Revenge of Eagles

CHAPTER 14

There was a comforting familiarity to the interior of a general store. It was redolent with the scent of coffee beans, ground flour, smoked meat, and various spices. The shelves behind the clerk’s counter were colorful displays of can labels—yellows, reds, blues—advertising beans, peaches, peas, and tomatoes. A calendar on the back wall had the smiling picture of a young girl holding a bar of soap.

BUY PEARL’S SOAP, the legend said.

A long string of peppers hung from a nail, adding their own aroma to the other smells.

Falcon was here, buying the supplies he would need to sustain him during the time he would be on the trail of Fargo Ford and the others. As he called for each item, the store clerk, a tall, thin man with snow-white hair and a beard, would find it, then bring it back to the front, adding the item to an increasing pile. As he added each item, he would take a pencil from behind his ear, sharpen it between his teeth, then add the item and the price to his running total.

“Will there be anything else for you, Mr. MacCallister?” the store clerk asked, putting his pencil back behind his ear. He wiped his hands on an apron that might have been white at one time.

“Let’s see,” Falcon said, looking over the pile. “Bacon, flour, beans, coffee, salt, matches, tobacco.” He paused and looked up at the clerk. “Do you have any horehound candy?”

“Horehound is it? Yes, sir, I believe I do. How many sticks do you want?”

“Around twenty, if you have that many,” Falcon said.

The store clerk chuckled. “I wonder if the people across the country who read in the dime novels about the exploits of the great Falcon MacCallister know about this sweet tooth of yours?”

“Shh,” Falcon said, laying his finger across his lips. “We’ll keep it our secret, won’t we?”

“Turn out, turn out!” someone was yelling from outside the store. “Everyone, turn out!”

“What in the world is going on out there?” the store clerk asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll take a look,” Falcon said. He walked to the front window and looked out onto the street. In response to the man’s shout for everyone to turn out, the street was beginning to fill with the citizens of Oro Blanco.

“Do you see anything?” the clerk asked.

“No, just a bunch of people milling about,” Falcon said back over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll go out there to have a look. What do I owe you?”

“Just a minute, let me sum it all up,” the clerk answered. Once again he took the pencil from behind his ear, sharpened it with his teeth, then began writing on the little piece of paper. “Put down the five and carry the two,” he said, talking to himself as he figured.

At that moment the door opened and Sheriff Corbin stepped inside. The clerk looked up as he did so.

“I’ll be right with you, Sheriff,” the clerk said. “I’m just finishin’ up here.” He held up the paper and examined it. “Mr. MacCallister, it looks like the whole thing is goin’ to come to six dollars and forty cents.”

“Six dollars and forty cents for that little dab of supplies,” Falcon said. He shook his head. “It’s getting real expensive just to live.”

“Put it on my bill, Mr. Dobbins,” Sheriff Corbin said to the clerk. “As he is doing a job for the city, I just got authorization from the city council. Give him anything he wants.”

“Very good, Sheriff, if you say so,” Mr. Dobbins replied.

“Sheriff, what’s all the commotion out there?” Falcon asked.

“Do you know that harness drummer Johnson? Arnold Johnson, I think his name is. He’s from Calabasas.”

“Yes, I know him. We came into town on the same stage. Not a pleasant man.”

“Yeah, well, right now he is also not a living man,” Sheriff Corbin said.

“What happened?”

“Yesterday, Mr. Johnson rented a team and a buckboard from the livery. His plan was to go up to Arivica and call on some of his clients up there. Evidently, he ran into trouble on the way up. This morning the rented team came back into town pulling the buckboard.”

“Without Johnson?” Falcon asked.

“No, Johnson come with ’em, all right. He’s in the buckboard,” Sheriff Corbin said. “Dead.” He paused for a moment, then added, “He don’t look pretty. The thing is, I don’t know if it was done by Indians, or by someone who wanted to make us think it was Indians.”

“By someone, you mean, like Fargo Ford?”

“Yes.”

“Let me take a look,” Falcon said.

“Come on, I’ll show him to you. He’s still in the buckboard, and that’s over at the livery. I told the undertaker to keep him there until you got a look at him. I figured you’d be able to tell a bit more about what happened than the rest of us.”

When Falcon followed the sheriff out into the street, he saw that a rather substantial crowd of people had gathered in the street at the front of the livery. It wasn’t just curious men, though. Women and children were in the crowd as well, all of them buzzing about the excitement.

“Look’s like the whole town has turned out,” Falcon said.

“Not much happens in Oro Blanco,” the sheriff said. “So when something does happen, it creates a lot of interest. We’re comin’ through, so make way,” he called as they approached the crowd. “You folks make way, let us through here.”

