“Hey, Colonel, me and the boys feel kind of slighted you didn’t have us in on the jail break,” the gunman complained.
McCain’s smile was as false as a whore’s passion. “I appreciate that, boys, but it wasn’t much of a jail break. Besides you don’t know the country down there. One other thing, boys, since this is kind of a democratic army, I’m going to ask you nice. Lay off the booze for a bit. That includes you, Captain Greeley.”
Lassiter kept his face straight.
“You, Lassiter,” the Irishman said to him. “The big boys want to take a look at you. Follow me.”
Outside, crossing the parade ground, Lassiter said, “You got some nice boys in your army, Colonel.”
The Irishman didn’t break his stride, didn’t turn his head. “I take it you know Captain Greeley from somewhere else? A violent man but then aren’t we all.”
When it got down to the wire, “Captain” Greeley was none of his business. Unless he crossed him, that is.
“It’s your army,” Lassiter shrugged.
“Show some respect like a good man,” McCain said. “It’s Colonel. Call me Colonel.”
Grinning, Lassiter said he wasn’t in the army yet.
“That’s what you think,” the Colonel said. And there was no wink, no smile to soften the statement.
The sentry outside the commandant’s office did his level best to snap a real military salute at McCain. Like many of the men in the fort he was French-Canadian mixed with Indian. McCain returned the salute. The sentry spoke to Lassiter in French, which was a waste of time.
McCain translated. “You’re to leave your guns outside. A precaution, you understand.”
Lassiter gave the sentry the Winchester and the .45. The sentry said something else. Lassiter told the Irishman he didn’t have any hidden knives or pocket pistols. They went in.
Emile Roberge, the man who helped them to break jail, was standing in front of a wall map with a long bayonet in his hand. The big room was bare except for a long trestle table and four homemade chairs. A stack of green logs hissed and sputtered in the fireplace, giving off more noise than heat.
Lassiter figured the red-headed man with the long jaw and the dirty black coat was Ballard Mackenzie. McCain set him straight. It was the other way around. In spite of his appearance and name, the Scotch-looking man was Felix Papineau. Mackenzie was brown-faced and lank-haired. The brown face was wide and flat nosed and the hair was black, parted in the middle and greased down flat with oil. These were the two men who were fixing to take on the Dominion of Canada and, after that, the whole British Empire. Lassiter doubted their good sense but admired their nerve.
Mackenzie was about fifty, a few years older than Papineau. His English was slow and creaky like an Indian’s, very solemn and with no accent. Every word got the same weight.
“You have come to join our cause, Mr. Lassiter,” Mackenzie said.
Lassiter was thinking. “Maybe,” he said.
The Irishman cut in. “Lassiter is a gunman, a mercenary,’’ he said harshly. “He fights for money. We don’t have to like him, but we need him. We need all the good men we can get.”
Mackenzie shook his solemn Indian head. There was disappointment in his voice. “Good men?” he wondered.
Standing there, still asking himself what he was doing so far from the sun-baked streets and cool saloons of El Paso, Lassiter wondered if Mackenzie had been taking lessons from George Washington. Mackenzie was so goddamned noble.
Papineau’s English was quick and precise, with only the faintest Scotch burr in it. That part had to come from his mother.
“Colonel McCain’s perfectly right,” he said. He put a curl in his lip for effect. “We need men like Lassiter. We need him if he’s as good as Colonel McCain seems to think he is. Tell me, Lassiter, what sort of military experience have you had?”
Lassiter told the plain truth. He said he’d scouted for the U.S. Cavalry a few times, up in Utah mostly.
During one short enlistment—the purpose of which was to dodge the law—they had made him a sergeant. For six months—as long as that particular revolution lasted—he had been a major in the army of the Mexican bandit-general Hector Avila Camacho. He said he had a pretty fair knowledge of most military procedures.
For the benefit of the two generals, McCain asked Lassiter some technical questions about tactics, supply and support problems, rapid-fire weapons, even artillery.
“I’d say he knows his business,” the Irishman decided.
Mackenzie was still brooding. Papineau spoke to the Irishman in French. The name Greeley was the only part of it Lassiter understood.
