The revolution in Mexico had made El Paso a boom town. Not only had the Army at Fort Bliss been reinforced, but hordes of American refugees, driven out of the northern states of Mexico by the fighting, swelled the population. Whores and gamblers, gunrunners and pimps, quick-buck artists of a dozen different kinds: these had all swarmed in to take advantage of the boom and add to it. Day and night the town rang with hoof beats, the cough of Army trucks, laughter, shouts, the tinny sound of dance hall music; and, not infrequently, the splatter of gunfire from Juarez across the river.
After two weeks Fargo was tired of the place. He’d drunk too much whiskey, made love to too many women, lost more money gambling than he’d won. Though he was still lean and hard, inside he felt fat and stale. It was, he decided, time to go after the gold—after Finch’s fifty thousand cached down in the Mule Ears Peaks.
Tonight he restlessly roamed the bars and honky-tonks along the river. This was his last chance to gather information. Not one word had he heard about Apache Indians. He was beginning to believe he had been heat-struck; that long file of riders was a mirage.
But no mirage had maimed and killed five men, he reminded himself. They had been real. When he went after the cash, he must be prepared to deal with them.
He kept his ears open everywhere. When he struck up aimless conversation with soldiers or officers, he probed for any word of Indians off the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. Surely, by now they would know.
But they didn’t, and he felt a growing foreboding. This was a mystery that troubled him. He liked to know what odds he faced, who his enemies were. Fallon, of course. If Fallon caught him in Big Bend with the gold, he wouldn’t get off lightly this time. By now the dead men would have been found. Fallon would be going crazy trying to figure out what had happened to the money they must have had.
And Mexicans—border jumpers, guerrillas. He was prepared for them, too. He knew how they operated, how to be on guard against them. But those damned ghost Apaches—
He settled down at a table, back against the wall, for a final drink before returning to his hotel. He poured it, tossed it off, and looked sourly at the drunken crowd. They were laughing noisy in the saloon at which his circuit had ended. Suddenly, he was almost homesick for the quiet, lonely, clean desert. He reached for the bottle once more. Then a woman’s voice said: “Mr. Fargo?”
Fargo looked up. The girl standing at his table was as out of place here as he’d have been at a Sunday school picnic. She was young, in her middle twenties, tall, hair piled in abundance atop her head, shining blue-black in the dim light. Her skin was ivory, her eyes huge, the same color as her hair, her mouth unpainted but red. Not even respectable clothes could hide a body designed for the attention and pleasure of men—full-breasted, slim-waisted, with curving hips and long legs.
Fargo pushed back his chair, rose, swept off the cavalry hat. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said.
“May I sit down?” She pulled out a chair, did so before he answered. “I need to talk to you.”
Fargo dropped back into his own seat. He took out a cigar, thrust it between his teeth, lit it. Blowing smoke, he asked warily, “About what?”
The girl was nervous; her hands toyed with her handbag. Her voice trembled as she said, “I want you to take me down into the Big Bend country.”
Fargo stared. Then he laughed, shortly, harshly. “Take you—? Young lady, whoever you are, you must be out of your mind. Sorry.” He reached for the bottle, poured a drink in a gesture of dismissal.
“No, please.” Her voice was urgent. “You don’t understand. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“It sure is.” Fargo drank. “That’s why you’d better stay out of that place. No greenhorn would last a minute down there, especially a woman.”
“Mr. Fargo, you’ve got to listen, please! I tell you, it’s important. Besides . . . besides, I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you well.”
Pay. That engaged his attention. He rolled the cigar across his mouth. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead. Talk.”
“My name is Nola Shane.” Words poured out of her. “I came to El Paso from Philadelphia, I think this will explain why.” She opened the bag, took out an envelope, passed it to Fargo. “I got this in the mail three weeks ago.”
