by John Benteen
“I think so,” Sterling said.
“All right,” Fargo said. “Now, one more thing, and we’ll try it. You go up against a man, don’t watch his hand. Watch his eyes. When he starts to draw, his eyes will change. And no way he can hide it. Now—” He stood loosely, not tense, not crouched, well-balanced on the balls of his feet, but with heels solidly down, too. Sterling copied his stance.
Then Fargo drew. Compared to his draw, Sterling was pathetically slow. Fargo’s gun was centered on his belly before Sterling’s pistol-barrel cleared leather. And yet, Fargo thought with a faint prickling of his spine, there was something there—a smoothness, a coordination ... The same knack that had made Sterling a varsity pitcher and accurate with rocks. Give Sterling practice, hard practice, six months or a year, and then—then, Fargo thought, it would be no fun at all to come up against him.
“Okay,” Fargo said. “Don’t feel bad that I beat you. You got it all down pat except the practice, and there’s no short-cut there. Now, you want to try the other?”
“Yes,” Sterling said.
They laid the empty guns aside and Fargo picked up two thick, blunt-pointed sticks. “Now, we’ll rub some spit on these so they’ll leave a mark and you’ll see how you’ve done.” Using one of the sticks, he shifted weight. “The first thing is, don’t waste motion. In a knife fight, every half-second counts, and motion’s time, and time’s your life. Next, make sure you’re covered, a hard target for the other hombre’s knife. Keep your chin down to guard your throat. Keep your gut sucked in, shielded with your free arm. Quarter turn, if you can make it, reduces the size of the target you present. Don’t give him a full stab at your belly. Arm loose, cocked for flexibility, wrist down to protect the arteries, blade flat like I told you. Weight on the balls of your feet; don’t rock back on your heels; that plants you to the ground, and footwork’s important in a knife fight.”
Sterling imitated his stance, holding the other stick. Fargo went on. “Slash to disable, stab to kill. Whatever you do, don’t waste energy or breath. Be quick, get in and out. Like boxing, never windmill or telegraph your punches. Arm cocked like a spring, short, quick jabs. Like this.” He made a few demonstration passes and Sterling repeated them. “Good,” Fargo said. “Now, spit on that stick and smear some mud on it, and we’ll give it a try.”
A moment later, they squared off. “I’m ready,” Sterling said.
He never saw what happened next. Fargo’s hand with the stick flashed out in a feint. Sterling responded, and Fargo stooped, with his other hand in a claw, raked sand up and into Sterling’s face. Blinded, Sterling fell back, off-balance. Fargo hooked a leg around his ankle, sent him sprawling backwards onto the ground. By the time Sterling had blinked his vision clear, Fargo’s stick was at his throat.
“One thing I forgot to tell you,” Fargo said. “Odds are, if you’re in a knife fight, nobody’ll be following any rules except to survive.” He straightened up, taking the stick from Sterling’s throat. “Fight clean, if you have to. But if it gives you an edge, fight dirty. Now, you’ve got the afternoon to practice while I stand guard. Then, if you still want to come with me, I’ll be glad to have you.”
Six
THE BIG SOMBRERO was discarded, now; and he had rubbed dirt into his silver hair to keep it from shining in the moonlight, had smeared his face with mud. Spurs, all contents of his pockets that might click and jingle, had been discarded. Extra rounds for Colt and Winchester had been wrapped in bandannas so they would not rattle together, tightly stuffed into his pockets. On foot, Fargo loped alone through the darkness, like a wolf, toward the little town of San Joaquin.
Though a horseman born and bred, unlike cowboys, he kept himself in shape to walk, run, climb, do whatever was necessary on foot. An ordinary cowpuncher in tight, high-heeled boots, was as helpless as a fish out of water without a horse: not Neal Fargo. In his low-heeled cavalry boots, he could keep up this ground-devouring gait for hours.
Three miles back, in cover of broken country, Sterling held the horses. This was, as Fargo had explained to him, a one-man job, and that one man had to know exactly what he was doing. “You mean well, but you ain’t had time to learn this kind of drill,” Fargo said. “You’d only get us both killed. You wait here with the mounts, keep ’em out of sight, and don’t you fire a round unless you have to. Only if you got to do it to save your life, no other reason. I’ll be back by sunup.”
