10
Adelita had been gone for an hour when Fargo sat up and looked around. A noise had broken through his sleep, a noise that was out of the ordinary, and he wasted no time in slipping on his pants, pulling on his boots, and taking his Colt in his hand.
He moved soundlessly through the night and awoke Alvie and Adelita. Both saw the big revolver, and neither asked any questions.
Next, Fargo checked on the prisoner.
Ike was gone.
Fargo bit back a curse. His exertions with Adelita had caused him to sleep more soundly than usual or likely he would have heard something sooner.
He told Adelita and Alvie what had happened, and Adelita roused her men as quietly as she could while Alvie and Fargo went to check on the guards. They found them both, each one sitting with his back against a rock, each one with his throat cut.
“Speight,” Alvie said. “He might not have many men left, but the ones he has are killers. They’re like the Comanches, move like ghosts.”
That wasn’t any comfort to Fargo. Speight probably didn’t even want the guns, but he wasn’t going to let Fargo have them. He’d use Ike to get them, and after that he’d kill Ike.
“What’re we gonna do?” Alvie asked. “Reckon we can track ’em in the dark?”
Fargo looked at the sky. “It won’t be dark long.”
“How many men you reckon Speight has left?”
“Enough to do to us what we did to him.”
“Ambush us, you mean?”
“I expect him to try.”
“We’d better be careful, then, ’cause I know we’re goin’ after him.” Alvie paused. “We are goin’ after him, ain’t we?”
“Damn right,” Fargo said.
Ike was scared, but his mind was working. He was sure he could come up with a plan. He had to.
Things had happened fast at the camp. He’d been half asleep and dreaming when someone clasped a big hand over his mouth and dragged him away. At first he’d thought his cousins had come for him and were taking him away from Fargo and that Mexican woman with the whip, but that was all just part of a dream.
Now that he was fully awake, he realized the awful truth. He was back in the hands of Speight and his Comancheros.
After a while, the man who’d grabbed him had tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of corn and carried him for half a mile as easily as if Ike had been a feather. Then he’d tossed him into a wagon, climbed into the seat, and driven away.
They’d gone another half mile or so before they met up with Speight and some other riders.
“Any trouble?” Speight asked.
His voice was flat, toneless, and dead, just as it had been when Ike was in the canyon.
“Nope,” the big man said, shifting in the wagon seat. “Nobody turned a hair. How ’bout you all?”
Speight didn’t answer him, nor did anyone else. Speight climbed down off his horse and got into the wagon with Ike, whose hands and feet were still bound.
Speight sat beside Ike. He wore a bloody shirt, and in his hand he held a bowie knife. Its wide blade glinted in the light of the fading moon. Speight touched the point of the knife to Ike’s cheek.
“You have a choice to make,” Speight said. “Do you want to hear what it is?”
Ike was afraid to nod, what with the knife being where it was, and his mouth was so dry that he wasn’t sure he could talk. He worked up a little spit and said, “Tell me,” his voice not much more than a croak.
“It’s simple,” Speight said. He caressed Ike’s cheek with the flat of the blade. “You tell me where the guns are. Right now.” He put the edge of the blade to Ike’s throat. “Or I kill you. Right now.”
Ike swallowed. The blade of the knife didn’t move away from his throat.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know where they are,” Speight said. “If you do, I’ll kill you. Right here. Right now. I should have done it to begin with. Ah, well. ‘Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.’ That’s from Cicero. You wouldn’t know about him.”
Ike didn’t give a hoot in hell about Cicero. He just wanted to stay alive, but he still had no plan. His mind churned, but nothing came to him. He was either going to die, or he was going to tell Speight about the guns. What the hell? He’d been about to tell him in the canyon before Fargo had come along.
“I’ll tell you where the guns are,” he said.
“I thought you might,” Speight said.
He didn’t put the knife away. He sat waiting for Ike to answer.
Ike described the place where he’d hidden the wagon. He told Speight the direction he’d traveled to get to the canyon. That was all he had to say.
“That’s not good enough,” Speight said.
“It’s the best I can do.”
“That may well be. Or it may be that you’re simply trying to stay alive.”
“It’s all I can tell you,” Ike said. “I swear.”
“All right,” Speight said. “I’ll believe you, but if we don’t find the guns by noon, you’ll die.”
Ike felt desperation take hold of him. “I thought you didn’t even care about the guns.”
“I don’t.” Speight put away the bowie knife and touched his shoulder. “But I don’t like being shot, even if it’s just a scratch, and I don’t like having my men killed. I don’t like having my camp burned and my horses stampeded. I don’t like that at all. The man who did those things wants the guns. I’m going to take them from him, and then I’m going to kill him.”
