Red Moon (23 page)

Wilson Orez let go of his rifle, allowing it to fall back against the rocks when the Ranger walked into sight around the turn in the trail. He stood up slowly, his big knife hanging in his hand. He noted the Ranger wasn't leading his horse or carrying his rifle, and he saw no sign of surprise in the Ranger's face or demeanor as the Ranger looked up at him. Orez watched quietly until the Ranger stopped on the trail a full thirty feet back from the rock spill.

“You're the Ranger the railroad sent to kill me,” he said.

“The railroad didn't send me, Orez,” the Ranger said. “It doesn't work that way.”

“How does it work?” he said with contempt, looking the young Ranger up and down. “You tell me. How do you decide who lives and who dies?”

The Ranger stood staring at him.

“I keep it simple,” the Ranger said. “I carry a list of names. If your name gets on the list, you're halfway there already.” He paused, then added, “Your name's been on that list over a month.”

“A month, huh?” Orez said. “What took you so long?” He took a step down on the rock spill as he spoke. The Ranger saw the Colt standing in a holster on his right hip. But Orez's right hand held the big knife.

This is how it is, a knife fight. Watch for a trick,
he warned himself.

At the rock spill the roan stared, its ears raised in interest toward the sound of the Ranger's voice. Its nostrils flared and probed the air, taking in the scent of him. The Ranger heard the horse nicker and caught a glimpse of him jerk and rear against the hitched lead rope. The other horses shied away from him as far as the rope would allow.

“When I'm through killing you,” Orez said, “I'm cutting his throat. What I don't eat of him tonight, I'll dry and take with me into the mountains.” He reached his left hand behind his back, took out another knife and pitched it handle-first at the Ranger's feet. He took another step down the rocks, then another, and another, each one quicker than the one before.

Here it comes,
the Ranger told himself. He stopped and picked up the knife, but he remained crouched, braced, seeing Orez leap the last step out of the rocks onto the trail and charge forward in a run, no regard for the big Colt holstered on the Ranger's hip.

The Ranger responded quickly; he raced forward into Orez rather than take the full force of his charge straight on. Crashing together, each instinctively grasped the other's wrist with his free hand. Each withstood the other's attack as they both stood their ground to the inch. But then Orez made the next move, striking fast.

The big half-breed twisted forward right to left, swinging his weight between himself and the Ranger. With one swift flip, he tossed the Ranger over his back and onto the firm, wet trail. The Ranger landed hard, but he had no time to spend there. He saw Orez's knife slashing down at him, a full swing from left to right; all he could do was roll away and keep rolling until he caught himself and sprang to his feet. He crouched again, facing Orez.

Orez gave a short, sly grin and tossed his knife back and forth hand to hand, flashy, showing off, a dangerous thing to do, the Ranger thought.

That was all right. Sam needed a second to recatch the breath that the fall had taken from his lungs. But he didn't get much more than a second before the two of them were facing each other again, crablike, hands and knives out, each ready to anticipate the other's move.

“You were fast, Ranger,” Orez said. “I once killed a cavalry sergeant with that same move.”

The Ranger didn't reply. He had nothing to say, and no breath to waste saying it.

“It was your own fault you died here today, Ranger,” Orez said. “I left signs all along my trail, warning everybody.” He shook his head. “I painted my trail with blood. Still, here you come.”

“If that's why you killed those folks, you wasted a lot of human life for nothing,” the Ranger said. The two circled back and forth, watching, searching, each ready for the other to leave himself open for a split second, just enough to allow the other in to kill. “The law doesn't stop because one crazy murderer warns it to.”

“Crazy murderer, huh-uh. I'm a Red Sleeve warrior,” Orez said, as if defending his sanity.

“Call it how it suits you, Orez,” said the Ranger. “It's too late to stop fooling yourself anyway—”

Before his words left his mouth, Orez was upon him, his big knife swinging back and forth too fast for him to defend against. All the Ranger could do was jump back away from the bite of slashing steel. Still, Orez kept coming. He stopped his attack only when the Ranger stepped sidelong and brought his own blade through the air so fast it sliced across Orez's forearm.

“You drew first blood,” Orez said flatly, glancing down at the long flowing strings of blood running from his arm, splattering on the wet ground.

The Ranger stood crouched, ready, not replying. He knew what to expect now that Wilson Orez saw that his own blood was the first to spill. In an instant, like the strike of a snake, Orez slashed forward, again so fast that the Ranger could only jump backward away from the deadly steel. This time Orez's strike was so swift and vicious he couldn't move backward fast enough. Instead he only managed to spin away from the blade at the last second. As he did so, he felt the white-hot burn of steel streak across the small of his back.

