Flintlock (15 page)

Charlie Fong had no doubt about the right of the thing.

No matter how crazy it seemed, he had it to do.

He was not normally a man who tilted at windmills, but a respect for his own kind drove him on and he didn't question himself.

His fire was small, built with dry sticks to cut down on smoke, and what little there was rose upward into the soaring cottonwood he sat under, one of many that stood beside the Chaco River.

Fong studied the shard of pottery he'd found close to the tree. He figured it was ancient, made by the Old Ones who'd lived here long before the Spanish men arrived.

This was a harsh, heat-blasted place, the air gasping dry, but pottery suggested a settled way of life. How the Old Ones survived this harsh country was a mystery he could not fathom. Unless the land itself had changed over the centuries, but he didn't know about that either.

He shoved the pot shard in his shirt pocket and chewed on a strip of beef jerky that smelled bad. But he'd left the trading post in such a hurry it was all he'd brought with him.

Months after the spring melt, the Chaco was more dry wash than river, but he'd been able to fill his canteen with the trickle that still survived, and though the water was brackish, it was wet.

Charlie Fong idly watched a cougar prowl the opposite bank. The big cat stopped and stared at him with golden eyes before moving on....

“Couldn't believe it with my own eyes, 'cause I'd never seen the like,” the cavalry trooper had told him back at the trading post. “There he was, bold as brass, with them two Chink girls doing his every bidding. Like slaves they was, and maybe a sight worse if the truth be known. He says he bought them girls in Frisco for good American money and they didn't come cheap.”

“Pretty?” Fong had said.

“You could say that, if slanty-eyes Celestials are to your taste.”

Charlie Fong let that go. The man was talkative, and one thing Charlie Fong had learned in the Tong was that if you let a talking man speak there was no telling what you could learn.

“Feller's name is Silas Garrard and he says he's a retired sea captain,” the soldier said. “But I thought to meself,
Aye, slave cap'n is more like
. He's got all kinds of African and Chinese stuff in his cabin, and more'n one picture of black men in chains getting whipped along by fellers wearing long robes and turbans on their heads while a white man watches it all from horseback. You ask me, them little gals ain't long for this world, if that's the way Garrard treated his slaves afore he got them to market.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Charlie Fong said.

“Well, beggin' your pardon, you're a Chinaman yourself,” the soldier said. “Or haven't you noticed?”

“And you think because I'm a Chinaman I should rescue the girls?”

“If'n they was white women, that's what I'd do.”

“They mean nothing to me.”

“Suit yourself. But, hell, they might be kin o' yourn.”

The soldier, short and thin like most cavalry troopers, leaned forward in his mess hall chair and whispered, “Here's a puzzler, a real humdinger. He said a real strange thing, that Garrard feller. Asked me if I'd heard anything about a golden bell hidden somewhere in the Carrizo Mountains. I said that I hadn't, and he said, ‘Well, I might get rid of the two women and go look for it.' I swear that's what he said, so you can make of that what you will.”

“A most singular statement,” Fong said, pretending to have only a passing interest.

“As to what the cap'n meant about getting rid of the women, well, your guess is as good as mine,” the trooper said. “But by the look of that feller, I'd say throat cuttin' is what he had in mind, unless he can find a buyer for them gals.”

The soldier rose, adjusted his canvas gun belt and butt-forward Colt, and said, “As to them women, Chinaman, if you're going to do something, better do it quick. I'd say time is running out on them.”

Charlie Fong told himself that it was Garrard talking about the golden bell that tipped the scales, but he knew in his heart he'd have gone after the Chinese girls no matter what.

When he came right down to it, blood is thicker than water, and more than that, it was the way of the Tong to help others of their race.

The cavalry trooper told him where the Garrard cabin was situated. He said it lay on the eastern base of the Hogback, a sharply pointed ridge of raw sandstone and shale that looked like the dorsal fin of a submerged sea monster.

“It's the only cabin along that stretch of the Chaco, so just follow the river north and you'll find it,” the man said. “An' if you do venture thataway, then good luck to you.”

Charlie Fong added a few sticks to his fire. He calculated that he was about five miles from the Garrard cabin and from there it would be a two-day ride back to the Red Rock Valley. With the women in tow, probably three.

He'd left without telling Roper and Flintlock, because he knew they'd try to talk him out of it. By now they must be wondering where he was, and Abe, by his very nature, would suspect treachery.

Fong smiled to himself. That was the trouble with outlaws like Abe Roper. They figured everybody was as crooked as themselves.

It was in Charlie Fong's mind to bed down early under the cottonwoods and strike out at first light for the Garrard cabin.

But the arrival of Pleasant Tyrell riding through the pale twilight put that plan on hold.

The old man, riding a mouse-colored mustang, leading another with a pack on its back, drew rein a ways off and hollered, “Hello, the camp.”

Fong rose to his feet. His hand went to the leather-lined front pocket of his pants where he carried his .38 and he yelled, “Come on in.”

