by John Benteen
Villa nodded. “So General Calderon said. But, of course, I have just had General Calderon shot.”
There was a moment, then, when a cold prickle walked down Fargo’s spine.
“Caldron was a good man. You don’t shoot a good man because of one defeat—especially when he’s betrayed and short of ammo.”
“We’ve had enough defeats,” Villa said. “An example to the other commanders was necessary. Let’s get back to when you signed on. Early October. Have you been in communication with the United States since then?”
Fargo snorted. “You know better than that. You’ve had my ass back and forth across Chihuahua and Sonora until I couldn’t keep my shirt tail in. I haven’t been in touch with anybody there.”
“Well, then,” said Villa thinly, “maybe I’d better bring you up to date on the situation. Last October, your country ...” his voice was bitter “... recognized Carranza as the legal president of Mexico. And that was a worse defeat for the Army of the' North than a dozen bloody noses at Tres Acequias!”
He leaned forward. “In the months since then, I’ve worked hard to get your President Wilson to reconsider. Now ... I have received word that he has given final refusal. Worse than that, he’s cut off all sales of weapons to me! Once I was his favorite and he supported me, but now he ... he spits on me! It is finished with the United States, Fargo! We are no longer friends, but enemies, your country and myself!”
Fargo stiffened. “General—”
“Betrayal!” Villa thundered. “Your President has betrayed me! Now he runs for re-election, he thinks only of Europe, he recognizes Carranza and sends arms to him, and intends to help Carranza by letting us, me, Francisco Villa, El Leon del Norte—” he tapped his barrel chest “—die on the vine!” Suddenly he shoved back his chair, arose. He turned to face Captain Mandsidor. He picked up a sheet of paper horn the table and held it out. “Captain, this is your promotion to Colonel. Hence forward, you will be in charge of all machine gun training and operations of the Army of Mexico, formerly known as the Army of the North.” He raised his hand. “I salute you, Colonel Mandsidor.”
Mandsidor swallowed hard. “My General—”
“You need say nothing, it’s a promotion you have earned.”
Mandsidor blinked. “But ... Colonel Fargo ... ”
“We have other plans for Colonel Fargo,” Villa said. “Colonel Mandsidor, you will leave us now and take command of your detachment.”
Mandsidor hesitated. Then his boots came together, heels clicking. He saluted sharply. “Yes, my General.”
Villa returned the salute roughly. Mandsidor went out. Now there were only Fargo, Villa, and Fierro in the church. Fargo relaxed a little. “That was a good move, General. He’s earned it, and it frees me to go back to the States and find some more ammo ... ”
“I just told you,” Villa said sharply. “Your President has cut off all guns to me.” He shook his head. “Like water in an acequia, a ditch. He turns them on and off as he pleases.”
Fargo laughed shortly. “I know where to get what you need. It doesn’t matter what the government does. For a price, I can get anything you need.”
“Yes,” Villa said. “For a price. That’s how you Norteamericanos operate. Everything for a price.” He had been scratching himself, a characteristic of his, big, clawed right hand raking across his ribs under his charro jacket. Now it blurred down and came up holding a Colt and that gun was aimed at Fargo’s belly, point-blank, dead-on, in the grip of the best shot and the most deadly man in Mexico.
“You will not,” said Villa thinly, “go back to the United States. I have other plans for you. Tomorrow, Fargo, you face a firing squad.”
Chapter Three
Although Neal Fargo’s alarm bell had been ringing trouble all along, this was not what he had expected. Fierro, yes: but Villa? Instinctively, his hand moved toward the shotgun sting.
Pancho Villa’s voice chopped the motion off. “I know that shotgun and how you use it. Touch that sling, you’re deed.”
Fargo froze. Then he spread his hands out, wide. He knew Villa meant exactly what he said. “Doroteo—”
“l am General Villa,” the big man said icily.
“General Villa. I don’t understand. What the hell’s this all about?”
