‘THAR Y’GO, Mr. Gunn. That’ll see you clear through to San Antone an’ Houston. You wanna cut south to Galveston, you can pick up a rig an’ be paddlin’ on the Gulf afore you can say “William Travis”.’
The ticket clerk thrust a yard-long stretch of paper through the pigeon hole cut into the depot window and grinned nervously at the passenger. The man was young and had offered no reason for the clerk’s nervousness, but Ben Weaver had been manning the Brandon’s Hole line-stop for too long that he couldn’t recognize a hardcase when he saw one. And if he ever had, there was one facing him now.
Outwardly, there was nothing to set the man apart from the other drifters who purchased tickets from time to time, except maybe the Apache-style moccasins he wore, laced to knee height, with the dark leather haft of a knife sticking up from the right leg. His shirt was white—more or less—and looked reasonably clean, if well worn. His pants were of buckskin, common enough in the South West, as was the wide-brimmed black hat he wore. The Colt holstered snug on his right hip and the broad-bladed bowie knife hung on the left were standard equipment. It was the eyes that made Weaver jumpy. They were very blue, and very cold, and they seemed to take in everything around in one casual glance. Something about the man made the clerk think of the Apaches he had seen when he was scouting for the Army. His face was wide-boned, the nose broad, slightly flattened above the straight line of his full-lipped mouth; a face that might have belonged to an Indian. But his hair, hanging close to his shoulders was a sun-bleached blond color that no Apache had ever owned.
Weaver had watched him walk in to Brandon’s Hole with a saddle hoisted on his back and a Winchester held in his right hand. He looked like he was coming from the wilderness country that divided the Arizona Territory from California, and Weaver figured his horse must have died somewhere along the trail; but he hadn’t asked after the man looked at him. He had walked straight up to the way station and demanded tickets through to Galveston. Weaver had explained that the Southern Pacific hadn’t got around to running a spur line down to the coast yet, so they’d compromised on a through billet to Houston.
The man had given his name as Matthew Gunn.
Now he dumped the saddle by the ticket window and walked off towards the straggle of buildings that made up Brandon’s Hole.
The place—it couldn’t be called a town—was built around the seepage well discovered by Carl Brandon when he was prospecting for gold. The water had paid off better than a mine and for the price of hard work, a busted leg, and three bullet wounds administered by drovers who objected to paying for water, Brandon had wound up a rich man. When the Southern Pacific brought the tracks through the territory, old Carl had sold out, packed up and gone to booze himself to death in New Orleans. The railroad had built a water tank, a timber-and-tar depot hut, and a hash house. An optimistic Texan had erected a one-story saloon with beds in back, and since the country quieted down some, other traders had moved in. Brandon’s Hole grew to boast a rooming house—with whores as part of the service—a couple of stores and a handful of permanent inhabitants. They kidded themselves that one day they’d have a real town with a marshal and a mayor, maybe even a doctor. But that was a long way off.
The man called Gunn spat dust from a dry mouth and made for the saloon.
He pushed through the flap of hide making shift for a door and walked up to the bar. It was three planks nailed together with cross-beams and set on two barrels. A roughly lettered sign advertised beer, tequila and whisky, with water fetching the same price as hard liquor. He ordered beer and a bottle, carrying the mug of frothy amber liquid over to a corner table, then going back for the whisky. He used his left hand: the right still held the carbine.
The interior of the saloon was dark, the adobe walls and narrow windows holding out the heat so that it stayed cool inside. At the far end of the room, three cowhands tippled whisky over a desultory poker game.
One looked up at the stranger.
‘You wanta sit in? We could use some fresh blood.’
‘No thanks,’ Gunn’s voice was deep, his accent curiously guttural, as though English was not his native tongue.
The cowboys caught the inflection and glanced at one another, wondering. The man who had spoken grinned and stood up. He sauntered over to the stove built into one corner of the room, pouring coffee. Then he ambled across to the far end and stood watching the blond man.
Gunn had removed his Stetson, letting the mane of pale hair tumble around his face. He was sipping beer, his eyes fixed on the doorway. The cowboy watched him in silence, then shifted around to block the view.
‘What kinda accent’s that?’
His own was a nasal Texas twang.
Gunn looked up, his eyes steady. ‘Why?’
‘Waal,’ the cowboy looked across at his friends, weighing up their chances of enlivening a boring afternoon, ‘it sounded kinda funny to me.’
