Day of Independence (17 page)

“Ridin' late ain't you, Mr. Pauleen?” Ephraim Slough said.

“What's it to you, gimp?” Mickey said.

“Nothin'. Just askin'.”

“Don't ask, or you'll get my boot in your teeth, old man.”

“Your hoss is baked, Mr. Pauleen,” Slough said. “That ain't askin', jes' sayin'.”

“Well, if I'm heading back out, so is he.”

“Hoss is in no shape fer—”

An instant later Slough stared cross-eyed at the muzzle of the Colt shoved into the bridge of his nose. “One more word and I'll blow your damned head off,” Pauleen said. “I ain't in the mood for sass and backtalk.”

 

 

“Then what happened?” Hank Cannan said.

“I didn't say one more word,” Ephraim Slough said.

“Was he alone?”

“Naw, he had two Messkins with him. Mean as hell, they looked too, cap'n, lay to that.”

“They head for the river?”

“You're right as ever was.”

Slough had wakened Cannan from a sound sleep after he'd hotfooted it from the livery, figuring the Ranger would want to know about Pauleen's second, and very late, night ride.

According to Slough, Mickey had left the stable shortly after Dupoix and then returned looking as though he'd been dragged through a cactus patch backward. What that portended Cannan could not guess, though as sleep cleared from his head his concern for Dupoix grew.

But right now he had other, more urgent matters at hand.

Cannan, who'd never asked help from another man that involved being handled, swallowed his pride. “Ephraim, can you help me out of this damned bed and into my duds?” he said.

“Surely, cap'n,” Slough said, grinning. “Just like you was one of me old shipmates, like.” The old sailor had only one leg but he'd walked pitching decks and proved nimble enough as he helped the big Ranger get out of bed and dress.

After Cannan buckled on his gun belt and picked up his rifle, Slough said, “What course are we settin', cap'n?”

“The mayor's office.”

Cannan looked down at the little sailor from his great height.

“Hold on to me,” he said.

“Ranger Cannan, why are you pounding on my door at this time of night?” Frank Curtis demanded. “And what are you doing out of bed?”

“We have to talk, Mayor,” Cannan said.

“What about?”

Curtis wore a long blue-and-white-striped nightgown and held a lit candlestick high.

“This town and the lives of its citizens are in mortal danger.”

“Then you'd better come in,” Curtis said.

 

 

“But... but how can we stop that many?” the mayor said.

“Maybe we won't have to if we can lure Sancho Perez into a fight,” Cannan said.

“My God, but it's thin, Cannan, mighty thin.”

Polly Curtis, a handsome woman who carried her late forties well, looked frightened.

“How many Mexicans, Ranger Cannan?” she said.

“My dear, he's already told you,” her husband said, his own fear making him irritable.

“Maybe as many as two thousand, Mrs. Curtis,” Cannan said.

The woman gasped and touched her throat.

Ephraim Slough slammed a fist into his open palm.

“Damn their eyes! Oh, fer a couple of ironclads on the river to give 'em a broadside of canister or two. That would soon settle their hash.”

“Ephraim, you can't fire cannons into women and children whose only crime is that they're starving to death,” Cannan said.

“Well, then what the hell do we do?” Curtis said. “Welcome them with open arms?”

“Maybe,” Cannan said.

Curtis slammed back in his chair. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?”

“Yes, Mayor, I probably am,” Cannan said.

Polly said, “When will this attack happen, Mr. Cannan?”

“Damn it, Polly, he told you that as well,” Curtis said.

“When I was still half-asleep, dear,” Polly said.

“Probably in the mid-afternoon when the Independence Day celebrations are well under way,” Cannan replied.

“And everybody's drunk,” Slough said.

“Only we won't be drunk,” Cannan said. “We'll only pretend to be drunk.”

Curtis let out a frustrated little yelp. “Polly, brandy, if you please,” he said. “The man talks in riddles.”

“Mayor, I'm not in the best of health and I don't have much time for any kind of talk,” Cannan said. “But will you answer me one question?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Sancho Perez has at least forty bandits, all of them first-rate fighting men. If I can trick him into attacking across the river, will the citizens of this town fight?”

“What a most extraordinary question,” Polly said, gasping a little.

