Marshal Jeremy Six #8 Read online

  “A good soldier knows his limitations. Santana knows that wilderness far better than we do. Only my Yaqui scouts are familiar with the Sierra, and they are less than reliable - their loyalty is a tenuous thing, at best. And the proper conduct of a campaign requires intelligence of the enemy’s strength and position. You do not blunder into a fight blindfolded, you know. I need knowledge before I can attack – information. You will supply that information.”

  Six shook his head in exasperation. “I guess not, Colonel. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

  “Oh, I have listened very closely indeed. But there is just one thing I may have forgotten to mention.” The smile grew across the hawk face. “One small matter, you understand. The Señorita Holly Moore is a beautiful woman, is she not?”

  Six straightened up, meeting his glance bleakly. Colonel Sanderos murmured, “If it were to be proved that Holly Moore was acting as a spy on behalf of the rebel Santana, there is not much doubt she would be executed.”

  He dropped the knife on the desk and steepled his fingers. “Executed,” he said. “To die slowly and with pain. It is not a pleasant thing to think about when the executed person is a young woman, so beautiful and full of vitality.”

  He looked up and smiled more. “I am sure your heart will persuade you to do the right thing. You would not wish to have such a beautiful woman’s death on your conscience. Serve me well, Marshal Six, and you shall be rewarded by the freedom of your good friend Stride and the woman Holly Moore, and you shall be free to return to your country with the prisoner – I shall even provide you an escort as far as the border, to insure he does not escape from you.”

  Sanderos looked up and cocked his head inquiringly. The smile had become hard and rigid.

  “Of course,” Sanderos said, “it may occur to you to bring false information to me, as a means of acquitting our bargain and at the same time offering no injury to the rebels. But do not flatter yourself by thinking you will be my only source. There is Sagan, for example – the young prisoner you saw in the next room. Sergeant Mendez is most persuasive with a quirt. And Sagan becomes hungry. He has been with us forty-eight hours and has been given no food. He will be given only enough water to keep him alive. And of course he is in pain, great pain. In another few days he will tell us that which we want to know, but he may not have all the information I seek – he is young, after all, and only an anonymous soldier from Santana’s ranks. Of course there are other possibilities as well.”

  Six turned slowly and walked toward the door. When he got to it he looked back. “You know all the ways to get a man by the short hair, don’t you?”

  “Perhaps that is why I am in command here.”

  “Perhaps it’s why the rebels are willing to die to get rid of you.”

  The smile stayed in place. Sanderos pushed the scalping knife aside and opened a drawer to bring out a file of papers.

  “Vaya con Diós,” he said; he did not look up again.

  Five

  Not showing his anger, Six stepped out of the barracks and found his horse waiting, held by a soldier who handed over the reins without remark and drifted away into the shadows. Six glanced back through the open door. The young prisoner, Rafael Sagan, was groaning softly but with a painful penetration that reached out through the door. From where he stood, Six could not see the interrogation room, but he could hear it. His face gave away nothing. He gathered the reins and mounted, turned down the cobblestone street and walked the horse through narrow adobe passages, not hurrying, using the time to compose his thoughts.

  He was deep in introspection but never preoccupied enough to miss any significant rumor from the shadows; he heard the approaching figure before he saw it. When the dark horseman loomed dimly in the alley, reining away from the deep shadows and coming toward Six, the gun was out in Six’s fist, dully gleaming; and Six murmured, “Cuidado, amigo.” It was no night to be trusting shadows.

  “Easy now,” said the dark horseman, riding slowly into the open night of the street. “I’m peaceful.” The language was easy idiomatic English but the accent had the liquid touch of Spanish. The rider stopped his horse in a splash of lamplight that sprawled out of an open doorway. Vague yellow illumination reflected off the cobbled street and bounced against the rider s military uniform – the same kind of uniform as Colonel Sanderos had worn; this one carried a captain s shoulder epaulets. The tall militiaman reached up without sudden motions and removed his hat to show Six his face. It was a long, handsome face with a gracious aristocratic smile slanted across the smooth jaw, a straight narrow blade of a nose, wide-set eyes and a look of honest patience.

