by Judd Cole
An Indian wrapped in the traditional manta was placing steaming bowls down in front of two Mexicans at one of the tables. A third customer nursed a bottle of tequila at a deal counter. The place was so rustic that hardtack boxes served as chairs.
“It ain’t La Fonda,” Bill remarked. “But that atole smells pretty good. C’mon, Philly. Let’s get outside of some grub.”
The two trail-dusty gringos stepped inside the smoky interior.
“Welcome, Marshal!” the Pueblo Indian greeted Bill in good English. “Food or liquor?”
“Food first,” Bill replied, removing his black hat to slap the dust from it.
Josh was still holding the buffalo hide aside as Bill took off his hat. When his famous golden curls tumbled into view in that clear light, the owner took a second, longer look at the new arrivals. Bill’s long gray duster had parted just enough to reveal one of his fancy pearl-handled Peacemakers.
“Tender Virgin!” the Christianized Indian exclaimed. “It is Wild Bill Hickok! Mamacita! Senor Hickok, this is a great honor. May I touch you for luck?”
“My pleasure,” Bill assured him, stepping forward to give the man a hearty grip.
“I am Antonio Two Moons,” the Indian said. “And what is your friend’s name?”
Josh had noticed how Indians in New Mexico considered it bad manners to ask a person his name directly, such was the important power of a name. It was the custom to ask a friend instead.
Bill opened his mouth to reply. At that moment, however, a man stepped through the open rear doorway. He was still buttoning his fly after relieving himself at the jakes out back.
Josh took in the lean, young, hard features, all centered on a crooked mouth. The man’s eyes registered their presence, and his right hand twitched toward his holster.
But Hickok was faster. Josh never even saw a blur as Bill’s Colt cleared the right holster.
“Freeze, Tutt,” he commanded in a voice that brooked no debate. “Grab some sky with both hands. You’re under arrest for the murder of U.S. Marshal Samuel Baxter. Move one inch, and you’ll have a belly full of blue whistlers.”
Chapter Ten
Antonio Two Moons and his customers gaped in astonishment. Slowly Frank Tutt brought his hands up over his head. But the smug sneer on his face, Josh thought nervously, implied Tutt was in charge.
“Kiss my lily-white ass, Hickok. What proof you got that I killed anybody?”
“Actually,” Bill replied calmly, “none at all— yet. But under Territorial law, proof isn’t required to make an arrest. Only for a conviction in court.”
Tutt snorted. “And just how do you plan to get me convicted?”
“I don’t. But I’ve got a lot of faith in the power of ley fuga.”
The sneer bled from Tutt’s wire-tight features, replaced by a dark, tight-jawed scowl. Josh had read about the widespread Mexican practice of ley fuga, or “flight law.” It was the one justifiable case, on the frontier, where men could be shot in the back. According to this practice, widely accepted in the Territories, any prisoner who reportedly tried to flee was to be shot dead on the spot. The assumption was that a fleeing man must be guilty; thus, shooting him saved the taxpayers the cost of jailing, trying, and executing a guilty man.
“Bring your left hand down slow,” Bill ordered him. “Unbuckle your gunbelt and let it drop. Then give it a good kick toward my partner. Get cute on me, and I’ll put an air shaft in you.”
Frank did as ordered. Josh scooped up the Colt Navy revolver in its jury-rigged holster.
“Why’n’t you just murder me now, big man? Like you back-shot my brother?”
“I killed your piece-of-shit, traitorous brother to his face in a fair fight, Tutt. And if this right now was just my business, you’d be carrion by now. I got just one rule when it comes to killing a cockroach like you: Shoot first, ask questions later. But I’m wearing Sam Baxter’s badge. And Sam took pride in giving his prisoners a chance, at least, to go back alive.”
“Everybody says Wild Bill Hickok is double-rough. To hell with your ley fuga and courtrooms. Let’s you and me square off in a showdown right now.”
Bill shook his head. “Like I told you once, if I didn’t have Sam’s badge on, it would be done by now. I’d kill you deader than a Paiute grave. But Sam preferred to take his prisoners in. You might call him an idealist.”
“That’s an excuse, you prettified, perfumed dandy! You got chicken guts, ain’tcha?”
Bill ignored this. He wagged his gun toward the front entrance.
