Marshal Jeremy Six #8 Page 9

  “It won’t be comfortable for you,” he admitted, “but it’s the only way I know of to keep all three of you in line.”

  Steve Lament said drily, “No need to apologize to us, Jeremy, but I think you owe the lady an explanation.”

  “Maybe you all need one,” Six answered. “All right, I want all of you to listen to what I’ve got to say, because it may keep you from making a mistake that could cost somebody his or her life.”

  Elena Nijar drew in her breath sharply. She still had not lost her baffled look of anger.

  Six moved among them, using his saddle rope to tie all three of their horses together, as if on a long picket line. The free end of the rope he carried forward to his own horse. Finally he mounted up and sat his saddle hipshot, twisted around to talk to them:

  “This man Lament killed a woman in my town. I’m a peace officer. I came here to take him back. He’s to stand trial for murdering a woman called Clarissa Vane.”

  Lament wasn’t looking at him; his eyes were trained, brooding, on his own saddlehorn.

  Six went on:

  “I’ve got no intentions of doing harm to Carlos Santana or anyone else. I took you, señorita, and Vargas because with you here Vargas will not take stupid chances, and with both of you here Santana will not take chances either. The fastest way for both of you to return to Santana unharmed is to get me and my prisoner to the border by the fastest possible route. As soon as we get there I’ll turn you both loose. Vargas will guide you back to Santana. If anybody has any questions, let’s hear them now.”

  Vargas stirred. The great voice rumbled in his chest. “How can we trust you to do what you say?”

  “Have I got any reason to harm you?”

  “No, señor,” Vargas said tonelessly, “but I do not pretend to understand the mind of the gringo. Your people have come to this country before and killed without reason.”

  Steve Lament said, “Six will keep his word, Vargas. I know him. Don’t give him any trouble – I don’t want either of you hurt on my account.” His voice was bitter, dismal, washed out.

  Six, surprised, did not show it. He was making a point of avoiding all possible personal contact with Lament. With Clarissa fresh in his mind he knew his only chance of doing his duty objectively, as it had to be done, was to maintain his distance from Lament. Now the man had him doubly confused; he didn’t want to have to fight that uncertainty just now. There were too many other dangers to worry about.

  “We’ve got a long ride,” Six said, “and I don’t intend stopping until we get to the border. Let’s get moving.”

  Eleven

  Santana stood arms akimbo. His brow was deeply creased. The cabin door behind him stood open; down below, while he watched, crowds of men shifted and milled like flowing oil. Alemán, who was third-in-command, came up and stood mute, a lean trim little man dwarfed by Santana.

  Santana frowned across the camp. In his hand was crumpled the note Jeremy Six had left on the table: I am taking the Señorita Nijar as well as Vargas and Lament. You will understand, I hope, the need for this. The señorita and Vargas will he released unharmed at the Arizona border unless you attempt to interfere.

  And, Santana had learned as soon as they had discovered him and untied him, Six had written the truth: Elena was gone.

  The gringo was shrewd; Santana had to credit him that. It was one of the most daring one-man successes, against formidable odds, that Santana had ever seen or heard of. Looking at the tidy, competent Alemán who stood patiently awaiting orders, Santana found himself thinking, Por Diós, what I would give to have a company of men like this Jeremy Six, Despite the events, he found—almost unaccountably—that he could not bring himself to hate Six; and in the past few moments he had realized that this was because he and Six were much alike in many ways. He could only admire Six’s resolute integrity – his decisive obedience to what he regarded as his duty, regardless of the odds against him.

  Well, then, Santana thought bleakly, I have my duty too. He turned to Alemán. “We have a great many things to do and very little time, amigo.”

  “Tell me what to do, then, Excellency.”

  “You will send one company of men – the best men, with Indian scouts – to follow Vargas and Elena and the gringos.”

  “With orders to try to rescue them?”

  “No. Under no circumstances are they to approach the gringos’ camp. They will merely follow, at discreet distance, and make absolutely certain the Governor s army troops do not interfere with the gringos’ ride to the border. Once the two gringos have crossed the border, our men are to pick up Vargas and Elena and give them safe escort back to us.”

