“I MUST SAY, you’ve done a remarkable job,” Colonel Pritchett said, looking up from the file that contained Gatling’s complete report of his hunt for Wilson Murrill. “How I wish I could have been with you. What a show, eh!”
They were in the Maxim Company weapons warehouse on Crosby Street in New York City. The familiar smell of gun oil was everywhere.
“It was a dirty business from beginning to end,” Gatling said. “I’ll take the Apaches any day of the week.”
“Yes, of course you would,” the colonel said irritably. “But you know Murrill was a menace and had to be done away with.”
“Easy for you to say.” Gatling and the colonel found it hard to have a conversation without ending up in some kind of argument. It seemed to come naturally to them.
“Did I say it was easy?” the colonel snapped. “You shouldn’t take these jobs if you don’t like them.”
“I liked killing Murrill,” Gatling said.
“What a remarkable man he must have been,” the colonel said.
“He was a prince of a fellow.”
“Still, in a way, you must give credit.”
“I gave him all the credit he needed. It’s not in the report, so you can’t know he offered to trade your life for mine.”
Colonel Pritchett tugged at his bushy military mustache. “Why didn’t you accept his offer? Are you that fond of me?”
Gatling said, “I’m not sure I like you, Colonel, but setting you up for some killer isn’t part of our deal.”
“Very commendable,” the colonel said as if Gatling had been telling him about how much he gave to charity. He turned a page of the report. “You don’t say how many men you killed. Why is that?”
“I don’t keep score,” Gatling said. “You sent me to kill Murrill. I killed him.”
The colonel turned another page; the report would be turned into code and sent to Hiram Maxim, in England. “You have good things to say about your weapons?”
Gatling nodded. “They passed every test I gave them. I couldn’t have finished off Murrill without the Hotchkiss. It huffed and it puffed and it blew the house down. There’s nothing much left of it.”
“Please be serious,” the colonel snapped. “You left Murrill where you killed him?”
“I didn’t bring him back to be buried in Arlington Cemetery. He’s all eaten up by now. So are his men.”
The colonel fooled some more with his soup-strainer mustache. “You seem a bit tired, Gatling. Would you like a rest before you take on something else? There are a number of interesting jobs I have in mind.”
“Such as?” Gatling was tired, but he wouldn’t admit it to the colonel. The best way to get over being tired was to get back to work. Weapons were his business, and without bragging about it, he knew he was one of the best.
When the colonel wasn’t fooling with his mustache, he was fooling with his smelly pipe. “One of the jobs is in Canada,” he said. “The other is in Brazil.”
“Doing what, Colonel?”
“Selling guns, of course. Let’s take Canada first, shall we? Up there a man named Louis Riel is talking secession from the Canadian Confederation. He’s got Indian blood, but he’s more white than Indian. What he’s really talking about is armed rebellion. He’s in the market for weapons, and he’s got the money to pay for them. Riel is a U.S. citizen, has lived here for years, but now he’s back. The Canadian Government has been trying to catch him without success.”
“The British won’t like it if they catch us selling guns to half-breeds. Has Maxim approved of this?”
The colonel’s pipe was stinking up the office, but he loved his rank tobacco as much as he liked weapons. “Mr. Maxim knows all about it, but as you know, business has no loyalties. He manufactures weapons and we sell them. Anyway, Riel simply wants an independent Saskatchewan, not all of Canada. It’s a remote place and isn’t worth much. It’s really up to the British Government.”
“He’ll never beat the British Army,” Gatling said.
“You Americans beat it, didn’t you?”
“They didn’t have trains then. They didn’t have telegraph lines.”
The colonel lost his temper. “What the hell do you care what happens to Riel? All we’re interested in is supplying weapons and getting paid for them. We are not alone in this. Certain Congressmen and Senators, as well as businessmen, are in favor of Riel’s separatist movement.”
“They would be.”
“Always sarcasm. Can’t say I like it. In fact, I often get sick of it. Do you want the job or not?”
“Maybe. What about Brazil?”
“Much the same thing, different in some ways,” the colonel said. “Several hundred Confederates fled the South and went to Brazil at the end of the Civil War. They did very well for themselves, but now the new governor of their province—the old one was murdered—is trying to force them off their lands. Very rich lands, I might say. They have weapons, but they’re old and behind the times. Suarez, the new governor, has a large force of bandits and assorted villains. The sod has even been recruiting wild Indians, headhunters, into his ragtag army. Suarez has ordered the Confederates to leave, insists they’re a threat to good order, and will die if they don’t go.”
“Sounds like another Murrill,” Gatling said.
“Hardly as clever as Murrill, but he’s a vicious blackguard with animal cunning. The American Government refuses to help because the original settlers gave up their U.S. citizenship. And the Brazilian federal government is too weak to lift a finger. They need our help, Gatling.”
“And we need their business. How soon would I have to go?”
“Immediately,” the colonel said. “If you think you aren’t ready, I’ll send Larson. I know you don’t like him, but he’s a tough, experienced man.”
Gatling had sized Larson up after a five-minute conversation some months before. A big, brutal Minnesota Swede, he liked to hurt people as much as Malley, the pimp, did. Gatling would hurt and kill people if he had to, but only if he had to.
“Larson is a swine,” Gatling said.
“Sometimes I worry about you.” The colonel’s brisk voice was completely insincere. The only time he worried about anything was when the Maxim Company lost money or got into some kind of trouble. He was sentimental about money, nothing else. “You seem unusually edgy today. You want to tell the old padre what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing is bothering me, Father. I may check into a good hotel and send for a bottle and a woman. I am human, after all.”
The colonel raised his bird’s-nest eyebrows. “Oh, is that what it is. You don’t think I consider you human? Why, of course you’re human. You’re a fine human being.”
Gatling smiled sourly. “Don’t overdo it, Colonel, sir.”
“Go to hell, my lad!” The colonel gave out one of his false, barking laughs.
“Same to you, sir,” Gatling said. “Remember this. Don’t depend on me too much. You have the report, the Murrill job is finished.” He fell silent briefly. Then: “I think I’ll do what I said. Good whiskey and a bad woman. You may hear from me and you may not.”
The colonel waited, not at all worried. There was a little Murrill in him. Maybe there was a little Murrill in everybody.
“I may quit on you,” Gatling said.
Colonel Pritchett smiled like a crocodile closing in on a swimmer. He sniffed the air of the warehouse. “Ah, isn’t it wonderful, the smell of gun oil! You may do that, old fellow, but you’ll be back.”
Slamming the door, Gatling knew the colonel was right.