THE PIANO WAS a battered upright without a front and with several keys missing altogether; another two or three were present but made no sound when depressed other than a faint hiss and a fainter click. The top of the instrument was scarred with cigarette burns and innumerable glass stains, as well as having been used to light so many matches that its sides and corners were a plethora of tiny stripes. Several deep incisions had been made into it by knives and a bayonet and, on one memorable occasion, a cutlass which its present owner claimed had once been the property of the pirate, Blackbeard.
At the precise moment that Jonas Strong entered the cantina where the piano was resident, it was being treated comparatively well—when set against the other atrocities which had been committed against its person—by a one-eyed octaroon with only three fingers on his right hand. Which, if you considered the matter at all, made piano and player remarkably well suited to one another.
The pianist’s left hand strode across the octaves while his left picked out as many of the notes of melody as the keyboard would allow him. As long as you were tone deaf, or weren’t too keen on whistling along, it was okay. And very few of the occupants of the cantina seemed to notice the instrument at all—other than to strike their matches on it, leave their glasses on it, from time to time take a passing kick at it out of spite and not as a comment upon its musical nature.
If Mexico were a musical nation, you would never know it from the people of Tres Cruces.
Strong stood inside the door for a few moments, letting his eyes become accustomed to the patchy, smoke-strewn light and then quickly searching the crowd for any sign of obvious friend or foe. There were a couple of Mexicans arguing over a bottle of tequila up by the far wall who had the appearance of men who might know more about guns than they did about music—but as Strong was one of the first to admit, appearances weren’t everything. Near to the center of the room, four men leaned forward over a heavy wood table and played some breed of poker, two of them Mexes, one who could have been American and the fourth looking more Chinese than anything. Except that he was taller, that was clear even when he was sitting, than any Chinaman Strong had ever clapped eyes on.
The rest of the occupants seemed to be your normal Friday night cantina crowd. Though again that word ‘seemed’ somehow stuck in Jonas Strong’s craw.
If you were lucky enough to live past twenty-five, you knew that what seemed to be so usually was not. If you lived past thirty you were damned sure of it. Jonas Strong was past thirty. He waited at the door a while longer and then walked casually towards the bar. As casually as a man with his kind of armament could walk anywhere. He was wearing a long slicker which fell past both the sawn-off and the pistol, but they constricted a man when he moved, the weight of them, their presence. With those weapons tied to his sides, Strong was no more than twice as fast as the next man. Unless that next man was going to be Cade Onslow, and from what he’d seen so far, Onslow hadn’t yet arrived.
Strong moved between two men and summoned the bartender with a look. ‘Shot of whisky.’
The barkeep nodded and reached for a glass, noticed a mark on it, wet his finger and wiped it carefully away. Satisfied, he uncorked a bottle with his teeth and poured a measure into the glass. Strong shrugged and tossed a coin onto the counter. Who was he to complain if the help practiced hygiene?
‘Ain’t seen you around?’ said the bartender in a strange mixture of Mex and American.
‘That so.’
‘Sure, I think, everyone I know. You ...’ The man nodded into Strong’s face. ‘ ... I ain’t seen before.’
Strong leaned towards him and said confidentially. ‘That’s cause I ain’t been here before.’
‘Yeah, I knew that. You see, I was right. Never forget a face.’
He poured a couple of tips of whisky into Strong’s glass and leaned his elbows on the slops on the counter. ‘Tell me, who you look for?’
Strong drank some of the whisky down and grimaced when it hit the back of his throat. ‘No one.’
‘Come, amigo, no one come to Tres Cruces for a vacation.’ The bartender surprised himself by laughing. Someone down the counter shouted for a drink and was waved silent. ‘You come for reason. Or else you are lost.’ He straightened up and grinned gap-toothed at Strong. ‘I don’t think that, I think a man such as you, he ain’t lost.’
Strong watched that barkeep go along and serve a few impatient customers. It would have been easy for him to have shifted away and amongst the tables, but there were good reasons for remaining where he was. For one thing it gave him a better view of the cantina and its occupants than anywhere else; for another he was beginning to wonder if the barkeep’s half-foolish chatter might in fact be leading somewhere. So when the man returned, Strong was still in the same place, except that his back was half-turned. ‘Señor.’
