No Finger on the Trigger (A Waxahachie Smith Western Book One)

by Edson, J. T.

  ‘For a meal?’ Smith queried.

  ‘The food has just finished cooking, senor,’ the owner answered, hoping the watch he had kept on the street and his having only unfastened the door when he saw the Texan approaching had not been noticed.

  ‘Could be the weather’s scared everybody except me off,’ the sergeant suggested, having observed dark clouds suggestive of an approaching storm while walking from the hotel.

  ‘Many of my customers go to Morning Mass, senor,’ the Mexican explained, forcing himself to try to appear his usual jolly self. He was alarmed by the instructions he had received a short while earlier from a man who he was in no position to refuse. Furthermore, there were three obvious ‘hired guns’ waiting in the kitchen and they had warned what would happen to himself and his wife, held by them, if he should fail to produce the desired result. ‘The rest don’t get up this early and you are the first to come.’

  ‘But not the last, you hope,’ the sergeant drawled.

  ‘Not the last, I most surely hope,’ the owner agreed, still compelling himself to sound jovial. ‘And what can I get for you?’

  ‘A bowl of your excellent chili con came, amigo, and re-fried beans on the side,’ Smith ordered, wondering whether the slightly agitated attitude of the Mexican was caused by having news he considered might not be received well by a ‘hired gun’. ‘I’ll follow it with pecan pie and some coffee.’

  ‘Muy pronto, senor,” the owner declared and, frightened in case his state of perturbation might warn the Texan that something was wrong, he scuttled away rapidly to avoid being asked any further questions.

  Brought as promptly as was promised, the steaming bowl of reddish-brown chili con came and the pile of re-fried beans on a plate proved to taste as good as their predecessors eaten by Smith at the cantina. Being hungry and enjoying the meal, he did not notice the way in which the owner repeatedly glanced towards the door of the kitchen and then to the front windows. Pushing away the empty crockery, he was about to ask for the dessert he had ordered when he became aware of an overwhelming feeling of dizziness. Shaking his head, he placed his hands on top of the table and tried to rise. He found that his legs refused to support his weight and a strange lethargy was creeping over him. Before his brain could register that more than one pair of swiftly moving footsteps were approaching, blackness descended and he crumpled forward. He did not feel himself lifted by two of the hard faced men who had been waiting for his collapse, or being carried towards the kitchen from which they had emerged.

  ~*~

  ‘It’s no use blaming me, Javier!’ Doctor Otto Grantz claimed, showing no sign of concern over the wrathful way in which his visitor was eyeing him. ‘I have to pay the high price my suppliers ask.’

  ‘Then why not take it without paying?’ hinted the young Mexican, his dilated eyes and the twitching of his unhealthily grey features showing the symptoms of being in need of what a later generation would term ‘a fix’.

  ‘Because, my young friend,’ the doctor replied, in the manner of one explaining something to a far from bright child. ‘Despite having to live and work in this benighted land, I have no desire to have my life brought to an end. Especially such a one as would be my fate if I was stupid enough to try what you suggest.’

  ‘I’ve got the men to protect—!’ Fuentes began.

  ‘Your brother has the men,’ Grantz corrected.

  ‘Asa Coltrane and some of the others do what I tell them!’

  ‘So I’ve heard. And I’ve also heard how well they did when you tried your game at Rancho Mariposa.’

  For a moment, the doctor thought he had pushed his visitor too far!

  Raw, close to animal rage, twisted at Fuentes’ face and he lurched from his chair with his far from steady hands hovering over the butts of his guns!

  ‘Who’ll get it for you if anything happens to me?’ Grantz inquired, contriving to keep his alarm from showing.

  ‘You aren’t the only one selling it!’

  ‘True. But can you find somebody else?’

  ‘I—I— !’ Fuentes croaked, realizing he did not have

  another source of supply and sitting down again. ‘May all the saints damn you to hell!’

