Wild Country tq-3

by Dean Ing

  "No, just for local color. You won't care, and you can't be that picky if you want to get lost among tourists. Right. Sure, why not? See you then," he said, and killed the connection with a tingle of pleasure. Then he disconnected the scrambler and called the main exchange of Wild Country Safari.

  In a room not far away, Marianne Placidas furiously scribbled notes to herself. She too was tingling, with something that was as close as she could get, these days, to pleasure: it was anticipation.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Sandy's journal, Mon. 30 Oct. '06

  Rumors confusing. I cannot believe that Mr. Garner and Jerome would take each other's lives. And how did Loli Carrera get involved? I recall the poor old creature shopping for her patron in Rocksprings, savaged by overwork and perhaps also by genes. They say she was lovely once, before the war, an early bloom who shed her petals too soon. She was all of forty. I suppose we will never know exactly what happened on Garner Ranch. Mystery!

  Wonder who is to inherit, or to buy that great spread. God grant me good neighbors next time.

  Guess who came home, bouncing like a piglet and in a mood to cavort. The strangest thing was that torn red scarf tied to his neck ruff. Childe jealously believes he has a new friend. Certainly Ba'al could not have tied that thing himself!

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  "I don't know any more about it than you do, Ted," said Jess Marrow as they walked, trying not to seem hurried, toward the central hunt lodge. "Seems the Brit came in late last night without the van or the mare. And five minutes ago, my office terminal asks me if Wardrop has any outstanding stable fees. And you know what that means."

  Quantrill nodded, mounting the steps to the lodge verandah, giving Marrow time to navigate them with his gimpy leg. They found Alec Wardrop settling his bill, scheduling a ride to the city by the earliest available means. At first, he was not disposed to talk.

  Marrow found a cultural crowbar to pry an explanation from the man. "Got some stuff at my office for a toast, on the off chance that you made it back," he said, as if begrudging it. "Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry. Awful stuff. Thought you'd like it."

  Wardrop failed to keep his face straight, hung his head as he smiled. "Wonders never cease. Very well, and with pleasure. I have a few minutes to spare." Leaving his luggage untended, Wardrop accompanied his hosts back to Marrow's office.

  Quantrill's only burning question was the fate of Ba'al, but all the signs pointed to a satisfactory answer; perhaps Wardrop had just taken enough of that hard-rock country, and abruptly said the hell with it. Lots of people behaved that way. Besides, Marrow's intuition made entirely too many accurate connections every time Quantrill mentioned the boar. Quantrill listened in silence as Marrow, ushering the tall Brit into the office, said, "I'm afraid to ask about Rose."

  Wardrop lowered himself into an oak armchair with the care of a man who was nursing a lot of bruises. "The commonest kind of tragedy, I'm afraid. She broke a leg and — had to be destroyed. I wasn't mounted at the time," he added in self-defense.

  Quantrill pulled three polypaper cups from the dispenser; flicked them to Marrow, who caught them in what was obviously a ritual game. "I hear the van's still out there. Wrecked?"

  Wardrop watched Marrow pour elegant sherry into lumpen proletarian cups and shook his head. "I suppose one's palate need not know the difference," he commented to Marrow, accepting a cupful, sniffing it with eyes closed. "No, the van is intact. I've marked it on a map for you. In any case, I'm all paid up; not to worry."

  "I wasn't thinking about that. How'd you get back to WCS land?" Quantrill said.

  "That," said Wardrop, pausing to sip the sherry, "is none of your God — damned — affair."

  Quantrill made a face that was half dismay, half amusement.

  Marrow: "You sure as hell didn't hoof it."

  "Not by half. I got a… lift. I'd rather not talk about it. Marrow. Let us say, for the record, that Wild Country has too many surprises for a decent pigsticker to ply his trade. As far as I'm concerned, that boar can have the whole bloody region and welcome."

  Marrow and Quantrill had swigged the sherry as though it were strawberry sodapop from the stable dispensers. Now Marrow refilled the cups, recorked the bottle. "To Wardrop and all his pigs, then," Marrow said, and hoisted the cup before drinking.

  Wardrop made the proper gesture, saw the others toss off their sherry, shrugged with good humor, and followed suit. "Fitting eulogy for a dead occupation," he said, and stood up. He knew that no one would touch his things but, "I really should see to my baggage," he said. He thrust out his hand, and Marrow took it but did not stand. Unerring as usual, Jess Marrow's intuition told him the younger men had things to say in private.

