‘MIGHT BE YOU owe me thanks.’ Taggart kept the Winchester pointed at Breed as the blond-haired man fastened his saddle in place on the gray stallion. ‘Could be I just saved yore life.’
‘Thanks,’ grunted Breed, the word coming out like an insult. ‘Thanks a lot.’
For a moment, Taggart’s calm wavered. He shrugged: a barely perceptible movement that did nothing to shift the aim of the carbine. One comer of his mouth lifted in a cynical grin.
‘Look, feller, I’m the law in Mattock. It’s my job to keep the peace, an’ the way Luke an’ his pa feel about injuns, that means keeping folk like you out.’
‘And the Masters own the town,’ grunted Breed. ‘Including you.’
Taggart ignored the jibe. ‘I get elected,’ he said, ‘by a vote. How folks vote depends pretty much on what Jonas tells ’em. Most of ’em depend on the Box M for their living, so I’m doin’ what any legally appointed officer does: representing the people.’
‘And keeping your job.’ Breed swung into the saddle. ‘Without bucking the bosses.’
Something that might have been a guilty frown passed over the lawman’s regular features.
‘They’d have killed you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how fast you are, but there ain’t no one can beat them three Luke keeps with him. You best count yourself lucky you got out alive. Hell! they didn’t even beat up on you.’ He stared at Breed, brown eyes meeting the cold blue gaze, then shook his head. ‘Just get the hell outta here. There’s a place called Valverde two days south. Mex town: they’ll serve you there.’
‘They served me here,’ said Breed, softly.
‘They’d have killed you here, too,’ grunted Taggart. ‘Don’t come back.’
He kept the Winchester pointed on the half-breed’s back as he paced behind the gray horse, down Main Street, to the southern edge of the town.
‘Remember what I told you,’ he called as he halted in the shade of an adobe building. ‘Don’t come back.’
Breed drove his heels against the pony’s flanks and lifted the animal to a trot without looking back. He rode out through the flat expanse of sun-baked prairie, a hard core of anger churning inside him. It was tempting to circle round and return to Mattock, but a core of commonsense that was harder than the nub of his anger persuaded him against it. Taggart – whatever Breed might think of him – was right: backed by the three gunmen, Luke Masters would see him killed. And the sheriff had seemed hard enough to back his promises with more than just words.
He followed the southwards trail.
Con Taggart waited at the edge of Mattock until the half-breed got hidden behind the heat haze shimmering off the arid ground. The Valverde trail went through a section of Box M land, but it was mostly waterless semi-desert that only supported cattle in the Spring, so it wasn’t very likely the half-breed would meet any of the Masters hands And hell! Taggart thought, I done my best. I saved him from a beating, or worse. Didn’t I? He tugged a cheroot from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth. Struck a match on his belt. Sucked in the smoke. And began to walk back into town.
Sarah Black met him halfway down Main Street, and his frown faded into a smile.
‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘Lord knows why I gotta look after yore stray dogs, but I stopped Luke an’ his crew shootin’ him.’
The girl smiled. ‘Got coffee just brewed, Con. You want some?’
Taggart looked at her face and her figure and wondered if she meant something more than coffee. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Bastard!’
Luke Masters swallowed whiskey.
‘Goddam bastard.’
‘Half-breeds,’ said Jude. ‘They’re all the same.’
‘Don’t see how a white man would go with a squaw,’ said Cotton. ‘Not unless she was in a whorehouse.’
‘He was lucky,’ muttered Luke. ‘If Taggart hadn’t come in ...’
‘He needs killin’,’ said Fargo. ‘Needs a lesson taught.’
‘Injuns rape white women,’ said Cotton. ‘But the kids turn out dark. Look like injuns. He musta been one off a squaw. They’re lighter. Get more white blood from the man’s seed.’
‘Could use a lesson,’ Fargo grumbled. ‘Might be best not to kill him. Just hurt him. So he lives to tell the others.’
‘Goddam lucky fer him Taggart came in when he did. Saved his goddam life.’
Luke picked up the bottle and saw that it was empty. He shouted for another. The thinner of the two bar-keeps came over and lifted the three drained bottles clear before placing the fresh one on the table.
‘Wonder where Con sent him?’ slurred Jude.
‘Valverde, I reckon,’ said Cotton. ‘Ain’t nowhere else closer than a week.’
‘They got some fine Mex whores there,’ said Fargo. ‘I had me a couple a while back.’
‘Better’n Annie’s?’ Cotton’s mouth hung slack at the thought. ‘Better’n that French girl?’
‘French girl, shit!’ said Fargo. ‘She ain’t been closer to France than New Orleans. Creole, her.’
