by Lauran Paine
Chapter Nine
Evil, by its very nature, was impossible to hide. An evil man or an evil town could only thrive providing others knew it was evil. An outlaw, for example, wasn’t an outlaw at all as long as he said nothing, did nothing to set others to talking.
Even a stranger in a raw land heard about evil before he ever encountered it, because evil was a topic people always mentioned. As Trent had been warned back in Daggett, so also was Troy Warfield warned at the Mexican’s sheep camp.
Before he came within sighting distance of Fulton, he knew enough about the place to be wary. He didn’t know the details of the place, but he knew that its character was bad, and a man who is already alert to peril around him is unlikely to ride head-on into trouble.
The place looked harmless enough to Warfield as he sat his horse a half mile out upon the desert, considering it. It looked old and sun-blasted, warped and dirty, but then so did most hastily erected trail towns he’d passed through in his lifetime.
The difference was that, here, if the stage road were suddenly to vanish, the town would die because that road was its solitary lifeline. This was not cow country by any wild stretch of the imagination. People here made their living from just one thing—that road and what it brought them, and since it was also the road into Mexico, the shadowy men who came hastily riding from the north would supply that weathered town with additional revenue.
Warfield made his long, meticulous study as an Apache would have done. He utilized all the intervening, screening desert underbrush to hide him as he rode slowly and very carefully out and around the place. He acted like a man who expected an ambush at any moment. He even left his thoroughbred hidden a half mile out, and stealthily crept up to the town, entering from the Mexican part where there were no roads, and where even the footpaths seemed casually to change and meander from day to day.
There was a grinding poverty down in the Mexican quarter, which was typical, and there were innumerable mongrel dogs that slyly watched but rarely barked as Warfield passed, shadow-like, along toward the central plaza. Here, he saw an interesting thing—a man seated lazily upon a tilted-back chair where a smoky lantern hung, facing a large well out in the dusty plaza, with a six-gun on his hip and a shotgun across his lap. Now and then, although it still lacked an hour of dawn, someone would trudge up with an olla, a bucket, or a pan, put a coin in that drowsing armed man’s upended hat, trudge woodenly out to the well, and fill his, or her, receptacle with water, then walk gravely away.
The old shepherd’s powerfully scorning denunciation rang in Warfield’s ears. “He sells water.” And: “Hombre malo, Señor Bricker. A very bad man!”
Warfield needed water. Not only was his canteen empty but his horse was dry, too. A very simple solution came to him where he stood, tall and motionless, between two adobe houses. That drowsing toll-taker over there on his tilted chair had evidently kept his vigil half the night. He scarcely paid any attention to the trickle of people coming forth to fill their containers.
Warfield watched the Mexicans for a while, determined from which of the little crooked pathways most of them came, and worked his way back and forth among the jacales until he was near that trail. Next, he studied the people. What he needed was one with a spark of resentment in his black eyes; one with a slight show of pride in the way he walked and carried his head. Someone, in short, whose second-class status did not ride easily upon his shoulders or in his heart.
But when such a person finally came padding along, it wasn’t a he, at all, it was a she—a tall, handsome woman in her late twenties with her great wealth of blue-black hair caught up at the back of her head in a large bun, indicating that she was a married woman. Her jaw was roundly square and her full-lipped, heavy mouth showed a stubbornness, a solid and unrelenting pride.
Warfield stepped out, halting this woman. Her jet-black eyes sprang to his face instantly as if, even though startled, she expected him to act in a prescribed manner. There was a smoldering to those unwavering black eyes that could chill a man to the bone.
Warfield said swiftly—“Señora.”—and held out a limp dollar bill. “Agua.”
The woman looked at the bill, up at Warfield’s whiskery, drawn, and burned-dark face and was as impassive as stone. The fire atrophied in her stare to be replaced with a crafty understanding.
“Pistolero,” she murmured to him. “You are an outlaw, no?”