“It is indeed, my dear,” her husband said. He stared firmly into Cannan's eyes. “In defense of their homes, their wives and children, and their nation, of course they'll fight. Could they do otherwise and still hold their heads high in the company of men?”

“Did patriots such as we not answer the call to resist Northern aggression for those very reasons my husband has stated?” Polly said. “Sir, I am surprised at your most disrespectful and hurtful inquiry.”

Cannan had touched a nerve and he found it gratifying.

“I meant no offense,” he said. “But a great many lives are at stake and I had to be certain.”

“Then rest assured, Ranger Cannan, that our men will fight and, should the need arise, their womenfolk will stand shoulder to shoulder and die with them,” Polly said.

At that moment Mrs. Curtis looked as though she could storm the Bastille singlehanded, bare-breasted, flag in hand.

Curtis poured Cannan a brandy, told him he looked like death warmed over, then added, “I'll get my rifle.”

“No, not yet,” the Ranger said. He sipped some brandy, took the makings from his shirt pocket, and held tobacco sack and papers where Polly could see them.

“May I beg your indulgence, ma'am?”

“Please do, Mr. Cannan. I am well used to Mr. Curtis's pipe.”

The Ranger built a cigarette but before lighting it he said to Slough, “Ephraim, go from house to house. I want every man who can walk to meet the mayor and me on the riverbank.”

“I'll go with him,” Curtis said. “This time of night, some might take a little persuading.”

Slough cackled. “Armed to the teeth, eh, cap'n?”

“No. Tell them to leave the guns at home for now. Instead each man must bring a shovel. And pickaxes too if they've got them.”

Curtis looked puzzled.

“What are you up to, Cannan?”

“I'll explain it when we're standing on the bank of the Rio Grande,” the Ranger said.

He drained his glass and stood.

“One more thing, step lively, but keep as quiet as you can. There's a man in this town I don't want wakened.”

“Hacker?” Curtis said.

Cannan nodded. “Hacker.”

A low wail carried through the moonlit desert like a never-ending note on a violin string, the thin cries of Mexican men, women, and children camped hungry and thirsty in an uncaring wilderness.

As Pauleen rode closer to the distant campfires, his two companions decided to leave him. The bandits spurred their horses, whooped and hollered, and waved their sombreros, glad to be among their own kind again away from the gringo town and its strange sights and smells.

Pauleen followed at a walk on his tired horse.

The ride from Last Chance had been a short one and Perez was much closer to the river, which was as it should be.

The little gunman frowned.

Sancho must have his hands full keeping the peons from the Rio Grande, unless they were too weak from hunger to make the effort.

But apparently a few had tried.

Pauleen passed a sprawled body, shot in the back. Then another. A gray-haired woman, stark in the moonlight, lay dead in a clump of brush. She too had been shot.

As he rode on, Pauleen glanced at the bodies with all the interest and compassion he would have given shotgunned jackrabbits. Mickey was a man without a conscience and within him his soul had withered and died years before.

Sancho Perez, flanked by the two pistoleros who had just ridden in, greeted Pauleen like a long-lost brother.

“Mickey, my good fren',” he said. “How good to see you again. Come, let Sancho embrace you.”

Pauleen gave the fat Mexican a perfunctory hug and said, “You've changed hats, Sancho.”

“Ah,
sí
. This fine sombrero is my hat of war. Sancho only wears such a hat when there's fighting and killing to be done, no? And you wear a fine new hat, too, my fren'. We are brothers.”

He waved a hand, grinning.

“Come, Mickey, sit by the fire and tell me why you are here.”

Before he sat and accepted a cup of coffee, Pauleen glanced around the encampment. Everyone of Perez's men stood guard over the sullen, moaning mass of Mexicans. Most of the peons looked more dead than alive.

“I'm here because Hacker sent me to help you with tomorrow's attack,” he said.

Perez beamed and the firelight made the diamonds in his teeth look like rubies. “What a loving, generous fren' is Señor Hacker. Sancho is touched to his very soul.”

The bandit dashed away a tear, picked up a bottle, and was about to put it to his lips when a peon wailed and yelled something about his hungry son.

Perez scowled and made a show of striking out with the bottle. “Ah, shut up!” he yelled.

