by Steve Lee
Had those priests been able to watch Sloane and Billy as they practised their martial artistry in an arid sun-splashed wasteland, they would undoubtedly have nodded their heads in approval, for both men had attained a rare degree of skill. But they would have been shocked at the use to which the two men intended to put their skill. The Shaolin monks preferred to turn and run from danger rather than abuse their great power. They never hurt another human being unless it was completely unavoidable and even then only with the greatest reluctance and remorse. It was forbidden by their Buddhist religion and their code of conduct. The art of Kung Fu was a noble one, devised for gradual self-development. Not for bloody slaughter.
'And what was all that about — leapin' around like a couple a' flamin' monkeys in a cage?' Joe wanted to know when his new-found companions joined him for a cup of the molasses-thick brew he dared to call coffee.
A smile flickered at the edges of Sloane's mouth. 'Had ants in my pants,' he explained.
Billy shot him a glance of amused reproach then looked over at Joe. 'Kung Fu,' he said as if those two words cleared up everything. Joe's gnarled face took on a look of even greater bafflement.
'And what in Heaven's name is that when it's at home?' he demanded.
'Chinese boxing,' Billy revealed, grinning. 'The best kind there is.'
Joe drew himself upright, suddenly indignant. 'Oh, it is it?' he asked in a bantering tone. 'Well, let me tell you, young feller, that I've been in a scrap or two meself an' I reckon these fists a' mine…' He raised his big-knuckled hands, clenching them fiercely for Billy's benefit. '…can give as good a punch as the next man — whether he's a Chinaman or a bloody Hindoo!'
Billy's laughter got him even more hotted up.
'And I'd like to see the Chinaman alive that could go five rounds with Big Jim Murphy a' New York — or any other fightin' Irishman worth the name!'
'Chinese boxing's different,' Billy laughed. 'A man who knows Kung Fu don't have need of any weapons other than his hands and feet. He can take on anybody or anything and usually wins.'
'Is that a fact?' Joe growled scornfully.
'It sure is!' Billy affirmed. 'Ask Sloane here.'
Joe looked over at Sloane.
'It's a fact,' Sloane allowed.
'Shame on you for sidin' with a heathen!' said Joe reproachfully, reaching over for his rifle. He pulled the Henry towards him and cradled it in his lap, fondly patting the stock.
'I should like to see how your Kung Phooey stands up against one a' these,' he chuckled, 'that I would! I know which one my money'd go on. Why many's the time I'd have been a goner for sure if it weren't for Old Henry here, many's the time! When El Muerte an' his murderin' crew came ridin' straight at me, for one!'
Suddenly Sloane was interested in the conversation. 'You've seen El Muerte?'
Pinned down by Sloane's gaze, Joe shifted uncomfortably. 'Well, yes and no, in a manner a' speakin'… The truth of it is that, in my eyes, one greaser looks much of a likeness to another, an' there bein' a whole heap of 'em comin' at me with guns a'blazin', I didn't hang around to ask no names… but there was this one big fella who could've been El Muerte an' him I'd know again f'sure if I saw him. An' there's a couple a' the others walkin' round with me lead in 'em or Henry here wasn't doin' his stuff!' He patted the rifle with tender emphasis.
'Just the same,' said Billy, 'when it comes to my life I'd sooner trust my own hands to get me out of trouble than a metal stick that could jam up on me any time…'
'Oh, you would now would you?' Joe asked, a sudden crafty gleam appearing in his eyes. 'Well, if you turn yourselves round slowly, an' I mean slowly, you might see something to make you change your mind…'
Sloane and Billy turned. Slowly. They heard it before they saw it — a mean-looking diamondback rattler nearly six feet long, sliding rapidly over the sand towards them. It had the smell of coffee in its flat ugly nose and it was sore as hell it hadn't been invited over for a cup.