Still, Sterling had protested. “Damn it, kid, waiting is half of soldiering,” Fargo shut him up. “If you don’t know that by now, you’d better damned quick learn it.” Then, without another word, he had faded into darkness.
Though moving swiftly, he never took an unnecessary chance, using every advantage of the ground, keeping to the pools of shadows, making sure of safety before he raced across open moonlit patches. Every sense, every nerve and reflex, was alert and at a peak of keenness. Because, Fargo knew now, Hernando Lopez Belmonte, the man he had come to Mexico to kill, had come north from his Chihuahua stronghold, was at San Joaquin with reinforcements. And, not only that, had summoned all his men from Palo Blanco as well. Fargo knew that because the sun had told him so.
By daybreak this morning, he and Sterling had worked out of the badlands, were halfway between San Joaquin and Palo Blanco, holed up in a strong defensive position, which they would hold until nightfall, if they were not discovered. After sundown, Fargo had intended to swing toward Palo Blanco, scout the situation there. But suddenly a blinding dazzle of light, winking, then fading, made him change his plans. For it came again, bright and clear, from a ridge-top five miles away.
“What—?” Sterling had muttered.
“Hush,” Fargo said. “It’s their heliograph. They’re signaling.” He squinted as the flashes continued, scratching in the sand with a stick. “International code. In Spanish, yeah. From San Joaquin to Palo Blanco ...” After that he was silent for a long time, as the mirror device, with a shutter that covered, then exposed it, sent its sun-powered message to the next station.
Finally the dazzle ceased. Fargo covered his glare-strained eyes for a moment. “Neal,” Sterling whispered. “What did it say?”
Fargo’s voice had been rich with excitement and satisfaction. “It said that Lopez Belmonte is savin’ us some trouble. The message was: Assemble San Joaquin sundown meeting with one two four.”
“One two four?”
“Right.” Fargo’s eyes glittered. Morales is Lopez Belmonte’s Segundo up here, his number two. That makes number one the big dog himself, Hernando, up from Chihuahua. Number three would be the commander at Palo Blanco that message is meant for. Which means that number four is ... ” His voice trailed off. “It’s got to be,” he said.
“Who?”
“Lopez’s contact across the Rio. The man that works with him in Texas and feeds him information. The man that betrayed me to him—George Trace.” He slid back down the rubbled slope. “Okay. I’m gonna be in San Joaquin for that meeting.”
“You?” Sterling asked incredulously.
“Me,” said Fargo. And that was when they’d had the fuss and Fargo had laid down the law to the younger man. Later that day, they’d watched riders gallop across the flats below, twenty Mexicans armed to the teeth—the men from Palo Blanco. When twilight fell, Fargo moved them to a new position near San Joaquin, blacked hair and face with mud, left Sterling, and drifted off into the night. Now, halted in the cover of a jagged outcrop of rock, he could see the lights of the town less than a half mile away. To his right, a good mile distant, there was a dark blot that was the sleeping herd of stolen cattle.
He waited. An hour passed. By the stars, it was nearly ten o’clock, late for a country where the people bedded down about the time that chickens roosted. One by one the lights below winked out. Presently, only one still burned. And now, Fargo knew, it was time to move.
Like a wraith, a phantom, he drifted on through the darkness. Covered a quarter of a mile, then halted, again concealed by shadow, body
prone on the ground. Something was moving there in the night, only fifty yards ahead.
Fargo kept head and eyes perfectly still, so the movement would register more strongly. Then it resolved itself into the outline of a man. Rifle in hand, he walked back and forth, and Fargo could hear the faint jingling of his spurs. Once or twice he paused, seemed to stare directly at Fargo’s motionless body. The second time, he stared for a long time. Then he turned away and a match flared as he lit a cigarette.
Soundlessly, Fargo drew the Batangas knife, opened, locked it, and clamped it between his teeth. Abandoning the rifle, his hand searched until it found a small rock. As the guard shook out the match, Fargo lobbed it through the darkness like a hand grenade.
It landed beyond the guard with a faint thud. The man raised his head, turned, rifle coming up. Fargo found another rock, pitched it. It landed near the first. “Hola?” the guard said hoarsely. But Fargo was already on the way, covering that fifty yards in a nearly soundless rush.