‘That’s like a Negra, ain’t it?’ asked Jude. ‘You mean we been fuckin’ a Negra?’
‘Ain’t nothin’ wrong with fuckin’ a black woman,’ chuckled Luke. ‘It’s what comes out after that counts.’
They all laughed. They usually did when Luke Masters cracked a joke.
The fresh bottle got emptied three-quarters down and they fell silent. The saloon had emptied out and the bar-keeps were emptying the spittoons and sweeping the floor. The air was thick with smoke.
‘I ain’t had a Mex girl in some time,’ said Fargo. ‘Had two the last time. At the same time.’
‘Jesus!’ said Cotton. ‘All three o’ you? In bed? All at once?’
Fargo laughed. ‘You got a lot o’ learnin’ to do, boy.’ Cotton said, ‘Why don’t we go down there? Get us a piece or two?’
‘Hey,’ said Jude, ‘that sounds like a nice idea. How about it, Luke?’
Luke Masters looked up from the dregs of his whiskey: ‘Valverde? Ain’t that where the ’breed’s headed?’
‘Sure,’ said Fargo. ‘Might be we’ll catch him on the way.’
‘All right,’ said Luke. ‘Let’s go.’
They emptied their glasses and stumbled out of the saloon. Over in the stable, a Mexican sweeper told them what he had heard of Marshal Taggart’s conversation with Breed. A few minutes later they were driving their horses hard down the Valverde trail.
The land was flat and wide and empty. Night had closed down with the abrupt cessation of day’s light that marks the south-western plains, the sun descending like a great burning ball of fire behind the western horizon, lining the sky with striations of red and gold and green as the darker blue of night lifted like a rising curtain from the farther horizon. Stars prickled from the blue, and a huge, yellow-green moon lifted sluggish into the sky. It filled the land with a pale, phosphorescent light that dimmed the flames of Breed’s fire, transforming the flickering yellow glow to a ghostly radiance that alternated with the moonlight to throw fantastic shadows back against the cactus and the dark, moon-washed ground.
Breed chewed on the jerky stored in his saddlebags. There was just enough to take him through to Valverde, and he might find game along the way, if he wanted to take out the time to hunt. For now, he was content to chew on the preserved meat—with the Chiricahua, he had gone longer and hungrier without any food at all.
He washed down the last of the mouthful with water from his canteen, then banked the fire and stretched back against his saddle, tugging the blanket over him as somewhere off to the west a coyote howled at the rising moon.
Sometime around midnight something woke him. It might have been the cessation of the night-time sounds, or the intrusion of a new – unnatural – sound. It was impossible to tell: he just woke, with his right hand fastening on the butt of the Colt. He sat up; listening.
Somewhere close by there was a scuffling movement, followed closely by what might have been a horse snorting through a cupped hand.
He pushed the blanket aside and dropped the Colt into the holster. Lifted the Winchester. The rifle’s action made a loud click as the lever sprang down and then up.
He rose to his feet.
And a rope landed over his shoulders.
Instinct threw him back against the pull of the lariat, taking off the slack so that he had a chance to wriggle loose as he turned the rifle and triggered a shot into the darkness that had now overtaken the moon. Muzzle flash illuminated a tall figure, pale-faced under a black hat and above a black shirt.
Fargo laughed and drew the rope tight again.
Breed’s movement had slipped it clear of his shoulders, but the shifting of his rifle had settled it around his neck. He gasped as the oiled leather slid through the hondo to fasten, noose-like, on his throat.
A second rope caught the barrel of the Winchester and yanked it from his hands as he was levering a second shell into the breech.
He got up on his knees and hurled himself forwards, fighting to gain sufficient purchase so that he could reach the Colt before the tightening hondo crushed his windpipe. At the same time, his left hand dropped to his belt, seeking the hilt of the Bowie knife.
Gun and blade came clear at the same time. One spat flame at the man holding the rope, the other lifted up to slash at the plaited cords.
The Bowie was sharp. It cut the rawhide lariat easy as slicing butter. The rope parted and Fargo staggered back, off-balanced so that the Colt’s bullet tore air an inch past his face.
Then something hard and heavy crashed against the half-breed’s legs and something even heavier slammed into his back. He went down on his face, tasting sand in his mouth as a boot landed on his wrist and ground it down into the ashes of the fire. The dying embers singed the hairs on his wrist and he twisted round and back, cocking the Colt as he turned.
A boot slammed against his wrist and the bullet flew wide. Then the same boot came back and landed on his arm, pinning it to the ground as a second smashed down against the hand clutching the knife.
