“What in the hell’s he doin’ here?” roared Cato, leaping to his feet as Yancey was brought into the camp by the guard.
Blayne and the others were on their feet too, watching as the guard marched Yancey over by the fire and told him to sit down and take off his boots. Yancey did as he was bid, looking around at the hard, fire-lit faces watching him. He settled his gaze on Cato and nodded.
“Howdy, amigo.”
“Don’t ‘amigo’ me, you sidewinder!” growled Cato, pushing through to the fore. “Goddamn it, how in hell did you get here? And I warned you! I said next time we met it’d be over smokin’ guns and by hell, that still goes!”
Yancey smiled crookedly. “All right with me. But I doubt that they’ll give me back my Peacemaker.”
“Give him a gun, damn it!” yelled Cato, turning towards Blayne and Wyatt who were looking closely at him. “Give the son of a bitch a gun, someone!”
Cato’s right hand was already resting on the butt of his Manstopper as he looked around, but all eyes were on Blayne. Except for Wyatt; the gunfighter kept looking from Yancey to Cato. Steve Blayne shouldered between the two men and pushed Cato’s hand away from his gun butt.
“Simmer down, Cato,” he said harshly. “There’ll be no gunplay here. Not till I say so.”
“But, damn it to hell, Blayne! He followed me! Must’ve. I’ve been tryin’ to shake him for weeks back in Austin and we came to blows over it. I swore next time we’d square-off with guns and that’s what I aim to do.”
“I said simmer down!” Blayne roared, his eyes blazing. “I’m in charge here. I give the orders and you follow ’em. I don’t want to ride with a man short but I will if I have to, so you shut up, Cato!”
Cato frowned and the muscles knotted along his jaw as he clamped his lips together. He nodded slowly, glaring at the sitting Yancey. The guard had taken his boots and tossed them to one side, obviously figuring Yancey would not be running off anywhere in this rocky country in only his stockinged feet.
Blayne turned slowly to look down at Yancey. “Cato has one valid question, Bannerman. How did you get here? I left a man guarding the ridge back yonder.” He gestured north.
“He’s still there,” Yancey told him flatly. “Or as much as the buzzards and coyotes have left.”
There was fresh tension amongst the hard-eyed men and Blayne frowned as he exchanged a brief glance with Wyatt.
“Chola was a good man,” Wyatt said, somewhat grudgingly.
“Not good enough it seems,” Blayne replied as if half talking to himself. He flicked his gaze back to Yancey. “All right, so you downed Chola somehow and got here. Next question is why?”
Yancey merely stared back and Wyatt kicked him solidly in the kidneys. Yancey groaned and fell sideways. He gagged as he sat up again, slowly, eyes glaring their hate at Wyatt.
“Dukes assigned me to trail Cato!” he gasped.
Blayne looked sharply at Cato who shook his head. “He’s, lyin’. Dukes and me had a blow-up. He wasn’t interested in me any longer after I quit, about thirty seconds before he fired me. He was frightened I was a security risk with all them I.O.U.s floatin’ around waitin’ to be picked up by someone like you, Blayne. After I quit, he didn’t care what happened to me, long as I got out of Austin.” He suddenly snapped his fingers. “But, by hell, there is one reason he could’ve sent this hombre after me at that: he could’ve been sent to kill me.”
Blayne frowned. “How come?”
“Because of what I know. I worked for Dukes for quite a spell, you know. Did him some personal favors that never appear in any of the reports. Could be he figured I knew a little too much and sent Bannerman after me to shut my mouth for keeps.”
Blayne nodded slowly, figuring this theory had some merit. He nudged Yancey firmly in the ribs. “That it? That why you’re here?”
Yancey glared back, flicked his gaze to Cato. “It’s his story.”
Wyatt drove a boot toe against Yancey’s spine again and the big Enforcer groaned and fell onto his side. He was a long time straightening up this time, his face lined and gray with pain.
“I want your story,” Blayne said easily. “We’re close to the river here, mister. You ever tried breathin’ underwater?” Yancey’s eyes widened slightly with what looked like a touch of fear and he glanced around at the hard-faced group swiftly.
