CADE ONSLOW SAT in the lounge of the hotel, arms spread wide across the sides of the easy chair. Brown coat sleeves against moss green upholstery. A copy of the Houston newspaper lay rolled on the floor by his right boot. Onslow had already read it several times—the sections that he wanted to read.
Didn’t want to read.
Despite growing pressures from a number of senators, Woodrow Wilson was still insisting that the embargo on exporting arms into Mexico remain. The American Ambassador to Mexico was strongly in favor of supporting the government of General Victoriano Huerta. This for obvious and definite reasons. Firm government meant stable trading and the extent of American investment in Mexico was vast and still growing.
Not only did the rebel groups wish to overthrow the existing government, they seemingly wanted to arrange for a redistribution of wealth away from foreign investors and towards the Mexican people.
Unthinkable!
Now the vast herds of Hearst cattle were rustled by Pancho Villa’s bandits and sold across the border for arms and ammunition. The trains that should have been making profits for the owners of American bonds were doing little but shunt numbers of troops from one skirmish to another.
The voices of such as William Randolph Hearst and oil magnate Albert B. Fall, clamored loud and long for armed intervention on behalf of Huerta’s government. Woodrow Wilson would not be influenced to that extent, but neither would he align himself with those who saw the best chance for eventual peace in backing the opposition to Huerta.
So, for now, the embargo stayed.
It was an offence to buy arms in the United States and take them south of the border into Mexico.
Which was why Cade Onslow was beginning to feel more than a little anxious. Three days ago he had arrived in Galveston with three men: their objective—to purchase arms. They had gone onto the island singly, had made the journey from two different places on the border. Laredo and Matamoros.
It had taken Onslow less than a day to find the man he wanted. Another day of haggling over the price. Now there were crates waiting in a warehouse on the edge of the harbor. Wooden crates nailed fast and each one held again by a double steel band. Inside the wood there was thick, oiled paper. Inside that ...
Hawkins machine-guns.
Winchester ’95s.
Colt .45 automatics.
Colt Lightning .38s.
Shells. Shells. Shells.
Onslow coughed and uncrossed his legs, recrossing them the other way. For a comfortable chair, it sure was starting to feel damned uncomfortable.
The salesman had picked the place—the second best hotel in town. The time also. Now he was twenty five minutes late and Cade Onslow’s temper was burning on a short fuse.
In the inside pocket of his coat a large number of dollar bills weighed heavily. Under the flap of his coat the pistol bulged from its brown leather holster.
Onslow went tense as he saw the shape of a Texas Ranger through the lace curtain at the side of the window to the street. The Ranger seemed to hesitate, then turn his head and look into the hotel lounge. Onslow steadied his breathing, did not allow his own head to move, but looked back, seeing the Ranger’s face yet not seeing it. Not wishing to make his interest seem too obvious.
After a few moments, the Ranger stepped away and began walking down the street. Onslow released his breath slowly.
The fingers of his right hand clenched and unclenched.
He checked his watch: if the man didn’t come after half an hour he would leave and try to make contact later.
Onslow bent down and picked up the newspaper again, flipping over the pages, one to the other, glancing at the beginnings of columns and then passing on.
There were too many other things to think about. Not just what was happening here, in Galveston. What was to follow.
The arms had to be shipped south, to Vera Cruz. From there they had to be taken across land to where Zapata was waiting south of Mexico City.
Zapata: he only knew of him by name; name and rumor. Onslow remembered Villa’s face when he had spoken of him—a mixture of scorn and admiration. A fighter, yes, but what does he do with the land he conquers? His men stop and farm it!
A farmer!
A peasant farmer!
Yet behind his laugh and loud voice, Onslow had seen something in Villa’s attitude that was deeper. As if Zapata were doing things Villa failed to understand yet thought that he should. As if he were mining silver and somehow missing the gold.
The paper dropped from Onslow’s fingers. The Texas Ranger had come back to the hotel; he stood in the foyer now, and not alone. There was another Ranger with him. They stood talking, every now and then glancing one way into the lounge, the other way into the long bar.