‘Yeah?’
‘You tell me now?’
‘What?’
‘What you do here? Who you come to see?’
Strong faced him and the movement was so fast the bartender stumbled back and banged into a clutch of bottles back of the counter. ‘I told you, I didn’t come to see no one. You got that?’
‘Sure, sure. I only thought ...’
‘You didn’t think.’
‘No. No, señor. You right. I didn’t think. No. Thinking ain’t my business.’
‘What is?’
The bartender’s eyes wavered nervously. He started to shift sideways till a look from Strong stopped him. ‘I work here, sell drink, you know what is my business.’
Strong nodded. ‘You mean if I come in here with a pick on my back, that’d make me some kind of miner?’
The bartender blinked, failing to understand.
‘You got nothin’ else to say?’ Strong asked.
The man gave a hasty shake of the head.
‘In that case, I’ll tell you what I’m doin’ here.’ The bartender relaxed a little, stepped closer, tried to smile. ‘I come to tune the piano.’
‘Señor,’ the barkeep protested. ‘You make fun of me.’
‘What d’you mean? You ain’t heard how out of tune that damned thing is?’
‘Sí, sí, but you are not ...’
He stopped, open-mouthed, as Strong pulled back one side of his slicker fast. The barkeep got a quick glimpse of Strong’s Browning pump gun hanging between right arm and hip, and his eyes looked fit to spring from their sockets.
‘One tickle with that,’ said Strong with a good-humored wink, ‘and that old piano’ll be fixed for once an’ for all.’ And with that remark he turned his back on the bartender and leaned back against the bar, cradling the rest of the whisky in his left hand. Either it would draw something interesting or it wouldn’t; no harm either way. At least, he hoped not.
Men came and went and none of them were Onslow. The four in the center of the room carried on with their game and from the sounds and the gestures it appeared that the tall Chinaman was winning. Over at the back the pair of Mexicans had settled that first quarrel and several more and the tequila was all but gone from their bottle. On each side of Strong, men asked for service and sort of got it. Where in Hell’s name was Onslow?
It had been a long time since the Major had been with a woman. Too damned long and even then it had been snatched and sordid and he’d regretted the waste of time and money almost before it had been over. As it was he could never lay with anyone now and not think about what had happened to his Mexican wife. Young and beautiful and the two of them but recently wed and she’d had her life torn off at the root by a bunch of Federales who treated her worse than a stray bitch. Well, God was his witness, Onslow had taken his revenge in enough places and enough ways and there were Federales and Rurales strewn from the border down almost to Mexico City, their bodies either under dirt and rocks and picked clean by buzzards and coyotes so that all that remained were whitened bones bleaching under the heat of the damn sun. Still, the ache stayed and Onslow had come to know—if he hadn’t instinctively known it already—that you can’t get rid of hurt and loss through the smoking end of a .45.
Neither can you slake lust with your own right hand.
The woman had been prettier than most and a sight younger than many and she looked as if she wouldn’t be carrying disease and that was as much as a man could expect. More. He’d followed her out of the cantina and down the street, along an alley and up the back stairs to the two-story hotel. There had been a clean blanket on the bed and water in the jug, a candle on the table which she had lit and when she had pulled her blouse up over her head her breasts had been uptilted and firm and their nipples had been rich brown and erect. She had poured the water into the bowl and when he dropped his pants, she had insisted upon washing him, smiling and younger now that they were closer together.
He had hardened in her hand.
The money had lain on the rickety bedside table alongside them and the bed had squeaked and Onslow had sweated and the woman had clung to him with her legs round his back and for several minutes Onslow had forgotten about his dead wife, forgotten about his meeting with Jonas Strong, forgotten about the Colt Automatic whose holster and belt were hanging from the bed post, forgotten everything but the sweet warmth, sweet and strong, drawing him, squeezing him, taking him. Eyes shut tight, mouth open, words calling, falling senseless and crude and loving and—
‘Oh, my sweet Christ!’
