Day of Independence (16 page)

George Cassidy was back from the barn, but neither he nor the other two men in the room made any comment or even raised an eyebrow at the strange apparition that suddenly appeared among them.

A well-bred crowd, Dupoix thought as he sat back in his chair.

But this time a steaming cup of coffee was on the table beside him and Wright said, “I sweetened it up with some whiskey... ah...”

“Baptiste.” Julia must have had a hand in this, Dupoix decided. It seemed that she'd reminded her husband of his southern hospitality.

Wright iced the cake when he offered the gambler a cigar and waited until it was drawing well before he spoke.

“All right, what's going on in Last Chance that I don't know about?” he said.

“I'll make it as short in the telling as I can,” Dupoix said.

Using as few words as possible, he told how the millionaire Abe Hacker had come to the Big Bend country in search of gold. “Hacker didn't find gold, but he plans to claim the land for himself and turn it into an immense cotton plantation,” Dupoix said.

“What about the farms, the town, the people?” Wright said.

“They'll be swept away by a plague of locusts.”

The rancher gave Aaron Park and Cassidy a puzzled, sidelong look, then said, “We're not catching your drift.”

Dupoix told him about the thirsty, starving Mexicans amassed across the Rio Grande and Hacker's plan to drive them across the river on Independence Day.

“A bandit by the name of Sancho Perez—”

Wright was startled and jumped erect in his chair. “Hell, me and Aaron traded shots with Perez three, four years back, the spring of '86 I reckon, when he and his boys raided into Texas north of here,” he said.

Park said, “Yeah, it was over to Blue Creek. He murdered four Chinese teamsters traveling with a woman, then skedaddled back across the river.”

“We never did find that woman,” Wright said.

“Perez will drive the Mexicans across the Rio Grande tomorrow,” Dupoix said.

Cassidy dropped words into the stunned silence that followed. “On Independence Day? How many Mexicans?”

“A thousand at least. Maybe close to twice that by this time.”

“Hell, it is like a plague of locusts,” Wright said.

“They'll swarm over the land, drive the Americans away, and pick the fields and orchards clean,” Dupoix said. “Then, when it's all over, Abe Hacker will use his contacts in Washington to score a deed to some prime real estate for his cotton.”

“No town, no nothing,” Park said. “He'll get it cheap.”

“Unless we stop him,” Dupoix said.

“How do we stand against thousands?” Wright said.

“Including women and children,” Dupoix said. “Whatever Hank Cannan has in mind it isn't going to be easy.”

“How many men do you have so far?” Cassidy said.

“At the moment just two. Texas Ranger Hank Cannan and me.”

“It ain't enough,” Wright said.

Earlier Julia had set up some wrought-iron contraption in front of the fire and now Dupoix stared at the melancholy sight of his patched drawers steaming in the heat.

Finally he said, “That's why the Ranger sent me to you, Luke.”

“What did the other ranchers say?” Wright asked.

“You're the first.”

“When will the Mexicans cross the river?”

“I don't know, but probably when the Independence Day celebrations are at their height and everybody is having a good time.”

“Late afternoon, huh?”

“That would be my take on it.”

Luke Wright thought things through for a spell, then his frowning face cleared as he appeared to come to a decision.

“Up for some night riding, Aaron?” he said to his foreman.

Park's smile made him appear even healthier. “I've done it plenty of times before, boss, back in the day.”

Wright looked at Dupoix and smiled. “It's always good to have reformed outlaws riding for the brand. Gives the ol' homestead snap.”

“What do you want me to do?” Park said.

“Give my compliments to Clem Bates and then to Jim Hungerford. Tell them what you've heard here and ask them to bring whatever hands they have and meet me here at first light.”

“Anything else, boss?” Park said.

“Yeah, tell them to come ready for a fight.”

Park rose to his feet. “I'd better get going,” he said.

“Aaron, you've got some long riding ahead of you,” Wright said. “Take my paint mare. She's got plenty of bottom to her and she'll run from sunup to sundown.”

“I'll be back by dawn,” Park said. “Depend on it.

“I reckon you'll be tired out, Aaron. Will you be ready for a scrap?”

Park grinned. “Used up or no, I'm always ready for a scrap.”

After the big foreman left, Dupoix said, “How many can you bring, Luke?”

“Me and Aaron. I got two hands out in the range but it would take all night to find them. They'll be in sometime after noon tomorrow for the celebration.”

Wright read the disappointment on Dupoix's face. “You can see how it is with me,” he said.

Cassidy stood. He looked as immovable as a granite rock. “You can count me in, Luke,” Cassidy said.

Wright shook his head. “George, you got enough problems of your own. This isn't your fight.”