“Don’t play the innocent, Fargo.” Villa’s stained teeth showed beneath an upcurled lip. “Fierro. Take his armament. All of it. Shotgun, knife, pistol, and work him over good to make sure there’re no hideouts.” The hammer of his revolver, a Colt inlaid with gold and silver that Fargo himself had given him for a present, was eared back; his thick finger was on the trigger, and the bore was centered on Fargo’s breastbone, slightly to the left. Villa knew exactly where to place a heart shot.
So Fargo did not move as, chuckling, Rodolfo Fierro came around the table. Fierro unslung the shotgun, laid it on a bench out of Fargo’s reach, plucked the .38 Colt from its holster, the Batangas knife from its special sheath. He laid them all aside on a bench, well out of Fargo’s reach. Then his hands worked over Fargo’s body.
“Plucked like a chicken,” he reported. “No other weapons.”
“Good,” said Villa. “Then you may leave us.”
“Francisco—”
“God damn it,” Villa said, “I told you to leave us.”
Fierro straightened at the anger in his voice. “Very well, General. But ... may I take this shotgun?”
“You may not,” Villa said.
“Fran— General. It’s such a fine weapon. A Fox Sterlingworth, twelve-gauge, a good gringo make. And look at this beautiful engraving on the breech.”
“I have seen the breech,” Villa said. “I can quote to you what is written there in English. To Neal Fargo, gratefully, from T. Roosevelt.”
His lip curled higher. “Your old commander in the War against Spain. And then President of the United States. He gave you that gun, Fargo, and nobody has ever said why. But I suspect the reasons. You helped to overthrow what the government of the United States considered its enemies. For instance, could the Panama Canal have been built if there had not been a revolution friendly to the United States in Panama? How did you get the gun, Fargo?”
Fargo remembered an ancient promise. “Only two people know that, in this whole world. I’m one of them, and I’ll keep the oath I swore. It’s not your business, Doroteo.”
“By God,” the man across the table roared, “I am General Villa!”
Fargo grinned. “When you point a gun at me and tell me I’m gonna be ’dobe-walled, what’s the percentage in titles?”
Suddenly he felt the cold muzzle of a pistol against the back of his skull. “General,” the Butcher said, “why don’t I just shoot this rooster now?”
Villa said, coolly, “I gave you your orders, Rodolfo. Leave us.”
After a lingering second or two, the gun muzzle came away. “Yes, sir,” Fierro said. Fargo heard his footsteps echo through the church, the great door dose behind him. Then he and Villa were alone, the gun still lined on Fargo’s chest.
Fargo had the stump of the cigar in his mouth. He let smoke dribble from his nostrils. “Doroteo ... ”
“All right,” Villa said. “But you don’t understand. The United States has turned against me. It’s gone over to my enemies. It wants to see me dead.”
“I’m not the United States,” Fargo said.
Villa’s left hand motioned. “That shotgun says you are. How many gringos down here have shotguns personally inscribed by an ex-President? How many have the connections to run in as many guns as you have? You have your wires to your government, Fargo.”
“That’s not true. I never call on Roosevelt for special favors. I take my chances like anybody else in this trade.”
“Well, this is one of your chances,” Villa said, “and it’s like three-card monte. It didn’t pay off.” He found a brown-paper cigarette in his shirt and lit it without ever taking his eyes off Fargo or letting the gun muzzle waver.
“The Americans are our enemies now,” he said. “Not our friends. Carranza has seen to that. Carranza has also seen to it that somebody betrayed the attack on Tres Acequias. It couldn’t have been a Mexican who did that. It must have been a gringo.”
Fargo said, “That’s crazy as hell.”
“Not at all,” Villa replied calmly. “Carranza’s next step will be to get the American army sent against us. He knows he can’t crush us alone, but if an American force came down from the north … crossed the Rio ... ”
Fargo said, “That would cost Carranza the Presidency. He couldn’t allow American troops on Mexican soil.”
