The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2)

by John Benteen

  “But,” Hernando Fernandez said, “it was not that easy. For a while I managed to block him.”

  “Block him how?”

  Fernandez shrugged. “For a long time, I have been a leader of the people. Some love me, some hate and fear me, but all follow. I organized them against Gorman, and not even he could fight the whole village of Villa Hermosa. We were not strong enough to drive him out, but he was not strong enough to get what he wanted. Then, the jaguar came; and that is when I wrote you, Juan.”

  “The jaguar,” Cutler said.

  “A tigre, enormous and very crazy in the head. Perhaps once it was wounded and too hurt to hunt its usual game and found man easier prey. Anyhow, it developed a taste for human flesh, became a man-eater. It is something very rare, but it happens. And you know, a very big jaguar can carry off a man with no trouble.”

  “I know,” Cutler said, remembering the flashing attack on himself.

  “The beast,” Hitchcock said, “did what Gorman couldn’t. It terrorized the village. Took men working in the milpas, women washing at the river, children tending goats or pigs . . . Got so bold eventually that it even came right into town and went into open houses and snatched up people there and dragged them out . . .”

  “I’ve heard of tigers in India and lions in Africa doing such things,” Cutler said. “Never a jaguar, though . . .”

  “This one is pure rogue, crazy.” Hitchcock’s voice rose. “We tried to hunt it and we couldn’t; I organized a drive, and we beat the woods for it, and it broke out and killed a man in doin’ so. I got a full shot at it and missed, somehow, and . . . Anyhow, that only made things worse. That was when Gorman and Perez began to turn the villagers against Hernando.”

  “Perez has hated me for many years because I have kept him from cheating the people as much as he would like; Gorman hated me because so long as I had the people organized and ready to fight, he could not take over Hitchcock’s mine. Both wanted to be rid of me and used the jaguar,” Hernando said.

  “Perez had influence, and Gorman used to be a preacher; he knows how to rouse superstitious people. They joined together, and as the jaguar kept on killing, they convinced the people that Hernando was responsible.”

  “They said,” Fernandez murmured wryly, “that I myself was the jaguar. That, being a witch, every night I turned myself into the animal and went out to kill. You know, Cutler, that the people of Villa Hermosa are very superstitious, and they will believe strange things. This, they believed, too. And so Gorman and Perez turned them against me. Gorman told them—oh, he is a magnificent talker—that the way to rid themselves of the jaguar was to get rid of me; and that the way to get rid of me was to burn me alive. And so they came to do it.”

  “Good God,” Cutler whispered.

  “I had a few friends left. Jose Mansilla was one. They warned me and I managed to escape. But—” Fernandez spread his hands. “Without me, the people no longer resisted Gorman. He could dominate them; and that he has done, with his guns. Now he has complete control over Villa Hermosa, as you’ve seen, and the people are enslaved to work in the mine.”

  “Which, after Hernando had to run, he just moved in and took over,” Hitchcock said bitterly. “I tried to fight him, but I was outnumbered, and I almost got killed. It was sheer luck I managed to escape. But Sharon wasn’t that lucky. And now—” He broke off, put his head in his hands.

  “And now,” Fernandez finished, “you have come —and too late. Gorman and his Gunhawks hold all the power and we . . .” He shrugged. “We are fugitives.”

  Cutler was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I didn’t come all this way just to fold up my cards and lay ‘em down. That son of a bitch back there in Villa Hermosa wanted to cut me into little pieces. I’m not through with him yet, not by a long shot, that Preacher Gorman.”

  Fernandez looked at him. “What can you do, we do, four against so many? You are a great fighter, yes, and this young man too, it seems, but I am old and feeble, and Hitchcock is no gunman. And so many of them, all deadly—”

  “Yeah,” Cutler said. “They got us outnumbered, all right. The way it is now. But, look, Hernando ... If you could get back into the village and rally the people around you—”

  “Impossible!” Fernandez said. “They would kill me on sight! I tell you, the jaguar still prowls and kills—and Gorman says that I am the jaguar and that because I’m still at liberty, the village is cursed. So long as that animal is alive, I’d be torn to pieces or burned the moment I showed my face in the village.”

  “Yeah,” said Cutler. “But suppose that jaguar gets killed? And suppose you and I take its carcass right into Villa Hermosa and show the people that it wasn’t you, that it was only an ordinary animal gone rogue ...”

  Fernandez stood up, eyes gleaming. “Then they would see how Perez and Gorman have deceived them. Their spirit would come back.”

  “Would they fight Gorman then? That’s the question.”