Onslow’s back arched and his legs straightened and his buttocks clenched; beneath him the woman shuddered and her mouth opened too, but wordlessly, silently, her eyes open and looking at him, foolish and stupid and blind as all men were at this moment. Blind and helpless, like poor, simple children. Whoever they were, however strong, their passion always brought them to this moment of vulnerability. She smiled into the pained blankness of his gringo face. If there were a God, she thought, then surely she was a woman to have designed a moment such as this. No man, knowing everything, would ever have made such a thing, permitted such a betrayal of his sex.
Onslow relaxed and she put her arms round him and pulled the blanket up over her legs and back, admiring his body as she did so. She could tell that he was no longer young and yet he kept himself firm and strong. The muscles at the backs of his legs, the lack of slackness in his buttocks stirred her even then, in the act of covering him.
But she knew that he would never be able to respond now, that he would rest and withdraw and probably regret.
Onslow did all of those things, but this time the regret was small and passing. She rolled two cigarettes and lit them and they lay side by side in the narrow bed and smoked and talked a few scattered sentences which meant nothing but which drew them, for those minutes, closer together than the passion which had been spent.
The woman put out her cigarette and as Onslow leaned away from her to do the same she pressed her breasts against his back and reached her hand between his legs. He jumped at the touch and turned and she smiled and refused to move her fingers away; moved them instead in other ways and he became hard once more.
This time there was no money between them and she moved him so that he was on top of her and she could see his face and he was not in such a ridiculous position. Also he could thrust deeper within her and this time both pairs of eyes closed and both voices called out, a mixture of Mexican and American, and rose and subsided together.
When Onslow pulled on his clothes, she watched him from the head of the bed, where she was sitting naked and cross-legged.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That was—hell, that was so good!’
She smiled: ‘Yes, it was good.’
‘I wouldn’t spoil it if I sweetened the pot a little?’ asked Onslow, glancing at the bills on the small table.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘A little money never hurt me, my friend. I have to earn my living the same as you.’
Onslow shrugged as he buckled his gun belt. ‘Maybe not quite the same.’
He took a couple of bills from his pocket and placed them on top of the others; pulled on his vest and then set his hat at a slight angle on his head. He had a short wool coat and he set that on, too, pulling out his watch and seeing that he was late to meet Strong. If the negro had been able to make Tres Cruces on time. He grinned and wondered if Jonas would understand; he doubted if he’d tell him. Exchanging tall tales about his sexual exploits didn’t interest Onslow over much—that could be left to Yates McCloud and his like.
The smile vanished from his face.
‘What is it?’ asked the woman.
‘Nothing.’
And probably that was true. But Onslow was thinking about McCloud and whether he’d been successful in infiltrating the Gomez bunch long enough to get a good look round, size up their strength and their camp. He wondered if Yates had been able to get inside and out again without being suspected for what he was.
A damned gringo spy!
‘You are going away from town?’ the woman asked as Onslow neared the door.
‘Tomorrow, maybe.’
‘You have business here? Someone to meet?’
He looked back at her and didn’t answer, just stared.
‘I am sorry, I was not trying to find out what I should not know. It is only that there have been other Americanos passing through Tres Cruces, on their way to Durango. I thought they might be your friends.’
Onslow hadn’t moved. ‘What others?’
‘Men with cars. They stay here long enough to eat, drink, to buy a woman.’ Her body shuddered and not with pleasure as a memory passed across her memory.
‘You went with these men?’ There was a new urgency in Onslow’s voice which came close to frightening her.
‘Two of them.’
‘You know their names?’
She shook her head: no.
‘You can describe them?’
The woman uncrossed her legs and pulled the blanket up over them; she drew a blouse across her shoulders. ‘One was young, good looking in a gringo way except he had not shaved and he smelt of something he had been eating, strong, I do not know, not chilies but strong.’
‘And the other?’
‘Him I have reason to remember better. What he wanted me to do was not normal, not what most men would wish.’
‘You did it?’ Onslow asked, knowing that it was none of his business, somehow wanting to know.
For a moment the woman looked away. ‘I say before. I have to earn a living.’
Onslow nodded, ‘Sure. Sure. And the man. This second man, what of him?’
