by Chuck Tyrell
“I’ll stay,” Havelock said. He dismounted and looped his horse’s reins over a nearby hitching rail. He pulled a Winchester from the saddle boot and eared the hammer back.”
The oncoming Guardsmen spread out, four men in all.”
“Stryker!” one of them hollered.
“I’m here,” Stryker said. “What’s your business?” He took three steps out into the dusty street and faced the men.
“You ain’t backed by half a hundred Injuns now, Stryker. Let’s see how you stand up.”
“I been skinning my own cats for more years than I care to count,” Stryker said. His hands hung naturally, not tensed, not shaky.
“You all need to know that any fight of Matt Stryker’s is a fight of mine,” Havelock said. “Ness Havelock’s my name.”
“Havelock. Stryker. What the Hell is this? Some kind of name-calling contest? I’m Jack Cooper, for what it’s worth.” The Guardsman’s hat sat low over his eyes, which glowed like pieces of blue ice in the hat brim’s shadow.
“Well, then, Jack Cooper, what can I do for you?” Stryker’s voice sounded like he might be talking to a neighbor, but his face showed hard lines and his eyes matched Cooper’s for ice and fire.
“What can you do for me? Shit.” The four men spread out a little more.
“You know that whatever your beef is, it’s between you and me, don’t ya, Jack?” Stryker shifted slightly, which put his gun around behind his right hip where Cooper couldn’t see it. “You and me, Cooper,” he said again.
“They’s four of us, bounty man. Only one of you.”
“But it’s between me and you,” Stryker said, “as far as I’m concerned anyway. Your three friends can shoot at me if they want. But I’m gonna be shooting at you. Only you.”
Cooper licked his lops. He didn’t like the way Stryker singled him out. “Oh, shit,” he said, and went for his gun.
Stryker seemed to wait until Cooper’s gun cleared leather, then took a quick step to his right as he drew his Remington.
Cooper fired.
Ness Havelock’s rifle roared and one of Cooper’s buddies went down. His pistol went off under the squeeze of his dying fingers and dug a furrow across the street in Stryker’s direction.
Cooper fanned the hammer of his Colt’s back with the palm of his hand.
“Goldam, man. Protect yourself,” Havelock hollered as he put lead into a second Cooper man.
Cooper hauled back on the trigger and sent another .45 caliber slug toward Stryker, only he wasn’t standing where Cooper thought he was when he fired. The bullet missed.
Stryker started toward Cooper, eating up the thirty feet between them with long strides, his Remington held at arm’s length, pointing at Cooper’s brisket. He swept Cooper’s pistol aside as it went off a third time, putting lead straight into the hitching rail post.
Stryker laid the 8-inch barrel of his Remington along the side of Cooper’s head, just above his ear. The Guardsman crumpled, dropping his Colt’s and clutching his head.
“There,” Stryker said. “Now maybe we can talk like sensible people.”
The other Guardsman, the only one of the four still standing, dropped his six-gun and raised his hands, palms out. “Nuff,” he said. “It were all Cooper’s idea. We was just backing his move. Him having his own brother hauled in by Matt Stryker.”
“Brother?” Stryker said. “Who’s his brother?”
“Richard, er, Dick Croft were the name he used.”
“Tricky Dick? Goll. That man was a cheat, a liar, a rapist, and a killer. Don’t reckon he’ll get outta Yuma anytime soon.”
“That’s him. Tricky Dick. Cooper’s big brother. He talked about getting you, Matt Stryker, all the way from Zetate Pass. Ate at him, it did, that a man with a face like the New Mexico Badlands could put his tough brother away.”
Cooper groaned and rolled over. “You damn near broke my head,” he rasped.
“You awake enough to listen to me, Cooper?” Ness Havelock stuck a boot toe in Cooper’s ribs. “You listening?”
“Damn near broke my head,” Cooper said again.
“You brace Matt Stryker, man, and you’re mighty lucky to come away with your life in one piece.”
Cooper struggled to sit up.
“You had enough, Cooper?” Stryker stood back from the head-sore Guardsman, his Remington holstered.
“Goldam, man. You damn near took the top half of my head off.”