  And, as he spoke, Santana thought very drily, This I must do, and it is exactly what Six knew I would have to do. He counted on me to give him his protection from Orbea and Colonel Sanderos and the loyalist army. The irony of it did not escape him. Six had forced him into a position where even if all he wanted was to see Six dead, he would still have to give Six the protection of his own troops – to prevent Vargas and Elena from falling into the cruel hands of Colonel Sanderos.

  Alemán, small and brisk, had gone to relay the orders. Very shortly, Santana saw a hundred men ride out of the lower end of the camp. Somewhere in the fastness to the north, they would pick up the tracks of the two gringos, of the great Vargas, of Elena … Elena, he thought, his eyes clouded with pain. If any harm came to her …

  He went inside the hut, picked up his Remington where Six had dropped it on the table, and reloaded it from a box of hand-loaded cartridges. By the time he clapped on his hat, rammed the revolver in his waistband and returned to the door, Alemán had returned. Santana said, “We cannot change the schedule because of this.”

  “I cannot tell you how sorry we all are, Excellency.”

  Santana nodded. None of them was half as grieved as he was. But the timetable had been set up quite some time ago and to change it now would be to risk the success of the entire revolution.

  He shook himself, as if he had a chill tremor; he said, “I have a bad feeling about starting without Vargas. You might say a superstition.”

  “You speak of Vargas, Excellency, when you mean the Señorita Nijar.”

  “I suppose you’re right. But Vargas … I have never fought a battle before without him.”

  “Vargas is a very good general,” Alemán said with a trace of insinuation in his voice.

  Santana smiled vaguely. “Because you are a friend you may insult me, Ricardo … but do not speak of such things when others can hear.”

  “I did not mean to be offensive, but we each have a job to do … and yours, Excellency, does not seem to be the job of tactician and planner of military details.”

  “Then I’ll have to learn it fast, won’t I? I can’t keep relying on a child in the guise of a giant. Vargas is brilliant but we should be able to continue without him, without any one man. No one should be indispensable. Not even me, you understand?”

  “I am afraid things are not as simple as that, Excellency. Without you, clearly, there would be no revolution.”

  Santana looked away. “It’s up to you to gather the men and instruct the commanders, Alemán. See that every man is properly equipped, every horse ready for the march.”

  “How soon do we break camp?”

  “According to the plan, at four o’clock by the sun.”

  “We’ll be ready,” said Alemán, and walked away into the teeming camp.

  Santana looked at the sky. Alemán’s shape diminished as he descended into the canyon, stopped by a junior officer s tent, stooped under its flap to go inside. Santana looked to the west; all he could see was the mountainside, where Six had taken his Elena, with Vargas and Lament, across the mountain. Santana visualized for a moment an image of the meadows far below, on the edge of the foothills, where a large number of his own men awaited him after having done battle just a few hours earlier at the shattered remains of the Rancho Nijar. Half an hour ago the dispatch rider had arr
ived on a lathered, wind-broken horse. Red-eyed and husky voiced, the dispatch rider had handed him the message. It rested now beneath Santana’s shirt: he kept it there in hopes that it might prove a signal of things to come. The fight had gone well at Rancho Nijar – and now the ranks of the rebellion were swelled by Ybarra and several hundred vaqueros and peons from Nijar’s ranch – as well as a fair number of loyalist army troopers who had defected to the rebel side. Perhaps it was that they believed in Santana’s cause; but he thought it more likely they felt in the wind a shifting promise, a change in the balance of power. This morning he stood on the slope with conviction lifting his heart - the conviction he would win his war of revolution.

  Officers moved among the men below, calling out orders; there was a frenzy of men wheeling past one another, seemingly without pattern but all in a great hurry. Today began the final campaign.

