by Ralph Cotton
“Hola, hombre viejo,” Sergio called out, holding up a hand in greeting.
“Do not call me ‘old man,’” the aged lawman replied in a scorching tone. He stopped a few feet away and planted his feet firmly. “I am a diputado alguacil here in Suerte Buena. Show respect for the law.”
“Oh,” said Sergio, a bit taken aback by the fire in the old man’s voice. “I offer my apology to you,” he said humbly, eyeing the shotgun in the man’s hands. “But tell me then, Diputado, if you are the deputy sheriff, where is the sheriff himself?”
“Our beloved sheriff is dead and in the ground,” said the old deputy in a grave tone. He made the sign of the cross on his chest in respect. “He is dead because desperados like you killed him.”
“Desperados? No, not us, Deputy,” said Sergio. “You are mistaken. I am a businessman from Agua Mala. These men are my associates.” He pointed quickly all around at Red Burke and the others.
“No businessman comes from Agua Mala,” the old deputy said firmly. “Only banditos and putas come from Agua Mala. Anyway, I know of you and your brother.” He wagged a finger back and forth between Sergio and Ernesto. Red Burke only watched in silence. “I have seen wanted posters of the two of you. There is a price on both of your heads, here and across the border in Tejas.”
“It is true there have been some misunderstandings regarding me and my brother,” Sergio said, jutting his chin proudly. “But we are both bold men and it is by our hand that we have kept our freedom. Do not be foolish enough to think about collecting the rewards for us.”
“I am old and I know I am no match for the two of you. I seek no reward. But it is my job to keep you out of my town and by the saints I will do so.” His grip on the shotgun tightened.
Turning sidelong to Red Burke, Ernesto said under his breath, “Please, we must kill this old fool, Red. I think he is going to cause us trouble if we let him live.”
“Take it easy,” Burke replied. He stepped his horse closer and said down to the old man, “I’m not from Agua Mala, but I am a businessman, and I have a serious question for you, Deputy. Have you heard any rumors about a freight wagon full of stolen gold trying to cross the desert anywhere near here?”
“You are talking about the gold stolen from the depository in Mexico City last year, eh?” the old lawman said.
“Si, that’s right,” said Burke. “I’m willing to pay you for any information you have.”
“Of course I have heard about the gold stolen from my government,” said the deputy. “But do you think I would tell a piece of border trash like you what I might know about it?” He shook his head. “No, not for any amount of money.”
“That’s that,” said Burke. He raised his Colt and fired one quick, decisive shot. The old man had no chance to swing the shotgun up to defend himself. He hit the ground dead. A braided stream of blood rose, then fell from the bullet hole in his heart. Burke said calmly to Ernesto, “That didn’t take too long.”
Ernesto and Sergio and the other three gunmen grinned among themselves. “You are one wild loco hombre, Red,” said Ernesto. “I think you are going to be our good americano amigo even after this gold hunt is over.”
Red returned the grin. “I’ll settle for being your rich amigo,” he said, nudging his horse forward at a walk.
Over his shoulder he said back to Sergio, “Have Antonio, Rollo and Little Jose open this town up and tell these folks we’re their friends. I want a belly full of mescal and an arm full of warm senorita before sundown gets here.”
“You got it, Red,” said Ernesto. He turned to the other two, Rollo Barnes and Little Jose Montoya, and waved them along behind him. Sergio rode up beside Burke, and the two stepped their horses around the dead deputy and rode to the cantina.
They tied their horses’ reins to an iron hitch rail and walked inside the silent cantina, hearing shoes and boots scuffle across the dirt floor as they pulled open a rickety wooden door. “All right, all of yas,” Burke called out, “I better see some happy faces welcoming me. I’ll start shooting some sonsabitches right here and now!”
Sergio stepped over to the plank and tile bar and reached around and lifted a guitar player by the scruff of his neck. “You heard him, music man. Musica, musica por mi amigo!”
“Si, musica, right away,” the guitar player replied in a nervous voice. He pulled the accordion player out from behind the bar and the two hurried to the corner and fell right into a snappy tune.
