Fargo (A Neal Fargo Adventure #1)

by John Benteen

  “Oh, will he, now? Maybe that depends. What have you got to talk to him about that’s so important?”

  Fargo looked the man straight in the eyes. He drew in a deep breath. “Silver,” he said. “Three hundred thousand American dollars’ worth of silver.”

  The man stared back at Fargo. Then he reached out; took the shotgun from Fargo’s unresisting hand. He slid its strap over his shoulder. He fished Fargo’s Colt from its holster, thrust it into his waistband.

  “I am. Captain Emiliano Toral. I think you had better tell me about this silver.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “I tell no one but General Villa. I’ve traveled a long way to see him, and I don’t know what he’s doing today, but whatever it is, it’s not as important as listening to what I have to tell him. In person.”

  Toral’s mouth twisted angrily. “Listen, you—”

  “You listen. Villa’s going to be damned unhappy with anybody who keeps me away from him one minute longer than necessary. I warn you of that now. Take us to him.”

  Toral stared at Fargo a moment longer. He bit his lip. “How much silver?”

  “Three hundred thousand dollars’ worth. And more…A lot of silver. One hell of a lot. And I know where it is. And how Villa can get it.”

  Toral sucked in a deep breath. Then he made his decision. “All right, gringo. You come with me. The Indian, too. But, God help you if you’re playing some game and waste the General’s time. He doesn’t like to have his time wasted.” Toral gestured with his rifle. “Come,”

  “Sure,” Fargo said, and he spurred the horse. He felt a surge of relief. It was working: the magic word.

  They rode into Chihuahua, its broad streets swarming with Villista gunmen. On three sides, the hills towered around the city. Toral, leading a five-man escort which never took the muzzles of its guns off Fargo and Sebastian, led them to the magnificent Governor’s Palace.

  There he conferred with a series of officers. The last of these was a dark, swaggering, hard-faced man in charro garb and a Dorado sombrero; and when Fargo heard his name, he tensed. Rodolfo Fierro—Villa’s right-hand man; Villa’s butcher, his executioner. Fierro, it was said, was more a killing machine than a man; personally, he had executed hundreds of captured Federal troops. He looked every bit the part, and suspicion was written all over him as he appraised Fargo. But…la plata. Silver. When he heard the words and the sum attached to them, something stirred in his eyes. He strode up to Fargo: “Very well,” he said in Spanish. “You shall have ten minutes with the General. But God help you, hombre, if you have nothing of importance to tell him.”

  Fargo met his eyes. “It’s of importance.”

  “We’ll see. Come this way.” Fierro led them to a pair of huge, ornately carved double doors of polished mahogany. He opened one of them, entered, then, three minutes later, came back out. Practicedly, he searched both Fargo and Sebastian for concealed weapons, but Toral had already appropriated everything including the knife. “Come,” Fierro said and led them, with their escort, into a vast, high-ceilinged room of a splendor that made even Fargo draw in his breath.

  Doroteo Arango, the man who now called himself Francisco Villa, perhaps the greatest leader of cavalry in modern history, contrasted sharply with his surroundings. He was a thick-bodied, dark-skinned man with lank black hair and a heavy mustache, his face fleshy and full of peasant shrewdness. Until he had killed the son of his patron for the rape of his sister, Villa had been an ordinary cowpuncher. Then he had turned outlaw and cattle thief. From that, when the revolution flared, it had been only a step to guerrilla leader. Like Zapata, he had a natural genius for soldiering, and a magnetism and boldness that had quickly made him one of the most important forces in the revolution. Now Fargo felt the impact of Villa’s personality, as Villa’s big head rose slowly and Villa’s flinty eyes focused on him.

  Villa spoke, his voice soft, accented with the flavor of his native Durango. “Fargo,” he said, in Spanish. “I have heard of a man named Neal Fargo.”

  “I’m Neal Fargo, General.”

  “Then I must watch you closely. Fargo is said to be a very complicated man. Let me tell you now, if you have something to say, you’d better speak truly. I’ve been patient with gringos, but I have no reason to be patient longer. Your President has just turned against me. You’d better not depend on the fact that you’re American to help you.”

