‘A woman?’
‘Don’t let that fool you,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘Don’t mess with her.’
‘Where do I find her?’ he asked.
‘You don’t have to worry about that.’
Four men stepped out of the shadows and surrounded Payne. They all had rifles, and all of them were pointed at him.
‘Get down,’ said one of the men.
Payne got off his horse and was relieved of his six-gun and the rest of his weapons, including the derringer in his hat. They searched everywhere, including everywhere on the horse a weapon might have been hidden. They found the money, of course.
He expected them to ask him what had happened to the other rider, but they didn’t. He guessed they didn’t care much what happened outside Meseta de Plata, only inside.
‘Follow me,’ said one of the men, leading the way. Two of the other men had the saddle-bags slung over their shoulders. They walked either side of Payne, while the fourth one took up the rear, keeping his rifle pointed all the time at Payne’s spine.
‘What about the horses, and the rest of my stuff?’
‘We’ll take good care of them,’ said the lead man.
They took him past the body hanging inside the gibbet to a large building at the far end of the square. The town hall, thought Payne.
The door of the town hall, or whatever it was, was oak, studded with iron nails. The lead man kicked at it. A hatch opened in the door, about head height, and eyes peered out at them. The hatch snapped shut.
There was the sound of oiled bolts being pulled across, and then the door swung open. Payne got jabbed in the back and they all went inside.
They went through a short hallway, and Payne noticed for the first time that this building was made of stone, not mud brick. He was led into a larger room, lit with oil lamps, with a big oak table at one end. Behind the table sat six men and one woman, the woman in the middle of them.
She was Mexican, and not quite thirty yet, which surprised Payne some. She was dressed in man’s clothes and her black hair was long, parted in the middle in a dead straight line. When she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were black and fierce.
He smiled and bowed. ‘Ma’am, my name is Amos Payne, and. . . .’
‘I know who you are,’ she said. She spoke good English. ‘The man you killed earlier today was called Walter Mulligan. He tried to kill you and steal your share of the money that you and your gang have spent the last three years amassing, but you killed him instead. That does not matter to me. Only what happens inside the walls of this town matters to me. The rules will be explained to you. If you break any of them there will be swift justice, as determined by me, and there shall be no appeal.’
So somebody explained the rules to him, and the money he’d brought with him was taken to the town bank, minus spending money. Then Payne was led to a house on the edge of town – which meant on the edge of the plateau, and told that this house was his. It was a two-storey adobe, three rooms on each floor. He was given a Mexican woman too, as his housekeeper, whatever, and her wages were taken out of his bank account every month.
‘Don’t I get a choice over which house I get, or which woman?’ he asked the man who’d told him the rules and showed him his house. This man was one of the town guards. Along with the Queen, they were the only people in the town who were allowed to carry weapons.
‘No,’ said the man. ‘And if you mess with another man’s woman without his permission, you pay the price.’
‘What’s the price?’ asked Payne.
‘Whatever the Queen says it is,’ said the man.
It was another three days before Jack Tanner arrived at Meseta de Plata.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time Jack entered through the front gates of the thieves’ town, Harper’s corpse, still hanging inside the gibbet in the middle of the square, had begun to stink.
‘Why don’t you take that down?’ asked Jack. ‘I figure the folk here would have got the message by now.’
‘Orders of the Queen,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘He’ll stay there till he’s just bone, then they’ll throw the bones into the valley.’
It was noon. The town seemed deserted, apart from Jack and the gatekeeper, and Harper’s rotting corpse. Siesta time, figured Jack. ‘What did he do, anyway?’
‘Killed somebody. Didn’t mean to, but that don’t matter.’ The gatekeeper spat on the ground.
Four men appeared with rifles. Jack wasn’t rightly sure where they’d come from. One moment they weren’t there, the next moment there they were, looking mean and pointing rifles at him.
‘Get down,’ said the one in front.