“That’s more like it,” said Red Burke with a wide grin. He leaned both hands down on the bar and said to the empty air in front of him, “If there’s not a bottle of mescal standing at attention here in two seconds, I’ll start shooting anything that’s got a heartbeat.”
A bald bartender sprang up, bottle and wooden cup in hand and shakily poured the cup full of mescal. “I am at your service, senors,” he said. “Please excuse our ignorance here in Suerte Buena. It is not every day that we have such important guests in our humble village.” His eyes flashed back and forth between Sergio and Burke.
“Is that a fact?” said Burke. He pulled a fistful of black cigars from a cigar holder on the bar top. He stuck all of the cigars but two down into his dusty shirt pocket. He stuck one of the two between his teeth and handed the other to Sergio.
“Si, it is true, Senor, we only want to make you happy while you are here.” The cantina owner eyed the empty cigar holder, then quickly produced a long match and struck and held it up, lighting each man’s cigar in turn.
“I’m going to suggest that you get some women and food laid out here, pronto,” said Burke. He grabbed the man’s wrist and forced him to hold on to the match as the fire traveled closer and hotter toward his fingertips. “You do not want me leaving here with anything but fond memories. I’ll burn this town to a cinder.”
From the end of the bar two identical young women stood up and ventured over to Burke and Sergio. “Welcome to Suerte Buena, senors,” one of them said in stiff English, hoping to direct Burke’s attention away from the cantina owner. “I am Falina, and this is my sister, Malina. Here, let us show you something.” In unison the two pulled the tie strings loose on their blouses, spread them open and let their ample breasts spill forward.
“Good gawd almighty! Twins!” said Burke, his eyes lighting up with a lustful gleam. “No wonder this little pigsty is called Good Luck.” He lifted his Colt from his holster and fired it into the soot-smudged ceiling. “Yiiihiii!” he shouted, gathering the two bare-breasted young women against him. “I just got here and I feel lucky already!”
“I knew we would feel welcome here,” Sergio said, reaching a gloved hand over and roughly patting the cantina owner’s tense beard-stubbled cheek. “You have done well for yourself. Now you can take the rest of the night off.” His hand went around the cantina owner’s throat and yanked him over the bar top and threw him toward the door.
“Please, Senor, my cantina,” the man begged even as he crawled through the dirt toward the darkening street.
“Do not worry about this place. We will look after it for you as if it were our own,” said Sergio. He grabbed a bottle of mescal by the neck, jerked the cork from it with his teeth and spat it away. He turned his big pistol toward the two terrified musicians who had stopped playing as they watched the owner being dragged over the bar. “What is wrong with you two?” Sergio shouted, waving the gun menacingly at them. “Musica! Musica por mi amigo!” He fired at the dirt beneath their bare feet.
Hugging the twin whores to his chest, Burke grinned and said, “I want you gals to start calling me Daddy right now.”
Chapter 7
In a shack behind the town livery barn an old German mining engineer named Adolf Herzoff stood in the glow of candlelight listening to the men of Suerte Buena. The old men talked barely above a whisper even though the gunmen were over a block away inside the cantina. In their midst stood a goat chewing a mouthful of brittle hay. Nudging the goat aside, the old stoop-shouldered German walked to an open
window and looked through the evening gloom toward the dimly lit cantina.
“Poor Deputy Leone,” he said quietly, hearing the music resound gaily along the empty street. “And Leone did nothing to provoke these men?”
“No, nothing,” said one of the village elders who, along with the others, held a machete at his side. “And even if he did, they had no reason to kill him. He was doing his job, standing up to them, trying to keep this kind of border trash out of Suerte Buena.”
“Our quiet little village is no place for such men as these. They are killers and pillagers, and we know what they always do,” said another man, this one holding a short-barreled homemade gun, made for hunting wild pig. “Before they stepped down from their horses, poor Leone was dead.” He crossed himself, adding, “May God take his spirit.”
