonora country, it took no time at all for important news to spread. Soon it was widely known that the famous American actriz was now with Wild Bill Hickok.
Jim Paxton, his worst fears confirmed, refused to allow a newspaper into his home. In public, he expressed heartfelt statements of support for Hickok and his fiancée; privately, however, he succumbed to his jealous rage. He was a national laughingstock! It would be one cold day in hell before he turned his good name and fortune over to Hickok’s conquests.
Border troubleshooter Butch Jeffries learned the news about Hickok and Connie while en route to a remote Mexican Army observation post called Eagle Rock. It was a squalid collection of tents and cassions crowding the unmarked border with the Arizona Territory.
The OP was commanded by Lieutenant Pablo Gonzales, a veteran combat officer sharpened by years of fighting the wily Apaches. Butch Jeffries knew how poorly Mexican soldiers were paid, so over the years he and Gonzales had struck several “mutually beneficial” arrangements.
“Personally,” Butch said, “I like Hickok. I played five-card with him once in El Paso. A real gentleman. He’s got style, real style.”
Gonzales had a solid jaw, a thin mustache, and coffee-colored eyes that could trap a man like lance points. His English was rough at times, but better than Butch’s Spanish.
“So much ‘style’, eh, ‘mano, that you will gladly help me kill him?”
The two men sat under the fly of Gonzales’s tent, sharing the little rectangle of shade. Behind them, two squads of bored soldiers had met to do battle— not with weapons but with red and black ants. One man ran around recording bets before the ants were turned loose on each other.
“But I’m not trying to kill him,” Butch objected. “I’ve been hired to kill the woman with him. So I’m offering up Hickok’s hide as payment for killing the woman right along with him.”
“Kill her?” Gonzales almost whispered the words, so great was his surprise. “But who could want such a beauty dead?”
Butch shrugged apologetically. “Now, now, Pablo. You know, a businessman’s agent must practice discretion.”
Gonzales considered this startling proposition. He did not exactly trust Jeffries or any gringo. But trust was never an issue between such men as they, for no man expected to receive what he refused to give.
Still—this steel-eyed, polite American had never lied to him where an illegal dollar or peso was involved.
“I just heard the woman is with Hickok,” Gonzales finally said. “And of course I have heard these rumores about a reward for Hickok. So you claim it is true?”
“May I rot in hell if it’s not. You can cash Hickok’s head in for ten thousand yanqui greenbacks. Just a short trip into Texas. There’s a rich, grieving father there waiting for it—Hickok killed his boy up north in Abilene, Kansas.”
Up north? Kansas might as well have been the North Pole, so far as Gonzales cared. But a trip into Texas could certainly be managed for so much money, por Dios!
As for Jeffries—Jim Paxton only said he wanted his fiancé killed. He never stipulated exactly who must do it or precisely how it got done.
“This woman,” Gonzales said, pulling thoughtfully at his chin. “This bonita actriz, Connie Emmer—however one says it. I hear she is a feast for a man’s eyes, true?”
“Blond hair the color of new wheat,” Butch goaded. “White skin like the finest lotion. And more curves than a man can brake for.”
“And tell me, amigo. Must she be killed—right away, I mean?”
Butch grinned, catching the officer’s drift.
“Well, eventually she must be killed. What a man did with her beforehand, of course, would be his own affair.”
Gonzales matched his grin. “Of course. The Code of Chivalry leaves a man much privacy.”
“As for killing Hickok, I’d never try it alone,” Jeffries freely admitted. “That’s why I’m dealing you in. You could take your ten best men. Catch Hickok in the open desert with those bloodthirsty devils of yours, he’d be buzzard bait.”
“So you say.”
“So I know. Then you simply pay each man fifty dollars American, leaves you ninety-five hundred dollars. In a country where tequila is only fifty cents a bottle, where twenty dollars buys a top horse. Que dices, viejo? What say, old boy?”
Gonzales let his gaze drift toward his men, in a ring on their knees, cheering on their favorite insects.
They were bored to the point of insanity—this was the worst duty in the Mexican military. It would be easy to find ten volunteers for this lucrative venture.
Especially with the extra incentive a beautiful woman promised.
“I will certainly do it,” Gonzales replied. “But it is Hickok my men will kill first. The woman will not be wasted. Not out here.”
“Fine by me, as long as you kill her when you’re done with her. She must not escape.”
Gonzales smiled at that thought. “We always kill them when were done, ‘mano. Stone them into silence, you see, and then there is no crime, true?”
Chapter Twelve
Since their enemy’s trail looped back past La Cola, Bill delayed long enough to check the hiding place inside the knoll south of town. The moment Connie told him and Josh about the silver, Bill had predicted it would be gone when they got to the spot. Bill’s prediction panned out.
