by John Benteen
No. It was totally out of reason.
But there they were.
Again Fargo cursed softly, wondering if heat and hunger had finally gotten to him. He steadied the binoculars. As the long, galloping column bent slightly toward him, he tracked them with the lenses.
And there was no doubt about it. None. He knew Indians, and those men racing across the flat down there were exactly what they looked like. The bright cloths around their long, black, greasy hair; the flapping shirts, the buckskin pants and high, legginged moccasins: these were unmistakable. So, too, was the war paint with which their faces were smeared. The powerful binoculars brought them close; he could see the lather on their mounts, the glitter of their obsidian eyes, the coppery sheen of their skin, the bandoleers of ammunition crisscrossing barrel chests. He saw, too, the modern Winchesters they carried and the pistols thrust in their waistbands. He tensed as he saw something else.
Three of them bore on their belts strange, furry, bloody clumps, not large, and varying in color from blond to black.
Although he had never seen one before, Fargo knew what those objects were. Fresh scalps.
Instinctively, his hand went out to grasp his rifle. If they turned harder in his direction, he was taking no chance of their discovering him. As soon as they were in range, ghosts or no, he would open fire. From such a hiding place he could drop them from their saddles as fast as he could shoot. He got the gun into position.
But then, just as he thought he’d have to use it, the leader of the column reined in, so suddenly that his chestnut pony reared and pawed. Fargo fastened the lenses of the binoculars squarely on him. They brought up close every detail of that savage figure. He saw a young, hard, coppery face in which black eyes gleamed with excitement; saw white teeth shining as the man yelled orders. He saw the sway of cartridge-laden bandoleers, the blond and bloody scalp on the young Indian’s belt. Then, for one instant, magnified by glass, the Apache seemed to look directly at Fargo, meet his eyes.
Hastily, Fargo shielded the binoculars with a hand, lest their lenses pick up sunglare and reflect it back like a mirror, a heliograph, giving away his location. Still, he watched, saw the Indian’s mouth twist; saw the man spit into the dust as his horse came down on all fours; saw him gesture. In that brief second, the Apache’s features registered clearly, indelibly on Fargo’s consciousness. It was a face never to be forgotten, contorted with excitement, dangerous with blood-lust. Then the young buck reined around. He pointed toward the mouth of a deep arroyo and kicked his horse with moccasined heels. An instant more and he had disappeared behind the arroyo’s bank. His band followed, galloping after one by one.
Fargo kept the glasses on them until the last man had vanished. Only when every one of them was swallowed up by that slash in the tortured earth, which he knew led south toward the Rio, did he lower the binoculars.
“Hell,” he said aloud, wonderingly. It was not often that anything surprised him, but now he was astounded. Then he raised the glasses again, surveyed the canyon from which they’d emerged.
He watched for a long time; there was no sign of life. Nothing stirred to arouse suspicion.
Fargo’s mouth twisted. No survivors, he thought. He lay there on the rock for a long time. The sun baked him, seared the last remaining moisture from his body. The time he spent there was an eternity of discomfort. But time, sun, and discomfort were nothing where life hung in the balance. He had to know if the Apaches were coming back.
Two hours passed; they did not reappear. Fargo slid back down into the draw. His scarred, ugly face was thoughtful.
Normally, he would ride wide around any fight that was no concern of his. He had all the trouble he could handle minding his own business. When there was no profit involved, he didn’t go out of his way looking for more. And yet …
In a sense, this was his business. He operated down here, made his money in this country. Maybe he would give up gunrunning and maybe he wouldn’t. He hadn’t yet made that decision.
But one thing was certain. Something was going on down here in Big Bend that he did not understand. If he continued to smuggle guns to Villa, he had to find out what it was. He was prepared to cope with the U.S. Cavalry, with guerrillas, bandits, and double-crossers. But thirty Indians? Wild Apache bucks? That was something new, inexplicable. Assuming he had not been crazy with the heat—and he knew he was not—he had to find out as much as he could about this weird, unexpected presence in the badlands, this invasion of ghosts from thirty years ago.