So Jack dismounted, and the man took his gun off him and any other weapons he found. He checked everywhere, even under Jack’s Stetson.
‘You get many folk hide weapons under their hat?’ asked Jack.
‘You’d be surprised,’ growled the man.
The other men were checking Jack’s horse. The saddle and the saddle-bags full of money, everywhere.
One of these other men threw the saddle-bags over his shoulder, and they all set off for the big stone building on the other side of the square.
‘What about my horse?’ asked Jack.
‘Gatekeeper will take care of your horse,’ said the man in front.
They had to pass right by the gibbet. There were flies all over it. They were crawling in and out of the eye sockets.
The man leading was American. Jack thought Tennessee, judging by the way he spoke. ‘Hanging a fellow up like that sure has a calming effect on the town,’ said the man. ‘Why, there ain’t been one single argument since Harper got himself strung up. Not the one.’
The men on either side of Jack laughed. The man behind Jack might have laughed, but if he did then Jack didn’t hear him. The man just prodded Jack in the spine, which Jack thought was a little unnecessary, but he wasn’t in much of a position to protest at that particular moment.
They got to the large stone building and the man in front kicked the big oak door. A hatch opened and somebody looked out. The hatch closed, and there was the sound of bolts being drawn back, and then whoever was behind the door swung it wide.
It was cool inside the stone building, after the blistering heat of the Mexican sun. They went through some kind of entrance hall, into a larger room, wide and high. There was an oak table in the room, and oak chairs on the other side of it. Nobody was sitting in them, though. There wasn’t anybody in the room, only Jack Tanner and the men who’d brought him in.
A door opened and a woman came in, dressed like a man. She was nearly as tall as Jack himself, and almost as broad across the shoulders, but there was no mistake about her being a woman.
She was Mexican. Old Mexican. Jack could imagine that her ancestors had been kings and queens of the Aztecs, long before the Spanish had arrived. She had two six-guns in the belt strapped around her narrow waist, and from the fierce look in her eyes, he didn’t doubt she knew how to use them. This was a woman who was as good as any man, and better than most.
The woman sat behind the oak table and said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘William Forrest, ma’am,’ said Jack.
‘I don’t think I’ve heard of you, William Forrest. My people have been watching you as you made your way here, but none of them recognized you, which is unusual. We have American wanted posters of just about every outlaw who might be likely to seek sanctuary here, but I don’t believe I’ve seen yours.’
‘Then let me add to your collection,’ said Jack, reaching inside his shirt pocket and pulling out the wanted poster he’d had printed at the newspaper office in Tucson.
The man who’d led him across the square plucked the wanted poster from his hand, went over to the woman and gave it to her.
She unfolded the scrap of cheap paper and read it. ‘William Forrest, wanted for murder, bank robbery and train robbery in Montana and North Dakota. . . . A very long way from here. . . . No wonder we h
ave not heard of you. So you want refuge in our little town?’
‘I certainly do, ma’am,’ said Jack. ‘I heard I’ve got Pinkerton detectives after me, and when I heard that I high-tailed it down here fast as I could. Those Pinkerton detectives don’t give up easy.’
‘You shall be safe from them here,’ she said, ‘providing you have enough money.’ She gestured to the man with the saddle-bags to bring them over. The man placed them on the table in front of her.
She opened the bags and scooped out the bundles of U.S. banknotes.
‘Over twenty thousand American dollars,’ said Jack. ‘Is that enough?’
‘It is,’ she said. ‘You shall now be taken to your new home. One of my men will explain the rules to you. Make sure you understand the rules, because punishments here are. . . .’
She was interrupted by somebody banging on the main door of the building, and a lot of screaming. It sounded like a woman.
The fellow who’d opened the door for them came in, his hat in his hands. ‘Apologies, señora. A woman is outside. She says that one of the men attacked her.’
‘Let her in,’ said the woman.
