He shook his head. “Can’t be, señor. Got to tend to the old ranchero, go pretend to be a patron. You going to come over tonight?”
“Hell, no!” I said. “Or if I do I’m bringing my own liquor. No more damn brandy.”
“We’ll get the girls to dance again and maybe this time you’ll see them.”
I just sipped my coffee and didn’t say anything. I wanted to ask him how dangerous was it to call him a liar, but I thought I’d let that slide for the time being. Sure he’d won those girls. If that’s what he wanted to say, it was fine with me.
* * *
I got into the bank a little before ten. I got there early because I wanted to deposit a large chunk of the big roll I was carrying around. But before I could even explain myself to a clerk, he directed me back to the president’s office as soon as I gave my name. Mister Sloan’s office was at the back right corner of the bank. It was enclosed, but part of the wall that looked out onto the bank was glass. I figured Mister Sloan had it rigged that way so he could look out and see who was working and who was sitting around trying to figure out how to get some of the bank’s money home.
When I opened the door Mister Sloan stood up. “Ah, good! Mister Williams. Glad to meet you.” He stuck out his hand.
Mister Sloan was a friendly-looking fellow in a lightweight suit and tie. I figured him to be around forty years of age. I took his hand and we shook. He said, “Your bank wire arrived this morning so everything is in order for the big race. Me and Mister Flood have just been going over the race agreement. Which is to say, the terms under which, and to whom, I’m to release the money in an account labeled Race Escrow as your banker’s telegram instructed. Is that how you understand it?”
“I suppose so,” I said. I looked over at Flood. He was in a corner, all huddled up in a wooden armchair that looked too big for him. He had his cane between his legs, his hands on top of the cane, and his chin on top of his hands. He was dressed in another black suit. I was beginning to reckon he didn’t own any other color. Or maybe he just wanted to be ready for the undertaker and not put him to any extra trouble changing his clothes.
Flood raised his eyes to me. “Good morning, Mister Williams.”
I just looked at him for a long second. “It’s morning, all right, Flood. You got that part right.”
Mister Sloan was still standing. He looked back and forth between me and Flood. He said, “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head. I sat down in the other chair on the visitors’ side of the desk. “No. Let’s get on with it.”
Sloan picked up a paper. “Mister Flood and I have been wording the terms of the race and the conditions. Normally we would have waited for you, but Mister Flood assured me you and he had already agreed in substance. Besides, it’s the standard agreement for most of our big-money match races around here, Mister Williams. If you’re not familiar, we have a racing committee made up of people interested in the sport. They’re mostly well-to-do ranchers. I’m proud to say I’m chairman of the committee.” He smiled. He seemed like a straight enough fellow. But how would you crook a race? Two fellows each say his horse is best. You race them and the first one over the finish line wins. I just wanted to be sure about the money.
I said, “When does the money get handed out?”
“Why, right afterwards, I suppose. All I know is that I’ve got a sum of money, thirty-two thousand dollars, in an escrow account that I’m to release to the winner. But let me read you the agreement.”
I could just see the top of the paper he was holding in his hands. It was written in a nice flowing script. I figured Sloan had done it. Bankers get a lot of chances to practice their penmanship.
Mister Sloan cleared his throat. “Agreement and terms of a horse race between J.C. Flood of Del Rio, Texas, and Justa Williams of Matagorda County, Texas. Race to be held July 9th, 1899 at four P.M. at the racetrack immediately next to the Del Rio Fairgrounds. Race distance is to be one mile, or one circuit of the measured mile around the Del Rio Fairgrounds racetrack. Purse is to be that amount of money held in the Cattleman’s National Bank under escrow name of Horse Race Escrow Account. Amount in that account as of July 6th, 1899 is thirty-two thousand dollars. A further provision of this match race, it being noted as it being somewhat unusual, is that the winner of the match race shall claim and possess both of the racehorses entered in the race and possession of the loser’s horse shall go to the winner within twenty-four hours of the end of the match race.
