by John Benteen
Ten yards away, the horse holder, pistol out, was staring into the brush, trying to figure out what was going on in there. Then, catching some tatter of sound, he whirled. Seeing Fargo, his eyes widened, he dropped the reins, brought his Colt down into line. Fargo thrust the shotgun out, pulled the second trigger.
The nine slugs picked the man up, threw him half a dozen feet, dropped him on the ground transformed into something tattered, crimson. Hardly breaking stride, Fargo ran toward the frightened horses, shotgun slung, rifle in his hand, cartridge in its chamber. A big black gelding snorted, stampeded toward him, eyes rolling, head high. Fargo lunged, seized trailing reins, swung the animal around, clawed into the saddle. Even as his thighs grasped its barrel, he saw a pale face surface in the chaparral like a chip on the surface of a pond. Sun glinted on the metal of an upraised pistol. Fargo wheeled the black, lined the Winchester one-handed, punched off a shot. The face vanished, Fargo jerked the black around again and spurred. Then, bent low in the saddle, he was riding hard across the sun baked open. Behind him, in the chaparral, there was only silence.
Four
ALL THAT DAY, he traveled like a hunted wolf, staying low and off the skyline, threading the maze of arroyos and washes that seamed the land, emerging only occasionally to reconnoiter. He took no pleasure in his victory in the chaparral; his mood was bleak and grim. The fat was in the fire now, and with a vengeance. When those riderless horses made their way back to San Joaquin or their owners did not return, this whole segment of the border would come alive like a bucket of scorpions. He’d be sealed off from the Rio—if he weren’t already—and with the word passed that he was after Lopez Belmonte, everybody between here and Belmonte’s ranch in south Chihuahua would be on the lookout for him. It was going to be damned risky to go back, and even riskier to go forward. Whoever had sold him out had done a beautiful job.
Nooning in a cutbank’s shade, Fargo again felt that cold fire of rage. It could, of course, have been anyone. The ranchers would have passed the word to their hands, and a cowboy in the pay of the border jumpers might have sent the word. And yet ... the news had traveled too damned fast; there hadn’t been time for it to get past that original group with whom he’d met in the town hall. He chewed a cigar without lighting it to moisten his mouth and scowled. Somehow, his thoughts kept coming back to one man; a name ran in his brain—George Trace.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Trace was slipping, in eclipse, and Fargo was outshining him. His bitterness and jealousy had been plain to see. And, having so far failed to stop the rustling himself, the possibility of Fargo’s succeeding might have seemed to him intolerable. Or ... Fargo’s eyes went hard. There could have been another motive. Trace was getting old and had been working for a pittance compared to what Fargo made all his life. Slowing down as he was and with retirement coming up, he’d want money, lots of it. One way to get it might be to sell out the very people he was working for. If Lopez Belmonte had an informant among the ranchers who knew exactly where the herds were being held, how many riders held them, and where the cavalry was at any given time, it would be worth a lot to him. Fargo made a sound in his throat, fingered the butt of the holstered .38. No wonder Trace had kept after him so hard about what he planned to do. But, learning nothing and unable to pinpoint where Fargo would cross, he had merely sent word that Fargo had been hired, was coming, and whoever ramrodded Lopez Belmonte’s operation up here had sent men out to screen the river from San Joaquin to Palo Blanco. Well, Fargo thought grimly, when he got back to Texas, he was going to have a long, hard session with Mr. Trace.
If he got back. By now, the bodies in the brush had probably been found, and riders fanning out to scour the country. He’d have to move and move fast—find better cover and some water. Meanwhile, though, he’d pushed the black gelding hard, and though it was a fine animal, it had to rest a while.
There had been a full canteen on its broad horned Mexican saddle, some dirty tortillas wrapped up in the serape tied behind the cantle. Fargo gave the horse a few sips of water in his hat, ate half the food. Then he left the gelding in the shade and wormed up the bank of the arroyo to check his back trail. Lying flat on his belly, he scanned the land between here and the Rio.
The heat was like a sledgehammer: the tan, forlorn terrain shimmered like the inside of a forge; the air seemed to suck moisture from his body like a giant sponge. Nothing moved that he could see across all that broad expanse of plain. At this time of day, men and animals alike normally would be hiding as best they could from the merciless sun. Yet, to be sure, Fargo glassed the dun-hued flats one more time. Then he stiffened, rasping a curse.
