by Tony Masero
‘Well,’ she said with a show of determination. ‘We’re not going anywhere. I want to be with you and I know Callie wants to be with her father. We’re staying Smoke and that’s it.’
‘You’re leaving me vulnerable by taking this attitude, you realize that, don’t you?’
She shook her head, ‘I thought it was support I was showing.’
‘No, baby. If I have to consider your safety if bullets start flying it’s a distraction that could prove fatal.’
She twisted her head from side to side in confusion.
‘You really want to put Mouse in harm’s way?’ I asked to try and tip the balance.
‘Don’t call her that,’ she snapped. ‘That’s not her name.’
‘It’s my pet name for her, that’s all,’ I said, beginning to get irritated.
‘She isn’t a pesky rodent, she’s my little baby girl.’ The tears started them, first her eyes filled up then they overflowed and began to run down her cheeks in long streaks.
I enfolded her in my arms and she fell against my chest, ‘Oh, Smoke,’ she moaned.
‘It’s alright,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll take care of everything.’
My attention was elsewhere though. Lefevre had crossed over at the doorway behind Annie May and given me a look before passing out of sight.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Go pack your things and take Callie to that lady friend of yours. That one that moved over to Austin. There’ll be plenty of things to do in the city; it’ll be interesting for a little girl. Treat it like a holiday and I’ll sure feel a darned sight more relieved knowing you’re safe. I’ll send Lefevre with you to make sure. Okay?’
She backed away and held me at arm’s length, her tearful eyes taking me in as she nodded ascent.
‘I love you,’ she murmured as she turned and left the room.
It was the first kind word she’d said to me in a long time and I felt the words strike me deep. She was still mine and it did a great deal to ease my mind knowing it.
I waited a moment then went to find Lefevre.
‘Two of our men,’ he said. ‘A couple of guys out at the silver mine. They were shot down in a gully out there, nobody saw anything. Couple of miners discovered the bodies this morning on their way to work.’
I breathed deep. ‘They’re getting closer and closer,’ I said. ‘Listen, I want you to take Annie May and my daughter to the stage pick-up at Mark’s Creek then on to Austin. You stay with them until its safe to come back.’
He nodded, ‘What about you? What are you aiming to do?’
‘There’s a Mexican who may have some word on who’s behind it all. I aim to find out.’
‘You sure? I don’t like leaving you on your own.’
I smiled, grateful for his consideration, ‘I’ll be okay, just make sure my wife and child are alright.’
‘You know it,’ he promised.
‘Annie May’s packing now. Take the surrey and head out right away, Annie May can handle that rig with Callie and you can ride shotgun alongside.’
‘I’ll see to it. You take care, boss.’
I laid my hand on his shoulder, ‘I’m counting on you, partner.’
~*~
The way I heard it was that they were on the trail to Mark’s Creek with Annie May driving and Lefevre doing as I told him and riding alongside. Knowing Lefevre he would have had his hand on his gun and his eye on the horizon. He was a smart cookie and knew we were in danger from every avenue so whilst keeping Annie May and Mouse happy he would not have allowed his attention to wander.
They were smart though, the way they did it. Surprised me how smart.
Apparently my family had almost reached the stage swing station, and was about five mile out when they heard the midday stage coming in.
Lefevre must have reckoned it was right on time as the Overland could be early or late, one never knew. There were plenty of reasons why and although the stage line did its best to keep to a schedule everything from flash floods to a new team could either cause a delay or improve the running.
So it must have panned out like this.
The stage comes on heading up from San Pueblo on the regular trail from the south heading for the station at Mark’s Creek and an expected team change. Lefevre and Annie May hear the driver cracking his whip and calling out his ‘halloos’ as he comes up behind them.
They drag on their reins and wait for the stage to pull up, reckoning that they could tell the driver they’ll be joining the stage and he’s to wait for them at the station.