‘So laugh.’ Gunn poured whisky and swallowed a shot.
‘You ain’t exactly conversational, are you?’ The cowboy moved closer to the table, peering hard at the seated man. ‘You look kinda odd, come to think of it. Them injun boots, an’ all.’
‘Mister,’ said Matthew Gunn softly, guessing what was coming, ‘why don’t you go sit down? Play poker an’ leave me be.’
‘You know?’ The cowboy pushed his point. ‘You sound kinda like an ’injun. You a breed, or sumthin’?’
Gunn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The whole scene was like an old memory: he had played it through before and he knew how it would end. Hell, he thought, I gave the man a chance. I asked him to go away, so now it’s up to him.
‘Yeah,’ he said evenly, ‘I am. My mother was Chiricahua Apache. My pa was white.’
‘Hey, boy!’ The Texan’s voice was louder, pitched to carry over to his friends. ‘You ain’t got no right to be in here. This’s a white man’s saloon.’
‘There’s no sign says that.’ Gunn kept his voice steady.
‘I’m tellin’ you,’ grinned the cowboy. It wasn’t a pleasant grin. ‘No injuns.’
He turned away, reaching for the chalk stick resting on the bar. The owner was ostentatiously polishing clean glasses, doing his best to rub the bottoms away. The Texan motioned for his buddies to join him and headed back to Gunn’s table. He set his mug down and reached over with the chalk. Laboriously, he printed out a message on the scrubbed wood: No injuns. Not welcum.
Gunn kept his hands on the table, waiting for the man to finish. The cowboy stood upright, reaching for the coffee mug.
Gunn reached it first. He came to his feet with the tin cup in his left hand, lifting up fast. The steaming coffee splashed into the Texan’s face and he yelled as the hot liquid hit his eyes, staining his shirt front.
‘Now you got grounds to complain,’ snarled Gunn.
He tipped the table as he said it, throwing the heavy wood forwards so that it crashed against the man’s legs, pitching him over backwards. He hit the plank floor with a thud, screaming as the edge of the table landed across his ankles. Gunn stepped around the fallen table as the other two halted halfway down the bar.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ The first cowpoke doubled over, clutching at his legs. ‘My fuckin’ legs are broke.’
‘You want a fight? Or you gone far enough?’
Gunn’s voice was calm, tinged with a mixture of harsh Apache and Scottish burr.
‘You done crippled Jed,’ gasped one cowboy.
‘He asked for it,’ said Gunn.
‘Motherin’ injun!’ The speaker was wiry, mean-looking. And fast. His pistol was lifting as he spoke.
Gunn was faster. The Colt came up out of the holster with the speed of long practice and natural talent. His thumb hauled the hammer back as the heavy revolver lined on the man’s stomach, the index finger holding the trigger down so that the gun went off as the muzzle aligned with the Texan’s rib-cage.
The cowboy grunted and seemed to jump back, away from the crimson stain that flowered suddenly over the front of his shirt. Abruptly, he dropped his own gun and sat down as though his legs had folded under him. He clenched both hands over his belly, doubling forwards until his head touched the floor. He moaned, and the planks between his feet became red.
Gunn powered across the room. He dropped his left hand onto the bar, pivoting as he swung forwards and up. Both feet hit the second Texan in the chest, spinning him back as he fumbled with the .44 Remington cross-hung from his waist. Gunn landed on his feet, his right arm swinging in a roundhouse blow that smashed the barrel of the Colt against the side of the cowboy’s jaw. The man’s head snapped sideways and a fragment of tooth spat from between his lips. Gunn brought the Colt back in a short, vicious arc that laid the barrel hard on the Texan’s neck. It hit where the neck joins the shoulder, where the heavy nerve clusters gather to run up into the brain. The Texan opened his mouth and dropped another tooth. His eyes glazed over and he crumpled sideways onto the floor.
Gunn spun around, leveling the Colt on Jed.
The original troublemaker was crouched beside the overturned table, holding his right leg with both hands, his eyes wide and frightened.
‘No!’ His voice held a High, screeching note of naked fear. ‘I ain’t in it!’ He looked at his fallen friends and turned wide open eyes back to Gunn. ‘Jeeze! I never seen nuthin’ like it. I’m sorry, mister. I never thought…’
Gunn ended the sentence with the butt of the Colt. Flipping the gun so that the handle stuck out from his fist, he slammed it into Jed’s mouth. The cowboy flopped back against the table, his eyes looking at nothing as blood trickled from his lips lacerated by shattered teeth.