Later Fong would recount that Pleasant Tyrell was a sight to see.

He looked to be in his late seventies, maybe older. He wore buckskins that had fringes on the shirtsleeves at least two feet long, a yellow bandana sagging low on his chest and a beautiful silk top hat perched precariously on his completely bald head.

Pinned to the crown on the hat two inches above the brim was a deputy United States marshal's star.

Tyrell, a man with humor in his faded blue eyes, wore two ivory-handled Smith & Wesson Russians, butt forward in fine black holsters.

He drew rein again but made no motion to dismount.

“I'd say I smelled your coffee, sonny,” he said. “But you ain't got no coffee.”

Charlie Fong held up a chunk of the reeking jerky. “Have this, if you've got a taste for it.”

“Hell, no. Ate too much of that during the War for Southern Rights.”

Tyrell gave his name, then said, “What's a Chinaman from China doing all the way out here in these United States?”

Fong smiled. “I could ask that same question about a lawman who seems to be a fer piece off his home range.”

“I never seen a Chinaman out here,” Tyrell said, leaning back in the saddle. “Seen plenty of Celestials afore, mind, but never out here.”

“There's a first time for everything, Marshal,” Fong said.

“What you got in your pocket, sonny? You seem mighty interested in it.”

Fong decided to call it. “A Smith & Wesson sneaky gun.”

“You on the scout?”

“Not recent. I might be wanted in Texas, though.”

“Hell, boy, everybody's wanted in Texas. What do they call you?”

“Charlie Fong.”

“Charlie ain't much of a name for a Chinaman.”

“It serves.”

The old lawman nodded. “All right, Charlie, are you going to ask me to light an' set?”

“Of course, Marshal, but it pains me to say that I've nothing to offer. My hospitality will be thin, to say the least.”

“Well, I got coffee an' I got grub an' I'm in a mind to share. That lay all right with you, Charlie?”

“Light and set,” Charlie Fong said.

 

 

“Man can't find better camp grub than salt pork and pan bread,” Pleasant Tyrell said, wiping off his mouth with his sleeve. “Greases his innards, like, an' guards agin the rheumatisms.”

Charlie Fong was hungry and was in a mood to agree. “Yup, it's a sandwich that settles in the belly like a snowflake, all right.”

Suddenly Tyrell looked shrewd, his eyes narrowing. “Who you runnin' with, Charlie?”

Fong said, “Do I have to be running with anybody?”

“No, you could be on a high lonesome, I guess, but you don't seem the type. Chinamen ain't the kind to be lone riders, if you catch my drift. Usually when you see one, there's a score of others close by.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I'm a lawman. Is that reason enough?”

“How fast are you with them pistols?”

“Fast enough on the shuck'n'shoot to drill you square afore you pull that belly gun outta your poke.”

Charlie Fong grinned. For a moment he listened to the wind talk in the cottonwoods and the coyotes yip in the bone-white hills under the waxing moon. Finally he said, “You're a blunt-speaking man, Marshal.”

“And I'm a listening man, Charlie,” Tyrell said. “So talk to me.”

“Abe Roper and Sam Flintlock.”

If Tyrell was surprised he didn't let it show. “A few years back, when he got out of Yuma, Roper took up the train-robbing profession,” he said. “I know fer a fact he robbed the
Katy Flier
not a twelvemonth gone and that Wells Fargo would dearly love to see him caught and hung.”

“And Sam Flintlock? Is he on your wanted list?” Fong said.

“He's a bounty hunter, so you could say we're in the same line o' work. He still carry that ol' Hawken everywhere he goes?”

“Seems like.”

“He's fast with the iron, is Sam. Got that big bird tattooed acrost his throat, I recollect.”

“It brings him luck. Or so he says.”

“Lucky fer him, Charlie, maybe unlucky fer you. There ain't no trains to rob around these parts, so what are you doin' here?”

“You ain't gonna believe me, Marshal.”

“Try me, boy. You want that last slice o' salt pork?”

“No. I've had enough.”

“Then I'll eat it.” Talking through a chewing mouth, Tyrell said, “So, try me.”

Charlie Fong told the marshal about Silas Garrard and the two Chinese girls and how he suspected they were being abused. He didn't mention the golden bell.

After listening intently and nodding now and then, Tyrell doffed his top hat, displaying a shockingly bald scalp, then resettled it on his head again, as though it had been threatening to tip over.

“Seems to me that this man Garrard hasn't broken any laws,” he said. “If he bought and paid for them China girls, then they're his to do with as he pleases.”

“Marshal, slavery ended with the War Between the States,” Fong said. “You can't buy people anymore and do with them as you please.”

“Well, maybe you got a point there, sonny. But Celestials ain't real people like white folks, beggin' your pardon. So as I said, I don't see that any laws have been broken. But I'll study on it some.”