The snake reared up within striking distance of Sloane and Billy, its vicious tongue-flicking head weaving from side to side as if it were making its mind up which of the two men to bite first. Billy sat paralysed, rooted to the spot, as he watched the deadly snake inching towards him. There was no man alive he was afraid to tackle with his bare hands and Kung Fu artistry. But a poison-fanged rattler was something else.
Sloane eyed the killer snake with the same unblinking intensity as it watched him. Taking deep but imperceptible breaths to keep his body calm, he judged the distance between him and the swaying, restless head. He weighed his own speed against that of the rattler's. There was a chance he could grasp its neck before the poison-teeth sank into him. It wasn't a very big chance but it was the only one he had. Sloane tensed to make his move.
The sudden shattering blast ripped the snake's head from its body. The head leapt into the air and landed ten feet away, tongue still flickering. The headless body swerved drunkenly from side to side, searching for its lost head. Then it slumped to the ground and, like ripples in a water-barrel, slowly uncoiled.
Sloane and the Chinaman turned to face Joe. The big man contentedly blew smoke from the tip of his rifle.
'Like I was sayin', boys,' he continued casually, savouring the moment, 'give me a rifle every time… I may not know nothin' 'bout no Chinese boxin' but I'd as soon have me finger on Old Henry's trigger when some bean-eatin' bandit's comin' at me with a Mexican boxin' glove — the kind with six inches a' cold sharp steel!'
* * *
They rode steadily south. Above them the sun grew hotter and harsher, and around them the land seemed to shrivel and die until it was like a dry, empty husk stretching lifelessly before them as far as the eye could reach. They passed fewer and fewer villages. When they did, dark bleak-eyed faces watched their passing from doorways, silently resentful. Sometimes lean barefoot packs of coffee-coloured children chased alongside with mocking Spanish insults. Joe scattered them with laughing blasts of anger.
Most of the time, Sloane rode ahead of his two companions, like a gaunt, aloof spectre guiding them purposefully into the death-lands. He preferred it that way. Alone he didn't have to mask the fierce blaze of hatred he felt inside. He wanted to nurture that hate, to feel it growing inside of him for the day when he would be face to face with Chang Fung's killers. Then he would unleash it on them in a whirlwind fury of vengeance.
There was another reason he preferred to ride up ahead. It meant he didn't have to listen to Joe airing his mouth all day long.
Joe had found a captive audience in Billy — 'Ah, Mexico! Now there's a savage place, f'sure — full a' wild beauty the likes a' which you've never seen I can promise you, Billy. And beautiful women too, beguilin' willin' women, dark an' plump as grapes and as sweet to the lips.'
'Swell,' said Billy, 'but there's only one woman I'm interested in — the one we're gonna bring back.'
'Sure, I was forgettin'… But how can you be sure this girl a' your's is gonna be in one piece when you find her?'
Billy's face hardened. He'd given a lot of thought to what El Muerte and his men could do to Su Fan, had perhaps already done to her. He hated to think about it but the fears refused to go away. All he could do was clutch at a faint hope and hang on tight.
'She's a good-looking girl,' he said. 'Too good-looking for them to kill…'
'Maybe… but you never can tell with these Mexicans. They're a cruel race a' men — with tempers hot as chilli.'
'Anyhow,' Billy countered, 'How d'you know you'll get your horse back in one piece?'
Joe's laughter rang out across the emptiness through which they rode. 'Because it's a good-lookin' horse, me boy, an' because horses don't answer back none!' Joe's grin became a sly one as he looked over at the young Chinaman. 'You know, Billy, I feel it me duty to warn you that Mexicans are not very partial to a Chinaman, no, not partial to 'em at all. Take Murieta now, he'd get ahold a' half-a-dozen Chinamen an' tie 'em by their pig-tails with their heads all close together like a b
unch a' grapes — an' then he'd cut all a' their throats together with one slash a' his knife!' Joe stole a sidewise glance at Billy to judge the effects of his words. 'I hope I'm not alarmin' you none?' he asked.
'Nope, not a bit,' Billy replied impassively. 'Anybody try any of that stuff on me and I'll just tell 'em I'm an American citizen.'