The fellow went back to the door. Jack heard the bolts slide back again, and a couple of seconds later a young woman came running in, her dress torn, bruises on her arms and her face, and threw herself on to the floor in front of the table. The woman was crying, and talking hysterically in rapid Spanish.
When the woman had finished she lay with her face pressed to the floor, quaking and sobbing.
The woman behind the table stood up, and with an edge to her voice that set Jack Tanner’s spine tingling, said, ‘Bring me Frank Brody.’
Three of the men who’d brought Jack in here disappeared, running. The woman – obviously the so-called Queen of Meseta de Plata – stared at Jack and said, ‘You stay here. You can see with your own eyes how we dispense justice.’
When they hauled Frank Brody in front of the Queen, he wasn’t scared, he was angry. And probably a little drunk, Jack thought.
Brody was a big man, six-four or six-five, with a lot of muscle and fat. There was scar tissue around his eyes, and a nose that had been broken so many times it had forgotten what shape it was supposed to be. ‘Get your goddamn paws off of me!’ he yelled at the men who’d brought him in. The three guards who’d gone out to get him had needed help, so they’d recruited another two. Brody had a split lip and blood running down his chin. Jack figured one of the guards had swiped Brody with his rifle butt to quieten him down enough so they could get their hands on him.
The Queen stood in front of Brody, pointed at the woman – now seated on one of the chairs behind the oak table – and said, ‘Did you beat her?’
‘She’s my woman,’ said Brody. ‘Sam Fletcher wanted my woman, and I didn’t much care for her, so he gave me his woman, plus a hundred bucks.’
‘So she told me,’ said the Queen. ‘But still you have no right to beat her.’
Brody pulled himself up to his full height and curled his hands into tight fists. ‘She’s my property, I do what I want with her.’
Behind him, the guards looked like they were getting ready to rush him, but the Queen shot them a look and they backed off.
‘She is not your property,’ said the Queen. ‘She is your employee. Whatever she does she does willingly, or not at all.’
Brody spat on the floor. It landed just short of the Queen’s foot. ‘Bull! Why, everybody knows these women are nothing but cheap whor. . . .’
Before he could finish the word, the Queen had closed the gap between them and slapped him across the face so hard that Brody staggered, big as he was.
‘Why, you goddamn Mexican bitch!’ yelled Brody, rubbing his cheek. ‘I’ve had just about enough of being ordered around by a woman. You’re only boss because your daddy started up this place twenty years ago. If he’d had a son, you’d be nothing!’
The Queen glared at him. ‘I have had to fight for my position here every day,’ she said.
‘Yeah? Well you ain’t never fought me. How about it, sister? You want to fight Frank Brody? What do you say? The winner gets to rule Meseta de Plata, the loser has to get out and stay out.’
The Queen said, ‘You fight me, you fight to the death.’
Brody grinned. ‘You won’t be the first woman I’ve killed. But I bet I’ll enjoy killing you more than I did those other bitches!’ Without any more words he swung his right fist at her head.
The Queen tried to dodge the blow, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. The fist hit her shoulder and sent her crashing to the floor.
The guards started to move in on Brody again, but the Queen, getting to her feet, stopped them. ‘Stay out of it. Whoever wins the fight is the boss of Meseta de Plata. Those are my orders. And if he. . . .’ She pointed at Jack. ‘Tries to intervene, shoot him. You understand?’
The men nodded. They didn’t like it, but none of them wanted to argue with her.
Jack didn’t much like it either, but he wasn’t being given a lot of choices.
Brody swung with his left, and this one caught the Queen on the jaw and lifted her off her feet. She crashed against the wall and sagged.
Brody laughed. ‘Looks like I’m going to be boss of this here Silver Plateau!’ he yelled.
The Queen looked beat. She was trying to look at Brody as he came in for the kill, but it seemed like she couldn’t focus her eyes too well.
Brody threw his right fist at her face, putting all his weight behind it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Brody smashed his fist into the wall so hard he broke his knuckles. Jack could hear the bones snap. The Queen, pretending to be more beat than she was, had ducked the blow.