“But will there be a problem with Captain Greeley?” Papineau wanted to know. ‘The Captain is problem enough as he is.”
Papineau said this in English.
“Perhaps a problem, sir. Not a big one,” McCain answered. “I’m sure Major Lassiter will know what to do. I have the utmost confidence.”
Lassiter was getting bored. The ‘Major Lassiter’ woke him up. “What is this, McCain?” he asked.
“Colonel,” McCain said.
Lassiter said, “You heard me, Mac.”
“Not Mac—Colonel!”
“You heard me—Colonel.”
McCain beamed his false smile at Lassiter. “May I be the first to congratulate you, Mr. Lassiter. You have just been appointed major in the First Irregulars.”
“Otherwise known as Greeley’s Raiders,” Lassiter said. “How much do I get paid?”
This infuriated Emile Roberge who hadn’t spoken once during the entire conversation. Roberge was the kind of man a lawman would have trouble tracking down. There was nothing distinctive about him.
“Money—is that all you think about?” he raged.
“Not much else,” Lassiter admitted. “I asked how much?”
“Two hundred a month,” McCain said.
Lassiter said being a major should bring more. Being a major of the First Irregulars should bring more. He knew that he could expect to be hanged if he got caught. He mentioned that.
Emile Roberge said, “This man turns my stomach. And all men like him.”
Lassiter thought McCain was going to wink. The Irishman sure as hell was a slippery son of a bitch.
“Two-fifty,” McCain stated.
Lassiter asked what he had to do to earn it.
Emile Roberge started up again. Lassiter didn’t like the way he sliced the air with the bayonet.
“Shut up, Emile,” Papineau snapped.
“Are you in or out?” McCain asked Lassiter.
Lassiter wondered what would happen if he said out. There was absolutely nothing to think about. He knew he was in, like it or not, and the lousy two-fifty a month had nothing to do with it. He decided he was in, for the time being anyway. He was in because he was right smack in the middle of Fort Albert or Fort Liberty or whatever they called it now. He didn’t doubt for a moment that McCain would kill him or have him killed if he said no. He had seen too much.
“I’m in, Colonel, sir,” Lassiter said.
“That’s the spirit, Major, but don’t overdo it,” McCain said.
Papineau was tired of the cross-talk. He remembered that he was one of the generals. He cleared his throat like a general. Like a real general he left the details to a subordinate—McCain.
The Irishman took the bayonet away from Roberge and walked over to the wall map. Lassiter gritted his teeth against the geography lesson.
McCain started, “British Columbia is bigger than France and Italy combined. This is where we are. That’s Trail, the town we came from.” The Irishman made lines and circles with the point of the bayonet. “British Columbia is cut off from the rest of Canada by the Rockies. The most important link is the new railroad from the East. That must be cut, the bridges blown, track ripped up. We will get to that problem later.”
Lassiter nodded.
“They call it British Columbia,” McCain said, “but it isn’t as British as it
sounds. The province has large numbers of Germans, Russians, Irish, Americans and ...” McCain paused.
“Don’t be embarrassed to mention the half-breeds,” Papineau said with a bitter smile. “The half-breeds will lead the fight for freedom. The others will follow. The half-breeds have the biggest stake in this.”
Lassiter had a question he had to ask. “No offense,” he said, “but didn’t you try this once before?”
“Our grandfathers did, Mr. Lassiter,” Papineau answered. “My grandfather was hanged. So was Mr. Mackenzie’s. This time, if there is any hanging to be done, we will do it. This time it will be different.”
Lassiter wasn’t so sure of that, but he kept his mouth shut.
Papineau gave the war talk back to McCain. “They lost the first time because they tried to do it head on. This time there won’t be any formal battles. We don’t have the guns, not yet, and the men aren’t ready for it. Until we have the guns and the support we need we will play the game by our own rules. We will hit them here and here and here.” The point of the bayonet stabbed the map. “The country is wild, mountainous. You could hide a dozen armies in those mountains. Our men know the country, and they can live off it. No matter how many men they send against us, the country will swallow them up. If we have to—and we will have to—we will destroy this province from end to end.”