'Will you now,' Joe chuckled. 'Well, I hope for your sake, Billy, that you'll be able to get the words out an' that you won't be chewin' on a Mexican sandwich at the time!'
'I've heard about that Mexican food — pretty damn hot, huh?'
'So it is,' Joe agreed, 'but that wasn't what I had in mind…'
'Well, what is this Mexican sandwich?' Billy snapped impatiently. He didn't like the way the big Irishman was playing with him.
Joe shook his head, smiling in the manner of someone who thinks he knows more than the next man. 'Billy,' he said, 'I don't know to what heathen idol it is that you address your prayers — but pray to it that you'll never be given the chance to find out!'
* * *
Billy got his chance the very next day.
They found a covered wagon lying across the trail, shattered and horseless. Three people had been travelling in the wagon. They were white and they were dead. Their possessions lay scattered around, along with all their hopes of a better life out west.
The woman was the first they found. She lay naked in the dust, the marks of violation scratched into her body. Her eyes stared sightlessly up at the sun, her expression moulded by terror. Her throat was a bloody gash from ear to ear. Nearby lay her child, a boy of eight or so. They'd cut his throat too.
Billy found the man round the other side of the wagon. He backed away from what he saw, vomit clawing up his throat. They'd stretched out his arms and legs and pinned them to the ground. In his pain, he'd managed to tear free his right hand. His eyes had been gouged from their sockets and hung from his head on bloody threads. His nose and lips were clumsily cut away. His penis had been hacked off at the root and was stuffed in his mouth along with his testicles.
Billy stared at the ruined body. All he could think of was that the men responsible for what he saw had their hands on the girl he loved. The thought made him want to scream.
Sloane and Joe joined him and looked down at the thing before them that had been a man. The muscles in Sloane's face grew taut but he said nothing. He'd seen too much too often to show any reaction. But when the time came that he stood face to face with the killer who called himself El Muerte he would remember this nameless man and what they'd done to him and all the others like him.
Joe whistled softly and pushed his battered hat to the back of his head. 'I'll say this for that El Muerte,' he said, 'he sure knows how to serve up a Mexican sandwich!'
'You bastard!'
Billy threw himself at the big Irishman, his face suddenly crazed with anger. His right fist streaked towards the older man's face. The punch didn't connect. Billy found his hand wrapped firmly up in Sloane's fingers. Sloane pushed his hand aside.
'Leave it,' he warned, looking coolly into the Chinaman's face. 'Our business is with them that did this.'
'The men that did this have got Su Fan!' Billy hurled back at him.
Sloane stepped forward, narrowing the short distance between them. 'You think I could forget that?' he asked, his voice harsh and strained.
Billy didn't answer. They stared at each other in a wordless duel. Then Billy made a disgusted noise in his throat and swung away, turning his back on the others and heading back to the horses.
'Billy!' Joe hurried after him. 'It was a foolish thing I said back there, Billy,' he said when he'd caught up with him. 'Sloane should've let you take a poke at me…'
Billy turned to face him, his face still flushed with anger. He glared at the Irishman.
'Will you not forgive me, Billy? I guess we all have our ways a' hidin' things an' I reckon talkin' like that was mine…'
Billy took a deep breath, his face slowly relaxing. When Sloane joined them, the two men were shaking hands.
'They're still headed south,' he announced. 'Tomorrow we'll be in Mexico.'
Chapter Five
There was a US Cavalry patrol on one side of the border and a detachment of Federates on the other. The soldiers in both camps were bored. They thought of sleep and the good times they had had and the good times they would have again when they were not on patrol. Men such as these know nothing of darkness. They stick close to the small friendly areas captured by the yellow glare of their camp fires. They see the moon and the stars; nothing else. They do not see the scorpion scurrying past their feet nor the jaguar watching them like a shadow with eyes. Neither did they see Sloane and his companions as they stole silently past in the night.