Onslow was certain they were paying more than casual attention to himself.
He stood up slowly, unbuttoning the front of his coat and stretching his arms. He began to walk through the lounge, towards the two Rangers. Tall, well-built; his back straight after years in the United States Army. A thick, black moustache the distinguishing feature of his face. Eyes that were hard and cold.
Onslow pushed open the glass door that led into the foyer. One of the Rangers turned his head, then half his body towards him, looking directly into Onslow’s face. As if trying to remember ... to recognize ...
Onslow stopped and reached into his left side pocket; he took out a small cigar and placed it between his lips, biting off the end. Inclining his head, he spat the end piece neatly into a brass cuspidor standing in the corner. Then he stepped closer to the Rangers.
‘Got a light?’
They both looked at him then, an inch or so shorter than Onslow, though they were tall men.
The one who had been paying Onslow a deal of attention pulled a match out and struck it against the butt of his gun, holding the flame in front of Onslow’s face.
Onslow bent forward and drew on the cigar.
‘Much obliged.’
‘Sure.’
He stepped between them and went on across the foyer and into the bar. It was midway full, mostly middle-aged men wearing suits and empty expressions.
Onslow took a stool by the bar and ordered a beer. From there he could see the entrance to the hotel and through into the lounge.
There were four minutes to go.
The Kid had taken a small room on the top floor of one of the waterfront hotels. For one thing it was out of the way of the busier parts of the town. For another it was cheap—which didn’t mean that the Kid had little money.
No. There had been a fairly substantial payment for the delivery of guns to Jesus Sanchez. And the delivery to Villa himself. It was simply that there were other things on which Jamie Durham wished to spend his dollars.
Less easily here than in the small towns along the border—or in Mexico itself. But Galveston was a port and in such places it is possible to buy anything. If the price is right.
Jamie had taken his time. One man had tried to hustle him some stuff that was so impure Jamie had been forced to teach him a lesson. He had thrown him back against the alley wall and held him there with his left hand. With his right he had taken the switch blade knife from its place inside his boot.
The slight click of the blade mechanism had been loud in the narrow space.
Jamie had cut the man’s face from the underside of the nose, up between the nostrils and round the bone to the beginning of the forehead.
High scream of pain and then the drip, drip of blood on to stone.
High.
Jamie lay on the bed, his back and shoulders propped against the flaking plaster of the wall. His eyes were closed: the blinds were pulled down over the windows, only thin lines of light escaped into the room around the edges. A dust of stale air from beneath the door. Even in the darkness, the ugly scar that distorted one side of his face was all too evident. Twisted flesh, seared and dead, that spread from eye to mouth like a malignant, purple growth.
Jamie opened his eyes slowly: his left sleeve was rolled up. A film of sweat covered his face. He took the length of leather and wrapped it about his arm, tightening it to choke off the flow of blood.
Then the hypodermic.
Point of the needle against the quivering skin. Held there, waiting: the final second. Like the instant before pushing into the cleft of a woman.
The needle pierced the skin and immediately a tiny bubble of blood appeared alongside it. Jamie closed his eyes again. Squeezed.
Mouth open, tongue against the ridge of his mouth, back of his teeth, darting into the air like a lizard between layers of dry rock. Jamie released the plunger and eased the hypodermic needle out of his arm. The length of leather loosened and began to unwind. The Kid’s body slid down the bed. He was only vaguely aware of time, of minutes, seconds passing on a clock face that seemed to be pressing hard upon his face, then fading, fading ...
Jamie Durham was at peace.
Peace.
Yates McCloud had not liked the idea of returning to Galveston. Not at all. There were many things against it. Too many things. One in particular.
He raised the glass of Jim Beam to his lips and tasted the slightly sour bourbon on the back of his throat.
Venetta Chance.
Eighteen years of age and beautiful. Everything that a Southern lady should be. A Southern belle. More at home in New Orleans than Galveston. Dresses that swept the ground where she walked. Laces and crinolines. Organdy. Perfume of honeysuckle. Other scents imported by her family from Paris.