He checked the Winchester and the shotgun, cleaned the Colt to make sure it was free of grit. Then he took out the knife—it was called a Batangas knife. He had gotten it years before in the Philippines; its ten-inch blade was so adroitly made and tempered, its point could be driven through a silver dollar at a single blow without breaking or blunting. It was the least of his armament. Yet, it had saved his life more than once, and he was as meticulous about it as his other weapons. He made sure the hinged grips that folded over the blade worked smoothly on their pivots once unlatched, snicking back instantaneously at the flick of his wrist to leave the blade naked and deadly. When he was satisfied, he put it back in its special, lubricated sheath.
Anyone watching him would have been baffled by the indifference with which he used either hand. Testing the weapons, he was as deft with his left as with his right. He had been born with this gift; he was ambidextrous. There was nothing he could do with his right hand that he could not duplicate with his left. Nevertheless, except when alone, he was careful to use his right hand almost exclusively; that clever left was his ace in the hole. His survival had hinged on the unexpectedness of his skill with it more than once.
Fargo made doubly sure that everything was in working order, and his hand had caressed the ornate breech of the shotgun lovingly for the last time, tracing out the words engraved there among all the decoration: To Neal Fargo, gratefully, from T. Roosevelt.
No one but himself knew how he had earned this gift. When he had satisfied himself that he was as ready for a fight as he could ever be, he slung the Fox, holstered Colt and knife, slipped the Winchester back into its saddle scabbard, and mounted the bay.
Then, in the rays of the dying sun, he rode toward the canyon where he knew the Apaches had fought somebody—evidently, they had won.
An hour’s torturous ride over rough country brought him to the canyon’s gaping mouth. He reined in, the shotgun ready in his right hand, and stared at the high, rock walls towering over him and the dry watercourse that ran between them. Inside, shadows were deep and purple, ominous.
But he had to see what lay within. He touched the bay with spurs, sent it into the gloom within the walls.
Keeping it tight-reined, he moved forward at a walk. For a hundred yards, maybe more, the canyon stretched ahead of him arrow-straight, and except for the churned tracks of many hoof prints in the sand of its floor, there was nothing to excite suspicion. Nevertheless, farther on, it turned sharply. It was what lay around that bend that worried Fargo.
Before he reached it, he put the bay into a gallop. He wanted to come around quickly, surprisingly, ready for anything, the shotgun thrust ahead. The bay rounded the turn in the rock wall. Then it snorted as Fargo yanked it to a skidding halt.
Here, the canyon narrowed. Its floor was two sandy shelves, one on either side, the ribbon of the lower creek bed cleft between, totally dry except when some upstream storm sent a flash flood rolling down it; and that was not likely now. But if a flood did come, it would find plenty of carnage to wash away and purify.
There were five dead horses and four dead men.
The slaughtered animals were dark blots on the sand; the men, naked, terribly white ones. Their corpses seemed to shine with an eerie, phosphorescent light in the gathering gloom; and the blood that bathed them stood out gruesomely. Each body had been scalped. But scalping was not the worst mutilation performed. As Fargo, still holding the shotgun ready, forced the skittish bay among the bodies, he f
ound himself hoping that the men had been dead before those atrocities were performed.
He had never really seen the things that Apaches were said to have done to their victims, but he had heard about them. Now he saw that nothing he had heard had been exaggerated. For a moment, he thought of his own father and mother killed by Chiricahuas. It was the first time he had thought of them in years, but now it flashed through his head: Did they do that to them? Nobody had ever told him; now, all at once, he understood why.
Hardened as he was, he felt his face twist into a grimace. Then something clicked into place in his brain. Five horses, four dead men. Where was the other rider?
He raised his head, scanned the canyon. Fifty yards on, it made another snake-twist. Fargo bit his lip, leveled the shotgun, approached that turn with caution. He rounded it in a strange gloom that was almost total darkness. But, again, not total enough to mask the white flesh on the canyon floor, naked, spread-eagled, staked out.
Fargo sucked in his breath. This one had not been dead before they had worked on him.