“All right,” he sighed. “All right. Dukes didn’t send me. Like I said, he’s got no interest in him at all. He figures Cato let him down—which the runt did—and I figure the same thing. I figure too, he owes me some sort of explanation. We’d been pards for a damn long time and I was loco enough to figure that maybe there was somethin’ I could do to help him if he was in any kind of trouble. So I had a chore to do that took me through San Antone where I ran into a hombre with only one eye who told me he’d seen Cato ridin’ through Vernon with Wyatt here. But Cato was a prisoner, hands roped to the saddle horn. I finished my chore and, like the damn fool that I am, ignored Dukes’ orders to return to Austin and came after your bunch to see if Cato needed help.” He curled his lip at his former pard. “I see what a damn big mistake I made now. He don’t need help. He’s one of you; part of whatever you’re up to, and I’ve come all this way and stuck my neck out for nothing.” He looked steadily at Cato and said flatly, “And I mean nothing!”
Cato smiled crookedly. “Just like you, Yance! A loco fool, all stuffed up with heroics and morals and principles! Yeah, Blayne, I believe him now; that story makes sense, because I’ve seen him do the same sort of thing a dozen times, take all kinds of chances he didn’t need to, just to make sure everyone had an even break.”
“Plumb loco!” opined Wyatt and Yancey set his cold gaze on him.
“I’m still alive, Wyatt. And I’d sure admire the chance to give you an even break in a square-off.”
Wyatt stiffened and glanced swiftly at Blayne. “That’s okay with me. How about it, Steve? Just me and Bannerman! I’ve been wantin’ to test his speed for a long time. I just don’t believe any man’s as fast as they claim Bannerman is.”
Yancey started to climb to his feet. “Let’s find out.”
Blayne shoved Yancey roughly so that he sprawled back on the ground and shook his head at the frowning Wyatt. “Nope, I’m not taking any risks. That’s Chola’s horse that just wandered in, and it ain’t his saddle on it, so I figure Bannerman was speakin’ gospel when he said he killed Chola. Which makes him pretty good. And there’s his reputation: if he’s only half as fast as they say, we can use him.”
“Like hell!” snapped Wyatt.
“You’re loco!” snapped Cato, startled.
“We ain’t ridin’ with any lawman!” spoke up one of the others and there were protests from all around the fire.
Blayne held up a hand and said nothing until all the talk had died away. He looked at Yancey.
“It comes down to you in the end, mister. How do you feel about ridin’ with my bunch?”
“You don’t have to waste your breath asking me, Blayne.”
Blayne smiled crookedly. “Well, let’s put it this way ... I need all the fast guns I can get for this chore I’ve got comin’ up. You’ve accounted for one of my best men at a time when I can’t replace him, unless you step into his boots. And, if you don’t, you’re dead in a few minutes, Bannerman. So now how do you feel about ridin’ with my bunch?”
Yancey frowned and looked from Blayne to Wyatt, and then let his gaze travel slowly around the faces of the other gunfighters. They would all kill him willingly, he knew that. He let his eyes rest on Cato’s stony face. The small man’s eyes were like chips of flint and they held his gaze steadily.
“Time’s runnin’ out, Bannerman,” Blayne said. “You with us or against us?”
Yancey sighed. “Well, hell, you don’t give a man much choice, Blayne. I’ve no hankering to die, especially when I got into this mess on account of him.” He gestured at Cato. “I’ll ride along, wherever you’re going.”
Cato snorted. “Hell! Listen to him! Where’s your principles and high morals now, Yance? Eh? What happened to ’em? What happened to your oath of loyalty to Dukes and the sovereign state of Texas?”
Yancey looked at him coldly. “What happened to yours?” he countered.
Cato flushed and his hand dropped towards his gun butt. He shifted his gaze to Blayne. “You’re loco if you sign him on, Blayne. He won’t forget he’s a lawman just like that. He’ll make all kinds of trouble for all of us.”
Wyatt and the others agreed and Blayne patiently waited for them to get it out of their systems. Then he held up a hand and looked slowly around the circle. “Bannerman won’t make any trouble for us. You know why? Because we’ll all be watching him. Every last one of us. At the first sign of any smart moves or doing anything that could make trouble for us, he’s dead. Oh, yeah, he’ll get his gun back when we cross the Rio, but he won’t be able to watch eight different directions at once. And even he can’t dodge the bullet he don’t see coming.” Blayne turned back to look coldly down at Yancey. “You savvy how it’s gonna be, Bannerman?”
“You paint a mighty clear picture, Blayne,” Yancey told him wryly. “But what the hell is the job? Hold up a bank, or something?”
