Massacre River (A Neal Fargo Western) #5

by John Benteen

  He called back: “Okay. You’re the winner. Come on down.”

  ~*~

  And then they came, out of the shadowy forest above, shadows moving in deeper blackness, rifles leveled. They slid a little on the pine needles, but there were dozens of them, and there was no chance to fight. Ranged all across the slope they descended on Fargo and his party.

  He waited. As he did so, the American’s voice, deep with drawl, rang out again. “You’re bein’ smart, Mr. Fargo. You’ll be even smarter if you lay off all them weapons of yours.”

  “Come out where I can see you and I will.”

  “You don’t have no choice.” A rifle snarled again; ashes flew out of the fire. “You undo them guns or I’ll drop you where you stand.”

  Fargo sucked in a deep breath. Then he said: “Don’t get trigger-loose. I wear a lot of gear. It’ll take a while to drop it.”

  “Begin now. With the goddam shotgun. Throw it far out.”

  Fargo, staring into the shadows, unslung the Fox riot gun. It hurt, but he obeyed. He tossed the weapon outside the rim of firelight. Then he unbuckled his pistol belt and threw it after it. “Get rid of all your weapons,” he snapped to the rest of the party. “They’ve got us cold.”

  Beside him, Chuang snarled something. But he threw his pistol after Fargo’s shotgun. Weatherbee and O’Bannon followed suit. So did the cargadores. Even the Bontoc Igorots and the Negritos unsheathed their bolos and dropped them on the other side of the fire and tossed their bows after them.

  There was a whispering in the pines. Then armed men slid into the firelight, short, stocky Tagalogs, with leveled rifles. Fargo checked their weapons: Krags; old breech-loading, single-shot Springfields; and repeating Lee Navy Rifles. Obsolete as the arms were, there was not one incapable of killing a man promptly and accurately. Fargo’s Winchester would outshoot any weapon in the bunch; but it lay on his saddle, yards away.

  Then they were encircled by the riflemen, and yet the man with the American voice had not appeared. But that same tone rapped out words in Tagalog and Ilokano, and the men around the fire with pointed guns answered. There was the scrape of sliding heels on the slope.

  Then General Luna came into the firelight.

  Fargo stared at him; and his mouth dropped open. He had been prepared for anything but this.

  General Luna was a white man of about thirty, tall, wide-shouldered, slim-hipped, and handsome. He carried a Winchester carbine himself and had it leveled at Fargo’s belly. But that was not what made Fargo stare.

  He had not expected General Luna to be clad in the uniform of a General in the Army of the Confederate States of America.

  General Luna caught his balance on level ground, beyond the fire, and with the Winchester muzzle unwavering, he bowed slightly, and his handsome face, sun-burnt with a tropical tan, twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘”Well,” he said, “you whipped two different details I sent out after you. For a Yankee, you fight pretty damned good.”

  “A Yankee,” Fargo said. “I’m no Yankee. I grew up in New Mexico.”

  The younger man laughed shortly. “You’ve served in the United States Army. That makes you a Yankee as far as I’m concerned. Galvanized, maybe, but a Yankee all the same.”

  “Maybe,” Fargo said. His eyes ran up and down General Luna. “All the same, you’re wearing a uniform that hasn’t been in style for nearly fifty years.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” General Luna laughed. “It’ll be in high style before long. When we take over the Philippine Islands.”

  “We,” said Fargo. His eyes narrowed, but his hands were still raised high. “Who the hell are you, anyhow?”

  The younger man chuckled. “General Luna, of course. But, you—you can call me Spott.”

  “Spott?”

  “Spottswood Carter. Maybe you’ve heard of my father, one of the Carters of Northrop Hall in Virginia. He rode with Jeb Stewart. He killed a lot of Yankees in his time.”

  Fargo, disbelieving all of this, shook his head violently. “Hell. I don’t understand.”

  Spott Carter laughed once more; he seemed to laugh easily. His whole bearing was jaunty. He sat down across the fire, but his Winchester never lost its centering on Fargo’s belly. “You can put your hands down now. I’m not worried about you any longer. You and I both know that if you make a bad move, you’re dead. You want to sit down?”

