by Edson, J. T.
Skilled as Smith otherwise was at defending himself without weapons, at that moment he was grateful for some added knowledge he had acquired while at the OD Connected ranch. Having watched Danny Okasi instructing the Blaze twins in some effective bare-handed fighting techniques he had not previously come across, he had Obtained permission to join the lessons. One trick he had acquired was intended to cope with just such a position as he now found himself in.
Removing his hands and feeling the constriction begin to be inflicted without impediment, Smith clenched them into fists and thrust their extended thumbs against the very sensitive area just below the base of the ears and behind the angle of the jaw bone. When he had been subjected to such an attack by the little samurai, albeit with far less force than he was now applying, he had found the pain sufficient to make him release the ‘bear-hug’ hold he had been employing. Feeling as if his ribs were on the point of caving in, he hoped there would the same response from the Dumb Ox.
For what seemed to Smith to be far longer than was the case, nothing happened!
Then, just as blackness threatened to engulf the Texan and his strength was almost gone, the terrible constriction ended!
Making awesome sounds indicative of rage, the Mexican opened his arms and gave a thrust with his belly. Doing so sent Smith staggering and he was saved from falling by reaching the open door of an empty stall. Catching hold of it, he hung there gasping breathlessly albeit in relief.
Instead of following immediately, the Dumb Ox clasped at his ears. Then, again letting out an inarticulate bellow, he charged forward.
‘Kill the bastard, gringo,’ Javier shrieked.
The young man’s never even temper was already aroused by the condition to which he had been reduced through employing heroin as a substitute for cocaine. Its effect was causing a bitter resentment of the treatment, although this was on the orders of his elder brother, to which he was being subjected at the hands of the enormous Mexican.
Brief though the respite had been, Smith’s head had cleared sufficiently for him to be able to assess and take steps to avoid the danger. Although he heard the exhortation and saw how it might be turned to his advantage later, provided he survived the encounter with the Dumb Ox, he had no time to acknowledge it. Instead, shoving himself from the gate, he swerved and snapped a kick with his right foot at the rapidly approaching giant. Reaching its intended target with the skill instilled by the savate fighter who had taught him such tactics, he found the impact from the ball of his foot failed to produce anything like the result he anticipated.
Despite letting out a grunt, the Dumb Ox gave no other sign of having received punishment which would have caused a less muscularly endowed man to be winded and driven into a retreat, if not close to incapacitated. Instead, he made a grab and, catching his assailant’s ankle before it could be withdrawn, gave a twisting heave. Feeling himself once more being thrown and unable to retain his equilibrium, the Texan had cause to be grateful for the ability he had acquired as a horseman. Instead of trying to stop his headlong rush, he relaxed and went to the floor in a rolling plunge. Although it carried him almost to the wall, he halted in control of his movements. Glancing around as he came into a kneeling posture, he saw his assailant lumbering after him. His revolver lay too far away for him to hope to reach it in time, but he noticed something else closer at hand which he considered might serve his purpose just as well.
Reaching out swiftly with both hands, Smith gathered up the object which had come to his attention. It was the kind of horizontal crossbar from a wagon known as a ‘singletree’ lii, to which the ends of the harness’ traces were attached. Made from a sturdy piece of wood, with the ends tipped by metal, it proved to be a most efficient extemporized weapon. Thrusting himself upwards, with a twisting sidestep which once again carried him clear of the massive fingers reaching to take hold of him, he pivoted and rammed one end of the device with all the strength he could muster into the Mexican’s lower body.
Despite the way in which he had withstood the effects of the kick, on this occasion the Dumb Ox was unable to do so. All the air gushed from his body in a strangled roar. Starting to fold at the waist, he stumbled away from his attacker. However, regardless of his obvious distress, Smith did not dare hesitate over what to do next. Nor, having heard of the way in which the huge Mexican had dealt with one man who aroused the wrath of Teodoro Fuentes in Flamingo—only the production of ‘witnesses’ to imply self defense was responsible for the fatal injuries inflicted when Tobin had brought him to trial saving him from dire consequences—did the Texan have any compunctions over the response which was launched. Bringing up and around the singletree, he crashed it against the back of the lowered bare skull with considerable force. Bone splintered and the Dumb Ox collapsed as if he had suddenly been filleted. Even as he was falling, his assailant heard several sets of running feet approaching the stable.