For two days Hickok’s little group dogged their enemy’s trail steadily east by southeast. But like Danford’s bunch, they were forced to ride after dark only. By now soldiers, freebooters, ragtag “armies of the people,” and numerous gangs of highway bandits were on the prowl for the two famous intruders from el Norte. Indians, too, were less of a threat after dark.
Not all were bent on murder, of course. But Hickok told Josh tersely that there was no time to sort them all out. Best to just avoid them all.
“They’re already halfway across Chihuahua State,” Bill said as they made camp one morning at dawn, getting ready to hole up for the daylight hours. “My guess is they mean to stay more or less on a straight line toward New Orleans. San Antonio would be closer, but New Orleans has plenty of banks that take gold and silver in quantity routinely.”
Josh was listening. But he also kept his eyes on Connie, worried about her. So was Bill, though he wouldn’t let on. She refused to c
omplain, especially after making such a fuss about going with them.
But clearly Constance Emmerick was suffering. The unrelenting sun and heat allowed a person no more than an hour or two of sleep, and then only if snatched before noon. The meager diet and scanty water rations—plus the constant fear that Anne’s body would turn up around the next turn of the trail—exacted a harsh toll on her artistic constitution.
Yet both men greatly admired her pluck and will and determination. “A woman who speaks four languages and reads Plato,” Bill had remarked to Josh at one point. “And after all she’s been through, to take more of this. She’s some pumpkins, all right.”
They’d set up camp in a low wash where boulders threw some shade for them and the horses. Josh had the first watch. Before Bill turned in, he studied his map again.
“I think I got a fix on their route now,” he told Josh. “They’ll cross into the States just south of the Texas Big Bend country—at Piedras Negras or maybe Del Rio. Then they’ll stick close to the Gulf of Mexico, because the U.S. hardly patrols that far down. They’ll follow the coast of Texas and Louisiana to New Orleans.”
Connie lay nearby on Josh’s bedroll, listening but too tired to comment.
“The thing of it is,” Bill mused, “they know damn well they can’t afford to be tailed all that way.”
“Meaning,” Josh supplied, “that they’re pretty confident they’re going to kill us?”
Bill nodded, glancing toward Connie again. “I don’t like this, kid. Maybe you better take her across the border to safety after all.”
Connie sat up. “I heard that. Never mind me, please. If having Joshua with you increases Anne’s chances even one whit, then I want him here.”
“Fair enough,” Bill told her. “Now, get some sleep.”
Bill, too, stretched out in his blanket, trying to rest before the day’s heat struck triple digits. It seemed he was just starting to tumble over the threshold of sleep when Josh shook him roughly awake.
“My watch already?” Bill grumbled, thumbing the sleep from his eyes.
“No, trouble coming,” Josh informed him. “Look!”
He pointed toward the northwest. Bill, guessing from the sun that it was still forenoon, followed Josh’s finger. Out on the shimmering horizon, a formation of riders approached in a staggered echelon.
“Soldiers,” Bill said immediately, for he could see the tall shako hats and plumes even from here. “Mexican regulars.”
“Think they’ve seen us from that far?” Josh wondered. “This wash is kinda low. We should be below the horizon for them.”
“We are, you young fool,” Bill groused. “But lookit your pony! I told you to use hobbles, not tether it. He’s wandered up to the high ground, and they’ve spotted him.”
“What is it?” Connie demanded, for she was already awake when Bill got up.
“Federales,” Bill told her. “Maybe ten, a dozen of them. Bearing right down on us. We can dig sand wallows and fight, or we can hightail it, maybe find better ground.”
“Could we hold them off here?” Josh asked. “They have to cross open ground to close in on us.”
“True,” Bill said. “But what if they’re well provisioned? We’ve got no food and next to no water. They decide to, they could just ring us in and wait it out, starve us.”
“Yeah,” Josh said. “I didn’t think about that.”
Bill slid both guns out of their holsters, checking his loads.
“Both of you,” he said. “Saddle up. Looks to me like their horses are tired. Let’s see if we can outrun them.”
Lieutenant Gonzales, armed with good tips from Butch Jeffries, had ridden out of the garrison at Eagle Rock almost eighteen hours earlier.
He had selected ten men known for their steady aim and their combat courage. For the sake of speed, he ordered each man to bring only his blanket roll, his carbine, thirty rounds of ammo, and enough rations for a week in the field.
Bearing east by southeast, they left Sonora, crossed the Continental Divide, and entered the neighboring Mexican state of Chihuahua.
Despite the hard conditions, the men appreciated this break in the routine of garrison life. And a chance to kill the famoso Bill Hickok was anything but routine. Especially since the lieutenant promised a cash bonus for each man, assuming Hickok was sent under.
They had spotted the lone horse perhaps thirty minutes ago—a black-and-white piebald with a roached mane, the very same horse Jeffries described. It belonged to the fresh-scrubbed youth riding with Wild Bill Hickok.
“Teniente!” called out a lance corporal riding to the right of Gonzales. “They have spotted us! They are running!”