She had enjoyed his company, allowed him to wine and dine her and always kept him at arm’s length. A smile that was half a simper when he helped her down from the carriage.
Laughing she had offered him her hand to kiss. Her gloved hand. Soft feel of kid against his mouth. The softer down of her arms above it.
Taunting. Teasing.
One night there had been no moon; the stars were few. McCloud had won handsomely at the tables, drunk heavily. She had averted her pretty face from the smell of liquor on his breath. The look of distaste on her face had been enough.
Her half-scream had been smothered in his hand.
That slim body rolling on the freshly turned earth of the flower bed. Thin material that caught and tore. White stockings that shone dully no matter how spare the light.
McCloud bit down into her bottom lip when he kissed her, tasting the freshness of her blood. Legs and arms that pushed and hit and writhed as he sank his weight down onto her.
Into her.
Never so warm and smooth the inches of skin inside her thighs.
When she tried to scream again, he covered her face with his own. A mixture of blood and salt tears and as he burst through her: a tongue that finally pushed deep into his own mouth and tiny fingers that dug into his neck and pulled at the ends of his hair as he hovered over her.
His voice: ‘You did, didn’t you? You loved it, you whore! You loved every moment of it.’
And she had spat into his face and lashed out at him, bringing up her knee between his opened legs.
‘You bitch! You stupid teasin’ little bitch!’
He held her and hit her with all of his strength, bruising his knuckles against the fine bones of her cheek, aristocratic and high. Hit her again until she ceased to move. Both hands about her neck, then, her slim elegant neck.
When he had got back to his room, there was skin deep beneath his finger nails, skin stained with her blood. McCloud had left Galveston that night. Had never thought to return.
But Onslow had said Galveston and there had been no alternative. Not without giving him a reason. And Yates McCloud did not want to talk about that night—especially not to Onslow.
Remembering what had happened to Onslow’s wife.
Remembering what Onslow could do to a man whom he decided he hated.
So McCloud had come with the others and every minute there counted double inside his head and he could not be free of the place soon enough.
There was only the bourbon to help things along and maybe erase the memory of the girl.
The space above the rafters was too small for the big Negro’s body and he had to keep shifting around, so as not to let his limbs stiffen up. There was a platform there, three feet wide; it ran round two sides above the body of the warehouse. It was just possible to sit on this and stretch first one leg then the other out along one of the thick wooden beams.
Nothing to do: he had no idea exactly how long he had been there and no way of knowing. Only the light that showed through the cracks in the roof or failed to show through them. The movement of rats below as they alternately bellied or scurried through the straw that was strewn over the floor or heaped into the corners.
Sixteen crates, dark with creosoted wood.
Jonas Strong had a Colt .45 automatic holstered at his right hip, the flap buttoned down. It was not his principal weapon. That rested on the length of his body, attached to his shoulder by the leather strap he had had especially made so that when he walked or rode the weapon could hang at the correct height for quick action.
It was a Browning automatic shotgun with a sawed-off eighteen-inch barrel and a pump action. From close range it could tear a man in half. More than one man.
Strong knew.
He knew Cade Onslow, too. Knew him well—well as any other man could. He had been his top sergeant in the Army. Onslow had picked him out personally and taken a lot of trouble upon himself in doing it. Choosing a black man.
Jonas Strong had never forgotten, nor would he. When Onslow had turned against his commanding officer and beaten him to a sniveling pulp, Strong had followed his superior out of camp. It was the natural thing to do.
Now, he never questioned it.
Whether Onslow would show the same loyalty to him, Strong never asked.
Someone walked past close to the warehouse doors and the big Negro let his hand slide down the shotgun until his finger had pushed behind the trigger guard.
The steps moved on into silence: Jonas Strong relaxed: waited.
Thirty seconds.
Onslow put his glass down on the shiny surface of the bar and stood up, tilting his head back to stretch the muscles at the rear of the neck.
As he walked towards the door, he saw the man he was waiting for come hastily through the entrance to the hotel and hurry across the foyer towards the lounge.
‘Crombie.’