‘What the hell’s happened?’ Teodoro Fuentes demanded in Spanish, dashing through the front entrance followed by several hard faced and well armed Anglos and Mexicans.
Amazed by what he had seen and more than a little worried over how his part in the affair would be received by his sibling, although the question was directed at him, Javier did not reply!
‘I thought that jasper was going to rob your brother,’ Smith claimed, employing his native tongue and, tossing aside the singletree, going to retrieve his Colt. Although the men accompanying Teodoro had formed a rough half circle, they made no attempt to stop him. ‘So, knowing who he was, I cut in.’
‘You know my brother?’ Teodoro inquired, having glared down at the motionless body without showing concern or any other emotion.
‘Not enough to go over and say, “Howdy you-all, Mr. Fuentes” and have him come back with, “Howdy you-all, Mr. McCabe”,’ the Texan admitted, truthfully as far as it went. ‘But I saw him when I come into Flamingo to see what was doing thereabouts. Checking the revolver was not affected by its fall and, when satisfied, returning it to its holster, he continued, ‘Which’s why I billed in. I usually tend to my own never-mind, but I’m smart enough to know it’s good to stand in well with the boss of any outfit and reckoned that’s what I’d do happen I saved your brother.’
‘You saved him, that’s for sure,’ an especially villainous looking Mexican stated in bad English, having crossed to examine the figure on the floor. He was somewhat better dressed than all of his compatriots with the exception of the brothers. Turning his gaze to Teodoro, on whose heels he had followed ahead of the rest, he reverted to Spanish. ‘The Dumb Ox’s dead, patron!’
‘Do that “muerto” mean the jasper’s cashed in his chips, Mr. Fuentes?’ Smith inquired, wanting to give the impression his knowledge of Spanish was less extensive than was the case.
‘It does!’ Teodoro confirmed.
‘That figures,’ the Texan admitted. ‘Feller with his heft, I didn’t aim to take chances with him. He come close to making wolf bait of me afore I got loose and laid into him with that singletree.’
‘Damn it!’ Teodoro snapped. ‘He was my man!’
‘I’m right sorry about that,’ Smith asserted, looking as if he was speaking the truth. ‘Only, way they come in here and your brother yelled to be turned loose, I reckoned he’d got robbery or worse in mind and went to make him stop.’
‘You thought somebody would dare to rob my brother?’ Teodoro snorted.
‘Most folks’d likely have a heap more sense,’ Smith replied. ‘But that big jasper looked a whole lot too mean and stupid to give thought to who-all the feller he was fixing to rob might be kin to. Anyways, your brother didn’t do nothing to try to make him stop when he jumped me. Pact being, he yelled for me to kill the son-of-a-bitch. So how was I to know how-all things stood?’
‘I don’t remember seeing you around Flamingo,’ growled the evil visaged Mexican—who might have had a sign reading ‘hired pistolero’ stamped on him, his trade was so obvious —before Teodoro could answer.
&
nbsp; ‘I can’t bring to mind seeing you there, neither,’ Smith countered. ‘Fact being, I rode in on Sunday and, afore I could get to meet Mr. Fuentes, I heard tell he’d lit a shuck over the Rio Grande.’
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ ejaculated a white man standing slightly behind the Texan. He had features as close to villainous in cast as those of the Mexican pistolero and they were not improved by a black patch over his right eye. ‘Will you just take a look at his back!’
‘How did this happen?’ Teodoro inquired, as Smith moved until allowing the tear made across his shirt and his exposed back to be brought into view.