  “I don’t depend on that. I’ve got information of value for you. I know where there’s a rich mine and three hundred thousand dollars in silver that’s yours for the taking.”

  Again the magic word. Villa’s eyes changed. From his belt, he drew an Army .38, like Fargo’s own, and laid it on the huge, carved desk. He covered it with, a big hand, and his eyes went to Toral and Fierro. “Leave us,” he said. “I think I’m capable of defending myself against one unarmed Yanqui. Leave us and take the Indian with you. Feed him and treat him well. It is for the Indians that I fight, along with all the other poor.”

  Fierro made a sound of protest; Villa rapped an order that stifled it. Toral and Fierro went out, taking Sebastian with them, and when the great doors had closed, Villa, hand still on the pistol, said. “Now, Senor Fargo, talk.”

  Ten minutes later, when Fargo had finished, Villa arose from behind the desk. With the Colt still in his hand, he began to pace the huge room, never quite taking his eyes off Fargo.

  “Hernandez,” he said. “So he would challenge me.”

  “He plans to buy your army out from under you.”

  Pancho Villa laughed shortly. “Does he think I have no silver mines of my own? Most of them are run by Yanquis, true; but I no longer have reason to deal gently with Yanquis. Your President has turned against me. Chihuahua is rich in silver mines. I shall take over them all.” He wore a corduroy jacket and whipcord riding breeches tucked into cavalry boots; the outfit looked strange on his blocky, almost ungainly frame. “Still ... three hundred thousand dollars. That is a lot of silver. And already smelted?”

  “Smelted. And there’s more where it came from. The vein’s very rich.”

  “And Hernandez thinks he can challenge me. That strutting little rooster. I’ve let him have that end of the Sierra because I’ve been too busy all across Northern Mexico. But if what you tell me is true ... How many men did you say he has?”

  “Somewhere between sixty and a hundred.”

  Villa laughed throatily. “I shall send two hundred after him. I’ll give two hundred men to Fierro. When Fierro gets his hands on that gamecock, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”

  Fargo said, a throb of excitement within him, “I want to go along.”

  “Oh, you will, never fear.” Villa stopped pacing and looked at him, a cold smile on his face. “You shall go, always stirrup to stirrup with Rodolfo. Then, if what you have told me in any way proves to be false, you shall be dealt with immediately.”

  “I want to go as a fighting man,” Fargo said. “I want my guns.”

  “You shall have them in the final assault, if all is as you say.” Villa stood there thoughtfully, the revolver dangling at his side. Then he said, “You have a great reputation, Senor Fargo. That I will truthfully admit it’s said that you know all about the business of running guns.”

  “I’ve done that in my time,” Fargo said.

  “My connections across the Rio are no longer good. Your President has turned his back on me. Before, the Yanquis winked their eyes when guns were brought to me from the United States, but now they will not do that. And I need guns. I need guns and I need artillery and I need aeroplanes. You know I have aeroplanes and find them useful.”

  “I know,” Fargo said.

  “Three hundred thousand would buy a great deal of weapons. But I would need a very clever agent in the United States. He would have to be an American, like yourself. He would have to get the silver across the border and buy what I needed and bring them back to me—the weapons. And for that, I would pay him a commission of ten per cent.”


  “That’s odd,” Fargo said. “I was going to make that suggestion myself.”

  “It all depends,” Villa said. “It depends on whether what you have told me is true.”

  “It’s true,” Fargo said.

  “Then perhaps we can do business. If you are not killed in taking the mine.”

  “We’ll talk about it when I come back,” Fargo said. “But, General. There’s one thing.”

  “Oh? You make demands?”

  “Yes. In this. There are two women at the mine. I want one of them.”

  Villa stared at him. “A woman? Surely women are of no consequence to a man like you.”

  “Sometimes they are,” Fargo said. “Just as they were to you, a long time ago, in Durango.”

  Villa looked at him with eyes suddenly opaque. Fargo knew he was thinking of his sister. Then he nodded. “I shall instruct Fierro very firmly. You are to have your choice of the women. It will be necessary to tell Rodolfo firmly. He likes women, though it is his failing that he is not gentle with them as a man should be. All right, Fargo. If this works as it is supposed to, you shall have your woman. And if you come back alive and with three hundred thousand dollars in silver, we’ll do business with each other.”

