ONSLOW SAW MCCLOUD and Jamie talking together when the loading of crates was almost finished and thought nothing special of it. Not even the earnest expression on the southerner’s face, nor the hushed attentiveness of Jamie’s not-quite-audible voice warned him that anything might be wrong.
After all, like the Kid had said: they had pulled through: they had done it. And together.
‘Major.’ Even when he spoke to Onslow directly, McCloud didn’t immediately give anything away.
‘You got a minute?’
‘Sure.’ Onslow climbed down from the wagon. His wounded arm, now tightly bandaged and bound, prevented him from handling the crates himself. He had been checking that the loads were right and ready to travel.
Now he made his way over to where McCloud was standing. ‘What’s up?’
McCloud pointed at the passenger car. ‘Maybe we should talk in there?’
The first shiver of doubt made itself felt down the length of Onslow’s spine. ‘Okay.’
The bodies had been taken out. Only the stains of the blood remained, scarring the carpet, the ripped upholstery of the seats, the walls, even the ceiling.
McCloud stood two-thirds of the way into the carriage, his left boot raised and pushing down on the edge of one of the seats. His coat was off and sweat showed darkly through the cotton of his shirt. The Colt Lightning was snug in the leather of the shoulder holster.
Onslow stood quite still. There was more than the feeling at his back now; the hairs on the back of his hands, the movements of his guts, those, too, sang a silent but unmistakable warning.
None of these feelings were fear. Onslow never for one second doubted that if he had to, then he could take McCloud. Drop him where he stood.
What buzzed inside him was the thought that it might be necessary. That the small unit which he led, which he had hoped to have welded into a single-minded fighting force, might not be as single-minded as he had figured.
‘We been thinkin’ ...’
‘We?’
‘Jamie an’ me.’
‘That so?’ Onslow leaned into the words, making them come out hard and flat. Knowing that if it was building up to a showdown then he could only win from a position of strength. McCloud couldn’t be given a suggestion of an advantage. He mustn’t be allowed to think that any bit of right was on his side. McCloud considered, then shrugged. ‘All right, me mostly.’
‘Yes.’ Already the scorn, the blame were clear in Onslow’s voice.
‘I spoke with the Mex. With Gonzalez.’
Onslow opened his mouth; his tongue pushed at the corners of his lips, moistening them, feeling the strong hairs of his thick moustache.
‘Go on,’ he said, knowing what was coming now but insisting that McCloud spell it out, bit by bit, word by drawling word.
The Southerner moved his hand along his bent left leg, not looking Onslow in the face. ‘The guns …’
‘Well?’
‘He’s interested.’
‘Gonzalez has his share of the guns.’
‘He wants more.’
‘Of course.’
‘He’ll pay ...’
‘You’re forgetting. We’ve been paid.’
‘To hell! We lost out on that deal a long time back.’
‘And we owe a debt!’
Onslow moved a couple of paces down the central aisle of the carriage. His eyes were cold and hard and they never left McCloud’s face; his arms were by his sides, the right one even now beginning to curve backwards, the fingers of the hand starting to curl as they brushed his holster.
‘Zapata’s hundreds of miles away.’
‘And so’s Strong!’
McCloud slapped an open palm against the top of the seat. ‘Look, we can make a deal here. A good deal. For real money. Not some fancy debt. An’ we won’t have to get this load down through half the bandits and military in Mexico.’
‘So that’s what you think we should do?’
‘Sure. Sell the stuff to Gonzalez an’ stay by the border. We can find enough work here.’
‘Like Madden?’
‘Uh?’ McCloud jerked his head, caught off guard by the reply.
‘Find work like Madden did. Playing both rotten ends against the middle.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Onslow took another pace forward. ‘That’s what it amounts to, though, doesn’t it? Betrayal. The gun in the back, the sneaking lie. I told you before, McCloud, I thought folk who came from the South were supposed to have some idea of honor. Well, I reckoned you’d been finding yours even if you never had much of it before.’
Onslow’s hand stopped moving; came to rest on the butt of his Colt automatic. ‘Seems I was wrong.’
‘Damn you, Major! I ain’t talkin’ ’bout no betrayal. What I’m talkin’ about is common sense.’
‘What you’re talking about means going back on your word.’
‘To some Mexican peasant!’
‘Letting a man you’ve fought alongside stay hostage and get killed for it ...’
‘A black man!’
‘Jesus, McCloud, I wonder if there’s any getting through to you at all. With words.’
McCloud moved his left leg; stood straight. His right arm bent sideways, palm open in front of his sweat-streaked shirt, inches only away from his holster.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Onslow. ‘I’ve been lied to twice on this assignment. Betrayed twice. Once by a frightened little arms dealer in Galveston; once by a gunslinger here in Matamoros. I’ve got one of them and someday I’ll settle the other. But I’m telling you this: there’s no way I’m going to be cheated on a third time. You reckon on turning your back on Strong that’s like turning your back on Jamie or me. You lie to Zapata and that’s the same as lying to me, too. And the way I feel right now there’s only one thing to do with a cheat and a liar.’