  “They would, yes, but—” Fernandez broke off. “How? You have left your traps behind. If you try to hunt the animal with your dog, his barking will bring Gorman’s men down on you. And you cannot put out bait for him and wait to shoot him. He will not come to goats or donkeys, he ignores them. He eats only human flesh.”

  “So he does,” Cutler said. Then he added simply, “So we have to use human flesh for bait.”

  They all jerked up their heads, stared at him. Then Calhoon’s jaw dropped in admiration. “By God,” he whispered, “we could do it, huh? We must have killed some of those Gun-hawks ... If we could get one of their bodies—”

  Fernandez laughed softly, ruefully. “You do not know much about this jaguar, young man. He eats no carrion. He kills fresh, every time. When Cutler says human flesh, he means living flesh.” He smiled, and his eyes met Cutler’s. “You and I know, eh? We understand one another.”

  “Yes,” Cutler said.

  “Very well,” Hernando said. “To be truthful, I have already had the same idea and given the matter consideration.”

  “Wait a minute . . .” There was a kind of disbelief, a horror, in young Calhoon’s voice now. “You mean—?”

  Fernandez looked at him calmly. “Of course. Juan is the hunter. I am the bait.”

  Now Hitchcock sprang to his feet. “Hernando . . . Let me!” His face was red in the firelight. “By God, it’s something I can do! Ever since I escaped from the mine, you found me wandering in the woods and brought me here, I’ve been going out of my head itching for a way to fight back. Let me be Cutler’s bait, my daughter’s down there, it’s something I can do for her ...”

  “No,” Cutler said sharply. “No, it has to be Hernando. He and I understand one another and he has confidence in me. If this is to be done, it has to be done right. The man who serves as bait has to have the guts to sit and wait, maybe right up until the instant the jaguar springs, there in the dark ... If his nerve breaks, he ruins it all. Hernando’s nerve won’t break. Besides—” He looked at Hitchcock. “Besides, there’ll be plenty for you to do, you and Calhoon both, if we can bring this off. Something just as risky as waiting for the jaguar . . .”

  “So long as I do something,” Hitchcock rasped. “With my daughter in that bastard’s hands, in his . . . his bed—”

  “Easy,” Cutler said. “Easy, man. It’s a long gamble we’re planning, but maybe, just maybe, it’ll work. That is . . .” he looked at Calhoon “. . . if you declare yourself in. We can’t do it without you.”

  Calhoon was silent for a moment. Then he grinned. “I’m in too deep to get out anyhow. Besides, Cutler, before you and me come to that final bargain we made, I’ll need all the practice I can get.”

  “That you will,” Cutler said softly. “That you will. Then good.” He squatted before the fire, looked at Hernando. “All right,” he said. “Let’s lay our plans.”

  The fire had burned down to embers. In the brush shelter, Hitchcock and Calhoon slept. With Big Red’s head on his lap, Cutler sat before the
coals and looked at Hernando across from him. In the glow, the old Mexican’s face was like something carved intricately from mahogany.

  Now they had made their plans, talked out the part about the jaguar. They knew what they were going to do and each of them knew how great the risk was and what, viewed sanely, a forlorn hope it was. That part of it they had put out of their minds until tomorrow night.

  “And so you still have not killed the bear,” Hernando said.

  “No,” said Cutler thickly. “But I will.”

  “Yes,” Fernandez said. “You will. I have seen it in a dream.”

  “You and your dreams,” Cutler said, and he smiled.

  “My dreams . . .” The old man poked the fire. “My dreams were all for my people. They call me witch . . . Well, what is a witch? One who knows things others do not know, has powers others have not. And it is true, I do know things others do not, and I do have powers others lack. One man walks a path and he is ignorant and sees nothing but trees and stones. Another walks the same path and he sees bark that can be used to make a medicine to heal and rocks that will fit a wall if laid up properly. One man dreams and dismisses what the depths of his own mind tells him; another listens to the part of him that comes alive when he is asleep. And, most importantly, one man listens to the old people talk and hears nothing but the stories they tell; another hears their wisdom.”

  He stirred the fire again. “I am Yaqui, mostly, and since I was a child, I have listened to my people talk and learned from them the things they know. I have learned from books, too, and from nature, from the things around me as I live among them. Magic is what one knows that everyone else has never learned or has forgotten or prefers not to believe exists. There are many things, Juan, that the Yaquis know that are foreign to you, but that are commonplace to me; in that sense, I suppose I am a witch.”

