The Guns of Santa Sangre (7 page)

A wave of self-doubt seemed to pass through all three men, who often thought the same thing at the same time. The gunfighters exchanged glances and shrugged it off. Time to act, not think.
 

By now it was late morning, and the riders had stopped to rest their horses in the shady mesquite ravine by the burbling creek long enough. Too easy to get lazy and dawdle, when there was work to be done. Tucker, Bodie and Fix wet down their animals one last time.
 

“We don’t even know there
is
any silver,” Fix said.

They looked at each other. It was true.

Tucker shook his head, pondering, his brain masticating over the situation like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. “That town has come up against something, that’s for damn sure. That wretch is scared spitless, anybody can see that. I say he’s telling us the truth, or least what he thinks is. Likely, it’s just bandits. But bad ones.”

“I got no problem killing bandits,” said Fix. “But we’re keeping the silver. Our regular rounds should do them vermin right nicely.” To accentuate his point, the thin, spare gunfighter drew out his pearl-handled Colt, flipped open the cylinder with a flick of his wrist, checked his bullets, peered down the barrel, shook the gun closed with a metallic
whirr
and spun it backward on his finger with a blur of speed back into his holster.
 

“Then we keep all the silver.” Bodie grinned. “Dumb peasants won’t know the difference.” He pulled his Winchester repeater out of his saddle holster and put it to his shoulder, eyeballing a distant target down the gunsight. His finger tightened on the trigger but he didn’t fire, saving bullets.

The bad men drank to that. They swung back into their saddles.
 

Tucker stuck both boots in his stirrups and felt the beginning sting of saddle sores.
 

Across the arroyo the little Mexican peasant saw them mount up, giving them a nervous little wave as he tugged himself back up onto his own horse.
 

“Hy-Yahh!” Tucker yelled as he slapped his reins against his stallion’s flanks. The other three riders charged after him up the forty-five-degree arroyo grade, powerful hooves kicking down some chaparral and stones. Fix’s horse slipped and regained traction and then they were all four up and over the incline and galloping off toward the trail. Catching the peasant’s gaze, Tucker nudged his jaw for him to ride ahead and lead the way, and filled with purpose, the Mexican retraced the trail of his hoof prints he had left heading into town.

They rode across the Durango plain in the heat of the day. A second ridge of mountains appeared beyond the first, brown in the flat light and spackled with green. The washed out sun had risen a few more degrees, and the day would get hotter yet before they reached their destination. And so the battery escort of hired gun killers flanked the hunched, determined brown man they accompanied. Everyone figured that their newly watered horses were refreshed enough to ride at full tilt for twenty minutes before they slowed again. The outfit was making good progress.
 

They all rode together up a small mountain trail of the first butte.
 

The humble peasant smiled with simple, pure faith at the three hard men riding along with him.

“You are good men,
senors
.”

“You don’t know nothing about us,” Tucker said quietly.
 

“I do.” The Mexican rode eagerly on ahead, out of earshot. “I do…”

The three bad men eyed him like coyotes.
 

“He don’t know the half,” uttered Fix.

“Like we aim to steal that silver, not waste it on no bullets,” added Bodie humorlessly.

“That’s for damn sure,” Tucker said, half-convinced himself.

“Ignorant wretch is letting the wolf into the chicken coop and don’t know no better.” Fix spat tobacco juice onto a passing lizard and scattered it into the rocks.
 