The carriage seemed wound up in silence: what was going down between the two men was somehow timeless.
‘You want to sell these arms to Gonzalez, you’re going to have to kill me to do it.’
McCloud’s fingers twitched involuntarily; he knew that Onslow already had his hand on the butt of his gun. Knew how fast the man was. And yet ... and yet ... he could take him, yes, could, really could. Drop him dead and get the money from the sale. Just him and Jamie. Now! Now!
McCloud’s fingers touched the metal of his gun and it was like touching ice. Cold, dead metal. Cold. Dead.
‘Okay.’
His hand edged away; his voice was so low that only in the silence of that moment could it have been heard.
‘Okay.’
Onslow stared at him, his own hand never leaving the butt of his Colt, his determination and strength never wavering. McCloud turned slowly away, head bent forward. For several moments he stood totally still. Then he lifted his head again and walked down the remaining length of the carriage, stepping down and onto the soaked ground, his boots pressing deep into the dark earth as he walked.
Onslow waited until the adrenalin had stopped racing through his own veins, until he was quite calm, controlled. He now knew better than before the extent to which McCloud could be trusted—the extent to which he couldn’t.
All the way down to Morelos he would have to watch him: closely.
All the way to Morelos he did exactly that.
Across the changing terrain of their journey south, Onslow made certain that McCloud was never out of his sight. However slowly the wagon train travelled, whenever they rested and watered the horses, wherever they made their night’s camp, Onslow never slackened his watch.
The Mexicans that Gonzalez had provided did most of the driving, the gringos riding out in front to spy out the land or sweeping east and west in wide circling movements. Several times they spotted patrols of federales quickly enough to evade them; once they met up with a trio of stragglers who had got left behind by their troop. Cade Onslow and McCloud killed them instantly, without question.
As they passed beyond the sugar plantations that marked out Morelos the sun burnt down hard upon them, into their backs, their arms, seeming to pass through their headgear and scar their scalps, infiltrating their brains. The hills behind the plantations were shielded in fine mist. Closer to, they seemed to dance in a haze of heat.
Five miles away from Zapata’s headquarters the first of his men appeared along the ridges that overlooked the dusty trail as it wound upwards. Anonymous figures in white cotton and broad sombreros; the flash of a rifle, gleam of a machete blade as it reflected the light. After a further three miles they were not merely being watched, but escorted. A column of Zapatistas who rode in silence, solemn faced and quiet, unlike the followers of Pancho Villa who would have welcomed a wagon train of arms with boisterous choruses of ‘La Cucaracha’ and much drunken shouting and swearing.
The difference between the two movements was inescapable: just as the difference between the two men.
Zapata greeted Cade Onslow in the coolness of his room, seated again behind the same heavy wooden table. His back rested against the chair with the eagle sculpted into the wood; his sombrero was hanging in the same place at one side.
His hand when he shook Onslow’s was dry and its grip firm.
‘So, yanqui, you return. You keep your word.’
Onslow nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
‘I am glad. There are few men that one can trust. They become fewer as day passes into day. Yet we do what we believe to be right nevertheless. We do it because we must.’ He set his right hand over his heart. ‘We act, knowing all the time the possibility of betrayal is strong. Each step we take, it becomes stronger. The hands we have shaken turn against us.’
Zapata lifted his sombrero from the chair and moved towards the doorway. ‘But not you or I, señor Onslow. Not you or I.’ He touched Onslow briefly on the back. ‘Come! There is a friend waiting to see you. He has waited a long time but I do not think he has doubted that you would return.’
Cade Onslow followed Zapata out into the ends of the day, with the sun beginning to weaken and fade behind the hills to the west. He glanced sideways to where Jamie and McCloud were sitting on the back of one of the laden wagons. Then he walked to where Zapata was standing outside a wooden building, waiting.
As Onslow approached, Zapata pushed open the door and gave an order.
Onslow stood still, watching the doorway.
After a few moments, Jonas Strong stepped through the darkening space and into the late afternoon sun. He blinked his eyes, then saw Onslow and his face broadened into a smile.
‘Major.’
He walked down and held out his hand. Onslow gripped it tightly, clapping his left hand to Strong’s arm.
‘Good to see you, Jonas.’
Strong’s smile spread wider. ‘Good to see you, too, Major. Damned good!’
The two men turned and began to walk towards the wagons, to where Jamie and McCloud were now standing.
‘Guess we’ll be riding soon, Major?’ asked Strong.
‘That’s right. We sure will. First light.’
It was what Jonas Strong had wanted to hear. All that time he had been waiting for the Major and the others to return, he had never doubted that they would come back for him. Nor had he been unclear as to what he most looked forward to being able to do—it was to throw aside his chains and ride alongside Onslow, Jamie and McCloud once more.
Living by their guns: living by their courage: gringos.