“Next time, I’ll shoot it off,” Stryker said. “You hear?”
Cooper nodded. “Dick’s in Yuma Prison,” he said. “Had to try. For him. Didn’t expect you to have no U.S. Marshal along.”
Stryker picked up Cooper’s Colt’s revolver and wiped the dust from it with his bandana. He held it out to Cooper, who stood up at last. “Your hogleg,” he said.
“You’d just hand me my Colt’s like you was doing me some kind of favor?”
Stryker grimaced a grin. “Yeah. I would. Me and Havelock’s got U.S. Marshal business to do.”
Cooper took the SAA. “Obliged,” he said.
“’S all right.” Stryker said. He glanced at Havelock. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” Havelock said.
They retrieved their horses from the hitching rail, mounted, and rode back toward Harry’s place. Jack Cooper stood with his hat in one hand and his .44 Colt in the other. He made no attempt to shoot Stryker in the back. After a moment, he shook his head in wonderment. “We’d better get Willy and Stan took care of,” he said. “Cain’t just leave them dead in the street.” He grabbed the hand of a dead Guardsman and started dragging the body toward the livery stable.
Stryker and Havelock paid no attention to Cooper. Their objective was a much larger fish. A shark of voracious appetite: Jason Bills.
“You got enough to get Bills?” Stryker asked.
“Nope. But if a man shakes the tree hard enough, apples are bound to fall out.”
“All right. Let’s go give it a good shake, then.”
Havelock nodded. “Plan on it,” he said.
Nogales stood quiet as a Sunday. No wagons rumbling down the Tucson road. No steam whistles from inbound trains. No chatter or laughter of women doing laundry at the public well in the town square. No tolling bell from the chapel tower. Just the buzz of blue-tailed flies, and the rustle of chickens scratching at the dusty earth in search of an odd stinkbug or cockroach.
The morning wind had stopped and ochre dust settled on everything, only to dance into the air when something moved. The zebra walked with his usual loose-jointed pace, which looked slow but covered ground a lot quicker than just about any horse around.
Side by side, Stryker and Havelock rode the zebra and the lineback toward Harry’s place. “Something dead in Mexico,” Havelock said. He pointed to zopilote vultures wheeling wide circles in the sky to the south.
“Glad they’re down there,” Stryker said. “Can’t see Bills putting up much of a fight.”
“He’s slippery,” Havelock said. “Never gets out on the front line himself.” He reined the lineback to a halt at the hitching rail in front of Harry’s place.
“No other horses,” Stryker said. “Not like Nogales. Never noticed it being so quiet. Don’t like it. Not even a little bit.” He pulled his Remington, added a cartridge to fill its cylinder, shoved it back into the holster, and stepped down from the zebra. “I’d feel better with a scattergun,” he said.
“Damn quiet,” Havelock said. He stood quietly, back to the door, examining everything he could see.
“We brung half a hundred Nogales Guards here,” Stryker said. “Don’t see none of ‘em.”
“Strange. Almighty strange. Out in the desert all this silence would say ambush, loud and clear.”
Stryker grunted. He felt the same as Havelock. It wasn’t a matter of if the top would blow, it was a matter of when . . . and maybe where. He stood still as death, back to the wall of Harry’s place. Only his eyes moved, and sometimes his head, a tiny bit
, to let him search another sector of the quiet town that spread out in front of him.
“Man on the street,” Havelock said, his voice barely loud enough for Stryker to hear.
“See him.”
But the man stopped more than a quarter of a mile away. Another man joined him. Then a woman . . . . People gathered. They said nothing. Just stood and watched, never getting closer. Even the children were subdued.
“The whole goldam town’s watching us,” Havelock said.
“Us. Or Harry’s place,” Stryker said. “At any rate, they know something we don’t.”
“Likely.”
“What’s keeping them away? Even when people watch gunfights, they don’t stay that far away.” Stryker lifted his Stetson to wipe the sweatband with his bandana. He replaced the hat and swiped at the tears on his cheek. “Almighty strange,” he said. “Like they figured everything south of the border was going to blow sky high.”
Stryker looked at Havelock. Havelock looked at Stryker.
“Bills’s up to something, ‘n’ everybody knows about it but us,” Stryker said.