The crowd separated enough to let Sheriff Corbin and Falcon pass. When they approached the buckboard, they saw that a tarpaulin had been put over the body.

“Pull the tarp back,” Falcon said. “I want to have a look.”

“It ain’t pretty,” the liveryman said as he reached for the piece of canvas that covered the body lying in the back of the buckboard.

“Hold on a minute, Jimmy,” the sheriff said, holding out his hand to stop the liveryman from turning the tarp back. Corbin turned to address the crowd. “Now, some of you already know this fella has been butchered up pretty good,” he said. “So if there’s anyone among you that’s got a queasy stomach and don’t want to see this, I’d advise you to turn your heads now,” he said. “I’m sorry to do this, but we’ve got to take a look.”

A few of the women did turn away, forcing their children to turn away as well, but most did not. And some of the more morbidly curious actually moved nearer to the buckboard for a closer look.

The liveryman put his hands back on the tarp and looked up at the sheriff. Corbin nodded, and the liveryman pulled the tarp back.

There were several gasps from the crowd.

“Oh, my God!” one of the women who had not turned away said.

“Would you look at that?” a man said.

Johnson was lying on his back. His eye sockets were bloody holes. His stomach had been cut open and his entrails were hanging out. His right hand was missing. He had also been scalped, and Falcon examined the method by which the scalp was taken. The knife cut had started in the forehead, then made a complete circle around to the back of the neck. Following the cut, the hair was jerked off the top of the head, bringing the scalp with it.

This was, Falcon knew, the way the Indians scalped their victims.

Falcon looked into Johnson’s inside jacket pocket and pulled out a billfold. When he opened the billfold he found forty dollars in cash. He held the money up for the sheriff to see.

“Damn, whoever did it didn’t rob him, did they?” Corbin said.

Falcon shook his head. “All right, you can re-cover him now,” Falcon said.

The liveryman pulled the tarp back over Johnson’s body and Falcon walked away without saying a word, leaving the crowd behind him. He heard the sheriff moving quickly to catch up with him.

“It wasn’t Ford, was it?” Corbin asked. “Otherwise, he would’a took the money. Damn, I should’a checked that first thing myself.”

“It was Indians,” Falcon said simply.

“So, does this mean that Keytano has gone on the warpath?”

“Not necessarily. If I had to guess, I would say this is Chetopa’s doing. Chetopa and whoever he has managed to get to ride with him. I don’t believe it’s Keytano. And I’m sure that Chetopa only managed to get a handful to ride with him.”

“Nevertheless, I’d better ride up to Fort Lowell and let the Army know about this,” Sheriff Corbin said.

“I’ll go with you,” Falcon offered.

“I thought you were going after Fargo Ford and his bunch.”

“I am,” Falcon said. “But for the moment it’s clear that Chetopa represents the most danger to the people that live around here. So I think the first thing I’d better do is go after Chetopa.”

It was after dark when Fargo Ford and the others rode into the tiny town of Mesquite. Although it was dark, the town was still sweltering, slowly giving off the heat it had absorbed during the day.

It lay before them, bathed silver under the full moon. The buildings of the little town were, for the most part, low-lying structures of adobe. However, here and there, and prominent by the contrast, could be seen houses made of unpainted ripsawed lumber. Straw appeared to be the building material of choice for the roofs, though on a few of the more substantial buildings the roofs were of tile.

Little squares of light projected through a few of the windows, forming dim yellow splashes in front of the buildings. As the four men rode up the street, they passed in and out of these splashes of light so that sometimes they were visible, and sometimes they were not.

The yap of a barking dog came from behind one of the houses. The sound of a crying baby came from one of the other houses. Guitar music and the sound of a trumpet spilled out of the town’s one cantina, accompanied by laughter; a high-pitched trill from the women, and a deep guffaw from the men.

“Hey, Fargo, it’s been a long, hard ride. What do you say we tie up here for a little while and let’s get somethin’ to drink,” Dagen said.

“You got ’ny money?” Fargo asked.

“No, but you do.”

“What makes you think I got ’ny money?”

“I know you took a whole packet of money out of the money pouch, ’cause I seen you do it.”

“Yeah, I did, but for now, that’s all we got left. We’ve got to make it last until we get our money back,” Fargo said.

“What’s the use of havin’ it if we don’t spend some of it?” Dagen asked.

“Come on, Fargo, Dagen’s right,” Casey said. “I gotta have me somethin’ to drink to get the dust outta my throat. Hell, I’m that dry now that I can’t even work up a good spit.”

“Yeah, and I’d like somethin’ to eat too,” Monroe added. “Or was you maybe plannin’ on starvin’ us to death?”