The gun barrel was unwavering. “As I have learned from hard experience, Carranza can say one thing and mean another. Somehow, he will see to it that the Americans do come in. He may shout and scream, but really, he will be on their side if they come after me—and he will make sure they are after me. It boils down to this, Fargo. Soon, I will have to fight not only Carranza, but the American Army. And when I do that, my soldiers must hate the Americans as much as they hate Carranza.”
“General,” Fargo said. “It’s not adding up.”
“It’s adding up. It will all total very nicely tomorrow morning when Captain Mandsidor—Colonel Mandsidor—commands the firing squad that executes the great Neal Fargo—the gringo traitor who betrayed us to Carranza at Tres Acequias and cost so many lives.”
Fargo stood there stunned.
“That’s a God damned lie!” he exploded finally. Villa smiled. “There are lies and lies. Many have been told about me in the United States. So what should it matter if there are lies told about you in Mexico? The main thing is, Fargo, I need a scapegoat, an American scapegoat, to blame Tres Acquias on, and to whip up sentiment against the Americans before they come for us. Unfortunately or fortunately, you’re it. No way out. Tomorrow you stand up against the wall and Colonel Mandsidor himself gives the commands to kill you.”
“He won’t do it! He’s my friend!”
“He is a Colonel in my Army!” Villa roared. “He will do what I command. And I will give him all your gear! Your shotgun, that knife of yours, your pistol! Not that I need to bribe him! He’ll do it for free Mexico! Once he learns that the Americans are now my enemies, he’ll be glad to see you dead!”
Fargo stared into the bleak eyes of Villa. He read there the truth, that his death was a necessity whether he was guilty or not. And it did not matter about friendship, it did not matter about how well he had served Villa in the past.
Calderon had been an old friend of Villa’s, too, and Calderon was dead.
And it was necessary to Villa that Fargo die, and that was the way it would be. “All right,” he said harshly. “And if you shoot me, who fills the gap? Who runs in the guns?”
“I no longer need American guns,” Villa said. “I can get plenty of guns on credit.”
“Whose?”
“That’s my secret,” Villa said. “None of your affair. But lots of guns, good guns. So I don’t need you anymore, Neal, you see? So, tomorrow, you die against a wall.” Then he arose, and from his bull chest a bugle voice blasted. “Fierro! Come and take this traitor to the jail! Then have Mandsidor report back to me! I have orders for him!”
~*~
It was not the first Mexican jail Fargo had been in, and it had less fleas than most. But, built by the ancient Spaniards, the cursed gachupines against whom the Revolution was still directed, it was solid. Two feet of adobe brick, with iron rods running down every six inches. No window, and a door of eight-inch oak with iron straps. More brick and iron down below the level of the ground: Fargo had explored the hard-packed earth that made a floor.
He was in here for good. Until they marched him out tomorrow morning and stood him against the church wall, where, in Rio Doloroso, lacking a protective wall of its own, most executions took place.
Fierro himself had brought him his last meal: tacos, refried beans, bad coffee. Fierro gave it to him with one hand, keeping the pearl-handled Colt trained on him with the other. “Well,” he said, “I hate to see this. I wanted to try you myself. But the General says otherwise. But, what the devil. We’ll be here a while, and there’s a big space in the bed you used to sleep in. I had to slap that Elena woman around a bit to make her see the light, but I think she knows who her master is, now. Anyhow, eat well. It’ll be your last meal We’ll take you out at sunrise, and we don’t have food to waste on people who’ll be dead in a few minutes.” He backed out, still keeping the sixgun leveled. “Adios, gringo,” he said mockingly.
Fargo said, “Don’t dose that door.”
“What?”
“I’ve got something to say.”
Fierro grinned. “Then say it.”
“Well, you son of a goat, you offspring of a drunkard mother whose milk was sour,” Fargo said, summoning his Spanish, “you unblessed child springing from a goat and a donkey’s union, why don’t you take that pearl-handled popgun, ram it up your ass and pull the trigger?”
Fierro’s face went deathly pale. “Why, you cursed Yanqui—”
Fargo’s grin widened, “Go out and shoot some nursing mothers and some babies, Butcher. That’s about your speed.”