The first town they came to was a lively little place called Tijuana. Hardly bigger than a village, the town made up in sinfulness what it lacked in size. It straddled the frontier like a voracious spider weaving a gaudy web to catch the gringos whose business or notoriety brought them to the Republic: the cattlemen and miners and outlaws running from a noose. It caught them, it hugged them and it sucked them dry. Its female citizens were much the same.
It was late when the three men rode in but the saloons and cantinas were filled with light and music that spilled over and across the wide busy plaza at the centre of the town. They eased their horses through the restless noisy crowd thronging the plaza. A man shouted to them as they passed, a dapperly dressed American caught up in a rare flush of patriotic feeling. Across the border he wouldn't have given them the time of day. Here he greeted them like life-long friends. He wore a curly-brimmed derby on his head and a plump black-eyed whore on each arm.
'You've come to the right place, boys!' he called. 'These greaseritas sure know how to pleasure a man!' He planned on sharing more of his wisdom — but then he got a good look at their faces and he forgot what else he had to say. The whores laughed and flashed inviting smiles at the newcomers. Their benefactor tugged them towards a saloon, his patriotic desire for the companionship of fellow Americans taking second place to a sudden urge for whiskey. The girls went on looking back over their shoulders until they were swallowed by the crowd.
Joe licked his lips. 'How's about a drop a' somethin' to chase the dust from the throat?' he suggested. 'Some a' that Taos Lightnin' maybe?'
'Now what red-blooded, yellow-skinned young American could refuse an invitation like that?' said Billy eagerly.
Sloane's attention was elsewhere. He was watching the crowd. A band of mariaches, all in identical wide sombreros, passed close by. The strolling musicians were boisterously chanting the words to a repetitious song. The song was about the execution of Emperor Maximilian and it was a happy one. A lot of the crowd cheerfully joined in, adding their own voices and hand-clapping. They were still filled with joy at the victory over the French. If they had to have dictators, they preferred the home-grown kind like Juarez to the imported variety. Packs of dark hard-faced men weaved through the crowd. Sloane eyed them narrowly. They could have been vaqueros in town for a drunk or they could have been bandits. Bandits just returned from across the border.
'Careful what you say,' Sloane told the others. 'He may have friends here.'
The saloon they chose was called El Cimarron. Beneath the painted name a smaller sign translated this as The Crazy Horse Saloon. They settled on it because it looked the kind of place where the men they were after might drink — more so than the big bright saloons where the Texans and Californios were being enthusiastically helped to part with their money.
Inside, the air was thick with the laughter of men being men and the curling fumes of tobacco and marijuana. They found themselves a corner table and sat. Sloane chose a place with his back to the wall from where he could see who was coming and who was going. His searching eyes swept the low-ceilinged room, pausing briefly at each group of oily faces bent over bottles and cards. The faces were copper-tinted beneath the yellow lamplight. They moved expressively as they
talked and so did the hands held before them.
Their entrance into the saloon had not drawn much interest. Travel-stained gringos were not a rare sight in Tijuana and even a Chinaman was worth hardly more than a momentary stare and perhaps a nudge to a drinking compadre. Yet Sloane noted the men at one table glancing in their direction long after the interest of others had died. There were eight men at the table and they had the appearance, but not the humble manners, of peasants.
'Recognise any old friends?' Sloane asked Joe.
Like a conspirator hatching a plot, Joe leaned across the table closer to Sloane. He shook his head, his voice low. 'Nope, I had a quick look-see as we came in. But like I told you, they all look alike to me. Like Chinamen!' He tossed the last two words at Billy with a chuckle.
They drank tequila, helping the fiery liquid down their throats with fingers of salt and twists of lemon. By the end of the first jar even Billy had gotten a taste for it.
'Reminds me of sake,' he said. 'That's liquor made with rice.'
'If it gets you drunk, it can't be bad,' Joe philosophised.
They were starting on the second jar when a shadow fell across the table and stayed there. Sloane's eyes slid up the shadow. Before they reached the face at the end of it he knew it would be one of the men who had been watching them from the other table. He was right.
