Lando (1962) (16 page)

Juana came out to my horse as the boy walked reluctantly away to get the mule. "There has been much trouble," she said.

"Se@nor Deckrow lets us to live here, but he warned us never to talk to strangers, and he said if you ever came back, to send Manuel at once to tell him."

Just then my horse's head came up and I looked around, and there stood the mule colt.

No question but what it was a mule. It was tall, longer in the body than most mules, it seemed, andwith long, slim legs. But it was a mule, almost a buckskin in color, and like enough to any mule I'd ever seen.

You could tell by the way he followed that boy that there was a good feeling between them. But when I walked over, he stretched his nose to me.

"And the mare?"

"Wolves, se@nor, when this one was small.

If I had not come upon them, he would be dead also."

Rubbing the mule's neck, I considered the situation. "Manuel," I said, "I think you and Juana should come away from here. I think you should go to San Antonio, or somewhere. You'll need to have schooling."

"How? We have no money. We have no way to go. We have only our goats and a few chickens."

"You have horses?"

"No, se@nor. The horses belong to Se@nor Deckrow."

"Ride them, anyway, and you two come away to San Antonio." I paused. "If Deckrow hears you have talked to me, there may be trouble. Besides, I want a boy who can ride the mule ... I mean who can race him. Could you do that, Manuel?"

His eyes sparkled, but he said seriously, "Si, I could do it. He runs very fast, se@nor."

"He's bred for it," I said. "Can you go tonight?"

"What of the goats?"

"Goats," I said, "can get along. Leave them."

We didn't waste time. They'd little enough to take, and Manuel taken my horse and went out and caught up a couple of ponies in no time.

He was a hand with a rope, which I wasn't.

Lately I'd begun to think I wasn't a hand with anything, although all the way from Brownsville to the ranch I practiced with that Walch Navy, which I fancied beyond other guns.

The trail we chose was made by Kansas-bound cattle. Seemed to me I owed Miguel something, and I did not trust that Deckrow. So I'd be killing two birds with one stone by escorting Manuel and his mother to San Antone and getting Manuel to ride my mule for me.

"You think that mule can beat this horse?" I asked Manuel.

"Of a certainty," he replied coolly.

"He can run, this mule."

So we laid it out between us to race to a big old cottonwood we could see away up ahead, maybe three-quarters of a mile off. On signal, we taken off.

Now that Mexican horse was a good cutting horse and trained to start fast. Moreover, it was an outlaw's horse, and an outlaw can't afford not to have the best horse under him that he can lay hands on. That roan took off with a bound and within fifty yards he was leading by two lengths, and widening the distance fast. We were halfway to that cottonwood before that mule got the idea into his head that he was in a race.

By the time we'd covered two-thirds of the distance we were running neck-and-neck, and then that mule just took off and left us.

Oakville was the town where I decided to make my play, and by the size of my bankroll it was going to be a small one.

When you came to sizing it up, Oakville wasn't a lot of town, there being less than a hundred people in it, but it had the name of being a contentious sort of place. Forty men were killed there in the ten years following the War Between the States. It lay right on the trail up from the border and a lot of Kansas cattle went through there, time to time.

When we came riding into town I told Manuel and his ma to find a place to put up, and I gave them a dollar.

It was a quiet day in town. A couple of buckboards stood on the street, and four or five horses stood three-legged at the hitch-rails. When I pushed through the bat-wing doors and went up to the bar, there was only one man in the place aside from the bartender. He was a long, thin man with a reddish mustache and a droll, quizzical expression to his eyes.

"Buy you a drink?" I suggested.

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Don't mind if I do." And then he said, "Passin' through?"

"Mostly," I said, "but what I'd like to rustle up is a horse race. I've got a Mex woman and her boy to care for."

He glanced at me, and I said, "Her husband stood by me in a fight below the border."

"Killed?"

"Uh-huh. They've kinfolk in San Antone."

He tasted his whiskey and said nothing. When he finished his drink he bought me one. "Lend you twenty dollars," he suggested. "I'll meet up with you again sometime."

"What I want is a horse race." I lowered my voice. "I've got me a fast mule. If I can get a bet, I could double the ten dollars I've got. Might even get odds, betting on a mule."

He walked to the door and looked over the bat-wings at the mule, which was tethered alongside my roan. Then he came back and leaned on the bar and tossed off his whiskey.

"Man east of town has him a fast horse.

Come sundown he'll ride in. You mind if I bet a little?"

"Welcome it. You from here?"

"Beeville. Only I come over this way, time to time, on business. I'm buying cattle."

That man had him a horse, all right, and that horse had plenty of speed, but my mule just naturally left him behind, although Manuel was holding him up a mite, like I suggested.

That ten dollars made up to twenty, and the cattle buyer handed me twenty more. "Don't worry," he said, "I made a-plenty."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "You ever been over to Beeville? There's a lot of money floating around over there and they're fixing to have some horse races come Saturday. If you're of a mind to, we might just traipse over that way.

It's somewhat out of your way, but not to speak of."

"I'm a man needs money," I said. "I don't mind if I do."

"They're fixing to have a prize fight, too.

Mostly Irish folks over there--Beeville was settled by Irish immigrants back about 1830 or so." Then he went on, "Powerful pair of shoulders you got there. You ever do any fighting?"

"Don't figure on it," I said, "not unless I come up to a couple of men I'm looking for."

"Gambler over there," he said, "brought in a fighter. He nearly killed the local pride, so they're drumming up another fight to get some of their own back."