“Time we went calling, then.” Havelock reached for the door latch.
“You got a plan?” Stryker said.
“Plan?”
“I reckon walking in the front door might not be healthy about now.” Stryker nodded toward the door to the Last Chance bar. “I’ll take that one. Spread us out a bit.”
“Go,” Havelock said. “I’ll wait ‘til you’re situated.”
Chapter Fifteen
Stryker moved along the front of Harry’s place to the door to the Last Chance. He stood a moment with his head down, listening, then swiped at the wetness on his cheek with the back of his hand and threw a glance at Havelock. The marshal stood ready at the front door. Stryker put a finger to his lips, then tried the door to Harry’s. It wasn’t latched. He signaled to Havelock to wait a moment. Havelock nodded.
Gently, Stryker pushed the door inward. The bar was dark compared to the brilliance of the morning Nogales sun. No one drank hair of the dog. No one leaned against the bar with a mug of suds in his hand. No one sat at any of the card tables.
Stryker made his way down the bar, one hand on the stained surface, alert for any unusual vibration. Nothing moved. Stryker reached behind the bar for the sawed-off that the barkeep hung there. Gone.
A bump came from the next room. Something like the leg of a chair hitting the floor. So someone is here. Two doors led to the middle room—one at the north end of the bar, one at the south. Stryker quietly snaked his Remington from its holster. He muffled the sound of pulling the hammer back as best he could, but the click still sounded like a sledgehammer on an anvil in the death-still quiet of the bar. He held his breath, not moving, not even breathing.
No sound from the next room now, but Stryker could feel the weight of people in there. Live people. He grasped the doorknob and turned it very slowly, keeping tension on the door. When the tongue was completely withdrawn, Stryker pushed the door open with a quick shove, thrust his Remington into the room and followed it, moving swiftly. One step in, one to the right. Stryker’s eyes swept the room.
“Please come in, Mr. Stryker.” Jason Bills sat in his customary seat, but there was nothing customary about the room itself. Every chair had someone sitting in it, bound and gagged, with a bundle of dynamite sticks tied to their shins.
“Damn,” Stryker said, almost under his breath.
“I think you should lay your firearm and your Bowie on the table there,” Bills said. He waved at a small table near the door. “If you fail to comply, I will have to apply the flame of this candle to the end of this fuse.”
The candle burned. Stryker stood absolutely still.
“I have nothing to lose, Stryker.” Bills raised the bundle of fuses. “Absolutely nothing.”
“No chance of making a trade, I suppose.”
“What have you to trade?”
“I have myself and probably Marshal Havelock,” Stryker said. “We’ll sit on your pile of dynamite. Let these people go. Women and kids for sure.”
Bills frowned with concentration. “Marshal Johannes Havelock? That half Cherokee?”
“Yes, though I have yet to speak to him about it.”
“Hmmm.”
“Not good to kill women and children, Bills.”
“Who cares?”
“Any man would care. Any real man.”
Bills snorted. “I can buy you a dozen times over,” he said. “Real man. Don’t make me laugh.”
“You can’t buy me, Bills. Never could. Never will be able to. I’m not for sale.”
“Like Hell. You’re nothing but a bounty hunter, Stryker. Put enough money on a man’s head, and you’ll track him down, come drought or high water. Not for sale. My ass.”
“Take me, Bills. Take me, and take Havelock. Don’t know what you’re up to, but let these people go.” Stryker stood rock solid. Every eye in the room was on him.
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t,” Bills said. He pinned his eyes on Stryker. “Let me ask,” he said, holding the candle flame closer to the bundle of fuses. “Are you hard of hearing? I said to put the firearm and Bowie knife on that table, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Do it.”
“Can’t. Won’t.”
Bills blinked, his eyelids batting furiously.
“But I’ll walk over and hand them to you, peaceable,” Stryker said. “Real peaceable. How’d that be?”
Bills said nothing. He looked frozen in place, except for his batting eyelids.