The stage pulls up alongside and the driver leans down, cracks a grin and bids them a good day. Then the three gunmen sitting inside lean out the windows and let Lefevre have it. Three guns from no more than four feet away with my trusted man sitting up there plain as day and out in the open in front of them. He never stood a chance.
They blasted him before he even had time to blink.
You ever seen what .45 slugs can do from that range? No, well, it ain’t pretty.
Near took his whole left shoulder off and half his insides blown out. The poor beggar still managed to get his own pistol into his hand before they put one in his brainbox. After that it was goodnight and goodbye.
As Lefevre dropped, the three guys were out of the stage and taking hold of Annie May before she could whip up the team. The stage driver put one in the lead animal just to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere. Then they hustled Annie May and Mouse into the stolen coach and were off.
The first anyone knew about it was when the thirsty team dragged themselves, Annie May’s carriage and the dead lead pony all the way in to the station. It was late at night by then and the station keeper set off by lamplight to find out what had happened. He was an old Indian hand and could read sign so he put the story together from the tracks. Then he sent word to Kennedy.
They had my wife and daughter and I never knew it.
I was half way to the border at the time.
~*~
Rio Barolo had certainly changed since the last time I had been there.
Carlos Isquito had definitely improved his lot. He had built himself a fine walled hacienda just outside the town. As I crossed over the small creek bridge that divided the estate from the town I could see it was a low level, single story, rambling building and I made out an armed man on the roof and a few lackluster guards patrolling the walls. There was a large plaza inside the arched entranceway with a fountain playing over some gross decorative sculpture he had gotten himself. In fact the plaza was full of carved stone sculptures, horses and angels mostly. It looked like a cross between a stable yard and a cemetery.
I had taken precautions; I had a Yellow Boy Winchester in my saddle scabbard, a Colt at my waist and a long blade in my boot top under my pants cuff. I had put an extra Winchester in the blanket roll tied on back of the saddle, and a .44 Schofield sat in the saddlebags. Never did to be anything but careful when approaching a Mexican bandit.
They stopped me at the gate and I told them who I was. Then I had to wait until the bandit chief deemed right to allow me entrance. When he did, I was relieved of my pistols and rifles but they never found the knife in my boot top. After that I was ushered into Carlos’s presence.
He was sitting on an open veranda and had grown as fat as a pig.
I remembered Carlos Isquito as a slender, mustachioed critter fast as a whip and the very devil with the ladies. Now he had put on maybe another two hundred pounds and wobbled when he walked. Geez, the guy had gone to pot. He had a great golden goblet in his hand and I reckoned the drink had done a powerful deal to put him the way he was.
He grinned at me. Were those diamonds nailed in his teeth? I think they were.
‘Ola! My old fren’, Smoke Tallen. Amigo, it has been too long,’ he spread his arms wide to embrace me. It was like meeting with a wet sponge cake but at least the great gut kept me at a reasonable distance from the rubbery lips. The mustache was still there and that was about the only thing I recognized in the greasy round fac
e that sweated profusely and reduced his dark eyes to piggy-sized buttons. Apart from the mustache the only marker of days past was the misshapen nose that I had busted in a previous life.
‘Looks like you done well, Carlos,’ I observed, all politeness and full of grace.
‘Si, senor. God and the saints have been good to me. You like my house?’
The accent was strong and he smiled continually in a fixed grimace that I realized was an affectation to show off his diamond-studded teeth. They didn’t do it for me. It was not the flashing gleam he imagined but more a dull metallic glint, as if there was flakes of steel trapped in there.
‘It sure is impressive,’ I lied, taking in all the grand symbols of wealth. The golden framed oil paintings (mostly of prized stallions) and all the overblown furniture. Indian woven tapestries and giant vases of flowers, marble topped tables and plush studded leather armchairs with walls paneled in cedar wood. The only thing free of gold in the room was the tiles on the floor and I couldn’t vouch that there wasn’t veins of the stuff running through them.