"I'm no fighter," I said, "not unless I'm pushed."

"Too bad. A horse race is all right, but if you could whip this Dun Caffrey, you could--"

"I'm pushed," I said. "I'm really feeling pushed. Did you say Dun Caffrey?"

"That was the name. He's good, make no mistake, and the Bishop is his backer."

Right then I recalled those scarred and broken knuckles I'd seen on Caffrey that time down on the border. But who would ever think Dun Caffrey would turn into a prize fighter? Still, he was strong, and he handled himself well. And maybe I'd been just lucky that day down in the field when I broke him up.

Those days a saloon was not only a place for drinking. It was a meeting place, a club, a place where business deals were made, a betting parlor, and an exchange for information. If you wanted to know about a trail, or whether the Indians were out, or who had cattle for sale, you went to a saloon.

"You make your bets on the fight," I said, "but you don't need to mention any name--j tell him I'm from Oakville, or just up from Mexico."

This cattle buyer's name was Doc Halloran, and he sized up to me like a canny one. "Dun Caffrey has won six fights in Texas, and more than that in Louisiana and Mississippi. He's a bruiser, but no fool. He's a gambler, and a companion of gamblers."

"That's as may be, but if you'll back me, I'll have at him."

"Are you in shape?"

"Six years at hard labor in a Mexican prison," I said. "Yes, I'm in shape."

We went into Beeville by the back streets and Doc Halloran took me to his own house.

When I got there I stretched out for a rest.

Juana and Manuel, they were there, too. Doc went out to rustle some bets on a horse race and to enter my mule. And he went to talk up this fight, too.

About sundown Manuel came back from rousting around. He was a mighty serious Mexican boy.

"There is great trouble, se@nor," he said. "I think we have been followed to this place, for Se@nor Deckrow is here. He rides in his carriage with the se@norita, but there are many men with him."

So I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at my thick, work-hardened hands, thinking. It was scarcely possible they had found us so quickly, nor would Deckrow be likely to bring the se@norita, Manuel had said. That would be Marsha, the little one.

Only she would be close to twenty now, and almost an old maid, for a time when girls married at sixteen or seventeen.

"I do not think they had followed us, amigo.

It may be they go to San Antonio. He would want riders for protection. It is said there are many thieves."

Sitting on the edge of the bed after he left, I turned my mind again to the situation. Maybe this was the showdown that had to come sooner or later. Dun Caffrey would be here, Deckrow ... how many others?

Doc Halloran came back before midnight.

His long, friendly face was serious, and he stood looking down at me. "Well, the fight is set," he said. "And we've got the mule entered in the race, but I think we've bit off more than we can chew."

"What happened?"

He touched his tongue to his lips. "I bet five thousand on the mule, but they roped me in and egged me on, and I went over my head. I've bet twenty-five thousand on you to whip Dun Caffrey."

You know, I thought he'd gone crazy. I looked up at him and listened to him say it again.

Twenty-five thousand! Why, that was--it was impossible, that's what it was.

"They were ready for me," he said. "After all, this is a business with them. I mentioned having a fighter, and they doubted it--sd nobody would stand a chance with Caffrey. Then they kept egging me on until they told me to put my money where my mouth was. And I did."

"Doc, for that much money they'd murder fifty like us. I won't fight. Tell 'em the bet's off."

"I can't ... they made me put up the money. They've got me over a barrel."

The Bishop ... he would have a gang ready to tear down the ropes and mob us if it looked as if I was going to win. He would be ready for us.

"They put up their money too, didn't they?"

"Of course." Halloran paced the floor.

"Sackett, if I lose this bet I'll be back punching cows. It's everything I've been able to earn or save in forty-five years. I don't think I could do it again, and I can't imagine how I was such a fool."

I got up. "Don't let it worry you.

I'll fight him. I'll beat him, too. But we've got to get somebody to guard that saloon safe, if that's where the money is. If there's no other way, they'll rob the safe."

"That's just it. The Bishop has men in town.

He has several who have agreed to stay in the saloon and keep watch. Sackett, we're through. We're whipped!"

There was a tap on the door, and I slid that Walch Navy out of my waistband.

"Open it," I said to Juana. "Just pull it open and stay out of the way."

She pulled the door open and a man stepped into the doorway. He was tall and very lean, with yellow eyes and gold rings in his ears. his'Lando," he said, "I figured it was you."

It was the Tinker.

Chapter
Nine.

He stepped into the room and closed the door carefully behind him. The room was dimly lit, with flickering fire on the hearth and a candle burning.

The dark shadows lay in the hollows of his cheeks, and I could see little more of him than the gleam of his eyes and the shine of the gold of his earrings.

"When I heard of a man with a racing mule," he said, "it had to be you."

He stepped up to me and thrust out his hand, and a feeling came into my throat so I couldn't speak.

I was not a man with many friends, but I wanted the Tinker to be one of them.

"You're heavier," he said, "and by heaven, you're a man!"

When I'd introduced him around, we all sat down. Experience had not made me a trusting man, and we'd been apart for a spell of years. But he was my friend, I was sure of that, and right now I needed him.

"The mule can run," I said, "he can really scat."

"He'll need to." He shot me a shrewd look. "Do you know whose money is against you? The Bishop's, that's whose. The Bishop's money and Caffrey's. Your Caffrey isn't only a fighter, he's a gambler--and he's a big one.

The Bishop and him, they're partners."

"You know about the fight?"

"It's talked about. This is an Irish town, and you know the Irish--they love a good fight with the knuckles."