by John Benteen
He had to hand it to Meredith. The big man had worked like a dog at the tricky, dangerous business of laying the dynamite charges in the dead black of night without a light. Every cap, every connection, had been placed by Meredith personally. Now, where the bottleneck in the canyon fanned out, the ground was saturated with dynamite, each charge laden down with stones and scrap-iron; when it blew, there would be one hell of a lot of shrapnel loose in this canyon for a while. And Meredith was over there now, across the canyon from Fargo, in one of the rifle pits they had dug, his two detonators beside him and Morse Clark in there with him.
There were other rifle pits, too, plenty of them, up and down the line on either side, each holding a man with two Winchesters. Like the planting of dynamite, their construction had been accomplished silently, in pitch-black darkness; by dawn, each was camouflaged by a covering of boards laden with turf. Hernandez’s riders, when they came, would be caught in a deadly cross-fire, as soon as the powder blew.
And so, Fargo waited patiently. Meredith had checked and double-checked his dynamite connections; and, lest anything go wrong, the women were hidden. Meredith and Sam Delaney had found a hiding place for Crystal, inside the entrance of the mine. But Fargo himself had located a hiding place for Juanita. That was because Fargo had decided Crystal could not be trusted. She was wild, unstable; and she had hated Juanita since Fargo’s encounter with her the other morning. Fargo had decided not to let her know where Juanita was, and only after black dark had he taken the Spanish girl to a cleft in the canyon wall he had discovered that afternoon. She had food, water, and he was the only one who knew her hiding place. “This is only a precaution,” he had explained. ‘They might get as far as the mine, but I doubt it. All the same, you don’t want to risk being hit by stray bullets. Just hunker down here and wait until it’s all over.”
“I’ll do whatever you say,” she had whispered. The unspoken thought hung between them. If something did go wrong, the fate a woman would suffer at the hands of Hernandez’s band would be worse even than that inflicted on the men. The men would be tortured and killed—the Mexican revolutionaries and bandidos had shown great ingenuity at torturing their enemies; after all, most of them were of Indian blood. But sooner or later, the men would die. The women would not. They would stay alive—and be used in a way that would make them wish for death....
“Just make sure you don’t come out until I come for you, or until you’re sure we’ve won. If I don’t come for you, it’ll be because I’ve had it in the fight.”
“Dios, Fargo, don’t talk like that!” Her fingers had dug into his arm.
“I don’t figure to get it,” he said, kissed her lightly on the lips, and left her.
After black dark, he had led the men into position. Now it was all up to Hernandez....
Now Fargo tensed. That coyote-yelping on the rim was more frequent—and phonier. Something was going to happen. He felt a wild kind of joy rise in him. Now the Gods were going to roll dice for his life. And, gambler that he was, it was a stake he loved to play for. He checked the sawed-off and laid extra rounds for it on his bent thigh and held his breath.
For now they were coming.
The first sign was the faint tick of steel on rock, horseshoe on flint. They were out there, beyond the barrier.
But they were coming up slowly, cautiously. That was all right; that was what he had expected. His hand tightened on the shotgun. When he fired both barrels, that would be the signal to Meredith. The shotgun could not be mistaken for any other weapon that might go off. The double-barreled blast would cause Meredith to push down the handles on both detonators. One would blow the barrier behind the invaders; the other would turn the canyon floor into a hail of death....
Fargo’s rifle pit was the closest to the barrier. He was the first to see two men come riding through the gap abreast, both of them furtive, their horses at a walk, their rifles ready. Actually, he sensed rather than saw them, so dark was the night; they were only blacker blots in an all-encompassing blackness.
The two: and now two more. And more behind them. Fargo held his breath, waiting, watching, eyes straining to pierce the night. On they came, a careful, skittish, gun-carrying, bandolier-hung bunch of fighting men. Superb horsemen all, they handled their mounts so that the noise they made was minimal; they might have been a line of wraiths floating into this end of the hourglass.
