Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747)

by Cotton, Ralph W.

  She sat upright and let out a little gasp of surprise as the blanket pulled away. But upon seeing it was Hector looking down at her, she relaxed back in the soapy water and managed a suggestive smile.

  “Come on in, Pancho,” she said, raising her open hands toward him. “This is perfume soap I’ve been saving since Omaha.”

  Hector looked down at her large rosy breasts bobbing atop the sudsy water.

  “Another time, perhaps,” he said. He looked at her a moment longer, then drew the curtain back in place.

  “Is it good for you here?” he asked the little well tender.

  “Está bien . . . ?” The well tender looked up at him.

  “Sí, está bien? Is it good?” Hector asked, rubbing his thumb and fingertips together in the universal sign of greed.

  “Sí, it is good here so far,” said the little man, nodding, patting the lump of coins in his trouser pocket. “And it is a beautiful morning.” He gestured a wary gaze toward the distant horizon and said, “But you know what the wise ones say. “‘Cielo rojo por la mañana . . .’” He left the words unfinished, gazing up at Hector.

  “Red sky at morning,” Hector translated. Then he completed the saying. “Shepherds take warning. . . .”

  “Sí, ‘Los pastores toman la advertencia,’” the well tender translated back to Spanish.

  “But you must understand something, my little friend,” Hector said, sounding irritated. “The saying means nothing to me. I am not a shepherd. I do not even like sheep.”

  “But you have become a serious man,” said the well tender, “and when a serious man takes on his position in this world, he must decide how he will treat those around him. He can protect them as a shepherd, or devour them as a wolf.”

  “Stop it, well tender,” said Hector. “I do neither. I took what I have from ruthless men . . . killers, thieves. But I do so only in order to live in peace, without hunger or need. I wish to protect no one—to devour no one.”

  “Then you should not have led me here,” said the well tender. “You should have lived as a ghost in El Pueblo Fantasma.”

  “I did not lead you here, little hombre,” said Hector. “You followed me to this place of your own free will.”

  “A shepherd, or a wolf,” the little man said with resolve on the matter.

  “Neither,” said Hector. “As a man of position, I will kill in order to keep my position. But this is all I can say.” He hesitated in troubled contemplation. “This is as far as I have thought things out. Who knows? Perhaps I will become both a shepherd and a wolf?”

  The well tender only stared blankly at him.

  Hector considered his own words and turned up his first tequila swig of the day. He lowered the bottle and wiped his hand across his lips.

  “Yes, both a shepherd and a wolf. I will protect, but only the things that are mine—the people and things that matter to me. I will devour only those who seek to take all that I have acquired.” He paused, then smiled to himself. “This is what a serious man must do,” he decided. “So, this is what I must do.” He thumped himself on the chest with the sloshing bottle of tequila.

  “Sí, perhaps you will,” the little well tender murmured. He shook his head slowly and gazed off toward the distant horizon.

  Hector raised a hand as if to say more on the matter. But instead, stuck for words, he only wagged his finger at the well tender. Turning, he walked back around front of the cantina, where a passed-out vaquero lay facedown in the street. Each snore from the vaquero’s gaping mouth raised another short puff of dust.

  Having forgotten the young dove soaking in the tub, the well tender jerked the towel back when he heard a splash of water.

  “Oops, it’s only me,” said the plump, naked young woman, standing, water and suds running down her. She cradled her large breasts in her forearms.

  “May I have a towel please?” she asked.

  The well tender looked her up and down and gave here a fierce stare.

  “What did you hear?” he said.

  “Nothing, really,” said Lynette. “Just a lot of foolishness that I could make no sense of.”

  The well tender’s fierce expression changed. He cackled under his breath.

  “Sí, foolishness indeed,” he said. “What else is there for men to talk about?” He tapped his finger against the side of his head.

  Lynette smiled and shrugged a wet, naked shoulder; she didn’t know.

  “A towel, por favor . . . ?” she reminded him.