He was cut and he knew it. But he shook it off, not wanting to think about how bad, not now. Not while he felt the warm blood spread down over his hip from just above his belt line.

Orez stepped back, crouched less than before, not seeming as intense as before. There was almost a swagger to him.

“It's the ones you don't see coming that do the most damage,” Orez said, staring at him. As he spoke, he ripped his sliced and bloody shirtsleeve down off his arm and wrapped it hastily around his wound.

Sam realized the man could have killed him just then. Why hadn't he? Instead of slicing the blade across his back, he could just as easily have sunk it between his shoulder blades or driven it deep and rounded it through his heart. That would have ended it, Sam told himself. But no, Orez didn't want to end it.

Before he could think any more on the matter, Orez lunged at him again, this time the knife blade streaking close to his throat, only missing by an inch. The Ranger backed away again. This had been a mistake; he realized it. He'd had Orez dead in his rifle sights. Why hadn't he himself ended it right then, right there?

Now it came to him what Orez was doing; he was flaunting death. He was ready to die, but he wasn't selling his life away cheaply. The warrior in him wanted to die as bloody as he could make it. Somehow Sam understood that. Suddenly it was all making sense in this small dark world of killing.

Orez came in again; this time the Ranger didn't jump back. He was through jumping back. As Orez's big blade came swinging across him, he swung back with his own big blade. The sound of steel on steel clashed loudly. The Ranger crouched again, ready to go back to circling, getting the fight back under his control. But as he crouched, he heard a ring and clatter of steel on the rocks behind him. He glanced down at his hand realizing that the sound he'd heard was his own broken knife blade flying in a high arc and landing in the rock spill.

Orez stared at him with an almost disappointed expression and shook his head slowly.

“I gave you every chance,” he said. He lunged forward, this time with the seriousness of a man finishing a job he had to do.

Sam could do nothing but drop the useless knife handle and fall back step after step as Orez's big blade swung to and fro with increased intensity. When he tripped backward over his own boot and fell to the ground, Orez stopped for only a second. But then he regripped the big knife in his hand and made his final lunge.

The Ranger, on the ground, brought the big Colt up just above his holster, not a second too soon. He felt the gun buck in his hand, shot after shot, each bullet tearing a hole through Orez's chest, leaving a red mist in the air behind him. Suddenly the hillside turned dark and silent, and Sam lay back slowly on the hard wet ground. He holstered the Colt that rested smoking his hand.

•   •   •

In the silent graying evening light, the speckled barb, stirred by the scent of something on the prowl on a rocky hillside above him, sawed his head and tested his reins until at length they fell from around the jut of rock. Still, the horse waited and probed the air back and forth, then nickered to himself. Finally, as if giving the matter no more consideration, he trotted out around the turn in the trail without stopping until he saw the Ranger lying flat on his back in a dark puddle of blood.

Hearing the slowing clop of the barb's hooves, the Ranger turned his face to the side and stared into the glazed eyes of Wilson Orez lying flat on the ground beside him. A moment passed and he felt the warm breath and the dampness of the barb's muzzle against his cheek. From the rock spill, he heard the nickering of the roan and looked over and saw the animal jerking and picking at the hitched lead rope with its teeth.

It's been a rough one, but it's over.

He breathed in relief, shoved himself up and sat slumped on the ground, letting himself come back slowly from some dark place where he'd been. He felt a stiffness where the wound across his back had dried over against his shirt. He could hear the lingering ring of cold steel blades colliding in midair as he saw Orez's knife lying near his boot. At first sight he stuck out a boot and shoved it away. But then he reached over, unlooped the knife's sheath strap from around Orez's shoulder, picked up the knife and pushed himself up to his feet. He shoved the big knife firmly into its sheath and hung the strap over his shoulder.

His first step was halting, hard to get started. Then he staggered, righted himself and walked, the barb following close behind him, to where the roan stood nickering amid the other horses.

“Easy, boy,” Sam said, watching the roan settle as he drew nearer, reached out a hand and rubbed its muzzle. The barb stepped in beside him, as if to not be left out of anything. The horses watched with interest as Sam took a bandanna from the roan's saddlebags, wadded it and stuffed it inside his shirt and back against his bloody wound. “That'll do for now,” he said.

In the failing evening light he gathered the string of horses and looked them over, taking in the bags of money across their backs. He shook his head and glanced at Orez's body, noting how much smaller the man looked in death than he had in life. Overhead, above a thin bank of remaining cloud cover, a streaking red glow loomed large and round. The Ranger saw something black, something wide of wing batting upward. He watched it rise and cut across the Mexican hill and mountain line and move up out of sight into the black heavens above.

