Lando s-8

by Louis L'Amour

  "Buy you a drink?" I suggested.

  He looked at me thoughtfully. "Don't mind if I do." And then he said, "Passin' through?"

  "Mostly," I said, "but what I'd like to rustle up is a horse race. I've got a Mex woman and her boy to care for."

  He glanced at me, and I said, "Her husband stood by me in a fight below the border."

  "Killed?"

  "Uh-huh. They've kinfolk in San Antone."

  He tasted his whiskey and said nothing. When he finished his drink he bought me one. "Lend you twenty dollars," he suggested. "I'll meet up with you again sometime."

  "What I want is a horse race." I lowered my voice. "I've got me a fast mule. If I can get a bet, I could double the ten dollars I've got. Might even get odds, betting on a mule."

  He walked to the door and looked over the bat-wings at the mule, which was tethered alongside my roan. Then he came back and leaned on the bar and tossed off his whiskey.

  "Man east of town has him a fast horse.

  Come sundown he'll ride in. You mind if I bet a little?"

  "Welcome it. You from here?"

  "Beeville. Only I come over this way, time to time, on business. I'm buying cattle."

  That man had him a horse, all right, and that horse had plenty of speed, but my mule just naturally left him behind, although Manuel was holding him up a mite, like I suggested.

  That ten dollars made up to twenty, and the cattle buyer handed me twenty more. "Don't worry," he said, "I made a-plenty."

  He looked at me thoughtfully. "You ever been over to Beeville? There's a lot of money floating around over there and they're fixing to have some horse races come Saturday. If you're of a mind to, we might just traipse over that way.

  It's somewhat out of your way, but not to speak of."

  "I'm a man needs money," I said. "I don't mind if I do."

  "They're fixing to have a prize fight, too.

  Mostly Irish folks over there--Beeville was settled by Irish immigrants back about 1830 or so." Then he went on, "Powerful pair of shoulders you got there. You ever do any fighting?"

  "Don't figure on it," I said, "not unless I come up to a couple of men I'm looking for."

  "Gambler over there," he said, "brought in a fighter. He nearly killed the local pride, so they're drumming up another fight to get some of their own back."

  "I'm no fighter," I said, "not unless I'm pushed."

  "Too bad. A horse race is all right, but if you could whip this Dun Caffrey, you could--"

  "I'm pushed," I said. "I'm really feeling pushed. Did you say Dun Caffrey?"

  "That was the name. He's good, make no mistake, and the Bishop is his backer."

  Right then I recalled those scarred and broken knuckles I'd seen on Caffrey that time down on the border. But who would ever think Dun Caffrey would turn into a prize fighter? Still, he was strong, and he handled himself well. And maybe I'd been just lucky that day down in the field when I broke him up.

  Those days a saloon was not only a place for drinking. It was a meeting place, a club, a place where business deals were made, a betting parlor, and an exchange for information. If you wanted to know about a trail, or whether the Indians were out, or who had cattle for sale, you went to a saloon.

  "You make your bets on the fight," I said, "but you don't need to mention any name--j tell him I'm from Oakville, or just up from Mexico."

  This cattle buyer's name was Doc Halloran, and he sized up to me like a canny one. "Dun Caffrey has won six fights in Texas, and more than that in Louisiana and Mississippi. He's a bruiser, but no fool. He's a gambler, and a companion of gamblers."

  "That's as may be, but if you'll back me, I'll have at him."

  "Are you in shape?"

  "Six years at hard labor in a Mexican prison," I said. "Yes, I'm in shape."

  We went into Beeville by the back streets and Doc Halloran took me to his own house.

  When I got there I stretched out for a rest.

  Juana and Manuel, they were there, too. Doc went out to rustle some bets on a horse race and to enter my mule. And he went to talk up this fight, too.

  About sundown Manuel came back from rousting around. He was a mighty serious Mexican boy.

  "There is great trouble, se@nor," he said. "I think we have been followed to this place, for Se@nor Deckrow is here. He rides in his carriage with the se@norita, but there are many men with him."