The glasses passed back over what had first seemed a rock. But now, it seemed to Fargo that the rock moved, stirred. He frowned: a trick of heat? No. No, it was moving! And now, suddenly it was not a rock at all. It was a man, staggering to his feet.
Fargo blinked against the glare, refocused the glasses. Now the figure stood out in clearer definition—on foot, looking around helplessly, then breaking into an aimless, lurching walk.
“Goddlemighty!” Fargo swore.
Because the man’s hair was blond. He was no Mexican, but an Anglo. And more than that: Fargo had worn that khaki uniform too long not to recognize it at once, even at this distance. The man out there was an American soldier—a U.S. cavalryman!
Fargo’s battered face screwed into a frown. He wriggled back down the slope a yard or two, chewed on the unlit cigar, thinking hard. What the hell was a Yankee horse soldier doing wandering on foot, seemingly dazed, on the Chihuahua plains? Didn’t the damned fool know that he had no more chance than a chicken in a dog-yard out there in the open. Fargo’s eyes narrowed. Likely a deserter. But, damn it, even a deserter ought to know better than to head for Mexico when he took off, the way things were right now.
Fargo put all that from his mind. The main thing was, that fool out there presented him with a problem. He had two choices—leave him to die from heat and thirst, which probably wouldn’t take long, or under Mexican guns, which would take even less time ... or help him. He snorted disgustedly. He had no leeway to help anybody. It might cost him his own life to break cover right now, ride out there across the open. And right now the saving of any life but his own was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Whoever he was, however he’d got there, the hombre would have to take his medicine.
And yet ... something within Fargo warred with that chill common sense that had kept him alive so long. Goddammit, that man out yonder was a cavalryman! And ... unconsciously, Fargo tipped the battered old campaign hat back on his head. And he himself had been a yellow-legs for so damned long, in his younger days. The cavalry had shaped, formed him, made him what he was. And ...
“And, hell!” Fargo grated, gathered up his weapons, and went to the tethered black. He couldn’t help it. If the American had been a civilian, he’d have ridden on without a second thought. But one horse-soldier couldn’t desert another in a pinch.
Fargo swung into the saddle, put the black horse up the side of the draw. When it reached the level, he spurred it hard and it stretched out in a run.
~*~
He rode straight up, eyes searching the shimmering flats, weapons at the ready. His only hope was that, according to ingrained custom, every Mexican in the territory was lying low at this time of day, taking the necessary siesta. Fargo had actually seen battles taper off at midday as both sides broke off fighting to hide from the sun. Anyhow, he would waste not a second in getting to that stranded soldier, picking him up, and getting him under cover.
If, by the time Fargo reached him, he wasn’t already dead of heatstroke. Hatless, he was staggering weakly in a wide, looping circle, sun glinting off unshielded yellow hair.
The black gelding’s long legs devoured distance. So far, except for the heat-stricken soldier, the land was empty.
The man had stopped, now, stood slackly, hands dangling at his sides. Fargo pushed the gelding hard, covering the last qu
arter of a mile. Then the wanderer heard the drum of hoofbeats, turned. Fargo caught a fleeting impression of a lean, sun-swollen face, eyes wide with fear at the sight of the armed rider bearing down on him, bandoliered cartridges glinting. The man stared a moment, turned, tried to run. He made a half dozen yards, stumbled, fell, and did not rise again, only lying huddled, hands clasped over his head as if to shield himself from danger. He did not move as Fargo brought the black to a skidding halt beside him, hit the dust before the animal had halted. Reins in one hand, shotgun leveled with the other, Fargo rasped: “All right. On your feet. I’m not here to hurt you, unless you try somethin’ first.”
The huddled figure on the ground did not respond. Fargo swore, bent, ungently seized lank yellow hair, snapped back its head. “I said on your feet! You want to die out here?”
The puffed, blistered, dust-powdered face stared at him uncomprehendingly. It was, somehow, despite its distortion, vaguely familiar, but Fargo had no time to search his memory. “Hell,” he grated. This was only a kid, and paralyzed with shock. He let go the hair, seized the collar, jerked the young man to his feet. “In the saddle!” he snapped.