  There would be no turning back. Up to now he had been only a thorn in the side of Governor Orbea –who, hopefully, had no conception of the present size of Santana’s force. Whittling here and there, the revolutionaries had struck fear into the loyalists with small scattered attacks: he had kept his foe, Colonel Sanderos, wheeling off balance with mosquito-like strikes. Guerilla … that was the word they used in the south for such tactics. But last night’s counterattack against the troops at Rancho Nijar had been the last such raid. Today the rebel army would begin its march in force – first to strike down the relief column on its way from Ures to reinforce the loyalists. That would prevent the reinforcements from coming up behind him. Then Santana would move against the major fortresses of Governor Orbea’s army, sweeping toward the capital at Guadalquivir. It would be total commitment: no reserves stood behind him. Once the shot was fired it could not be recalled. No turning back.

  He ought to be giving thought to last minute details in these final hours; but his mind kept drifting, he kept seeing Elena’s little heart-shaped face, her gentle smile. Her uncle had died last night at Rancho Nijar, he had learned – she did not know yet. He felt a great sympathy for her and then, abruptly and coldly, he remembered the last words she had spoken with him this morning. They had argued …

  He felt hot and ill. He used his thumbnail to split a matchstick and began to pick his teeth delicately, a big man with a bluff rugged face and troubled, hollow eyes. He kept seeing her quick smile … wondering if he would ever see it again.

  He looked at the camp, all the young men below. Many of them would die in the days ahead. He thought of that all the time; his only defense against it was his faith – in himself, in this revolution. He had to act always as if he were totally right: if he ever let anyone think he doubted, for even an instant, there would be hesitation. Just now he had shown Alemán, his second officer, a fragment of uncertainty; he reminded himself not to let that happen again. He could not let anyone see his fear.

  And he was afraid. He was afraid of what he would suffer, for having sent men to die on his account. He was afraid he might lose this conflict. He was afraid if he did win, if he became governor of the province, he might fall under the same evil corrupting spell of power that had destroyed Governor Orbea, made him a fat, old cynical despot.

  Without Vargas … He drew himself up with a start. If I can’t lead my own revolution, there is no hope I can lead the province. But he was still afraid because those young men, the thousands in the camp below, believed in him, and he did not want that: he wanted them to believe in themselves, so that when he was gone they would carry on, without him, without anyone like him.

  He closed his mind against these speculations; he snapped the broken match away from him and wheeled into the cabin to make his final preparations. He had started a fight; now he had to finish it. That was all that mattered now. He had no more time to debate abstractions with himself.

  It was time to go to war.

  Twelve

  The sun slashed through thin crystal air, bright where it struck, leaving deep black shadows in the forest. Six shepherded his three trussed captives through the high peaks, following Vargas’ grudging instructions, threading gorges of rock and timber. Six rode with the accomplished, indolent ease of an expert horseman. He seldom looked back and did not speak at all. They went through some pines and broke out into a small clearing, from the center of which they could look up and see the permanent snow pockets glistening high above on the tallest summits. That was virgin land up there – probably no human foot had ever trod it. It was a big country for big men to ride.

  Gradually the trail dipped to lower elevations in a long valley in the center of the range. Here, in thickening foliage, they crossed a razorback ridge and then corkscrewed down a gully wall; at times they wound through long-sounding forest corridors, at other times they inched down steep switchbacks. Six kept to rock wherever he could, on general principle, covering the most obvious tracks while being fairly certain Santana’s trackers would not lose the spoor. In every direction the raw, rugged land stood on end, a grandeur of monumental proportion, deep color and brute power.

  Past noon he halted the expedition to breathe the animals by a stream. The mossy bank was soft and easy; sunlight rippled on the rushing water. Ever vigilant, he studied the mountainsides; his glance never stopped sweeping the roundabout land and the three captives in his little party. Wind roughed up the leaves overhead; above, clouds gathered slowly together. Soon, probably, it would rain. A few hundred feet downstream a whitetail doe popped out of the trees and went down to the water s edge. Upwind of the riders, it drank without noticing them until Elena’s horse whickered, whereupon the doe wheeled in alarm and sprang out of sight.