Twelve, fourteen, sixteen...Fargo felt exultancy. Hernandez was committing a big patrol, all right. Twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four. In a moment more, the leaders might be out of range of the mine field. And yet, others were still coming. Fargo hardly dared believe their luck. Hernandez was committing half his men…no, more than half. The ones in front had reined in; now the others, flowing through the gap, formed an immense knot behind them. And, Fargo thought, grinning his wolf’s grin, they were all squarely on top of the dynamite.
Then his grin faded. More were coming. For God’s sake, Hernandez wasn’t sending them all in—Thirty of them now, then another six. That was the maximum the eighteen men could cope with. And still they came. It was time to blow the barrier, blow the mine field.
Fargo sucked in his breath. He pointed the double-barreled Fox. It was lined up in such a way that it would rake the column without hurting his own men on the opposite side of the canyon. Goddammit, riders were still coming through—he pulled both triggers.
The lancing flame from the gun barrels seemed to light up the night. In the confines of the gorge, the report was thunderous. Horses screamed. Men shrieked. And Fargo waited for the mine field to blow, the gorge walls come tumbling down to block the bottleneck. He crouched deep in his foxhole, to be clear of shrapnel, cramming two more rounds into the gun.
And nothing happened.
The dynamite didn’t blow.
Fargo crouched there paralyzed. Then he popped out of the hole, fired into the raiders again, “Meredith!” he yelled. “Blow the goddam dyno!”
But the shooting had started. The night was a crazy pattern of muzzle flames. Suddenly the men on horses whooped, put their mounts into a run, charged toward the mine. Fargo fired and fired again, but lead was whistling all around him now. The raiders were directing a volley toward his rifle pit.
And still the dynamite didn’t go off.
It was impossible, he thought. Goddammit, it was just impossible! Meredith had checked and double-checked those connections! A man like him couldn’t screw them all up!
Two dark shapes on horseback loomed up in blackness. Fargo fired at them instinctively with the sawed-off; the horses screamed and went down. “Meredith!” he howled, whipping out his pistol. More riders were whipping through the barrier gap now; Hernandez was sending in his whole force! “Meredith!” Fargo yelled again. He shot a man advancing toward his pit, drilled him with a quick, instinctive left-handed switch of the pistol. Then he heard a man screaming in Spanish, and it had to be Hernandez.
“Meredith! Meredith! Where are you?”
And suddenly, as two more men loomed up on the edge of the rifle pit, Fargo understood. He understood totally and completely the dimensions of Meredith’s betrayal. He shot one of the men with his pistol. The other fired at him, and the bullet raked his skull. And instantly the darkness seemed to explode in a great white light After that Fargo knew nothing else for a long time.
He came back from nowhere. Before he opened his eyes, it seemed to him that his skull was being pried apart with a crowbar. Partly because of pain, partly because of instinctive precaution, it was a long time before he dared peel back his eyelids.
Meanwhile, as he lay in pretended unconsciousness, he heard voices over him. “It worked, Ramon! Goddamit, it worked like a charm!”
That was Meredith. Then, in Spanish:
“Si, Meredith. All went exactly as I understood it must. Once I knew you were back at the canyon....”
“They were going to blow you up with dynamite,” Meredith said. “But I put the dynamite in place myself; and I fouled up all t
he connections. One of Delaney’s gunmen, Clark, was in the pit with me. When it didn’t go off, he tried to detonate it himself. I put my knife in his ribs.” Meredith paused. “I’ve kept my end of the bargain.”
“Indeed. And I will keep mine. I know nothing of taking silver out of the ground. You continue to run the Sierra Princess and you provide me with mucho plata. With this silver, I buy weapons and hire men. Soon I will be greater than Villa himself, and in time, I will rule Chihuahua.”
“And all the silver mines in it,” Meredith said; and Fargo heard again that undertone of lust. “And I’ll run those for you, too—two-thirds to you, one third to me.”
“Yes,” Hernandez said. “You shall be my chief in the department of mines and keep me supplied with silver for my army. Now, about this cabron…”
“Hell,” Meredith said. “Go ahead and shoot him and get it over with.”
“No. He and Delaney are the only two left alive. My men want sport. They must provide it.” Then a hand shook Fargo roughly. “Wake up, you son of a whore. Wake up!”