  So I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at my thick, work-hardened hands, thinking. It was scarcely possible they had found us so quickly, nor would Deckrow be likely to bring the se@norita, Manuel had said. That would be Marsha, the little one.

  Only she would be close to twenty now, and almost an old maid, for a time when girls married at sixteen or seventeen.

  "I do not think they had followed us, amigo.

  It may be they go to San Antonio. He would want riders for protection. It is said there are many thieves."

  Sitting on the edge of the bed after he left, I turned my mind again to the situation. Maybe this was the showdown that had to come sooner or later. Dun Caffrey would be here, Deckrow ... how many others?

  Doc Halloran came back before midnight.

  His long, friendly face was serious, and he stood looking down at me. "Well, the fight is set," he said. "And we've got the mule entered in the race, but I think we've bit off more than we can chew."

  "What happened?"

  He touched his tongue to his lips. "I bet five thousand on the mule, but they roped me in and egged me on, and I went over my head. I've bet twenty-five thousand on you to whip Dun Caffrey."

  You know, I thought he'd gone crazy. I looked up at him and listened to him say it again.

  Twenty-five thousand! Why, that was--it was impossible, that's what it was.

  "They were ready for me," he said. "After all, this is a business with them. I mentioned having a fighter, and they doubted it--sd nobody would stand a chance with Caffrey. Then they kept egging me on until they told me to put my money where my mouth was. And I did."

  "Doc, for that much money they'd murder fifty like us. I won't fight. Tell 'em the bet's off."

  "I can't ... they made me put up the money. They've got me over a barrel."

  The Bishop ... he would have a gang ready to tear down the ropes and mob us if it looked as if I was going to win. He would be ready for us.

  "They put up their money too, didn't they?"

  "Of course." Halloran paced the floor.

  "Sackett, if I lose this bet I'll be back punching cows. It's everything I've been able to earn or save in forty-five years. I don't think I could do it again, and I can't imagine how I was such a fool."

  I got up. "Don't let it worry you.

  I'll fight him. I'll beat him, too. But we've got to get somebody to guard that saloon safe, if that's where the money is. If there's no other way, they'll rob the safe."

  "That's just it. The Bishop has men in town.

  He has several who have agreed to stay in the saloon and keep watch. Sackett, we're through. We're whipped!"

  There was a tap on the door, and I slid that Walch Navy out of my waistband.

  "Open it," I said to Juana. "Just pull it open and stay out of the way."

  She pulled the door open and a man stepped into the doorway. He was tall and very lean, with yellow eyes and gold rings in his ears. his'Lando," he said, "I figured it was you."

  It was the Tinker.

  Chapter Nine.

  He stepped into the room and closed the door carefully behind him. The room was dimly lit, with flickering fire on the hearth and a candle burning.

  The dark shadows lay in the hollows of his cheeks, and I could see little more of him than the gleam of his eyes and the shine of the gold of his earrings.

  "When I heard of a man with a racing mule," he said, "it had to be you."

  He stepped up to me and thrust out his hand, and a feeling came into my throat so I couldn't speak.

  I was not a man with many friends
, but I wanted the Tinker to be one of them.

  "You're heavier," he said, "and by heaven, you're a man!"

  When I'd introduced him around, we all sat down. Experience had not made me a trusting man, and we'd been apart for a spell of years. But he was my friend, I was sure of that, and right now I needed him.

  "The mule can run," I said, "he can really scat."

  "He'll need to." He shot me a shrewd look. "Do you know whose money is against you? The Bishop's, that's whose. The Bishop's money and Caffrey's. Your Caffrey isn't only a fighter, he's a gambler--and he's a big one.

  The Bishop and him, they're partners."

  "You know about the fight?"

  "It's talked about. This is an Irish town, and you know the Irish--they love a good fight with the knuckles."

  "I'll have a little of my own back. I want the hide off him, but I want to break his pocket, too. With a Caffrey, that will hurt the worst."