  Fargo stood up. “Thank you, General,”

  Villa shrugged. “Report to Toral. He will feed you, give you quarters, and see that you get rest. I intend for you and Fierro and the army to ride tomorrow at daybreak.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fargo said. Then he added: “One more thing.”

  “Another demand?”

  Fargo nodded. “The Indian who brought me here. He must be paid.”

  “I will give him five hundred pesos in notes of the Revolution. My notes, with the black bull on them.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “He has no use for paper. He must be paid in cartridges. I want him given two hundred cartridges for a .30-30 Winchester.”

  Villa stared at him, then laughed. “All right, Senor Fargo. He shall have his bullets. You drive an ever harder bargain. Now, go rest.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said. “I’ll do that.” He and Villa looked at each other—the American soldier of fortune and the Mexican cattle thief. A kind of understanding arced between them; and what Fargo did next was quite involuntary, triggered by the sheer impressiveness of Villa’s presence. Without even realizing it, Fargo snapped a hand up to the brim of the cavalry hat in a smart salute; then he did an about-face and left Villa.

  Chapter Ten

  They rode south.

  This time there was no need to hide or skulk or fear surprise attack. Two hundred Villistas, in Villa’s country, could ride where they pleased—two hundred hard-bitten, sun-baked men clanking with hardware for making war. Fargo had never seen a more ferocious-looking bunch of fighting men, or better cavalry soldiers. Mexican, Indio, Mestizo—Spaniard, Yaqui, Tarahumara: they were like centaurs, bandoliered cartridges gleaming in the dry, bright sunlight, the pounding of their mounts, hooves like a drum roll, the dust cloud that plumed behind them a great roil. They rode, laughing, confident supremely loyal to their general.

  Sometimes they sang. They sang La Cucaracha, the marching song of Villa’s army. They sang the folk songs, the Corridas which had grown up about their legendary leader. They sang Mayor de los Dorados, El Centauro del Norte, Corrido de Durango and a host of others. At night, around their campfires, they drank tequila and smoked marijuana and sang plaintive songs about lost loves and dear ones far away and cleaned and checked their weapons and cared for their mounts and slept like dead men and rose, before dawn to ride again. And the miles flowed away like a river beneath the steel shod feet of the horses, and the Sierra Madre arose before them like a great wall. And Fargo, hard, lean, as tough as any of them, rode in the lead, stirrup to stirrup with “The Butcher,” Rodolfo Fierro, the cartridges in his bandoliers clicking against one another, a new Winchester in the saddle scabbard, the double-barreled Fox slung muzzle down on his right shoulder, the chinstrap of the wind-whipped cavalry hat cinched under his jaw.

  On his other flank rode Sebastian, newly outfitted with a great sombrero, belts of cartridges, a horse and saddle—now a rich man by Tarahumara standards. But there seemed not much Tarahumara left in him: the Apache had come to the fore. Fargo could see it in his eyes, in the centaur-like way he sat his saddle, in his exhilaration and lust for combat.

  At noon of the third day, they were high in the Sierra. They pulled up to allow men and horses to rest, sheltered in the coolness of a vast forest of pines. Scouts, patrols, had traveled ahead and on their flanks; there had been no contact with Hernandez. He was holed up still in the canyon, it would seem, satisfied that by now Fargo’s bones had been picked by the vultures and the coyotes and foxes. After all, how could a wounded man, afoot and without food or water, survive in the Sierra Madre?

  Fargo and The Butcher hunkered in the shade of the pines and conferred. There was no love lost between them: Fargo found something repellent about Fierro and his unnatural bloodlust; Fierro had no love for Yanquis. He had watched Fargo closely all the way. Still, there was a mutual respect between them as they discussed a plan of attack. They both knew how to fight; and today that was all that counted.

  Now Fierro said: “You know the ground. I will entertain your suggestions.”

  Fargo drew an hourglass in the pine straw, marked the barrier in its bottleneck. He touched the inside of the bottleneck, toward the mine. “There is dynamite here. It can be fired all at once, and when it goes, it’s going to be bad.”