Fargo kept his eyes closed a moment longer. Then, as he was shaken again, more roughly, he stirred, moaned. He took his time about pretending to come back to consciousness. When he finally looked up at Hernandez and Meredith, it was very groggily.
He was in the mess shack, stretched out on a table, “What... happened?” he said thickly. He tried to sit up, then fell back, the pain in his head genuine.
“Meredith betrayed us.” That bitter voice was Delaney’s. Fargo tried again, did sit up this time. “He’d made a deal with Hernandez; he planned all along to let Hernandez in on the mine.”
“What?” This part of it was still foggy to Fargo. He rubbed his head. Then, as his vision cleared, he saw the guns trained on him. Meredith’s face was split by a vulpine grin; Hernandez was watching him with narrow eyes, a silver-mounted Colt centered on his chest. Fargo looked around. Delaney, hands bound behind his back, sat in a chair.
Meredith’s cigar rolled across his mouth and he laughed. “That’s right, Fargo! I played you for a sucker! Maybe the only man in history ever to play the great Fargo for a sucker!” He took out the cigar, waggled it at Fargo. “And you went along every jump of the way!”
Fargo blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I never intended to take that silver to the Rio. Hell, I was one jump ahead of the sheriff when we left El Paso!”
“He’s been handling our business in the States for the past year,” Delaney said with that deep bitterness. “He’s embezzled me blind. The other backers, too. He’s stolen the mine’s money, borrowed against assets it didn’t have....”
“That’s right, Sam,” said Meredith cheerfully. “While you were down here grubbing in the dirt, I had myself a time.” He sobered. “I can’t go back to the States, Fargo—ever, I knew that when I hired you. But I needed a bodyguard to get me through Northern Chihuahua, a damned good fighting man. And you did it, by God, just like I expected you to. It cost me a thousand, but it was cheap at the price. Hadn’t been for you, that Garcia would have had my head.”
“So he’s staying here now,” Delaney said harshly. “Throwing himself in with this greaser.”
“This greaser,” Meredith said calmly, “can be the next President of Mexico with the Sierra Princess silver behind him. And the rest of the silver from the mines we can take over. Hell, I can supply him with enough silver to buy out Villa’s army; he won’t even have to fight to take it over! In return, I’m gonna be a big man in Mexico—and you’re gonna be the big man’s woman, aren’t you, honey?”
Gingerly, Fargo turned his head. For the first time, he saw Crystal Delaney, a little behind Meredith. Now she came forward, slipped her arm through his. She rubbed her cheek against him.
“You bitch,” Delaney said, with a kind of sickness in his voice.
Crystal whirled, jerked free from Meredith. She strode to Delaney. Then, coldly, deliberately, she slapped his mouth. “Don’t use that word to me,” she said in a voice like ice. “I’ve had all of you and your mealy-mouthed stupidity and your fumbling and slobbering I can take. Oh, God, you don’t know how fed up I am with you, Sam, how fed up I’ve been since the first time... you and your schoolboy love-making! Do you think I married you because I loved you? Hell, no! You were the only man I knew with a silver mine— But you’re so weak, so rotten weak... It takes a strong man for me!”
Delaney’s face worked. Fargo saw grief mingled with the hatred; tears actually welled from the man’s eyes and he dropped his head. Crystal turned to Fargo, hands on hips, green eyes blazing.
“And you, you rat! I hope it take you a long time to die! You and that puta of yours! Where is she anyhow?” She laughed brassily, gestured to the door. Outside, there was the sound of voices, of horses—the rest of Hernandez’s band. “They’ve got something planned for her—after Ramon gets through with her!”
“Yeah,” Meredith said. “Where is she, Fargo? We’ll find her sooner or later—but those men out there are impatient. So’s Ramon.”
“And you’re afraid that if they don’t get her, they’ll take Crystal instead, eh?” Fargo laughed softly. “Why don’t you let ‘em have her, Meredith? They all will sooner or later, anyhow. And she’d love it.”
Meredith’s mouth twisted. He raised a big hand. “Listen, Fargo—”
Fargo said quietly: “Don’t hit me, Meredith. It’ll make, it harder for the two of us to work together.”