“Begging your pardon, Luke, I may not be in good with the law, but I say an attack on my country is my fight.”

“The man has a point,” Dupoix said.

He smiled at Cassidy, removing any possible sting from his words. “How good are you with the iron, George?”

“I get by, I guess. I've never killed a white man.”

“I hope you never do,” Dupoix said.

“All right, that makes three,” Wright said. “Clem Bates has a grown son and he keeps on three hands during the summer. I reckon Jim Hungerford can bring himself and another two or three. Jim's a good man, scouted for the army and fit Apaches.”

Wright did the arithmetic.

“With you and the Ranger... um...”

“Baptiste.”

“... that counts a dozen, near enough.”

“How many men does that Perez feller have?” Cassidy said.

“I don't rightly know, but a sight more than a dozen,” Dupoix said.

Wright suddenly looked old. “Bandits,” he said. “Pistoleros. And we got cowboys.”

“Will they stand, Luke?” Dupoix said, his eyes suddenly worried.

“Sure, they'll stand and they'll die on their own ground if they have to. But punchers aren't gunfighters.”

“What are you telling me, Luke?” Dupoix said.

“Just don't expect too much,” Wright said. “That's what I'm telling you.”

Mickey Pauleen left his horse at the livery, then went straight to his room. He seethed with impotent rage and badly wanted to kill somebody.

The little gunman stood in front of the full-length mirror. A printed sign attached to the top of the frame read:

Well, his fly wasn't unbuttoned, but otherwise his reflection stunned him.

The left side of his face was bright scarlet, the right white from shock. Pauleen figured he looked like a harlequin clown in a circus show.

His shirt was tattered, charred at the edges, as were his pants. Worse, he'd lost half of his mustache and the few wispy strands that were left smelled like scorched wool.

Cursing, Pauleen unbuckled his guns, then stripped to his underwear. He'd never been a drinking man, but he poured himself a whiskey to steady his nerves and threw himself into a chair.

To his surprise his left hand holding the glass trembled, and he seemed to have lost his sense of taste. The Old Crow had no more flavor than water.

Well, the hell with it.

Pauleen got to his feet, smashed the whiskey glass against the wall, and stepped to the window.

Across the street, in the shifting light of the reflector lamps, a couple of men hung red, white, and blue bunting across the front of the Big Bend Hotel. One held the banner like a load of laundry while the other tacked it in place.

A brewery wagon drawn by a matched pair of gray Percherons trundled past, making late deliveries to the saloons, and a towheaded boy sat beside the driver and dangled his legs.

Pauleen turned away scowling. The peaceful scene irritated him.

He was a man who thrived on chaos, violence, upheaval, the roar of gunfire, the shrieks of dying men, blood, darkness, shadow, the sulfur stench of evil.

All those things were bread and butter to Mickey Pauleen.

He looked forward to tomorrow with keen anticipation... eager to see the blood of dead men smoke and gold-banded widows scream and scream and scream...

Feeling marginally better about himself, Pauleen shaved off what remained of his mustache and hated his naked top lip. He dressed hurriedly in a collarless shirt and gray coat and pants.

He'd lost his hat when the lightning struck, but he had another, brand new in a box, a white straw boater with a black and red ribbon that he'd intended to wear when he accompanied Hacker to Washington. But since tomorrow was Independence Day, he decided to break the hat in for the happy occasion. As it happened it fit badly as boaters always did.

The hat was a little too large and the brim rested on top of Pauleen's ears and gave him the look of a particularly poisonous toadstool.

But the little gunman's vanities rested elsewhere, and he was perfectly satisfied with his appearance.

Now as the moon rose higher in the night sky it was time for Mickey to go a-courtin'... his bizarre, brutal, brothel-bargaining for the sullied dowry of a fallen woman.

 

 

“Well, did you kill him?” Hacker said.

Pauleen shook his head.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

Pauleen's anger was sudden.

“Damn you, I got hit by lightning!”

“If you'd been hit by lightning you'd be dead.”

“It was close.”

Pauleen turned the left side of his face to Hacker, who sat in his usual chair by the window.

“Look at that,” he said.

The only light in the room came from the dim lamp by the bed, but Nora said, “I see it. You're bright red.”

“A lightning strike does that to a man,” Pauleen said.

Hacker stirred in his chair. “Where is Dupoix now?”

“I don't know. Maybe the lightning done for him.”

“Or maybe it didn't,” Hacker said. “There's something going on here I don't like, Mickey. Where was Dupoix headed and why?”

Pauleen was irritated. He wanted to discuss Nora, not Dupoix.