Only at the last instant did the tense guard hear him, start to turn. By then, it was too late. Fargo slipped behind him, and as the man’s mouth opened to yell, brought his forearm in to jam the sound. Teeth closed on Fargo’s flesh, but they never bit down hard, for the Batangas knife in his other hand had already slit the man’s throat, severing windpipe, arteries, nearly cutting off his head. As the man raised his hands weakly, rifle slipping from them, Fargo stabbed home with the knife, felt it grate on ribs, go through, and slice the heart. The man went limp; Fargo pulled his arm from between the teeth, eased the body to the ground, put on the sombrero, picked up the rifle, and then boldly walked toward the village, whistling The Lion of the North, a popular song in Villa’s army and in Northern Mexico. He let the whistle trail off as he entered the village, which was, save for some saddled horses, wholly deserted now. Dodging between the houses, he made straight for the single light. His pulse was normal, his heartbeat steady. Except for very bad luck indeed, he was wholly safe. Lopez Belmonte had nothing to fear in Mexico save Fargo and Sterling, and with maybe forty or sixty fighting men here in the village and a strong guard out, he was not likely to worry about two gringos.
As Fargo had expected, there was no guard on the house itself. He eased around its blank backside to its flank, where there was an open window, spilling yellow light. Abandoning the hat, he pressed against the wall, moving into position where, obliquely, he could see the interior of the room.
It must have once been the mayor’s house. The furniture was sparse, but Spanish, not the usual contents of an ordinary Mexican home. There was a long, carved table, and three men, all Mexicans, were in conference there. One was Morales, one was a tall, lean vaquero Fargo had never seen before, but who must have been the commander at Palo Blanco—and the third was a giant, a bear of a man in sky-blue Charro clothes richly embroidered, his sombrero ornate and enormous. His face was a square and hard, eyes like black glass, mustache like a crayon smear beneath a fleshy nose. His skin was, despite its tan, even lighter than that of Morales. He wore two pearl-handled pistols and enormous spurs of pure silver clinked every time he moved. Fargo bared his teeth. Yes, his quarry had come to him. This was Hernando Lopez Belmonte, even in the midst of revolution one of the richest and most powerful men in northern Mexico. And, judging by the dust and sweat-stains on his clothes, just arrived.
“Now,” Lopez said, voice harsh. “Where is the gringo? I don’t like to be kept waiting! I’ve ridden hard, nearly three hundred kilometers—”
“I know, hermano mio—” Morales began.
Lopez struck the table with an enormous fist. “Don’t call me that! How dare you call me brother? Because my father took a moment’s pleasure with your Indio slut of a mother, that gives you no right—”
Morales’ face paled. “Forgive me, Patron,” he said tautly. “The gringo was asleep. The moment you arrived, I had him summoned. He will be here any moment.”
“He’d better be!” Lopez paced the room, spurs chiming. “And he’d better have something good for us! Villa demands a thousand head! Obregon demands seven hundred! Huerta demands more, too! And you—you’re late with your deliveries. And with no good excuse—!”
“I’ve told you, Patron. There is a troop of American soldiers on the Rio now. And then there is the man Fargo, who has come to kill you ...”
“One man! And you, you fool, have allowed him to kill a dozen of our vaqueros! Disrupt your operations, endanger my estate with the armies, and—Morales, my patience is close to an end. I know this man Fargo. Myself, I could have had him in a day. Why I entrust my business to fools and half-breeds like you is more than I can say!”
Morales’ face set into a grim mask. “Patron, you should not talk to me that way. I have done my best ...”
“Your best,” Lopez said sarcastically. “A donkey’s best! But what to expect from someone whose mother was a donkey!”
Morales rose to his feet. “Your pardon, Patron. Even you cannot speak to me that way!”
“Well, I have done it,” Lopez said bitingly. “And if you question me again, I shall have you flogged.”
Morales drew in a breath that made his chest swell. “I see.” He licked his lips. “Patron, I have given you a complete explanation. I have given you the shotgun of the man Fargo, to prove the truth of it ... ” He gestured, to something out of Fargo’s range of vision.