  ‘That might worry me, but I’ve never believed in their existence,’ Grantz purred, satisfied the danger had passed. ‘However, at this moment, our problem is you. Clearly the heroin isn’t serving its purpose. Therefore, you must have more cocaine. Unfortunately, as I’ve told you, it costs a great deal of money.’

  ‘My brother—!’ the young man commenced.

  ‘Will only pay the price of heroin,’ the doctor countered. ‘Ach! If I only had enough money of my own!’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The people who supply me have a large quantity they want to dispose of.’

  ‘How large a quantity?’

  ‘It would not only last you for at least two years, there would be enough left over for you to sell the rest of your friends when you get back to Mexico City and more than cover the cost.’

  ‘What would the cost be?’ Fuentes asked.

  ‘Two thousand, five hundred dollars,’ Grantz replied.

  ‘Where would I get that kind of money?’ the Mexican demanded.

  ‘The same place you tried before, perhaps,’ the doctor suggested, then glanced at the clock on the instrument cabinet of his reception room. Picking up a bunch of keys from the top of the desk at which conversation was taking place, he unlocked a drawer. Watched by his visitor, whose tongue ran across clearly dry lips, he removed a small box. ‘Here, this will last you a few days. However, it is the last I have until I can raise the money to buy more.’

  ‘And if I bring you the money?’ Fuentes asked, as he snatched the offering with an almost pathetic eagerness. ‘All of it?’

  ‘Then I will buy the whole supply and your problem will be solved,’ Grantz promised, hoping the young Mexican would not think to ask what he was expecting to gain from the purchase. ‘Now you’d better be going. By the way, don’t the Cordobas—?’

  ‘Those high and mighty bastards, ordering me from their house like I was some stinking peon!’ Fuentes spat out, the worst of his temper always being aroused by any reference to the people who owned the Rancho Mariposa. ‘One day I’ll pay them back for the way they’ve treated me!’

  ‘And who can blame you,’ Grantz inquired, his manner sycophantic and giving no indication that it had been his intention to revive such memories and sentiments. ‘Don’t they come to Evening Mass here in town every Sunday, like the good Catholics they are?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fuentes admitted, but was clearly puzzled by the question.

  ‘And there’re quite a few places between here and their hacienda where an ambush could take place,’ the doctor elaborated. ‘By the cow thieves who’ve been raiding around here, I mean.’

  ‘Yes!’ the young Mexican ejaculated, an appreciation of what had been meant by the words now striking him and he nodded with vigor. Coming to his feet, he went on as he started to make for the door, ‘Yes, they do and, who knows, those cow thieves might make another raid tonight.’

  ‘It certainly looks like their kind of weather is coming up,’ Grantz admitted, darting a glance from the window to where the black clouds were moving across the sky. ‘And perhaps it would be better for you to get going. It looks like there’s rain coming and I don’t doubt you’ve got quite a few things to do before Mass ends.’

  ‘That I have,’ Fuentes confirmed, the ravaged lines of his handsome face taking on an expression of evil. ‘And you can let your suppliers know that you’ll take all they have off their hands.’

  ‘That was close. He’s getting more edgy by the day,’ Grantz breathed, after his visitor had left and he was going into the room which served as an operating theatre when he had surgery to perform. ‘This business isn’t going the way Fuentes planned. So, providing that young hop-head gets the money, it’ll give me a stake to get as far away from here as I can travel sho
uld things go wrong.’

  The arrival of Javier Fuentes had been expected by the doctor!

  Like many of the crowd of wealthy young radicals to which he belonged, the Mexican had started to try to counteract a sense of inadequacy by smoking marijuana) which he and his kind had insisted was harmless and even beneficial. The effect had been obtained for a time, but—as was all too frequently the case—he had found its potency diminishing. Complaining of this deficiency and acting upon Grantz’s suggestion, although Teodoro was unaware of where the responsibility lay, he had turned to the vastly more potent and effective cocaine.

