It came from down the line, a roaring fusillade. Five hundred rifles or side-arms roaring all at once, the drumming of two thousand hooves, and over it all, the wild cries of fighting men: “Viva Villa! Viva Mejico! Viva la Revolucion! Viva Villa, Villa, Villa ... ”
Lucas stood bolt upright, eyes batting. “A raid! Villa’s men!”
“They’re not Villa’s!” Fargo rasped, but Lucas didn’t even hear him. He whirled to the telegrapher. “Wire Fort Bliss! Columbus under attack from Pancho Villa!” Then, forgetting Fargo, still holding Fargo’s shotgun, he ran out the station door.
Fargo swallowed hard, swore, knocked Liz to the floor. “Stay down!” he rasped. “I’ll be back!” Drawing his Colt, he raced out the door after Lucas, jumped the platform’s edge. He saw Lucas dodging along the track, and his legs pumped to catch up with him. “Where’re your machine guns?” he yelled.
“Two down by the gate, the rest in the quarters!”
Mounted gunmen were pouring through the gate, now, firing as they came, fanning out toward the town. Lucas seemed to have forgotten his questioning of Fargo. Fargo ripped his shotgun from the lieutenant’s grasp. “Get ’em out and set ’em up!” he screamed. Then he ran forward along the track, as Lucas sheered off.
It was like a dam breaking as O’Brien’s men poured across the border, big hats silhouetted against the star-shot sky, their spurious cries of Viva Villa ringing from five hundred throats. They fanned out, some up and down the track, others riding straight into town. They met almost no opposition: they had ridden straight through the astounded company at the gate, and now they were thundering through the city streets. Fargo searched frantically for the machine gun that should have been somewhere here by the gate—and then he saw it.
A Lewis gun. Protected by sandbags. And both men of its crew lay dead beside it. They had taken the first fury of O’Brien’s charge.
As lead slapped around him, Fargo dived for the emplacement. He made it, losing the Villista hat he’d stolen. That was good; it would have made him a target for the troopers. From his shirt, he took his U.S. Cavalry hat, clamped it on his head. Then he slid behind the gun, checked the mounting of its drum, loosed its pintle, and at that moment, Columbus burst into flame.
They’d fired buildings downtown. All right, Fargo thought, as Columbus came alive, orange against the sky. He could wait. He probed in his pocket, found his last cigar, bit off its end, lit it, hunkered down behind the gun. They would make good targets as they poured back through the gate, silhouetted against those flames. And he would bide his time.
Anyhow, he thought, O’Brien failed his examination. I would have held this whole line before I fired the town ... That will cost him ...
The cigar smoke was good and satisfying. “Those guns!” somebody yelled up the track. “Place those guns!”
Fargo turned, saw Lucas disposing of two gun crews. “Down behind the tracks!” Fargo yelled. “Wait’ll they come back against the flames!”
Lucas heard him, turned, saw Fargo behind the gun. There was a moment when he stared, confused. Then the sense of Fargo’s advice jelled. He made a gamble, let Fargo have that gun, placed his others to interlock its field of fire.
Meanwhile, all hell was breaking loose in Columbus. Gunfire jarred the night: horses whinnied, screamed, women and children shrieked, Mexican buscaderos yelled and shouted slogans. Viva Villa! They had been well rehearsed in that, Fargo thought. Wanted to make sure that the Americans knew who to blame. He cleared the gun with a short burst, then, satisfied, another drum of ammo at hand and his shotgun against the sandbags, settled down to wait.
Hardly fifteen minutes passed before the tide turned. It flowed into Columbus, reached high-water mark, flowed out again. The night rang with gunfire, shouts and the thunder of pounding hooves. And now they came, O’Brien’s men, the town shot up, and they were ready to funnel across the border.
Fargo gave them time to get within easy range. His gun covered the border gate and the ripped down panels by it. A stream of horsemen, big-hatted, riding hard, guns brandished. And outlined against the flaming town, outlined so beautifully. Fargo leaned into the machine gun and tripped the trigger, and as he opened fire, the guns behind him began to talk in their staccato language.
And the damage that the Lewis guns dealt was awful. They harvested riders from the saddle, mowed them like ripe wheat, easy targets against the flames. Men fell, and horses, and there was a pile-up at the gate and along the tracks. Fargo swung his gun its full traverse, emptied that drum and clamped on another and emptied that one too, and then he was out of ammo for the Lewis gun. That did not matter.
What mattered was O’Brien.
Fargo had looked for him, and he had not passed. Fargo had not expected him to. He would be with the rear guard, in the most dangerous place. Where Fargo himself would have fought if he had brought off this raid.
Only, Fargo told himself, as he ran forward with the shotgun, I wouldn’t have botched it like this.