  He paused. “Anyhow, I can look at you and I can read your face. It is harder now than before, and more violent. Within you, a great strain grows, one you can hardly bear. But then, of course, you loved her very much, didn’t you?”

  “I did,” Cutler said.

  “And the loneliness is terrible.”

  “I keep seeing it all over again,” Cutler said. “What it did to her. The bottle helps sometimes. So does the hatred.”

  “Of the bear?”

  “Of the bear. And . . .” Cutler stood up, shoved a stick in the fire with his booted toe. “Of all things like the bear. The jaguar. Or Gorman. Things that hurt and kill for the pleasure of hurting and killing.” He paused, staring into the coals. “That is all the pleasure I have now,” he went on. “Finding such things and ridding the world of them.”

  Fernandez nodded. “And so I had guessed. Only one warning have I to give you. In doing that, watch closely, lest you become too much like the things you hate. Or . . . suppose after you have killed the bear, you find that there is nothing left in you. What purpose will you have, then, what will keep you alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Cutler said. “I’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

  Fernandez nodded gravely. “Yes. It will be something to worry about then.” All at once he smiled. “But for now, I think Preacher Gorman is very unfortunate that the bear still lives and is beyond your reach. I think for you, now, Gorman is the grizzly, and that is Gorman’s bad luck.” He stood up. “Go to bed, Juan. We have a long night ahead of us tomorrow.”

  “That we have,” said Cutler, and, having spent many a night in the open with no more than that, he raked up leaves beside the fire, lay down blanketless with his head on his saddle and slept. Big Red nestled close beside him, and his weapons within easy reach.

  Chapter Seven

  Next day, the country swarmed with Gorman’s men, searching for Cutler and Calhoon. Meanwhile, the objects of their hunt lay flat on the high rimrock of the escarpment, keeping a wary eye on them. Billy fidgeted eagerly, like a hound on leash, as a half dozen of the Gunhawks made another circuit of the bottom of the cliff. “Damn, it would be like pickin’ cherries to knock off two or three of ’em before they could make cover.”

  Cutler’s voice was low and hard. “You do that, I’ll kill you myself. We don’t open fire unless they find that trail up here. I don’t want everything we’ve got planned ruined by some trigger-itchy kid.”

  “Trigger-itchy kid—” Calhoon’s mouth twisted and he rolled over to face Cutler.

  “Hush,” Cutler said. “Look. They’re goin’ away.”

  It was true. Just before dawn, Hernando Fernandez and Cutler had descended the cliff on foot, carefully erasing in first light any sign that Cutler and Calhoon might have made in their wild ascent last night. Now, unable to spot any route by which the escarpment could be climbed, the riders turned and disappeared into the forest, headed in the general direction of Villa Hermosa.

  Presently Cutler and Billy left the rim, returned to the ravine where Hitchcock squatted over a deerskin laid flat on the ground. With a charred stick, he was busily making a map.

  “Got it?” Cutler asked.

  “Yeah, it’s all finished,” Hitchcock said.

  The four of them crouched around it. Cutler said, “Billy, you memorize this. If you have to spend an hour until it soaks in, you get it in your head good. We don’t want any mistakes tonight. Go ahead, Hitchcock.”

  “All right.” He used the stick as a pointer. “Here’s the town, a good fifteen miles from where we are. In these hills above it is the mine, not more than two miles outside Villa Hermosa. Close enough, anyhow, so there was never any need to build bunkhouses or barracks; the people just go back and forth from their own houses every day. Now Gorman’s men herd ’em in at daybreak, out just before nightfall, like cattle.”

  Cutler nodded. “You’ll want to wait just long enough to make sure Gorman and his men are back in town before we hit.”

  “There’ll be guards,” Hitchcock said. “Four of ’em, if everything holds true to the pattern they’ve been following. Look, this is the mine layout. The shaft here, next to it the house Sharon and I lived in. But that’s not the important part. Over here is the ore dump. The ore that comes out of that shaft is so damned high-grade you wouldn’t believe it. Back in the days when everybody got his cut, we never needed guards around it, but now Gorman’s afraid some of the village people might steal his silver, so he keeps men posted there all the time. Generally, they work in shifts, two in the house restin’ and two on guard at the ore dump. Those two outside stick real close together for fear of the jaguar.”

  “That’ll make it even trickier,” Cutler said.

  Hitchcock did not answer that. “Now, here’s the important part—” The stick moved. “This is the powder bunker. That’s where the dynamite and weapons are stored. What it is is a tunnel in the hillside with a double oaken door, and it’s double-padlocked. The hell of it is, when Gorman and his men came down on me and Sharon, kidnapped her and I had to run for it, I didn’t have the keys on me. They’ll be in the house, with the two guards there, on a rack beside the door . . .”

