by Bill Fawcett
He seemed sincere and unconcerned, but his answer puzzled me. It suggested Thad had not perished in a public duel. Yet if he had escaped Salt Creek, surely he would have written or telegraphed my home in Chicago to let me know of his fate.
“That is indeed the name of my friend.” I turned to my next avenue of investigation. “Do you know a Cletus Simmons?”
“I surely do. He and his daughter have a hardscrabble farm west of town. Saw his buckboard go past a little while ago. I imagine he’s buying supplies. Might still be around.”
The Kid stood. “I’ll fetch him.”
“You don’t know Salt Creek, nor would you recognize Simmons by sight.” I turned back to Tubb. “Do you have a boy you could send for him?”
“Well, yes.” He frowned and his voice suggested he did not find the request to be a convenient one.
I drew forth a coin and set it on the bar before him. “For your boy’s trouble.”
He swept it away—I suspected the boy would see no part of that payment—and his smile returned.
The three of us retreated to one of the partitioned tables with our drinks. We had ordered and received a second round before the boy, an Indian lad of perhaps ten, returned. He led a very lean man whose hair and mustache were a dense gray, his garments a hard- wearing brown. When the boy pointed to us, the man gave us a look of trepidation before turning our way. The hound growled as he passed and the man shied away from the beast.
I gestured for him to join us and made introductions all around. In a voice beginning to go dry and thin with age, he confirmed that he was Cletus Simmons. He took off his hat and held it against his chest, twisting its brim as if unaware he were doing so.
I took little time to reach the subject. “Can you tell us where we can find Thaddeus Hobart?”
He looked around, his expression unhappy, before returning his attention to us. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’d take it as a kindness if you would speak a little more quiet. Yes, because Thad told me some names, yours among them, I can tell you of his whereabouts. Anyone else, I’ll deny ever having met him.”
The Kid frowned at that statement. “Did he do you wrong?”
Mr. Simmons took a moment to array his thoughts. “Yes, he done me wrong, but that’s of no matter now. You will find it easy to visit him. Because he’s stone dead in an unmarked grave on my land.”
Vasquez, the Kid, and I exchanged a glance. Vasquez was the first to respond. “How did he die?”
“Shot in the back by a man named Rey.”
I sighed. There was to be no happy ending for Thaddeus Hobart. “Tell us the whole story.”
There was nothing remarkable, only pettiness and tragedy, to the tale Mr. Simmons spun. Thad had initially approached him to write letters to us and two other individuals—both of them gunmen Thad had ridden with . . . men quite famous in their own right for crimes and exploits. It seemed they had not responded, or at least not yet responded, to Thad’s entreaties. Thad had paid Mr. Simmons well for scribe duties and his silence.
A few days after the letters had been posted, Mr. Simmons heard a pounding upon his farmhouse door and a pained voice crying, “For God’s sake, help me!” He unbarred the door, and Thad, in a state of collapse, fell into his home. Thad gasped out a few words of explanation, saying he had made a break from Salt Creek on foot, undetected by the soldiers watching him, but then he had been pursued by Rey. Rey had shot him in the back, leaving him to die. After those words, Thad had indeed perished. Mr. Simmons had buried him, telling no one of these events out of fear that as the sole person who knew the name of Thad’s killer he might himself be murdered.
The news cast an air of gloom across me. Vasquez evidenced no emotion on the subject. The Bagdad Kid, on the other hand, seemed jubilant. “I’m sorry about Uncle Thad, but hell, I get to kill me a bad man.”
I kept my attention on Mr. Simmons. “This Rey—is he still in town?”
Simmons nodded. “He comes to town every night with one of his whores, or both. But their quarters are at Fort Cow. I think they’re friends with the commander.”
“So he’ll be here tonight?”
“He will. Right here. He comes to Bust most nights.”
“Thank you, Mr. Simmons.” I extended my hand to him. “We won’t speak of your involvement.”
“Thank you.” He shook all our hands, then rose.
I added, “With your permission, once we’ve settled this situation, we may visit your farm to pay our final respects to Thaddeus’s grave.”