He extracted its contents through the slit in one end, unfolded the single, scrawled-on sheet of cheap paper. Dear Sis, he read. For God’s sake, you’ve got to help me. If you don’t, they’ll kill me. I’m being held prisoner by Mexicans. A colonel named Valeriano and his men raided our mine and I got captured. Now they’re going to shoot me if you don’t come up with ransom money. Valeriano says that for ten thousand dollars in gold delivered to him at Boquillas, Mexico, he’ll let me go. He’s giving you six weeks from the date of this letter to get it here. I don’t know where but you’ve got to find the money and get somebody reliable to deliver it or else I’m finished. I wish—he won’t let me write any more.” It was signed: Grant.
Fargo folded the letter, returned it to the envelope, passed it back. “Boquillas. That’s on the Mexican side of the river, down in the deepest part of the Big Bend.”
“Yes. I know.” Her face was pale. “My brother’s a mining engineer. He worked for a mine near there run by Americans. They thought they were safe, but—”
“Nobody’s safe in Mexico now.”
“Yes. Anyhow, do you see why you’ve got to help me?” Her voice was desperate. “Grant’s all I’ve got. Our parents are dead. I begged him not to go to Mexico, but they were paying such high wages . . . now . . .” She drew in a long breath. “I’ve been teaching school in Philadelphia. I had to sell the house our parents left us to raise the money, but I’ve got it, Mr. Fargo. Now I’ve got to have somebody guide me to Boquillas so I can deliver it. I’ve tried everybody, the Army, everyone, and nobody will help me. Everybody’s afraid; the commandant at Fort Bliss says it’s not something he can undertake; his men can’t cross the river even to rescue an American citizen. I don’t know what to do. And then … somebody told me about you. Said you knew that country and that you’d do anything for money, even go down there.”
Fargo shook his head. “They told you wrong, Miss Shane. You can’t afford my kind of wages for a job like that. And I don’t work for free.”
“I said I’d pay! I’ll pay you two thousand dollars to take me there with the ransom money, help me get Grant back from those Mexicans!”
Fargo laughed. “Sorry. Two thousand wouldn’t pay for the cartridges.” Then he was sober, looking at her harshly, coldly with those gray eyes. “Listen, Miss Shane, you’re on a fool’s errand. I don’t know Valeriano, never run into him, but if he’s like all those other bandidos along the Rio, he’d like to get his hands on your ten thousand, all right. But, even better, he’d like to get his hands on you. No matter what promises he’s made, what would happen is this. He’d take your ten thousand. Then he’d take you, too, and by the time he and his men got through with you, you wouldn’t recognize yourself. And your brother—hell, he’d kill him anyway. No. No, it’s out of the question. Your brother got himself into that mess, let him take his medicine. And you high tail it on back to Philadelphia where you belong.”
“No! No, I can’t let Grant be executed!” Her lips thinned. “All right, if I have to, I’ll go by myself. I can ride and I can shoot—a little.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Fargo said. He shoved back his chair, stood up. “Go home, Miss Shane. Good night.” Then he turned and went out.
On the sidewalk he paused, snorted, threw the cigar butt into the gutter. Damned fool bitch! What the hell did she think the Big Bend country was—a picnic ground? The last thing he needed down in that place was a dude woman on his hands. Two thousand dollars! His lip curled. He spat, began to walk.
“Hey, Fargo.” Behind him, a man called his name. Fargo turned, recognized him. “Hello, Roswell.”
The Major was on the staff at Bliss; he and Fargo played poker together several nights in the past two weeks; Fargo hoped Roswell was a better soldier than he was a card player. Having just emerged from a gambling hall, Roswell was obviously more than a little drunk and on a high horse. He signaled to Fargo. “Come on! Just made a killin’! Won two hundred bucks! Owe you a drink from t’other night! Less go have it!”
“Sure,” said Fargo. As he joined Roswell, Nola Shane came out of the saloon and strode past them, her chin high, eyes straight ahead, face pale. Roswell’s gaze followed her; he whistled. “Not bad-lookin’ piece. Sure is snooty, though. Looked right through both of us. C’mon, Fargo . . .”
They went back in the gambling hall and took a table. Roswell ordered a bottle, poured. “Here’s to crime.” He grinned loosely, a plump, round-faced man, then drank.
Fargo did, too. Smacked his lips. Then said, casually: “By the way, Roswell, you’re acting adjutant at the Post, ain’t you?”
“Sure.”
