Day of Independence (9 page)

He forged ahead.

“Then someone told me—was it Mayor Curtis? Yes, I believe it was—that the town planned to throw a crackerjack Independence Day party and that my good self and my associates were invited.”

Hacker beamed, throwing his arms wide as though to embrace the crowd.

“How could I leave after that? Yes, Washington, D.C., throws one hell of a shindig, and I knew that I'd disappoint many students, but I could not refuse such a kind invitation.”

He turned his attention to Pauleen. “Is that not so, Mr. Pauleen?”

“You got it, boss,” the little gunman said, grinning.

Hacker saw Gillman open his mouth to speak, but he cut him off. “And all the expenses of our great patriotic celebration are on me,” he said. Then, his voice rising, “Abe Hacker will pay every last penny.”

A few in the crowd smiled and one man let out with a halfhearted “Hurrah,” but Hacker's generous pledge was met mostly with a stony silence.

Pauleen had enough of Hacker's niceties, hollow as they were.

He stepped over Stutter's body, walked to the wagon, and hauled off the coffin.

He threw it to the ground, pointed at Stutter and said, “One of you rubes get the undertaker and tell him to bury that sorry piece of trash in the coffin he intended for me.”

“Pauleen, you have no respect for the living, but have some for the dead,” Gillman said, appalled.

“Shut your trap, storekeeper,” the gunman said.

And a moment later Pauleen revealed his withering scorn for Last Chance, its citizens, and the rule of law.

He made as if to walk back to the hotel, but stopped in midstride, swung around, and thumbed off fast shots at the window where Hank Cannan sat watching the proceedings.

 

 

“Ranger!” Roxie Miller yelled as three bullets crashed through the window and set showers of shattered glass flying everywhere.

Too stunned to move, Cannan sat where he was.

But Roxie reacted quickly.

She threw herself on Cannan and drove him to the floor.

“Stay down!” she said.

But there were no more bullets.

“What the hell?” Cannan said. “And you're squashing me, Roxie.”

The woman smiled. “Most men are glad to pay me for that.”

“Not this one,” Cannan said. “I'm a happily married man.”

“So are most of the men who pay me,” Roxie said.

She pushed on Cannan, eliciting outraged groans from the Ranger, and scrambled to her feet, in the process revealing a considerable amount of shapely knee and thigh.

“Help me get up,” Cannan said.

After a considerable struggle, Roxie manhandled the Ranger into bed.

“Who the hell did that?” Cannan said.

“Mickey Pauleen took pots at you.”

“Why?”

“I guess because he doesn't like you, Mr. Cannan.”

“Damn, was he trying to kill me?”

“No, just scare you. If Mickey wanted to kill you, he wouldn't have missed.”

“He's a son-of-a-bitch and low down.”

“Yup, he's all of that.”

Cannan breathed hard, hurting all over.

Fragments of glass covered the floor under the window, and a few shards had reached his bed.

Roxie bent over and picked a piece of glass from Cannan's mustache. “There's nothing you can do about Pauleen,” she said.

“I could arrest him for the attempted murder of a law officer.”

“Yes, you could, if you had the strength to get out of bed.”

“Roxie, I've got to get well again. You have to help me.”

“What can I do that the doctor can't do better?”

Defeated, Cannan laid his head on the pillow. “I don't know,” he said. Then, “How close is Independence Day?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“I've got to be on my feet by then.”

“What's the big hurry? You can watch the celebrations from the window,” Roxie said.

“And get shot at again?”

“I'll talk to Abe Hacker. He stinks like a hog and treats his woman like dirt, but he can keep Mickey Pauleen in line.”

Cannan shook his head. “No, let him be. I think he's the one who'll bring the locusts.”

Roxie look puzzled, then concerned. “Ranger, did you get shot in the head again? Let me look.”

“I didn't get shot in the head,” Cannan said.

“No mortal man can bring the locusts,” Roxie said. “They're a force of nature. Some say an evil force of nature.”

“And so is Abe Hacker,” Cannan said.

By his count, Sancho Perez had rounded up close to seven hundred Mexican peons—men, women and children—and given himself a major headache.

His original plan was to stash the people in the canyons under guard; but without water, and a lot of it, he feared he'd lose most, if not all of them, before July fourth.

After a meeting with his captains, the consensus among them was that the peons must be driven east, toward Perez's hacienda.

“They're dying of thirst even as we round them up,
patrón
,” one bandito said. “If we can't water them, they'll all die on us.”

The idea of hundreds of thirsty, hungry, and dirty peons descending on his hacienda did not appeal to Perez, but he saw no way out.

