Day of Independence (11 page)

A lantern cast orange light onto Sancho Perez's round face, giving him a look of a pumpkin man from a child's nightmare.

As was his duty as a host, a bottle of mescal stood upright in the sand between him and Mickey Pauleen, even though the little gunman would not drink.

Out in the moaning, muttering night, half of Perez's bandits guarded the peons, working two hours on, two off. It was a hardship for the men, but it helped quell Sancho's uneasiness.

“A great host will cross the river,” he said. “Never fear.”

Pauleen nodded. “You've done well, Sancho.”

“Will Abe Hacker let them stay?”

“Of course. Then, after a while, most will return to Mexico.”

“But Hacker will take possession of a ravaged land.”

“He has money. He can bring the land back quickly. The Big Bend country will support vast cotton fields, and the peons that remain will work them for him.”

Pauleen glanced at the starlit sky.

“Understand this, Sancho—to Hacker, the land around Last Chance is a small matter, just another business property,” he said. “He wants much money and many worldly possessions to leave his son.”

“But he has no son.”

“He plans to make one.”

Perez laughed. “Hacker can't make a son. His belly is too big... like mine.”

Pauleen sighed and shook his head.

“Where there is a will there's a way, I guess.”

“I'd like to see that,” Perez said, grinning. “Abe Hacker on top of a young woman.”

Pauleen thought of Nora. “I reckon he manages,” he said.

Perez let his mirth subside, then took a drink from the bottle.

He burped loudly, cocked his butt and farted, then said, “The people of Last Chance will fight, I think.”

Pauleen shook his head.
Perez, you're an ignorant, greaser pig.
“The rubes have grown too fat,” he said. “They've forgotten how to fight. If they ever knew.”

“Ahhh... this is true. People who live in towns grow soft and weak.”

“They don't all live in town. Maybe the ranchers will stand.”

Perez smiled. “If they do, my compadres will take care of them.”

“I'd like to take a couple of your men back to town with me,” Pauleen said.

“Why?”

“As an insurance policy, Sancho, on account I don't know where the three men I sent to you are. Who among your men are fastest with the iron?”

“You will leave me short, Mickey.”

“Damn it, you've got fighting men acting as sheepherders. You can spare me a couple.”

Perez sighed dramatically.

“Ver' well, Mickey. To you, my dear friend, I can deny nothing. I will give you—”

A scream bladed into the desert silence like a thrown lance.

Out in the moon-dappled darkness a shotgun roared, followed by another scream and the shouts of angry men.

“Rebellion!” Perez yelled, his face alarmed.

He and Pauleen wakened the sleeping bandits, who cursed as they scrambled groggily for their weapons.

Rifles at the ready, the bandits formed a semicircle around Perez and Pauleen and stared into the night.

“Do you see anything?” Perez whispered.

“¡Mire!”
one of the younger bandits yelled, excitedly pointing with his rifle.

Every eye shifted to that patch of night.

The darkness parted and two bandits appeared, their rifles slung as they dragged a man across the desert, his toes gouging the sand.

It was Hugh Gray, his left cheek bloodied by four parallel talon marks.

The bandits threw the groaning Gray at Perez's feet and one of them babbled in rapid Mexican Spanish that was too fast and colloquial for Pauleen to understand.

After the man stopped speaking, Pauleen said, “Sancho, what the hell?”

Perez's anger flared. He kicked Gray in the face and screamed, “Pig!”

“What happened?” Pauleen said.

Perez's red-rimmed eyes were bulbous, and saliva flecked his lips. “He lured a señora into the desert, promised her food. He tried to take advantage. When her husband came to her assistance, this man shot him.”

“Well, his name is Hugh Gray, and Hacker will deal with him when we get back to Last Chance,” Pauleen said. He looked at the bandits around him, smiled, and said, “Excitement's over, boys. Go back to sleep.”

No one moved. The surrounding Mexicans were grim-faced, a powder keg waiting to explode.

“The woman's husband is dead,” Perez said. “I will deal with this man.”

“Mickey,” Gray said, raising his head, turning his raked cheek to the moonlight. “Look what she did to me.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Pauleen said. “And that pretty much evens things up, I reckon.”

To Perez he said, “Sancho, I'll see to it that Hacker fines this man fifty dollars. You can give the money to the widow.”

The bandit ignored that and yelled, “Get the gringo dog to his feet.” When that was done, Perez said, “Strip him! Then tie his hands behind his back!”