  Fierro’s cruel mouth thinned; he spat. “My men have ridden through artillery fire. It can be no worse. We have two hundred. It cannot get them all at once. Now. What else?”

  “There’s only one way to get in. Horses and men alike have to climb this rock barrier. It’s all rubble and boulders, about ten meters high. And it will be heavily defended.”

  “Then we shall assault and take it.”

  “All right,” Fargo said. “In other words, we just bull through and take our losses as they come.”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “No. Except this. I think we should send a detail out on each rim—say fifteen men on either side. Let them enfilade the barrier with fire and stop reinforcements from coming from the mine. They ought to be sharpshooters, the best you’ve got with rifles.”

  Fierro nodded. “That too makes sense.” He thrust a cigarette between his teeth. “Very well—the men on the rims. Then an assault force against the defenders of the barrier. When the barrier has been cleared, the rest of the men charge. We go through the dynamite and into the mine itself. And—no quarter.”

  “No quarter,” Fargo said. “Except for the Indians who work the mine. They’re innocent; they’re captives themselves.”

  Fierro said nothing.

  “Villa would be very unhappy if it were known that his men had slaughtered a hundred defenseless Indians.”

  Fierro spat again. “Very well. We spare the Indians.” Something moved in his little eyes. “And the women. No one else.” He stood up. “Now. I shall send out the sharpshooters to occupy the rims.”

  Fargo watched him move off to give orders, a bandy-legged little man with big, jangling spurs. So much savagery in such a small package. All right, Fargo thought. If you got to make a frontal assault on a fort like that canyon, that’s the kind of man you want with you.

  He sat on the pine straw and waited, while the thirty men moved out to occupy the rims. Sebastian came and sat beside him. He was smiling and happy. “So now I am Villista, I am glad I gave you help, Senor Fargo.”

  “You may not be so glad when the fighting starts.”

  “I shall be at your side all the way.”

  “No,” Fargo said. “I’m going to lead the assault on the barrier. That’s going to be rough work. You come in the rear guard.”

  Sebastian laughed shortly. “An Apache in the rear guard? No. I fight beside you.”

  Fargo looked at him, then nodded. “As you will.”<
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  Fierro came back. “The men have their orders. Now, I think we should move out. We must not be late getting into position.” His little eyes glowed with pleasure. “I think this afternoon we shall have one hell of a fine fight.”

  One hundred eighty men crested the pass at two o’clock, with Fargo in their lead, Fierro and Sebastian beside him. Below, the vast hourglass of the canyon shimmered in the merciless sunlight, Fargo pulled up; with binoculars, he scanned the great gash in the mountains.

  It was far, even with the binoculars, but he could see the ant-like figures on the barrier that sealed the bottleneck. There were plenty of them; Hernandez would have his strength concentrated there. Beyond, at the mine, Fargo thought he could see more activity: he guessed that there was a mule train being made up. His group had arrived just before Hernandez moved out his first load of silver.

  He lowered the binoculars and, by habit, checked the shotgun once again. His mouth was dry, his pulse fast. Not long now until combat. He felt a mixture of apprehension and a savage joy that matched Fierro’s own. Once the tension of waiting was broken, the apprehension would vanish, leaving nothing but the joy,

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll take sixty men with me to assault the barrier. There’s not room for more. When we’ve cleared it, when I give you the signal, wave my hat, you come fast with the rest”

  “Si.” Fierro looked at him curiously. “I think this will be entertaining,” he said. “I want to see how a Yanqui fights.”

  “You’ll see,” Fargo said. “Have I your permission to move out?”

  “You have it.”

  “Good.” Fargo twisted in the saddle. The sixty men, already aware of their task, volunteers all, sat their mounts behind him, alertly, expectantly. Beside him, Sebastian was singing under his breath, a strange, wild, mournful chant—probably an Apache or Tarahumara war song. Fargo raised his hand high. Then he brought it down in a sweep and touched his horse with spurs.

  They trotted down the pass, that wild, gun hung cavalcade, spread out behind Fargo. They reached the canyon floor. If they had not already been spotted, they would be now, Fargo thought. Once they were within rifle range, all hell would break loose and they would charge. But for now they saved the horses.