“Oh.” He seemed to have been made uncertain by that request. “Of course. You’d be welcome.” He hurried from the saloon, receiving another growl from Mustard.
Vasquez, the Kid, and I spoke then in hushed tones about what we needed to do. Clearly, a murderous attack from behind called for vengeance. Vasquez, pragmatic, suggested a solution suited to the Code of Hammurabi—shoot Rey in the back. But as dishonorable as Rey had been, I could not quite agree. Such an assault constituted a grave sin.
Nor would the Kid have anything to do with such a plan. He told us, “You don’t get the right kind of fame shooting people in the back. It’s going to have to be in front of God and everybody. Three duels. Me first, since Uncle Thad was my blood kin. If Rey survives— and he won’t—Vasquez. And if the Spaniard survives Vasquez— which he won’t—Chet kills him.”
Such a strategy did seem to stack the deck against Rey, and yet it was fair. Each of us would be taking the same risk. Rey could not complain of unfair treatment. So I assented, as did Vasquez.
The Kid pressed on, “Chet, do you even own a gun?”
I patted the pocket of my waistcoat. “I have a derringer.”
His face fell as though I’d confessed to being proficient only with thrown rocks. “Oh, dear God. See here, I’ll bet you a dollar that Mr. Simmons ended up with Thad’s Peacemaker. We’ll set the duels for tomorrow noon but fetch you that gun before then.”
“Done.”
We then set out to stable our animals and secure rooms at the Station Hotel, a well-maintained business with a dining room, and we prepared to confront Rey that night.
[Omitted.]
On our return to Bust that evening, we found the establishment well occupied with patrons. Every stool at the bar was engaged, and most of the tables as well. A fair-haired man sat at the piano, hammering at its keys, producing a noise suggesting that the instrument was being rolled down a flight of stairs. There were women present, their dresses colorful and in some cases decorated with what looked like dyed ostrich feathers, offering dances, saloon companionship, and doubtless other services to the cowmen present. Oil lanterns hung from rafters cast a warm glow.
Mustard was in his usual place and offered his usual greeting. The Kid shook his head over that. “After I kill Rey, I may have to do something about that hound.”
“Unlike Rey, he’s done you no harm.” I led the way to an unoccupied table away from the wall and set my hat aside. When Tubb approached, we repeated our orders of earlier in the day.
I also requested of Tubb that he point out Señor Rey when he arrived.
Tubb chuckled at that. “You’ll know him when you see him.”
A few minutes later, a hand—a white hand of diminutive proportions—pushed open one of the swinging doors and held it. Another individual, not so fair, strode through and paused.
This did indeed have to be Rey. He was a tall man, dark-haired, his skin the olive tone of Mediterranean natives, his features accentuated by a narrow black mustache. He was handsome enough to tread the boards as a leading man of the stage.
His mode of dress was indeed French and current. From neck to ankle he was in iron- gray silks, a well-tailored suit, with silver buttons holding his waistcoat closed and a silver chain indicating the pocket that held his watch. Though his trouser cuffs largely hid his footwear, it appeared he was wearing boots of gleaming black leather. He deviated from proper fashion in three significant ways. He wore no hat on h
is head, none at all. His suit jacket was cut short. The reason for that was the better to permit access to the gun belt he wore, a polished black rig matching his boots. From its holster on his right hip protruded the ivory grip of a revolver.
The individual who followed him into the saloon, the one who had held the door for him, was a woman. She had dark hair arrayed in a tight coif and topped with a bowler hat. She was dressed as if for riding. Her fitted red silk skirt, its smallish bustle of the current style, matched her tailed coat. Her white blouse was high-necked and topped with a most delicate lace collar. The fairness of her skin suggested a diligent avoidance of the sun. Her bosom was full, her posture erect. She surveyed the room with dark eyes that, like a cat’s, demonstrated much attentiveness but did not betray her thoughts. The door she had briefly gripped swung shut behind her.
I felt a brief surge of annoyance. To me, Rey had just proven himself to be a bounder: Not only did he bring a well- born female companion to a place like this, he permitted her to hold the door for him rather than hold it for her like a gentleman. But I ignored my own feeling.