“And we must do something,” said the other man. “We are not men if we do not avenge poor Leone.” He looked all around at the other town elders for support. They nodded their agreement and grumbled in unison.
The old German looked hesitantly at their faces. After a moment of grave silence he said, “We wait until they have sated themselves with mescal and the brown coco powder. Then we will swoop down upon them and confront them severely. We will make them pay for what they have done.”
“Si. We will do to them what the people in Flores Pequeñas did to the same kind of outlaws who crossed the border and violated their women and stole their horses. We will sink their severed heads on a stick at the entrance to our town as a warning to others of their kind.”
“Si,” said another of the men, raising his machete over his head and waving it back and forth, “and I will personally do the cutting. Leone was once married to one of my wife’s cousins, so I stand as family to him.”
“We will cut off their heads, but only after we hang them,” said another old man, also waving his machete.
“I have a rope. I will go get it,” said the first villager.
“Yes, go get it, Carlos,” said the old German. “We will wait here until the time is right. Then we will strike without mercy.” He held up his shotgun with a somber look on his weathered face. “What we do, we do for the sake of Suerte Buena!”
“For Suerte Buena!” the men said with determination.
Inside the cantina, Red Burke lifted his face from between Malina’s legs and stepped back from the bar. The young woman hopped down from the bar and pushed her dress down over her thighs. She reached a hand up to close her open blouse, but Red grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“Leave them puppies out where they can breathe. I’ll keep them from running away,” he said. His eyes were bloodred and wild. Brown powder streaked his beard from beneath both nostrils. He reached his free hand back and groped behind him for the other twin. “Falina,” he said, “powder me down some. I feel a darkness coming on.”
When Falina didn’t answer he turned and saw her lying on a table in a far corner, Antonio standing hunched between her legs. Through a thick haze of cigar smoke he saw what the two were doing and a blind rage swept through him. “You sonsabitch!” he shouted. “Get your own whore! These two are mine!” Drunkenly, he raised his Colt and began firing wildly. His first shot hit the wall above Antonio’s head and caused the couple to scramble away, their clothes half off and their private parts exposed.
This time the musicians knew better than to stop playing. They kept up their lively music as shot after shot exploded, leaving an uneven line of bullet holes in the wall, following the half-naked fornicators all the way to the rear door.
The men hooted and roared with laughter as Antonio and Falina vanished into the darkness. Red waved his smoking gun and said loudly, “Somebody go get my whore and bring her back here. Tell her I want us to kiss and make up.”
Sergio had left for a few minutes. He and his brother had retuned just as Red sent Antonio and Falina running out the back door. They had returned with a short, somber-looking American with large watery eyes and a drooping mustache that ended down past his chin. Above the music, Sergio called out to Red, “Amigo, this is River Johnson. He wants to talk to you.”
“River Johnson, I’ve heard of you. . . .” Red spoke drunkenly. “You burn stuff down.” He staggered in place and looked the man up and down. Seeing River Johnson standing with a long black wool coat buttoned all the way up the front, he said, “Are you warm enough? Do you need to build yourself a fire?”
Ignoring Burke’s remark, Johnson said in a stern tone of voice, “I’m looking for work.”
Red Burke shrugged and tossed a bleary-eyed look all around the cantina. “I haven’t seen any.”
River Johnson turned on his heel and started to walk out the door. “Hold up, Johnson,” Burke said with a dark chuckle. “I’m just having some fun with you.”
“Fun . . . ?” Johnson stared flatly at him through his watery eyes.
“Hell’s fire, man, don’t be so damned serious,” Burke offered, his mind boiling with cocaine, mescal and rye whiskey. “We’re all just having a little fiesta here, in honor of me shooting the living hell out of an old deputy.”
“I know,” said Johnson, “I saw it from my room. You shot him down like a dog.”
“Yeah, I did,” said Burke, “does that not bode well with you?”
“I can’t give a damn,” said Johnson. “I told you I’m looking for work.”
“Do you know who I ride for?” Burke asked.
“Who?” said Johnson.