  Knowing how much of the soul-destroying white powder Javier had purchased at their last meeting, the doctor had realized the stock was deplete and had anticipated there would be a need to replenish it. Since hearing of the abortive visit to the Rancho Mariposa and guessing its real purpose accurately, he had been contemplating how he might acquire a larger sum than had already accrued from his services. Having planted the idea in the receptive mind of the young Mexican, which he knew to become even less stable when reminded of the well justified humiliation suffered at the hands of the Cordoba family, he had donated just enough of the potent narcotic to ensure sufficient bravado would be aroused for it to be acted upon.

  Already involved in the political activities of the Fuentes brothers in Mexico, Grantz was helping with the most ambitious scheme so far attempted. He had been instructed to precede them to Texas and, without allowing their association to be known, set up a practice in Flamingo. The death of the previous medical practitioner shortly before his arrival had allowed him to do so without that particular complication arising. Despite his failure to ‘cure’ the younger brother’s addiction—which, to give credit where it was due, was the last thing he wanted to do with such a lucrative patient—he had already been of one service to the elder sibling by virtue of his profession and was to do something else, this time in the surgical line, that morning.

  While waiting for the arrival of the men he was expecting, the doctor thought about the development he had heard was threatening the scheme upon which he was engaged. From what he had been told by Rabena a short while earlier when they met to discuss the part he was soon to play, providing the Texas Ranger fell into their hands, there was a danger of the hostility amongst the other ranchers—which was so essential to their plans—being brought to an end. The banker had been requested by Monocle Johnny Besgrove and Brad Drexell to send a messenger who would be trusted to ask Teodoro Fuentes to join them in a meeting intended to organize a round up covering all their spreads and satisfy everybody that none had stolen stock upon it. Aware of what the result would be, the doctor and his fellow conspirator also wondered why they had not heard the body of Moses Claybone had been found. xxxiii

  Grantz’s thoughts on the subject were brought to an end by hearing a buckboard draw to a halt at the side door. Opening it, he discovered the plan to capture Waxahachie Smith was successful. While a third was clearing keeping watch on the ends of the alley between the surgery and its nearest neighbor, two of the hired guns—who, although actually hired by Fuentes, had been in town pretending to be waiting for an employer—carried the unconscious Texas Ranger inside. Closing the door behind them, he told them to lay their victim upon the table he used for operations and, when this was done, to go into the next room until he called for them. Left to himself, he removed his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Then he meticulously scrubbed his hands and arms up to the elbows. Having done so, he crossed to the table and ran his gaze over the instruments of his trade which he had placed in a position convenient for them to be selected and used.

  The previous evening, on hearing what was planned, Rabena had remarked a couple of well aimed blows from an axe or meat cleaver would achieve the desired result. Grantz had replied with pompous dignity that he was a doctor, not a butcher. He did have pride in his skill, which was considerable regardless of his otherwise dubious professional ethics, but this alone had not provoked the response. No matter how the enterprise turned out, he wanted to be able to claim he had acted in all good faith when two men brought him a third who he had assumed to be a hired gun like them. When, or if, questioned by the authorities, he would say they had told him that their companion had been hurt in an accident and, as a result of his examination, he had decided there was only one way to act if he was to save the victim’s life.

  Checking upon Smith’s condition, the doctor sought for any suggestion that the drug he supplied to be used at the Cantina de Chili Con Came had failed to produce the desired effect. At the conclusion of his examination, he felt sure that he could carry out the operation without there being any chance of a premature return to sentience.

  ‘This won’t hurt you,’ Grantz remarked to the motionless and uncomprehending sergeant, as a crash of thunder heralded the commencement of a storm. ‘At least, not until you finally regain your wits and, provided my orders are carried out, that won’t be for some days.’

  Swabbing Smith’s right hand with disinfectant, but—the inadvisability of breathing on the patient not yet having been appreciated by the medical profession—without attempting to cover his own mouth and nostrils with a cloth, Grantz selected one of the razor sharp scalpels which were his pride and joy.