The barkeep was still polishing glasses, and the shot cowboy was still coughing blood over his boots. Around the door, a tight knot of faces gazed inwards, enjoying the first excitement Brandon’s Hole had seen in months. Gunn looked towards them, and the watchers drew back. He smiled tightly, dropping the Colt back into the holster. Then he picked up his Winchester and the whisky bottle, and made for the door.
‘If someone patches him fast enough,’ he gestured at the wounded Texan, ‘he might live. When they come around, tell them that Indians are people, too,’
The bartender nodded dumbly, and watched Gunn walk out of the place.
Someone in the crowd began to mutter something about Indians, but when he caught the eye of the blond man with the carbine he closed his mouth. And kept it that way until the breed was out of earshot. After that, the citizens of Brandon’s Hole crowded into the saloon and the barkeep set to serving drinks while he recounted the full story of the shooting. It was the best day’s business he’d had in a long time, and while he made money the shot Texan died.
As he bled his life away, the man who had killed him was sprawled in the shade of the depot hut’s overhanging porch, sipping whisky and thinking.
It had taken him a little over three months to reach Brandon’s Hole and he was angry with himself for attempting the journey from San Francisco on horseback. It had been a decision prompted by impatience and the absence of an immediate sea passage. The men he hunted had left on a coast-hugging vessel and he had ridden south and east in a fury of revenge. Now, with California and four dead horses behind him, he hoped to pick up the trail in Texas.
It was, he had to admit, a pretty long shot, but it was the best he had. So he relaxed in the shade, waiting for the train to pull in.
He grinned, thinking of the cowhands back in the saloon. Whites were strangely intolerant, not like his mother’s people.
Matthew Gunn was the son of the Apache woman, Rainbow Hair, and a Santa Fe trader called Kieron Gunn. He had been raised amongst the Chiricahuas in the lonely stronghold of the Sierra Mogollon, a half-breed youngster with the traits of both his parents’ races. Tough as any Apache, he had a white education behind him, imparted by his dead father. The thought thinned his lips in anger. His parents—his whole rancheria—had been wiped out by scalp hunters. Now he hunted the last of the killers: two men. The others were dead1 and Matthew Gunn, who was called Azul by his mother’s people, intended to complete his revenge.
The two men were called Nolan and Jude Christie.
He slumped with the total relaxation only an Indian seemed capable of achieving, listening to the flies that buzzed lazily around his face. Brandon’s Hole had lapsed back into its customary indolence, with no-one ready to take up the Texan’s cause and the next big event the mid-afternoon stop of the Southern Pacific’s Texas-bound train.
Gunn—Azul—dozed in the heated shade.
A shrieking sound like some great animal in pain brought him to his feet in a single clean movement. The howling echoed again, shrill and lonely, in the empty land, and he saw a thin plume of rising smoke that spouted up before dispersing in the higher air. Slowly at first, then faster as she came around the curve of track leading into Brandon’s Hole, the train grew larger. The outline of a high-stacked 4-4-0 locomotive shaped itself through the heat haze, the sun reflecting bright off the warning lamps set above the dusty vee of the cowcatcher. The whistle shrilled again, and steam erupted from around the massive drive wheels as the big loco began to brake.
Gunn saw two carriages behind the engine, then a bleached-wood freight wagon and the stubby bulk of the brake-car. The entire rig squealed and gusted steam as the wheels locked and she slid to a precise stop alongside the low platform. A uniformed porter swung a folding ladder down from the forward carriage, and jumped onto the platform as Ben Weaver swung the elongated trunk of the water hose over to the engineer.
Gunn let the porter take his saddle and climbed on board. The carriage was half empty, the passengers occupying the hard, wood seats glancing incuriously at the new traveler. He found an empty bench and showed the conductor the length of perforated tickets as the porter stowed the saddle beneath the seat. Then he stretched his legs out and went back to sleep.
The engineer filled the tank, sounded the whistle one last time, and shoved the locomotive into gear. She hauled out, gathering speed, heading along the Gila River towards Tucson, El Paso and San Antonio.
Soon Brandon’s Hole was lost in the haze, one more forgotten stop-over on the long journey East.