  “Yes,” said Fargo.

  “Then sit,” Spott Carter said.

  Fargo did so. He had lost all fear now; curiosity had overmastered it. He said: “I can’t get this straight. You’re General Luna. You’re starting another Philippine Insurrection. But you’re cavorting around here in that gray uniform. And you say you’re from Virginia.” Spott Carter cradled the Winchester on his knees. “Actually, I’ve never seen Virginia. Neither has my sister. But my daddy’s from there, like I said. Will Carter was the youngest general in the Confederate cavalry. He fought all through the War of Independence.”

  “You mean the Civil War.”

  Carter’s blue eyes narrowed. “I mean the War of Independence. Listen, Fargo. The Yankees claimed they whipped us. Maybe they did; I wasn’t there. But they didn’t whip everybody—they didn’t whip people like my daddy. Nobody could whip a man who hated the Federal Government, the United States of America, like he did. After fighting against it for four years, he couldn’t stand the sight of them goddam Stars and Stripes.”

  “There were a lot of Rebels who couldn’t.”

  “Don’t ever call him a Rebel where he can hear you. A Secessionist, maybe, a Confederate certainly— but not a Rebel.” Carter’s voice rasped. “He’s seventy years old now, but he’ll come right out of his chair and whack off your head with a saber if you call him a Rebel.”

  Fargo was silent for a moment. He was building conjectures, trying to put all this together. Then he said, “I think I understand. Was your father one of those Confederates who left the United States and headed for South America rather than take the Oath of Allegiance?”

  “That’s right. He and my mama went to Uruguay. Stayed there for a while, didn’t like it, came to the Philippines when the Islands were still Spanish. Built himself up a plantation not far from the Valley of the Boar. Thought he had got so far from the United States that he’d never see a Yankee soldier again.”

  Then Carter’s voice crackled. “But, of course, it didn’t work out that way. You bastards came in, whipped the Spaniards, and then he found himself living under the very thing he had come here to get away from—Yankee rule.”

  “I see,” Fargo murmured.

  “Only, my daddy doesn’t take things like that lying down. He’s a fighter, he is, and he’s raised me and my sister to be fighters too. He’s raised us to despise that damned flag of yours.”

  “And so now you’re trying to chase it out of the Philippines.”

  “Right.” Spott Carter grinned. “We’ll do it, too. My daddy knows all these tribes up here in the north. He knows Moros and Visayans. And most of all, he knows the Tagalogs. He’s united them, Fargo. Built a new nation—or will build one, eventually. The Confederate States of the Philippines. After we drive the Yankees out.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Fargo said. “Idiotic. He can’t drive the Yankees out.”

  “You think not?” Carter fished in the pocket of the gray wool blouse he wore, took out a cigarette, thrust it between full lips. He lit it with a brand from the fire, then tilted back his rain-drenched slouch hat. “We can eat the American army alive, Fargo. There’s a war in Europe, now, and you may be in it soon. You’ve got not only the Philippines, but Hawaii, Guam, and a lot of other places to look after, not counting the Panama Canal. Meanwhile, if the Moros and the Visayans and the Tagalogs and the Ilokanos and the Igorots and all the other hundreds of tribes here rise against you, fighting for their independence—” he laughed shortly. “They don’t make that many soldiers in the States. Don’t worry; my old, man’s a military genius. He tells me what to do, and I
do it, and we’ve never missed yet. We’ll fight like Mosby did, partisans, harassing you from both flanks, swooping down on you in the dead of night. Our men know the Islands, your cavalry soldiers don’t. We’ll run you out of here all right. Never fear. We’ll run you out—”

  Fargo said: “You keep talking like I was a noncom or an officer in the Army. I’m not. I’m in business for myself. All I hired out to do was to deliver a woman to a Chinese who wanted to marry her, up in the Valley of the Boar. After that, I don’t give a damn—”

  “Ah, yes,” Carter said, grinning. “But we do. On account of you’re toting so much money with you.”

  “Money?” Fargo tried to look innocent.