Pain shafted through his arms and he lifted his legs, trying to kick the men pinning him to the ground. Someone laughed and swiped the stock of a rifle across his face. His legs doubled over his belly, then straightened, and the stock came back, ramming down against his midriff like a pile-driver. Black pain flooded his mind as the stock lifted and descended again, this time between his legs, bringing a roaring red column of agony up from his groin, through his stomach, into his mind and mouth and eyes and nose.
There was darkness.
When it went away, he hurt. He opened his eyes slowly; carefully. They looked on sand. There was a small, black ant crawling over the sand. It was moving towards a wide puddle of red that was soaking into the sand. The red was very close to his face: he recognized it as blood. Then realized it was coming from his nose.
He spat, and someone said, ‘He’s awake.’
‘Good.’
A boot tucked against his chest and turned him over on his back. He looked up into the face of Luke Masters. Looked past the rancher’s son to the three men he had dimly recognized the night before.
Fargo: the tall, thin man with the hooked nose.
Jude: with the pinto vest and the red hair.
Cotton: the kid with the two guns.
‘Lift him up,’ said Masters. ‘Get the bastard on his feet.’
They lifted him. Jude and Cotton held his arms; Fargo slung an arm around his throat, holding his head back.
And then Luke Masters came in with both his big fists swinging.
They drummed a tattoo of pain over Breed’s body, starting low down and working slowly up until they reached his face. He felt his lips split against his teeth, his nose burst blood that ran down over his mouth and shirt in thick streams. One eye closed. After a while the pounding stopped and he heard Masters say, ‘All right. Let him go.’ Then there was the faint sensation of falling; a reality when his body hit the ground and fresh pain sparked upwards from his side and back. Then more as boots began to pound against him. He rolled into a ball, a fetal shape that curled his legs up to protect his genitals and his hands around his head.
After a while the pounding stopped, and through the red mist that clouded his mind he heard something drop close beside him. Light shone off a glassy surface and there was the faint smell of whiskey. A voice that sounded like it belonged to Luke Masters said, ‘All right. Leave him.’
Another voice said, ‘We goin’ to Valverde, Luke?’
‘Hell! why not? I could use me a good whore.’
Someone laughed. Then someone tilted Breed’s chin back and spat on his face.
Luke Masters said, ‘You hear me? You hear me, you goddam injun squaw seed? You got off lucky. You ever come back, I’ll kill you. Like I’ll kill all yore kind. You tell ’em that.’
There was more laughter. And the sound of men mounting horses. The drumming of the hooves against the ground echoed loud in Breed’s ears. He rolled awkwardly sidewards and watched them ride away. A cloud of dust got diffused by the empty whiskey bottle resting close to his face. The glass fragmented the sun’s light so that the vision of dust and stamping hooves got lost behind a flickering pattern of brilliant light that seemed to pierce down into his mind and coalesce into the raw, aching hole of pain that was consuming his body.
Time passed. He wasn’t sure how long or how much. Wasn’t even sure that he could tell it right or see it straight. There were periods of light and periods of darkness, but they might be the result of the pain still washing through his body.
All he knew for sure was the fire had gone out and the gray stallion was snickering anxiously. And those things might have been because the horse was worried, or because Masters and his friends had doused the fire.
He eased his hand slowly into the ashes: cold. Not wet or disturbed; just cold.
He rolled over, groaning as the movement flashed fresh lances of pain through his body, and looked up at a bright sky that didn’t quite focus until he realized one of his eyes was closed. He touched it. And winced as the touch sent fresh pain into his brain.
He spat dry blood from between his teeth and got up on his hands and knees. The sand under his face spun round and he closed the one eye that he could close until the ground came into focus again. He couldn’t tell if the column of ants was really lead by the first one he had seen, but they were working a whole lot busier on the blood, twin columns working busily back and forth from the puddles like well-organized armies raiding an unexpected supply store.
Getting up on his feet was a whole lot harder. He fell over three times before he got to the gray horse, and then needed to use the animal’s bulk to lever himself upright as he slung the saddle on its back and fastened the thing in place.
He was surprised to find his guns left with him, and grateful for the drunken abandon, or arrogant carelessness, or whatever that had made Luke Masters forget a prime rule: kill the enemy, don’t leave him alive to come after you.
But maybe Luke Masters didn’t know that Apache meant, in the language of the tribes, enemy.
It took him a long time to get up on the gray horse, because the animal was nervous, frightened by the smell of blood – and maybe also the smell of hate – coming off him, but he climbed into the saddle in the end and then turned the animal back towards the distant-bulking shadows of the Guadalupes and began to ride, painfully, slowly, to a place he knew where he could rest up.
Until he came back.