A Noose for the Desperado (8 page)

It was dark and I couldn't tell much about her face, but I knew that
she was smiling. I started hating her all over again. She didn't
believe that I would ever throw my guns away, that I would ever quit
Basset. What she believed was what I had said before—that I was rotten
to the bone—and it didn't matter a damn to her one way or the other. I
was going to be a rich man. I felt her arms crawling around my neck
like soft warm snakes and she dug her fingers into my hair and pulled
my face down to hers.

I brought my arms up and broke her hold and she hit the floor with
her rump. I stood up and for a long moment neither of us said anything.
Then I tightened my pistol belt and started for the door.

“Where you go?”

“I don't know.” .

I went down the stairs and heard the noise and laughing in the
saloon. The girl was beside me as I pushed through the batwings and
went to the bar, and I didn't try to get rid of her or hold her. I
didn't care what she did.

The bartender came up and I said, “Tequila. You might as well bring
the bottle.”

He brought the bottle and two glasses and I took them over to a table
where Bama was sitting by himself. The girl was still with me.

Bama blinked his bleary eyes as we sat down. “I knew you were crazy,”
he drawled, “but I never figured you'd be this crazy. Don't you know
that Black Joseph will shoot you on sight if he catches you with his
girl?”

“To hell with Black Joseph.”

He blinked again. Then he shrugged, smiling that lopsided smile of
his. “To hell with him,” he said. “Well, I guess another killing, more
or less, won't make much difference on this day of days.” He chuckled
dryly. “The funny thing about this place is that everybody thinks that
everybody else is crazy—and probably they're right. But there's one
good thing about these raids of Basset's. A man can afford tequila for
a while instead of that poisonous slop the greasers drink. Here's to
bigger foothills.”

He filled his glass and drained it, using the bottle I had brought
because he had already emptied his. “May the best man win, senorita,”
he said, nodding in mock politeness. “And may it be entertaining and
bloody. Most of all, let it be bloody.”

Marta sat stone-faced while I poured a round. “Don't you ever sober
up?” I said.

“Not if I can help it. Tequila is good for the soul. It reverts man
back to the jungle from whence he came, as they say, back to the
vicious, lewd, wild beast that he was before somebody told him that he
had a soul. Remember the old camp-meeting hymn that backwoods preachers
used to bellow at the top of their lungs? 'I'm Washed in the Blood of
the Lamb.' Blood with a mile-high capital B. Did it ever occur to you
that the Bible is one of the bloodiest manuscripts ever written? Most
of its heroes either are killers or died violent deaths themselves.
Blood, I've seen enough of it. I'll wash my soul in the clean,
destroying liquid of tequila.”

“You're crazy,” I said.

He chuckled. “See what I mean?”

Marta was watching him strangely, almost fearfully. Bama slouched
back in his chair and smiled at her, his eyes flat and empty. I drank
my tequila down, poured another glass, and downed that. My insides
began to settle down and I began to feel better. I could feel Bama
watching me. Without interest, without feeling.

Pretty soon I began to notice things that I hadn't noticed before.
Basset's customers had given us a whole corner of the saloon to
ourselves. The area around our table was quiet, as if some kind of
invisible wall had been put up around us.

“You can't blame them for moving out of the line of fire,” Bama
drawled. “As long as you're with that girl we're poison. Have another
drink?”

Until now I hadn't really believed that men would kill over a girl
like Marta—over money, or pride, or almost anything else, but not over
a girl like that. But I saw that I was wrong. Everybody in the place
accepted it as a fact that before long either the Indian or I would be
dead. The talking and laughing and drinking and gambling went on as
usual, but there was a nervous sound to it, a tight feel in the air.

I already had my limit of two drinks, but I took the third one that
Bama poured and downed it. I tried to reason with myself. What was the
good in taking a chance on getting killed over a Mexican hellcat that
was no better than a common doxie? All I had to do was tell her to get
away from me, and tomorrow after I got my cut of the silver I'd get out
of Ocotillo for good.