  “You’re Marshal Six and you just had a little chat with the colonel.”

  “Everybody around here seems to know everything there is to know about me.”

  “Perhaps.” The tall captain chuckled. He had a lazy way of smiling but his shoulders were wide, his hands powerful, and his dark eyes steady and alert. “I’m Rodrigo Medina.”

  “That supposed to mean something to me?”

  “I guess it doesn’t,” Medina said. “I’m a friend of Jericho Stride’s. Thought he might have mentioned me. You can put that hand-cannon away, Marshal.”

  Six slid the Colt into his holster and eased his seat on the saddle. “What do you want, then?”

  Medina’s smile did not change. “You don’t trust me at all.”

  “Should I?”

  “We could go over to Stride’s. He’ll vouch for me.”

  “And if he does?”

  The easy smile etched creases in Rodrigo Medina’s face; it became evident he was not as young as he at first appeared. He had the classic features, but not the indifferent cruel arrogance, of a Spaniard highborn. His direct eyes had a certain steady wisdom; he moved slowly, with a great deal of self-confidence, and appeared to be a passionate, warm, self-contained man. Six had to remind himself that Medina wore the same uniform as Colonel Sanderos.

  In a voice pitched too low to carry beyond Six, Medina answered:

  “It’s important that you believe what I tell you.”

  “Try me,” Six said. “I haven’t jumped to any conclusions … yet.”

  “I hope you don’t,” Medina replied. He was no longer smiling. “My fine colonel probably asked you to do a little spying for him. Did you agree?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I intend to. But when it comes to questions from subordinates, the colonel only answers when he feels like it. I imagine he hung a few threats on his … requests?”

  “You’re doing the talking.”

  Medina shook his head. “There are no secrets down here, Marshal. Even the dust has ears. Everybody in this town knows what you’re here for. Steve Lament.”

  “I’m getting a little tired of being told what my plans are.

  “Sorry.” A small smile briefly touched Medina’s features, and fled. “The point is, the same fellow who eavesdropped on your conversation with Jericho and had told the colonel about it – he reported to me, too. So I know what Sanderos knows, and I can guess the rest. In this country if you mean to stay alive you develop a knack of taking the two you’ve got and the two you’ve only guessed at, and adding them up to see if they make four. Knowing the colonel, I’d guess he put it to you something like this: you spy on Santana, and bring the information back here, and if you don’t, you get shot by accident and your friend Stride gets executed on some trumped-up charge. Maybe Holly Moore with him, too. Am I getting warm?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Sure. Well, I hear you’re a fellow who’s got a talent for getting in and out of hot water without getting blistered. That’s fine, for you. But it leaves Jericho and Holly in kind of a hard place.”

  “How much time did you spend in the States?”

  “Enough to learn the language,” Medina said. “Are you paying attention, Marshal?”

  “I’m a little bored by all this tough talk, Captain.”

  “Let me fini
sh and you’ll understand. You need to know what’s going to happen.”

  “Crystal ball or tea leaves?”

  “Cards, Marshal. I’m going to lay them face up on the table.”

  “That’s fine,” Six drawled. “You do that.”

  Medina’s face was expressionless. He spoke in a soft drone. “You’ll go into the hills and Santana’s men will pick you up. You’ll tell your story to Santana and maybe he’ll go along with you, maybe he won’t. If he doesn’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life a cripple – if they don’t shoot you. If he does decide to let you have Lament, you’ll bring Lament out. You’ll get him about as far as the foothills and some soldiers will materialize, take both of you into custody, bring you to Guadalquivir to face Colonel Sanderos. It’ll be well staged. Sanderos will have Jericho and Holly up against a wall and he’ll invite you to watch while the execution squad loads rifles and takes aim. Then he’ll tell you their lives are in your hands – it’s up to you. He’ll give you his solemn promise to let all of you loose – you, Lament, Jericho, Holly – all of you the promise of freedom, and all you have to do is give him the little bits of information he wants. So you’ll give him the information, because you won’t have any choice at all. And then, of course, he’ll put you and Lament up against the wall with the other two and he’ll execute all four of you.