  With all his aches and pains, the lank Wardrop walked slowly enough for Quantrill to keep pace with ease. They had walked half the distance to the lodge before the Brit broke his silence with, "Here, take my card, Quantrill. You did your best to protect a foreigner you thought was half-mad. If you ever need help, consider yourself a fellow officer in my regiment. I'm not certain that I could explain exactly what that implies."

  "It's an honor, and that's enough." Quantrill shoved the card into his denims without breaking stride. "What's your next move?"

  "Oh — to Cornwall, I imagine. A week or so tramping on Bodmin Moor in my knockabouts. Then back to the regiment a wiser man." Wardrop seemed to be laughing at himself, and then turned a frank gaze on Quantrill. "I've bagged my last boar, you know."

  Quantrill tried to hide his alarm. "Are you telling me you killed Ba'al?"

  "God knows I tried." The Brit seemed lost in his reflections for a moment. Then, striking from an unfamiliar quarter: "Quantrill, did you ever read something called The Most Dangerous Game'? A classic adventure story by Richard Connell. Butchered badly in holoplays, of course."

  Quantrill's glance, flicked at his companion, was two parts suspicion. The tale had been required reading during his advanced army training in T Section, when "T" stood for "terminate." Without giving that context he said, "I think so. About a Brit shipwrecked on an island. Some Russian count hunts him like an animal and the score winds up England one, islanders zero."

  "That's the one. I've always had a horror of that story. What if the game I hunted turned out to be human?"

  "You have interesting nightmares," Quantrill conceded.

  "Nightmares come true. Even if your quarry turns out to be almost human, it's nightmarish enough. I'm not sure this is any great surprise to you, but from the evidence I'd say that monster boar understands fair play better than most men I've known." Wardrop stopped at the lodge steps, hugged his elbows, stared thoughtfully toward the southwest, and straightened. "I am no Russian nobleman on an island keen on human prey. More important still, I know when I'm beaten. It's… not humiliating, but humbling; an experience you probably haven't yet had." A wry smile: "And good luck to you and your boar." He turned, still smiling, and reached for the door.

  Quantrill cocked his head. "My boar?"

  "Wouldn't be a bit surprised," said the Brit, pausing, and winked. "But we all have our secrets." He turned and went inside.

  Quantrill walked alone back to Marrow's office, knowing that he would miss Lieutenant Alec Wardrop. He found Jess Marrow pecking away at his computer terminal and saw curiosity in the older man's gaze. He tried to satisfy it with, "I gather Wardrop has finally found his good strong sign, Jess. Claims he's through with boar hunts."

  Marrow flicked off the terminal; leaned back in his chair and sighed. "He had the look, Teddy. There's another name for that sign, you know. It's called 'failure.'"

  Quantrill tried the idea on for size. "I don't know, Jess. He didn't act like a broken man."

  "Broken, no; but that's because he's still young and full of piss and vinegar. Lemme tell you something, Teddy: a man is lucky if he learns to accept failure when he's young. Failure for a man is like childbirth for a woman: when you have your first one late in life, it can just about destroy
you."

  Quantrill thought it over. "I'm not sure I follow that," he said at last.

  "Course not, fool, you haven't seen your sign. Yet."

  "I've failed at a lot of things," Quantrill objected. He saw Marrow eyeing him over the old-fashioned spectacles, smiling and shaking his head. "You mean something big, then."

  "Yep. Something so big it limits your self-confidence, tells you that you're just a mortal man, after all. Tells you that on a given day there's somebody, maybe nose to nose with you, who can beat you at ever'thing you do best."

  "Aw, hell, Jess. Nine-tenths of the people I meet seem to know that. They don't even need a very strong sign."

  "Right." Marrow grinned and shoved the specs into place with a blunt forefinger. "And they don't count, 'cause they never really had that basic self-confidence to start with. And what's more, most of 'em hate you soon as they see you do have it. When I said a good strong man needs a good strong sign, I didn't mean physical strength necessarily. I guess I meant confidence, Teddy. We have it. Wardrop has it." He closed one eye and aimed a finger at Quantrill. "I will bet you anything that damn near all of our close friends have it.

  Because those who don't have it, don't want to be our friends. They want to see us fail."