But I couldn't do it. I'd never backed down from an Indian or anybody
else in my life. In this business you took one step back and you were
done for, the whole howling hungry pack would be on you.

So I sat there while Bama smiled that crooked smile of his. But he
seemed more interested in the girl than in me. He watched her steadily,
and all the time a change was taking place in Malta's eyes. First fear,
then uncertainty gave way to a brighter fire of self-satisfaction and
conquest. It struck me then that she was actually enjoying this! She
wanted to be fought over. She wanted blood at her feet. At every sound
her head would turn, her eyes would dart this way and that in
excitement. I began to understand why most men wanted no part of her.

Bama took another drink and lifted himself unsteadily to his feet.
“Like the darky says,” he said, “I'm tired of livin' but 'fraid of
dyin'. You don't mind if I just step over to the bar until this is all
over, do you?”

I didn't say anything. Bama drunkenly doffed his Confederate hat in
Marta's direction, turned, and weaved across the floor.

She was actually smiling now. She reached across the table to take my
hand and I pulled away as if she had been a coiled rattler.

“Just let me alone,” I said tightly. “There's no way of stopping this
thing now, but there's one thing you'd better understand. I'm not
getting into any trouble on account of you. And when it's over, I'm
telling you for the last time, let me alone.”

I don't think she even heard me. Her eyes were darting from one side
to the other, and her mind was so hopped up with excitement that she
couldn't sit still.

I could feel the change in the place the minute he walked in. It was
nothing you could put your finger on at first—there was no change in
the way people acted, or in the noise, but I had the feeling that
somewhere a grave had been opened and Death itself had walked into the
saloon.

In a minute the others felt it, and their heads turned toward the
door as if they had been jerked on a string. Saloon sounds—the rattle
of a roulette wheel, the chanting of the blackjack dealer, the muffled
slap of cards on felt, the clank of glasses behind the bar—all went on
for a few seconds and then suddenly played out. I shoved my chair back
and there he was standing in front of the batwings. He was looking at
me. For him there was no one in the saloon but me.

I didn't know whether to get up or stay where I was. If I had been
smart I would have had my right-hand gun pulled around in my lap for a
saddle draw—but I hadn't been smart, and it was too late to worry
about it now. He started forward, and I could feel the customers
pushing back out of the line of fire. This is a hell of a thing, I
thought. Here's a man I never saw but once in my life, a man I've never
as much as said “Go to hell!” to, and now he's after my hide!

He came forward slowly, in that curious toe-heel gait that Indians
have, as if he had a long way to go and was in no particular hurry to
get there. Just so he got there. Well, anyway, I was glad the waiting
was over. Now that I could look at him, he didn't look so damned tough.
He looked like any other Indian, except maybe a little dirtier and a
little uglier, with eyes a little more deadly. He had just two hands,
like anybody else, and he had blood in his veins that would run out
when a bullet went in. That first feeling of doom passed away and I was
ready for him.

The smart guys along the bar and against the wall were grinning as if
they expected me to fall on my knees and start begging him not to shoot
me. They would have loved that. There's nothing that would make them
happier than to see me spill my guts. There wasn't a man in the place,
with the possible exception of Bama, who wouldn't have taken a shot at
me if that had happened.

That's a pleasure they'll be a long time seeing, I thought grimly.

I stood up carefully as he stopped at the table, beside Marta.

“There's something you want?” I said.

For a minute he just looked at me. Or through me. There was no way of
telling about those eyes of his. Not a muscle twitched in that stone
face, but I noticed that his right hand was edging in toward the butt
of his pistol—not much, but enough to carry on through when the time
came. He didn't even look at Marta. He just reached with a big hand,
grabbed her by the hair of the head, and jerked her half out of the
chair.

The smart guys sucked in their guts, laughing to themselves. They
already had me dead and buried. They didn't like the Indian much, but
they hated punk kids like me even more. They figured I had got my
reputation the easy way, and they figured I knew it. I guess I jarred
them when I said:

“Take your goddamned hands off of her if you want to go on living.”

Even the Indian showed surprise. His eyelids raised about a millionth
of an inch. The next thing I knew his gun was coming out of the
holster.