‘He was not a young man, not old. His hair was white, almost white, his face it was ...’ She struggled for the right words. ‘... like that of a man who spends too much of his time in the dark. It was pale, like the face of a corpse.’ Again her body shuddered and her eyes reflected whatever terror she remembered with this man. ‘He wore white, that I remember also. A white coat, pants, his shirt was white and fine material, his underwear, everything so white.’
Onslow nodded once again: ‘He come in a big black car, long at the front?’
‘I do not know. I know there was a car but I did not see.’
It didn’t matter; Onslow had seen the car. Not many times but enough to understand what it had come to signify.
‘You know this man?’
‘Sure,’ Onslow said. ‘I know him.’
‘He is not your friend?’
‘No, he ain’t exactly that.’
Her eyes hovered over Onslow’s holster like a dark hand about to plunge and strike. ‘You will kill him?’
Onslow smiled, tight-lipped. ‘I sure as hell hope so. One day, if I live to do nothing else.’
The woman slipped off the bed and began to dress. Onslow watched her, finding her body attractive and sensing the stirring of desire yet again. But whatever feeling remained inside him, he knew that now it had to be changed into something different, it had to be saved for Hiram Bender and others like him.
‘You know where he was going?’ Onslow asked. ‘I mean, exactly?’
‘You understand, a man such as this one he does not talk with a woman like me.’
Onslow understood.
‘But I think the younger one, he, too, was going to Durango.’
‘Uh-huh, and you got no idea why?’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’
Onslow set his hand to the door. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘Real care.’
‘I shall try.’ She looked full into his face. ‘You will come back?’
Onslow could only stare; senseless to lie, useless to pretend to know.
The woman shrugged her shoulders lightly and turned towards the bowl of water, allowing Onslow to close the door. She listened for some moments to his feet descending the stairs, another door opening and closing. She remembered the man with the white suit and hoped almost more than anything else in the world that this gringo would find him, come face to face and kill him; she hoped that the bullets tore into his belly and that he died slowly; she wanted him to know the real meaning of pain before he was white and dead.
Jonas Strong leaned sideways against the counter and watched from the corner of one eyes as the barkeep and the tall Chinaman exchanged more words than was necessary to order another round of drinks. Heading back towards the card table, the Chinese glanced at Strong and his already narrow eyes became slits through which no light seemed to penetrate. It was like looking at a blind man.
Strong moved his hand underneath the cover of his slicker, touching the stock of the Browning, as much for luck as anything else.
The Chinaman sat down and talked earnestly to the others for some moments, one of the Mexicans turning in his chair and looking directly at Strong while his hands continued to shuffle the cards.
The Browning was large and secure against the underside of Strong’s arm. He gauged the distance between where he was standing and the door; between himself and the four men. With a certain degree of luck, one blast of shot from the sawn-down barrel should be enough to stop all of them, three at least. It was fifteen feet to the first table that would give him cover, another fifteen to the door.
But it didn’t have to be that way.
The cantina door swung back and Strong saw that it wouldn’t be that way at all. Cade Onslow pushed his way inside and blinked with the change of light, spotted Strong almost immediately, gave the room a check as he was walking towards the bar.
‘Major.’
‘Jonas.’
The two exchanged a handshake, quick and firm, before Onslow called for a beer.
‘Okay?’ he asked, glancing at the big negro.
‘Depends.’
‘Uh-huh. On what?’
‘See those four fellers at the cards?’
Onslow turned easily, one elbow resting on the bar. ‘Yeah. What of ’em?’
‘I ain’t sure. But this one back of the bar asked me a few too many questions ’bout what I was doin’ and such, an’ then he spoke to the Chinese down there. They been talking a powerful amount of interest ever since.’
‘Recognize any of them?’
Strong shook his head. ‘Uh-uh.’
Onslow drank half of his glass of beer and made a face at the sound of the piano. ‘You here long?’
Strong grinned. ‘Long enough.’
‘Don’t that noise drive you crazy?’
‘Sure don’t help none.’
Onslow shook his head again and drank some more of his beer, which tasted soapy and warm and had a good half inch of muck floating around at the bottom of the glass.
‘You see trouble gettin’ here?’ Strong asked in a quiet voice.