They were still coming north in droves, fleeing the worst drought in memory, and the roundup was going well.

To throw it all away because of a lack of water was unthinkable.

Five miles south of the hacienda lay a deep limestone rock pool where the Apaches had watered their horses during spring raids into Mexico. Fed by an underground stream, the pool now met the irrigation needs of the hacienda, and Perez had four large water wagons built to ensure a constant supply.

Alarmed that he was already losing too many peons to thirst, he sent riders on fast horses to fill the water wagons and bring them back to meet his column.

Perez's prompt action would save lives, but as his men rounded up more and more people the water problem would become even more acute.

He had five wagons, but needed at least three times that number.

 

 

“So you see how it is with me,” Perez said to the three young Texans who'd caught up to him on the trail. “The peons are fleeing the drought, so rounding them up is easy. But keeping them fed and watered is not.”

“How many head have you lost?” Matt Husted said, his blue eyes half-amused.

“Maybe a hundred and fifty,” Perez said. “But since the wagons arrived, only three or four. God is good.”

Perez, his sunbonnet hanging down his back by its ribbon, sat with Husted under a hastily rigged canvas cover. A bottle of mescal stood between them.

The other two youngsters prowled the darkness looking for willing señoritas among the exhausted, hungry peons.

“Pauleen sent us to give you any help we can,” Husted said.

Perez nodded and smiled. “He is ver' good man, is Mickey. Fast on the draw.”

“Yeah, that's what they say,” Husted said. “But he don't come close to me.”

“It is all right to talk big, señor, when Mickey is not here, huh?”

The young man's posture stiffened. “Hell, I've told him to his face that I'm faster than he is.”

“And yet you are still alive. Mickey is a patient man.” Without waiting for Husted to speak, Perez said, “Why did you shoot the peons, father and son?”

“I already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“They refused to join us.” Husted took a swig from the bottle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “We couldn't let them get cross the river and warn Last Chance about what's coming.”

“Did they even know?” Perez said. His eyes glittered.

“If they did or didn't, I couldn't take a chance.”

“They were Mexicans.”

“Hell, I know they were Mexicans. This is Mexico, remember?”

“You shouldn't have killed the peons, father and son. It was not a good thing.”

“What's it to you, Perez. You've killed... what?... a hundred and fifty in the past week.”

“I did not kill them. They died of thirst. And they were almost dead when they got here.”

Husted felt the warm embrace of the mescal and how it oiled the tongue. “Killing is killing, Perez,” he said. “Who cares about a couple of greasy Mexicans anyhow?”

“I do,” Perez said. “Maybe because I'm a greasy Mexican.”

The young Texan saw something in Perez's fixed stare he didn't like. “Back off, Perez,” he said. “What's done is done.”

“I said something wrong?”

“Yeah, you said something wrong, all right. You said killing a Mex is some kind of crime. It ain't. Everybody knows that.”

“Oh, but it is, señor,” Perez said, smiling. “When a Mex is killed by a gringo, it's a crime, a crime against the Mexican people, a crime against me.”

Husted's anger flared. “You go to hell, Perez.”

“No, you will go to hell,
mi amigo
.” The bandit drew and fired.

His reactions slowed by alcohol, Matt Husted didn't even reach for his gun.

The bullet took him square in the chest, ripped through his heart, and exited his back.

The youngster toppled onto his side, his open, dead eyes staring into a dark eternity.

Perez stared at the body for a moment, then wailed, “Aiii, what have I done?” He rose to his feet, yanked at his long hair, pushing it above his head, and picked up the bottle.

Holding it high he screamed, “
Madre de Dios
, it was the mescal made me do it. Forgive poor Sancho!”

Perez's men had tumbled out of their blankets and now ran to their penitent
patrón
.

“I killed the gringo,” he told them. “Aaah... I killed him with this bloody hand I hold before you and I am surely damned forever.”

The dozen bandits gathered around Perez but said nothing. They looked stunned, both by the killing and their
patrón
's hysterical behavior.

“Manuel,” Perez yelled, “shoot this wicked hand off my wrist that I can atone for my great sin!”

The man called Manuel, a scar-faced brute with carbon black eyes, shrugged and drew his gun.

“No, wait!” Perez said, thoroughly alarmed. “I think it's better I pray for this man's immortal soul and ask for God's forgiveness. I need two hands for that.”

He waited until Manuel holstered his revolver, then joined hands, tilted his face to the sky, and closed his eyes.

Perez's lips moved in prayer for a full minute, then, hands still together, he opened one eye and said, “Manuel, where are the other two gringos?”

