the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) (13 page)

"Yes." I spoke quietly. "I've been there."

That was the beginning of it. Larik Feist avoided me, but his plans went forward rapidly. A company was formed with Feist as president, Wright as treasurer, and Dave Neil as vice president. When I heard that, I walked down to Neil's house.

Maria was out in the yard, picking flowers.

"Your dad home?"

She straightened and nodded to me. It seemed she was absent-minded-not like she usually was when I came around. I stood there, and I looked myself over in her eyes. I was a big man, two inches shorter than Feist, and maybe twenty pounds less in weight.

Yet I'm mighty spare and muscular, and folks generally figure me to weigh no more than two hundred and a few pounds.

So I knew what she saw, a big man with wide, thick shoulders and a chest that stretched his shirt tight.

With a brown, wind-darkened face and green eyes, a shock of black, curly, and unusually untrimmed hair, a battered black sombrero, flat crowned, a faded checked shirt, jeans, and boots with run-down heels. And two big guns that looked small on me.

Feist was different. He had the trail dust off him now and a new outfit of clothes, bought on credit.

He looked slick and handsome; his hair was trimmed.

He was the talk of the town, with all the girls making big eyes at him. They all knew me. They all knew Lou Morgan, who was half-Irish and half-Spanish.

"Yes, Dad's inside talking to Larik," she said. "Isn't he wonderful?"

That hurt. Maria? Well, I'd always figured on Maria being my girl. We'd gone dancing together, we'd been riding together, and we'd talked some about the future-when I'd made my stake and owned a ranch.

"Wonderful?" I shook my head. "That doesn't seem like the right word."

"Oh, Lou!" She was impatient. "Don't be like that! Here Larik comes to town and offers us all a chance to be rich, and you stand around-they all told me how you acted-just like ... like ... like you were jealous of him!"

"Why should I be jealous?" I asked.

Her eyes chilled a little. "Oh? You don't think I'm worth being jealous over?"

That made me look at her again. "Oh! So you're in this, too? It's not only all the town's money he wants, but you, too."

"You've no right to talk that way! I like Larik!

He's wonderful! And he's doing something for us all!"

Right then I couldn't trust myself to talk. I just walked by her and went into the house. Neil was there, seated at the table with Feist, Wright, Curtis, and John Powers. They all had money on the table, and some sort of legal-looking papers.

"What's the money for?" I asked, quiet-like.

"We're buyin' into Mr. Feist's mine," Powers said. "You'd better dig down in that sock of yours and get a piece of this, Lou. We'll need a good man to protect that gold." Powers turned to Feist and jerked a head at me. "Lou, here, is about the fastest thing with a gun this side of Dodge."

Feist looked up at me, his eyes suddenly cold and careful.

Me, I didn't look at him. "Neil," I said, "do you mean to tell me you men are all paying good cash for something you've never seen? That you're buyin' a pig in a poke?"

"Never seen?" Neil said. "What does that matter? We've seen the gold, haven't we? We all know the Lost Village story, and-was "All you know," I said, "is an old legend that's been told around for years. You're all like a pack of kids taken in by a slick-talking stranger.

Feist"-I looked across the table at him-"you're under arrest. Obtaining money under false pretenses."

Neil lunged to his feet. His face was flushed with anger. "Lou, what's the matter? Have you gone crazy?"

All of them were on their feet protesting. Only Larik Feist had not moved, but for the first time he looked worried.

It was Maria who made it worse. "Dad," she said, "pay no attention to him. Lou's jealous.

He's made big tracks around here so long he can't stand for anybody to take the limelight."

That made me red around the gills because it was so untrue. "You think what you like, but I'm taking Feist now."

Feist looked at me, a long measuring look from those cold, careful eyes. He had it in his mind.

"Don't go for that gun," I said quietly. "I want you tried in a court of law, not dead on this floor."

Powers put a hand on Feist's arm. "Go along with him," he said. "And don't worry. We'll take care of you. Far as that goes, we can call a meeting and throw him out of office."

"I'm arresting Feist," I said patiently. "You do whatever you want."

"On what evidence?" Neil demanded.

"I'll present the evidence when it's needed," I said. "Take my word for it, I've evidence for a conviction. This man has never been to Lost Village. He didn't get his gold there. And there's no gold there, anyway, but a little placer stuff."

Whether they heard me or not, I don't know. They were all around me, yelling at me, shaking their fingers in my face. And they were all mad. Neil was probably the maddest of all. Maria, when I looked at her, just turned her head away.

Feist got up when I told him to, and walked out ahead of me. "I might have expected this," he said.

"But you won't get away with it."

"Yes, I will. And when they discover what you tried to put over, I'll have trouble keeping you from getting lynched."

When he was locked in a cell, I walked back to my desk and sat down.

Ever feel like the whole world was against you? Well, that's the way I felt then. My girl had turned her back on me. The town's leading citizens-the men I'd worked for, been friends withand protected-they all hated me. And they could throw me out of office, that was true. All they needed was to get the council together.

It was ten miles to the nearest telegraph, but when the stage went out that night, I had a letter on it.

Up and down the street men were gathered in knots, and when they looked at me they glared and muttered. So I walked back to my office and sat down. Feist was stretched on his cot, and he never moved.

Every night now, for months, Maria Neil had brought me a pot of coffee at eight o'clock. When eight drew near, I began to feel both hungry and miserable. There'd be no Maria tonight, that was something I could bet. And then, there she was, a little cool, but with her coffeepot.

"Maria!" I sat up straight. "Then you-?" I got to my feet. "You're not mad at me?