  The night wept softly, pattering raindrops against Six’s oilskins. In the total darkness he walked forward a pace at a time, leading the horse. Behind him the three riders, tied to their saddles, had no choice but to follow where he led. Six picked his downhill path with painful slowness, testing the ground at each step, frequently stopping to walk back and test the lashings that bound the three prisoners. There was no talk.

  Something alerted his horse: it lifted its head, keening the night. Six stopped. Steve Lament’s horse roved up beside him, bumped into his arm, and Six heard Lament’s quick intake of breath.

  “We may have some company,” Six murmured. “All of you keep quiet, for your own sake – no telling who it may be.”

  Holding the reins and lead rope, he stepped off to the end of them, far enough away to mute the saddle-creak and breath of the horses. He stood fast in the night, turning his head slowly, exposing the flats of his eardrums to all the compass points. He stood that way, unmoving, for a long time until his ears picked up the sound of advancing hoof-falls. Two horses, it sounded like. Moving slowly.

  Six palmed up his revolver and waited in the rain with a thin stream of water runneling down out of the trough of his hat brim. Behind him one of the horses stirred – a sharp clump of iron shoe against earth. In time two horsemen came vaguely into view, very vague in the blackness although they were not twenty feet distant. They rode by without a sideward glance; as they went past, one of them spoke:

  “Shouldn’t we stop and wait it out? We can’t see where the hell we’re going.”

  It was a woman’s voice, talking in English. Six said, “Hold it up there.”

  He heard an explosion of breath. A man’s voice boomed at him: “Jeremy? That you?”

  “Me, Jericho.”

  “Well, then, what the hell!”

  “Don’t strike any matches,” Six cautioned.

  “Not on your life,” said Jericho Stride. The two horses turned and moved toward Six. As they approached he could make out the silhouettes, Stride and Holly Moore, bulky in rain-ponchos.

  “What the hell,” Stride said again. “How about this. Who’s that with you?”

  “I’ve got a prisoner and two hostages.”

  “That you, Steve?” said Stride.

  “Yeah,” said Steve Lament. “How’re you doing, Jericho?”

  “You didn’t ki
ll him, then,” Stride said to Six. “What about these other two?”

  “Climb down a minute,” said Six. “We’ll talk.”

  Morning sunshine blasted Steve Lament’s back and cast long shadows to his left. His wrists were chafed raw behind him. From his own horse’s bridle the reins led to the hand of Jeremy Six. Behind him he could hear the footfalls of the other horses – Jericho Stride bringing up the rear. The path Vargas indicated curled among thick pine groves. No one spoke; only horse and saddle sounds broke the silence, and the whisper of a sharp westerly wind that roughed up the trees and chilled the morning air.

  Lament kept his seat easily and held his eyes with purposeful indifference on the trail ahead, deliberately noncommittal, giving away nothing whenever Six looked at him, which was often: Six was a careful man. The plans Lament had made to escape had been destroyed when Stride and the auburn-haired woman had joined up with Six. Lament hadn’t been able to overhear the conversation last night; he was not sure exactly how Six had persuaded Stride and Holly to join up and help Six guard the prisoners on the way to the border. He had a fair idea how Six had done it, though – probably told them they were safer with him than banging around the hills alone, what with loyalists and rebels all over the place. Lament had managed to overhear one part of it, when Six had promised to make every effort to get Arizona to offer amnesty to Jericho Stride on some old charge of armed assault – something that had a fifteen year penitentiary sentence hanging over Stride’s head back in the Territory. Fifteen years, to Lament right now, sounded like a light sentence. He had no illusions about what was waiting for him. He hadn’t killed Clarissa deliberately. But no jury in Spanish Flat would pay much attention to that.

  Lament had spent the better part of his life on rough hard trails and he was not without ability; he knew, in his heart, that if he wanted to badly enough he could probably escape, or at least make a good try. The trouble was, he no longer cared enough to try. In the end, he thought, I guess I want them to hang me. Get it the hell over with. It was easier not to make any decisions at all … just leave it up to fate. Fate, right now, had the visage of a hangman.