‘Not recent. Why?’
‘Tain’t like you to be late.’
Onslow nodded. ‘Business,’ he said, turning away slightly, as if to look at the man walking out through the door.
‘Learn anything?’
‘Some. There’ve been Americans coming through here. Heading for Durango—maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ Strong raised an eyebrow.
‘Seems likely.’
‘And from there to Gomez?’
Onslow turned back to the bar and ordered another beer. ‘Could be,’ he replied to Strong.
‘Names?’
‘Uh-uh, but one sounds like our man.’
‘Bender?’
‘Yeah.’
Strong leaned against the edge of the bar and whistled. ‘Now ain’t that something?’
‘Could be what we need.’
‘To be sure, you mean?’
Onslow nodded. ‘Though it’s one hell of a thing to be sure of.’
‘Yeah. A bitch.’
Onslow finished his second beer and nodded in the direction of the poker players. ‘How ’bout your friends? How d’you figure them?’
‘No way of being certain, but I don’t call ’em for Gomez men. I reckon they’re freelancing. Taking what they can here and there.’
‘They goin’ to take you?’
The negro shrugged, his bald head beaded now with sweat. ‘Could be, before you come along. Now I ain’t so sure.’
‘You want to go on over, flush ’em out?’
‘No call. We could bide our time up the street, though, see what sort of interest they got in us once our backs are turned.’
‘Right,’ agreed Onslow. ‘Let’s do it.’
They walked out taking their time, careful not to look at the tall Chinaman and his friends, nor to appear in any way anxious. Once on the street, Strong untied his horse from the hitching rail and the Major’s as well; while he led them off towards the shadows on the far side, Onslow slipped back into the alleyway at the right of the cantina. They didn’t have long to wait. One of the two Mexicans came out first, his colleague close at his back. After them, it was the American and the Chinese, side by side. Two went right, two left and none of their hands were ever far from their guns.
Onslow flattened himself against the wall as one of the Mexicans and the American walked past along the edge of the street, walking soft and peering into the shadows. They didn’t peer hard enough to see Onslow and carried on their way.
Jonas Strong was standing between the animals, both hands over their noses, keeping them quiet. The Chinaman and the Mex got to within twelve feet before they saw the outlines of the horses and then they stopped dead and went for their guns. In their haste and surprise they didn’t notice Onslow slow-footing up behind them.
‘Don’t!’ It was a whispered command, but there was sufficient authority in it to freeze two hands on two gun butts.
Jonas Strong smiled and stepped out of the shadow. His hands were no longer concerned with the animals; they were full of shotgun.
Onslow carried on moving and relieved the men of their weapons and tucked them down into his belt.
‘Get your hands up back of your heads.’
There wasn’t any arguing.
‘You!’ Onslow pushed the Colt barrel far enough into the Chinaman’s side for him to be in no doubt who was meant.
‘Yeah?’
‘Call your friends in.’
There was the least hesitation and that was terminated by a mite more pressure from the Colt.
‘Hey, over here! Quick!’
There was a muffled reply and the sound of men running through the darkness of the street, into the dull light from the windows and door of the cantina and then into dark and shadow again. When they emerged into light once more they were staring down the barrel ends of a Colt Automatic and a Browning shotgun.
‘Santa Maria!’
‘Holy Jesus!’
Such fine religious sentiments brought them no favors.
‘Drop your guns,’ ordered Strong, ‘or I’ll spread this right through the pair of you.’
‘Okay, now,’ said Onslow, ‘what do you want with us?’
There were a lot of glances and half-finished gestures but not a single word. Strong pulled the Chinaman round until the end of the sawn-off barrel was pushing into the flat of his stomach.
‘Can you count?’ asked Strong.
‘Sure.’
‘Fine. Then count to three.’
The Chinaman’s face twitched and his eyes widened just as far as they were able, which wasn’t very far at all.
‘An’ if nobody’s spoke by the time you reach three, your insides ain’t goin’ to be that no more.’
The Chinaman breathed deeply, glanced at his friends, looked at the shotgun as though he might have been about to take a crack at knocking it aside, and then slowly, reluctantly said: ‘One.’
