The Loner

BOOK ONE

BOOK ONE

The cantina had no name, only a reputation for vice and violence. It was a squat adobe building in a squalid, sun-blasted village in the Four Corners area. Most of the inhabitants were uncertain whether it lay in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, or Utah. Most of them didn’t give a damn. Such designations were legal matters, and here the only law that mattered was the law of the gun.

Three fine horses were tied up at the hitch rail in front of the cantina. In a place such as this, where most people tried to scratch a meager living out of the arid soil, horses such as these could only belong to outsiders. The only outsiders who passed through the village were those who rode the lonely trails, men who had heard the owl hoot on dark, blood-soaked nights. In fact, it was known among the community of such men that they were welcome here. The cantina’s proprietor, Gomez by name, could provide whiskey, tequila, beer, tortillas, beans,
cabrito,
a place to sleep, all for a reasonable price,
señor.

And women, ah, yes, women, too, although at the moment Gomez had only a few to offer, ranging from his rather buxom wife to a half-breed Navajo girl barely old enough to be considered a woman. The men who patronized Gomez’s place were, as a rule, not too picky about such things.

The three men who owned the fine horses were the cantina’s only customers at the moment. All the villagers were drowsing in the midday heat except for Gomez, who was behind the bar, and the Navajo girl, who brought drinks to the men when they called for them. Each time when she set the tray on the table where the men were, they laughed and pawed at her and said things that she didn’t understand. She didn’t particularly want to understand them. Their rough hands made their intent clear enough.

The oldest of the three men was middle-aged, with a face to which time had not been kind. Gray hair stuck out from under a flat-crowned black hat with turquoise-studded conchos on its band. He wore a sour expression, along with a black vest over a shirt that had once been white, black whipcord trousers, and twin gunbelts that crossed as they went around his hips.

Across the table from him was a stocky, bearded Mexican whose sombrero was pushed back so that it hung behind his head by its chin strap. He carried only one gun, an old Colt Navy in a cross-draw holster. He had three knives of varying lengths and styles concealed around his body.

The third and final man was big and young, with a moon face under a high-crowned white hat and a gut that stretched his gray shirt. He had only one gun as well, a long-barreled Remington. Despite his youth, his face already showed the marks of cruelty and dissipation.

In an impatient, high-pitched voice, he said, “We’re gonna have to come up with some money pretty soon, Buck. We’re about to run out. Time we buy a few more drinks and a roll in the hay with that gal, we’ll be broke.”

“What do you expect me to do about it?” the oldest of the trio asked. “Did you see a bank when we rode in?”

“No. There ain’t much to speak of in this town.”

“Well, we can’t very well rob a bank that don’t exist, now can we?” Buck asked. He took a swallow from a mug of beer. “I swear, Carlson, if you didn’t have me around to do your thinkin’ for you, I think you’d forget to wake up in the mornin’.”

“Carlson is right,” the Mexican said. “What will we do when our money runs out?”

“You let me worry about that, Julio. We’ve done all right with me runnin’ the show so far, haven’t we?”

Julio shrugged. “I cannot argue with that, amigo.”

“Well, I can,” Carlson said. “I can argue with anything.”

Buck grunted. “Tell me about it. I think you’d argue with a tree stump, boy.”

“I’d win, too,” Carlson said with a grin.

Buck picked up one of the shots of tequila sitting on the table and tossed it down his throat. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. A look of intense concentration had come over his face. He turned to gaze at the bar, where the Navajo girl stood talking quietly to Gomez, who spoke her native tongue.

After a moment, Buck said, “I’m thinkin’ we ought to ride down to Gallup. That’s where Baggott and Hooper said they were headed. Maybe we can hook up with them and find some job to pull down there. It’s been long enough since that other business.”

“They have banks in Gallup,” Julio said.

“That they do,” Buck agreed.

“Wait a minute,” Carlson said. “What are we gonna do for money between here and there? I told you, time we settle up with Gomez, we ain’t gonna have any more.”

“That ain’t a problem. We just won’t settle up with Gomez.”

He said it loudly enough, and the gloomy, low-ceilinged room was small enough, so that Gomez heard. He protested, “Señor, you must be joking.”

