Black as Death

by George G. Gilman

  He damped the fire without putting it out and then bedded down. Slept soundly and awoke at first light. Had just coffee for breakfast while he shaved, and was in the saddle and out of sight of the place where he had camped before the sun pushed its leading arc above the eastern ridges of the Sierra Madre.

  It had been a long ride from the Double-C range but Floyd Channon had ridden longer trails than this. Tougher ones, too. Riding and working as hard as any of the hired hands up the Goodnight-Loving Trail to Cheyenne. Eating the dust of vast herds of longhorns. Busting herd quitters, turning stampedes, running off rustlers and making sure no hungry Indians ever filled their bellies with Double-C beef.

  So this trip was an easy one. Little more arduous to a man like Floyd Channon than the Sunday afternoon buggy rides he used to take: with Emily Jane on the shaded seat beside him and a picnic basket in the boot.

  The information from the Mexican at the stinking cantina in El Paso had been good. And when he realized this, Floyd Channon grinned for the first time since riding away from the one street town north of the border. Then he made camp, even though it was still only mid-afternoon. He did not light a fire. Nor did he give tacit expression to his satisfaction after the initial response to finding the place he had been looking for.

  The area where he unsaddled the horse and made a few preparations for a patient wait was some thirty feet back from the mouth of the gully. A narrow, twisting gully with fifty foot high sides which he had followed for perhaps half a mile: the ground constantly rising beneath the slow moving hooves of the stallion. When he saw he was approaching its end, he reined in his mount, swung out of the saddle and slid the Yellowboy Winchester from the boot. Then moved cautiously forward to check on the terrain that lay beneath the cloudless sky which was all he could see between the twin faces of grey rock at the gully’s mouth.

  From the moment he had known he must be across the border in Mexico, he had shown this brand of caution, since the landscape of the mountain country was such that he might ride openly into the place where he wanted his presence to remain a secret — until he was ready to make it known.

  On those previous occasions when his wariness had proved to be unnecessary, the blue eyes that surveyed a fresh expanse of empty terrain had never shown anything but resignation. Which was all they expressed now as after taking care of his horse, he went to the mouth of the gully again. This time carrying his bedroll instead of the rifle, which he set down at the base of the shaded rock face and sat on it. Then, with his chin resting on his fists which were wedged against his folded up-knees, he gazed bleakly at the man he intended to kill.

  The man, whose name was Arturo Loera, was a long way off. At least two miles out on the high country plain that spread to the south of the gully mouth. Just a miniature silhouette moving wearily against the grey dusty surface of the vast plain. He was weary because it was blisteringly hot out there. And had been even hotter earlier in the day which in something less than two hours would reach its evening. A day, like many others, during which Arturo Loera had worked hard on the building project he had set himself. And continued to work at it for as long as the daylight held and Floyd Channon could see him.

  The Mexican was building a house — a small scale hacienda that he dreamed of expanding in the passing of time. Maybe even to the extent that it would become as large and prosperous as the Double-C range of the Channons.

  And he had made a fine start, the watching Texan allowed, as he maintained his stoic surveillance of the lone man throughout what was left of the afternoon. And recalled what he had been told by the fat bartender in the evil smelling cantina back in El Paso. Six months ago.

  ‘Arturo Loera, Senor Channon? Si, he was a customer of mine. But if all the customers were like this one, I would not have a business here. He come once a week. Maybe not so often sometimes. A single tequila, it lasts him the whole time he is here. Not like other Mexicans who work on the Double-C. Your father, he pays well for his hands. And all who use my place, they spend well On the liquor, the food, the women. But not Arturo Loera.

  ‘But I do not mind this, senor. Once I was as young as he. I had hopes and dreams. But I wasted the time and the money. So that today, I have only this hole in the wall. But that Arturo Loera, he will do better. I have spoken with him many times. After those other Mexicans he work with on the Double-C had grown bored with what he talks of.