  Quantrill threw-up his hands and smiled. "Okay, you're probably right. Give me a break, Jess; great truths should be swallowed in small doses."

  "In other words, shut the fuck up, boss," Marrow growled. "By the way, there's a call came for you while you were out with Wardrop. I got the number here; the area code is Corpus Christi or thereabouts."

  Quantrill took the scrap of polypaper and studied Marrow's scrawl, then smiled. "Could be good news," he said, and hurried to his room for the Justice Department scrambler module.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Sandy's journal, Tues. 31 Oct. '06

  According to Ted, I am absurdly wealthy! Must get used to saying "rich," as the rich do. Ironic that so much money could accrue from something that was, insofar as I can see, a toy for the amusement of grown children. It makes sense, I suppose, in terms of the information it contains. Dear God, now I could live in the city without ever turning a lick of work as long as I lived!

  Ted laughed uproariously when I told him of ' 'The Case of the Scarlet Pennant," gasping out that I must keep it in memory of Don Quixote?! Well, either he will explain that, or I will tickle him mercilessly in every secret place.

  I suggested that he help me decide what to do about all this new wealth, as yet unreal to me. He tells me he will come in a few days, after one last piece of business in Faro. Nothing to worry about, says he. And when he says that, I always know he is risking his stupid neck. All those riches will leave me destitute if anything happens to that man.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  One advantage in undercover work for the Department of Justice was that, when you needed stylish cover, you could do it in style while Uncle Sugar paid the tab. The chief disadvantage was that, whatever your style, you could get yourself seriously killed hunting a man like Felix Sorel. Old Jim Street had told Quantrill the good news first, about the amulet and its price, then followed it with what he called AC-DC news, which might go either way.

  To counter the burgeoning black market in used machinery, engine rebuild shops in SanTone Ringcity routinely checked the serial numbers of vehicle engines brought to them for repair. Since Mexico and Canada also had the capacity to build engines, they shared their solutions to the illegal machinery trade, and that sharing was so recent that its international flavor had not yet come to Sorel's attention. Now the registered owner of any vehicle from Saskatoon to San Luis Potosf was a matter of computer record. Billy Ray did not know this. He had scarcely walked out of the ringcity shop on Bandera Road before the shop foreman, having recorded the engine number, found himself staring at a blinker on his terminal screen. Blinkers meant trouble. They sometimes meant rewards, too.

  In this case there was no reward, only a husky black dude in plainclothes who visited the shop immediately with an unquenchable interest about whoever had brought in that engine. Its owner of record was one Cipriano Balsas, a Mexican national. There was no report that the engine had been stolen, but Senor Balsas was linked to a known associate that set a blinker flashing in an office of the Texas Western Federal Judicial District headquarters, SanTone Ringcity. Ironically, district HQ was so near that rebuild shop that agents could see its Solarglo sign from their high windows a kilometer away.

  Computers and justice departments being what they are, every name that passed through the engine ID program was also matched for whatever interest lawmen might have in certain people. Thanks to his excellent contacts, Sorel had been assured that Mexican records did not connect him with any illegal activity — nor, in fact, with any known illegals. He was not so well connected in the hated country to the north, where Sorel's name and his known associates were on record, including one Cipriano Balsas. According to the records, Senor Balsas did not draw a breath or scratch himself unless Felix Sorel told him to do so. The Department of Justice had outstanding warrants for Sorel. They were also anxious to get his finger, retinal, and tissue prints on file, on the slight chance that some government might bring enough pressure to bear so that Sorel would one day walk around loose again. Cipriano would have died rather than lead yanquis to his patron, but Cipriano did not have that choice. He had bought the van himself in Monterrey on Sorel's orders, and now the engine of that van was in SanTone. Neither Sorel nor any of his men knew it, but as far as the Department of Justice was concerned, that engine was so hot it glowed in the dark.

  Because Billy Ray had not been on the wanted list, he gave his real name to the rebuild shop. And because he was an idiot, he signed the same name on the register of the No Tell Motel six blocks away. Finally, because "no tell" was a transparent lie, the register was made available to the first man flashing a federal shield on his wallet, an hour after Billy Ray signed.