  Cutler nodded again. “Plenty of dynamite left?”

  “Should be. And that’s where he keeps all the weapons from the village.”

  Hernando said, “You must understand, Juan. The weapons are not great. Old guns, mostly, not modern repeaters. Only a few Winchesters or Henry rifles. When Gorman dominated the village, his men went through the houses one by one, took every possible weapon, locked them up in that powder house so the villagers could not rise against him. He also stored there what ammunition they had. But it is not much.”

  “Along with the dynamite, it’ll have to do,” Cutler said. He straightened up. “All right, then here it is. Billy, you and Hitchcock are to be in position right after the men are marched back to the village. You wait until the coast is clear and it’s good black dark. What time do the guards change shift, Hitchcock?”

  “According to my scouting, about midnight. I’ve been back there twice, trying to figure some way to make a mov
e, but until now—”

  “Midnight, that’s good. It means the men in the house will turn in early, get some sleep before they’re called. Hitchcock, you know how to use a knife?”

  Hitchcock looked at him with eyes like chips of rock. “I told you, Cutler, I was born and raised in Mexico. I teethed on a blade—”

  “Good. Calhoon, you know anything about knife work?”

  Billy Calhoon shook his head. “Hell, that’s for Mexicans ...” He touched the ivory butts of his Colts. “I can handle all four with these . . .”

  “And touch off an alarm that’ll have Gorman and his men down on you like bees.” Cutler sighed. “All right. We’ve got most of the day. I’m gonna have to show you how to use some tools to kill a man with so he don’t make a sound. This has got to be done in total silence.” He went to the brush shelter, reached inside, brought out the last remnants of the snare wire he had salvaged from the wagon. With the pliers, he snipped a four foot length. Then, with his hunting knife, he cut two pieces of oak sapling four inches long, half that in diameter. The others watched as he used the pliers carefully to anchor each end of the snare wire to a piece of oak. “That’s a garrote,” he said. “For a man that don’t know how to use a knife, it’s easier to handle and you can learn how to make it work a whole lot quicker. Hitchcock, come here.”

  Hitchcock nodded, stood motionless before Cutler with his back to him. Cutler started from twenty yards away, advancing slowly, the garrote ready, its wire stretched loosely. He came like a big cat himself, slow, easy, steadily until he was within three feet of Hitchcock and had not made a sound. Then he leaped, and suddenly the wire was looped around Hitchcock’s neck; and if Cutler had pulled it taut it first would have choked the man, then cut his throat.

  “God almighty,” Calhoon breathed.

  “Hitchcock, wrap some cloth around your neck so you don’t get cut. Then you and Calhoon go over yonder in the brush and let him get some practice. I’ll watch, because he needs to learn how to stalk, too, without makin’ any noise. All right, Billy, you and Hitchcock are gonna play some tag. But remember, this ain’t any child’s game. You start from a hundred yards behind him, and you come up slow and you feel your way with your feet before you take each step, and you’re damned careful not to cough or breathe. You won’t be wearin’ spurs and you’ll take off those chaps, because brush on leather makes too much sound. You’ll have absolutely nothin’ in your pockets that might click or jingle, and you wear one gun only, so that the cartridges in those two belts don’t rub together and make any sound. Put your other Colt in your waistband. Now . . . Hitchcock’s on guard and he’s listenin’ for any strange sound; for all he knows, the jaguar might be comin’ to get him. You got to get close enough to him to get that wire around his throat and when you do, you got to jerk it hard and fast. And if he hears you comin’ up behind him and turns—well, then you’re dead. Hitchcock, you play it square. The minute you hear a sound, you whip around. Billy, that means you’ve been caught. But now I’ll tell you somethin’ else, and this is damned important. You’re practicing in daylight, but you’ll really kill at night. If the guard whirls and you’re a hundred feet away or even fifty and it’s dark, you freeze, you understand? The minute he starts to turn, you stand absolutely still, even if it makes you feel like the biggest damned target in the world. The average man, especially at night, he’s like a deer; he don’t see shapes, only motion. If you’re still far enough away when he takes alarm, you stand like a goddam rock. If you’re lucky, he’ll think he was only foolin’ himself and relax again. If you ain’t lucky, he’ll take a shot at you. That’s when you’ll get to prove how fast you are with that Colt of yours.” He grinned, “On the other hand, if you’re real close when that happens and he’s bound to see you, you go in fast and do the best you can.”