“Yes, you have,” Lopez said. He moved out of the frame of the window, then reappeared, holding Fargo’s sawed-off Fox.
Fargo tensed, his hand curling around the grip of the revolver in his holster. It would be easy, now—so easy. Then he forced himself to relax. The gringo had not appeared. He had to see that gringo. Trace, it had to be him, and when he had proof of that ...
“Patron,” Morales said thinly. “You do not frighten me. Not even with the shotgun. And—” He broke off and his eyes changed as there was the sound of an opening door. Then Morales relaxed. “Now,” he said. “The gringo comes.”
Fargo heard the sound of footsteps. Lopez, Morales and the other man looked at someone outside his range of vision. “So, my Americano friend,” Lopez said heavily. “You are awake now and consent to meet with us.”
“I had a damned long ride,” a man said in Spanish. “I was plumb wore out and had to get some sleep.” Then he moved forward, and now Fargo could see him as he thrust out his hand. “Hello, Lopez. I’m sorry you had to come up here, but believe me, the trip will be worth your while.” Fargo stared at the man in Texas range clothes. For a moment, his brain froze, seemed to lock. It did not make sense, none of it made sense.
For the man who had betrayed him, the man who worked against his own people and spied for the border jumpers, was not George Trace.
The tall, well-knit figure, the handsome face, of the man framed in the square of light through the window, belonged to Jack Varnell.
Neal Fargo’s hand slipped away from the gun-butt. For a moment, he turned from the window, swallowing a sickness rising in him. Jack ... making no sense at all of this, he looked around the plaza. It was still deserted, and he turned to the window again, his face a mask of fury.
Even as he watched, Varnell went to a bottle of tequila on a chest, poured himself a shot, licked salt, drank, sucked lime. Then Jack turned. “Lopez,” he said, “how would you like two thousand head of cattle at one crack?”
Still holding Fargo’s shotgun, the giant Hidalgo tensed. “I would like that very much. Villa and the others are pressing me. Go on.”
“Right. Well, four days ago, as president of the county Stock Raisers’ Association, I got a wire—a rush order from the British government for two thousand head of prime beef to be delivered to Chicago right away, premium price. I called a meeting, we assigned quotas, and a special roundup’s already nearly finished. Two nights from now, that beef will be on the holding grounds outside the Alamo Wells shipping pens, waiting for the cattle cars. There’ll be maybe fifteen cowboys with ’em. And you’ve got what—forty men?”
>
“I brought another twenty up from Chihuahua with me,” Lopez said. Spurs clinking, he paced back and forth. “But that herd will be only a mile or so from the town—and from the encampment of the soldiers. Are you suggesting that I raid right into the U.S. Army and do combat with them? That could cause war with Mexico—and Villa would not like that.”
“There’s only one platoon of soldiers there. The other three are out patrolling the Rio. Twenty horse cavalry to back up those fifteen cowboys—and if you play your cards right, not even they’ll be there.”
“How so?”
“Send a small force of men up the river, engage the platoon there—the farthest one from town and the Nopal Crossing. Make it look like an attack in force, raise all sorts of hell. The other platoons will head for the fighting. And if you use a lot of ammo, make it a real battle, so will the one at headquarters. Then you’ve got a wide-open field—and the Nopal Crossing downstream will be clear for you to take the herd across.”
“A feint, a diversionary attack. Yes.” Lopez Belmonte rubbed his chin. Then he shook his head. “No, surely it would not work. Surely the captain of that troop would not be that stupid.”
“He’ll be that stupid,” Varnell said. “He’s an Easterner, green as grass. You pull a big fake fire-fight upriver, you’ll draw him straight to it like a moth to a candle. And the people of the town—They won’t fight. They’ll run and hide and lock their doors. You can be in, out, have the cattle on the run and across the Rio by dawn.”
“Maybe. But what about that other man—George Trace, the detective?”
Varnell’s mouth twisted. “You leave Trace to me. He’ll be with the herd ... but I’ve seen to it that he hasn’t got his money yet to hire any gunfighters with. And I’ll see to it that he takes a bullet in the fight. It’s my chance to get rid of the bastard. He’s too damned smart, and he’s been digging pretty close to home where I’m concerned. Forget Trace. What I want to know is ... have you killed Fargo yet?”