“Outside, mouthpiece. Joshua, dig that short rope out of my right-hand saddlebag, wouldja? Well tie this jasper’s hands up good. Then we’ll get his horse.”
Instead of going outside, as told, Tutt stood his ground.
“Then at least fight me with your fists, you puffed-up peacock! Or are you afraid to let the world know you’re nothing but a weak sister with a phony reputation as a man?”
Bill mulled the fistfight suggestion. No strict law against it, really. And the two men were more or less evenly matched in height and weight, though Tutt was younger by a good ten years, at least.
“All right,” Bill agreed. “Let’s hug. But no rough-housing in Antonio’s place. Well take it outside.”
Hickok kept his gunmetal gaze trained on his prisoner while he spoke to Joshua.
“Kid, get that gunbelt out of reach. Then keep out of my line of fire while you frisk him for hideout guns or a knife. Tutt, you try anything cute while the kid’s patting you down, I’ll send you across the Great Divide. You can’t move quicker than a bullet.”
Josh, stomach tense with nervousness, patted Tutt down quickly. Only later, when it was too late, would he realize he should have been more thorough.
“He’s clean,” Josh told Bill, stepping back again.
“Outside,” Bill ordered again, wagging his Colt.
Tutt emerged into the baking sun of the packed-dirt yard. Antonio Two Moons, the two Mexican customers, and Josh followed him out.
Josh was already holding Tutt’s heavy shell belt. Bill unbuckled his and handed it to Antonio, who suddenly looked as if he were holding the Holy Grail. Despite the tension of the moment, Josh had to grin when he saw Antonio swipe a cartridge for luck.
Bill flipped his hat aside, shucked out of his duster and vest, unlooped the buttons of his linen shirt. Tutt, too, peeled off his shirt.
Both men began circling. Josh had never really seen Bill in a hand-to-hand dustup. But it was right here in New Mexico, well before the Civil War, that young Hickok had learned the art of brawling from the likes of Kit Carson and Charlie Bent.
Those Taos trappers were not well-versed in European pugilistics. Rather, they were “thrashers and wrasslers.” Tutt, however, was obviously a boxer. The two distinct styles were apparent now as the combatants warily circled. Tutt brought both fists up in front of his face and tucked in his head; Wild Bill held his arms out loosely at his side, ready to grab and throw.
Tutt suddenly jutted in, straight-armed Bill in the lips with his right fist, landed a left hook under his ear. Showing fancy footwork, he danced out of harm’s way before Bill could recover.
“S’matter, big man?” Tutt goaded. “You ain’t so tough when you have to fight like a man, uh? Don’t take no cojones to shoot a man in the back like you done my brother.”
Bill calmly swiped blood off his mouth with the back of one hand. “You talk too much, Tutt. Your brother was a big talker, too.”
“Touch you for luck?” Frank gibed scornfully as he danced in again and landed a solid blow to Bill’s midsection. He followed up with a quick jab that caught the point of Bill’s chin.
“Matelo!” one of the Mexicans urged Hickok. “Kill him, Wild Bill!”
Tutt swooped in again. This time, however, Bill swept one leg out in a well-timed hook, sweeping Tutt off his feet. He landed hard on his ass. Josh winced when Bill’s boot slammed into his face. Tutt sprang back to his feet, spitting chips of broken tooth
. Bill caught him with a solid roundhouse right that sent the younger man staggering again.
Suddenly Tutt had lost interest in goading his opponent. As he got up again, Josh saw his hand slip quickly into a front pocket of his trousers. When it emerged, the knuckles were lethally wrapped with Tutt’s “drinking jewelry”—heavy horseshoe nails welded together.
“Bill!” Josh warned. “Watch out! He—”
Josh was too late. Tutt’s steel-wrapped fist slammed hard into the vulnerable point of the jaw halfway between the ear and the chin. Wild Bill’s knees folded like an empty sack, and he flopped face-first into the dirt, knocked senseless.
Josh, whey-faced, clawed for the pinfire revolver in its chamois holster under his armpit. But Frank Tutt had the reflexes of a puma cat. He grabbed his gunbelt off Josh’s shoulder and knocked the reporter ass-over-applecart into the dirt beside Bill.
But Josh knew he couldn’t let up, or Tutt would get his gun out of the holster. The youth got his weapon out and came up to his feet again, cocking his LeFaucheux.