Blayne smiled faintly. “Nothin’ like that. I guess now that we’re at the Rio, it’s as good a time as any to tell you all what I got in mind and why I went to so much trouble to get you workin’ for me. I promised you all big money and I meant it. You’ll each walk out of this with between three and five grand apiece, depending on how many of us come back across the Rio.” He let that sink in and then continued, “For that kind of money you got to expect to take a risk or two, right? Well, you’ll be riskin’ your necks, all right, but the odds ain’t too bad.”
“Spell it out!” someone growled from the shadows.
“Sure. It’s simple. There’s a rancher down here on the border, name of Cash Collins. Got himself a big spread for cattle and he also runs a bunch of homesteads and sodbusters on his river-bottoms. Fertile land. And he seen how they were growin’ good market crops and so he figured to cash in on it. Which is how he got his name, cashin’ in on other folks’ money-makin’ schemes. He’s doin’ okay, but he wants to widen his profit margin. With wetbacks to labor in his fields.”
He paused and looked around at the surprised men, smiling faintly. “Not just his fields, I might add,” he went on. “He aims to supply cheap labor for all the farms along this stretch of the Rio.”
“Slave-labor!” Yancey put in flatly.
“Sure,” Blayne agreed, cold-eyed and tight-lipped. “Slave-labor. And if there are a few young greaser virgins amongst the lot we pick up, so much the better; we all earn ourselves a bonus.”
“Those who come back alive,” Yancey said.
“Sure. Those who come back. Like I said, that kind of money’s worth some risks.”
“What kind of risks?” asked Cato.
“We ride down into Mexico with Collins and maybe a few men he’s picked up. There’s a village there where there are plenty of young men and women. We hit it, and we hit it hard! We come out with as many men between sixteen and thirty as we can. We don’t bring anyone over forty.” He looked around slowly at each man, before looking directly at Yancey as he added, “And we don’t leave any witnesses. Clear?”
There was a short silence and then one by one the men nodded agreement. They understood the deal. Cato shrugged when Blayne looked at him and indicated that it was all right with him, adding, “If someone’s shootin’ at me or tryin’ to cut me up with a machete or reapin’ hook, I don’t much care about age or sex or anythin’ else, I aim to stop him.”
Blayne nodded. “That’s it: they’ll fight, but they ain’t got much to fight with, and we’ll come out with a good group, I reckon. Thing is, we can time our ride down to miss the Federale patrol, but comin’ back we just might run into it. That’s when the real fireworks’ll start. Then we could run into a Ranger patrol at the border, though I reckon Collins has got that part fixed. But there’s big dinero in this deal, and those of you who want to try again can stick around and I’ll set it up. Greasers ain’t worth a damn in their own neck of the woods but if we can turn ’em into cold hard cash, I reckon a man’d be loco not to try it. Now you know what we’re in for.”
“Except we don’t know where,” Cato said.
Blayne looked at him carefully. “You’ll find that out after we cross the Rio and rendezvous with Collins. How do you feel about it, Bannerman? Guess it’s the kind of job Dukes’ would send you on to bust up, huh?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve come up against slavers,” Yancey said, speaking to Blayne but looking at Cato. “You never professed to like ’em much before, Cato.”
Cato shrugged. “Never said I didn’t, either. Mexes are okay, but then so are most white men. I’ll fight either of ’em or redskins or negroes or Chinese, if I’m paid enough. Dukes was payin’ before, but nothin’ like what Blayne’s offerin’.” He turned to Blayne and indicated Yancey. “You’ll need to keep a close eye on him.”
“We will. If he doesn’t go in with gun blazin’, he’ll be shot down,” Blayne said easily. “You’ll see how he’ll change his ideas about ‘slaves’ when his life’s on the line.” He gestured to Wyatt. “Tie up Bannerman for the night.”
Wyatt smiled crookedly as he moved forward, taking out his six-gun and covering Yancey with it. Tying the Enforcer up was going to be a pleasure as far as Waco Wyatt was concerned.
~*~
After supper, Governor Dukes was relaxing in his private quarters at the mansion on Capitol Hill. He was feeling better than he had for some days now; Dr. Boles had, insisted that he rest, and Kate, too, had laid down the law until he had finally agreed to take things easy and to let her and the other mansion staff handle most of the routine work.
It had been a shrewd move on Kate’s part for she had been able to prevail upon Marnie Hendry to stay on and help nurse the governor for awhile. Marnie had done so reluctantly but had been pleased, just the same, at the opportunity to repay Dukes and Kate at least in part for their past kindnesses.