Tucker considered the thin, skeletal gunfighter in the black suit and vest covered with dust. He’d ridden with Fix for three years and as long as he’d known him, the other gunfighter was the most pitiless man he had ever met. A good friend, who said what he meant, without question the fastest and deadliest shot of the bunch, but the man had no mercy towards people. John Fix had a fatalistic view of the human condition and his place in it. His tough-mindedness balanced off Bodie’s impulsivity and Tucker’s measured deliberateness. But Fix was a gunsel only, a man who dealt with things as they appeared in front of him, where he struck swiftly and without remorse. He lacked Tucker’s own grasp of the big picture and habit of planning a few steps ahead, which was why Samuel Evander Tucker, late of Dodge City, was the group’s unspoken but unchallenged leader. The three had rode together through the years simply because it seemed like the natural thing to do from the day they first met, never with any specific plan, and every day they seemed to make the decision anew to stick together. When they fought, when their guns came out, they were no longer three, but one, an invincible machine of flying lead, stinking gunpowder and blazing irons, and they killed and shot as one thing with six arms and legs and they never had to talk. These gunslingers were obviously bad men themselves, but they had been through a lot and often and were still alive. If you asked them why they still stuck together, each would have said the same thing.
 

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The shootists’ rode side by side with the peasant across the dusty desert of Durango under the burning sun on the road to Santa Sangre. The full moon hung faint as a ghost in the cloudless sky on the horizon, like a portent.

The trail curved higher around the upper ridge, and the riders slowed to a trot as the horses trod over the uneven ground. The peasant rode in the lead, followed by Tucker, then Bodie, then Fix in steady single-file formation.

They all heard the sudden shrill castanet.

The Mexican’s horse violently reared, front legs bicycling, eyes wide in alarm, whinnying in terror. Its rider emitted a high-pitched scream of surprise, coming out of the stirrups as the mustang rose up on its hind legs in panic. A coiled rattlesnake tensed on the ground directly ahead, the rattler a twitchy blur as it shook its upraised tail, brown and copper head raised, jaw extended, fangs bared to strike. The startled peasant’s horse pitched him from the saddle, arms and legs flailing, where he landed hard on the ground, inches in front of the rattler. The snake’s narrow head was right by his contorted face, fangs curled and deadly sharp as it struck with vital speed.

The head of the reptile disappeared in a fine red mist, the headless red meat of its body dropping in a limp coil on the ground before the Mexican heard the gunshot explode across the desert.
 

The peasant screamed like a girl.

Fix had got his pistol out, fanned and fired so blindingly fast his gun was back in his holster before the dead and headless snake hit the ground.
 

The viper’s rattle castaneted a final stubborn time, then fell silent and still in the settling dust.
 

The Mexican rose to his hands and knees, wiping splattered snake muck from his cheek with the back of his hand. His eyes raised to meet the cowboys in the saddles above him.

All three of the gunfighters gaped, looking down at the peasant.

The Mexican’s shirt had come loose in the fall, and two ripe, nude brown breasts toppled out. With a gasp, she scooped her big naked bosom back into her baggy top, eyes wide in embarrassment and fear.

Now they all knew.
 

He was a she and a very beautiful she.

“Hello,” Bodie said, with a slow dawning grin.

“Howdy, ma’am,” Tucker said. He tipped his hat with a wink.

Fix grinned. “Lady, you’d a showed us them melons before, you could have kept the damn silver.”

The hard men laughed coarsely, and the girl flinched in shame and dread. The gunfighters had ridden their horses to surround her on all sides, blocking her escape. Sitting high in their saddles, they were threateningly silhouetted against the mid-morning sun, the white orb blinding behind the sharp outlines of their Stetsons. Pilar crawled on her hands and knees, cringing with fear, expecting the worst.
 

In his saddle, Tucker saw what a pretty woman they had been with all morning and understood he’d known her gender all along. The glimpse of her breasts had gotten him aroused. Her round, high, big brown-nippled tits bounced real pretty when she loaded them back under her shirt. No question, on all fours there on the ground, surrounded by the three cowboys, she was theirs for the taking and maybe they’d get a little bonus with the silver. Tucker’s eyes narrowed to circumspect slits as he glanced first across to Fix sitting on his horse staring with sardonic bemusement down at the cowering girl. Then his gaze slid over to Bodie in his saddle and that hungry look as the Swede’s hand passed by his crotch giving it a tug. Tucker smelt the heat of rutting in the air like blood in the water and knew that all three of them could be down on the ground taking turns if he merely gave the word. They were miles from civilization in the middle of the desert and there was nowhere to run and nobody to come to her aid if they descended on the girl and had their way with her. But as the seconds passed, pragmatically, he thought better of it. They could ravish her now, but that would set them back a few hours and the girl might lose her mind and refuse to take them to the silver. Better to get to the silver first, then they could pound that brown body as much as they wanted. If she was that good looking, there might be a lot more fruit in her town ripe for picking.
 