He checked the canyon with meticulous eyes. Nothing in it gave him alarm. Only when satisfied did he dismount, move forward with the shotgun in one hand, the Winchester in the other. Then he was standing over the man the Indians had tortured.
Evidently, after driving pegs of mesquite in the sand, binding wrists and ankles to each so that he was spread out wide and vulnerably, they had scalped him first. His face was indescribable, the loose skin oozing in a welter of blood down over his eyes.
Of course, that had been only the beginning. Then there was the fire they had built in the middle of his chest. Its embers still smoldered, filling Fargo’s nostrils with the stench of burning flesh.
But then that was not the worst. His eyes went to the bloody groin; then looked away quickly.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “You poor, goddamn bastard.”
He turned away, sure the man was dead. No human being could have survived all that.
Then he heard the groan.
It came from behind him. From the spread-eagled man, the wreck of a man the Apaches had staked out on the canyon floor.
Fargo whirled. He strode back, staring down at the terrible thing on the sand.
“I hurt,” it said. “Jesus, I hurt.”
Fargo hesitated. Then he dropped to his knees beside the monstrosity. He put out a hand, hardly realizing what he was doing, moved back the folds of loose, bloody skin that obscured the eyes. Blue, glazed orbs stared back at him with strange intensity; the Apaches had cut off their lids.
Then, to Fargo’s amazement, they registered recognition. Bloody lips moved. “I know you. Fargo. Neal Fargo.”
“Christ,” Fargo said, voice shaky. “Who the hell are you?”
The lips moved painfully, slowly. “Don’t you know me? Sam Finch.”
“Finch.” Fargo said the word tersely. His mind reached back; then he remembered. El Paso, months ago. Finch had approached him about joining a gunrunning deal. But, of course, preferring to work alone, Fargo had turned him down.
Then Finch’s mouth twisted. “They didn’t leave enough of me to recognize.”
“Goddamn it, Sam—” Fargo’s voice was a rasp. “What happened here?”
It took a long time for him to get the answer doled out to him in a pain-filled whisper. “Guns. We run a load of ’em to Villa. Fifty thousand dollars worth. Me and my buddies.”
At the mention of that sum, Fargo bent forward. “Go on, Sam.”
“Will . . . only I hurt. Yes. This is what happened. We come back across the Rio with the fifty thousand. Then ... it was Injuns, goddamn it. You got to believe me, Fargo. Injuns! Apaches, old-time.”
“I saw ’em, Sam; I believe you.”
“Aaahhh.” It was a sound of agony; Finch gathered strength to go on.
“They crowded us hard. We thought we shook ’em. All the same, we hid the fifty thousand—”
“You hid it,” Fargo slashed in. “Hid it where?” Finch’s parody of a mouth twisted in an agonized grin. “Like to know? That’s what the Apaches wanted, too. One of ’em talked English. Better English than me or you. Other fellers . . . dead. They caught me alive. Still, wouldn’t tell . . . wasn’t gonna tell goddamn Injuns. Fifty thousand dollars in gold, Fargo.” He paused. If his eyes had had lids, he would have closed them. Presently, he went on. “I’ll make you . . . trade, Fargo.”
“What kinda trade?”
“The things they done to me. I suffered ’em. Wouldn’t tell the bastards. Knowed they’d do ’em anyhow But ... I hurt, Fargo. Christ, I hurt. There ain’t nothin’ left of me. Nothin’. They thought I was dead, rode off. But I ain’t. I wish I was.”
“Go on, Sam.” Fargo’s voice was urgent. “The gold. The fifty thousand.”
“Said I’d trade. Fifty thousand in gold for one quick bullet.” What passed for a laugh raised the short hair on the back of Fargo’s neck. “Not bad, huh?”
“You want the bullet, Sam?” Fargo stood up. “You’ll get it, you tell me where the gold is.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll die anyway. Only a little longer. I’m overdue in El Paso.”
“Yeah.” Finch’s voice was rough. “That’s Fargo, all right. I thought I recognized you, but I wasn’t sure. Tricks, you know. One time I thought I seen my whole family standin’ here. But, course they’re back in Kansas.”