Strong smiled broadly. ‘Good boy! You did go to school once.’
‘Two.’ The word dragged from the man’s mouth.
Strong let his finger rest a little more obviously against the inside of the trigger guard.
‘Th ...’
‘Thought you was one of Gomez’ men,’ said the American quickly, the words tumbling out, slipping over one another. ‘Knew he’d been sending out word and thought you was with him. Come to Tres Cruces lookin’ for recruits.’
‘You did, huh?’
‘That’s right. As God’s my word.’
The Chinaman seemed unable to take his eyes from the gun that was still poked into his stomach; seemed almost unable to breathe.
‘What you reckon, Major?’ asked Strong.
‘Could be something in it. Then again he could be lyin’. Myself, I’d choose the latter.’
‘Oh, God!’ The Chinaman swayed a few inches back and the man who’d been doing the talking pushed up close to Onslow.
‘What I said’s the truth,’ he said. ‘We been here four days now, playing five card stud and looking over everyone with a gun as comes in. We figured your buddy here, he was the man. Bartender back in the cantina, he reckoned it could be that way.’
Onslow nodded slowly, looking the man over. He stood a couple of inches under six foot and weighed around a hundred and fifty; there was an old-looking Colt .45 holstered high on his right hip. He’d seen more than forty years and a lot of them hard, to judge by the lines on his face and hollowness back of the eyes. Onslow wondered what had finally driven him down south of the border, teamed him up with this crew; he wondered what he thought he’d get out of joining up with a man like Christo Gomez other than dead.
‘How come you didn’t just ride up to Durango, on up into the hills from there? Find this Gomez yourself?’
‘Feller twenty miles south of here, he was the one gave us the word. He said Gomez put a man into Tres Cruces every week or so, looking for likely men. Said that was what to do. Said if we tried to find him up in them hills we’d get a bullet in the back of our heads likely as not.’
Onslow nodded; that was as true as anything else he’d heard.
He glanced at Strong and said, ‘I guess they could be telling it straight.’
‘Maybe.’ The negro gave the Chinaman a baleful look before putting up the Browning. In front of him, the tall Chinese exhaled slowly through his mouth and nose and then stumbled a couple of paces back.
‘You ain’t Gomez’ men?’ asked the American.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Who are you then?’
Onslow looked blankly back at him and Strong grinned. ‘We’re who we are,’ said Onslow, ‘and that’s all you need to know.’
‘No one else been through,’ Strong asked quickly, ‘as you reckoned might be them you’re lookin’ for?’
The man shook his head.
‘You goin’ to wait now or move on?’
The four men looked uncertain, murmured a few sentences amongst themselves. Around them the night seemed to thicken and the lights from the cantina down the street were as indistinct as those of a ship seen through mist. There was hardly any other sound.
‘We’ll give it another couple of days.’
‘And then?’
‘Maybe ride up Durango way, anyhow.’
Onslow started to lift the guns he’d taken from his belt and when they were in his hands he paused. ‘This feller you met, he say why Gomez was wanting extra men?’
The American shook his head.
‘Guess it’s the revolution,’ suggested the Chinaman, ‘could be he lose his men to fight.’
Onslow nodded. ‘Could be. One side or the other.’
The men looked at him curiously. He handed the two back their guns and they holstered them with a mumbled and indistinct thanks.
‘Maybe you’d best head back to the cantina,’ offered Onslow. ‘Play a few more hands of poker.’
Strong smiled broadly. ‘If you’re real lucky, Gomez won’t send anyone down to Tres Cruces at all and you’ll be able to ride on out and forget all about it.’
The four backed off until they were half way across the street and fading into shadow. Then they turned and started to walk, the sound of their boots on the hard earth of the street following them towards the yellow lights of the cantina.
‘How ’bout us, Major?’ asked Jonas Strong, a few moments later.
‘We got all we can here. We know Gomez wants more guns; we know Bender an’ a few more are likely meetin’ up with him. Now we got to get closer. We also got to meet Yates before he thinks we ain’t coming.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed the negro, emphatically, ‘long as he got himself out in one damned piece.’
‘And that,’ said Onslow, ‘might be a whole sight harder than getting in.’