In his mind, Tucker had the sudden image of a pack of coyotes, the hateful filthy mangy cowardly scavenger dogs circling their prey, closing in for the kill. At night, the shootists often heard the musical chorus of yipping in the distant hills, soon replaced by the inevitable horrible high-pitched cries of some terrified dying small dog or animal the miserable scavengers would lure out into the hills and then surround to ambush and slaughter, tearing it limb from limb. As the three dangerous men on their big horses circled the exposed, frightened, cringing girl crouching on the ground, Tucker saw the predatory glint in his friends’ eyes as lust burned in their loins and the smell of sexual heat filled the dusty air. He knew they were the coyotes, nothing more than the lowest varmints.

It had come to this, then.

They had fallen that far, sunk to their lowest, become animals.

“No,” Tucker mumbled first to himself, then repeated as an order he issued with quiet authority. “No, not like this, this ain’t what we are, boys.”

“Hey, honey, how ’bout you give my doorknob a little polish?” Bodie said, squeezing his crotch and making a move to unbutton his fly.

“Man has to relax.” Fix grinned.

The girl shut her eyes and dropped her gaze, then opened them with flint in her bold stare as she grabbed a knife from her belt and held it protectively as she rose to her feet, ready to fight. She turned in a full circle, then back again, facing the gunfighters who loomed over her on their horses, ready to cut them if they made a move.
 

A twinge of conscience stirred in Tucker’s heart. He felt sorry for the poor damn girl. This Mexican had pluck and smarts, and he understood the considerable tar it must have taken for a woman alone to have ridden out to save her village and stand toe to toe with hard-ass killers like the three of them were. He respected and liked her, right down to the ground.

“Shut up, boys, and step back,” said Tucker. “Ain’t no way to treat a lady. Let alone one who’s payin’ us.”

Fix and Bodie exchanged reluctant glances and nodded, following orders.
 

“Do what the man says, Bodie. Get her horse,” said Fix quietly.
 

The Swede nodded, trotting a few yards to where the riderless mustang stood casually grazing on a patch of mescal. He retrieved the dangling reins and led it right next to the girl.

Tucker kept his hands up, palms upraised to show he meant no harm, rode unthreateningly over with a clop of hooves, leaned down with a creak and clink of leather and stirrup and offered the girl a gloved hand to help her back into her saddle. The simple peasant considered him in surprise and confusion, naked fear and distrust in her gaze softening into raw relief as she slowly took his hand. Her knife remained in her other hand for a moment, then was returned to her belt as she let him grasp her small palm and tug her foot up into her stirrup and settle her back into the saddle of her horse. Now she was eye level with them, and Tucker held her gaze with gentlemanly grace. “We get it,” he said. “You dressed yourself up as a man ’cause you didn’t know the kind of men we were, and the kind of men you needed were the kind of men didn’t need to know what y’had under them clothes. What’s your name?”

“Pilar,” she said, no longer trying to disguise her voice, her natural timbre pretty and chimelike.
 

“Pretty name.”

Tucker grinned. She smiled, dropped her eyes, then raised them to meet his. “I am sorry. To deceive you. It is as you say.”

“Hell, this day is getting more damn interestin’ every minute. Never a dull moment, nossir,” Fix said.

“And daylight’s wasting if we’re making this town by noon,” said Bodie.