“All right, all right, we’ll stop and get us somethin’ to eat and drink. Just quit your bellyachin’,” Fargo said, heading toward the cantina. “I need to ask a few questions anyway.”

The brightest building in town was clearly the cantina, with bright golden light shining through every window. The men tied their horses off in front of the cantina, then stepped up onto the little wooden porch and pushed through the curtain of hanging, clacking beads. It was easy to see why the inside was so brightly lit. It was accomplished by the expedient of using two wagon wheels suspended from the ceiling, each of which supported half-a-dozen lanterns. In addition to the overhead light, there were several lanterns placed on shelves around the walls. The result was a light that made the room almost daytime bright.

Mesquite was further north than Sassabi Flat, and whereas Sassabi Flat had been almost all Mexican, in this little town there appeared to be nearly as many Americans in the bar as there were Mexicans. Fargo found a table in the corner and then ordered a meal of beans, bacon, and cornbread.

“And beer,” Dagen said. “Don’t forget the beer.”

“And whiskey,” Casey added.

“And women,” Monroe said. “Don’t forget to send some of them women over.”

“We ain’t got time for no women,” Fargo said. “You seen what happened to us the other night when we was messin’ with the women.”

“Yeah, but that don’t count,” Monroe said.

“Why don’t it count?”

“’Cause it was one of us what done it to us. And there ain’t none of us goin’ to do somethin’ like that to us again,” Monroe said. “Not without I kill ’im first,” he added determinedly.

Fargo shook his head and chuckled. “Monroe, I’m sure there must be some sense in what you just said, but damn if I can figure it out.”

Evidently, Fargo’s admonition to his men to avoid the women had not reached the women themselves. For as the men were eating, a couple of the bar girls came up to the table. Like the other girls in the cantina, and like Carmelita and Rosita from the other night, both of these soiled doves were Mexican. They had long black hair and smooth, clear skin that shined golden in the lantern light. One of the soiled doves was a little younger than the other, and she was considerably prettier than most bar girls any of the men had encountered. Somehow she sensed that Fargo was the leader of the group, and she sidled up to stand beside him.

“My, all of you are such handsome hombres,” the younger girl said, smiling seductively, not only at Fargo, but at every man around the table.

“We’re more’n handsome, honey, we’re ...” Dagen started, but before he could finish his comment, Fargo interrupted.

“I’m looking for an American whore,” he said.

“Oh, Señor, you do not want an American whore,” the young one said. “The blood of American whores runs cold. The blood of the Mexican whores runs hot. I am Mexican,” she added. “That means my blood runs hot for you.”

She emphasized her comment by arching her back proudly and pushing her pelvis forward. “Don’t you want me, Señor?”

“I told you, I am looking for an American whore. Do you know a whore named Suzie?”

“Suzie? Sí, Señor, we know Suzie,” the older of the two girls responded. “But I think you will like Frederica and me better than Suzie.”

“This one is Frederica,” Dagen said, pointing to the young one. “What is your name?”

“I am Ava.”

“Well, Ava, me’n my pards here has rid a long ways and we’re hungry and thirsty,” Dagen said. “But as soon as we eat ’n drink, why, I reckon we could show you and little Frederica here a thing or two.”

“No, we cannot,” Fargo said. “I told you boys, we ain’t got time for none of this. Leastwise, not till we get back what’s rightfully ours,” he added, using the term “rightfully” in its broadest possible sense since they actually had no right to the money at all.

Fargo looked directly at Frederica. “I want Suzie,” he said.

“Sorry, Señor, but Suzie is not here now,” she answered.

“You don’t have time for us, but you have time for a gringo girl?” Ava asked, pouting.

“Honey, I got time for you,” Monroe said. “It don’t take me very long a’tall. Hey, Fargo, come on, what do you say a few of us take a little time off and go upstairs with ... ?”

“No!” Fargo said sharply. Then, turning to Frederica, he asked again. “Where is Suzie?”

As she realized that she was not making any progress with him, the smile left Frederica’s face and she shrugged. “She is in her crib, Señor, but I know she will not see you now. She has a man with her, and I think he will stay the night.”

“Who is he?” Fargo asked. “Who is the man with her?”

“It is someone,” Frederica answered. “I do not know his name.”

“What does he look like?”

“He is a gringo,” Frederica said with a shrug of her shoulders. “How can I tell you what he looks like? All gringos are the same.”

“You can’t tell me anything about him at all?” Fargo asked. “Tall, short? Beard, no beard? Cowboy, miner?”

Frederica shrugged. “He is not tall and he is not short. He does not have a beard but he needs a shave.”