He walked to Orez's body, dragged it to the edge of the trail and rolled it off the side. He stood listening to the sound of it falling for a moment, but never heard it land.

Walking back to the horses, he saw the roan and the speckled barb standing close together, staring curiously at him. He rubbed both their muzzles, the roan pushing forward a little, demanding more than the barb. He'd gone through a lot of horses this trip, Sam reminded himself.

“I'm obliged, to both of you.” He looked back and forth at the two tired, wet, mud-streaked animals and said, “Fellows, let's go home.”

Taking up the lead rope, he stepped into the California saddle atop the barb. He put the barb forward, leading the string; the roan sidled in close at the head of the string, its nose almost against his leg. The Ranger tried pushing its muzzle away gently, but the roan would have none of it.

“I liked you just as well when you were a little standoffish,” the Ranger said. The roan persisted, keeping its nose close to him, and chuffed and blew and shook out its damp tangled mane as they walked away around the turn in the trail. The soft clop of the horses' hooves fell gently on the ground. Overhead, the sky lay as quiet as a whisper.

Twisted Hills, the Mexican Badlands

The wide dirt street of Paso Alto lay beneath a veil of dry wavering heat as Arizona Ranger Samuel Burrack rode the black-speckled barb at a walk past the Gatos Malos Cantina. From under the brim of his sweat-stained sombrero, he eyed three men seated along a blanket-cushioned swing on the cantina's front porch. Each man held a rifle; each man wore a bandolier of ammunition hanging from his shoulder across his chest.

The three men returned the Ranger's stare, keeping the porch swing moving slowly back and forth with the slightest effort of their scuffed boots.

“That's right, gringo. You just keep moving on along,” the man in the middle growled under his breath, more to his two
compañeros
than to the Ranger.

On the man's right, a broad-shouldered Mexican gunman known only as Pesado gave a single grunt of a laugh, finding irony in Ross McCloud calling the stranger a gringo. McCloud was from Missouri, after all—less than three months in Paso Alto, where he'd taken refuge from Missouri law.

“You are one
loco bastardo
, Ross,” Pesado said with a sharp grin, his dark eyes following the Ranger for a few yards before turning away.

Ross McCloud stared straight ahead and spoke to the gunman on his left, an on-the-run murderer called Little Richard Fitts.

“Did he just call me a
crazy bastard
, Little Richard?” McCloud asked quietly, menace in his voice.

“Yes, I believe he did,” Little Richard replied, eyeing a busty young British woman who stepped out of the cantina and lighted herself a thin black cigar.

Ross McCloud nodded.

“Good,” he said, also watching the woman draw deep on the cigar and let out a stream of smoke. “For a minute there, I thought he was insulting me.”

Ten feet away the British woman untied the strings holding her blouse shut across her breasts.

“I hope you fellows don't mind,” she said with only a trace of a British accent. “It's hotter than Hades at high noon.” She fanned the open blouse, then left it hanging agape; her pale freckled breasts stood firm, exposed and glaring in the white-hot sunlight.

“We
don't
mind, do we, Little Richard?” McCloud said without taking his eyes off the woman.

“Not too awful much,” Little Richard replied, staring at her, his lips hanging slightly agape. “It is high noon,” he added.

“And this is hell,” McCloud said to her. “Leastwise it was, until it got so hot, the devil moved out.” Without taking his eyes from the woman, he stood up and held his rifle out sidelong to the Mexican beside him. “Pesado, hold this for me. I'm going to go count this young lady's freckles.”

“Oh, are you now, luv?” the woman said. She turned facing them, a hand cupped at the center of her naked breasts. “And what might I be
counting
whilst you amuse yourself?” She turned her cupped hand enough to rub her fingers and thumb together in the universal sign of greed, then clasped her hand back over herself as if overcome by modesty.

“I can't stand this,” said Fitts, leaning his rifle against the end of the swing, stepping forward. “I'll give you something to count,” he said to the woman.

“Easy, luv. Your fangs are showing,” the woman said to Fitts.

“Wait a minute, Little Richard,” said McCloud. “Who invited you?”

“When she turned them puppies loose, that's all the inviting I needed,” said Fitts. He started forward.

McCloud hurried alongside him, shoving him away.

“We've been pards awhile, Little Richard,” he warned. “But I swear to God—”

Behind them, Pesado stood laughing under his breath. But something in the corner of his eye caused him to turn suddenly toward the empty street. When he did, he found himself staring at the Ranger, who stood less than two feet from him, his big Colt cocked and aimed at the Mexican's broad belly.