Gray's angry face was distorted in the moonlight. He cursed as relentless hands tore off his clothes and he tried to kick out at Perez.

The bandit backhanded Gray across the face and the huge jeweled ring he wore on his middle finger opened up a gaping cut at the corner of the man's mouth.

Blood running down his chin, naked, Gray pleaded with Pauleen. “Mickey, you ain't gonna let greasers do this to a white American, are you?”

The black eyes of the bandits around him glittered with hostility, and Pauleen knew it would be dangerous to push it.

“Sancho,” he said, “how much for Gray?”

“Restore the peon to life. That is my price.”

“You don't give a damn for these people. A white man is worth saving.”

“Not if he killed a Mexican.”

“Five hundred dollars,” Pauleen said. Then, desperately, “In gold.”

“I tire of you, Mickey,” Perez said. “I warn you not to weary me any longer.”

Pauleen was beat and he knew it.

Perez was insane, but right now he was also dangerous. The little gunman let it go.

“You should have kept it in your pants, Gray,” he said.

Gray spat at Perez, then said, “Damn your eyes, then shoot me and get it over.”

The bandit's voice was low, level—ominously quiet.

“Give this gringo pig to the women,” he said.

It took a while for those words to sink into Gray's slow brain.

But once they did, he shrieked in mortal terror.

Beyond the limits of the lantern light, beyond the small music of the water tumbling into the tank, stood a line of Mexican women, young and old, still and silent, as menacing as tigresses.

The moon hung high behind them, silvering their shoulders and the tops of their heads, here and there glinting on steel.

Bandits dragged the kicking, screaming Gray toward the wall of women... it opened, parting slowly like a great gate.

Gray, thrown to the ground, screamed as the gate closed...

And the ravening pack descended upon him.

 

 

To Mickey Pauleen, how long it took several hundred women to kill a man became a matter of academic interest.

To his surprise Gray's screams choked off after just half a minute, and the women stepped away about twenty seconds afterward, leaving a bloody, mangled thing on the sand.

There would be nothing left of Gray worth saving, but Pauleen stepped closer to take a look.

Around the torn carcass, which looked as though it had been set upon by wolves, stood the circle of women, their still-savage faces spattered with blood, arms scarlet to the elbows.

When Pauleen drew close, hostile eyes that glowed like candlelit amber in the gloom turned to him. He saw the gleam of bared teeth and felt a sudden stab of fear, an emotion strange to him.

“Mickey, I think you better go now. Step away, but don't turn your back on them.” Perez stood at Pauleen's elbow. “You are the one who brought the gringo, and your life is in peril,” he said.

Pauleen needed no convincing.

He slowly backed away, trying not to hurry as his fear demanded.

Wasting no time getting into the saddle, he saw two Mexicans already mounted, slim young men with hard, violent faces and low-slung guns.

“These men will go with you, Mickey,” Perez said. He glanced anxiously over his shoulder at the women. “I will see you again when I cross the river.”

Pauleen nodded and gathered up the reins. Perez put a restraining hand on his leg.

“Last Chance has a bank, yes?” the bandit said.

“Yeah, it has.”

“Tell Hacker it is Sancho's bank, huh?”

“We already made a deal,” Pauleen said.

“The bank was not mentioned. Now I mention it.”

“I'll talk to Hacker.”

“And I will talk to him... when I ride into town with my men.”

Pauleen recognized the implied threat.

“Then so be it,” he said.

His lips drew into a thin, white line.

It seemed that Hacker had made a deal with the devil, and his price was steep.

Ranger Hank Cannan had not expected a reply to his letter this soon, if at all.

But there it was in his hand, in his wife's fine copperplate, all the way from El Paso by stage in a stained, travel-worn envelope.

Cannan read the letter again, as though the words might miraculously change.

They did not.

Then, with a fine flourish...

Cannan only lifted his eyes from the paper when the door opened and Roxie stepped inside.

“Good morning! Are we ready for our walk?” she said, smiling.

Without a word, Cannan passed her the letter.

Roxie read it, then said, “That's wonderful. I'm so happy she's coming here.”

“I'm not,” Cannan said. “As soon as she steps foot in Last Chance her life will be in danger.”

“I don't think so,” Roxie said. “There's been town committee meetings and the agreement reached is that Abe Hacker can stay till the day after the Independence celebrations, and then he must leave.”