The Irishman’s pale eyes grew wild, but his tone was as matter of fact as a farmer announcing that he had to burn a field of blighted wheat. Lassiter had to agree that a guerilla war was the only one they could hope to fight, and win.
Warming up, McCain said, “What we need is a policy of total terror. Once it starts there will be no neutrals. They will keep sending men against us. A lot of us will die”—Not you, Mac, Lassiter thought— “but there’s no other way to win. Finally—finally—when they realize they cannot break us, they will bargain.”
“Well spoken, Colonel,’’ Papineau said, rubbing his thin hands together. “Now if you will excuse us.”
Walking away with McCain, Lassiter said, “What about Greeley? The Captain won’t like this. The Captain won’t like it one bit.”
The Irishman’s smile was bland. “You’re the senior officer. Handle the problem any way you see fit. If Captain Greeley learns some discipline maybe we can still use him. If not...”
“Suppose the Captain wants to resign?”
“Ah, well now, that would be kind of awkward. Military secrets and so on. Resigning in this army is against the rules. You might remember that yourself “
That was twice McCain had threatened him and Lassiter was getting sick of it. Right now, though, his old poker pal Greeley was the first order of business.
McCain knew Lassiter would have to kill Greeley. He walked away whistling.
Chapter Five
The horses belonging to Greeley and his boys were still tied outside the mess hall. Lassiter had the Winchester in his hand. He would have preferred a sawed-off shotgun loaded with double-o buckshot.
Greeley had started on a fresh bottle of whiskey. Lassiter knew what was going to happen, but there was no harm trying the quiet way first.
Lassiter knew that whiskey didn’t make Greeley slow. It didn’t make him anything but loud and mean. Louder and meaner than he was naturally. Whiskey slopped from the open bottle as he waved at Lassiter. “Drink ’er down, old pal,” he bellowed.
Lassiter wiped the neck of the bottle on his sleeve and drank from it. It was worse than the rotgut they sold below the border, but it killed the taste of the pea soup. He drank again, thinking that bottles had a way of getting broken when the shooting started.
Greeley winked at the hard cases sitting at the table. One of Greeley’s jokes was coming. He shook his head regretfully. “I’m awful sorry, Lassiter,” he said, “but something happened while you were gone.” The fun of it made him shake. “What happened was the boys here voted you down for membership. You should’ve joined the outfit while you had the chance. Looks like you’ll just have to make do with the infantry.”
Now was as good a time as any. “The outfit was what I wanted to talk about,” Lassiter started. “There’s been some changes made.”
Greeley put down the bottle. “That a fact?”
Lassiter laid down the Winchester and stood facing them. Greeley took his backside off the table and straightened up. The men at the table stayed where they were. Lassiter wondered how close some of them were to Greeley.
“Changes such as?” Greeley asked, quiet for a change.
“Such as me,” Lassiter told him. “I’m the new boss of this outfit.”
Greeley’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Like hell you are.”
“Don’t try it, Greeley,” Lassiter warned the gunman. “Like it or not, you better get used to it.”
The kid who had been pouring coffee for Greeley got up from the table. He walked over and lined up with his boss. “Like hell we will,” he snarled.
“Good boy, Joey,” Greeley said. Without taking his eyes off Lassiter he said to the other four men, “Come on, boys, Time to teach this feller some manners.”
One of the men started to get up, a slim Spanish-looking gunman with pointed sideburns and a dude’s mustache. When he flipped back his heavy wool coat two white-handled matched Colts showed against his skinny legs. The guns looked too heavy for a man of his size.
“Better think about it,” Lassiter advised him. “No matter what happens to me, once you start shooting you’re dead. If I don’t do it, the Irishman will.”
The slim gunman sneered and took his place beside Greeley. First Greeley, then the dude, then the kid, Lassiter decided. The kid’s nerve was beginning to wear. He cursed at Lassiter to make himself feel better. His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he held his ground.
“Your bid, Lassiter,” Greeley said.
