Cannan arched his back, trying to work out kinks.
He was done. Used up. Sapped.
And for what?
The answer was... nothing.
He was no closer to discovering what danger threatened Last Chance than he did when he first got out of bed and dressed himself in the early hours of the morning.
Maybe it really was locusts coming up from the drought-stricken south.
And maybe it was nothing at all.
Hank Cannan built and lit a cigarette, but only to postpone for at least a few minutes the agonizing trip back to the livery stable. No sooner had the match flared than a sound reached him... a faint mewing, like a kitten in distress.
Cannan listened into the night... there it was again... somewhere ahead of him in the gloom.
As was his habit, the Ranger asked himself a question aloud.
“A kittlin out here?”
But a cry reached him that no animal could make, the weak wail of a human child.
Cannan tossed the cigarette away and urged his horse forward.
After a few yards he drew rein and listened.
But for the wind... silence.
Was that what he’d heard, the sound of the west wind that now pushed hard against him?
No, there it was again, and very close.
Definitely a child, and a baby at that.
The last thing in the world Cannan felt like doing was to climb down from the saddle, but he gritted his teeth and made the effort.
When his boots hit the sand, a wave of pain followed by a sudden weakness sucked the life out of him and left him wide-eyed and gasping. He leaned against the horse, and the left side of his washed-out blue shirt was black with blood.
It was a measure of his dead-on-his-feet distress that Cannan prayed he was dreaming and would soon wake up to Roxie forcing her vile gruel into his mouth as she chided him for smoking too much and overindulging in strong drink.
But this was not a dream.
It was real, and the Ranger knew it.
Cannan gathered up the reins and stepped... staggered... stumbled forward, leading the spooked bay.
The baby, if that’s indeed what it was, had been silent for a while, but the Ranger had its whereabouts pretty much figured. Figured so well in fact that he nearly tripped over the child... and its mother.
The woman was lying on her right side, her baby pulled close as she shielded the child from the stinging sand. Cannan, a huge, looming presence in the darkness, leaned over her and said, “Howdy, ma’am.”
For a moment the woman didn’t respond, but then she opened her eyes, saw the Ranger and shrieked, hugging the baby even closer. The child began to squeal like a baby pig caught under a gate, and its mother shrieked even louder.
Surprised, appalled, Cannan took a step back but tripped over his spurs and hit the ground hard on his butt.
The woman rose to her feet, the baby in her arms, but she seemed too weak or intimidated to run away. Instead, she shrank from Cannan, a look of horror on her ravaged but still beautiful face.
“My dear lady, I mean you no harm,” the Ranger said.
This brought no response from the woman, only a whimper of fear.
Cannan’s fall had jolted pain through his entire body, but now, as his head cleared, he saw that the woman was Mexican. Her black hair, once waist length and glossy, hung stiffly over her shoulders, tangled with burrs and windblown sand.
“You’ve been through it, lady,” Cannan said.
Like most Texas Rangers he knew a little Spanish and he told the woman he was her friend and that she would come to no harm.
At least, that’s what he hoped he’d told her.
“Agua,” the woman said. She pointed at the baby, then herself.
Cannan, whose home range was farther north, all the way into the New Mexico Territory, was not desert savvy enough to have brought along a canteen, and he silently cursed himself for a greenhorn.
But aloud, in his halting Mexican, he told the woman that the Rio Grande was close and he would take her there.
Then, patting the dusty flank of the bay, Cannan pointed at the woman and indicated that she and the baby should—he used the Spanish “hagasé de a bordo”—get onboard.
But the señora hesitated, a strange, hunted expression on her face. She turned her head slowly, looked behind her, and let out a gasp of fear.
Cannan saw what the woman saw. Two men rode through a curtain of blowing sand and tattered moonlight, rifles across their saddle horns, one of them leading a saddled horse.
Cannan had been a lawman long enough to recognize a pair of hard cases on the prod when he saw them.