As the loco pulled out, Nolan and Christie were riding slowly along the upper fork of the Colorado. They carried Winchesters across their saddles and their eyes scanned the surrounding country with unceasing vigilance. Between them, and slightly to the rear, came a small, canvas-topped wagon drawn by a team of four big horses. The driver was a grizzled oldster, more adept at handling a team than in making conversation with the woman seated beside him. She looked, anyway, too fatigued by the heat to want to talk. She was a handsome-looking woman in her early thirties, not yet old enough to have lost all her youthful looks, but sufficiently experienced to know her way around.
Her name was Eleanor Dalton, and she was married to the owner of the Flying D spread on the headwaters of the Colorado.
She had spent the last three months with her family in St. Louis, then taken a river boat down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a stage west to Houston, and then hired a wagon and driver to cover the last part of her journey back to the ranch.
The Flying D was situated on the south-eastern edge of the Llano Estacado, a growing venture built with blood, sweat and raw endurance. Nathaniel Dalton had staked his claim right after the Civil War, when the land was open for the taking and the newly united states crying out for beef. With two cowhands and a crippled cook, he had lived under canvas until they got around to building a soddy. Two years and three trail drives later, he got to building a wood and stone ranch house. During those twenty four months he fought off Kiowa and Comanche, rustlers and drought, wolves and freezing winters. He sank wells and built corrals, and slowly the spread grew. With better than three thousand cows foraging his domain, Nathaniel decided his collateral was good enough to start thinking about his old age. He decided to get married. Leaving the ranch in the care of his foreman, he rode down to San Antonio, to the rail depot. He ended up in St. Louis, staying at the Mansion House Hotel trying hard to learn the rules of Eastern society. At a ball, he met Miss Eleanor Denton, eldest daughter of a minor family. One month, seven balls, five picnics and three—to Nathaniel, excruciatingly boring—visits to the opera later, they were married. He took his bride back with him to Texas.
At first, Eleanor was entranced with the rugged land and her equally rugged husband. The years and the country had blunted the edges of the romance, and something solid, as durable as the age-worn mesas of the surrounding country, had grown between them. Now Eleanor was Mizz Dalton, the boss’s wife, and knew near as much about the running of the Flying D as Nathaniel himself.
Her visit to St. Louis was the first in three years. And it sounded like she had picked the worst possible time to make it.
From New Orleans westwards, she had heard increasingly alarming rumors of Indian trouble. Houston and San Antonio were alive with gossip of Comanche raids, slaughtered cattle and wrecked stage coaches. A Ranger captain had warned her against travelling unescorted, confirming reports of at least three outlying homesteads massacred by Indians. The tribes were getting hold of guns, too often Spencer, Henry or Winchester repeaters, but the Comancheros stayed elusive—and active. She had begun to look for reliable men willing to hire on as outriders.
She had found them one hot afternoon outside her hotel.
She had just eaten luncheon—in some ways she still adhered to the niceties of St. Louis society—and planned to take a walk, when a drunk had presented himself as a dependable escort. She was doing her best to fob the man off when he turned nasty. His abuse was approaching an alarmingly imaginative climax when a voice that was simultaneously quiet and harsh stopped him in mid-sentence. He turned around, glaring at the speaker: a tall man in black, with cold, green eyes that stared with open contempt.
‘Fuck off.’ The drunk was a big man and his voice was loud.
The man in black said nothing. Instead, he kicked the drunk very hard in the groin. The drunk shrilled like a stuck pig and started to double up, but his progress was abruptly arrested by the other man’s knee. It rammed into the drunk’s face, and as he toppled sideways, the dark man hit him again, behind the left ear.
The drunk collapsed into the street and the green-eyed man smiled.
‘Ma’am,’ he murmured, ‘I trust you’re alright?’
‘Thank you, yes,’ Eleanor had replied, thinking fast. ‘I wonder if I might talk with you.’
As they went back inside the Imperial Hotel, she noted the way he wore his gun, the contained energy of his movements. Most of all she noted his eyes.
An hour later, Nolan—it was the only name he offered—had agreed to escort Mrs. Dalton back to her home.