  “Don’t hand me that crap,” said Carter. “You’ve got a hundred thousand dollars in gold and silver with you. And that lovely young lady is worth another hundred thousand, easily, from her father or the prospective bridegroom. You see, Fargo, we stay in touch with what goes on in Manila; we keep our ear to the ground.” His good humor vanished.

  “We mounted two operations against you. You knocked them both down. I figured the third time, I’d better lead the detail in person. I found out that you come down into the valley. I figured you’d meet up with these Igorots. And I figured something else, too; that you’d try to move to the Valley of the Boar off the main roads. I sent out scouts; and we picked you up.” His white teeth showed in a grin. “You’re a good fighting man, Fargo. But you ain’t any match for a man who’s been trained by a member of Jeb Stuart’s cavalry.”

  “Well,” Fargo said, almost mildly, “I didn’t know you were here. I thought I was up against Filipinos.”

  “But I am here,” Carter laughed. “And now I’ve got you. And your money, which will buy a lot of weapons. And the girl, and her ransom will buy a lot more. And we’ll use them all to run the American Army out of the Islands. So, you see?” Then his brows came down and his eyes narrowed. “You’ll go north, all right, Fargo. You’ll go north to my father’s house. There we’ll decide what to do with you. Maybe you’ll even throw in with us. But while we’re traveling, you’ll ride with your guns and knife off and your hands tied to the saddle. Because, you see? It’s my father that decides everything. General Will Carter. He is the man, as they say here in the Islands. He is the One.”

  “The One,” said Fargo, comprehending the use of the Island idiom. It meant supreme ruler.

  “Yes,” said Spott Carter, looking at him with cold eyes. “He is the One.”

  ~*~

  And so, when they set out the next morning, they were all captives. A large train now, the Filipinos mounted on wiry, mountain-wise native ponies, the Negritos herded along like cattle, and the Igorots forced to lead the way at gunpoint, they rode north.

  It was a long, tortuous trail. They threaded through jungle-green valleys. They crested pine-clad mountains. They circled gigantic, ancient rice-field terraces. They passed through lonesome, remote villages of thatched huts on stilts, stared at by naked men and women of tribes whose names Fargo could not even guess at. More than once, they saw fresh-chopped heads drying on the stakes before the palisades. It rained and the sun came out and it rained again. The earth had a smell of its own. All the different parts of the world, Fargo had found out, had their own, individual smells. Mexico, the Southwest desert, California, the Alaskan tundra: he thought that he could be blindfolded and identify the earth across which he rode by its smell. Oddly enough, to him the Philippines always smelled like ashes.

  There was never any doubt about who was in charge of the column. The handsome Spott Carter rode up and down the line, his heavy blouse removed, wedged between his body and the saddle-pommel. His gun was always at the ready. Sometimes he jogged along beside Fargo. Then they talked.

  “You know, Fargo, we have spies in Manila. Actually, we even have them, still, in the United States. My father is not the only one who hates the government. In the South—well, we have people who write us. Even in Texas. That was part of the Confederacy, too. And the others—the ones who went to Central and South America. You’d be surprised how often your name has cropped up. We knew about you, even before we heard that you were back in Manila again and talking to Jonathan Ching. We knew about the money and the girl. What we didn’t know was that what we heard wasn’t exaggerated. We didn’t believe any fighting man like you had existed since the old days. That cost us a lot of soldiers—at the train robbery outside of Tarlac, in the ambush. Then I knew I had to come on you myself.”

  “You did a good job of it,” Fargo said. His mouth made a wolf’s grin. His hands were tightly lashed to the saddle horn. “I ought to have my butt kicked for letting you surprise me that way.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I was raised in this country. I know all the languages and every hill and valley. So does Marcy.”

  “Marcy?” Fargo looked at him.

  “My sister.” Carter’s face turned strangely flinty. “The bitch,” he said; and his voice was a rasp.

  Fargo said, his voice subtle, toneless, “I never heard a Southern gentleman talk that way about his sister.”