He looked at Pauleen and smiled.

“That's what I tell them, Mickey. Shut up! They don't understand it, but it keeps them quiet.”

“How are they?” Pauleen asked, concerned that Perez might lose too many.

“Fine. Not so thirsty, but ver', ver' hungry.”

Pauleen looked at the sea of faces hollowed by moonlight. “Starving?” he said.

“
Sí
, Mickey.” Perez made slashing claws of his hands. “Hungry like wild animals!”

“Good,” Pauleen said, grinning. “When they reach the river and get a whiff of the good Independence Day cooking smells they'll go mad.”

Perez slapped his thigh and laughed. “You and me, Mickey, my fren', we will have fun tomorrow. Plenty of bang-bang and whiskey and women.”

“And food, my friend,” Pauleen said. “If there's any left after the locusts have passed.”

Perez patted his huge belly. “Oh, sure. Sancho likes his grub, no?”

The good humor suddenly drained from Perez's face. “Mickey, did you tell Señor Hacker about the bank? That it belongs to Sancho?”

“Of course I did. Because you're his best friend, Hacker says it's all yours, every last dime.”

Perez tilted back his head and yipped like a coyote. “What did poor Sancho ever do to deserve such a wonderful fren'?” he said. “Ah, my heart is broken that I can never repay Señor Hacker for all he has given me. Sancho is so very sad.”

Pauleen spoke to the bottom of a mescal bottle.

“There is something you can do, Sancho.”

Perez took the bottle from his mouth so quickly he spilled down the front of his shirt. “Tell me, amigo. Tell poor Sancho what he must do. He gets very confused on the eve of battle.”

Pauleen's grin made his face a mask of firelit evil. “Yes, I will tell you, Sancho. Make sure that no living thing, I mean man, woman, child or dog, leaves Last Chance alive.”

Perez shrugged, disinterested. “That is easy to do.”

“Survivors would complicate matters, Sancho, understand?”

“I understand, Mickey.”

“The town was destroyed by bandits raiding from Mexico. There were no white men involved. Do you understand me, Sancho?”

“Do you take Sancho for a fool? What does it matter to me to wipe out a gringo town? Mexican rurales and Texas Rangers already want to hang me, but they can only hang Sancho once.”

“Then we understand each other very well,” Pauleen said. “Mr. Hacker will be pleased.”

“He is truly a great man. He will be
presidente
one day.”

Pauleen glanced at the bone-white moon, but said nothing.

Hank Cannan stood on the bank of the Rio Grande tired to the bone.

The night's activities had exhausted him more than he first realized and his wounds, though healing, were as yet gaping mouths that fed on his stamina.

He needed rest, but foresaw little opportunity for it.

The three Polish brothers, carrying shovels like sloped rifles, were the first to arrive and they came to a heel-clicking halt. The oldest stepped forward, saluted and said, “We await your orders, my general.”

No one in Last Chance had ever been able to pronounce the brothers' last name, and even Miss Adams the schoolmistress, who spoke French, German, and a little Chinese, had never been able to make a go of it.

Cannan didn't try.

He stepped back a few yards from the water to where the ground was a mix of shingle and black, irrigated soil, and chopped down with his arms.

“A trench right here, boys,” Cannan said. He placed his open hand at his mid-thigh. “This deep. You
comprende
?”

“Yes, my general,” the oldest brother said.

He said something to the others in Polish, and then dirt flew as the three began digging.

One by one, then in twos and threes, the men of Last Chance, some accompanied by their womenfolk, emerged through the marbled moonlight, shovels in their hands.

A few complained about the earliness of the hour, but thanks to a talk from Mayor Curtis all understood that the town would soon be fighting for its very existence and the lives of its citizens. There would be plenty of time for sleep later.

Cannan sent only one man home, a deranged old coot, his wife tugging at his coattails, who thought he was manning the trenches at the Siege of Vicksburg and saw Yankees everywhere.

The rest remained and with no further complaint worked until the trench was dug. The earth mounds were then carried away and scattered so that the ground looked undisturbed from the far bank. The trench ended up a hundred yards long and three to four feet deep.

There was already some seepage into the trench from the river, but Ben Coffin the undertaker, who had an intimate knowledge of such things, said the water would present no major problem for at least the next twenty-four hours.