“Let me help you,” Ike said.
“Help me?”
“Kill Fargo. That’s the man who wants the guns. His name’s Fargo. I want to kill him, too, but it ain’t easy.”
“It will be easy enough for me. He’ll be following us. He’ll die.”
The way Speight said it, it sounded like an established fact. Ike thought he and Speight could get along just fine if only they hadn’t gotten off on the wrong foot with each other.
“Listen,” Ike said, a plan starting to take form, “you and I want the same thing, when you think about it. To kill Fargo. I don’t care about the guns anymore. You can have the damn things. Just let me help you kill Fargo, and I’ll go away. We’ll both get what we want, and I’ll just go away.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” Speight said.
Fargo picked up the trail of the men who’d killed the guards easily enough. He found where it joined another trail, the one left by Speight and his gang, and he found the spot where they’d been joined by a wagon.
“I knew you were good,” Alvie said, “but I didn’t know you was this good.”
“I think he is not so good,” Adelita said. “I think even I could have followed this trail.”
It bothered Fargo a little that she was right. The trail was so plain that anyone could have followed it. Speight had taken no trouble at all to conceal it or make it hard to find even at night. Fargo didn’t like that.
“Well, Fargo,” Adelita asked, “do you think I am as great a tracker as you?”
“I think it’s a trap,” Fargo said.
“Trap?” Alvie said, looking around. There wasn’t a lot to see. It was full daylight now, and all around them were rocks and cactus and dry, dusty soil. “What kind of trap?”
“Speight wants us to follow him,” Fargo said. “He thinks we’ll come right on along, and he’ll be waiting for us.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere. What do you think, Adelita?”
“I think you are right.”
She called to her men, who rode over and sat on their horses to await what she had to tell them. She repeated what Fargo had said, and they nodded in agreement.
“They think you are right, too,” she told Fargo. “Now what shall we do about it?”
“You’re going to ride into the trap,” Fargo said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alvie asked.
“Just what I said. You’re going to ride in. I won’t be with you.”
Alvie shook his head. “There’s somethin’ about that plan I don’t much like.”
“You’ll like it better when I tell you more about it.”
“I sure as hell hope so,” Alvie said.
Alvie rode at the front of the little group as they approached the hill where the wagon was hidden. The trail they’d been following plainly led them there. Alvie was sweating, and not just because the sun was hot.
“What if they counted us last night?” he’d asked Fargo. “They’ll know we’re a couple of people short.”
“You really think Ike’s that smart?” Fargo asked.
“Prob’ly he ain’t.”
“And Speight didn’t have a chance to count us, so he won’t know. Besides, they won’t be counting us now. They won’t realize we know they’re going to ambush us.”
“Maybe so, but if they do figger it out, I’m the fella in front. I’m the one’s gonna get shot and killed.”
“Could be they’ll just wing you,” Fargo said.
“You sure do know how to cheer a fella up.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”
Easy enough for Fargo to say, Alvie thought. Fargo wasn’t the one who’d be leading a little bunch of Mexicans into a trap.
Alvie put up his hand and brought his horse to a stop. Adelita’s men stopped right behind him, and Alvie peered ahead. He could see a hill and a lot of rocks. Two men were doing something at the base of the hill, and Alvie thought he could see a cave or something where the wagon might be hidden. He didn’t see anything else. He guessed he was supposed to believe that the two men pretending to be busy were the only ones there, but he knew better. The others were hiding somewhere close by, either among the rocks or behind the hill.
Alvie didn’t like anything about the situation, but he wasn’t the one running the show. That was Fargo’s job, and the Trailsman had said not to worry. He’d said everything would be fine.
Alvie hoped he was right about that.
Fargo’s plan was simple. Since Speight was leading them in a straight line, Fargo wasn’t going to follow the trail. He and Adelita would loop around and come up behind Speight.
There were any number of things wrong with the plan. It would take some hard riding, and Fargo would have to guess at where Speight would be holed up. He’d also have to count on the fact that Speight would never think someone could sneak up on him from behind twice in a couple of days.
When they had come to within a mile of the hill, Fargo had seen it in the distance. The rocks all around made it a perfect spot for an ambush, so Fargo was pretty sure that would be the place where Speight was set up. It might even be the place where the guns were hidden.
Fargo and Adelita broke away from the group and started on their loop.
“What if you’re wrong?” Adelita asked as they rode.
“Then I’m wrong. If you have a better idea, now’s the time to tell me.”
“I have no better idea. I just wondered what we would do.”
“We’ll try something else,” Fargo said, “but I don’t think I’m wrong.”