“I never joke,” Buck said. Casually, he drew his left-hand gun and shot Gomez.

The gun was loud in the close quarters, loud enough to make Julio and Carlson wince. The girl had thrown herself aside, out of the line of fire, when she saw Buck pulling iron. She fell to her knees on the hard-packed dirt floor in front of the bar and screamed as Gomez stumbled backward under the bullet’s impact. His stubby-fingered hands pawed at his chest where a crimson stain spread slowly on the front of his dirty shirt. He opened his mouth and tried to talk, but nothing came out except a trickle of blood. With a gasp, Gomez fell forward, landing across the bar with his arms flung out in front of him. He stayed that way for a second before gravity took over and hauled his body down behind the bar. He slid off the hardwood and landed with a heavy thud.

The girl kept screaming. “Shut her up,” Buck said.

Carlson grinned as he got to his feet and lumbered toward her. “I got just the thing.”

Before he got there, a large figure burst through the beaded curtain that hung over the door leading to the living quarters in the rear of the cantina. “Carlson, look out,” Julio snapped as he leaped up out of his chair. His hand went to a sheath at the back of his neck, under the hanging sombrero, and came out with a throwing knife. The blade flickered across the room and lodged in the throat of the woman who had come through the curtain, yelling curses in Spanish and brandishing a shotgun.

The curses turned into an agonized gurgle as blood flooded the woman’s throat. She was Gomez’s wife, and she had heard what was going on in the cantina as she rolled tortillas in the back room. Too late to prevent her husband’s murder, she had snatched up the scattergun and rushed out to avenge his death. To be sure, he frequently sold her to the men who stopped here at the cantina, but he was still her husband after all.

Choking and drowning in her own blood, she managed to pull both triggers on the shotgun, but the twin barrels had dropped so that all the double charge of buckshot did was blow a hole in the dirt floor. She leaned forward. The shotgun held her up for a second as its barrels struck the floor, but then she toppled to the side.

“You are a lucky man, amigo,” Julio said. “If not for me, that cow would have blown your head off.”

“Yeah, I owe you my life,” Carlson said. “You want to go first with the girl?”

Julio started across the room to retrieve his knife. “No, you go ahead,” he said. “I am in no hurry.”

Carlson grinned. He was looking forward to this.

The girl had stopped screaming. She cringed away, scuttling across the dirt floor as Carlson reached for her. She had been with many men in the time she had been here at Gomez’s place. Some of them had been bad men and treated her rough. But these three were different, she sensed. These three would not leave her alive when they rode away from here.

Julio pulled his knife out of the dead woman’s throat and used her skirt to wipe the blood from the blade. “Do you think anyone will come to see what the shots were about?” he asked Buck.

“Not likely,” Buck replied with a shake of his head. “Those villagers’ll be too scared to come outta their holes, like the rabbits they are.” He downed another shot of tequila. “Now, we don’t have to settle up with Gomez. I’ll bet there’s even some money in his till that we can help ourselves to. We’ll have enough to make it to Gallup.”

“
Sí,
I believe you’re right.”

“Damn it, girl,” Carlson said, “don’t run away from me. You’ll just make it worse for yourself.” He chuckled. “Not that it could get a whole lot worse’n what I got in mind for you.”

Like a giant cat pouncing on a mouse, the big man suddenly lunged forward. A hamlike hand at the end of a thick, heavy-muscled arm wrapped around the girl’s slender arm. She cried out in horror as Carlson jerked her toward him.

From the door of the cantina, a voice said, “I’d let her go if I was you.”

The three outlaws looked toward the door. They hadn’t heard a horse come up, but the man who stood there had to have gotten to the village some way. He wasn’t one of the villagers, that was for sure. With the brilliant sunlight behind him, they couldn’t make out anything except his tall, broad-shouldered silhouette, topped by a flat-crowned hat. His accent was American. Not very Western maybe, but still American. His voice held hints of culture and education. Despite that, the hard menace it contained was also obvious.

“Mister, you are a damned fool,” Buck drawled. Despite his casual tone, he was tense and ready for trouble now. Men on the run could never let their guard down for too long. “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll turn around and walk away from here. Hell, if you’re smart, you’ll run.”