“Has anyone told him that?”

“Yes, of course. And he's agreeable. Mayor Curtis says Hacker is even donating a couple of hogs, a barrel of whiskey, and three barrels of beer.”

Cannan shook his head, a quick, jerky gesture that communicated his frustration. “What the hell is Hacker up to?” he said.

He swung his legs out of the bed. “Mickey Pauleen was about to kill Ed Gillman, remember?” he said.

“It's forgotten,” Roxie said. “The town wants Hacker and his gunmen to leave peacefully. No more dead men.”

“Hacker and Pauleen won't leave, because I plan to arrest them,” Cannan said. “They'll hang for the murder of Sheriff Isaac Dixon or spend the next twenty years in Huntsville.”

“Ranger, you'll throw your life away, and your wife will be here to toss the first handful of sand onto your coffin.”

“I'll do my duty,” Cannan said, his face stiff.

“I don't know if I want to help you walk,” Roxie said.

“Then I'll do it myself.”

“I never asked you this before, Ranger... are you good with a gun?”

“Fair.”

“Fair doesn't cut it.”

“I'll have right on my side, and I'm big enough and mean enough to take my hits and keep on a-comin'.”

“You've already taken too many hits.”

“I'm willing to take more. A Texas Ranger doesn't eat crow for any man.”

Roxie sighed, a frown creasing her beautiful face. “Ah, well, on your feet, Texas Ranger Cannan. Let us promenade.”

She helped the lawman stand, and said, “I really don't know why I'm doing this.”

“Because you've fallen for my very obvious charms and manly features, Roxie,” Cannan said.

The woman smiled. “That'll be the day, Ranger,” she said. “That'll be the day.”

 

 

Baptiste Dupoix stood on the porch of the Cattleman's Hotel and anchored a post with his shoulder. He lit his morning cigar and smiled as he watched Hank Cannan's tottering form walk back and forth behind the window, a resolute Roxie doing her best to keep him upright.

His eyes flicked to the livery stable.

A few minutes earlier he'd seen Mickey Pauleen ride into town accompanied by a couple of Mexican hard cases, and now the three gunmen walked toward him.

“You on guard?” Pauleen said.

Dupoix smiled. “And a good morning to you, too, Mickey. Feeling out of sorts, are we?”

Pauleen ignored that and said, “Gray is dead.”

“He'll be sadly missed by those of us who knew and loved him,” Dupoix said.

“Cut the comedy, Dupoix. With Gray gone, we're mighty thin on the ground.” He thumbed over his shoulder in the direction of the unsmiling Mexicans. “That's why I brought along these two.”

Dupoix touched his hat to the Mexicans, their faces shadowed under huge, ornate sombreros. They didn't respond.

He turned his attention to Pauleen. “How did Gray die, Mickey? Or did you just mislay him in the desert?”

“He tried to screw the wrong señora.”

“Careless of him,” Dupoix said. “And also of you, of course.”

The gambler liked to play a dangerous game.

Teasing Pauleen was like prodding a rattling diamondback with a toothpick, but he enjoyed it immensely.

The little gunman didn't take it well. “I don't like you, Dupoix,” he said. “You talk like you're John Wesley Hardin, but you got nothing to back it up.”

Dupoix smiled. “But I try, Mickey. I really do try.”

“Don't push me any harder or I'll surely make you try.”

An unusual thing for him, Pauleen wore his crossed gun belts, the worn, walnut handles of the holstered Colts low. A killer with fast hands, that morning he was a man to step around.

Dupoix smiled at him, his cigar between his teeth. “Mickey, I'll remember what you said. Those were words of wisdom, the first I've ever heard you utter.”

Dupoix was on the prod, but Pauleen was a realist with nothing to prove. He knew he was faster than Dupoix, but the distance between them was less than five paces. The gambler was game and a big man. At that range he'd take his hits and get his work in.

Pauleen hesitated, unwilling to play a dead man's hand, and threw in his cards.

To the Mexicans, he said, “You boys go get breakfast and then come back here. You'll bed down tonight in Gray's room.”

He was met with blank stares.

Pauleen repeated the order in hesitant Spanish. The young men got the gist of it and left.

Dupoix bowed and waved toward the hotel entrance. “I give you the road, Mickey,” he said. Then, because Pauleen had put a match to his short fuse, “For now.”