  “No,” Medina continued, “it isn’t pretty, Marshal, and it isn’t honest, and it isn’t just, but that’s the way things are handled down here. My good colonel has been known to stand people up against the wall for nothing more than smudged identification papers. He’s got you right where he wants you.”

  Six had become wholly still, watching him. He did not speak. Medina added, in a different tone, “Do you understand? If you carry this through, you’ll end up dead, and three others with you.”

  “And you’re advising me to turn around and go back where I came from.”

  “I’m just telling you what to expect, Marshal.”

  Six folded both hands across his saddlehorn. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think you’d better tell me what your place is in the scheme of things.”

  “Let’s just say I’m a friend of Jericho’s.”

  “You’re under Sanderos’ command.”

  “Under his command, Marshal – not under his thumb.”

  Six wanted to ask one more question: was Medina a secret Santana rebel? But as soon as he thought of the question, he realized Medina would not answer it. He said, “I’m obliged.”

  Medina inclined his head gravely. Six lifted his reins.

  “Buenos noches,” Rodrigo Medina muttered, and sat motionless while Six rode past him and turned the corner.

  Six

  His horse’s hoofs crunched gravel. He passed a soldier, cruising the dark streets with silent vigilance. The soldier gave him a searching look and his rifle stirred. Six spoke a few words and the soldiers expression changed from alert suspicion to one of polite bovine interest. Six went on, toward the plaza. An old Indian sat blanket-wrapped in a doorway; he looked asleep but when Six passed, the Indians head lifted. The night held a sullen dense warmth, unstirred by any breeze.

  He stopped his horse in the plaza and sat silent, clutched by a brooding great anger, resenting supremely the threats that had been hurled against him. I wouldn’t be here in the first place if I had a choice. My God, if all their soldiers can’t handle Santana, how do they expect me to do it?

  But it was Clarissa whose image stayed at the front of his mind, giving him no freedom.

  He felt heavy weariness settle on him. He got down stiffly, hitched the horse and went into Stride’s cantina. The place had emptied out somewhat; the crowd was sparse: clerks, evening-shift workers, the few who didn’t have to get up early. The blind old guitarist softly played a ballad on catgut strings; near him, at the back of the room, stood Jericho Stride, tall and slat-sided and black, shoulder against the jamb, listening. The old guitarist played with his blind eyes closed, his face lost in concentration. At the front of the cantina, by Six’s elbow, a fat woman tugged impatiently at a man’s arm and led the man out of the place past Six.

  He felt weight behind him, and noticed, across the room, an aproned bartender: the bartender stiffened, nodded, and abruptly wheeled back into the room, making his way directly toward the corner where the old man played the guitar.

  A glance over the shoulder revealed to Six a man in sarape and sombrero just turning away – evidently the man had gestured some kind of signal to the bartender.

  The bartender stooped, spoke a few words close against the blind man’s ear; the old man’s head rocked back. A guitar string twanged harshly. The old man stood up, cutting off the song in mid-chord. An expression of urgency contorted his face. The bartender guided him by the elbow, swiftly into the back office doorway. The two of them pushed past Jericho Stride, who stepped back to give them room and spoke rapidly as they went by.

  Six moved down the room toward Stride; through the office door he saw the bartender and the blind old man hurry across to the outer exit, the old man stooping to lift a knife out of his boot-top. All the while the bartender was talking softly, reassuringly. The old man slipped outside.

  Six reached Stride, who shook his head mutely and kept watching the front door. Six looked that way in time to see a small figure appear – the cocky little sergeant, Mendez: the one he had seen quirt-whipping the young prisoner in Colonel Sanderos’ headquarters. The cruel little banty-rooster sergeant was trailed by a pair of hulking troopers with rifles held at port-arms. Sergeant Mendez’s shrewd glance shifted around the room. His teeth clacked and he batted into the room, elbowing past men at the bar.

  Stride said, out of the side of his mouth, “Let me do the talking, Jeremy.”

  Sergeant Mendez made his way down the length of the saloon to the office door. He glanced into the office, ignored Six, and spoke to Stride. He had to tip his feral face up.