  ‘Some land, senor. In the Sierra Madre below the border with Territory of Arizona. A land without an owner for it appears to have no value. But Arturo Loera, he says there is water beneath the land. Which can be pumped to the surface so that grass can be made to grow. Enough grass to feed many cattle.

  ‘If he has gone, Senor Channon, this is where you will find him. With enough money to begin building his dream. Enough to begin working for himself on his own land. In the way that your father did, long ago. When the Double-C was little more than a shack beside a water-hole, no?’

  Floyd Channon had made no reply.

  The fat bartender added: ‘This young man, he has much admiration for your father, senor.’

  ‘Something else, too.’

  The atmosphere in the dimly-lit cantina had suddenly got as ugly as the stink of the place. When, by his expression and tone of voice, Floyd Channon revealed more than a hint of just why he was asking after the Mexican hand who had left the Double-C spread without notice.

  ‘Something is wrong, senor?’ The bartender licked his fleshy lips nervously and shifted his small eyes quickly back and forth across the sockets. But it was three o’clock in the morning and every other customer had left. Even the two whores were in their tiny back rooms, sleeping off the effects of too much liquor and the exhaustion of faked passion. He had heard second and third-hand tales of how harshly this Floyd Channon dealt with men who crossed him. But until now, during this first meeting with a member of the Channon family, the Mexican had discounted the stories. Vindictive rumors spread by lazy drunks without ambition who were jealous of the Channons.

  This was the closest to a gentleman the Mexican had ever had in his cantina: until that moment when, by a change of tone and a slight alteration of facial expression, he seemed abruptly to become the epitome of evil.

  ‘Nothing that concerns you, feller. Did he ever get more specific than somewhere in the Sierra Madre below the Arizona border?’

  Floyd Channon had known what kind of anguish was gripping the mind of the fat bartender. For several minutes the Mexican had spoken in glowing, almost paternalistic, terms of a youngster he obviously had a deep feeling for. And only when it was too late did he realize the Texan’s questions had an ulterior motive at their foundations.

  ‘Senor Channon, I...’

  The American leaned across the bar counter so that his face was only six inches from that of the Mexican. ‘If I even think you’re lying to me, feller, I’ll cut out your tongue and ram it up your ass. Comprende?’

  The bartender swallowed hard, nodded, and stammered out directions to the piece of land Arturo Loera planned to build on.

  ‘Much obliged,’ Floyd Channon said, straightening up and assuming the attitude which had earlier won the Mexican’s confidence. And spoke in the same easy-going manner as he explained: ‘Some chores around the Double-C are going to hold me to the spread for a few weeks, feller. So there’ll be plenty of time to warn Loera that his dream’s going to turn out to be a nightmare. If that happens, though, this entire world won’t be big enough for the both of us.’

  ‘He was just a customer, Senor Channon.’ The flabby shoulders moved in a shrug. ‘And not a good one, either.’

  Shame sounded in the voice of the fat man. Then defiance when he added: ‘But I will pray for him!’

  In the doorway of the cantina, the Texan nodded. ‘That’s all right, feller. Even we Channons have always admitted that divine intervention is something we can’t get the better of.’

  It was as dark as it had been on that night in El Paso when Floyd Channon rose from
the base of the gully side’ carried his bedroll back to where the stallion was waiting, and saddled the horse. Not pitch black out on the high plain the sliver of a new moon shed silvery light from low in the western sky. To cast long shadows from the partially built hacienda: and from the horse and rider when they emerged from the gully mouth and headed toward the results of Arturo Loera’s labors.

  The house itself was long and low, with a flat roof which extended out from the front to provide daytime shade for the stoop. If the young Mexican were allowed to live and work the place, it was apparent he had plans to extend the main building with wings running out from either side — perhaps eventually to add a further section so that the whole place would enclose a courtyard. But he had gone as far as he needed with the living accommodation for the time being. And the work the Texan had watched him do today was on a stable block in back of the house. Using both adobe and timber from a nearby stack of materials. Adjacent to a pump tower with wind sails at the top.