Warfield shrugged. “I ate with an old shepherd west of town … he told me this is a bad place but that there is no other water. My canteen is empty and my horse is thirsty. I will be gone southward in half an hour.” He pushed the money into her hand. “Por favor,” he murmured.
She kept studying Warfield. She was only a few inches shorter than he was, which was quite tall for a Mexican, particularly for a Mexican woman. “I know the old shepherd, señor. He is a good man. If he warned you ….” She shrugged, glanced on out through the dim predawn where a little ripple of soft Spanish was audible over at the well among the people dipping up water. “They watch,” she said, evidently meaning Bricker’s guards. “One cannot take too much or they come to see why.” She shifted her hold on the battered wooden bucket in her fingers, closed her fingers more tightly around it. “You passed an old church coming here, señor … go bring your horse to the rear of it and wait.” She walked on, her bare feet padding through the dust silently. She hadn’t said she’d bring the water to the church but Warfield understood. Fear was in her. She knew something of Bricker’s cruelty, obviously, and yet her pride and her resentment drove her to this.
He glided back beyond the farthest adobe hovel, circled around, found his horse, and took him cautiously down to the very edge of the town where an ancient mud cathedral stood, its walls crumbling but its bell tower showing a scant length of new rope, indicating that God may have been pushed off Fulton’s main roadway, but He would not be entirely expelled from the place, and there he waited.
Off against the eastern sky a watery brightness began to show. Warfield anxiously watched this. He also listened to the waking sounds of Mexican town. A baby thinly wailed and a boy swore at an old bony cow that Warfield could dimly discern several hundred yards to the north. Two men padded past the church on sandaled feet in soft conversation, apparently heading for their work in another section of town.
A vaquero jogged past with his high-pommelled Mexican saddle showing little flashes of hammered silver, then the handsome woman came striding, a full bucket in both hands. Her movements were graceful despite the pull of those heavy buckets, and, when Warfield stepped up to help, she gave him a look of candid interest.
The bay horse drank one bucket dry without a pause. The second bucket he only half emptied, hesitating to smack his lips and gaze up and around, then drank on down to within four inches of the bottom. Warfield handed the woman his canteen, which she held while he poured the last of that precious liquid into it. She shook it skeptically, her head a little to one side.
“More than half,” she said, and lifted her shoulders, let them drop. “From here it is a long distance to the next place. Forty miles, señor … on a half canteen.” She was doubtful; it showed in her smooth expression.
Warfield took the canteen, slung it from the horn, and fished out another crumpled $1 that he put into her hand. “Gracias, señora, I’m grateful.”
“Por nada,” she murmured, closely studying Warfield. “It is always so … they come and they ride on. Señor, that old shepherd you spoke of … he is my husband’s uncle. He is old and the very old are good judges of men. I wouldn’t have gotten you the water except that he liked you. Señor, if he hadn’t liked you, he wouldn’t have warned you.” She put up her right hand with the forefinger extended, slowly drew that finger across her throat, and dropped the hand. “Señor Bricker sneers at the life of men. He has enlarged our cemetery since he came to rule this town … twice over. My uncle-in-law told you the truth. This is a bad town.”
“Why don’t you leave?” Warfield as
ked, held here by this woman’s strong, earthy beauty and her fatalistic strength.
The woman half smiled. There was a typically Mexican fatality to that little wistful smile. Warfield got the distinct impression that this handsome woman, when she’d been a beautiful girl, had had a great many of girlhood’s illusions knocked out of her.
“I was born here. My husband was born here. My little son was born here. And, señor, except that the land changes, where else would it be any different for us? We are Mexicans … no vanquished people remains with honor in their former land. You understand?”
“I understand,” said Warfield. “You are very lovely and you are very wise.” He turned, regret brushing lightly across his heart. He had gathered his reins, ready to mount, when she said: “There is another stranger here. They brought him in from the north road last evening, more dead than alive. My husband was out gathering faggots with our burro. He saw this other one. He said he wished he could just once own a horse like this other one was riding … a handsome and powerful steeldust gelding.”
