The Frighteners (25 page)

Nobody interfered with me as I took inventory; there seemed to be nobody around. After all the time and trouble I’d taken to reach it, I decided that the best thing to do with the truck was just leave it right there, guns and all, for the time being. Hiding it might have been better, but I wasn’t in good enough condition to lose it out in the boonies and make a long hike back; and I didn’t know enough about the town to find an empty garage or bam in which to conceal it. I locked it up again, therefore, and headed back to base by roundabout ways, making my approach from the south, very cautiously. When I could see it clearly, the house looked just the way I’d left it, with the kitchen windows lighted and a vague glow inside the patio walls indicating that the living room illumination, only partially blocked by the drapes, was still spilling out through the big glass doors.

The patio gate was inviting. I’d had a lot of exercise for a man who’d spent the past week in bed. Some of the exercise had been very pleasant, but I was getting tired now. Nevertheless, I made my way to the rear where the bedroom windows were dark and slipped past them to get a look around the far comer—and pulled back quickly. Okay, the old hunter/hunted instincts could still be relied on after all. One Buff Cody, the true or the false, had visitors coming. There were two of them, and they were about to tackle the patio wall on this blind and gateless side. Watching silently, I saw the smaller shape fling a rug or blanket over the broken glass. The larger one put his back to the wall and made a step of his hands, and hoisted the smaller one to his shoulders.

It was no place for loud firearms. They saw me charging at them, of course, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot they could do about it. The lower man was pretty well immobilized and, perched on the big one’s shoulders, the smaller man on top was trying to get a knee up on the wall in a rather gingerly manner, clearly not quite sure that the rug was going to protect him from the sharp glass if he put his full weight on it. He turned to look my way, but he had no chance to jump clear before I smashed his support out from under him. The man I hit, while not overly large himself, felt solid and muscular. The small one came down on my legs. I kicked him away and rolled to my feet before the bigger one and kicked that one in the face as he started to rise at last and got my gun out, hoping that I could use it to stabilize the situation without actually killing anybody noisily. . . .

“No!” gasped a girl’s voice behind me. “No shoot, Meester Cody! Is me, Antonia!”

The patio was silent when I entered it. I managed to detour around the fallen firewood without getting involved with the spines of the cactus garden. I knocked on the big glass door.

“It’s me. Let me in.”

There was a long enough pause for apprehension to start building, then the curtains billowed and Jo appeared, making her way between them and the glass. The lock rattled, and the door slid aside.

“Enter, me.”

The brightly lighted living room was a shock to my dark-adapted eyes. Jo was standing well back. I noted that she’d discarded her big apron and her slinky dress; she was dressed for action in shirt, jeans, boots and silver. I’d seen the costume before, of course; but the object in her hand was new to me. Well, at least in these surroundings. It was a heavy automatic pistol that I recognized, after a moment, as one that I’d last seen in Hermosillo. Her brother’s gun, or a reasonable facsimile. She held it with the muzzle pointed ceiling wards, her finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard, the way you hold a loaded gun everywhere but in Hollywood. That was fine, I was glad to see she knew that much about firearms; but I’m usually very careful about keeping track of the guns around me. The fact that I hadn’t been aware that there was another weapon in the house in addition to mine wasn’t reassuring. Watching her tuck the piece inside her waistband, where it was concealed by the loose shirt and the silver belt, I reflected that I really did seem to have spent the past week in a daze. I noted that my flat little stainless

Russell knife, folded, lay on the small table at the end of the sofa.

Jo licked her lips. “I heard some noises outside. I was afraid. ... I didn’t expect you to be quite so long. I was getting worried. Did you have any trouble?”

“Well, I almost shot that damn girl again,” I said.

“Which damn girl? You have so many.” She laughed and stopped laughing. “Oh, you mean Sisneros? She’s out there?”

“With a friend or an uncle or something. Anyway, she calls him
t
í
o. T
í
o
Ignacio. I guess it can either mean uncle or just any older gent toward whom the speaker feels respectful. I’d seen him with her before, in Cananea.”

It had been a little tricky. Although I didn’t think he was combat-trained, the man was tough and might well have a knife. The girl was impulsive, to say the least, and undoubtedly carried at least her cheap twenty-two, reloaded. But we got it sorted out without casualties, and it turned out that, far from wishing me harm, she’d come here to save me from the true, wicked, dangerous Horace Cody.