Tutt lifted his left foot, touched a spot by the heel, and a five-inch steel blade shot out from the front of the thick sole! Josh had no time to react before the blade punched hard into the meaty heel of his right palm.
Fire leaped up Josh’s arm, and his revolver flew into the dirt. Tutt obviously intended to shoot Hickok. But one of the Mexicans saved the day producing an old over-and-under dragoon pistol from beneath his manta. The gun’s booming roar made everybody’s ears ring.
Unfortunately for all but Tutt, the big, half-ounce ball missed by a cat’s whisker. But at least it scared Tutt into flight. He raced back through the log hovel to his grullo, tethered in grass out back.
“See you in hell, Hickok!” came his taunting shout. Moments later ironclad hooves could be heard, pounding out across the flats.
“Well, kid,” Wild Bill said grimly as he unwrapped Josh’s wounded hand. “Tutt took that trick. I see now he’s twice the trouble his brother Dave was.”
Bill had been out cold for nearly ten minutes. Now his left jaw was swollen, turning the dark purple of grapes. Antonio had quickly wrapped Josh’s copiously bleeding hand in bandage cloth. But that blade had gone in deep, all the way to bone, and Bill knew from experience the bleeding wouldn’t stop on its own.
“You saved my bacon, Longfellow,” Bill added, speaking through swollen, bloody lips. “You’re a damn good man to ride the river with.”
Despite the horrid, throbbing pain, Josh swelled with pride. Frontiersmen like Wild Bill Hickok did not lightly dole out such praise.
“Unfortunately,” Bill also told him, “you’re going to bleed to death if we don’t cauterize this. It’s going to hurt, kid. Hurt like the dickens. But I’ll do it quick.”
“Antonio?”
“Si, Senor Wild Bill?”
“Go inside and build up a fire in the stove, wouldja? And fetch us a bottle of strong liquor. Pulque, if you got any.”
“Right away.”
Antonio started to go inside, then paused to say from the doorway:
“That man was a coward. He could not beat you, Wild Bill, with his bare hands. He had to cheat.”
“Oh, he cheated, all right. But you see, Antonio, it was my job to expect he’d cheat. So the truth is, he was the better man—that time.” Bill added in his quiet, genial way, “But what’s done today can be undone tomorrow.”
“I only wish you had shot him on sight,” Antonio added. “An infierno con ley fuga. To hell with flight law!”
“He’s right,” Bill told Josh. “Out of respect to Sam, I tried to go by the book. Almost got both of us killed. From here on out, it’s the Code of Hickok.”
Bill led Josh back inside and made him sit down. While Josh choked down as much pulque—a milky, strong cactus liquor—as he could, Wild Bill thrust the iron blade of his knife into the glowing coals of the stove.
He handed Josh his leather belt. “Bite down on that, Longfellow. Then stare at the painting behind you—the one of the naked lady.”
There was no painting behind Josh, naked ladies or anything else. But when the curious reporter turned to look, distracted, Wild Bill quickly seized his arm. He laid the red-hot blade against the kid’s mangled hand.
There was a sound—and a smell—like meat sizzling in fat. Josh’s entire body tried to shoot up off the seat, but Wild Bill held him down. The kid’s scream of pain was so bloodcurdling, Antonio and the Mexicans all made the sign of the cross.
The kid slumped over the table, passing out. But when Bill finally removed the glowing blade, the edges of the wound had sealed together. It would leave a hell of an ugly scar. However, the bleeding had stopped.
Antonio brought in some gentian root paste to soothe the ravaged flesh. Bill smeared plenty on, then wrapped the kid’s hand again.
When Josh started to groan, coming to, Bill managed to pour more pulque down his throat. Better to get him drunk and let him sleep awhile. Bill had once cauterized his own wounds after a grizzly bear ripped him up in an attack at Raton Pass. There was no pain on earth quite like the aftermath of a cauterizing.
While the kid slept, Bill went outside and followed Frank Tutt’s trail far enough to see where he was headed. After fleeing due east, the trail doubled back to the northwest.
Toward Taos. Meaning Tutt was probably going to make a report to El Lobo.
“All right, then, Mr. Tutt,” Bill muttered as he reined his chestnut back toward Polvo. “Like you said—see you in hell.”