  So it was that Billy Ray returned from shopping with one armload of beer and the other arm full of henna redhead to find his motel room already occupied by a black agent with ball bearings for eyes and a persuasive way of displaying armament. After being read his rights Billy Ray immediately proved the fool he was by volunteering that he had been forced to shoot his foreman by a rancher who could neither confirm nor deny it because the back of his head had been blown away. The born-again redhead sucked on a molar, fascinated, until the federal agent decided she was guilty only of excessive availability and shooed her back onto the street again. Billy Ray, on the other hand, had earned himself an endless train of free meals and lodging at Huntsville Prison, or worse. Whisked to district headquarters, he was then advised of his wrongs, and the feds seemed to think he was important enough to string up beside his pal Felix Sorel, when they caught him — which they implied was a foregone conclusion. Briefly, Billy Ray played a delaying game.

  Agents with doctorates in psychology played the man as if he were a cheap accordion, squeezing him, punching his keys as they pleased. Was Billy Ray a close confederate of Sorel? The answer was vague. Did Billy Ray know the exact whereabouts of Sorel? The answer failed to satisfy. Was Billy Ray, perchance, as queer as his buddy Sorel?

  Billy Ray sang like a cageful of mockingbirds.

  It soon became clear that the waddie had only the foggiest notions of Sorel's contraband, but a precise idea where that van was stashed. Golden Boy himself had run off, taking his favorites Harley Slaughter and Clyde Longo, to Little Vegas — or so Billy Ray had heard. He wasn't sure about the "little" part.

  Feds conferred. The obvious answer was to turn the Nevada sin city inside out, but not so fast: there was a Las Vegas in New Mexico, too. Though not a mecca for drug dealers, the smaller Las Vegas was a place where Spanish-speaking cimarrones had been known to congregate. It was also within a reasonable distance of Wild Country. The town of Faro was not even real, in the sense of mayors and tax assessments. Its reality was in its gambling income and its
travel connections, and one of Faro's nicknames was "Little Vegas." It was open to the public, and on a map it lay very near the spot Billy Ray had hit with a grimy fingernail, estimating the van's location. By this time. Attorney General James Street was making executive decisions on the matter.

  Without knowing how many of his channels were infiltrated, but with what sounded like a monumental drug bust on tap, Jim Street picked only undercover agents under his direct control and split the ten of them up among the likely targets. Five men flew to Nevada, two to Garner Ranch, and two to northern New Mexico. Street already had his tenth man in place near Faro. He personally warned Quantrill against taking direct action unless absolutely certain of his quarry, and then only after obtaining backups. His gut feeling, Street confided, was that Sorel and his men would head for New Mexico. Once positively identified, they could be quietly surrounded by local, state, and federal authorities. Street's last advice was to remember that Felix Sorel was a sidewinder. In Wild Country that meant the man was fast, deadly, aggressive, and would give no warning before he struck. This was no epithet to Quantrill, who had once been a government-run sidewinder himself.

  Quantrill rented a gleaming new hovercycle, a Curran with all the comforts of home, and using the credit code number assigned to "Sam Coulter" by Street, obtained a pocketful of crisp new bills from the main hunt lodge. Less than an hour after his scrambled call, wearing his best casual western outfit with the Chiller snugged into his armpit. Ted Quantrill topped a gentle rise and scanned the town of Faro.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The planners of Wild Country Safari had chosen the site with great care, placing Faro deceptively in a valley separated from sight of the Thrillkiller complex, two klicks away in the next valley. On topping that rise, a visitor saw only the clapboard structures and dusty streets of a frontier township, and guests were encouraged to dress appropriately. Its emotional impact was instant 1885. No automobiles or cycles were permitted past the underground parking facility; the stables and streets of Faro were redolent of horse muffins, not auto exhaust fumes. Guests rode the stagecoach from the parking facility into town, and the cavernous gift shop offered few items more modem than cactus candy. From clerks wearing gaiters, green eyeshades, and garters on their sleeves, you could buy good western garb, Pendleton shirts, and hand-tooled boots, or you could rent them. No beer in bulbs, no candy in wrappers, no Kleenex; you used a kerchief or your sleeve. To buy such stuff as cosmetics, cigarettes, and common drugstore items, you either went elsewhere or chose from the modest assortment at the mercantile shop. You could wear a Colt peacemaker on your hip so long as it was peacebonded with six empty chambers. Only security men, wearing stars of authority in their shirts, were allowed live ammo. Quantrill's muffled Chiller, its magazine crammed with twenty-four rounds of flashless seven-millimeter ammo, was not a thing he chose to wear openly. A spare magazine rested in the pocket of each boot top.