“I think with señoritas,
patrón
.”

“Then find them and kill them.”

Manuel was puzzled. “The señoritas?”

“No, fool. The gringos.”

Perez closed his eye.

“Sancho will include them in his holy prayers,” he said.

The livery stable owner, a one-legged former sailor by the name of Ephraim Slough, told Baptiste Dupoix what had happened in his absence.

The gambler did what he could to slap trail dust off his shirt and pants, then said, “Did Pauleen really try to kill the Ranger?”

“Some say he did, some say he didn't.”

“What do you say?”

“I say if Mickey had tried, the Ranger would be dead right now, lay to that.”

“It's how I figured it,” Dupoix said.

“I'm pretty sure he planned to scatter Ed Gillman's brains, though. Ol' Ed's always had more sand than sense.”

“And Hacker stopped him. Strange, that.”

“Nothing strange about it, gambling man. If Mickey had killed Ed, the town would have strung him up and Hacker alongside o' him,” Slough said. “Feelings are already running high over the killing of Marshal Dixon.”

“Never rated Last Chance as a lynching town,” Dupoix said.

“It isn't. And it isn't because the folks around here are a peaceful bunch and it takes a long time afore they get themselves worked up to a thing.” Slough gave Dupoix a sidelong look and then a wink. “A thing to know,” he said.

The gambler smiled. “I'll sure keep it in mind.”

 

 

The door to Hank Cannan's room was wide open, but Dupoix was a careful man and he stopped in the hallway and said, “Ranger, it's Baptiste Dupoix. I'm coming in.”

“Come right ahead,” Cannan said. “Seems like everybody else in town is doing it.”

Roxie was gone, but the Ranger sat up in bed, looking irritated, while several silent workmen replaced the shattered windowpanes and plastered over the bullet holes in the wall.

“As always, Dupoix, this is an unpleasant surprise,” Cannan said.

“You got a burr under your tail, Ranger?” the gambler grinned.

“Yeah, because of that woman you're paying to torment me.”

Cannan pointed to his own face. “Look at me, damn it.”

Dupoix stepped back and rubbed his chin, like an art lover judging a painting. After a few moments he said, “I don't see any difference. You still look like a big ol' mad-as-hell walrus.”

“The mustache, Dupoix! Don't you have eyes?”

“What's wrong with it? Well, I know there's a lot wrong with it, but what do you mean specifically?”

“Roxie cut it too short! Damn it, man, I look like I've been skun!”

“Becomes you, though,” Dupoix said. “Makes you look distinguished.” He nodded to the window. “I heard about that.”

“Mickey Pauleen's idea of a joke,” Cannan said.

“You don't think he tried to kill you?” Dupoix said.

“No, I don't. Damned lowlife made me scamper, though.” Cannan glared at Dupoix. “If he had killed me what would you have done about it?”

“Given him the sharp edge of my tongue, I fancy.”

“I knew I should've hung you when I had the chance,” Cannan said. He picked up the makings from the bedside table and began to build a cigarette. “Notice anything about the three workmen?” Cannan said.

Dupoix shook his head. “No, can't say as I do.”

“They all look alike,” Cannan said.

“Must be brothers,” Dupoix said.

“And they don't talk. They haven't said a word to me.”

“Dumb brothers,” Dupoix said.

But the mystery was solved a few moments later when the workmen gathered up their tools and lined up at the bottom of Cannan's bed.

The oldest, a medium-sized man with high cheekbones and close-cropped black hair, waved to the repaired window and wall, grinned, then he and his brothers bowed.

“Yeah, thanks boys,” Cannan said.

When the men straightened up, the oldest puffed up a little and pointed to his chest. “Polska,” he said proudly. He pointed to the others in turn. “Polska, Polska.”

Cannan was confused, but he managed a smile and, “And I'm right pleased to meet you Polska boys.”

Then all three men reached into their top pockets of their ragged coats and flipped out identical medals that had been pinned inside.

The crosses now hanging on their chests were made of gold with white enamel and were obviously military awards.

The workmen clicked their heels, saluted Cannan with great precision, and filed out the door, one by one.

For a moment the Ranger was stunned into silence.

Then he said, “There are some mighty strange folks in Last Chance.”

Dupoix laughed. “They're Polish, old soldiers by the cut of their jib, and they saluted you because you're a Texas Ranger.”

“They think I'm some kind of a soldier?” Cannan said.

“I think so. Officer, even. You should be honored.”

“They look tough as nails,” Cannan said.

“I reckon they'll do in any kind of a fight,” Dupoix said.