And then he said, adding his habitual sense of gloom. “If Last Chance has that long.”

 

 

The moon dropped lower in the sky and the night grew a little darker.

Beyond the far bank of the Rio Grande lay a great ocean of blackness, but a far-seeing man could have detected a faint red glow to the southeast had he looked hard enough—though he may well have decided it was all in his imagination.

“Well, Ranger Cannan, what next?” Frank Curtis said.

The mayor leaned on his shovel and his shirt was transparent with sweat.

“I count fifty men I can depend on,” Cannan said.

“There's twice that many here,” the mayor said.

And indeed the riverbank seemed crowded with groups of men talking and smoking, leaning on their shovels.

“Half of them are too old or too young,” Cannan said. “When the shooting starts, I don't want boys and graybeards.”

Curtis said nothing, but stared fixedly at the Ranger in the half-light, his eyes questioning.

“I won't bury boys, Frank,” Cannan said.

“Fifty. It hardly seems enough.”

“It's a force I can handle.”

“How do I know, Cannan? Hell, how does this town know what you can or can't handle?”

“It doesn't. I don't know myself.”

“There are men in Last Chance who could maybe do better. Men who fought Apaches like Billy Brennan and—”

“Frank, we do it my way or we don't do it at all,” Cannan said.

Curtis opened his mouth to speak, but the Ranger yelled, “Billy Brennan! You here?”

A voice from the darkness.

“I'm here.”

“It's Cannan. I need to talk with you.”

Brennan, a tall, heavy man with blond hair and blue eyes, had an arrogant look about him, like an authoritarian foreman on a building site.

“What can I do for you, Ranger, apart from digging ditches?” Brennan said.

Cannan smiled tightly and said, “Mayor Curtis says you fit Apaches.”

Brennan hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, I didn't exactly fit them, but I seen plenty of them red devils when I was a civilian contractor with the army.”

“Where did you see them, Mr. Brennan?” Cannan said.

“Fort Apache, the San Carlos, places like that.”

Cannan nodded. “How would you save Last Chance?”

Brennan grinned. “Glad you asked me that, Ranger, because I've been studying on it.”

“Go ahead, Billy,” Curtis said.

“Well, sir, I'd get everybody out of here. Take all the water we can carry and head north until we reach a settlement. Like in the old days, when the men form an armed guard around the women and children and the wagons. But before we leave, we burn the town, the fields, the orchards, leave nothing behind for them thieving Mexicans.”

“You mean abandon the town?” Curtis said. “Destroy everything we've worked for?”

Brennan saw the doubt in the mayor's face. “Hell, you asked me and that's how I see it, Frank.”

“Thanks, Mr. Brennan,” Cannan said. “You've given us something to think about.”

After the man left, Curtis said, “Do it his way and we'd all be dead by sunset.”

Cannan said, “Anybody else fit Apaches that you'd care to recommend, Mayor?”

Curtis shook his head. “We do it your way, Ranger.”

 

 

Cannan sat on the bank and gathered the men around him. He sat because he no longer had the strength to stand.

As briefly and simply as he could, he laid out his plan and then, as in any gathering of Americans, he waited for the cussin' and discussin' that was bound to follow.

To Cannan's surprise, Billy Brennan's scorched-earth policy attracted no support and the only objections raised to his own plan were from the oldsters and boys left out of the fighting unit.

And they were noisy ones at that.

But Mayor Curtis, with a politician's gift for placating an angry crowd, raised his hands and spoke.

“You didn't give Ranger Cannan a chance to finish what he was saying.”

Cannan, who was all talked out, looked up at the mayor in surprise.

“The younger and older men will form themselves into a reserve regiment under the command of”—Curtis picked a name out of the hat—“Ephraim Slough.”

The old sailor stumped his way forward, his wooden leg muddy, and knuckled his forehead. “Thank'ee kindly, Mayor,” he said. “'Tis a great honor, I'll be bound.”

“When the church bell rings the alarm, where will your regiment muster, Colonel Slough?” Curtis said.

“Oh... ah... that will be outside the Last Mile Saloon, an' beggin' your pardon, Mayor.”

“Did the soldiers of the reserve regiment hear that?” Curtis said.