“Garris Cantro’s Border Dogs, is who,” Burke replied. He stared hard at Johnson, waiting for a response. “What does that do for you?”
“It suits me,” said Johnson. “I always wanted to ride for a big guerilla band like the Dogs. I missed out on the war myself, owing to bad health.”
“Bad health? When did bad health ever stop a man from fighting in a war?”
River Johnson didn’t reply. Instead he repeated bluntly, “I’m looking for work. Got any?”
“No, I’ve got no work that I can think of for you today,” said Burke, in a taunting voice. “But let me think on it. Hell, I’m just here following orders myself,” he lied, “doing what Cantro wants me to do here.”
“He’s got you here raising hell and killing the town deputy?” Johnson eyed him skeptically.
“Yep, I’m only following orders,” Red said, “strange as that might sound.” He swung an arm toward the barful of mescal bottles, both empty and full, and said, “I never get in a hurry hiring a man. You’ll have to wait awhile, let me see what I come up with.” Still in the taunting voice he added, “Meanwhile, you’re welcome to join us in a drink or two while we’re here.”
“Obliged,” said the serious-looking gunman, “I don’t mind if I do.” He stepped closer to the bar and picked up a wooden cup and a bottle of mescal.
Burke nodded. “Make yourself to home. But you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got a couple of sassy twin whores here.” He reached and snatched Malina by her arm. “I might just skin and eat one of them right here.”
“Bon appétit. Enjoy yourself,” Johnson said dryly, raising the wooden cup as if in a toast.
In the dark hours of early morning the old German and the group of ten town elders converged on the cantina with weapons and torches in hand. One man carried a coiled rope on his thin shoulder, one end with a noose, which he swung back and forth with each step. When the group stopped, they were twenty yards from the cantina. They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the two worn-out musicians play slowly and quietly inside.
With a gesture of his hand, the old German sent a townsman forward in a crouch. The man first handed his hat and his machete to a friend standing beside him, then eased forward as silent as a ghost. He took a position at the edge of the door frame, where he inched the wooden door open slightly and peeped inside.
At the far end of the bar the only man left standing was River Johnson. The bottle standing before him was still half full. The wooden cup sat close to his fingertips alongside a big Remingt
on revolver he’d drawn from his coat pocket and laid on the bar top earlier. He still wore his big wool coat fully buttoned. Not a hair stood out of place atop his bare head. He’d seen the front door creep open an inch, but he deliberately ignored the matter and gazed away toward the tired musicians.
The guitar player saw Johnson raise his hand and give them a dismissing sweep toward the rear door. “Holy Mother be praised,” the guitarist murmured. He tugged at the half-asleep accordion player’s shirtsleeve and the two eased across the dirt floor without a word and slipped out into the chilled morning dark, stepping over the sleeping bodies of gunmen on their way.
From the front door, the townsman watched the musicians leave. Then his eyes went to a dim candlelit corner where some goatskins and blankets had been spread on the dirt, forming a sleeping pallet. On the pallet he saw Red Burke lying half naked in the shadowy light. Burke lay entwined between the naked twins. He wore nothing but his dirty trousers, the fly blaring open revealing a red tangled patch of hair deep on his lower belly. His gun belt lay close beside him on the dirt floor.
The townsman stared intently. On the bare dirt floor another naked young woman lay with a sleeping gunman’s arm thrown over her, and her dirty foot in the face of another snoring gunman.
Red raised his head for a moment, long enough to grumble at the loss of the music. Then his face fell to the tip of a large breast and laid there as still as stone. Before the townsman backed away and scurried back toward the others, he watched River Johnson pick up his pistol and the bottle from the bar and walk toward the rear door.
“Well, are they all knocked out?” Herzoff asked in a nervous whisper.
“Si, they are asleep,” the townsman said, out of breath. “They are drunk and naked and unarmed, all but one and he is leaving even now.” He shot a glance toward the dimly lit cantina. “He is the one who has been staying here this past week—the silent one.”
“Oh, him,” said Herzoff. “His name is Moses River Johnson. Perhaps he will go away and not take their side.”