  There had not been the slightest breeze to turn the sails while the secret watcher looked on. But smoke had risen constantly from a stack at the side of a small shack at the base of the tower, obviously from the fire box of a steam pump. Drawing water from deep beneath the barren plain to stock a large, rectangular pool behind the half-finished stable block.

  Floyd Channon paid scant attention to the features of the hacienda-in-the-making as he came closer to the buildings. For, apart from his brief stopover at the small Arizona town, he had not allowed any side issues to cloud the main one which was the single-minded purpose of his long, lone ride from the established ranch east of El Paso to this embryonic spread in Mexico.

  Thus did he concentrate his unblinking gaze upon one section of the façade of the house: a net curtained window that was squared by yellow lamplight and the closed door to the right of it. And as he rode, although he made no unnecessary noise, he did not attempt to mask the inevitable sounds of the stallion’s slow approach.

  He was two hundred feet from the front of the house, riding between lengths of cord pegged to the ground to mark out the positions of the future wings, when the clop of hooves was heard by the Mexican and Arturo Loera’s head and torso were silhouetted at the lamp lit window.

  Floyd Channon acknowledged that he had seen the man by raising a hand to flick all four fingers at the underside of the brim. A brim that was wide enough to cast a deep shadow over his face — which wore an expression at odds with the easy gesture of friendly greeting.

  The Mexican moved away from the window.

  The American dropped his hand to fist it around the frame of the booted Winchester. Then slid the rifle out of the leather, thumbing back the hammer behind a breech that was already slotted with an unfired shell. And continued to close with the front of the house, the barrel of the Winchester resting across the back of the horn.

  Fifty feet short of the gap in the stoop railing, he reined the stallion to a halt. The door across from the gap swung open with just the rattle of the catch — no bolts had been shot. A widening wedge of light angled out over the stoop. The tall, slim frame of Arturo Loera became totally exposed: less distinctly silhouetted against the dimmer light which spilled from the room to the right of the hallway in which he stood.

  ‘De nada, amigo,’ the Mexican greeted warmly.

  And made to step off the threshold and on to the stoop.

  Floyd Channon swung the Winchester and squeezed the trigger.

  Arturo Loera was hit in the belly in mid-stride. He set his leading foot down on the stoop and made a rasping sound through his teeth, which were still exposed in what was no longer a smile of friendly greeting. Then he splayed both hands to the blood-spilling wound in his belly and looked down at the dark stain that was blossoming over his white shirt and pants.

  Floyd Channon pumped the lever action of the repeater — the only movement made by the man seated astride the motionless horse.

  Arturo Loera snapped up his head at the metallic sounds and for a split second still expressed total non-comprehension. But then he recognized his night caller.

  The rifle cracked out a second time. A heart shot that sent the Mexican backwards across the threshold. Killed him on his feet so that he was spared the much milder shock of his rear, shoulders and the back of his head slamming to the floor.

  Twice you got it wrong about me, you sonofabitch,’ Floyd Channon drawled, as he worked the action to send another empty shell-case spinning to the ground. ‘I ain’t welcome here at all.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  WITHIN ten minutes of the cold-blooded killing of Arturo Loera, there was little sign outside the hacienda that an act of violence had taken place. Some freshly made imprints of hooves and booted feet in the dust and a few spots of dried blood on the stoop boarding. But to see these and read anything into them, a person coming to the place would first have had to be suspicious: next, skilled in the art of deciphering something from virtually nothing.

  Inside the house, there was a little more blood than out: splashed across the floor of the hallway by the impact of the twice gunshot body when it fell. But with the door to the parlor closed, just a crack of light showed below it and failed to reach the bloodied area.