Fargo took out two dollars and put the money on the table. “Are you sure that is all you can tell me?”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe I can tell you something more,” she said. “El gringo cojea.”

“What?”

“Son of a bitch!” Dagen said, slapping his hand on the table. “Fargo, it’s him! Suzie is with Ponci!”

“What did she say?” Fargo asked.

“She said the gringo has a limp.”

“A limp? The hell you say.” Fargo smiled and nodded. “Yes, that’s our boy Ponci,” he said. “It has to be.” Happily, he gave a dollar each to the two women.

“Gracias,” they said, taking the money and putting it down into their exposed cleavage.

“I told you boys we would find him,” Fargo said. “Come on, let’s go see the son of a bitch.”

“It will do you no good to go see the gringo, Señor. Suzie will not see you,” Frederica said as the four men stood up from the table.

“Oh, I think she will,” Fargo said.

“Don’t you ladies go anywhere. We’ll be back,” Casey promised as they started toward the door.

“Don’t count on it,” Fargo said.

At a table in the back corner of the saloon, Billy Cates turned so that Fargo Ford wouldn’t see his face. Billy had once ridden with Fargo, but they’d had a falling-out over some money. Billy and his friend Les Wilson accused Fargo of cheating them on their share of the money they’d stolen from a general store over in Cholla. They settled the argument with guns, and when it was over, Fargo rode away with all the money, leaving Billy wounded and Les dead on the floor.

Billy had been going straight ever since then, working now as a cowboy on a ranch just outside of Mesquite. He did not want to renew his acquaintance with Fargo Ford under any circumstances.

He stayed there, with his back turned, until Fargo and the others were gone.

“Do you know where to go?” Dagen asked after they stepped outside.

“Yeah, I know where to go. I know where her crib is.”

“Listen, Fargo, uh, since you wouldn’t let us have nothin’ to do with Frederica or Ava, how about while you’re dealing with Ponci, we ... well, not you, but would you mind if the rest of us ... uh ... well, I mean, I know she is your sister, but if she is a whore and ...” Dagen let the sentence hang when he saw the way Fargo was looking at him.

“After we take care of Ponci, we ain’t going to be staying around long enough for nothin’ like that,” Fargo said. “Besides, you think I’m just goin’ to stand around and let you screw my sister?”

“Why the hell not? You said yourself she’s a whore. Ain’t that what whores do?”

“Yeah, Fargo, what do you say? I mean, you could come back here with one of them Mex girls whilst the rest of us screw your sister,” Casey said.

“Unless you got a thing aginst us doin’ what ever’one else is doin’ to your sister.”

“You could all three screw her at the same time as far as I’m concerned,” Fargo answered. “That ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. But after we get finished with Ponci, I don’t think it will be all that smart for us to be hangin’ around here.”

“Oh,” Dagen said. “Oh, yeah, I reckon I see what you mean.”

The four men mounted their horses and rode down to the far end of the street, stopping in front of a leather goods store.

A sign hung from an iron rod that protruded from the front of the store.

ARMBRUSTER’S LEATHER GOODS

SADDLES—BOOTS

HOLSTERS—BELTS—CHAPS

H. Armbruster, Prop.

The sign made a squeaking noise as a gentle breeze moved it back and forth on its hinges. Next door to the leather goods store was WHITE’S APOTHECARY. It didn’t have an overhanging sign, but there was a painting on the window of a mortar and pestle.

Fargo dismounted, and handed the reins of his horse to Casey. “You boys wait here,” he said. “And take care of the horses. When I come out of there, I don’t want to be pickin’ my nose and scratchin’ my ass, lookin’ for my horse like what happened to us back in Calabasas.”

“You don’t need to be worryin’ none about that,” Dagen said. “Your horse will be here when you come back, I promise.”

Fargo smiled. “Oh, I ain’t goin’ to worry none, Dagen,” he said. “If my horse is gone when I come back, I’ll just kill you and take yours.”

“Your horse will be here,” Dagen said again.

“Hey, how come I don’t seen Ponci’s horse anywhere?” Monroe asked.

“The dumb son of a bitch ain’t that dumb,” Fargo answered. “He’s not likely to leave his horse tied up out on the street where we could see it now, is he? I mean, you have to know he’s figurin’ on us comin’ after him.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Monroe said.

Fargo pulled his pistol, then started walking through the narrow passageway between the leather goods store and the apothecary. He continued on down the constricted path between the two buildings until he reached the alley. Then he saw it, his sister’s crib. It was on the other side of the alley, a small, one-room shack made of unpainted wood. A very dim light, which Fargo supposed was a candle, glowed from inside the little crib.