‘It has been many years,’ he said, pouring me wine from a slender gold-topped crystal decanter. ‘Word has reached me of your success. Now you are into many areas of business but no longer it is horses, so I am told.’
‘Not any more,’ I said, taking the offered goblet. ‘No, I cut and ran and now it’s all legitimate.’
‘You have a family?’ he asked and I noted a movement in the dark glimmer of his eyes and wondered at it.
‘Sure, wife and daughter.’
‘That is good. A man should have children to care for him when he is old. I have fifteen, you know?’
‘Fifteen kids! My, you’ve been busy.’
‘Sure, I like my babies,’ he spread his lips in that fake grin again. ‘I like making them too.’
‘I remember,’ I said, wondering how the hell he managed to do it these days, the size he was.
‘Now, you have come just to visit with an old friend or is this some business you wish to transact?’
He flounced down into an elegant velvet-padded chair with gold trim and looked out from the veranda over the plaza below.
‘There’s a thing I wish to discuss,’ I said.
He waved at an accompanying chair, ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Sit with me and we shall talk. It is like old times, no?’
‘Someone’s been trying to take me out,’ I said. ‘I wondered if you had heard anything?’
He shrugged, his attention fixed on the plaza. ‘Here? How would I know of such things? We are far removed from you on the other side of the border.’
‘But you’re running crews on both sides now aren’t you?’
‘That is true,’ he turned to face me briefly. ‘You think maybe I have something to do with this?’
I said nothing just kept my gaze fixed on him.
He looked away again, ‘Why should I bother myself with you, Smoke? You have nothing I want.’
‘Maybe there’s some enmity left over,’ I said, with a hand waved across my nose.
‘For this?’ he laughed, stabbing his nose with a pudgy finger. ‘The women think it is most fetching. They think I am a wild man with such a nose. No, that is in the past,’ He stabbed a solitary jabbing finger in the air. ‘I have not forgotten though.’
I saw the glaze that came over his button eyes. No, he had not forgotten. There was still a vengeful bug roaming around in his scheming brain.
‘Who’s in it with you?’ I said, more to shock him into a response than knowing the truth of it.
He spun around, at least as fast as his great fat body could manage. His face twisted into a sneer, ‘You always had too big an idea of yourself, Smoke. You think you know everything. What are you to me? I am the one now, senor. Look at all I have achieved and I did this without any help from you Americanos.’
‘Except for one Americano though, huh?’ Now, when I said that I had no idea if he was in it with someone else or not, but it was a stab in the dark that seemed to pay off.
He rubbed his double chins and toyed with the ends of his droopy mustache. ‘Maybe,’ he hummed vaguely.
‘You want to enlighten me?’ I asked.
He waved a flaccid hand dismissively, ‘It is just business, Smoke. Do not take these things so personally; it is all arrangements and business. We have to make a living, no?’
‘Forgive me but I take four slugs in the body as most personal,’ I allowed.
‘But you live, no? Be grateful and if you are wise you will take yourself away and leave those that are better suited to benefit by your departure.’
‘That being you and your partner?’
‘I could have you snubbed out like that right this minute,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘Like that!’
‘And you haven’t because you like to play. That’s always been your problem, Carlos. You like to toy with your victims, like a cat with a mouse.’
‘It’s true,’ he chuckled dryly then, as an apparent afterthought he said, ‘You have a daughter you call ‘Mouse’ is this not so?’
My blood ran cold then, an icy chill that swept up my spine and raised the hair on the nape of my neck.
‘What do you know about my daughter?’ I growled.
He shrugged again, raising his fat shoulders and puffing air from between his flabby lips, ‘What can I say? I mention the child, that is all.’
‘Don’t go there,’ I warned, my face hardening. ‘I tell you, Carlos. One hair on my family’s head and you will wish you had never been born.’
He snorted a laugh, completely sure of himself. ‘I have a man over there,’ he waved out across the veranda to the plaza and the buildings situated opposite under the hacienda walls. ‘He has you in his sights right now. A very good shot with the rifle. A dead shot. One word from me and poof!’ he exploded his fingers into the air. ‘And you are no more.’