“You’d know everything went on.”
“See ever’ scrap of paper comes in, goes out. That’s a lotta paper, Fargo.” He laughed.
“Then what’s this about Indians off the Reservation? Apaches.”
There was no mistaking Roswell’s genuine blankness. “What? What you talking about?”
Still off-handedly, Fargo said, “I was talkin with a guy just come in from down in Big Bend. Said he’d swear he saw a bunch of bronco Chiricahuas, maybe thirty. Looked just like Injuns did in the old days. Mounted, armed, on the loose in the desert along the Rio.”
Roswell snorted. “He was crazy with the heat.” Then he laughed. “Thirty broncos? Good God, Fargo, if that many Apaches had skipped the Reservation, the telegraph wires all over the Southwest woulda melted by now.”
“You don’t know anything, haven’t heard anything?”
“Hell, no. Everything’s peaceful on all the Reservations right now. Oh, there was some trouble with the Paiutes up in Colorado last year, some fuss about their not wanting to send their kids to school at the agency, but that was settled without any shooting. I don’t know what your friend saw, but it wasn’t Apaches. Maybe it was Yaquis or Tarahumaras from down in Mexico.”
“Maybe so,” Fargo said. “Or maybe, like you say, he was just crazy with the heat.” He stood up. “Thanks for the drink, Roswell.”
“Stick around. Help me finish the bottle.”
“Nope. Got to go back to the hotel, get some rest.”
Roswell laughed. “Okay,” he called thickly. “Better be careful, though, Fargo old pal. Wouldn’t want the Apaches to git you.”
Fargo’s face wore a frown as he strode back to the hotel. Well, that made it official. Roswell would know if anyone did, and it was obvious that he had been startled by the whole idea. Those were not Reservation Indians. But, Goddamn it, Fargo thought savagely, they were Apaches! And all the Apaches alive are on the Reservation! There aren’t any wild Apaches left! Not in 1915!
He was still puzzling over it as he went up the stairs to his room. He unlocked the door, then entered. He closed the door behind himself and carefully locked and bolted it again and flicked on the light switch.
Then, turning toward the bed, he halted; froze. He stared, and then he spoke one single, terse obscenity.
The girl was there, under the sheet. She looked back at him steadily. ‘Hello, Mr. Fargo,” she said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Fargo’s voice was savage.
“Waiting for you,” Nola Shane said.
“Oh, you are, are you?” Fargo was beside the bed in a single long stride. He seized the sheet, pulled it back.
The girl was naked. Blood rose to her cheeks, but she made no attempt to cover herself. Fargo’s eyes raked up and down the lines of her long, slender, white body, over the full curves of lush breasts, fine hips, superb legs. He looked at her for a long time as she lay that way, his eyes bold, insolent. Then he grinned, that wolf’s snarl. He threw the sheet back over her. “That won’t work, either. If I wouldn’t take the job for money, do you think I’d take it for that?”
She sat upright, clutching the sheet to her breasts. Suddenly her eyes were furious. “Damn you, Fargo—”
“You don t sound like a school teacher now.” Fargo turned on his heel. “Get on your clothes and get out,” he said harshly. “Get outa my room and get outa El Paso. Go on back to Philadelphia before you get yourself hurt. You hear?”
“Fargo—”
“I said put on your damned clothes. You’ve got one minute. Otherwise I throw you out in the hall the way you are.”
She sighed. “All right,” she said in a choked voice. “I’ll go. I’m getting dressed now.” He heard the rustle of silk and cotton behind him, and it took longer than a minute, but he did not look around. Then the girl moved past him, fully clad, face red. Fargo unlocked the door. He opened it, and she started to leave, then halted on the threshold. Those huge, dark eyes met his. “You won’t reconsider—?”
Fargo shook his head. “Goodbye,” he said coldly.
She stared at him for a second longer. Then she turned, went down the corridor, defeat in every slumped, ashamed line of her body. Fargo watched her vanish down the stairs. Then he cursed again, closed the door, and went to the bottle on the dresser. He pulled the cork with his teeth. In a moment, the smell of whiskey drowned the echo of her perfume that lingered in the room.