The boy in uniform did not move. “Goddam it, soldier, that’s an order!” Fargo roared, and he kicked the young man hard, squarely in the rump. That broke the paralysis. Blankly, the man staggered to the gelding, awkwardly swung up. Fargo took one last look around, then put foot in stirrup, mounted behind the cantle. Now he did not dare to run the already lathered horse with its double load. At a trot that seemed to him excruciatingly slow, he put it toward the mouth of a nearby draw, wanting only to get off the skyline as soon as possible. To him it seemed to take an eternity to cover that three-quarters of a mile.
But then they were in the shelter of its sandy banks, and Fargo pushed the black only far enough until they reached a pool of shade. There he swung down, half-dragging the soldier from the saddle, propped him up against the bank. The kid stared up at him blankly. Fargo poured a little precious water from the canteen onto his bandanna, moistened the younger man’s lips, wiped his face. That revived the kid a little, and he reached for the canteen.
Fargo allowed him a couple of greedy swallows, then wrenched the canteen away. “My name’s Fargo,” he said. “I’m an American. You’re safe—for the time being. Now, who the hell are you and what in fire you doin’ out there amblin’ around like a goddam movin’ target?”
“Sterling,” the young man whispered. “Thomas W. Second Lieutenant, Troop A, Philadelphia Light Horse ... On patrol ... got lost ...” He closed his eyes.
Fargo stared down at him. There were no golden bars on the soldier’s uniform, no insignia at all. Lieutenant ... then something clicked in his mind. The young officer at the bar in the Home Corral, Brannigan’s brutal taunting. “Patrol, hell,” Fargo said. “Without insignia? Down here below the Rio? Don’t hand me that! You deserted!”
The last two words were like a whiplash. Sterling put a hand over his eyes, licked split lips. “Yeah,” he whispered hopelessly. “I deserted. Slipped outa camp last night and got across the Rio. I couldn’t take it anymore. They were all after me, the C.O., the non-coms, especially Brannigan ... Brannigan’s a sergeant—”
“I know who he is. You stay put.” Fargo climbed the bank, took a look around. All quiet. Thank God for siesta-time. In the bottom of the draw again, he handed Sterling the canteen. A deserter, he thought bitterly. If he’d known that, he’d have taken no risk at all, let Sterling stew in his own juice until the border-jumpers got him. But now, Sterling drank, Fargo swore under his breath. Now that he had. him what was he going to do with him? He couldn’t ride away and abandon him. The Mexicans might find him before he died and he already knew things that Fargo did not want them to learn from him. For instance, that so far he had not doubled back to the Rio, or how little water he had left ... Another alternative flickered through his mind, but even as he instinctively touched the sheathed Batangas knife, he rejected it. No, for the time being, he was stuck with Sterling. Which meant the horse would have to carry double. Which meant his mobility—and chances of survival—would be reduced by exactly half.
“All right,” Fargo said. Right now, I’m gonna tell you something and you listen close because I ain’t gonna tell you twice. You can’t see ’em, but this whole country is full of people that’d kill you and me on sight. I’m down here with a job to do and I aim to do it and I don’t want you gettin’ me shot. Now, we’re gonna mount up and ride out, because we got to find some cover, good cover, before the day cools off. You do exactly what I tell you to, you got a chance to live. You disobey me a single time and I’ll cut your throat and dump you. Got it?”
Sterling stared wide-eyed at him.
“You’ve had all the water you’re gonna get,” Fargo said. “There ain’t much left and what there is, that’s for the horse, until we find some more. Now, while we’re on the move, you don’t talk unless I tell you to. If I give you an order, you carry it out, no matter what it is, no matter how crazy it seems. You stay close to me don’t wander off by yourself. And if we get into a fight, I’ll expect you to use a gun and hold up your end. Got it?”
The boy did not answer, just kept staring blankly.
“Goddammit,” Fargo said. He jerked Sterling to his feet by the shirt-front slack, and, hard, back-handed him across the face, one-two. Sterling’s head rocked with the force of the blows, his mouth twisted as if he were about to cry. But, even though he stood passively, his eyes cleared.
“Now,” Fargo snarled, “you got it?”
“I got it,” Sterling whispered.
“Mount up,” said Fargo, and when Sterling had, he climbed up behind him, put the horse down the draw.