It wasn’t Lassiter’s bid. Greeley drew first, his right hand flashing down, closing around the wooden butt of the double-action .44. The barrel cleared leather with the chamber already turning. The other men drew, with the kid last. Lassiter’s gun jumped into his hand and fired as the hammer on Greeley’s gun struck the cartridge. Lassiter put a bullet in Greeley’s chest. Greeley’s gun fired again and missed again. Swinging the gun, Lassiter killed the dude. The bullets from Greeley and the dude missed Lassiter. The kid nearly killed him. The bullet passed under his left earlobe without touching it. Lassiter had to fire fast to shoot the kid. He was trying to kill the kid, not to wound him. The bullet took the kid in the shoulder and knocked him back. The gun flew out of his hand. He lay there groaning. The whole thing had taken less than four seconds.
The time for the other three men to try something had passed. Lassiter slid the gun back in his holster and was glad to see the bottle of whiskey hadn’t been broken. Order and discipline in the First Irregulars—Major Lassiter commanding—had been maintained. The next thing on the agenda was to have a drink.
Before he drank it, he collected the guns from the floor. None was better than the gun he had, so he put the guns on the table and tipped the bottle. He tipped it again, letting the rotgut cut through the knot of tension in his belly.
“Now, boys,” he ordered the three men standing there with blank faces, “why don’t you drag these two heroes out and dig a hole for them.” He walked over to the wounded kid and dragged him to his feet. The kid’s eyes were clenched shut with fear and pain. Lassiter slapped them open. The next slap was to tell the kid to keep them open.
Turning to the three men, he said, “Dig a third hole for the kid. We may need it.”
The kid was scared more than he was hurt—by the looks of it, the bullet had pierced the flesh and missed the bone—but he had sand enough not to beg for his life when Lassiter drew the .45 and put the muzzle into his gaping mouth. Not much more than twenty, the lad looked like a farm boy underneath the fancy gun belt he wore. Even the silk pimp’s shirt he wore—black-and-yellow stripes—didn’t make him look like what he wanted to be, whatever that was. Only a foo
l or a kid, which was the same thing to Lassiter, would wear a shirt like that in this knacker-freezing country. He was just a goddamn fool kid, and Lassiter was ready to kill him. After all, this fool kid had come within an ace of leaking his brains.
With the muzzle of the gun chilling the top of the kid’s mouth, Lassiter asked him if he could think of any good reason why he should be allowed to live. Lassiter didn’t especially want to blow out the kid’s skull. It depended on the kid himself.
“Nod your head when you think of something,” Lassiter said.
There was no answer. Scared or not, the kid had sand. The Irishman came in and didn’t say anything.
McCain was interested, like a hotel owner watching someone demonstrate a new way to get rid of bedbugs.
Still, the kid didn’t move his head. Lassiter took the gun out of his mouth and put it back in his holster. The kid was bleeding from the shoulder wound, but that didn’t matter. Lassiter didn’t think better of the kid for siding with Greeley. Only a kid would side with a man like Greeley. He understood why the kid did it. That meant he was loyal—and dumb. Sometimes both qualities were valuable.
The kid made a rasping noise in the back of his throat. The Adam’s apple danced in his skinny neck. Sweat popped on his forehead, but the scared eyes stayed defiant. Lassiter almost felt sorry for the poor son of a bitch. Almost—not quite.
“Speak up, boy,” Lassiter said, burned at the Irishman for the way he stood around.
Fear had dried the kid’s mouth, and he had to fight to speak. Nothing came out of his mouth when he tried to spit in Lassiter’s face. “I’ll get you,” he rasped, eyes bright with fear and hate. A shudder went through his skinny body.
Lassiter believed him. He didn’t shoot the kid right away. He cursed the kid and turned him and told him to get that shoulder looked at before he shot him twice in the back of the head. The heavy .45 bucked twice in Lassiter’s hand and the kid’s skull shattered like an empty egg shell. The impact of the thick lead bullets drove him halfway across the room before he fell.
The Irishman never knew when to keep his mouth shut. “Very professional,” he said. “Considerate, too. I like the way you turned him around before you did it. Or am I wrong? Was that consideration or a weak stomach?”
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