Guns on the Border

Inside the cantina the drinking continued. Half-naked whores twirled to the lively sound of the accordion. Prew’s men clapped, stamped their feet and tossed money at the girls. Dark bare breasts jiggled and flashed in the glow of lanterns and candlelight. Knocked out in his chair, Jefferies sat propped against a table.

One of the men had taken a black-and-white-checked harlequin mask from the wall behind the bar and pulled it down over his swollen eyes. Blood trickled from beneath the mask like dark tears. ‘‘Let me go on and cut his damn throat,’’ Cherokee said to Prew at the far end of the bar. ‘‘Loden was right. He’s no use to us.’’

‘‘You might be right,’’ said Prew. ‘‘But wouldn’t you hate to kill a man tonight while you’re cocksure, and find out in the morning that you were dead wrong?’’

‘‘Is that one of them questions that’s meant to snarl a man up and make him look like a fool?’’ Cherokee asked. ‘‘Because if it is—’’

Prew cut him off. ‘‘No, it’s not a trick question,’’ he said. ‘‘I like to keep a man alive long enough to decide whether or not he’s of any value to me. In this case you and Loden are right. He’s not.’’ Prew shrugged, feeling his whiskey. ‘‘Cut his throat if it fills any inner need you might have.’’

‘‘That’s more like it.’’ Cherokee straightened up at the bar, loosening his big knife from where it stood gleaming, stuck in the bar top. ‘‘I like things said to me in plain English.’’

But before he could turn and leave the end of the bar, Prew’s hand on his forearm stopped him. ‘‘Look who’s coming here,’’ Prew said in a low tone, nodding toward the stooped figure entering with a tall load of firewood in his arms, the straw sombrero barely visible above it. ‘‘I suppose he’s going to try and set Jefferies free while we’re not looking.’’

‘‘Good luck,’’ said Cherokee, looking over where Jefferies sat unconscious in the propped-back chair. ‘‘He’s too knocked out to walk anyway, let alone what I’m fixing to do to him.’’ He started to go over to Jefferies’ chair, but again Prew stopped him.

‘‘What’s your hurry?’’ Prew asked. ‘‘Let’s watch the old brujo make his move.’’ He gave Cherokee a strange patronizing grin and said, ‘‘That way you get to kill two men with your big sharp knife.’’

Cherokee just stared at him, not knowing how he should take his remark. But he settled at the bar and let the big knife slump in his hand. The two watched the crafty interloper move back and forth, bowed at the hearth, stacking some of the wood to one side of the blackened open fire pit and jamming two logs into the glowing embers.

‘‘You called him a brujo,’’ Cherokee said quietly between them, watching the hearth closely. ‘‘Do you think he really is a witch?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ said Prew, ‘‘but lots of these ignorant townsfolk think he is. That’s all that mattered to him, I suppose. The accordion player told one of the whores that he used to be a priest, but he couldn’t keep his pecker under his robe. Stuck it in anything that moved.’’

‘‘Amen to that.’’ Cherokee chuckled, laying his knife down on the bar top. He watched the hearth as he listened to Prew.

‘‘The accordion player told her that the church hated to lose him because he has some kind of hocus-pocus power or some such nonsense. Instead of getting rid of him outright, they made him a monk and sent him up to live with some other monks in the old Spanish mission. But he spent more time in the women’s bedrooms of Esperanza than he did at doing whatever monks do. They finally tossed him out of the church altogether.’’

Cherokee looked across the back of the cantina as if searching for Caridad. ‘‘Wonder where that skinny gal is who’s usually with him.’’

‘‘That’s what the whore said,’’ Prew continued. ‘‘She said he was bedding with a young woman he’d known before he became a priest. He got her fixed up with child, then killed her husband so he could have her and the baby. But then she died too.’’

‘‘A priest killed a man?’’ said Cherokee, staring at the glow of firelight growing stronger in the hearth, bits of fiery ember racing up the stone chimney.

‘‘I wouldn’t put much faith in what a whore says, though, especially one all the way from Mexico City,’’ Prew concluded. ‘‘What would she know about things here in Esperanza?’’

Cherokee tossed back a drink of whiskey and set his shot glass down. ‘‘Brujo, priest, monk, magician— they’re all the same to me. There’s nothing to all that foolery anyway. A man gets what he can take from this world, by gun, knife, or whatever means he has to. If I was God I wouldn’t care what happened to anybody, long as I got what was coming to me.’’ Staring coldly toward the figure stooped down in front of the hearth sweeping up bits of charred cinder, he added, ‘‘Why don’t I ease over there right now and put his fire out for good.’’

Yet once again, before Cherokee could walk away from the bar, Klevo called out from his guard position in the bell tower, ‘‘Fire in town!’’

But no sooner than he’d said it, Clifford Elvey stuck his head in the front door and cried out loudly, ‘‘Fire at the stables!’’

‘‘Damn it, let’s go!’’ Prew shouted, racing for the front door. He stopped at the open doorway and shoved Dan Farr and Matt Harkens back toward the bar. ‘‘You two, stay here. Watch him!’’ He nodded toward Jefferies. Then he turned and ran ahead of the others toward the fiery orange glow above the stables.

As soon as the other men had left the cantina, the barkeeper looked toward the hearth and said in a frightened voice, ‘‘Sabio, you fool, what are you doing?’’

At the open doorway of the cantina, the two men stood craning their necks toward the flames. Upon hearing the barkeeper they turned quickly, in time to see the Colt aimed at them from ten feet away. ‘‘Cut him loose,’’ the ranger demanded, pushing the straw sombrero up off of his forehead. He gave one short nod toward Jefferies sitting slumped in the chair.