  Inside the Perros Malos, Hector stood at Henri Three-Hand Defoe’s favorite spot at the bar and looked all around the empty cantina like a young king appraising some new and exotic empire.

  Without being summoned, Hopper Truit appeared almost magically across the bar. She set down a heavy white mug in front of him and filled it with steaming coffee.

  “Cigar, Pancho?” she asked.

  “Sí—a cigar, por favor,” Hector said, feeling awkward. He did not even realize it, but it was the first time in his life he stood at a bar and had someone voluntarily pour him coffee, and offer him a cigar to boot.

  “Coming up,” said Hopper. She walked briskly away along the back of the bar, came back with a cigar and a long wooden match.

  “Gracias,” Hector said, taking the cigar, sticking it between his teeth.

  Hopper struck the match and started to hold it out. But before doing so, she stopped and smiled, staring into Hector’s eyes as if it were the first time she had ever seen him.

  “You know, Pancho, Henri used to say that when it came to special things, I was always his favorite among the doves.”

  “Oh . . . ,” Hector said, “I must remember that.”

  “Yes, please do,” she whispered, leaning forward with the match, touching the flame to the tip of his cigar.

  Not bad for a squirrel, eh? he thought.

  He lit the cigar, tilted his head, blew a long stream of smoke and watched it climb and curl to the ceiling.

  Not bad at all. . . .

  Chapter 21

  In the late afternoon, when shadows stretched long across the simmering land, Teto raised a hand and brought the men behind him and his brother, Luis, to a halt. Ahead of them at a distance of a thousand yards, firelights in the town of Wild Roses had started to flicker in the gloom of evening. Oil lamp and candlelight glittered in open windows.

  “Let us keep in mind, mi hermano,” Luis said, sidling his horse up beside Teto’s, “the lawman from Nogales is still on our trail.”

  “Yes, he is,” Teto replied with a flat, tight grin, “unless our Erin has slit his throat in his sleep.”

  Our Erin?

  Luis brushed his brother’s remark aside. “My point is, we must waste no time here. We must keep moving as soon as we pick up our money.” He paused, then said, “Unless of course we agree it is time to stop and wait for this lawman and kill him as soon as he catches up with us.”

  Teto glanced back at the riders gathering up closer to him and Luis.

  “I think it is time we do just that, my brother,” said Teto, keeping his voice lowered just between the two of them. “We get the money, but we do not split it up until we have killed this damned lawman.”

  “These men already have money on them,” said Luis. “They will start drinking as soon as we ride in.”

  “Yes, but nothing whets the thirst like a large sum of money.”

  “We have all waited this long to kill the lawman,” said Luis. “What is another day, or even two?” He studied his brother’s face for a sign of agreement.

  “That’s what I say,” said Teto, staring straight ahead toward Wild Roses.

  “And what about the woman?” Luis asked.

  “What about her?” said Teto.

  “Now that her brother is dead, what will we do with her?” Luis asked. “This life we live has no room for a woman.”

  “Erin belongs to me,” Teto said. “She stays with me until I say otherwise.”

  “It’s not good to ke
ep her with us,” Luis said. “This is not the kind of life that allows you to follow what your heart desires.”

  “My heart is not the part of me that follows her, hermano.” He smiled, gripping himself down low. “Must I explain to you how these things work, Luis?”

  Luis looked away; his jaw tightened. There were things he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. This was neither the time nor the place.

  “The woman is trouble, is all I’m saying,” he replied tightly.

  “Sí, she is trouble,” said Teto. He booted his horse forward toward Wild Roses. “But she is trouble so sweet I can taste her even now.”

  Luis stared sullenly at his brother pushing ahead. He let out a tense breath and booted his horse along behind him. The rest of the riders followed suit in the darkening evening light.

  Beside the Perros Malos Cantina, the little well tender looked down at the gray, dirty water that had bathed over a dozen travelers throughout the course of the hot, dusty day. He raised the big kettle of hot water, tipped it against the side of the tin tub and poured it in. Steam bellowed.