One urchin blew a raspberry but there were also shouts of “Good ol' Stumpy,” and one gray-haired rooster did a passable imitation of Slough's strange, rolling walk to the amusement of all.

His voice covered by the general mirth, Curtis leaned over and whispered to Cannan, “Well, that worked a charm.”

The Ranger smiled. “You get my vote, Frank.” Then, “Send the men home so they can get a few hours rest.”

But Cannan had his eye on the boy who'd blown the raspberry, an impudent-looking creature with carrot-red hair and a pugnacious face freckled all over like a sparrow's egg.

He guessed the child to be about twelve but his eyes were older by at least a hundred years.

“Hey, you!” Cannan yelled. “Stay right there.”

“You talkin' to me?” the boy yelled back.

“Yes, you. Come here.”

The child stuck his hands in the pockets of his ragged knee-pants and strolled over, whistling.

He stopped in front of Cannan and truculently demanded, “What the hell do you want?”

The reward for his impertinence was a pinched ear from the horny finger and thumb of the returned Mayor Curtis, a wheelwright by trade.

“You watch your tongue, my buck, when you speak to a Texas Ranger,” the mayor said. He looked over the squealing child to Cannan. “His name is Andy Kilcoyn and his widowed mother is a respectable sewing woman, but she can do nothing with him.”

“Well, let him loose, Frank. And you, Andy, quit that caterwauling. I need to talk with you.”

The boy rubbed his offended ear and said, “What about?”

“Tomorrow—or is it today already?—whatever it is, stay close to me during the celebrations.”

“For why?” Andy said, looking sullen.

“Can you ride a horse?” Cannan said.

“I should say I can.”

“He's stolen enough of them,” the mayor said.

“Only borried,” Andy said.

“Then come sunup, you'll stay close to me and keep my horse close to you,” Cannan said.”

Andy cast a wary glance at the scowling Curtis and said, “The big American stud in the livery?”

“Yes him. Can you stay on him?”

“Better than you can,” Andy said, “Ma says every time you ride into town you fall off your hoss.”

The boy nimbly ducked the cuff Curtis aimed at his head.

Cannan grasped Andy's arm. “Tomorrow, when the Independence Day celebration is in full swing, Sancho Perez—you heard me talk of him?”

“You've talked about him all night. I'm not stupid, mister.”

“No,” Cannan said, “you're a real bright boy. Now listen, before the attack on Last Chance starts, Perez will send a rider with a glass to scout the town. Got that?”

“You want me to shoot him? I don't have a gun.”

“No. I don't want you to shoot him. But after the spy is gone, you'll ride across the river on my horse and keep watch.”

“For what?”

“A dust cloud. As soon as you see a dust cloud rising into the air, you light a shuck back across the river and ring the church bell.”

“I should hope I won't,” Andy said, horrified. “Pastor McRae will kick my butt.”

“No, he won't. I'll tell him what to expect.”

Cannan looked into the boy's green eyes.

“Can you do what I've asked you to do? It might be dangerous, Andy.”

Without any hesitation, the boy nodded. “I can do it.”

“Good, then we'll meet tomorrow morning about eight outside the Big Bend Hotel.”

“See that you do, boy,” Curtis said. “And if you do exactly what Ranger Cannan told you I'll promise you'll get paid two dollars.”

The flicker of hurt pride that crossed the boy's face surprised Cannan.

“Mayor, I'll do my duty like everyone else, for my mom and all the other people in Last Chance. I don't want money.”

Cannan and even the flinty-eyed Curtis were much affected by the boy's comment.

Then Cannan remembered the unofficial Ranger's star he'd had made in El Paso. He reached into his pocket, then said, “Andy, raise your right hand.”

The boy did so.

With great solemnity, Cannan said, “Do you, Andy Kilcoyn, swear to uphold the duties of an acting, unpaid Texas Ranger?”

“I do,” the boy said.

Cannan pinned the silver star on the threadbare cotton of the boy's shirt.

“Welcome to Company D of the Frontier Battalion, Ranger Kilcoyn.”

“Grows like a weed, that boy,” Curtis said looking after Andy as he left.

“Frank, seems to me he sprung up a foot in just the last few minutes,” Cannan said.