Fargo walked very quietly to the front door, then slowly tried the door handle. The door was locked, but Fargo knew where Suzie kept a spare key. He reached up into the eaves and poked around with his fingers until he felt it. Then, putting the key in the lock, he turned it very carefully and pushed the door open. He stepped inside with his gun arm extended before him.

“What the hell?” a man’s voice shouted as he rose up in the bed.

“Ponci, you son of a bitch!” Fargo shouted. “Did you think you would get away with it?”

Fargo pulled the trigger twice. The gun boomed, and the muzzle flash lit up the little room. The sound of the gunshots drowned out Suzie’s screams.

Fargo hurried over to the bed and jerked the sheet down.

“Holy shit!” he said, looking down at the body of the man he had just killed.

It wasn’t Ponci.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

By now, Suzie had recognized Fargo, and her screams stopped.

“Fargo, what the hell has gotten into you? What are you doing?” she shouted at him, hitting him angrily. “Why did you come in here shooting like that?”

“Stop it! Stop hitting me!” Fargo replied, covering up from her blows. He pushed her away, then using his still-smoking pistol, pointed it at the body of the man he had just shot.

“I thought that was Ponci.”

By now several dogs were barking outside.

“That’s it? You thought it was Ponci, so you came in here shooting?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry? You break into my crib, kill the man who is in my bed, scare me to death, and all you can say is you are sorry?”

“I told you, I thought it was Ponci. Where is Ponci anyway?” Fargo asked.

The dogs continued to bark, and now, from a nearby house, a baby added its crying to the noise.

“Why are you asking me where Ponci is? How the hell am I supposed to know?” she asked. “I haven’t seen Ponci in nearly a year. I thought he was with you.”

“No, Ponci isn’t with me,” Fargo said angrily. “If he was with me, I would have already killed the son of a bitch, instead of coming here to do it.”

“Yeah? Well, you didn’t do it. You killed poor Mr. Thompson.”

“Who is Mr. Thompson?”

“That’s Mr. Thompson,” Suzie said, pointing to the body in her bed. “He works in the general store. What made you think it was Ponci?”

“One of the Mex whores down at the cantina told me the man you were with has a limp. Does this man have a limp?”

“He doesn’t have anything now, you ignorant bastard,” Suzie said. “You just killed him.”

“All right, before I killed him, did he have a limp?” Fargo asked.

“Yes, he did have a limp. One of his legs was deformed.”

“Yeah, well, then you can see that it was an honest mistake. She said he had a limp, so I thought it was Ponci.”

“What are you talking about? Ponci doesn’t have a limp.”

“He does now.”

“What was that shooting?” a man’s voice called from outside.

“I don’t know, it come from down that way,” a muffled voice answered. “And I think I heard a woman scream.”

“Listen, you’d better get out of here,” Suzie said, shoving him toward the door. “And if I were you, I would leave town.”

“How are you going to handle this?” Fargo asked.

“What are you going to tell the sheriff when he finds a dead man in your bed?”

Suzie sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll just tell him what happened, that someone broke in here and shot him.”

Fargo’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell him who did it. I’ll just say I don’t know who it was.”

“What if they blame you?” Fargo asked.

“They aren’t going to blame me,” Suzie replied. “As soon as you are out of here, I’m going to start screaming bloody murder. And anyway, do you really give a shit if I get blamed for this?”

Fargo shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t give a shit.”

“I didn’t think you would. Now, get the hell out of here.”

Fargo left the house, then ran back up between the two buildings.

“Hurry, there’s some people comin’,” Casey said, handing the reins back to Fargo. “I can see ’em comin’ this way from the other end of the street.”

“Did you get the money?” Monroe asked.

“No,” Fargo answered, swinging into the saddle.

“What the hell, you killed the son of a bitch and you didn’t even get the money?”

“Look, down there!” someone shouted from the darkness at the far end of the street. “There’s riders in front of Armbruster’s!”

“This is the sheriff!” a voice called. “You men hold it right there!”

“Throw a few shots their way, then let’s get the hell out of here!” Fargo said.

Fargo, Casey, Monroe, and Dagen began shooting toward the approaching crowd. The muzzle-flame patterns lit up the building fronts like flashes of summer lightning, and the sounds of gunshots filled the street.

The shooting had the desired effect, because the crowd screamed and scattered, just as Fargo thought they would.

“Let’s go!” Fargo shouted, and he and the other three galloped out of town.

“You didn’t get the money?” Monroe shouted over the sound of the galloping horses. “Why did you kill him without getting the money?”

“It wasn’t Ponci!” Fargo yelled back. “I killed the wrong man!”