“How ‘bout it, Bills? I’ll just walk over there. No funny stuff. Just straight across the room to you. Hand you the Remington and the Bowie.” Stryker reversed the Remington so he was holding it by the barrel. He stretched his arm toward Bills. “Here it is, Bills. Take it, and I’ll call Marshal Havelock in, and you can let these innocent people go.” Stryker’s eyes swept the room again. Three women, two Mexes and one white. Four children, all girls. Two men, white and black. Black?
Stryker wiped tears from his face with the back of his hand. The black man was the most composed of all the hostages. His eyes, under hooded lids, seemed to be saying something, but Stryker didn’t know what. “How ‘bout it, Bills? Huh?”
Bills shook his head.
Stryker took a step toward Bills. Not threatening, just a step.
“Stay back.” The candle flame wavered as Bills’ hand shook. “Don’t you come any closer. I’ll light the fuses. I swear I will.”
“Goldam, Bills. I just can’t see your logic. What in Hell are you trying to prove?”
“I want out,” Bills said.
“Out?”
“That’s what I said. No way I can get any kind of a fair trial in Nogales,” he said. “I gotta get to Tucson. They’ve got courts there. Real courts, with lawyers and judges and juries.”
“Figure you’re gonna get charged with something? Got a guilty conscience, have you?”
“I only sought for what rightfully belongs to Arizona and the United States of America. That’s all I did.”
“Then there’s no need to threaten these. . .” Stryker waved a hand at the fettered prisoners. “I’ll call the marshal and we can get this situation cleaned.” Without waiting for Bills’s answer, Stryker raised his voice. “Marshal? Marshal Havelock?”
“I hear you, Stryker.” Havelock’s voice came through the thick oak of the front door.
“Come on in, Ness,” Stryker said.
The door cracked open a sliver, and the long barrel of a Colt’s Peacemaker came through the crack. Slowly Havelock pushed the door full open. “What th . . .”
“Mr. Bills was afraid he wasn’t going to get a fair trial here in Nogales, marshal. I told him you’d make sure he got to Tucson. . . where I guess money will talk.”
Havelock slowly scanned the room. His eyes came to rest on the black man. “Gideon? Gideon Miles?”
The black man nodded once.
&n
bsp; “We’ll have you freed in a jiff,” Havelock said. He looked at Bills, his dark eyes hard as coal. “Snuff the candle, Mr. Bills. I’ll make sure you get to Tucson in one piece. You’ve got my word.”
Bills’s hand still shook, but he’d moved the candle away from the bundle of fuses in his other hand. “I’ve heard you keep your word, Marshal Havelock.”
“I do.”
Bills heaved a sigh. “All right,” he said. “You may assist these people. Get them out of my sight.” He tipped the candle so some hot wax dribbled onto the surface of the small table beside his chair. He set the butt of the candle in the warm wax so it would stand upright. The flame seemed to get slightly larger. “Go ahead,” he said.
Stryker reversed his six-gun and returned it to its holster. Bowie in hand, he began freeing Bills’s hostages, slicing the ropes that bound them and undoing the gags. “Don’t talk,” he said to each one. “Just get out of here. Get as far away as you can.”
Marshal Havelock held the front door open. One by one, the hostages hurried by him, eager to get away from the piles of dynamite that were once tied to their legs.
When he got to Gideon Miles, Stryker said, “Marshal Miles, another day I’d say ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but right now it’s be a good idea if you’d just get yourself a good distance away.”
“It is good to meet you, Matt Stryker,” Miles said. “We’ll raise a glass when this is all over.”
Stryker swiped at the trickle of tears on his cheek with the back of his hand. “Deal,” he said, and cut the black marshal’s bonds. “Get out and away.”
“We’ll talk later,” Miles said. He and Ness Havelock shook hands as Miles went out the door. Stryker couldn’t hear what they said.
“The hostages are gone, Bills,” Stryker said. “You can come along now.”
“Matt.”
Stryker turned his head.
“Let me handle him, Matt. You get on outside and away.”
Stryker gave Havelock a long look. “If you say so, Marshal.”
He left the way he came, through the side door into the bar and out its main door. He didn’t dawdle either. Who know what Bills would do. The sheen on the man’s face and the way his eyes jiggled back and forth told Stryker Bills was close to panic. Something bothered him a lot more than the bungled invasion of Mexico.