Fargo said, “Sam. Where did you hide the money?”
“You’ll gimme the bullet?”
Fargo drew his Colt. “Here it is, Sam.”
Again that terrible smile. “All right. You know the Mule Ear Peaks.”
“Yes.”
“North side of south peak. Halfway up. Look for a ledge, boulder shaped like a hawk’s bill. Cave there. Put the money inside, started rock slide, wiped out all our tracks. Thought we’d lost the goddamn Injuns. But they’d only circled, hit us in this canyon. You can find it, Fargo?”
“North side of south peak, halfway up, ledge, hawk’s bill rock.”
“That’s right. Jesus, Neal—”
“Sam, you swear it’s there?”
“Oh, Neal, yes. Damn it, yes. Please. It’s beginnin’ to hurt, now. It didn’t hurt so bad before. But it hurts like hell, now. There ain’t nothin’ left of me. Please, Neal. The money’s there. For God’s sake, please.” Begging, the lidless, blood-veined eyes stared up at Fargo from beneath the scalped, sagging folds of skin that once had enclosed the forehead.
“All right,” Fargo said. He drew in a deep breath. “Sorry, Sam.”
The pupils of the lidless eyes rolled to one side, not watching. Fargo trained the gun. Then he pulled the trigger.
The body did not even move, and Fargo put the Colt smoothly back into its holster.
Then he ran to the bay, swung into the saddle.
The vultures and the coyotes would dispose of the bodies. He looked back at what had been Finch one time, then spurred the horse.
Already his mind was working.
He did not doubt Finch’s dying statement. There was fifty thousand hidden in the Mule Ears, all right But he was not going after it now. It would stay where it was until he was ready to come and claim it. Like, he thought wryly, money in the bank. A damned good return for the expenditure of one cartridge from his Colt.
But for now he was going to get out of Big Bend as fast as he could. He didn’t know where those Indians had come from or how they’d gotten here or what they were up to. But they were real, deadly factors in the intricate equation of working his trade in this country. Until he knew more about them, he was not coming back here. From what Finch had told him, the money was hidden indefinitely, until the end of eternity. The Mule Ears were in the most barren, desolate part of this great scope of tortured land encompassed by the huge loop of the Rio; that secret cave was like a vault. He would open it in his own good time, when he knew what the odds were against him. Anyhow, right now, he had no way to move the gold even if he wanted
to; his bay could not carry the titanic added weight of fifty thousand in the heavy metal.
So he rode swiftly out of the canyon, fading into the desert night like a wolf, bound west.
A map of the badlands unreeled before him in his mind.
What—? A hundred, a hundred and fifty whites? That comprised the total population of all these hundreds of square miles. Less than that, now. Part of those had been ranchers and they had cleared out under the threat of Mexican raids. The mines, the miners, were hardier. The land along the Rio was spotted with silver and mercury mines; and the tough hard rock men still hung on. The last remaining center of civilization down here was a place called Terlingua, with a store, a nearby scattering of mines—and, undoubtedly, U.S. Cavalry. He would have to give it a wide berth. He would have to cut east from where he was, around the base of the Chisos Mountains, and then west again to come out at the El Paso Road.
It would not be an easy trip. This territory was trackless; there were places in it where no white man had ever set foot. Still, he knew it as well as anybody. The main thing was the water holes. They were few and far between. If one or two of them were dry, he might be in trouble. It was a chance he would have to take.
He rode all night. Dawn found him on the west flank of the Chisos, in country that might have been carefully designed by the Devil himself, a barren jumble of upturned, sun-blasted land. He found a secure place to camp, holed in during the heat of the day, watering himself and the travel-gaunted bay at a seepage of liquid oozing from a cleft of rock.
Then he spread his blankets. He put all of them down beneath him. In the daytime heat, he would need none over him. He picketed the bay so it couldn’t stray. There was nothing but the foliage of a few scrawny willows around the spring for it to browse on. He took off his spurs, but not his boots. He unfastened the cartridge belt around his waist and the bandoleers over his shoulders, unslung the shotgun and the pistol, and put them within easy reach.