I made my grab and didn't bother to aim. There wasn't time to aim,
and when you're standing belly to belly, the way we were, there's no
sense in it anyway. I just got the muzzle of my pistol over the top of
my holster and fired. I didn't hit him. I didn't even come close. The
bullet slammed into the floor somewhere, but I wasn't worrying about
that.

The muzzle blast from a .44 is a powerful thing. At that range it can
deafen a man, paralyze him, burn him, shock him throw him off balance.
That was what I was counting on. I didn't need that first bullet, just
the muzzle blast. And the Indian knew it. His mouth flew open as he
slammed back under the impact, and before he could get his balance,
before he could swing that pistol on me again, he was as good as dead.

I had all the time in the world after that first shot. I shot him
twice through his left shirt pocket and he jerked like a monkey on the
end of a string. He hit the floor, flopping around like a fish with a
broken back. I don't know what kept him alive, but he wouldn't die
until he managed to lift his pistol again and try to fix it on me.

Sweat poured off his face as he lifted the pistol, slowly, an inch at
a time. For him, it must have been like lifting the south end of Texas,
but somehow he did it. There was no fear of dying in those eyes of his.
They were completely savage, kill-crazy. Then I stepped in and kicked
the pistol out of his hand. I slammed the toe of my boot in his ribs.

“You sonofabitch! You filthy sonofabitch!” And I kept kicking him
until somebody came up and pushed me back. It was Bama.

“That's enough!” he said. “Jesus Christ, you can't kill a man but
once!”

All the anger and hate seemed to rush out in me all at once. I swung
on Bama and knocked him sprawling with the barrel of my pistol.
“Goddamn you,” I said, “don't tell me what I can't do!”

He was on all fours, shaking his head like a poled steer. Blood was
welling up at the corner of his mouth and I could hear every drop hit
the floor and splatter. The saloon had been shocked and jarred and
stunned to a deathly quiet. The smart guys weren't so smart now. They
stood with their mouths hanging open, staring stupidly.

As suddenly as it had hit me, my anger was gone. I put an arm around
Bama's shoulder and helped him up.

“How do you feel?”

“I'm—all right.”

But he was looking at me strangely. First at me, then at the dead
Indian, then at me again. He said, “I think I need a drink.”

“Sure.” I poured him a drink with my left hand, keeping my gun hand
ready in case the Indian had some friends that wanted to take up the
argument.

Bama downed the drink and wiped his mouth with a shaky hand. “Put
your pistol away,” he said hoarsely. “Nobody wants to fight you. Not
now, anyway.” He took a step forward, and a step backward, then he
began to fall.

I caught him before he hit the floor and wrestled his dead weight up
to something like a standing position. “Give me a hand,” I said to the
girl.

She had a stupid, idiot's smile on her lips. She was half crazy with
excitement and power and lust and God knows what else. She couldn't
take her eyes off the dead Indian. Some insane, morbid love of blood
and violence held her entranced, hypnotized her, charmed her.

“Goddamnit!” I said. “Help me get him out of here!”

Her head jerked up. The idiot's stare went out of her eyes and she
got her shoulder under one of Bama's arms and we began to drag him out
of the place. We dragged him right over the corpse, the rowels of
Bama's spurs raking across the Indian's bloody chest and then clanging
to the floor. Nobody made a move. I don't think anybody breathed. From
the corner of my eye I glimpsed Basset standing in the doorway of his
office, his fat face bloated and pale-looking in the orange light of
the coal-oil lamps. I think he was smiling, but I wasn't sure, and I
didn't care. There was somebody standing behind him looking out with
wild, pale eyes. I think it was Kreyler.

Somehow we got Bama out of the place and up the stairs and into my
room. I got the mattress off the floor and put it on the bed, then we
stretched Bama out and began to work on him.

He was just drunk, mostly, but there was an ugly lump over his ear
and a fine red thread of blood was taking quick long stitches across
his face and down his neck, ending in a spreading red blotch on his
collar.

“Get me some water,” I said.