He was half dead on his feet. His shoulders sagged, and his face settled into its habitual gloomy expression.
“I don’t need this,” Hank Cannan said aloud. “I really don’t need this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The two riders were thin men who wore wide sombreros, cartridge belts across their chests, and ferocious scowls.
Both dismounted, and the younger of the two glanced at Hank Cannan, summed him up, and then dismissed him.
It was not an easy thing to do to a man that stood six-foot-four and weighed close to two hundred and twenty pounds, but the Mexican did it.
Cannan decided that the young Mexican was confident and most likely that had to do with the ivory-handed Colt that hung low on his right thigh.
The older man, a bowlegged, round-shouldered, simian brute with the eyes of a reptile, ignored Cannan completely and strode toward the stricken woman. Without a word, he backhanded her hard across the face, and the woman fell to the sand, the baby still in her arms.
The infant screeched, its little face red, and reptile-eyes tore it from the woman’s arms and dropped it on the ground. The Mexican stood over the child. He pulled his gun, thumbed back the hammer—
Cannan drove at the man, a headlong, low dive for his waist. But the Ranger instantly regretted it. He felt as though he’d collided with a granite column.
Weak as he was, Cannan’s feeble effort had no effect, and the Mexican didn’t even move... except to slam the barrel of his gun into the Ranger’s head.
Hank Cannon woke with a thundering headache and figured he’d been led astray by Baptiste Dupoix and had indulged in too much Old Crow.
Roxie would be real mad at him.
Hell, but not that mad... A hard kick to the ribs was no way to wake a man.
“Hey, gringo, on your feet!”
Cannan groaned and let his eyes open to slits. Blue dawn light immediately bladed into his brain, and his mouth tasted as though he’d just eaten rotten fish.
Another kick, harder this time.
“Get up or I’ll shoot you, gringo.”
Cannan opened his eyes wider and looked up at a huge Mexican with a belly the size of a killing hog. He was dressed in the usual bandito finery but wore a lady’s sunbonnet on his massive head.
With the slowness of an ailing, run-down man, Cannan sat up, then staggered to his feet. The desert spun around him, and he felt like he was about to throw up over the big Mexican’s boots.
The big man said, “Ah, my men brought you here and it is good to see you looking so well, my fren’.”
“Where’s the woman?” Cannan said.
“She is with Sancho. Safe and sound.”
“And her baby?”
Perez shrugged. “I do not know. Somewhere in the desert, I think.”
Perez wailed and threw his arms skyward. “Aiii... poor Sancho is so sad. But Conchita should not have run away from him because maybe the girl baby was his.”
He shrugged again. “Or she was somebody else’s. Who knows?”
As Cannan’s head cleared he became aware of two things: the man facing him might well be mad, and beyond him lay a vast encampment of people, men, women, and children, herded together under guard.
Most had rigged up makeshift shelters against the burning sun, but a few others sat arou
nd in a stupor, seeing nothing, doing nothing.
The Ranger was about to ask about the captive Mexicans, but Perez cut him off.
“Did Hacker send you, hombre?” he said.
Cannan thought quickly, then said, “Yes, yes he did.”
Perez’s left eyebrow crawled up his forehead like a black, hairy caterpillar.
“My compadres tell me you are all shot to pieces,” he said. “Why would Hacker send me such a man?”
“I had a brush with the law a couple of months ago,” Cannan said, his lie smooth. “Mr. Hacker”—he thought the Mister was a nice touch—“told me to give you whatever help I could.”
“Hacker is good to Sancho Perez. He is my very best fren’.”
The bandit frowned.
“For all your great size, my men say you did not do well when you tried to save Conchita,” Perez said. “But perhaps you are a fine pistolero, huh?”
Now was the time to drop names, Cannan decided.
“Mickey Pauleen thinks I am.”
Perez grinned, the diamonds in his teeth glittering in the shade of his sunbonnet.
“If Mickey thinks you are, then it must be so. He is also my very best friend. Sancho is happy to have so many friends.”