“Tell me the rest of the plan, then.”
“You see that hill?”
They were well away from it, far enough that Fargo hoped that Speight and his men, if they were there, wouldn’t notice them.
“I see it,” Adelita said.
“We’re going to circle around behind it, come over the top, and surprise Speight. He’ll be in front of it with his men, hiding in the rocks.”
Adelita got the idea. “We will kill as many as we can, and my men will ride in and take care of the rest.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Fargo said.
Adelita looked doubtful. “I suppose it is worth a try.”
“Better than nothing.”
“But not much,” Adelita said.
Ike had a plan, too. He’d thought about it all the way to the place where the guns were hidden, and Speight had done exactly what Ike thought he would. He’d told Ike he’d have to clear the brush and hitch up the mules, which Speight had brought along. That would put Ike right out in front when the shooting started, and Ike knew the shooting would indeed start. Speight was leaving a trail a blind man could follow, and he was hoping Fargo would come along and fall into a trap. He was probably also hoping that Ike would be the first man shot. Ike didn’t intend to let that happen.
“I can’t do all that by myself,” Ike said. “I need some help.”
“You help him, Grunt,” Speight said.
Grunt was the big man driving the wagon. He had a recently broken nose that was still bruised and misshapen. Ike thought he was the man Fargo had kicked in the face as they made their escape from Speight’s camp.
“I don’t like it,” Grunt said.
“But you’ll do it,” Speight said, and his voice was deader than Ike had ever heard it.
“Sure, sure. I’ll do it. I just don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Speight said, and that was the end of it.
When they’d arrived at the hill, Speight had scattered his men around behind the rocks nearby. One of them had taken the horses around the hill with orders to stay with them. Speight cut the ropes that held Ike, and while Ike tried to rub some circulation into his hands and feet, Speight told him what to expect. It was pretty much what Ike had thought he’d say.
“There’s going to be shooting, but you’re not to do any fighting. If you survive and if Fargo is dead, you can leave. I’ll take the rifles with me.”
“You’ll leave me a horse,” Ike said.
“Of course.”
Ike nodded, though he knew Speight was lying. He’d kill Ike and leave him where he lay if Ike wasn’t killed sooner.
We’ll see about that, Ike thought.
Fargo and Adelita spotted the man with the horses easily. Getting rid of him without alerting Speight and the others was the problem.
“I will take care of it,” Adelita said.
“You sure?” Fargo said. “He’s likely to shoot you as soon as he sees you.”
Adelita laughed. “I do not think so. He is a man. Easy to fool. You stay out of sight.”
Fargo rode the big Ovaro behind a boulder, and Adelita rode toward the horses. As she got closer, she began to unbutton her shirt.
The man raised his rifle, but then he lowered it. He hadn’t been expecting a woman, and he certainly hadn’t expected one who was exposing her bountiful breasts for his admiration.
Adelita removed her hat and shook out her hair. She shrugged the shirt off her shoulders. The man was frozen in place. It was as if his feet were nailed to the ground.
Adelita rode closer. The man was eager to see more of her, but he didn’t put down the rifle. When Adelita was nearly upon him, she smiled and beckoned to him. He somehow managed to step forward.
The whip appeared in Adelita’s hand as if by magic, snaking out and wrapping itself around the man’s neck. Adelita pulled the horse’s head to the right, and the horse jumped in that direction.
Fargo thought he heard the man’s spine snap, but it might have been just his imagination. He rode out from behind the boulder and joined Adelita, who was calmly buttoning her shirt.
“You see?” she said. “Easy.” She slid off her horse and retrieved the whip. “Now we will take care of the others.”
“Sure enough,” Fargo said.
He joined her on the ground, and they climbed the hill. It was easy going, and when they arrived at the crest, they were able to conceal themselves in the brush and look down at what was going on below.
Fargo saw that Alvie and his small band of men were sitting their horses in the distance, not moving. Speight and his men waited patiently, hidden in the rocks.
Fargo couldn’t see Ike, but he could see a couple of mules directly below the hill. They appeared to be hitched to something, and Fargo decided that the wagon must be hidden there.
It went against his grain to kill men without giving them some sort of warning, and he would have called out had Adelita not begun shooting. She didn’t have the same scruples that Fargo did, and she’d shot a man before Fargo had time to say a word.
Even as the man was falling, Speight and his men turned and started firing up the hill. Alvie and his group charged forward, guns blasting.
In the midst of all the shooting, the wagon loaded with the rifles came rumbling from the side of the hill. Ike sat in the wagon seat, whipping the mules with the reins, urging them to run as fast as they could. The gunfire all around them gave them an added reason to put on speed, and the wagon moved away in a cloud of dust.