“Any horse in the ownership of the two entrants can be run in this race as this race is made without specifying any two horses. The only exception to this rule being that both entrants must have been in the sole possession of both owners at least thirty days prior to the date of this race. Further—”
I was suddenly on my feet. “Wait a minute!” I said. “What was that last part?”
Mister Sloan looked up at me. “What last part?”
“That the racehorse had to be in the possession of the owner thirty days prior to the race.”
Sloan said, “That’s correct.”
“Like hell!”
Sloan looked a little startled. “Come now, Mister Williams, I would have thought you’d understood that. Mister Flood said he mentioned it to you. It’s common practice around here.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard about it.” I turned and looked at Flood. He just stared back. “Flood never said the first damn word about you had to own the horse thirty days before the race.”
Sloan said, “Well, it’s saved no end of squabbling around here. Our race committee came up with that rule a couple of years ago.” He gave me a little wink. “Saved folks the trouble of running in ringers, if you know what I mean. Seems some of our racehorse owners would act like they were going to run one horse, and then they’d somehow buy or borrow or rent another horse right before the race. A very superior horse, if you know what I mean.”
I said, “This is not going to work.”
Mister Sloan frowned. “This is no reflection on you, Mister Williams. I’ve heard of you and your family and your ranch, the Half-Moon. It was just that some of our members found ways to borrow or rent outstanding racehorses over in Mexico. As a rule, and I mention this because I believe this race is for the most money we’ve ever had around here, they couldn’t afford to buy the horses because the purse usually wouldn’t cover the purchase price. I mean, we weren’t trying to say that a man couldn’t buy a good racehorse. No, sir, that wasn’t the intention at all. So we put that thirty-day rule on to make sure a man had actually bought the horse to keep and not just to run in one race. You can see the logic of that, can’t you, Mister Williams?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, “I can.” I turned and looked at Flood again. “But I just wasn’t told. I’m going to have to object to this race.”
Before the bank president could speak, Flood said, “Ray, I wonder if you’d give us a minute so I can speak with Mister Williams about this little misunderstanding. I’d thank you very much.”
Sloan looked puzzled but he said, “Why, sure. I needed a word with one of my tellers anyway. Give me a wave when you’re done.”
He left the office, closing the door behind him. I turned on Flood. “Now what is all this thirty-day shit you just dreamed up?”
“I did not dream it up. It is a part of the race committee’s rules for match races.”
“I don’t give a damn about some race committee’s rules. This is a match race between you and me and I’m damned if I’ll be bound by—”
“You are not going to run that black Thoroughbred.”
I stopped. I stared at him.
He lifted his chin from his hands. “Oh, yes, I know about the horse. Have for several days. Almost from the moment you spirited him out of the stable and took him over to Mister Wilson Young’s ranch. You will remember that I warned you about that association. But I’ve seen the horse. In fact I even had the pleasure yesterday morning of watching you run your roan against the bla
ck ridden by Mister Young. The animal is indeed a fine racehorse.”
“We didn’t name any horses when this bet was made. You going to run your long-backed strawberry roan?”
He smiled. “That would be my business. But whatever horse I run I can prove sole possession of for more than thirty days.”
“How do you know I’ve owned the roan for thirty days?”
He smiled again. “Oh, I’ll grant you that one, Mister Williams. I have to. You have no other animal. But you’re not going to come into this town trying to pass off a Thoroughbred racing horse as a pack animal. I’m not that stupid, Mister Williams.”
My anger was slowly coming to a boil. But it was running a close race with the frustration I was feeling. “Flood, you know fucking well that my packhorse got hurt. You ought to, it was your men slung the stick of dynamite at me. I come by that black by accident.”
“And accidentally brought him to a racing town on the Fourth of July.”
“You sonofabitch! I didn’t bring him anywhere! I was brought. Are you going to say next that I knew we’d end up settling this with a horse race and that I had the black planted just so I could fetch him into town to run you a horse race for thirty-two thousand dollars?”