I glanced at Tubb for confirmation and found him already staring at me, nodding: This was indeed Rey.
Rey and his lady evaluated the few tables still unoccupied. My eye was then drawn to a curious detail: Mustard the hound lay in his accustomed place, and at this moment he offered brisk wags of his tail rather than his usual growl.
Before Rey could make a choice, I rose and approached him. I gave him a little bow. “Señor Rey? Allow me to beg the pleasure of your company, and that of your companion. My friends and I are newly arrived and would be delighted to spend time in the company of someone as extravagantly original as yourself.”
He paused, considering my offer, and then gave me a little nod.
I led them back to our table. Vasquez in the meantime had secured an additional chair so that all five of us might sit. While we seated ourselves, I noted that Rey did not hold his lady’s chair for her, and I made introductions.
Rey’s reply, in a voice so faint that the three of us were obliged to lean forward to catch his words, was minimal in its detail: “Ma demoiselle Sophie Garand.” With a gesture, he indicated his companion, though he had not hitherto acknowledged her.
I had a polite line of enquiry in mind, one that would steer our conversation to the matter of Thaddeus Hobart. My intent was foiled by the Kid’s forthrightness and indignation. He had begun to flush red even as Rey was taking his chair, and now, point-blank, he asked, “Are you the son of a bitch who killed Thaddeus Hobart?”
I endeavored not to wince. I discerned the volume of conversation at the tables nearest ours began to diminish, though it appeared that not everyone in the room had heard the Kid’s words.
For a moment, it seemed that Rey himself was among those who had not heard them. But presently he did turn his head to acknowledge the Kid. Unruffled, no emotion marring the manly beauty of his features, he offered a second nod. “The man Hobart is no more, and it was at my doing.” Again he spoke so quietly that we had to strain to hear him. Now, at last, a touch of an accent was evident in his speech, yet it was French rather than Spanish.
The Kid looked confounded that Rey would admit so readily to the deed. “And you shot him in the back?”
Rey offered an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. He whispered, “By that means I did not have to look on his abhorrent features. I am left to wonder about his family, whether he was the handsomest of his line, the others being obliged to remain within mud pens and eat slop.”
The Kid’s brows lowered during that statement, and his response was more decisive than I expected. He whipped up his right-hand revolver, aimed it point-blank at Rey’s chest, and let loose with a blast.
Caught off guard, I jumped nearly out of my skin, then grabbed in awkward haste for the derringer in my pocket. Rey would be dead, of course, but he might have friends in the crowd, and a display of guns, including even one such as mine, might be the only way now for the three of us to leave this establishment alive.
An instant later, Vasquez drew and fired. Shouts of alarm filled the air, all but drowned out by the reports of the revolvers. The stink of gunpowder burned at my nostrils.
And still Rey did not fall. In the moment after my companions’ weapons discharged, he merely continued staring at the Kid, impassive.
Then he reached for his hip.
The Kid and Vasquez fired again, and this time my shot joined theirs, the derringer kicking in my hand. I had a bead on his face— specifically, on the center point between the man’s eyes. At this range my shot could not miss its target.
Yet no mark appeared on Rey’s face. No discoloration spread on his waistcoat or the blouse beneath it. I became dimly cognizant of the fact that, in the direction my companions and I had fired, one of the establishment’s windows had shattered a moment earlier.
Rey produced his revolver. Yet he did not aim it at any of us. He shrugged, spun the weapon around on his finger, and holstered it once more.
A silence, and I do not exaggerate to call it a shocked silence, fell across the establishment. Many of the patrons were on the floor, having thrown themselves there to avoid stray gunfire. Now the braver of them began to rise. But all eyes were on the five of us.
I caught a glimpse of Ma de moiselle Sophie’s face. It wore an expression of sadness, but there was not the slightest hint of shock to it. She had known events would transpire just this way.
A thought, a terrible thought, emerged from the fog that had suddenly gathered in my mind. No man could withstand five pointblank gunshots . . . none but one specific breed. My heart sank.