‘Me and the marshal in Trubshawe couldn’t see eye to eye about something,’ the Texan lied, realizing how he might turn to his advantage the still visible marks left by the inducement he had had inflicted while accustoming himself to the changed position of his holstered Colt. Aware it was common knowledge that the peace officer in question frequently engaged in such methods, liii he felt sure his explanation would be considered credible. ‘The son-of-a-bitch had me whipped while I was in the pokey and I couldn’t get at him after I was loose to thank him.’ Adopting an attitude which implied he regarded the matter closed, he gestured at the body of the Dumb Ox and went on in a tone of annoyance, ‘After this, I reckon I won’t be getting hired.’
Chapter Sixteen – Remember Ransome and Don Jose Cordoba?
‘Dan Tobin passed word to me that you’d be coming,’ explained the man who had brought the condition of Waxahachie Smith’s back to the attention of Teodoro Fuentes, as they stood together in the darkness by the corral of the hacienda about five miles from Ascension. ‘Got the description real good, including the way you tote that Peacemaker. But, when I saw those quirt marks, I thought for a moment you wasn’t him. Fact being, I still wasn’t all the way sure until you just now told me that “eleven, twenty-three, sixty-one” number’s Dan allows you keep using.’
Despite the comment he had made after explaining how he had supposedly acquired the scars, following some more discussion, the Texan had been hired by the older of the Fuentes brothers!
Called upon for verification, Javier Fuentes had sullenly confirmed that his behavior had been as Smith claimed. On the Texan demanding to know why he had not mentioned Teodoro was in town, the hostler had said he forgot. Then, to lessen the wrath he assumed the omission had aroused, he admitted having heard enough to make him believe Smith considered the Dumb Ox was contemplating a robbery.
Apparently satisfied as to the motives of the Texan, the older brother had asked his name and why he had not come sooner in search of employment. He replied he was ‘Matt McCabe’ and that, having learned of the flight of everybody from the Rancho Miraflores, he had concluded whatever had been planned was cancelled and had gone to look for work elsewhere. Failing to find any, a chance visit to the gathering place for outlaws in the village on the Bonham County line had informed him of the latest need for hired guns and he had decided to come to offer his services. Knowing how quickly news spread, particularly to such places, Teodoro had found nothing unlikely in what he was told. Having admitted that he knew how to handle cattle, although disinclined to do so, Smith had been informed this would be required if he wanted to be employed. Claiming he was too close to the blanket to refuse, but refraining from asking why he would be expected to work as a cowhand—knowing it would be unwise to show too much curiosity—he had been accepted.
Accompanying the Fuentes brothers to the hacienda they were using, the Texan had been accommodated with their men in the bunkhouse. Even though some of them had been in Flamingo, his identity was not challenged. He had concluded this was a tribute to the success of the changes he had made to his appearance. Nor had he discounted the part played by the way in which he was now wearing his Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker revolver. Men experienced in such matters only rarely changed the style of rig in which they carried their weapons. liv Therefore, if anybody remembered him as he had looked and armed, they would have noticed the gunbelt was of a pattern requiring a different kind of draw to that he had used in the town and reach the requisite conclusions.
By careful questioning, Smith had ascertained that the gunslingers were to act as handlers for the vast herd of cattle which was being held near Lake Guzman prior to being split into smaller bunches and delivered to various places in Texas. Too wise to display what might be regarded as excessive curiosity and knowing he would learn more later, he had allowed the matter to drop.
Having emerged from the backhouse after answering the called of nature, Smith had been accosted by the man with the eye-patch. After a few seconds desultory conversation, he had been asked about the newness of his gunbelt and replied it was recently purchased to replace its predecessor which had sustained some unspecified damage. Wanting to change the subject, watching for any suggestion that it might have some meaning to the man, he had told how Sheriff Daniel Tobin tried to order him from Flamingo and was thwarted by him quoting the mythical ‘Article Eleven, Twenty-Three, Sixty-One, legal ruling’ used during his first meeting with Sir John Besgrove.
The result was unexpected!
Looking around with great care to ensure they were not being overheard, the man had made a surprising declaration. In spite of his unprepossessing appearance, he was not the vicious hired gunslinger he appeared. Instead, he had introduced himself as ‘Donald Garfew Beech’ and he was an agent for the United States’ Secret Service. lv
‘You mean there isn’t any such legal ruling?’ Smith drawled. ‘Well I’ll be switched if I haven’t been leading good folks astray for quite a spell now, thinking there was. Anyways, what’s this sending herds to Texas all about, amigo?’