Harkens and Farr had raised their hands only an inch after seeing the Colt covering them. They stepped slowly inside the cantina and spread apart a few feet instead of doing what the ranger told them to do. ‘‘Can you really kill a man, Padre?’’ said Farr. ‘‘I mean, pull a trigger and watch the life go out of his eyes. What will God think of you doing—’’

‘‘Damn it, Dan! Don’t you get it?’’ said Harkens, staring at Farr in stunned disbelief. ‘‘He’s no priest! He’s a lawman!’’

Farr looked confused for a moment, then recovered and said quickly, ‘‘Whoever he is, he’s not fool enough to risk shooting that Colt and bringing all the men back here, are you, Padre?’’ He gave a dark grin, his hand lowering to just above his gun butt.

Padre . . . ? The ranger stared at him, his first shot hitting him squarely in the forehead. The bullet sent Farr’s hat and a spray of blood and bone matter spewing above the open doorway. But even as the first shot exploded, the second shot nailed Harkens in the chest as his hand lifted his gun from its holster. He slammed back against the wall beside the doorway and slid down, saying to Farr, ‘‘You stupid . . . son of . . . a bitch!’’

‘‘What the hell is this?’’ Prew said when he arrived at the stables and saw no sign of any fire, but only an orange glow moving away quickly on the other side of the long lean-to stables.

‘‘That’s a wagon!’’ said Cherokee. He stared at the moving orange glow, seeing it get smaller, as if somebody was struggling to extinguish it. ‘‘Want us to chase it down?’’ he asked.

Before Prew could answer, the two shots echoed from the cantina and he turned, cursing loudly in revelation. ‘‘That damn monk!’’ Pistol still in hand, he waved everybody back toward the cantina. ‘‘Come on, hurry it up!’’

‘‘What about the fire wagon?’’ Cherokee shouted, already running along behind him, but staring back over his shoulder.

‘‘Forget it!’’ Prew shouted angrily. ‘‘We’ve been tricked! Two of yas stay here, guard the horses. We can’t lose the horses, not this close to the train job!’’ Behind him Indian Frank Beeker and Niger Elmsly slowed, stopped and turned in the darkness, looking all around the dark shadows surrounding the stables.

In the cantina, behind the bar, the barkeeper helped the ranger cut the rope from around Jefferies and load him up over the ranger’s shoulder. ‘‘I am sorry I called out to you and gave you away,’’ the barkeeper said. ‘‘I truly thought you were Sabio, and that you had lost your mind—his mind, that is.’’

‘‘Don’t apologize,’’ Sam said, moving toward the rear door. He knew that Prew and his men had heard the shots and were by now on their way. ‘‘And don’t take a beating over this. If Prew asks, tell him it was me, and that I took the Kid with me. You don’t know where. Tell him I said Spivey told me everything. He can come on out and face me tonight, in the darkness if him and his men feel up to the job.’’

‘‘I’m obliged if you will,’’ said Sam, knowing that Prew had to weigh his choices tonight. Should he come after him and the wounded Kid, or get ready for the big job that he knew awaited him and his men across the border. ‘‘Gracias,’’ said Sam. He stepped out through the rear door and disappeared into the darkness.

A moment later, as the barkeeper stood behind the bar wiping it with a wet rag, Prew rushed in, his men right behind him. Taking only an unsurprised glance at the empty chair where Jefferies had sat, he said expectantly, ‘‘All right, what did he say?’’

‘‘First of all, Señor Prew,’’ said the barkeeper, ‘‘I do not like to get involved in troubles between two men who are—’’

‘‘Hey, Hosea! Will you tell him quicker if I lop off a couple of your fingers?’’ Cherokee asked, stepping toward the bar with the big knife gripped firmly.

‘‘Por favor, Señor Prew! He said tell you that Señor Spivey told him everything. He say come face him in the dark if you and your men feel up to the job!’’ the barkeeper said, speaking rapidly in broken English.

But on the floor next to the open doorway, Matt Harkens, his hands clasped to his chest, said in a rasping halting voice, ‘‘Yeah, it was . . . that damned . . . ranger.’’

Prew looked down at Harkens in contempt. He noted the smear of blood running down the wall above him. ‘‘Well, thank you, Harkens. Now why is it you’re dying and he’s still alive?’’ In a fit of anger, he drew his gun and shot the dying man four times in his bloody chest.

The men stood staring in silence. After a tense pause Cherokee asked cautiously, ‘‘Want us to get after him?’’

Prew stood mulling it over. Tomorrow at dawn he’d have to have himself and his men on the trail, headed for the border. He looked at the two dead men on the floor, knowing he’d been left two men short. Looking at the barkeeper, he asked, ‘‘Is that the way he said it? He said to tell me to come face him tonight in the dark?’’

‘‘Yeah, well, let’s go kill the dirty lawdog and be done with it,’’ Cherokee said, seeming puzzled, not understanding Prew’s reasoning.

‘‘And he’ll whittle us down by another man or two,’’ Prew growled. ‘‘And every man we lose fighting him in the dark, that’s one less man we’ll have when we need every gun we can get!’’ He scowled at Cherokee, his revolver still hanging in his hand. ‘‘Use your head, Jake! We’ve got a big job coming up! He knows about it!’’

Cherokee looked surprised. ‘‘So, we’re not going to do anything? We let him walk in here, kill two of us, and take the kid from under our noses. We’re doing nothing?’’

Prew fought back the urge to put one of his last two bullets in Cherokee’s belly. But he took a deep breath and let it out slowly and with it some of his killing rage. ‘‘Yes, we’re going to do something, all right,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re going to get our horses, saddle up and get the hell out of here tonight, instead of waiting till in the morning.’’