The gauzy lamplight was kind to the woman who sat up in bed, her long hair tumbling over her naked shoulders, as she filed her nails. She looked almost beautiful.

No, Pauleen told himself, she
was
beautiful.

And she was his.

Hacker interrupted the little gunman's thoughts.

“There are ranches out that way, Mickey. Did the Ranger send Dupoix for help?”

“What kind of help? All the hands were paid off last spring and the ranchers are old men. Perez and me can take care of them.”

“I know, Mickey, I know, but still, it troubles me.”

More than that troubled Hacker.

The derringer was in the breast pocket of his robe, but he couldn't use it. Dupoix might come looking for him, and, like it or not, for now Mickey was his only protection. The two Mexicans he'd gotten from Perez owed him no loyalty and couldn't be relied upon to defend him.

It also annoyed Hacker that Pauleen hadn't once called him “Boss” since he'd gotten back. The man was too arrogant by half and would have to be slapped down. Put in his bloody place, as the British said.

But not tonight, Hacker decided. There was no use antagonizing Pauleen when the end was so close.

“I'm still thinking about what we discussed, Mickey,” he said.

Pauleen's cobra head turned to the woman on the bed. He touched his tongue to his top lip.

“Right now I'll take her off your hands for nothing.”

Hacker smiled, like a benign uncle.
Right, Mickey, and how long before the blackmail started?
“No, a bargain is a bargain. You take legal possession of the woman tomorrow.” Hacker's smile grew even more sincere. “I'm a man of my word.”

Nora's nail file hovered above the fingers of her left hand and she stared at Hacker.

“Abe, I am not one of your properties to be bought and sold,” she said.

“Oh really, my dear? I thought you were.”

“Then you were wrong.”

“And how do you expect to get out of this place when I'm gone?”

“I'll find a way.”

Hacker shrugged, his chins quivering.

“You could always sell yourself to the Mexicans, I suppose, make a few pesos that way.”

“You're going with me, Nora,” Pauleen said. Then, his eyes ugly, “You'll be my woman for as long as I want you.”

Nora fixed Mickey with a stony Medusa stare. “You'd last less than a week, little man, before I killed you,” she said.

“Stop!” Hacker said, slapping a hand on the arm of his chair. “I will not have talk of violence on the eve of our great nation's birthday.” He turned to the woman. “Nora, I plan to settle a generous dowry on you so that you and Mickey can live the rest of your lives in comfort and happiness.”
And if you believe that you're even more stupid than I thought.
“Now,” Hacker said, “let us have no more crossness and ill-chosen words.”

He made a great show of looking out the window. “Mickey, see how fairly the moon has risen and how brightly it shines.”

Pauleen and Nora's eyes were still locked in combat, but without turning away the gunman said, “Yeah, I see it.”

“Good, because I want you to ride out, and take those two useless Mexicans with you.”

Now Pauleen directed his full attention to Hacker. “Ride out? I just got struck by lightning.”

“A near miss, dear boy,” Hacker said. “No real harm done.”

“Ride out where?”

“Under the light of the moon you will cross the river and meet with Sancho Perez. Tomorrow you will lead the charge into Last Chance. I want no last-minute slipups.”

“Damn it, Perez knows what he has to do.”

“I want you there, Mickey.” Hacker silenced Pauleen's objection with a raised hand. “This cotton plantation will be my son's first fiefdom and I will be very generous to the man who ensures he inherits it, Mickey.” The fat man smiled. “Do you understand?”

“How generous?”

“We talked five figures for the woman. My boy, we will start our discussion at that price and go up from there.”

Pauleen glanced at Nora, an odd mix of lust and contempt on his face. “Suppose I don't plan to keep her for long?” he said.

“No matter. When we get back to Washington I want your strong arm by my side, Mickey. I have enemies and sometimes enemies need to be... ah, eliminated.”

Hacker looked out the window again, pleased with himself. It was easy to promise the moon when all he planned to offer was green cheese.

“Your new hat becomes you, Mickey,” he said. “Very spiffy. Don't you think so, Nora?... Ah, well, ‘No answer was the loud reply.'”

Hacker rose to his feet.

“Go now, Mickey, get it done. By this time tomorrow night you'll have your woman and more money than you ever dreamed.”

By this time tomorrow night you'll be dead.

Pauleen nodded. “Now we see eye to eye... Abe... make sure you don't get in the way of a bullet.”

“And you, too, Mickey. You, too.”

 

 

Abe Hacker didn't know it then, but by sending Pauleen away he'd made a fatal mistake.

Unlike the twitching, gibbering Mickey, the fat man slept soundly.

And throughout the long night he would not hear a thing...