‘It’s something a whole heap worse than what they was trying to do over to Bonham County,’ Beech replied. ‘I don’t know whether you’ve figured it out, but it wasn’t rustlers stealing cattle who were killing off the fellers on the range.’
‘Back home to Texas we call ‘em “cow thieves”,’ Smith remarked, the other having an accent indicative of origins in Illinois. ‘I knew there was something mighty strange had happened, way none of the cattle they wide-looped showed up again and was coming ’round to figuring along those self-same lines.’
‘We hadn’t got the main idea when we sent word to the boss that something was being planned by the liber-rad soft shells down to Mexico City,’ Beech admitted. ‘Fuentes’ men only went out on rainy nights when their tracks would be washed away, excepting for things like gunning down anybody they came across and enough other signs to make it look like they’d stolen some cattle. Seems like they reckoned doing it would stir up a shooting fuss between the ranchers. Then that’d bring in the other white folks and Chicanos in Bonham County and it’d spread, helped by them, all the way along the border to California.’
‘Why pick on Bonham County?’ the Texan inquired, although he had an idea what the answer would be. ‘What I was told, more times than not, the white folks and Chicanos thereabouts get along good and friendly.’
‘That’s one reason it was picked. Those sons-of-bitches in the house are like their scummy breed all over. Stirring up folks of different kinds against one another’s a favorite way of theirs to try to overthrow the elected Government. A place where white folks and Chicanos get on’s not in keeping with what they want. Only this time, that spread the Fuentes’s kin had in Bonham County gave them somewhere they could live and work from without over many questions being asked about why they were there.’
‘I’d say that hophead son-of-a-bitch, Javier, played hell with their notions by what he did.’
‘You’d say the living truth. What I’ve heard, he’s lucky Teodoro didn’t kill him. As it was, big brother was so pot-boiling riled, he personally gave it one of the yahoos up to the Green River with a knife—which I wouldn’t have thought he’d have the guts—and turned loose that overgrown son-of-a-bitch you made wolf bait to break another’s back when they showed at the ranch house, ‘cause they’d sided the kid in the bus
hwhacking.’
‘I’m pleased he didn’t kill the hop headed son-of-a-bitch,’ Smith said quietly, yet there was a chill of deadly menace in his tone. As Sheriff Daniel Tobin had not mentioned finding the bodies of the murdered men, he assumed they were taken away by the fleeing party for some reason and disposed of, possibly by being sunk in the Rio Grande. ‘’Cause I’ve got notions along those lines myself.’
‘So Dan told me,’ Beech admitted. ‘And, even if it wasn’t for what they’re working on now, I’d be willing to help you.’
‘I’m obliged, amigo,’ Smith declared with genuine sincerity. Then, as something in the voice of the secret agent had warned the latest affairs of Teodoro Fuentes went beyond just being of considerable importance, he continued, ‘Just what is it they’re working on now?’
‘Have you heard of anthrax?’
‘Some. Folks do say it’s a mighty fierce kind of illness and real easy to be catching to boot.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. Once it takes off, it spreads like a wind-blown prairie fire—And Fuentes’ crowd aim to see that it gets spread all through Texas.’
‘How?’
‘Seems there was an outbreak down south a ways not too long back, but it was stopped afore it got out of hand. Only these liber-rads got hold some blood from cattle’s had it and they’re planning to use it on the herds they’re sending into Texas.’
‘ I thought you had to be near a critter that had it afore you can catch it,’ Smith remarked, showing no sign of the grave concern he felt as he visualized what would happen to his home State if the scheme succeeded.
‘They reckon not,’ Beech replied. ‘They allow it can be given by using a hypodermic syringe to put the blood from one’s had it into another that hasn’t.’ lvi
‘Is that Doc Grantz’s notion?’ the Texan inquired, glancing at his gloved hands and realizing he had not seen or even heard any mention of the man responsible for their mutilation since reaching Ascension.