He leaned back in his chair and spread his hands out, palms upward. “I know what I see. And Mister Wilson Young was seen leading that black across the bridge to Mexico. Did you not think you’d be watched, Mister Williams? Did you think I was going to ignore you and let you leave town with my money?”
“Little man,” I said as calmly as I could, “you are crazy as hell.”
“And did you think I didn’t know you and Mister Wilson Young were old friends?”
“You’re getting crazier,” I said.
“Or that he wouldn’t have advised you in advance that my passion was horse racing.”
“You’re a lunatic,” I said. “We can just forget this race.” I stood up. “Or I’m going to forget this race. You can run Bank Money against himself, but I’m not going to run the roan colt at a mile against that kind of horse. I might just as well hand you the thirty-two thousand dollars and be done with it.”
“That’s what I advised you in the first place. And you would still be better off doing it right now. I assure you you will lose far more in the long run. I am determined to do exactly as I told you I would, Mister Williams. That’s a very valuable purebred herd of Herefords you have. You’ll defend them. Or you’ll try. And your brothers will try. And your men will try. But it won’t do any good. You can’t defend a herd of cattle night and day from long-range rifle fire. A lot of your men will get hurt or killed.”
“So will you.”
He laughed. “I don’t have long to live, Mister Williams. I keep telling you that I have nothing to lose. You don’t listen.”
I sat there, staring at him, listening to him driving the nails into the lid of the box he had me in. “You are the foulest man I ever met in my life, bar none. Before this is over you may have to prove to me that you don’t care whether you live or die. I think that’s a bluff you’re running.”
“Then call it.”
I considered my options. They were not many. We had come back to the place we’d started from so many weeks ago. I could make it back to Blessing, but then what? What would happen at the ranch? And when would it happen?
As if he were reading my mind Flood said, “And of course you won’t know when I will attack. When my men will attack, the men that I send because I will be sitting in comfort in Del Rio. It might be six months, it might be the first week. But all the time you’ll be on edge, worried, looking over your shoulder.”
The best idea was to play for time. Saturday was four days away. In that four days I might just decide to kill Flood. But to do so would make me no better than he was. Thus far in my life I had never killed a man who hadn’t been a threat to my life. Flood wasn’t a threat to my life, he was a threat to our money. But I was maybe going to make an exception in his case.
I said, “All right. Call Sloan.”
The rest of the agreement had to do with one rider interfering with the other or using his mount to impede the progress of the other horse. Other than that there weren’t any rules. We’d start when the gun went off, and the winner would be decided by a panel of three judges, two of them making a majority. We had to name our horses, or nominate them as Sloan phrased it, and of course, I named the roan colt. Flood named Bank Money.
I said to Sloan, “I’d like you to be one of the judges and I’d like you to pick the other two and the starter. I’m a stranger here and don’t know nobody as Mister Flood does.”
Sloan looked at Flood. Flood nodded and spread out his hands. He said, “I’d be honored to have you as head of the judges.”
I could see Milton just outside the glass in the lobby of the bank. I guessed he’d been sitting, waiting. To kill Flood, it was a pretty good cinch a man would need to kill Milton first, since he was always there.
I got up. “Anything else?”
Sloan shook his head. “No, that’s all that I know of. Mister Flood?”
Flood said, looking at me, “I’ll give you four thousand dollars for that black.”
I didn’t even bother to answer him, just walked out of the office and out of the bank. Only when I was back at the hotel did I remember I’d forgotten to leave part of the big roll I was carrying at the bank. Not that it mattered that much. Next to what I was fixing to lose that little sum didn’t amount to much.
I went up to my rooms, sat down, poured myself out a drink in the bedroom part, and stared out the window onto the main street. I was in a mighty low mood. Worse, I was in a mighty frustrated mood. I just couldn’t think of anything to do, anything that would square up the situation. I didn’t recall ever running up against a knot I couldn’t figure out some way to undo.