“I’ll shoot you,” Fierro said hoarsely.
“No, you won’t,” Fargo said. “I may not get a last breakfast, but Villa’s given his orders. Mandsidor shoots me and nobody else. You shoot me and Villa’ll have your guts too. And I’ll tell you, Fierro, like I’ve told Villa before; you’re his worst, mistake. It’s your goddam butchering that’s got him in bad with the President and the United States. I had nothing to lose, so I laid it on the line. He’s thinking about it now. Maybe, if he thinks he needs good headlines in the States, he’ll shoot you, too.”
He began to eat. “Maybe you’ll be next against the wall after me.”
“Go to hell!” Fierro roared, slamming and bolting the door.
Fargo cleaned his plate.
He had never, anyhow, expected to die in bed. In fact, he didn’t even want to. He had seen the survivors, the old gunfighters, as the years crept up on them. They fought off all assaults from outside, but they could not fight off the attacks that came from their own guts. They got married and withered up and took their pills at night and rocked on their porches in the sunlight and dreamed of the days when they had been men with balls.
They were miserable, pathetic, animals who had outlived their time and whose range had been plowed up. He had no intention of going out that way. What the hell ... ? Better a firing squad in Rio Doloroso than a rocking chair on a front porch in sunny Los Angeles, California, like Old Wyatt Earp.
He swabbed his plate clean with a fragment of tortilla and ate with gusto. Then he looked up, as the door was unbolted and once again it opened.
He got to his feet as Elena entered.
“What you doing here?” he blurted. “Who gave you that bad cheek?”
One side of her face was swollen, bruised. He knew the answer before she said Fierro’s name.
“Well, don’t fight him,” he said at last. “He’ll only hurt you more. Just give him what he wants and pretend it never happened.”
“I can do that with Fierro. Not with you. Neal ... ” She clung to him. He put one arm around her, but she grappled for the other and then he felt the folded paper and took it into his hand. Her mouth pressed against him. “Go with God, Neal. I shall pray for you.” Then she whirled away, sure that he had put the paper in his pocket. She smiled at the guard as she went out. He nodded, closed the door behind her, locked it. Fargo took out the paper, read it. His knees went weak, and he leaned against the wall for a long time smoking the next to last of his cigars.
Presently he lay down on the lousy, flea-infested blankets furnished him and went to sleep. But it was hardly any deep at all. No man facing execution in the morning could sleep soundly, even Fargo.
~*~
Somewhere in the village, a rooster crowed. Another caught the salute to the rising sun and added
his voice, and then another, and their racket awakened Fargo.
He threw off the blankets, stood up, scratching. Daybreak. He urinated in a corner washed by the water of countless other prisoners, clapped his Rough Rider hat on his white hair at a jaunty angle. When the iron-strapped wooden door opened, he was ready, wholly military, save for the brown stubble on his chin and upper lip.
Mandsidor entered, holding Fargo’s own Fox shotgun aimed at Fargo’s belly. He wore Colonel’s insignia, and he had changed. He said, eyes glittering, “All right, Yanqui. Let’s go.”
“Ignacio,” Fargo began.
“Save your breath for praying,” Mandsidor said. “Watch him, boys.” This last addressed to the armed men behind him. They marched Fargo out of the jail.
He squinted as bright sunrise struck his eyes. The wind blew cool and clean over the highlands of northern Mexico. Somewhere on the other side of town, a donkey brayed, as they marched him toward the church, Mandsidor keeping the shotgun trained on him and four guards for extra security.
Villa was there, so was Fierro, and they had called all the village out to witness the execution of the gringo traitor. Mandsidor used the shotgun to ram Fargo up against the church’s bullet-pocked wall. Mandsidor said, so close to Fargo that their breaths mingled, “You’re entitled to a cigarette and a blindfold. Want them?”
Fargo said, “There’s a cigar in my pocket. I’ll have that, if you don’t mind. I don’t care about the blindfold either way. If you don’t want to look into my eyes, suit yourself.”