  A diminished level of light, for the wick of a kerosene lamp which stood on the mantelshelf above the stone fireplace was now turned low. So low that the corners of the big room were in darkness. Seated on a rod-back chair in one of these dark corners was Floyd Channon, with the Winchester resting across his thighs. Closer to the lamp, to the left of the empty fireplace, Arturo Loera was slumped in a Boston rocker: the bullet holes in his body concealed by a blanket which draped him from shoulders to knees. The blanket was kept in place by the weight of his. chin resting on his chest. He appeared to be asleep and only the absence of any sound of breathing betrayed that it was an eternal rest that now encompassed him.

  Upon entering the room, the Texan had taken note only of those aspects of its contents which could be of use to him. Just as, out in the shell of the stable block, he had paid attention only to those signs which showed him two horses were normally installed there. And a wagon was often moved to and from a parking place beside the block.

  He fed and watered the stallion, then unsaddled him before entering the house and fixing up the dead man in the rocker, lowering the wick of the lamp and shifting the rod-back chair into the darkened corner. This in a room that was in keeping with the unfinished state of the hacienda as a whole. Adequately furnished for the basic requirements of a room to live in, but as yet lacking the personal touches that turned a house into a home.

  The bedroom from which he had brought the blanket was in much the same condition.

  He did not intrude further into the house for as yet there was no need. He hoped such a need would not arise, but if it did whatever provisions were in the kitchen larder would run out before his patience. And he had been hungry before. If the stench of the Mexican’s decomposing flesh became too overpowering to take.

  But this was a line of conjecture that he elected to abandon as futile. Choosing to believe that the two place settings at the pine dining-table in another darkened corner of the room were not permanent fixtures — that the eating utensils had been put there because the Mexican fully expected to have company for supper.

  Floyd Channon lost track of time as he sat and waited. His mind a blank because he had no wish to recall the worst of the past: and no desire to anticipate a patiently awaited pleasure of the near future.

  So when he heard the far-off sounds of a wagon hauled by a two-horse team, he knew only that it was still night and that the low flame of the lamp had not yet exhausted all the oil in the reservoir.

  He rose from the chair, flexed his muscles after the period of inactivity and sat down again. Thumbed back the hammer of the Winchester and curled his index finger to the trigger.

  The wagon was coming from the south-east, the team hauling it at a walking pace.

  He pursed his lips a
nd inhaled and exhaled air with a low whistle as the sounds of the approaching wagon swelled in volume. Began to breathe silently again after it was halted out back of the place. He expected to hear a call for the Mexican to go help with the horses, but none came. Instead, just the sounds of footfalls, across the rear yard, round the side and then along the front of the house. A quick, excited tread.

  Floyd Channon tilted the Winchester toward the ceiling, resting the stock plate on a thigh and holding it with one hand curled around the frame.

  Footfalls rang out more clearly on the stoop boarding. The front door opened with the rattle of the catch.

  The Winchester was now taken in a two-handed grip, leveled from the shoulder with the right side of the Texan’s face pressed to the smooth wood of the stock. The man’s teeth gleamed faintly in the extreme periphery of the lamplight’s glow: bared as part of a grimace of anguish.

  The door from the hallway opened.

  ‘Wake up, sleepy head. Say hello to your...’

  ‘Hello, Emily Jane.’

  Her voice, filled with love, happiness and excitement, had faltered a moment before he announced his presence — as she sensed that the familiar room contained an unseen evil.

  ‘Arturo!’ she shrieked, held rigid on the threshold of the room: wanting desperately to lunge toward the body trapped in the chair by death, but rooted to the spot by the certain knowledge of the Mexican’s inability to be protected or offer protection from the threat in the darkened corner.

  ‘Goodbye, Emily Jane.’

  Just a single shot sounding, in the confines of the spartanly furnished room, louder than the two fired outside. Blasting a bullet through the lower slope of her left breast and into her heart. Sending her staggering backwards across the hallway to bounce as a corpse off the far wall and fall spread-eagled on her belly to the floor.