Warfield slowly turned back, slowly loosened his hold on the reins. She was watching him with that same expression, only now the black eyes gently widened at the look that arose to Warfield’s face.
“Ahh,” she murmured softly. “You know this other one.”
Warfield didn’t respond. He stood like stone for half a minute, thinking that this had to be Marshal Trent, thinking that Trent had stolen a march on him. He looked up. “You say he was hurt?”
She made a slight gesture. “Not hurt, señor. Too long in the sun. My husband said this other one was out of his head when they found him. He said Señor Bricker himself was out there when they found this man.”
“He say anything else, señora?”
“No,” she said calmly. “Only that they will kill this one.”
Warfield was surprised. “Why?”
“Señor,” she said in mild protest, “he had a badge. They found it. They will find out what they can from him, then he will meet with a very bad accident.”
Warfield gazed at the woman. “Your uncle-in-law said it was a bad town,” he murmured. “But he didn’t say just how bad.”
She shrugged. This seemed immaterial to her now. “You will get away now, señor. This other one … he was after you, no?”
Warfield inclined his head. “He was after me, yes.”
“Then you must feel relieved.”
He looked into her eyes. There was a cynicism there that he was certain hadn’t been there before. It was a sort of patient cynicism, as though she were awaiting his reaction, his next words, as though she already knew what his reaction would be, and if it didn’t surprise her, it wouldn’t please her, either.
He swung to gaze at that eastern sky where dawn was firming up. He spoke without looking around. “I’ll win my race. I’ll get to Mexico now.”
“And that matters most, does it not? After all, a man’s life is a small thing.”
He swung back expecting to see bitterness joined to her cynicism. But it wasn’t there at all. Her black gaze was only darker, more unreadable than ever. He stirred where he stood. “You are my conscience, is that it, señora?”
“No, caballero, I am only a woman in this world ruled by men. I have my feelings and my thoughts, but they change nothing. This is still a man’s world. You will do as you wish … as you think you must do.”
“I will ride on.”
She shrugged, holding him there with her liquid dark gaze.
“No. I will stay.”
“Ahhh?” she murmured. “It is as I thought then, señor. It is not simply a matter of a man chasing another man.”
He speculated upon her, saying quietly: “I said you were lovely … and wise. It seems I only scratched the surface.”
“It was an obvious thing, señor. I knew it back there when you sent me for water. You are not a typical pistolero. There is between you and this other one some closeness. Some feeling. No?”
Warfield pushed back his hat, looked somberly at the brightening far-away sky, and said no more for a while. The woman continued to regard him. Around them, distantly heard, were the sounds of Fulton coming to full wakefulness.
Finally she said gently: “You are wasting valuable time. The road lies southward and the sun is coming. Within a half hour they will see you riding away.”
He turned and said: “You’re right, there is a closeness. If they’d let him go as soon as he’s well again, I wouldn’t hesitate. But to kill him ….”
“I promise you that, señor. I know these men. All my people know them. I tell you honestly that they mean to kill him.”
Warfield came gradually to scowl. It made a difference in him. He seemed no longer the lanky, bronzed rider he’d seemed before. He seemed now to be a deadly, very dangerous man.
“Pistolero,” she whispered. “They are many and you are one. This is their town … you cannot possibly elude them for long. Whatever you do must be done quickly.”
“In broad daylight?” he asked.
“No, señor.” She turned, gazed briefly at the old cathedral, swung toward him, and said: “Go in there. Take your horse into the back courtyard where the wall is eight feet tall. Stay in there. I will help you.”
He gazed at her, wonderingly. “Why?”
She made that little wistful half smile again. “Am I a Mexican to you?” she asked.
Warfield faintly shook his head. “You are a woman. A handsome, desirable woman to me.”
“That is enough reason, caballero. A woman’s heart is the same whatever else she may be. I read it in your eyes. For this little tribute from a handsome man I am grateful.”