~*~
It was maddening. Fifteen miles southward, a range of bleak, rock-scabbed hills reared out of the plain. Unhampered, Fargo could have streaked for that cover like a wolf ahead of hounds. Now, though, Sterling was so much dead weight, like an enormous millstone around his neck. To try to run a horse carrying a double load in this heat would kill it within twenty minutes. As the draw ended Fargo and Sterling emerged onto a broad, endless flat devoid of any cover save yucca, creosote and cactus. Fargo cursed, feeling naked, vulnerable. By now, buzzards easily could have drawn Lopez Belmonte’s men to those bodies in the brush and Indio trackers, the best in the world, would be unraveling his trail.
Still, short of jettisoning the young deserter, leaving him to certain death, there was nothing to do but make the best time he could and hope. An hour passed, two, and still the flat stretched before him, the mountains visibly nearer, beckoning, yet taunting. So far, they had seen no living thing save jackrabbits and an occasional sidewinder. But, Fargo thought with the bitter knowledge of experience, there was no way this luck could hold. It would be a miracle if they reached those sheltering hills.
The kind of life he led had earned him no miracles. At mid-afternoon, he saw it in the distance to the east, a cloud of dust hazed against the sky’s scalding blue. Four, five miles away, but coming fast; and he knew what it was—riders, a lot of them, from San Joaquin. Having established the general direction of his trail, they were making a sweep to head him off.
Fargo cursed, reining in the winded, lathered gelding. He remembered having heard somewhere about the wolves in Siberia in winter and how, starving, they chased the Russian sleighs. Sometimes, the story went, when the horses were exhausted and the wolves were gaining, families would throw their children to the pack to gain time to save themselves, or the stronger passengers throw the weaker ones to the wolves. “All right, Sterling, here’s where you get off,” he said.
“What?” the deserter mumbled blankly.
Fargo seized the slack of his collar, was about to shove him from the saddle. Then he froze. For now, slanting towards him from the west, another dust cloud rolled against the sky. Men from Palo Blanco—the other jaw of a trap.
He let go of Sterling, pulled the black horse around. He was cut off from the mount
ains. Maybe, just maybe, he could make a run back toward the Rio after all. Maybe—
But they were there, too, out on the flat behind him, coming hard on his back-trail, a third contingent. He not only saw the dust, he saw outlined against it the shapes of men on horseback, only a few miles behind.
Fargo drew in breath. Calmly, hand absolutely steady, he pulled out a cigar and lit it. Sucked in fragrant smoke that rasped a dry throat. He coughed, uncorked the canteen, took a swallow from it, passed it on to Sterling. “Finish it,” he said quietly. “We won’t need it now.”
Sterling gulped the rest of the water. “What—? I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple,” Fargo said bitterly, sliding off the gelding. “Against my better judgment, I got noble and gave you a break. Now it’s likely gonna cost both our hides.” He pulled Sterling off the horse. “Listen, alone I could have made good cover, I’d be in those hills by now. Instead, here I am, penned in like a calf with a deadbeat horse on your account. Now, I’ll tell you something. You see that dust, there, there, and there? It’s Mexicans. They got us and they got us good. And if you want to stay alive, you do just what I say. You understand? Absolutely what I say. And what I’m telling you to do is this. When they take us, keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell ’em nothing, you hear me? Nothing about yourself, nothing about me, nothing about nothing! You let me do the talking and you keep your mouth tight closed.”
Sterling looked at him dazedly, then at the converging riders, then back at Fargo. He swallowed hard. “I got it.”
“All right,” said Fargo. He drew deeply on the cigar, standing there by the horse. Presently, face grim, he unslung the shotgun and the bandoliers. Unlatched his pistol belt, laid it with the other weapons on the ground. The Batangas knife joined it. So did the carbine from the saddle scabbard. “Raise your hands,” he told Sterling. “High.” Slowly Sterling obeyed, and then Fargo followed suit. There was a time to fight and a time to surrender, and this was not the time to fight, because resistance meant certain death. Yield, and maybe he could stay alive at least a little while—and a living man had hope, but a dead man none. Both of them, Fargo and Sterling, waited, hands high above their heads, until the nearest band of riders, those on their back trail, saw them, slowed their mounts, and came forward cautiously guns leveled.