The formation had been approaching at a canter to preserve the horses. Now Gonzales raised his right fist high in the air and pumped it up and down—the signal to kick their horses to a full gallop.
The pursuit was on.
Bill had told Josh once that the most important quality of any horse was not apparent in its color or markings. It was a quality the Spanish called brio escondido, the hidden vigor.
Bill’s roan, like Josh’s Sioux-trained piebald, could draw on deep reserves of strength and wind—especially since the nostrils of both animals had been slit to increase their wind.
Connie’s big combination horse, in contrast, soon began to blow foam and lose speed.
Bill cursed their luck, but he could have predicted it. The big, seventeen-hand “American” horses were strong enough, all right, and could be sharply trained. But although big and pretty, they lacked any real bottom in a life-and-death chase like this one.
As Connie’s mount began to flounder, Josh and Bill slowed to keep her between them. Gradually, the pursuing force closed the gap.
Josh glanced over his shoulder and saw gun muzzles spit puffs of smoke. The range was still too long, and the bullets struck wide or short, kicking up geysers of sand. But the Mexican soldiers, veterans of such fighting, only used misses to improve their aim.
Soon, bullets whanged in so close by that it was getting dangerous. Bill tugged his Winchester from the boot and twisted around at a gallop, throwing the weapon into his shoulder.
He got two rounds off quickly, then cursed when a spent cartridge jammed in the ejection port. The unrelenting desert sun had heat-warped the brass casings. There was no way Bill could clear it while riding this fast.
Desperate now, he scoured the terrain for a place to hole up and fight a defensive stand. But the stretch of desert between here and Old El Paso, about fifty miles due east according to his map, was one of the flattest and barest in all of northern Mexico.
Connie’s horse stumbled, sides heaving. The federales were now close enough that the fleeing trio could hear their horses snorting and their bit rings chinking.
A Mexican fired his rifle, and a bullet thwapped into Bill’s saddle fender.
“That’s it!” he shouted to Josh. “We can’t outrun ‘em!”
Josh goggled at him. “You mean ... we surrender?”
“You loco?” Bill demanded. “These boys ain’t planning on taking no prisoners—’cept maybe one,” Bill added in a lower voice, looking at Connie. “And she’ll be killed when they finish with her.”
More rounds whistled and hummed past their ears, one punching into Josh’s hat.
“Keep riding!” Bill ordered his two companions. The next moment, both ivory-gripped Colts were in his fists, the reins in his teeth, and Hickok had wheeled around to attack the attackers.
The move may have looked like pure suicide to the soldiers. But Hickok was counting on both his horse and his legendary skill with pistols.
For perhaps five seconds, the Mexicans were too surprised to do anything at all except keep charging. But as Bill hurtled closer, they sent a withering cloud of lead at him.
Fire-away knew what to do even without Bill’s goading. The battle-savvy horse began running an avoidance pattern, bucking and dodging. With bullets fanning his long curls and screaming in hi
s ears, Bill opened up with the Peacemaker in his right fist. Six quick shots.
The range was long for a short gun, and Bill was firing at moving targets from a moving target. Nonetheless, he had the distinct satisfaction of watching three men tumble from the saddle. The foot of one got caught in the stirrup; his horse continued forward, the body bouncing wildly beside it.
But Bill had no time to count his coups. With the line still advancing, he opened up with his remaining gun. Two more men flew from the saddle—including the officer in charge.
That broke the will of the attackers. Even as Bill wheeled Fire-away and raced to join his fleeing companions, the Mexican soldiers lost their tight formation and became a bunch of confused, milling individuals with no one in charge.
“God Almighty,” Butch Jeffries said softly as he lowered his field glasses.
The frontier veteran felt badly shaken by what he had just seen. He knew that Hickok was a formidable foe. But holy mother of God! The man had single-handedly wiped out half a squad of soldiers—and with a short gun, at that!
Jeffries had been trailing Gonzales at a safe distance since the Mexican had set out yesterday. He had wanted to verify, with his own eyes, that the Connie Emmerick problem had been eliminated.
Instead, he had found out why Hickok was a hero even in Paris and London. It didn’t matter how many lies were told about Wild Bill—the truth was enough to stagger the imagination. Jeffries had just witnessed that.
What he saw only deepened his respect for Hickok. But of course, it did not change what Butch had to do. Obviously, killing Connie Emmerick was going to be harder than he—or Jim Paxton—could have known.
However, Butch had accepted Paxton’s terms and he still meant to get it done. Clearly, though, a man would have to work around Hickok to carry it through.
Fortunately, Jeffries reminded himself as he returned to his horse, this border country held many advantages for a man who knew it well. Hickok had won this battle, but the longer war would sink him.
Chapter Thirteen
“Damn good thing we got enough horses,” Danford remarked as he heaved a heavy packsaddle to the ground. “This stuff ain’t so heavy when it’s spread around.”