He said: “No, señora. That’s a pretty shabby reason for risking your life.”
She turned, passed along the rear courtyard wall to a sagging old postern gate made of heavy oak. She opened this gate and motioned for him to lead his horse on through.
He did, and found himself in a burial place that had been long neglected. Weeds flourished here as high as his belt.
She stood with the first golden sun rays behind her in the gateway watching him in that solemn way she had. He looked around, saw the entrance to the church on across this neglected yard, turned back, and lifted his eyebrows. She nodded at him, touched her lips with a finger, stepped out, and gently closed the oaken gate. He heard the latch drop gratingly down.
Out front, he heard riders clatter past, heard lisping Castilian and low-caste mestizo Mexican patois in the early cool morning, each sound bell-clear and musical. He went to an ancient stone bench and sank down. A man makes his hard decisions, usually with insufficient time for good thinking, and he afterward has his regrets.
But it wouldn’t make much difference. If he’d had a full hour or a full day to decide which course to follow, he’d still have had his regrets, for that’s how life is lived in a primitive world full of violence, half wise, half foolish. No one ever comes up with the correct decision, the same as no one is ever all bad or all good.
He kept thinking of the Mexican woman, kept probing that last exchange between them. He thought vaguely that it must always be that way with any woman. Without having a hand laid upon them, they sought tributes, sought recognition of their desirability. Whether they were married or not—but more likely if they were married—they needed to be reassured often that in this masculine world they were needed and important—and admired.
As for John Trent, Warfield’s thoughts were less vague. As he’d told the woman, he had his reasons for not wishing Trent killed. Maybe they didn’t make sense, but, after a man passes his initial youthfulness, he has his set convictions, and, right or wrong, he adheres to them.
For seven hundred miles he’d managed to elude Trent, and now, here, in this grubby, shabby desert village, it was to happen at last. They were to meet. He’d been seven hundred rugged miles seeking to avoid this meeting, and now in this wretched place everything was reversed. It made a man wonder.
Ch
apter Ten
Rest made a difference any time to an exhausted, dehydrated man, but, after sunrise with the soft light and blessed coolness coming together, a fresh vigor came from within, from deep down where some well-spring reservoir existed, making strength and a sort of daily rebirth add perspective to a man’s otherwise thoughts.
That’s how morning came for John Trent, silently, coolly, wonderfully, because he could see past the diminishing puffiness. Could make out the snoring guard over there with his chair propped up against the door, could distinctly see the man’s gun in its sagging holster.
But a man’s will recovers more swiftly than his body. When Trent raised up, he was sore in every joint and unsteady in every muscle. Stronger, yes, but still unfit.
That guard opened his eyes. He didn’t move at all, he just opened his eyes and regarded Trent for a long time, then he dropped his chair down, mightily yawned, mightily stretched, and cleared his throat, spat into a corner, and said: “Well, Marshal, you’re lookin’ better.”
“Feeling better,” mumbled Trent. Then he told a lie. “But I still can’t see. You sure this goes away after a while?”
The gunman stood up, hitched at his shell belt, and kicked aside the chair. “I’m sure,” he answered indifferently. “Just takes a little time is all.” He reached for the latch. “I’ll go see what I can rustle us for breakfast.”
After the guard’s departure Trent probed the swelling around his eyes, found it lessened but still there, and made a careful survey of the place where he was being held.
It was not a large room and served from time to time as a combination sitting and bedroom. Trent wryly deduced what kind of men hid out in this place, safe from sight. Then the guard returned with a bowl of mush and some black coffee. As he kicked a chair around to set these things upon it, he said: “Lem’ll be in to see you directly, lawman. I’ll give you a little advice in advance, too. When Lem asks a question … you answer it.”
Trent eased up on to the edge of the bed, made a show of groping for the coffee, and sipped it. “He didn’t find Warfield, did he, cowboy?”