  Making the first incision an inch or so above the point at which he proposed to make the amputation, with the elements giving what seemed a Wagnersque accompaniment to the foul deed he was performing, the doctor sliced through the epidermal layer down each side of the forefinger towards the palm and carefully peeled back a section of skin between the knuckle and the first joint. Continuing to exercise the utmost care, he snipped through subcutaneous tissue, tiny blood vessels and tendons encased in their own lubricating sheaths until he reached the actual bone. Once the phalange had been separated from the metacarpal bone that was part of the intricate structure of the palm of the hand, he folded the peeled back section of skin over the wound to form a protective pad. This he secured with tiny stitches which would have elicited a sigh of envy from the most expert seamstress and, laying the severed finger aside to be destroyed when he was finished, he covered the hand with an equally neat wrapping of spotlessly clean bandages. Working just as carefully and unhurriedly, he repeated the procedure on his ‘patient’s’ left forefinger.

  Without even waiting to wash his hands, or noticing the storm had blown over while he was completing an excellent —albeit totally unjustified—piece of surgery, Grantz called the two men from the other room. Giving one a bottle of dark brown liquid, he told them to carry out the rest of the instructions they had received from Fuentes. Waiting until they had taken his ‘patient’ outside and he heard the buck-board moving off, he set about removing all the evidence of the operation he had performed.

  Chapter Twelve – Somebody Is Going to Regret This!

  Despite there being a threat of rain to follow that which had fallen earlier in the day, Ransome Cordoba was in a happy and contented frame of mind as, feeling warm in the waterproof garments common sense had dictated she put on, she sat by her equally protected father in the buggy which they always used when attending Evening Mass at the Catholic church in Flamingo. She would have preferred to travel on horseback to and from the service, but he insisted that decorum required she wore feminine attire unsuitable for riding.

  The unpleasant incident at the previous night’s dance had filled the girl with a sense of foreboding. However, the intervention of the man she still only knew as ‘Waldo Smith’ had prevented what might easily have developed into open hostility and involved everybody present, not just the contingents from the Rancho Mariposa and the B Bar D. What was more, the arrival of Mrs. Freddie Fog had served to cause Bradford Drexell to forget his differences with Sir John Besgrove. Nevertheless, regardless of Ransome stating her father would be in full agreement, the men had claimed they considered it would be more tactful if the most important issue they had discussed was held in abeyance until she could tell him of it. Ag
reeing, she had gone home at the conclusion of the dance and, waking him up, had satisfied herself that her assumption was correct.

  Considering only good could come from the proposal, Don Jose Fernando de Armijo y Cordoba had travelled with his daughter to Flamingo that morning instead of waiting until later in the day as would normally have been the case. They were accompanied by Tom Halcón Gris Grey and half a dozen cowhands who were of the Catholic faith and always attended Evening Mass with them. Although the distinguished visitor had not been present, the Cordobas and the other two ranchers had held a most productive meeting in the main dining-room of the International Hotel.

  The proposal of checking their spreads in an attempt to ascertain how serious the losses from the cow thieves had been and to prove none of them were holding re-branded stolen stock on their respective ranges had been agreed on without hesitation as far as the Texan, British and Chicano ranchers were concerned. As further evidence of their good faith, Cordoba and Monocle Johnny had declared their wish that Drexell should serve as ‘roundup captain’, xxxiv However, Teodoro Fuentes had done no more in response to the invitation to join them than send a message promising to give the suggestions he had received his consideration. He said he would inform them of his decision later.

  Much as the girl had hoped she would have a chance to renew her acquaintance with Smith, who she was growing convinced was far from the hired gunslinger he had led her to assume him to be, she was not granted the opportunity. Asking about him at the reception desk on her arrival and after the meeting was over, she had been informed on each occasion that he was not in his room. However, his property was still there and this implied he had not taken his departure from the area.

  Because of the threat of rain, dusk had come early. However, as the party was on the familiar trail which separated the Rancho Mariposa from the Union Jack, there was sufficient light for them to travel without needing the lanterns of the buggy to supply extra illumination. Due to the inclement nature of the weather, like their employer and his daughter, all the cowhands had donned and fastened slickers over their Sunday ‘go to town’ clothes. Amiable chatter was passing between them and nobody was giving the slightest thought to the possibility of danger.