Perez turned his head and said something to the men behind him in Mexican that was too quick for Cannan to understand.
He felt a quick spike of panic.
But the apelike man he’d tried to tackle to save the woman and her child stepped forward and returned Cannan’s Colt and rifle.
“What is your name, hombre?” Perez said.
“Hank Cannan.”
The Ranger realized he’d replied without thinking. A stupid mistake!
But Perez’s face did not change, revealing no recognition.
“Well, Señor Cannan, you will help drive the peons across the river on your Independence Day when your gun will be of great value to Sancho.”
The Ranger didn’t take time to think that through.
Not yet.
Instead he said, “I will be honored.”
“Good! Then we are compadres,” Perez said. “You are my friend.”
He waved a hand. “There is coffee and tortillas.”
“First I’d like to find the baby,” Cannan said.
“Huh?” Perez said. The bandit was totally baffled.
Cannan glanced at the copper-colored sun just skimming the horizon. “She might still be alive.”
“She is dead,” Perez said. “They coyotes have found her by now.”
“I’d like to make sure,” Cannan said.
“Why does a gringo care about a Mexican child?”
“I feel responsible for her,” Cannan said.
Then the Ranger banked on the bandit’s mental instability.
“She should be buried decently and prayers said over her. You could be her father, Señor Perez.”
For a moment the bandit looked stunned. Then he tilted back his head and screamed, so loud it reached the captive Mexicans and a sea of brown faces turned in his direction.
“This is why Abe Hacker sent you!” Perez shrieked. “To remind poor Sancho of his duty. Yes, find the niña and bring her back to her loving father, that he may lay her to rest.” He grabbed the scowling, simian bandit and pushed him toward Cannan. “Go with him Esteban,” Perez said. “Bring Sancho back his dead daughter that his poor broken heart may mend.”
The man called Esteban’s reptilian eyes flashed and he gave his boss a “what the hell?” look.
But Perez either didn’t notice, or ignored it.
“Esteban, as devout a son of the Church as ever was, will aid you in your holy and righteous quest, Señor Cannan,” he said.
Perez threw his arms heavenward again and cried, “May God in Heaven forgive me for leaving my only child to demons and the wild beasts.” Then, tears in his eyes, “Go, Esteban, bring the caballos.”
With ill grace, the squat bandit spat at Cannan’s feet and turned away, but Perez’s voice stopped him.
“And Esteban, if you see any business of the monkeys kill the gringo.”
This order was much more to the bandit’s liking. He grinned, and in English, so Cannan would understand, he said, “You can depend on it, patrón.”
Perez stepped forward, threw his arms around the Ranger, and hugged him close. Cannan smelled the man’s rank sweat.
“You are my new best fren’, Señor Cannan,” the bandit said. “Tonight we will share a bottle of mescal and talk of many things.”
“Maybe I should go after the child myself,” Cannan said when he was finally free of Perez’s bear hug. “I can cover more ground alone.”
“No, I would not think of it,” the man said. “Esteban will keep you safe. I have already lost my very own baby, and I don’t want to lose my new fren’.”
Cannan was cornered and he knew it. His plan to find the baby and ride for Last Chance had no chance of succeeding so long as Esteban with him.
Cannan felt ill, very ill, and he was weak, no match for a man with the body and strength of a gorilla and who was fast with the iron.
Then he remembered a saying of his wife, “God will provide.”
The Ranger hoped she was right, because there was sure as hell nobody else around.
Esteban brought the horses and effortlessly, as though he was a child, helped Cannan into the saddle. The bandit smiled at the Ranger, knowing that his little demonstration of strength had hit home, and then he also mounted.
He passed Cannan a canteen, then said, “Let’s ride, gringo.”
As they left the encampment and the vast host of unmoving Mexicans, Perez threw himself on the sand, his sunbonnet askew, and loudly begged the Virgin Mary to forgive him for abandoning his child.