Meredith stared at him, hand poised. Then it dropped. “What?”
“I want in,” Fargo said.
Crystal snapped an obscenity. Without looking at her, Meredith said: “Hush.” He kept on staring at Fargo. “You want in?”
They were talking English. Hernandez, looking from one to the other, snapped: “Speak Spanish!”
“Sure,” Fargo said in that language. “I told Meredith I want in. I want to work with you—if you pay me enough to make it worthwhile. You need a man like me. I’m a professional.”
Hernandez laughed contemptuously. “You mean you try to save your skin. No. All the rest of the gringos are dead; only you and Delaney remain. My men must have sport; you two shall provide it. I don’t need you.”
“Meredith does,” Fargo said. Then, with utter coolness, he said: “Give me one of those cigars, Meredith.”
Staring at him, Meredith absently took a cigar from his pocket, passed it over. Fargo felt a tinge of hope; he could see that the seed he’d planted in Meredith’s mind was beginning to sprout already. Fargo bit off the end of the cigar and Meredith lit it for him. The smoke tasted good.
“My business,” Fargo said, “is to fight for money. It doesn’t make any difference to me which side I’m on, long as I get paid. Meredith and Delaney were paying me, and so I fought for them—and we’d have torn you apart, General Hernandez, if Meredith hadn’t been on your side. Meredith knows that, don’t you, Meredith?”
Slowly, the big man nodded.
“If, General, you’re going to run Northern Mexico, you’re going to have to fight a long time and beat a lot of people—Villa, Obregon, all the rest...Silver or no silver, you’re going to need all the edge you can get. You’re going to have to divide your forces—with part of them you’ll have to fight the other armies. With the other part, you’ll have to protect Meredith’s silver-mining operations. You need a man for that—just like Delaney and Meredith did.”
Hernandez was staring at him with black, hostile eyes; but it was not really Hernandez Fargo spoke to; it was Meredith. When Fargo and Delaney were dead, Meredith would be one gringo among all these Mexicans. It was going to be a lonely, vulnerable position, no matter what promises Hernandez had made, what guarantees.
Fargo went on coolly. “All right, Meredith put one over on me this time. I don’t mind that; it’s just a risk you take in this business. I don’t hold it against him personally. And for five per cent of Meredith’s share of the silver, plus a bonus when you’ve taken all of Chihua
hua, I’ll guarantee the safety of Meredith’s mining operations.”
Again Hernandez laughed coldly. “I have a man to do that.”
“Not a man like me,” Fargo said.
Hernandez spat. “Antonio Rodriguez is the best fighting man in my army, besides myself.”
“I’m better,” Fargo said.
“You think so, eh?” Now a certain light came into Hernandez’s eyes. His mouth twisted in a grin. “How? With guns, fists, knives?”
“With anything you want to name,” Fargo said.
Hernandez chuckled. “Well, we wanted sport; we shall have it. I think there is nothing Tonio would like better than to carve you into ribbons. He is a very great man with a knife and restless because our conquest was so easy. I think a good fight would make him happy and make great sport for my men.”
“And suppose I win?” Fargo said.
“You will not win. But if you do—”Hernandez shrugged. “Why, then, I shall need someone to replace Tonio. And then I will think about what you have said.” He turned to his men. “Watch him well. I shall go speak to Tonio.” And he gestured to Delaney. “You. You shall come with me. It is time you began to dig.”
Delaney stared at him. “Dig?” His face was pale.
“Yes,” Hernandez said. He told one of the guards: “Untie him and bring him with me. If he tries to escape, shoot him in the legs. We do not want him to die too swiftly.”
The man loosened Delaney’s bonds, jerked him to his feet, stabbed at him with the gun barrel Delaney swayed as he stood up, looked at Crystal imploringly. His voice shook. “Crystal. In the name of God, help me!”
Crystal looked at him for a moment, then turned away.
“Out,” the guard said and prodded the man again with the gun. Delaney made a strangled sound and marched ahead, following Hernandez. They went out of the mess shack; and the place was silent for a moment with a terrible kind of silence.
Then Meredith let out a long breath. “Fargo,” he said quickly, in English. “Did you mean what you said?”