‘Bitch! You broke my damn hand!’ squealed Brody. ‘I’ll. . . .’
But nobody ever found out what he was intending, because just then the Queen jabbed at his throat with her fingers and Brody started to choke. She hit him in the face and broke his nose one more time, so he raised his good hand to cover it, and she hit him in the ribs. He lowered his good hand to cover his ribs, and she hit him in the face again, this time dislocating his jaw.
Then she stamped her boot heel into the side of his knee, and something snapped there, too.
Brody was whimpering now. He just wanted to crawl into a corner and curl into a ball, but she wouldn’t let him. She kept hitting him in the body and face, and it was all Brody could do to limp out of the big stone building into the square.
Word must have got around somehow and the square, which only a few minutes earlier had been deserted, was full of people. Despite the boiling heat of midday, they stood silently as their Queen rained blows upon the hapless Brody.
She shouted to one of the guards to get her whip. He ran off and fetched it, and while he was gone she continued her assault, punching Brody’s face till it was bloody.
By the time the guard had returned with the whip, Brody was kneeling on the ground, clutching his broken hand with his good one, so exhausted he couldn’t stand.
The guard handed the Queen the whip and she shook it out. It was a cat o’ nine tails, nine strips of leather, each one ending in a knot. She lashed Brody again and again, stripping the shirt off his back and biting into his flesh He squealed pitifully, and would have begged her to stop if his jaw hadn’t been dislocated.
‘Crawl!’ she yelled. ‘Crawl!’
Brody crawled, and though he couldn’t crawl too well, what with his hand and one of his knees broke, she encouraged him with the whip.
He tried crawling to the centre of the square, but she yelled, ‘Not that way!’ And set him off in another direction.
The crowd opened up to let Brody through. Jack didn’t figure out what was going to happen next till he saw the low wall, three feet high, and realized that marked one edge of the plateau.
Brody reached the wall and screamed.
‘Get over that wall!’ she yelled, whipping him hard. By now all Brody’s clothes had been whipped off
him, all except his boots, and his flesh was a mess of red welts and blood.
Jack took a step forward to stop it, but one of the Queen’s guards jabbed him with his rifle barrel, and told him to stay put.
The Queen kept on whipping Brody till he’d dragged himself up onto the top of the wall. He balanced there for a moment, his bloodied legs astride it, clinging to the top of it with his one good hand, even now hoping there might be some way out of this, but knowing there wasn’t.
The Queen lashed at his hand and his head and back, but he still wouldn’t fall. So she kicked him, and Brody, screaming, toppled over the other side.
Jack heard Brody’s shrill cry as he plummeted down into the valley. Then it stopped. Jack could still hear the echo of the cry bouncing around the mountains, but Brody was dead long before the echoes faded to nothing.
The Queen turned to face the townspeople. ‘Does anybody else wish to question my authority?’
Nobody did.
A little later Jack got shown the adobe house he was to live in. When he was alone he pulled off his boots and lay on the bed and tried to figure out what he was going to do about Amos Payne.
In the morning a woman came to his house. She was called Josefina.
‘I clean the house, and cook your food, and anything you want,’ she said in hesitant English. Then she looked really scared. ‘You aren’t going to send me away? The other women laugh at me because I am clumsy and shy. The Queen will be angry with me. . . .’
‘I ain’t going to send you away,’ he said. ‘Just clean the house and cook the food, we’ll be just fine.’
‘You don’t want. . . .’
‘No, nothing else,’ he said. ‘Except maybe make a pot of coffee once in a while. You know how to make coffee?’
‘Of course.’
‘All right, then. How about you make a pot of coffee now, for the both of us?’
Josefina looked relieved, now that she knew he wasn’t going to send her away. She came back a few minutes later with a pot of coffee, and Jack reckoned it was just about the best coffee he’d ever tasted.
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