About five o’clock I got my horse and rode across the bridge and headed for Wilson’s ranchito. As I topped the rise and approached the little hacienda I could see a figure sitting under the sloping porch roof. It was Wilson. He was sitting in a cane-bottomed chair with it tilted back against the front wall of the house, his boot heels hooked in the lowest rung of the chair. He had a glass in his hand. I had no doubt it was full of brandy. I rode up to the hitching post he had out front of the porch. He said, “Step down, stranger. Got firewater and girls. And we cater to the rough trade.”
I swung down to the ground. “Well, I feel rough. You got that part right.”
The kid came running out to take my horse, but I was going to wave him away. Wilson said to the kid, “No, take him to the barn and cool his back out. Hell, Justa, you got time for a drink or two.”
“Maybe one,” I said. “But it’s going to be mine. Not your damn brandy.” I got in my saddlebags before the kid could lead my horse off and came out with a nearly full quart of whiskey. I stepped up into the cool of the porch and dragged up another chair. I uncorked the whiskey. Wilson said, “You want a glass?”
“Naw.” I took a short swallow of the whiskey. I really wasn’t in much of a mood to drink.
Wilson said, “You and Flood meet at the bank?”
“Yeah.” I paused and had another sip of whiskey. Without much ado I told him what had happened. He brought his chair to all four legs with a thump against the tile that lined the porch floor. “Aw, shit!”
I looked down at the tile floor. “That pretty well describes it.”
“I don’t get it why you signed that agreement. As good a horse as that roan colt is he can’t beat Bank Money.”
I shrugged. “Stalling for time,” I said. “Today’s Wednesday. Lot can happen between now and Saturday at four of the afternoon. Besides, what choice did I have?”
Wilson took a drink. “What about the black?”
I shrugged again. “What the hell, if you don’t mind, why, just keep working him.”
“Maybe we can paint him.”
I smiled, for the first time that day. “Know where we can ge
t some roan paint?”
“Wonder how he got on to the black?”
“Shouldn’t have been hard. Not with them watching me all the time. Why would you take my packhorse with you to Mexico? Maybe the men watching me didn’t recognize the animal as a Thoroughbred, but I reckon they had enough to say to get Flood’s suspicions up. Of course when he got a look, that was it.” I told him what Flood had offered me for the horse.
“Hell, I’d of sold him the animal. On the spot.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t sell that sonofabitch a dry cow, much less a good running horse. I’m amazed he’d even make the offer.”
“Aw, the hell with it. The girls are making enchiladas with chili gravy and cheese. Let’s get drunk and have a good meal and worry about it tomorrow.”
I had a pretty good time, but I didn’t get drunk. The enchiladas were mighty good, but the girls didn’t dance. I said to Wilson, “How come the girls only dance when I’m so drunk I can’t remember?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” he said. “Maybe strong drink affects your eyes. But don’t say nothing to the girls about it. Might hurt their feelings. They are awful sensitive about their dancin’.”
I give him a gimlet-eyed look. I said, “If they really are dancers get them to dance right now when I’m damn certain I can see.”
We were sitting in what Wilson insisted on calling his parlor, though it didn’t look like any parlor I’d ever seen, not with saddles and saddle blankets and rifles and such scattered all over the place. The girls were out and around in the kitchen.
Wilson said, “Why, they can’t dance now. They got the kitchen to clean up and the dishes to wash. Besides, they ain’t no guitarist.”
“Guitarist?” I gave him another look. “Are you fixing to tell me there was a guitarist here the other night? Somebody playing the guitar?”
He just shook his head kind of sadly. “Justa, have you ever seen a dancer dance without somebody playing the guitar?”
Well, of course I hadn’t, and I said so.
“See there,” Wilson said. “You can’t expect them to dance without a guitar player.” He glanced at the glass in my hand. “You might want to start going a little slower on that firewater.”
Gunpoint Page 25