A day later, they became lovers. It was a calculated move on both their parts, prompted by boredom and a tacit recognition of like minds. Eleanor Dalton had enjoyed three lovers since her wedding. One was a young cowboy who spoiled a tidy arrangement by falling off his horse in the middle of a stampede; the second was a distant cousin she met on an earlier trip to St. Louis; the third, a gambler on a river boat. Nolan, the fourth, was the most exciting. He was good in bed, but it was the barely-hidden violence that emanated from him like a tangible aura that sent the shivers through Eleanor’s fulsome body. There was something about the man that spoke of danger, of ruthlessness; Eleanor enjoyed it On Nolan’s part it was a mixture of lust and a feeling that the woman might prove useful. She had money, a ranch, and a husband she obviously didn’t care too much about. Given the right opportunities, she might just provide him with a new base from which to hunt scalps. So he agreed to take her home, accompanied by Jude Christie.
Now they were deep into Comanche territory, with open country all around and God knew how many Indians ready to lift their hair.
Sign aplenty had shown along the way, although no attack had come. Yet. They had seen cattle rotting, bellies ripped open by Comanche lances and left to die. Two days back, they had spotted a burned-out wagon. The three corpses they found had been smelly and ugly to look at. No-one had suggested burying them.
A mood of foreboding hung over the Staked Plains like the nerve-tingling silence that precedes a bad storm. It was the hottest summer Nolan could remember, and there seemed to be more vultures patrolling the sky than was normal. For three days now he and Christie had ridden with their carbines across their saddles, ready for instant use. They rode mostly in silence, too intent on watching and listening to risk slackening their vigilance in conversation. It was beginning to tell on Christie’s nerves, and Nolan was glad the ranch lay only two more days’ travelling away.
Samuel Graves shared Nolan’s sense of impending danger, had done so since sighting the mirage. He told himself it was ridiculous, but it made no difference, he was unable to shake the feeling.
Jaime Sanchez tried to laugh it off, but that just made Graves angry: his partner sat safe in Mexico buying the guns, it was Graves who had to cross the border and deal with Iron Knife.
Their rendezvous point was a tiny town called Quintana, a half day’s ride south from the Rio Grande. An unwritten agreement—and discreet bribes—kept the Federales off the Comancheros’ backs, and the town was accepted as a center of free enterprise. Now Graves and Sanchez were planning the negro’s return trip to the Staked Plains.
Sanchez had spent the past month collecting rifles. He had invested a fair proportion of their bankroll in Mexico and the United States, buying up repeating rifles wherever he could find them. In a straw-thatched bam on the outskirts of Quintana there were nearly two hundred assorted weapons and thirty crates of ammunition. It was the biggest investment they had ever made, and it promised the greatest reward. But Graves had doubts about the advisability of shipping everything at once. Sanchez was trying to talk his partner into it.
‘Mirar,’ he argued, ‘we stand to make one big killing, no? Iron Knife has the gold, we have the guns. One trip, Samuel, that’s all. Just one. Then we take things easy.’
‘Yeah.’ Graves swallowed tequila. ‘It’s easy for you, ain’t it? You sit back safe. It’s me that goes out to meet him.’
‘But Samuel,’ Sanchez wheedled, ‘Iron Knife trusts you. You know the Comanches look on your kind as brothers. I’m just another white man to them, little different than the americanos. The color of your skin is a passport.’
Graves couldn’t refute the argument. It was a fact that the Indians considered negros to be more or less the same as the red men. It was why he was so successful; that and Sanchez’ genius for locating weapons. But he still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. The Comanches were preparing for something, something big, and he didn’t want to be around when it broke.
But money was money, and profit was the name of the game. Samuel Graves intended to die a rich man: he just hoped he could stay alive long enough to enjoy his wealth.
‘Alright, Jaime,’ he muttered reluctantly. ‘I’ll do it. But after, we take things easy for a spell.’
‘Bueno,’ Sanchez slapped the spreading weight of his belly in appreciation. ‘When will you leave?’
‘Tomorrow,’ answered Graves, ‘at sun-up.’
He rose, calling for old Paco. He issued instructions, ignoring the Mexican’s doubtful look: it reminded him too much of his own misgivings.
Matthew Gunn tossed his saddle down to the platform and climbed off the train. He stood for a moment, watching the bustle of the Houston & Texas Central station. Cities still made him feel uncomfortable and he hoped he could pick up Nolan’s trail fast, and move on out to the open spaces.
A porter approached him, asking if he had any baggage. Gunn shook his head, picking up the saddle. The man grunted, pointing at it.
‘You got yore saddle, mister. Don’t get hoarse answering,’