“Easy. . . easy, there!” shouted El Lobo Flaco as his men struggled to lift the golden bell out of the buckboard. “Cuidado! Careful with it! Do not chip off the coating paint. I want no one to see what is underneath it.”
Several Apaches and Mexicans, muscles straining like tent ropes in a storm wind, eased the bell out of its buckboard and into an open boxcar. They worked by moonlight to minimize attention to their task. Those who were not lifting stood guard, heavily armed. Several wore crossed bandoliers bristling with ammunition.
The adobe pueblo of Taos was dark and silent except for generous moonlight and a lonely dog that howled irregularly, somewhere out beyond the train siding. Witter Boyd himself, owner of the private narrow-gauge railroad line, would be driving the locomotive. Right now Witter was building up a head of steam for the forty-mile night run, due east, to Springer. Witter meant to highball it, wide open all the way, pushing thirty miles per hour and praying nobody had torn out tracks to derail them.
The buckboard rose noticeably on its leaf springs when the bell had been off-loaded.
“Benito!” El Lobo called to one of his men.
“Si, Jefe!”
“Load one buckboard onto the train with the bell. We will need it, once we arrive in Springer, for the trip south to Cerrillos.”
“Si, Jefe. And the fodder wagon?”
El Lobo eased his lips away from his teeth, his face sinister and dangerous and ghostly in that bluish moonlight.
“I want all of you to fill it with rocks. Many rocks, enough to weight it down as the bell did. Then pick one man to stay behind. Early in the morning, hire a young boy from the public square. Pay him generously to drive those rocks straight north toward the Colorado border.”
Benito, too, grinned as he caught on. “Toward Pueblo and the big smelter there, verdad!”
El Lobo nodded. “It will leave deep ruts. Anyone following will think we are taking the bell north to melt it down. Meantime, we will be heading south to the smelter at Cerrillos. And we have some additional freight I need to show you. Witter is kindly letting us use it.”
El Lobo hopped into the boxcar and tugged a dirty piece of canvas aside.
“Virgin de Guadalupe,” Benito muttered. He gaped at the ten-barreled Gatling gun. The hopper that stored and fed shells was already attached. A metal ammo crate sat under the gun.
“You know how to use it?” El Lobo demanded.
Benito nodded. “I had one that I stole from drunk Tej
anos. A child could fire it.”
A rider approached from the darkness beyond the train, and a half-dozen weapons came up to the ready. El Lobo covered the gun and backed away from it. But he remained on the boxcar.
“Hallo!” Tutt’s voice rang out. “Hold your fire, boys!”
Tutt, his grullo badly lathered, rode right up to the tracks. Sitting in his saddle, he was at eye level with his boss.
“Hickok’s for sure coming,” Tutt reported. “And he’s wearing a star. He damn near arrested me at Polvo.”
“Coming when? Now, you mean?”
Frank shook his head. “I watched my back trail good. More likely, tomorrow morning. I cut up his partner pretty good, it’ll slow them down. I rode full bore to get here, and I took the shortcut through Arroyo Hondo.”
El Lobo relaxed a little. His eyes flicked to the covered Gatling gun. “‘Sta bien. Let Hickok come. If all goes well, he will soon be riding in the opposite direction from us. You wait here, Frank. Stay on Hickok like black on night.”
“Oh, I intend to, boss. Hickok is my favorite boy now. I damn near did for his ass in Polvo. Next time I brace that prissy, he’s going under.”
Chapter Eleven
Even as a yellow-orange ball of sun broke over the eastern horizon, Wild Bill and Josh rode into the deserted center of Taos plaza.
“Why, look!” Josh exclaimed.
He pointed with his bandaged hand toward a tall cottonwood pole erected in the center of the plaza. The American flag fluttered in a gentle breeze.
“That’s downright disrespectful to our flag,” Josh complained. “It must have been left flying all night. The flag is supposed to be lowered before dark.”
Bill chuckled. “Don’t get your pennies in a bunch, patriot. Thanks to Kit Carson and some others, Taos plaza is one of the few places where the American flag can legally fly day and night.”
“Why?”
“Back in ‘61, just before the Great War, there were Confederate sympathizers around here who kept trying to haul down the Union standard and fly the rebel flag in its place. But that didn’t sit too well with Kit, Captain Smith Simpson, and some others. So they nailed the Stars and Bars to that pole. Then they went right over there . . .”