  “No Southern gentleman ever had a sister like mine.” Carter thrust a cigarette between his lips. He said again, fervently: “The bitch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Carter gathered his horse up, pulling back on the reins, impelling it with his heels. “Never mind what I mean, goddam you,” he said and he wheeled the mount and went back down the column. A moment more and he had fallen alongside of Jade Ching, whose hands were also lashed to her saddle. Fargo heard his laugh, deep, masculine, as he spoke to her. There was a pause. Then he heard her laugh too.

  ~*~

  Three days. Three days of winding through trackless wilderness, cresting rugged mountains, fording swift-flowing streams. Then, on the morning of the fourth, they came up a ridge and Carter, alongside Fargo, reined in.

  The column halted on the almost bare humpback, its only growth underbrush up to their mounts’ withers. Before them stretched more mountains, in a vast, undulating, smoky range. But immediately below them lay a deep, folded valley, its walls jungle-clad. In its bottom, Fargo discerned dwellings. He said, “Is that where we are going?”

  “Yes,” Carter said. “Down there is the Northrop Hall of Luzon.” Then he raised his hand in a cavalry signal and the column, as he brought it down, moved out....

  They went down the slope. As they neared the valley, Fargo saw what the settlement looked like. In the clearing, there was a very large town of grass or nipa-palm huts. Behind it, there were more of the huge, ancient rice terraces. The town itself was surrounded by a high, solid palisade. The palisade extended, in two wings, up the hill beneath the rice terraces to encompass what looked like a white blot from a distance, but which, as they neared it, resolved itself into an astonishingly magnificent house. “That’s where you live,” said Fargo.

  “Yes. Our own Northrop Hall. Different from the one in Virginia. My father had the materials for this brought in from Spain.”

  They passed through the gates of the palisade. These were manned by Filipinos toting Krag-Jorgensens. Then they jogged through the village of bee-hive shaped huts on stilts, with its neighing horses, grunting pigs, and barking dogs—and, Fargo saw, its heads on posts: and these heads were not all those of natives. He looked, then turned away, as he recognized what could only have been the heads of American soldiers.

  “What tribe is this?” he asked Carter.

  “None you’ve ever heard of. This is a whole nation, right here. Like one of those little Indian tribes out west in the States. They owe no allegiance to anyone except us. It’s a helluva good base of operations. They’re at war with everybody except themselves— and us and the people we tell them are our friends. You wouldn’t believe how savage they are. My father had to kill seven of their headmen before they realized he meant business.”

  To Fargo, they did not look vastly different from other tribes: dark, mostly naked. But then, as they passed through the vill
age, he went tense in the saddle. He had glimpsed a dozen men in embroidered garb that covered them to their necks and hung down to their knees. “Wait,” he said to Carter. “I saw some that looked like Moros.”

  Carter laughed. “They were Moros. For God’s sake, man, my father has been out here since 1872. Did you think he would have lived here this long without getting the Sultans on his side, too?”

  “They don’t like white men,” Fargo said. “Not Christians, anyhow.”

  “We’re not Christians,” Carter said. “Were just Confederates, that’s all. We’ll deal with anybody.”

  Fargo stared at him with hard eyes. “So it’s you. You waited until Pershing left, then stirred up the Moros down south.”

  Carter chuckled. “Oh, you’re smart. Nobody has ever figured that out but you. We couldn’t whip Pershing, but that Johnny-come-lately they sent in to take his place ... What the hell does he know about the Oriental mind?” He turned to Fargo, his patrician features sharply limned against the sunlight, his eyes cool. “Forty-two years ago my father came here. With some money and his kind of brilliance—the kind of brilliance that always looks into the future—he cultivated ties with all the tribes, kept them stirred up against the Spaniards and against the Americans ... now the time has come to move. And we’ll move. I lead his field operations, as General Luna; but he tells me what to do and where to go. And we’ll co-ordinate an uprising of Moros, Tagalogs, Visayans, the whole bunch, against your stinking Yankee government.”

  “This stinking Yankee government has made these Islands richer than they ever were before.”

  “Ha!” said Spott Carter, and he slapped his horse with the reins. “Tell Marcy that. It sounds like her kind of talk. But don’t say it in front of my old man.” He stood up in the stirrups, swept his arm forward. “Gallop, ho-o-o.” And the column raced ahead.

  Chapter Eight