The stranger laughed softly. “That’s one thing nobody’s ever accused me of,” he said. “Being smart.” His head turned slightly as he looked at Carlson again. “I said let her go, fatty.”

Carlson shoved the girl against the bar and took a step toward the newcomer. “Why, you son of a bitch—”

“I think I’ll kill you last,” the stranger mused. “Those two bastards with you strike me as being more dangerous.”

The voice was so smooth it took a heartbeat for the three hardcases to grasp the implication of the words. Then Buck yelled, “Get him!” as he exploded from his chair, clawing at both guns.

The stranger went for Julio first, and it was a good thing he did, because the Mexican was a lightning-fast knife man. As it was, he barely beat Julio’s throw. The Colt that appeared in the stranger’s fist seemingly by magic blasted out a shot just a hair before the knife left Julio’s hand. That was enough to throw off the Mexican’s aim. The knife thudded into the wall just inches to the right of the door, the handle quivering as the blade stuck in the adobe. Julio was already crumpling to the floor, the stranger’s bullet in his belly.

Buck had both guns out, their barrels rising. The stranger shot him twice. The slugs drove him backward as they punched into his chest. He tripped over the chair that had overturned when he leaped to his feet. The guns in his hands roared as his fingers jerked involuntarily on the triggers. The shots went into the cantina’s ceiling.

That left Carlson. He had succeeded in dragging out his Remington while the stranger was disposing of Julio and Buck. He even got a shot off that knocked chips of adobe from the edge of the door as the stranger crouched. The Colt spouted flame again. The bullet hit Carlson just between his nose and his upper lip, traveling at an upward angle that sent the deadly chunk of lead boring deep into his brain. Carlson’s head jerked back, but he managed to stumble ahead a couple of steps as the knowledge that he was dead slowly penetrated his piggish brain. His knees hit the floor; then he pitched forward on his face.

The stranger didn’t pouch his iron. He stalked into the cantina with a pantherish stride and held the gun ready as he checked the bodies to make sure they were dead. Buck and Carlson were, but breath still rasped in Julio’s throat as he lay there with his arms crossed and pressed to his bleeding stomach. The stranger bent down and plucked the gun from Julio’s holster, placed it on the table. He took the knives he could see, too. It was possible Julio had more hidden on him somewhere, but gut-shot as he was, it was also possible he would never regain consciousness.

He’d probably be lucky if that turned out to be the case. Dying from a bullet in the belly was a bad way to go.

The stranger moved to the bar, where the Navajo girl still cowered. “Are you all right?” he asked as he holstered his gun.

She stared up at him in disbelief. Like an angel, he had swooped in to save her, drawing his gun and firing with a speed the likes of which she had never seen before—and she had witnessed several gunfights here in Gomez’s cantina.

Although it wasn’t Gomez’s anymore, she thought. He was dead, and so was his wife. She didn’t know what would happen to the place now, or to her.

“Are you hurt?” her angel asked.

No, not an angel, considering that he was dressed all in black from head to toe. Devil was more like it. He had the Devil’s own skill with a gun. He would have been handsome, the girl thought, with that long, sandy hair and close-cropped beard, if not for the coldness in his eyes.

Yet despite that coldness, the chilly glint that said he cared for nothing and no one, he had risked his life to save her. Julio and Carlson had both come within a whisker of killing him. The fight could have turned out very differently.

But it hadn’t. Struggling to form the words in English, she whispered, “Yes, I…not hurt.”

He nodded. “Good.” His eyes went to the woman. “Was she your mother?”

“No, she…Gomez’s wife.”

“Gomez?”

The girl pointed behind the bar. The stranger took a look, shook his head. “Sorry,” he muttered. “You just worked here?”

The girl nodded.

“Well, I reckon it’s your place now, unless Señor and Señora Gomez have any relatives who want to claim it.”

Her place? The girl couldn’t imagine owning anything other than the dress she wore, let alone having her own business. The idea was…interesting, though.

“I’ll find someone to help get these bodies out of here.” He turned toward the door.

The girl plucked at the sleeve of his shirt. “Señor? You leave? If you stay…I be…very good to you.”

“Sorry,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I had business with those three, and now it’s done. I’m just sorry I didn’t get here in time to save Señor and Señora Gomez.”