“Día bueno, Pesado,”
the Ranger said quietly.

In reflex the Mexican started to swing his Spencer rifle around, having to drop McCloud's Winchester to do so. But before he could complete his move, the Ranger poked him with the gun barrel, just hard enough to make himself understood.

“If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead,” the Ranger said menacingly. “Drop it.”

McCloud and Fitts both turned upon hearing the Winchester hit the ground. Now they saw Pesado's Spencer rifle fall from his hands. They saw the Ranger standing with his Colt jammed into the Mexican gunman's belly.

They started to make a play for the revolvers holstered on their hips.

Pesado saw the look in the Ranger's eyes.

“Don't!”
he shouted at the other two gunmen. “This one will kill me. I know he will!”

“Who are you, mister?” McCloud asked, his and Fitts' hands rising chest high in a show of peace. “What the hell is your game here?”

“I'm here to see Fatch Hardaway,” Sam said flatly.

“Hunh-uh. We can't let you do that,” said McCloud, in spite of the Ranger catching the three by surprise and getting the drop on them. He and Fitts took a cautious step sidelong toward the cantina door as if to block it. The British woman stood back, cigar in hand, watching intently.

“Sure you can,” said Sam. “He knows I'm coming.”

As he spoke, he pulled the cocked Colt's barrel back an inch from the Mexican's belly and pulled the trigger. All three men braced, their eyes widened—especially Pesado's. But the Ranger caught the gun hammer with his thumb in a split second and eased it down. Pesado let out a deep sigh and cursed the Ranger under his breath.

“You dirty, rotten gringo . . .” He let his words trail.

The Ranger, his Colt hanging in his hand, slipped the Mexican's revolver from its holster, pitched it down beside the rifles and stepped away from Pesado toward the door.

“I already said we can't let you do that,” McCloud said in a stronger tone, his and Fitts' gun hands dropping down so they were poised beside their holstered revolvers.

The Ranger's thumb cocked the big Colt again. He stopped and raised the barrel calmly, smoothly, before either man made their move.

Damn it!
McCloud raged silently. Again this stranger had the drop on them.
Damn it to hell!

The British woman shook her lowered head. She let out a stream of smoke, dropped the thin cigar and crushed it out under her foot.

“By my stars,” she said, “aren't the three of you just
the berries—”

Her words fell away as a tall man in a black sweat-stained suit coat stepped into the doorway and looked back and forth. He held a sleek long-barreled Remington Army revolver in his right hand. He raised his free hand and removed a long, thick cigar from his mouth.

“Well, well, Ranger Samuel Burrack,” he said. “Here you are, just as I'd hoped.”

“I said I'd be here, Hardaway,” the Ranger replied.

“So you did,” said Hardaway. “And you've strolled through my bodyguards without so much as a shot fired, I see.” He gave each of his three gunmen a scorching look. “I can't tell you how pleased that makes me, as much as I'm paying these gun monkeys.”

Ranger?
McCloud, Fitts and Pesado looked at one another as if dumbstruck. McCloud stepped forward, embarrassed, and gestured toward Sam.

“Boss, it's lucky for him you showed up just now,” he said. “We came very near to killing this fool, not knowing you was expecting him, that is.”

“Yes, lucky him,” said Hardaway with a searing stare at Ross McCloud. “All of you
bodyguards
best pick your guns up before someone carries them off.”

The British woman gave a short playful chuckle; Hardaway shot her a hard glance, too. Seeing her pert round breasts, he took a deep, patient breath.

“Edy, put those away before somebody walks into a post and knocks his damn teeth out,” he said seriously.

“I certainly wouldn't want that, now, would I?” she said, loosely closing her blouse front, but not attempting to retie the strings.

“There you are, Ranger,” said Hardaway. “See why I want to go back to Texas without getting hanged? Life gets awfully trying around this bunch.”

“I'll bet,” Sam said. “You need to remember that the next time before you shoot a man and burn his saloon with him inside it.”

“I realize that I may have acted a little rash and hastily, both in killing him and in burning his saloon down,” said Hardaway. “But what has become of forgiveness these days?”

Sam just stared at him.

“At any rate”—Hardaway looked the Ranger up and down, then motioned him inside out of the sun—“welcome to the Bad Cats Cantina,” he said.

The Ranger stepped inside and looked around the cantina's dingy dark interior. “This is your place?” he asked Hardaway.

“Let's just say I've acquired a substantial interest in it,” he said, guiding the Ranger across the dirt floor toward tables standing beneath rings of circling flies. “I do hope you've got some good news for me.”