  The Tinker was silent for several minutes, and there was no sound in the room but an occasional crackle from the fireplace and the faint hiss of the coffee pot.

  We sat still around the room--the Tinker with his long, narrow face and gold earrings, Doc Halloran standing and looking long, lean and serious, with the black eyes of Juana and Manuel in the background.

  "Deckrow's in town," the Tinker said finally, glancing around at Juana. "He's looking for you."

  "His daughter is with him?"

  "They're going to San Antonio. There's a lawsuit over the estate." He looked at me.

  "Your father should be here tomorrow, your father and his wife."

  "He married Gin?"

  "Love match--f the start. He's in great shape again and looks fine; and Gin, she's beautiful as ever. But Franklyn Deckrow claims the estate through his wife, and he claims he bought up mortgages. I don't understand lawing, but that's the way of it. The trouble will be settled in either San Antonio or Austin, but they're going to San Antonio now, then on to Austin, I think."

  "I'll have to be there," I said. "I've evidence to offer."

  Juana looked at me, and fear showed in her eyes.

  "Does he know? Se@nor Deckrow, does he know?"

  "He knows ... my eyes were on him and he saw it."

  "Then tomorrow, when you fight?"

  Doc and the Tinker, they just looked at me, and I said, "Deckrow was with Herrara's and Cortina's men that night. It was he and nobody else who killed Jonas. Shot him dead. It was Deckrow who tipped them off that we had come into Mexico after gold--they were expecting us."

  "He'll kill you. He'll have to."

  Looking down at my big hands, I shrugged.

  "He'll try."

  That night I lay long awake, watching the red glow of the coals and thinking back over my life, and it didn't add up to much. I'd set out to become rich in the western lands, but going after that LaFitte gold had been my ruin. Maybe even starting west with the Tinker had been the finish of me.

  When this was over I would go on ... there were other Sacketts out in New Mexico, near the town of Mora. I would go there.

  There was nobody for me here. Pa had married Gin, and he would be thinking of another family, and rightly so. It was true that I had felt strongly about Gin, but the physical needs of a man speak loud with a woman like her about, and there doesn't have to be anything else between you--alth she was a man's woman in so many ways, and not only of the bed.

  When I found a woman of my own, I hoped she would be like Gin. She and pa--I had seen it right off. They were for each other.

  Me? Who was there for me? I was a man with nothing. A man with great shoulders and tremendous power in his hands, but nothing else. I owned a horse taken from horse thieves, and a mule bred by stealth, and nothing at all of which I could be proud.

  It was little enough I had in the way of learning, and in my mid-twenties I'd laid no foundation for anything.

  Tomorrow there would be a horse race and then a fight, andwith luck I should win one or both. Yet then there would remain the matter of surviving to enjoy my winnings. Horse-racing and fighting, these are not things upon which a man can build a useful life.

  Tomorrow I would meet Dun Caffrey in the ring, with my fists. He was a skilled fighter, and I was only one with great strength and good but long-unpracticed training. If I whipped Caffrey, I'd have some of my own back; and if I could settle the matter of Deckrow and live, then I'd go west and start again as I had wished to do.

  One thing I had learned in these years: I could now speak Spanish. Somewhere, at sometime in the future, it might help.

  Westward I had come to grow rich in the land, but six years had passed and I had no more than at the beginning.

  At last I slept, and when I awakened day had come and the coals were smoldering, with only a faint glow of red here and there. The room was empty.

  Clasping my hands behind my head, I tried to organize a day that would not organize, for there were too many factors outside my grasp. Before the day was over I would have repd Dun Caffrey what I owed him, or would have taken a fearful beating.

  But the greatest danger lay not in losing, but in winning. In losing I would take a beating; in winning, there was every chance I might be shot.

  The Tinker and Halloran came in together. "The race will be run at ten o'clock," Halloran said.

  "The course is all laid out--one half-mile from a standing start."

  "All right."

  "The fight will be at one o'clock. Eighteen-foot ring. It's all set up in the stock corral.