  “The old man, Juano. We wish to speak with him.”

  “That so?” Stride said.

  Mendez’s eyes glittered – small eyes, set close together in a pinched face. “I heard his guitar not two minutes ago.”

  Stride said, “Juano stepped out just a minute ago. I’m surprised you didn’t meet him on the plaza.”

  Mendez’s disbelieving, baleful glance covered Stride an instant longer and then he put his back to them, speaking rapidly to his two soldiers. One of them turned and accompanied the little sergeant to the front door, and out. The other soldier lifted his rifle and pushed gently between Stride and Six, going on through the office and disappearing out the back.

  Six said, “Now what?”

  “Juano - the old blind man. He’s Carlos Santana’s uncle by marriage.”

  “And at this hour of the night the Army all of a sudden thinks the old man can tell them where to find Santana?”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it? Maybe somebody talked.”

  “Did you know he was Santana’s uncle when you hired him?”

  “I told you, Jeremy – I don’t mess in politics.”

  The excited babble of talk had subsided in the room. The evening was wearing late; the crowd thinned out, drifting away singly and by twos; Sergeant Mendez’s interruption had dampened the dregs of the evening. Somewhere, in a near quarter of town, several gunshots sounded.

  Six said, “You don’t think—”

  “I don’t think anything,” Stride said, more harsh than necessary. An image crossed Six’s mind: the last time he had seen Sergeant Mendez the man had been holding a bloody quirt in his hand.

  They stood and watched the room empty out. Six opened his mouth to speak, and heard the click of a door latch behind him; he wheeled into the office. The back door pushed open, and Six relaxed slightly – Captain Rodrigo Medina walked in, looking weary.

  Stride glanced at Six, then walked into the office and shut the door.

  Captain Medina said without preamble, “Old Juano fell on his knife
.”

  “All right,” Stride said. There was no reading his face. “How’d it happen, Rodrigo?”

  “A soldier shot him in the leg. Juano probably thought he wouldn’t be able to stand up to much of Mendez’s torture. Maybe he knew where Santana is and didn’t want to be the one to give him away.”

  “So he killed himself,” Jeremy Six said.

  Stride’s voice climbed: “Rodrigo … why didn’t you stop him?”

  “I was not sure he wasn’t right,” Medina murmured. “I was following the good Sergeant Mendez. He’s … impetuous. I thought if he knew I was watching, he might treat the old man more gently. Unfortunately I followed the wrong soldier, and by the time I got close, the old man was dead – and so was the soldier who shot him in the leg.”

  Medina’s brittle glance held Stride’s. “I thought I saw your bartender out there. I don’t suppose you would know anything about who shot the soldier, amigo?”

  “No.”

  “He was strangled to death. Tell your bartender to take care.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Rodrigo Medina shook his head dismally. “Sergeant Mendez is a fitting right hand for Colonel Sanderos, I think. My God, but there is too much killing.”

  Then he looked up; he seemed to shake himself; he turned to Jeremy Six and said in a stiff tone as dry as autumn wind through dying leaves, “I am instructed to tell you to advise Carlos Santana to surrender. I’m told he will receive a fair trial.”

  “Sure.”

  Medina smiled. “Sure,” he echoed. “Listen … there’s a brigade of troops on the way here from Ures to reinforce us. They left Ures tonight at sundown. It’s a matter of three or four days’ march for them –Santana will know how far it is, far better than you or I. You understand what I’m telling you?”

  “I guess I do,” Six said.

  The easy smile crossed Medina’s handsome face, and went away. He swung on his heel and slipped quickly out the back way.

  Jericho Stride said, “I never heard him come so close to admitting he’s working for Santana. That was taking a chance – and around here that can get you in trouble.” He looked more closely at Six. “You’re thinking about old Juano? Look, Jeremy, he was a sweet old man but he was all used up. Death doesn’t mean much down here, they kill each other for a hunk of bread. Don’t let your hate for Colonel Sanderos and that little ferret Mendez get you all fired up for Santana’s crazy hairpin revolution.”