It appeared that Ike was caught in a cross fire, but as soon as he cleared the rocks, he turned the wagon sharply to the left and headed for the open country.
“You must stop him, Fargo,” Adelita said.
Fargo ran back down the hill and jumped on the Ovaro. When he rounded the hill, he saw the wagon bouncing along swiftly, accompanied by its dust cloud.
Fargo urged his big horse on. If the Ovaro stepped in a hole, it would be the end of both him and Fargo, but the Trailsman had no intention of letting Ike get away, no matter the risk.
The wagon bounced and swayed, and as Fargo got closer, he could see that Ike was having a tough time keeping it from turning over and losing its load.
Ike lashed the mules with the reins, but they were going as fast as they could with their heavy load, and Fargo caught them quickly. He rode along beside Ike and shouted, “Stop right here, Ike!”
Ike didn’t even look at him, and he didn’t slow down.
Fargo wished he had Adelita’s whip, but since he didn’t, he pulled his Colt. He didn’t want to kill Ike. He wanted to take him back to San Antonio for his trial.
Ike wasn’t armed, but Fargo couldn’t get hold of the reins to stop the mules. He thought about trying to jump onto the load of guns and stop Ike that way, but that was too chancy. He figured he’d have to shoot Ike and hope he didn’t kill him. It was hard to be accurate when you were shooting at a moving target from a running horse.
But Ike saved Fargo from having to shoot. He was so eager to get away that he’d forgotten all about caution. The left front wagon wheel hit a hole, and the whole back end of the wagon lifted into the air.
Ike flew off the seat and landed ten feet away. The wagon bounced and kept on going.
Fargo went after it. He caught up within a quarter of a mile and was able to get hold of the reins that lay across the back of one of the mules. He took hold of them and pulled. It wasn’t as easy as it would have been if he’d been in the seat, but he brought the mules to a stop. They stood and breathed heavily, their sides heaving. Fargo didn’t think they’d have lasted much longer. Ike had driven them so hard that their lungs had about burst.
Fargo left them and rode back to see about Ike. The would-be gunrunner lay with his face twisted toward Fargo. His head was beside a rock. There was blood on the rock and on the ground.
“Didn’t work out like I planned,” Ike said. His voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t guess you’ll be taking me back to San Antonio with you, though.”
The Trailsman looked down at him. “Maybe we can fix you up.”
“Doubt it. Almost had those damn guns. If it wasn’t for you, I’d . . .”
Ike didn’t finish the sentence, and he wouldn’t be talking anymore to anybody. Fargo left the mules and the wagon and rode back to see about Alvie and Adelita.
Speight and his men, the few that remained, stood in front of the opening in the hillside. One of the men was Grunt, his nose freshly broken. They were all roped together so that they could move around a bit, but not much.
“Where are the guns?” Adelita asked as soon as Fargo was within hearing distance.
“They’re all right. The mules needed a rest.”
“We can use this one’s horses to pull the wagon,” Adelita said, pointing at Speight.
“Take two of the horses and go for the wagon,” she told one of her men. He motioned to another man, and they went to get the horses.
“What about Ike?” Alvie asked.
“Dead,” Fargo said.
“I guess that pays for Harl,” Alvie said. “Seems fair enough to me.”
“Best we can do,” Fargo said.
“Skye Fargo,” Speight said, his voice flat and cold. “You’d best kill me now, or I’ll have my revenge.”
“Maybe so, maybe not,” Fargo said. “You have a long way to walk without water and food. Might not make it. Hard to walk, all tied up like that.”
“You’d best untie us.”
“Nope. I’ll leave that to you to work out among yourselves.” Fargo turned to Alvie. “You ready to go back to San Antonio?”
“Sure am,” Alvie said.
“You have been a great help, Fargo,” Adelita said. “If you are ever in Mexico, Benito Juárez could use a man like you.” She smiled. “So, too, could I.”
“I’ll be sure to look for you if I ever get down below the border,” Fargo said.
“I hope you will.” Adelita turned to address her remaining men. “Let us go to the rifles. Vamanos.”
Alvie and Fargo watched her ride away.
“Sure ’nuff a lot of woman there,” Alvie said. “I’d be tempted to go along with her if I was you.”
Fargo thought about San Antonio, about Michelle Charboneau, and about Frances Martin.
“I think I’ll go on back with you,” he said. “I have a couple of things to take care of in San Antonio.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” Alvie said. “Let’s get on the way.”
They rode east, and neither one looked back at Speight and his men.
Or at Adelita.