“That nice boy Señor Mason Charles send us to help,” she said, after retrieving her
serape
from the top of the wall, shaking it out, and putting it back on. “Not help you, he cares nothing for you, who shoot him; but he has concern for the tall, cold sister. He said you still much sick, much weak. No good for protect. He said Señor Greer tell him Cody escape and come this way. Señor Greer say somebody asking about the sister at her hospital in the
Estados Unidos
, and he thinks Cody learn where you are.”

It had taken considerable persuasion before she’d agreed to wait outside with her tough companion. Now Jo was frowning at me, puzzled.

“How did they find us here?”

I said, “Apparently she’s been visiting your brother in the Hermosillo hospital. She thinks he’s a nice boy. When he heard Cody was loose—Greer told him—he told her where we were and asked her to protect us. You seem to have given him the impression over the phone that I’m still in pretty bad shape, too bad to look after us.” I grinned. ‘‘Well, maybe I was, until you awoke me with a kiss, like the Sleeping Beauty.”

She colored a little, and asked, “Do they know that Cody’s here?”

‘‘That’s why I found them climbing the wall instead of knocking on the front door. They’d spotted his pickup by its Texas plates and found some fresh blood by the gate; Tio Ignacio seems to be something of a tracker. They guessed he’d got inside and figured they’d better sneak in from the rear and case the situation before revealing themselves.”

“Where are they now?” Jo asked. “Why didn’t you bring them in?”

I said, “You forget what the little spitfire is really after. We made a deal. She knows I’m hungry for information, and she’s giving me a chance to question the guy before she shoots him.” I grimaced. “They’re waiting out in the Subaru. I’m supposed to let them know when I’ve finished with him.”

“But you’re not
really
going to . . . ! We can’t let her murder a helpless old man!”

“That’s not the way you described him before,” I said. “Don’t borrow trouble, Jo. After we’ve talked with him, maybe he’ll shape up as such a bastard you’ll be perfectly happy to let her have him, helpless or not. After all, what do we know good about him? Nothing.” I glanced at the man who was still lying on the floor where I’d left him, now covered by a blanket. “How’s he doing?”

She hesitated. “I . . .I had to take the bullet out of him. You keep your knife nice and sharp, darling. As good as a scalpel any day. There it is. I ... I cleaned it up for you afterwards.”

I pocketed it and knelt beside Horace Hosmer Cody. A strong pulse beat in the side of his neck as he lay there facedown with his head turned to the side. After determining this, I pulled back the blanket so I could see the bandage. She had him pretty well mummy-wrapped, and the layers of gauze were clean and white.

“It’s a good thing you laid in a big stock of medical supplies for me in Hermosillo,” I said. “Did you get him to take some of those antibiotics you’ve been feeding me?”

“Yes, Doctor.” She laughed shortly. “You’ve got to hand it to him, he’s a tough old bird. Didn’t move a muscle while I was whittling on him; but when I was through I saw that his eyes were open. ‘Did you get it out, girl?’ he whispered. I said I had. ‘You got a foul mouth on you for an educated lady,’ he whispered. ‘Or do all doctors cuss like that while they’re operating?’ Then I gave him some capsules and a drink of water, and he passed out again, and I ran to the bathroom and was very, very sick. I never had any ambition to be a surgeon. Well, let’s put our elderly baby to bed. I guess the best way is to slide that blanket under him and pick it up by the corners. . . ."

Somehow I was reminded of lugging Gloria Pierce Cody around the mountains, although she’d made a lighter and more pleasant burden. Jo and I got the man who was young Mrs. Cody’s real husband—at least until she got the marriage declared void—unloaded onto the bed. I put my pajamas on him, and that wasn’t easy, although they fit him just fine. We really were pretty much the same size, not surprising since that was the reason I’d been selected for this idiot mission in the first place. Jo finished tucking him in with the bedside expertise that seems to be standard with the medical profession, all branches. We stood looking down at him, our very own patient.

“Can you bring him around?” I asked.

“I don’t think it would be good for him.”