  Those who cannot get up to the ring will find a seat on the fence."

  "How many horses in the race?"

  "Five, including your mule. Nobody thinks a mule can run, except a few who came in from Oakville. Right now the betting is seven to one against your mule."

  From my shirt pocket I took forty dollars, every cent I had in the world. "At those odds, or anything close," I said, "you bet it on the race. If we win, bet whatever's in hand on the fight.

  "Meanwhile," I said, "I'm going to take a walk around."

  This here town of Beeville, along about the time we were there--y could walk three blocks in any direction and be out in the country. And some of those blocks you'd walk would be mighty sparse as to buildings.

  It was a cattle-trail town and ran long to saloons and gambling houses. The folks who lived in the country around were mostly raising cattle. The rest of them were stealing cattle. Both industries were in what you might call a flourishing condition when we came into town.

  There was considerable money floating about town, and not an awful lot to do with it but drink or gamble. When it came to ranching, there were several successful men around Beeville; but in the cattle-rustling business the most successful man was Ed Singleton.

  The town was about evenly divided between the ranchers and the thieves, and each knew the others by name and occupation. You could hang a cattle thief back in those days, but the trouble was you had to catch him at it. Singleton and those others, they were almighty sly.

  There was a lot of betting on both the fight and the race, some of the folks even betting on me, sight unseen. There's folks will bet on anything, given a chance.

  Quite a crowd was in town. Some, like I said, had come over from Oakville, but there was a whole crowd from Helena, too. Helena was an old stop on the Chihuahua trail and, like Beeville and Oakville, it was a rough, wild town, and those men from Helena were as tough as they come.

  I walked down the street, keeping away from the knots of men arguing here and there, and finally I stopped by the corral to look at that ring. It looked big enough, and small enough, too.

  A man stopped beside me, looking through the corral bars at the ring. He glanced at me out of a pair of hard, measuring eyes, and thrust out his hand, "Walton. I'm sheriff. You fought much?"

  "When I had to. Never in a contrivance like that."

  "He's an experienced man, and a brute.

  I've seen him fight." He paused. "You must think you can beat
him."

  "A man never knows," I said, "but when we were kids I broke his nose and his jaw. I outsmarted him that time," I said, "maybe I can again."

  "This is a grudge fight?"

  "If it isn't, then you never saw one. His pa used to beat me, and he robbed me. This one tried to bully me around. I figure he knows a lot more about fighting than I do, but I figure there's a streak of coyote in him. It may be mighty hard to find, but I'm going in there hunting it."

  Walton straightened up. "There's fifty to a hundred thugs in town that nobody can account for without considering the Bishop. I'll do what I can, but I can't promise you anything."

  "In this country," I said, "a man saddles his own broncos and settles his own difficulties."

  Walton walked away, and after a bit I went back to the house and saddled the roan. Time was shaping up for the race.

  Manuel had led the mule out. "They want to know his name," he said.

  "What did you call him?"

  Manuel shrugged.

  "All right, call him Bonaparte, and let's hope that track out there isn't Waterloo."

  The Tinker came out and mounted up, and Doc Halloran too. One of the others who showed up was a husky Irishman with a double-barreled shotgun.

  "I'm a mule-skinner," he said, "and I bet on him. In my time I've seen some fast mules, and I saw this one run over to Oakville."

  The Bishop was out there, and Dun Caffrey. I noticed they had at least two horses in the race.

  "Manuel," I said, "how mean can you be?"

  He looked at me from those big dark eyes.

  "I do not know, se@nor. I have never been mean."

  "Then you've got only one chance. Get that mule out in front and let him run. Those two"

  --I indicated the horses--?are both ridden by tough men. One or both of them will try to block you out if you look like you'd a chance, so watch out."

  "I will ride Bonaparte," he said--?x is all I can do, but it is a proud name."

  They lined up, and the way Bonaparte walked up to the line you wouldn't have thought he'd anything in mind but sleep. One of those Bishop horses moved in on each side of him.