There was a knock on his door and Dukes looked up from the book he was reading and called, “Come in.” He swung his legs down from the sofa when the door opened and admitted both Kate and Marnie. He smiled. “Well, good evening, ladies. I’d stand and greet you except I’m afraid I’d get a cussin’-out from my nurse and she’d make me sit again, pronto.”
“Quite right, too,” Kate said and Marnie smiled faintly.
She was pale and there was a puffiness under her eyes that told the world she had not been sleeping any too well. The women came across and sat down opposite the governor.
“Well, ladies,” Dukes said, “this is an honor. What can I do for you?”
Marnie and Kate exchanged glances and then Kate looked levelly at her father. “Well, Dad, as you know, Marnie’s most upset by what’s happened to Johnny, the way he’s let her down and so on. She’s finding it hard to adjust here, where she spent so much time with him, making wedding plans and so on.”
Dukes frowned and looked uneasy, flicking his gaze to Marnie. “I’m—I’m aware of this, Marnie, and I’m right sorry about it. I wish there was something I could do.”
“Perhaps there is, Governor,” Marnie said quietly. She paused for a moment and then looked Dukes directly in the eye as she said, “I’ve—I’ve been hearing from Kate and Yancey Bannerman and Dr. Boles and many other people in your employ that the way Johnny has acted has been right out of character for him. I’m willing to concede that a man with such a reputation as he has for being a ladies’ man might have got cold feet at the thought of marriage, but I think it would have been only temporary. But what I just can’t believe is that Johnny would suddenly start drinking heavily and gambling to the extent that he got himself so deeply in debt that you felt your security was at risk and you had to fire him.”
“Marnie, my dear,” Dukes said kindly, “I’m afraid you flatter yourself somewhat. John had started drinking heavily and gambling, even writing I.O.U.s before he met you. It’s not a sudden thing; it’s been gradually building up over a period of months. Most people hadn’t even noticed it but I have to notice these things in my employees. In any case, he has a past history of being an inveterate gambler and heavy drinker and, I’m afraid, a womanizer.”
Kate looked sharply at her father. “Dad, I’ve been back over Johnny’s files. I’ve had access to them since I’ve been doing some of your duties. Nowhere could I find, on the original, anything at all about a past history of inveterate gambling as you call it, or heavy drinking. Certainly there is reference to him throwing wild and woolly wing-dings, but really no more wild or woolly than Yancey has thrown, though maybe in a different way. And there is nothing at all about Johnny Cato ever signing I.O.U.s either here or at Laramie or anywhere else. And yet I know the file you showed Yancey had all the information that helped convince him Johnny had kicked over the traces. Though personally, I don’t think he was fully convinced. What I’m saying, Dad, is that I think Johnny Cato has been set up for some reason, on an undercover job so secret that you didn’t even let Yancey in on it. Now, if this is so, I think you owe Marnie the truth.”
Dukes looked at a point about midway between the two women and he slowly closed his book and started to reach for his jacket pocket but stopped his hand halfway and let it drop back to his lap. He smiled faintly. “I forgot. Cigar smoking is banned in my delicate condition. But I could sure use one right now, ladies, I surely could.”
“No cigar, Dad. Dr. Boles’ orders. Please don’t stall any longer. You must see the agony that Marnie is going through.”
Dukes looked at the girl and he nodded soberly. “Of course I can,” he said quietly. “And I’m very sorry for all the emotional upsets you’ve suffered, Marnie. Believe me, if there had been any other way—”
“Another way, Governor?” Marnie asked tightly. “You mean that John was acting all along? That he—he let me go through all this—for the sake of a—a job?”
She was trembling, emotion edging her voice, her back stiff, eyes moist. Kate put a hand on her arm but she was looking steadily at Dukes.
The governor sighed heavily and nodded very slightly. “I’m very sorry, Marnie, but it was necessary. We had to make sure that Steve Blayne absolutely believed that Cato was going downhill and therefore was vulnerable to blackmail and so able to be coerced into joining his group. You see, we knew he was gathering a bunch of gunfighters around him, but we didn’t know why and we thought the best thing to do was to put a man in there with them. Cato was the logical choice, because of his reputation for carousing.”
“Yes,” Marnie broke in, her mouth and tone bitter. “The logical choice! And it didn’t matter who else got hurt, did it? Just as long as his reputation was soiled and he was able to join these—these vermin!”
Dukes moved uneasily and looked at Kate appealingly. He was surprised to see that there was no sympathy for him there; she stared back at him with cold, accusing eyes.