“Antonia isn’t going to be good for him either. She isn’t going to wait out there forever. We’d better hear what the guy has to say for himself, if anything.” I grimaced. “If you can’t think of anything better, well, maybe he’ll react favorably to alcoholic odors; I’ll get the bottle and wave it under his nose like smelling salts and see what happens.”

“I don’t think J&B is exactly what’s medically indicated here, darling. Let me fix him something in the kitchen instead; then we’ll see if we can’t bring him around to drink it.”

We’d started for the door when there was a whisper from behind us: “See to it that the little lady gets a stiff shot of whiskey even if she won’t let me have one, mister.’’ Jo and I glanced at each other and turned to look at the patient, who was watching us from the bed. He whispered, “She’s damn well earned herself a drink, even if she did swear like a roundup cook while she was cutting me.”

I walked back to him. “How are you feeling, Mr. Cody?” He whispered, “About like you’d expect, son. You look like a man who’s packed a little lead under his skin once or twice; so why ask dumb questions?” He studied me for a moment. “Hell, they didn’t do half a bad job of fixing you up to look like me, did they?”

I said, “Thanks, you’re almost the only one who’s thought much of the resemblance so far.”

He licked his lips. “I heard you talking. Who’s Antonia?”

“A young lady who doesn’t like you very much and hopes to kill you,’’ I said, watching him closely. ‘‘I gather you were never introduced to her, but she was the girlfriend of the late Jorge Medina and holds you responsible for his death.”

“Medina?” He looked puzzled, as if he’d never heard the name or, in his weakened state, had forgotten it. He moved a shoulder in a cautious shrug. “Well, tell the girl to pick a number and wait her turn. Seems like the whole world don’t like me much these days.” He watched me curiously for a moment. “Your real name is Helm?’’

“Yes. Matthew Helm. Who told you?”

“I heard them talking, the ones that grabbed me, right after the wedding. Never met such a loose-lipped bunch of fellers; a man might have got the idea it didn’t matter what he heard because they was fixing to kill him anyway. Place they held me, I heard a lot I guess they didn’t expect me to live to tell.” His lips formed a ghost of a smile. “Cocky young sprouts, figured there was no danger from a scared and feeble old codger like me. I tell you, I was downright pitiful, boy; got so I could hardly walk for pure senile terror; got it so bad they even had to help me to the bathroom so I wouldn’t piss my pants. Excuse me, ma’am. Grabbed a gun from one and disarmed a couple more but a feller barged in who purely wanted to be a hero, and that’s when the shit hit the fan. I had to leave two of them dead. Getting away from there, I never heard so much shooting hitting nothing since Gene Autry fit the Indians. All holding their little pistols in both their sweaty little hands. Hell, if a man can’t hit what he’s aiming at with one hand, he’d ought to give up shooting. Only slug that hit me was one that bounced off a wall. I guess I was lucky at that. Been a direct hit, it’d have tore me in two instead of running around the ribs and stopping under the armpit.”

I said, “You’ve been playing possum on us.”

“Wouldn’t you, boy, in a fix like this?” He regarded me for a moment with blue eyes several shades paler than mine. “You don’t look real dead to me. Good thing for me; they were just keeping me alive waiting for word that you’d been killed. Supposed to’ve happened before that first day was out. They was mighty upset about how you kept on spoiling their plans by keeping on breathing; they wanted you dead and buried with a nice gravestone over you down here with my name on it. Poor old Buff Cody, damned if he didn’t go and get himself kilt by some dirty Mex
bandidos
l And I’d be dead, too, right up there in the States, but there’d be no stone for me. Did you keep my girl-wife safe? ’ ’

“Gloria?” I said. I told myself he was an evil old man, responsible for many crimes, but I found it impossible to lie to him, even by omission. I spoke carefully: “It depends on what you mean by safe, Mr. Cody.”

He knew what I was saying, and he gave a little snort that was meant to be a laugh. “Wasn’t asking about your love life, son. Or hers. Young folks will be young folks. But she’s alive, and you’re keeping her well protected?”

“Yes.”

“Seems like those fellers just ain’t much good at killing people, hard as they try, don’t it?”

“Or maybe we’re pretty good at surviving, Mr. Cody.”

“Hell, call me Buff,” he whispered. “All my friends do.”

“What makes you think I’m your friend, or you’re mine?” I asked.