As though really looking at the gambler's appearance for the first time, Cannan said, “You look used up, Dupoix.”

“Been out riding.”

“Where?”

“Into Old Mexico.”

“Hell of a place to ride.”

“I followed Hacker's boys, three young Texas guns looking for trouble.”

“Why? I mean, why did you follow them?”

Dupoix shrugged. “I'd nothing better to do.”

“That, I very much doubt. Roxie would have entertained you, I'm sure.”

The gambler ignored that and said, “Found two dead men in the desert just south of the river—well, a man and a boy.”

“How did they die?” Cannan said.

“Murdered. Shot to death.”

“And you believe Hacker's men did it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Motive?”

“Just for the fun of it, I guess.” Dupoix hefted the bottle of Old Crow. “I'll have to get you another one of these,” he said.

“You drank most of it,” Cannan said.

The gambler poured himself a drink. “Saw something else,” he said. “A dust cloud to the west near the canyon country.”

Cannan took the cigarette from between his lips.

“Don't tell me it was locusts and not a dust cloud.”

“I won't tell you that, Cannan. I don't know what it was.”

“A cattle herd, maybe?”

“Coming up from the dry country? I guess it's possible.”

“But you don't think so.”

“Now I've been studying on it, a herd would aim straight for the river. I have the feeling that whatever raised the cloud had decided to turn east.”

“East to where?” Cannan said.

“The only place east of anywhere is Last Chance.”

Cannan bowed his head in thought for a moment, then said, “An invading Mexican army?”

Dupoix stared at him with a “you've got to be kidding me” expression.

“Yeah, I guess not,” Cannan said. “Then what?”

“Suppose it's people?”

“People!”

“Hundreds, maybe tens of hundreds of people on the move, fleeing Mexico's once-in-a-lifetime drought.”

Cannan weighed that and said, “Like...”

“A plague of locusts,” Dupoix said.

“Headed for here.”

“Last Chance is the Garden of Eden, Ranger. So why not?”

“The irrigated land around here can't sustain that many,” Cannan said.

Dupoix smiled. “Locust swarms arrive hungry. They devour everything in sight, devastate cropland and orchards, then move on. Behind them they leave wastelands and famine.”

“How the hell do you know so much about locusts, Dupoix?” Cannan said, suddenly angry with the gambler for no real reason.

“When I was a boy, my grandmother, the swamp witch I told you about, read to me from the Bible every night before bed,” Dupoix said. “She knows a lot about many things, and locusts is one of them.”

“Damn it all, Dupoix, what can I do?” Cannan said.

“Nothing much until you can pull on your boots and walk.”

“If thousands of people looking for land are about ready to cross the Rio Grande, I don't have that kind of time.”

“No, you don't, Cannan.”

Dupoix drained his glass and set it on the table.

“If it's any help, I think someone is looking to gain from all this.”

“Hacker?”

“It could be. But I can't fathom his motive.”

Cannan shook his head. “I can't, either.”

Dupoix was not the kind to touch another man, but he did now.

He put his hand on Cannan's shoulder.

“I'll promise you this, Ranger, I won't let you be murdered in bed, and I won't stand by and watch my country invaded by anyone.”

“So what will you do?”

“Find out if Hacker is involved, and if he is, why.”

“I'll give you a week,” Cannan said. “If you don't find out anything by then, I'm getting out of this bed and arresting Hacker, Pauleen, and the rest of the whole sorry bunch.”

“On what charge?”

“Pauleen on the attempted murder of a peace officer. Hacker... well, I'll think of something.”

Dupoix shook his head. “I won't let you do that, Cannan,” he said. “Even after a week you'll still barely be able to walk. Just say the word ‘arrest' to Mickey Pauleen, and he'll gun you right where you stand.”

“Hell, I'm not that much of a bargain,” Cannan said.

“Maybe so, Ranger, but you're not in Mickey's class. Not even close.”

“And you?”

“On my best day I can't shade him. I've never shot a man in the back before, but in Pauleen's case I might give it serious thought.”

Dupoix took his hand from Cannan's shoulder. “What's your wife's name?” he said.

“Jane,” Cannan said.

“I've always been partial to that name. I hope you two are reunited soon. A woman should have her husband close by.”

The gambler smiled and walked to the door.

“Dupoix,” Cannan called after him. “Thanks.” He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “I mean, thanks for your concern.”

Dupoix stood at the door and said, “I'll chide Roxie about the mess she made of your mustache, Ranger.”

He closed the door, opened it again and stuck his head inside.

“I miss the walrus look,” he said.