  He set the kettle on the ground and churned a long stick around in the water to break up a film of grease and soap. On the three-legged stool sat a burning oil lamp, its wick already trimmed down to a glow. The little man reached over and trimmed the wick even lower, knowing it more economically sound to lower the light than to change the bathwater this late in the evening.

  “The sun goes down, little hombre,” Hector said behind him.

  The startled well tender turned in his surprise and saw Hector sweep a hand to the west, where a red-purple glow simmered above a cauldron of melting gold beneath the dark Mexican horizon.

  “As you can see, nothing bad has befallen us on this beautiful day,” Hector said.

  “Todavía no,” said the little well tender. He turned his nose to the south and sniffed through the arid scent of sage, sand and creosote. Somewhere in the mix, he smelled horse, sweat and fine-stirred dust.

  “Not yet, you say?” Hector chuckled and sucked down a quick drink of tequila from the bottle in his hand. His shirttail hung out of his trousers on one side. “Your old wives’ saying meant nothing,” Hector said, a little tipsy from the tequila, a little jittery from the cocaine Tereze had all but pressed upon him before he’d left her once again, lying naked on his damp, tangled bedsheets.

  “There are horses in the air,” the well tender said warily, yet so quietly that Hector had not fully heard him.

  “I thumb my nose at any such warnings from now on,” Hector said.

  “Riders coming,” the well tender said. This time his voice was a little louder, his warning more clear.

  “What did you say?” As he asked, Hector turned and looked out at a rise of gray-yellow dust adrift like some foreign matter on the shadowy hill line.

  “Riders coming,” the well tender repeated. He turned toward Hector, but all he saw was the young Mexican’s back. Hector had spotted the riders himself. He’d also felt the first throb of hoofbeats in the ground beneath his feet. Without hesitation, he’d turned and raced away around the far edge of the cantina toward the side door leading to his living quarters.

  The well tender scratched his head, looked all around. He walked over and turned out the oil lamp. He jerked the blanket shut in front of the tin tub, picked up his hand-painted sign and walked away into the grainy darkness.

  Inside Hector’s living quarters, Sidel Tereze rose naked on the bed and looked over to where the young Mexican rummaged through his saddlebags and a dirty carpetbag that had belonged to Three-Hand Defoe.

  “Pancho . . . ? What are you doing?” she asked sleepily. Brownish ground cocaine residue lay above her upper lip. Her nostrils were red-rimmed, as were Hector’s. More residue showed across her bosom, evidence that she’d encouraged Hector to snort cocaine from her breasts earlier.

  “Riders are coming. I get a bad feeling from them,” Hector said without looking around from his feverish task.

  “A bad feeling about riders coming to the Bad Dogs?” said Tereze, sensing right away that the powder he’d used earlier still danced wildly in his brain. “You should get a bad feeling when there are no riders coming,” she offered, hoping to settle him down. “Come, lie down here with me.”

  Hector just stared at her.

  She patted the tangled sheet beside her with one hand and reached for the leather bag of cocaine powder on the small table beside the bed with her other.

  “I know what you need,” she purred.

  But Hector would have none of it, although he did stop long enough to take a deep breath.

  “No,” he said, “I must keep my head clear, to do what I must do.”

  “Are you running away, Pancho?” Tereze asked, almost with a giggle—the same giggle he had grown used to hearing from the doves before he’d taken over the cantina.

  Hector turned to her with fire in his eyes, shotgun in hand.

  “Does this look like running to you?” he said to her, breaking the shotgun open.

  He shoved two fresh loads into the barrels and snapped the gun shut. Without waiting for her reply, he tossed a bandoleer of shotgun ammunition onto his shoulder, then jerked his Colt from his holster, checked it and holstered it loosely.

  Tereze sighed and relaxed back onto the damp sheets.

  “It’s probably just the Torres brothers and their gang,” she said idly. “There’s nothing to worry about. It’s no big secret that Henri keeps their money hidden until things cool off after a robbing spree.”