At the sound of Onslow’s voice, the salesman whirled about, face flushed. When he saw who it was, relief showed in his eyes, to be replaced seconds later by worry and concern.
‘Here ... I thought …’ He nodded in the direction of the lounge.
‘Sure. You were late. Damn late. I was leaving.’
The man looked flustered. Short, full faced with wisps of fair hair sticking up from the sides of his head; pale-blue eyes that were never still. Flicking from Onslow’s face to the door to the lounge and then back to the gun-runner’s face once more.
‘We can’t ...’ he lowered his voice as two men walked close. ‘We can’t talk here.’
He pointed into the lounge and Onslow nodded and followed him. They sat in the far corner in two facing chairs, Onslow with his back to the wall and able to see the entrance over Crombie’s head and around the side of his chair.
‘A drink?’
‘No.’ Onslow shook his head. ‘Just the business.’
Crombie licked his lips with a tongue that was oddly pale; he turned his head first one way, then the other, as if expecting to be challenged or interrupted.
Onslow reached forward and took hold of one of the lapels of Crombie’s cream colored suit.
‘Business.’
‘Yes, yes, yes. Of course.’
He took out a handkerchief and mopped at his brow and the sides of his face, while Onslow waited, impatience showing in every line of his expression.
‘You have the ...’
Onslow bunched his fist and struck the arm of the chair. ‘Of course! Get on with your side of it. The transport.’
‘Yes.’ Crombie glanced round once again, wiping beads of sweat from his nose and temples. ‘There’s a boat.’
‘When?’
‘She’ll leave at first light.’
‘Not today? Damnation, you ...’
‘The tides. It’s a matter of the tides. The …’
‘All right. Tomorrow then. What is she?’
‘A ... an old British gunboat. The Sparrow. She’s sound. Rigged like a schooner, but with an engine. She can stay in close to land.’
‘And crew?’
Crombie nodded. ‘A captain and eight men. It’s enough.’
‘Do they know where they’re going?’
‘Yes.’
‘And why?’
The round face shook from side to side. ‘No. No. That is ...’
‘What?’ Onslow leaned forwards, threateningly.
‘The captain, he had to, I had to tell him the destination. The cargo he guessed at. I didn’t confirm or deny.’
Onslow reached inside his coat and took out the bulging envelope; he dropped it onto the table between them with a loud smack.
Crombie gulped.
‘Take it. It’s what you’re here for.’
The man gulped and pulled the envelope towards him, stuffing it out of sight awkwardly. He put his hands on the arms of the chair. ‘I must ... I should ...’
Onslow got hold of him by his lapel once more, twisting it sideways in his hand.
‘If I ever find you haven’t been level with me, I’ll kill you. D’you understand?’
Crombie shook and nodded. ‘Yes. I wouldn’t. Not ...’
‘That’s fine,’ said Onslow, releasing him. ‘That’s fine. I don’t take to wasting my time killing vermin.’
He pushed past the arms salesman and strode on out of the lounge. Why the man was so nervous, why he had become progressively more so as their dealings had gone on, Onslow didn’t know for certain. And now there was nothing he could do but play it through the way they had planned.
In the morning the boat would be loaded and ready to sail. If the weather held—and at that early end of the year that was doubtful—it should not be too many days.
There were difficulties, he realized that. Supposing that they cleared the port successfully, the crew were bound to find out what cargo they were carrying. They weren’t likely to object on any moral grounds—not the kind of cut-throat gang he expected them to be. But they wouldn’t like the extra danger they had become involved in. Added to that, they’d likely try to demand more money for their services.
And at the end of it there was still Zapata.
With Villa, Onslow had known where he was. The man, for all his pretensions, was a brigand. That and nothing more. Oh, he was brave and a capable leader; a fine fighter. But you knew not to trust him too far and at the same time you respected his friendship because to your face he meant it.
Zapata: Onslow thought he would be somebody different. Somebody special.
He turned left off the main street, past the bank, and headed towards the harbor and the docks. Strong would be there on guard; the others were reporting to him later.
One more night and they would be free of Galveston.