He dodged up Taft Street, through the light of burning buildings. The dusty street was full of mounted, shooting Mexicans. Fargo lined his shotgun, emptied both barrels, reloaded, fired twice more. He reached for more rounds, and his hands touched only empty loops. So. He was out of ammo. He dodged into 1he shelter of an unburnt saloon, its interior lit only by the fires outside. He slung the shotgun, drew the Colt, and checked its loading. This was as good a place to wait as any.
The Mexicans pounded down the street, heading for the border. Their numbers thinned, and Fargo knew: O’Brien, if he were still alive, must be along any minute now. The fires made the street as bright as day, and it should be no trouble to pick him out.
And then he was there: a big man on a bay stallion—he seemed to have a liking for stud horses— with a Colt in either hand, a Dorado sombrero on his head. Firelight gleamed on handsome face, black eyes, the conchos on his charro suit. In Spanish, he yelled: “Move out! Move out, Villistas!” Then he turned in the saddle, fired. Fargo saw a khaki-clad soldier sprawl from an alley. O’Brien laughed leaned forward in the saddle, and spurred his mount.
Fargo, standing behind the swinging doors of the saloon, lined his Colt and shot the horse.
It went down in a heap. O’Brien catapulted over its head. He was like a cougar, though, landed on his knees, was up at once, guns in either hand. He looked around dazedly for a horse, saw none. So he looked for shelter. His eyes landed on the swinging doors of the saloon. Quickly, Fargo stepped aside.
O’Brien charged up the porch, inside the darkened building. Fargo was in the corner, now, gun half-lowered. O’Brien brought up against the bar, panting. “Damn it,” he said in Spanish. “But I’ll find a horse. First... I’ll have a drink. I’ve earned it. It’s worked. We’ve lost men, but it’s worked damned fine.”
Fargo stood motionless, breath held. He vaguely saw the form of O’Brien go around the bar. “Bourbon,” O’Brien said. The word was gusty as he uncorked a bottle, took a drink. “Now...” He sighed, rubbed his mouth. Still, he was unaware of Fargo.
“So, now,” he said aloud, “I’ll get a horse. Cut through an alley; there’ll be plenty along the tracks. By God, it did work. It really did.” He started for the door.
“O’Brien,” Fargo said from the darkness in the corner.
O’Brien halted, whirled, and his spurs clanked. He raised his Colt. “Who’s that?”
“Fargo,” Neal Fargo answered.
O’Brien stood there for one frozen second. “It can’t be,” he rasped.
“It is. You’re not even a fair imitation.” Fargo raised his gun.
O’Brien hurled himself backwards into a pool of shadow. Now, though the firelight played down the middle of the barroom, he was invisible. Fargo heard a table scrape as O’Brien pulled it over, used it for cover.
The man’s voice was husky, trembling, when it came. “Fargo. Is it really you?”
“Yes,” Fargo said.
“I sent men to kill you.”
“I killed them instead,” said Fargo.
“The girl is still alive?”
“That’s right. And the two of us will make sure this don’t get laid on Villa.”
O’Brien laughed. “No way you can stop that.”
“I think so,” Fargo said. “It’ll be me, her, and you testifying.”
“No. Only her. You won’t live and I’ll go back to Mexico after I kill you.”
O’Brien sucked in breath.
“Oh, God, Fargo, you don’t know how I’ve looked forward to this day. Dreaming about meeting you straight up, just the two of us. It’s funny, you know? I’ve had it fixed in my mind for so long. I kill Fargo, then I am Fargo.”
“Nobody’s Fargo but me,” he said and moved, into the light.
He made a target of himself, and an instant after he did that, he threw himself to the floor and by then O’Brien had shot from darkness. Fargo hit hard on the planks, changing the gun to his left hand, spotted O’Brien’s muzzle flame, and fixed directly over it.
Even against the tumult in the town, O’Brien’s scream was loud and clear and terrible.
There was a convulsive kicking in the shadows. Fargo arose, and with cold confidence moved into the darkness. There O’Brien’s big spurs rang as his heels drummed on the floor and he cursed in incoherent agony.
Fargo found a match and snapped it.
In its flickering light, O’Brien lay in a puddle of blood. He could not fight because of the terrible shock and pain. Fargo’s hollow-point, aimed above and inside his gun-flash, had hit his shoulder-joint squarely. The exploding lead had nearly torn O’Brien’s arm off: white bone gleamed in ragged meat.
O’Brien tried to staunch the bleeding and looked up at Fargo with a blanched face. Fargo grinned down at him.
“You ain’t Fargo,” he said, “and you never would be, on the best day you ever had. But I think I can fix you up so you’ll live to talk. What you’ll say will interest a lot of people.”
“Damn you,” O’Brien rasped.
“And when you’re finished,” Fargo said, “likely you’ll be turned over to Carranza. You know what he’ll do with you?”
O’Brien bit his lower lip. “Firing squad,” he husked.
“That’s right,” Fargo said, and he bent and took O’Brien’s weapons and began to bandage the wound, as the noise of the Columbus raid died down outside.