  “Worried?” said Hector. “I am not worried. Perhaps it is the Torres brothers and their gang. I must still be prepared to protect what is mine.” He turned and stomped out through the door of the cantina, the din of music and laughter rising and falling as he opened and closed the door behind himself.

  Jesus. . . . Tereze shook her head. The same squirrel after all.

  As darkness overtook the land, the Torres brothers and their Gun Killers rode on toward Wild Roses at an easy gallop. When they entered the town, Teto veered away from the others. He rode past the Perros Malos Cantina and turned at the far corner. Luis and the others hitched their horses at the rails out in front of the cantina and filed inside. As they entered, the music stopped. Drinkers looked around, recognized the dust-streaked faces and hurriedly began to empty their glasses and mugs of beer, rye whiskey, tequila and mescal.

  By the time Luis Torres and the gunmen crossed the floor, a wide empty space had been made for them at the bar. Some drinkers only shied back away from the Gun Killers; others left the cantina altogether, grabbed their horses or donkeys and rode away.

  As the sound of hooves fled away into the night, Hopper Truit stepped up and stood across the bar from the gunmen. She spread her hands along the bar edge, giving them a good view of her cleavage behind a low-cut gingham blouse.

  “Evening, Luis . . . gentlemen,” she said, nodding in turn at the hard faces staring back at her. “I hope you came thirsty enough to raise this joint and set it down sideways,” she said with a crooked smile.

  Truman Filo let out a whoop and said, “You damn well right we did—”

  But Luis cut the excited gunman short with a raised hand. The rest of the men fell quiet along the bar. The remaining drinkers stood staring intently.

  “I understand the Bad Dogs Cantina has changed hands,” Luis said. “We want to meet the new owner before any serious drinking gets under way.”

  Before Hopper Truit could reply, Hector stepped inside the front door, his shotgun cocked and leveled in one hand, his Colt leveled in his other.

  “I am the new owner,” he said, stepping forward across the floor. Some of the remaining customers now slipped out the side doors and the open rear window.

  “Easy, amigo,” Luis Torres said. “We came to drink and talk a little business with Three-Hand Defoe, nothing more.”

  “Three-Hand Defoe is there,” Hector said, gesturing toward the drying, blackened residue of what was onc
e Defoe’s face still stuck to the wall. “Start talking.”

  The gunmen turned their heads as one and looked at the grizzly glob of flesh and bone fragments stuck to the wall. A single gold-capped tooth hung from the center of it, above part of Defoe’s lolling tongue. Flies circled and whined.

  The gunmen gave a dark chuckle, examining the remains.

  “We heard you killed him,” Luis said.

  Truman Filo commented, “This looks like a vulture came flying through too low and too fast.”

  Ignoring Filo’s remark, Luis turned from the disgusting death mask.

  “Sí, I killed him,” said Hector, not mincing words, “and I now own what was his. I will kill any man who tries to take it from me.”

  “I’m not interested in what was his, or what you think is yours. We only want what’s ours,” Luis said. He looked Hector up and down. “You thought we might show up seeking vengeance.”

  “The thought crossed my mind,” Hector said flatly. Cocaine powder still bubbled and boiled in the back of his brain, but he kept himself calm, in check, ready to kill to protect his ill-gotten desert empire.

  “Aren’t you the one the whores call the squirrel?” Filo asked.

  “Hey! We called him that with the utmost respect and affection,” Hopper Truit cut in, Hector turning a scorching glared at her.

  “That day is over,” Hector said. “This day has begun.” He gestured at the shotgun and Colt in his hands.

  “No more squirrel, eh?” said Filo with a wide, taunting grin.

  “Only if you wish me to hang your portrait beside Three-Hand Defoe’s,” Hector replied calmly.

  Filo just stared at him.

  “Easy, everybody,” Luis said. To Hector he said, “The Bad Dogs is your place now. We call you whatever you want to be called, eh?”

  “Call me Pancho,” said Hector, his guns lowered slightly.

  “Pancho it is,” said Luis. He looked at Hopper Truit with a smile and said, “Pour all of us drinks now that we have met our new friend.”