Now Rey spoke in his whisper. “Thaddeus Hobart was a thief, a liar, and a wastrel. A man without cause or principle. He deserved far worse than I gave him.”
Vasquez, shock evident on his face, the first strong emotion I had seen him demonstrate, slowly lowered his gun and, with what seemed like great reluctance, holstered it. That reminded me of the bizarre tableau we all presented. I put my derringer away.
The Kid seemed to be in a greater state of shock than we were. “You—you—”
Stray thoughts flitted through my memory: a military camp I’d seen during the Kaiser’s futile war against the French, abandoned except by corpses; the curious death, a century ago, of Benjamin Franklin; tales by the score from the implacable expansion of the French Empire. I addressed the man I had just shot. “Your name is not Rey and you are not Spanish.”
He turned his attention to me. “Correct.”
“You’re French and your name is Renault.”
“Oui.”
Finally there were other voices to be heard in the room—indistinct murmurs, with “Renault” and “paladin” the only comprehensible words. Two of the cattlemen at the bar bolted, making it outside and into the dark before the hound had time to growl at them.
Renault spoke again. All attention was now on him and everyone heard his whisper. “I say you are men of no worth. No honor. Pigs like your friend Hobart. But I give you a choice. Three days from now, at noon, I will return here. In the street outside, if you dare face me, I will shoot you each in the heart. If before then you wish to demonstrate your true natures and flee, do so. Since you have no honor left, running away can do it no harm.” So saying, he rose, the economy of his motion such that he did not move his chair in the least.
Ma de moiselle Sophie rose as well, and preceded Renault from the saloon. Then they were gone, and low conversations sprang up around the room.
The Kid finally remembered to holster his weapon.
Mr. Tubb appeared beside our table, his face pale and his expression grave. “I think you gents are done drinking here for the night,” he assured us.
The three of us walked in a sort of daze back to the Station Hotel. Before we ascended the stairs, Vasquez demanded of the night clerk a bottle of liquor, any sort. With it and three mismatched cups, we entered my chamber. His face pale, Vasquez poured for us, filli
ng the room with the odor of strong tequila.
I gulped at mine, surviving a stronger than normal liquor burn.
The Kid urged Vasquez to fill his cup to the lip. He received his drink and turned to me for more explanation. “Am I crazy? Or was that a damned paladin?”
I sat on my bed, which under my weight creaked a complaint of its years. “Yes, Kid. Renault is one of the Twelve Peers, the agents of God or Satan who have guaranteed the ascendency of the French Empire across the last century.” Finally the significance of the date that Renault had proposed for our duel revealed itself to me. “And I fear we have become the victims of a cruel deception.”
The Kid crossed himself, as though the gesture would do him any good under these circumstances, and took the chair by the window. “Why is he here?”
“I think I’ve just grasped the reason, Kid. It relates to the centennial celebration of the end of the French Civil War. In fact, I’m certain of it.” At the Kid’s blank look, I continued. “When Charles the Tenth deposed Louis the Sixteenth and assumed the throne of France, he did so with the help of the paladins. Then they exterminated the leadership of the revolutionaries who had plagued the noble class for the previous two years and set about securing France’s fortunes as the most powerful nation on the earth. Unstoppable killers who could strike down the leadership of any army, any nation . . . and the revolutionaries were put down, to the day, one hundred years before the date of our appointment with Renault.”
Vasquez, who had remained standing, finally spoke. “Renault staged this. He drew us in and will kill us, men well known in Texas. A message to all the Republic. ‘Stop pushing at the borders. Stop protesting our tariffs. Be good boys.’ ”
The Kid shook his head. “But the Frenchies don’t much care what goes on in this part of the world.”
I tipped my cup to him in mock salute. “That’s exactly it, Kid. This action signals a change in that policy. With their European borders secure, they must now be turning their attention to strengthening their colonies in the New World. Perhaps in Africa and Asia as well.” I considered that. “It may be that at this exact moment, eleven other traps have been sprung all over the world, one paladin at the center of each. A few days from now, news dispatches from Indo-China, the Congo, the South Seas, and other places will join the poor account of our deaths.”