The corners of the Ranger’s mouth twitched.
The man was as mad as a hatter... but did that mean Abe Hacker was also insane?
Or was the fat man crazy like a fox?
Then, in a moment of blinding revelation, the fog cleared from Cannan’s brain and he figured Hacker’s plan.
The insane Sancho Perez, like a trained monkey, was the bringer of the locusts...
But Hacker was the organ-grinder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
As was his habit, Ed Gillman opened up his store just before dawn. Then, as he had done for years, he fired up the stove and put the coffeepot on to boil. Early customers always made a beeline for the coffee before transacting their business, and Gillman never hurried them.
Normally he would next go outside and pull down the blue and white canvas awning, but that morning the tap of a molasses barrel had sprung a leak and spread over the wood floor like an ink stain.
The interior of the store had not yet shed the night darkness and Gillman lit a lamp against the gloom.
He brought the lamp to the molasses barrel and discovered to his relief that it was a simple fix, a matter of digging out crystallized sugar from around the stuck tap handle.
When that job was done to his satisfaction, Gillman wiped his hands on his white apron and poured himself coffee.
The morning brightened and he blew out the oil lamp that produced a ribbon of black smoke, as straight as a string.
Gillman knew he’d be busy later as folks stocked up for the Independence Day celebration. His shelves groaned under the weight of coffee beans, spices, baking powder, oatmeal, flour, sugar, dried fruit, hard candy, eggs, milk, butter, fresh fruits and vegetables, honey, crackers, cheese, syrup, dried beans, and a plentiful supply of cigars and tobacco.
Partitioned off from the main store, another room offered bolts of calico and gingham cloth, pins, needles, thread, ribbon, celluloid collars, undergarments, suspenders, hats, and shoes (to be let go at cost).
Gillman also sold rifles, revolvers, ammunition, lanterns, rope, crockery, pots and pans, zinc bathtubs, and farming items.
But his pride and joy was the Apothecary Department, a wall of stacked shelves that offered soaps and toiletries, lave
nder water, and elixirs. Gillman anticipated that his best seller would be Doctor Thom’s A to Z Curative, Guaranteed to Positively Cure Any Ailment from Acute Bronchitis to Zygomycosis.
However the storekeeper fancied that its main use on July 5th would be H for hangover.
Gillman set down his coffee cup and took one last glance around the store. Everything seemed to be in its rightful place. The floors were swept clean and the corners free of spiderwebs. Satisfied, Ed Gillman smiled.
It was going to be a crackerjack day!
To the west, the sun rose and donned its finery, a dazzling morning robe of pearl-pink, pale crimson, and jade. The light tinged every building in Last Chance with a coral glow, and out in the surrounding fields and orchards, flocks of noisy birds greeted the new-aborning day.
Ed Gillman, humming a selection from the latest Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, hooked the awning with the pull pole...
And his head blew apart.
It had been a difficult shot, but a good one, judging by the sudden eruption of Gillman’s blood and brains that spattered the boardwalk and the window of the mercantile. Mickey Pauleen smiled as he lowered Abe Hacker’s customized .45-70 Marlin Model of 1881... a fine rifle and, by God, a fine cartridge.
He’d fired from a flat, brushy area to the east of Cattleman’s Hotel. There had been no one on the street at the time, and Pauleen enjoyed an open line of sight along the boardwalk to Gillman’s store. A lack of wind and the brightening dawn light had made things easier, but still, it had been a hundred-yard kill, excellent marksmanship by any standard, and Mickey was mightily pleased.
After he watched Gillman drop, Pauleen ducked into the hotel by the back door and went straight to his room.
He saw no one.
A couple of minutes passed, then somebody rapped quietly on his door.
“Who is it?” Pauleen said, drawing his Colt from the holster hanging on his bed.
“You know who it is.”
“Come in, boss.”
Abe Hacker, in his robe, opened the door just wide enough to allow passage of his great bulk, then closed it behind him. “I heard the shot,” he said.
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