Prejudice is the bastard child of ignorance, and Marshal Tyrell wasn't about to change his mind about races, so Charlie Fong didn't try to educate him.

“Are you here after Abe Roper?” he said.

“Nope. I got bigger fish to fry, an outlaw and killer by the name of Asa Pagg.”

“He's around,” Fong said.

“You seen him?”

“Yeah, at Fort Defiance.”

“He got Logan Dean and Joe Harte with him? Two real bad 'uns.”

Fong nodded. “Sure thing. I'd say you got your work cut out for you, Marshal.”

The news obviously didn't sit well with Tyrell. He frowned as though his thoughts were troubling him. Then he sighed deeply and said, “Well, I wear the badge and draw the wages, so I got it to do.”

“You can get the soldiers at the fort to help,” Fong said.

“It ain't really their concern and men going up against Pagg and them can die real easy.”

“Including you, Marshal.”

“I ain't been kilt yet, sonny, so we'll see, huh?” Tyrell rose to his feet, worked a kink out of his back, then rummaged in his pack. He came up with a pint of whiskey and a Jew's harp that he held up for Charlie Fong to see.

When the lawman sat again, he said, “Gimme your cup.”

Tyrell poured a generous shot into Fong's coffee and did the same for himself.

He wriggled to get comfortable, then grinned at Fong, and with considerable skill, began to twang out “Skip to My Lou,” then a great frontier favorite.

Charlie Fong, who knew and liked the song, grinned as he chimed in with the words....

Tyrell took the harp from his mouth and sang in a gruff baritone, his right boot thumping out the beat....

As the verses went back and forth between the two men, an owl, attracted by the sound, flew silently over the camp. For an instant the flames of the campfire glowed red under its wings and then the bird vanished like a ghost into the darkness.

 

 

When Charlie Fong stirred in his blankets at daybreak, Marshal Pleasant Tyrell had already loaded his packhorse and coffee bubbled on the fire.

“You snored all night,” the lawman said. “I thought Chinamen didn't snore, thinking it ain't polite, like.”

“Sorry,” Fong said. He threw his blanket aside and got to his feet. “First time anybody ever told me I snore.”

“Don't make no never mind,” Tyrell said. “I don't sleep anyway. Feather mattresses have done spoiled me for beddin' down on limestone rock.”

His brain still cobwebbed with sleep, Fong squatted by the fire and poured himself coffee.

“How is it?” the marshal said. “Bile long enough?”

“It's just fine. You going after Asa Pagg?”

“Not yet. I have a mind to go with you and see this Garrard feller.”

“You don't have to deal yourself a hand in my game, Marshal,” Charlie Fong said.

“I said I'd study on it, and I did,” Tyrell said. “If Garrard is abusing them little gals like you say he is, then it's a matter for the law.”

Fong smiled. “Changed your tune since last night.”

“Yeah, well, what I said last night about Celestials not being real people don't go. I was feelin' mean and I guess it showed on me.” Tyrell grinned. “Besides, Charlie, you got a real nice singing voice and I wouldn't want anything to happen to it.”

Fong spoke over the rim of his tin cup. “And if you ride with me, you can delay going after Asa Pagg and his boys for a spell.”

The marshal seemed to think that over, then he slapped his holstered Colts and said, “Charlie, I've been in a score of gunfights and I've killed seven men in the line of duty. You know why I'm still here to talk about it?”

“You were lucky, I guess.”

“Nope, that ain't it. Well, it ain't all of it. No, I'm still here because I never went toe to toe with the fast ones, like your pal Sam Flintlock fer instance.”

“So what did you do?”

“Got me a sworn posse to back my play, and if I didn't have one o' them, then, why, I'd set up on a ridge somewhere with my ol' Henry and plug the gunslick as he rode past. Either that or I'd shoot him when he was kneeling beside his bed sayin' his prayers or bouncing a young 'un on his knee. I killed Matt Rowe, the Santa Rita gunfighter, as he was a-sittin' in his outhouse reading a store catalog. Two barrels o' buckshot tore a hole right through the ladies' corsets page an' done fer him.”

Pleasant Tyrell poured himself coffee. “Know what that's called, Charlie?”

“
Murder
might be a name for it.”

“Hell, it ain't murder. It's called gettin' the drop on a man.” The marshal smiled. “So you see, I ain't as scared of Asa Pagg as you think. I'll bide my time until I get the drop and then cut him in half with my Greener.”

“You might be a handy man to have around at that, Marshal,” Fong said.

“Well, one more thing, Charlie. I don't know how this thing with Garrard will pan out, but if there's killin' to be done, I'll do it. We got to stay within the law. Catch my drift?”

“I'll let you call it,” Charlie Fong said.

“Then drink your coffee and we'll hit the trail and find what we find,” Tyrell said.

Only then did Charlie Fong remember that in his saddlebags he had the map to the cave of the golden bell.

Ol' Abe must be having conniptions by now.