I laid the wine goblet down on the marble top of the side table in front of me. I let it slip and the metal rang hollowly on the tiles as it dropped to the floor. He sniffed indifferently as I reached down to pick it up and did not notice that it was something from my boot top that I came back up with as well.
‘The thought makes your hand shake, no?’ he asked, with a sly chuckle.
With exaggerated care I replaced the goblet on the table.
‘Your friends are not as close to you as you think, amigo,’ he went on, gloating over his position. ‘They come to me. The Mexican from their past and ask him to arrange things. Why not? I think to myself, what does it matter. We were all business partners once, no more than this and if there is money to be made then these old alliances are not worth so much in comparison. Do you think I am right?’
The handle of the knife was hidden in my hand, the blade lying out of sight up along my wrist.
‘I think you are a damned fool if you think you can trust Ace,’ I was sure now that Ace had been fooling me all along.
‘Like I say,’ he said coldly. ‘It is not a matter of trust, it is just business.’
I was out my chair fast, kicking it away behind as I went. The knife was held ready in my right hand. I snaked around low behind the fat man’s chair, my left hand grabbing his ear and pulling his head back as I did so. I was behind him, down low with the keen edge of the blade pressing into the fat of his chins. He smelt of some strong perfume mixed with sweat and the tips of his greasy hair curled over my fingers.
‘Want to tell your friend opposite to shoot now?’ I whispered in his ear.
‘You will never get out alive,’ he managed through gritted teeth.
‘More to the point, will you?’
He gulped as I pressed a little harder and a trickle of blood ran down his front from the razor edge of the knife.
‘Tell me now,’ I said. ‘Is it Ace behind all this?’
He ground his teeth; I could feel the muscles tautening under the fat. ‘What do you think?’ he managed.
‘I think he is,’ I said.
�
�Then you had best kill him quick,’ husked Carlos.
‘Get up slowly,’ I ordered. ‘We’re going to back out of here.’
Tentatively, he tried to lift his great body out of the chair. It was hard for him to stand straight up without the possibility of leaning forward as I had the knife tight under his chin. He managed it finally, puffing and wheezing. We stepped sideways together, away from the chair standing between us and moved like two dancers in a weird ballet, his wide body protecting me from the sniper positioned across the plaza.
I didn’t doubt for one minute that he had a man stationed there, possibly the same bastard that had nailed me in the Main Street that day. Carlos would have enjoyed the game, playing and teasing me until the moment when he had decided that was enough and given the signal.
‘You’ve really let yourself go, Carlos,’ I said as we stepped backwards away from the veranda and into the room behind. ‘You’re fatter than a Thanksgiving hog.’
‘But I enjoyed getting here,’ he said, some of the humor returning to his voice. ‘Such food and the women,’ he blew a kiss. ‘Oh, the women.’
I heard the clatter of boots outside the room and reckoned some guards were on the way. Then the door burst open.
It was Kennedy.
‘Thank God!’ he cried. ‘I got here in time.’
‘Duck!’ I shouted, pushing Carlos hard away from me and into the center of the room.
From across the way he was only a dark shape moving rapidly and the powerful .52 caliber bullet that came humming into the room lifted even his fat bulk off the ground. The slug sent Carlos careening across the room and his body slid along the polished tiles to land still and lifeless at Kennedy’s feet.
‘Sniper!’ gasped Kennedy in pointless recognition.
‘Damned right,’ said I and grabbed his arm. ‘Quick, whilst he’s reloading.’
We both ran from the room.
There was little time after that to consider how Kennedy had come to be there as we had to make our way out of the hacienda. It seemed that Kennedy knew the way and as I followed him I saw the trail of guards that he had laid out on his way in. Two of them lay unconscious in a heap at the back entrance that Kennedy had used to get into the house. From one of them I lifted a pistol he carried in an ammunition belt slung across his body.