Believe me, Maria, when you all know the truth, you won't be. Listen, I can ex-was She drew back. "Drink your coffee," she said, "or it will get cold. I'll talk to you tomorrow." She turned and hurried away.

So I sat down, ate a cookie, and then poured out the coffee. It was black and strong, the way I like it ... very black, and very strong. ...

My mouth tasted funny, when I awoke, and I had trouble getting my eyes open. When I got them open I rolled and caught myself just in time. It wasn't my bed I was in. I was on a jail cot.

My head felt like it weighed a ton, but I lifted it and looked around. I was in a cell. Larik Feist's cell.

That brought me to my feet with a lurch. I charged the door.

Locked.

Taking that door in my two hands I shook it until the whole door rattled and banged. I shouted, but there was no sound from outside. I swore. Then I looked around. There was a note on the floor.

I picked it up and read:

You wouldn't listen to us. I hated to do this, but you'd no right to keep the whole town from getting rich just because of your pigheaded jealousy.

It didn't need any signature, for by that time I was remembering that the last thing I had done was drink some coffee Maria had brought me.

The door rattled and I yelled, but nobody answered. I went to the window and looked out.

Nobody was stirring, but I knew all those who lived in town weren't gone. They probably had orders to ignore me.

Then I remembered something else. This jail was old and of adobe. I'd been trying for months to get the council to vote the money to make repairs. These bars- As I've said, I weigh two hundred and thirty pounds and none of it anything but bone and muscle. I grabbed those bars and bowed my back, but they wouldn't stir. Yet I knew they weren't well seated. Then I picked up the cot and smashed it, and taking one of the short iron pieces, I used it as a lever between the bars. That did the trick.

In five minutes I was on the street, then back inside after my guns. This time I belted on two of them, grabbed my Winchester, and ran for the livery stable.

Abel was there, but no Wright. I grabbed Abel.

"Which way did they go?" I yelled at him.

"Lou!" he protested, pulling back. "You let go of me. I ain't done nothing! And you leave those folks alone. We all going to be rich."

I dropped him, because I remembered something very suddenly. Larik Feist had changed his clothes after he came to town. Had he taken the old ones with him after he got a complete outfit? I made a run for Powers' store, but it was closed. I put one foot against the door jamb and took the knob in my hands- It came loose, splintering the jamb.

The clothes were there. A worn, dirty shirt, jeans, boots, and a coat. Right there I sat down and looked them over.

Not that I didn't know where they were going now. The Sierra Madres were far south of the border, and nobody except a few Indians and Mexicans who live there knew them better than I. What I wanted to know was where Feist had come from, because one thing I knew. He had not come up from Mexico.

From our town the country slopes gradually away to the Border. It's a long valley running deep into Mexico, and from my usual seat at the jail door I could look down that valley.

Yesterday, before Feist appeared, I had been sitting there, and Larik Feist had not come up that valley. Nothing bigger than a mouse or rattlesnake had been moving out there.

Now, just before noon, Luke Fair drove his buckboard in from Tombstone, and he had seen nobody for fifty miles, he said. The fact remained, all things considered, the only way Feist could have come was by train. The railroad was just ten miles away. And I'd spotted soot on his ears, which he'd not washed off.

The dust on his clothes was not desert dust-no more than he could have picked up coming from the railroad. And there were some cinders in the cuffs of his jeans. All his clothes were old except for the coat. It had a label from an El Paso store.

Tracking that party into Mexico offered no problem, but I had another idea. Feist, if I was right, and I was betting my shirt on it, would get his hands on the money that had been put up. Then he would light out and leave them stranded. And I had just a hunch where he would go.

Luke Fair was in front of his shack when I walked up. "You played hob," he said.

I spoke fast: "Luke, get a horse and a couple of pack mules. Take grub and plenty of water. Then light out after that bunch. By the time you get to them, they'll be mighty glad to see you.

Luke looked at me. The fact that he was here and not with them showed he had brains. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," I said, "that about fifty miles south of the Border you'll find that bunch. They'll probably be out of water and afoot."

He took his pipe out of his mouth. "I don't get you."

"That Feist," I said, "was a swindler. He never saw the Sierra Madres. I'd bet a coon he never. He rigged that story, and that gold never came from Lost Village because there's no gold there, and never was."

"How do you know that?"

"Luke, what was my ma's name?"

"Why"-he looked sort of odd-"it was Ibanez."

"Sure, and Luke, do you know what the name of that officer was who went with the Franciscan friars?"

No.

"It was Ibanez. Luke, I've had a map to Lost Village ever since I was six. My father went there when he was a boy. I went there, too.

There was a village, but folks left it when the springs went dry. There never was any mining close by. The mine they took the gold from was ten miles from the village itself, and it's being worked right now by the Sonora Mining Company."

"Well, I'll be blasted!" Luke just sat there looking at me. "Why didn't you tell them?"

"I started to, but they wouldn't listen. Most of it I didn't want to tell until the trial. I didn't want this gent to know what he was facing. I had no idea they'd go off the way they did."

"If I was you," he said, "I'd let "em get back the best they can."

"They might not get back," I told him, but he knew that as well as I did. He got up and began gathering his duffel.

"What about you?" he asked.

That made me grin. "Luke, that gent will head for El Paso unless I'm clean off my rocker.

He'll ditch them about the second day out and he'll head through the hills toward El Paso. He'll take a straight route, and about noon of the second day after he leaves them, he'll stop for water at a little pozo, a place called Coyote Spring.

And, Luke, when he gets there, I'll be sitting close by."

If you look on a good big map, and if you pick a place about midway between the Animas and the Alamo Huaco Mountains, and then measure off about twenty-eight miles or so south of the border, you'll find Pozo de Coyote.