The Quantro Story (3 page)

When the
pistoleros
mounted up to ride out, Quantro could no longer keep his eyes open. The pain and loss of blood he had fought off came swelling up to overwhelm his senses. His head sagged in exhaustion against the barn wall and his bleeding hands fell slack at his sides.

A stray shaft of sunlight lanced through the boards of the roof above his broken body and reflected off the spur of white bone that protruded through the leg of his jeans.

***

Sonny and Jay rode in from the range for their supper as the shadows were growing long. Although they were both tired and hungry they were still good-natured enough to be kidding each other about where Quantro had disappeared to earlier.

They soon found out.

The odor of vomit was fresh on their breath when they pushed open the barn door and found him huddled on the floor in a corner. They had been up to the big house first. What they had seen in the living room had been enough to make any man sick to his stomach. Quantro asked them to carry him up to the house but they both shook their heads. A man should not see his kin like that. But, even they could read the madness in his eyes when he promised he would kill them both if they refused him that. Reluctantly, they made a cradle of their arms and supported his battered body across the yard and up the steps onto the porch. Sonny kicked open the door, and the two cowhands stood with averted eyes as Quantro surveyed the room.

He could not explain to the two men that he had to see.
Needed
to see. He knew there would be the times ahead when he would find himself on a cold trail and feel like giving up the chase. The memory
must
be engraved so it would always come alive. The vision of his parents, degraded and mutilated would act as a thorn in his side and keep him striving to secure justice.

What he saw inside the house turned the fist of pain and hurt in his stomach into a white-hot fireball of burning hatred.

***

They buried Larry and Mary Quantro at the foot of Wolf Buttes, under the shade of the ranging pines his father had loved. As Quantro leaned on his crutches by the graveside he said nothing to his father, for he knew there was nothing left to say. His father would have expected him to do what he had a mind to do anyway, so what else could he add?

The following day the moneymen moved in. There was only the briefest flicker of shame in their eyes as they mechanically explained it all to him. Nothing personal, just business. They would have to foreclose on the ranch. He was too young, they said, to take over the responsibilities of the mortgage and the long term loan that had furnished the breeding stock, and the short term loan too, that had bought supplies. He watched them with cold eyes and listened to their voices with a cold heart. The ranch meant nothing now without his mother in the old kitchen and his father grinning as he watched Shag break in a horse in the pole corral. Quantro's only thoughts were of the day he would be fit enough to saddle up then ride out and begin the search.

By the end of the week he had virtually nothing left. He sold off all the stock for the best price he could raise, and what wasn't owed to the bank paid the hands' back wages. As the last cowboy reluctantly collected his dues and waved
adios
Quantro counted up his assets.

A few well worn clothes, the big buckskin stallion, the saddle his father had bought for his birthday, his guns and one hundred and forty three dollars and eight cents. It didn't seem much to be the sum total of his eighteen years of life, much less the sum total of all his father had worked for, but at least there was enough to provide him with a grubstake for the task ahead.

He moved into a hotel in town, the cheapest room he could find, and counted the days until his broken leg would allow him to ride. The buckskin stallion grew fat on the best grain and lack of exercise at the livery stable, but in the hotel room, his master's hands were rarely idle.

The bone-handled Colt .44 that had been his father's gun was cleaned slowly and thoroughly each day. He practiced drawing and thumbing the hammer for hours on end. He drew sitting down, he drew standing up. He hobbled across the floor, exercising his leg, sweating, cursing, stubborn. He fanned the Colt's hammer, he thumbed it. He oiled the burnished leather of the holster so the pistol would slide free with even more speed. Any measure, however slight, to give him an edge. Where once he had been merely average with a handgun, now he was fast.

And he paid the same attention to his Winchester. That and the saddle had been his father's last presents to him. The Winchester was the best. It was one of the ‘One in a Thousand', the 1873 model, and accurate up to two hundred yards. Another advantage of that model was it used the same ammunition as the handgun, saving him carrying space. The Winchester had been his primary weapon since he had been a boy. The hunting trips with his father had taught him to be a dead shot. If you didn't hit the target, then you didn't eat. It hadn't been long before he was hitting the target every time he squeezed the trigger. This Winchester was the best, and as the cold steel of the blued barrel warmed under his hands, he knew it would serve him as such.

He could guarantee it.

***

The day eventually came. He buckled on the Colt and left his crutches propped in the corner of the room. The broken leg had left him with a slight limp, but it was barely noticeable as he strode down the staircase, the Winchester canted over his shoulder and his saddlebags dangling loosely from his left hand. At the foot of the stairs he crossed to the counter to pay his bill.

The clerk had already known him from nights when he had come into town with his father, but the man who checked out that day was a complete stranger. The once laughing blue eyes held a fire and a determination, and the lips formed a thin, grim line that transformed the boy into a man. A man who knew what he wanted and who was going to do his damnedest to get it.

As Quantro pushed his way through the batwing doors out on to the street the clerk remembered where he had seen that expression once before. It had come into the eyes of Wes Hardin when he'd been challenged by a punk kid down in Texas. The look had come into his eyes after a brief flash of regret at having to use his six-gun yet again. The kid had been dead a minute later.

Quantro collected the buckskin stallion and rode the bedsprings out of him as he headed out of town, circling north. The trail was stone cold, but there was nothing else he could have expected. For too many days too long he had been holed up in the hotel room waiting for his leg to fix.

He had only the one clue. Cheyenne. North it was then.

For the first time in his life he put to use everything his father had ever taught him about hunting. Patience in big measures was the key. You had to hunt with your head and not with your heart. You had to keep your ears and eyes open and learn to read all the signs of the land. The birds, the animals. Anything that could remotely help to guide the hunter to the quarry. Lessons he had learned hunting and tracking on the plains and in the cottonwoods and pines came back as he studied the land ahead. If he hit a wrong trail he would have to backtrack until he cut the right one. His wariness eventually paid dividends. That, a question here, a rumor there, or a hint from a friendly sheriff.

Six months scouring every card game in every saloon, every cathouse in every town, every ranch where men had recently been taken on, every place that was any place along the route to Cheyenne.

Then he found him. In a whorehouse in Greely.

It was with a quiet satisfaction Quantro nursed the bottle of whiskey as he waited in the parlor of the cathouse. At three o'clock in the morning his vigilance was rewarded by the sight of baby faced Mace Howbry as he swaggered down the stairs blowing kisses to the rumpled girl who leaned over the railings above him.

Howbry was far too content, reveling in the aftermath of sensuous delight, to notice the tall man who pushed back his chair and followed him out of the house on silent feet. He was far too happy too, to bother watching his back trail, or he would have seen the grim rider on the buckskin horse that plodded along right behind him. And he was far too drunk to sleep light when he staked out his horse and rolled into his blanket under the spreading boughs of an oak tree.

Quantro pulled the big stallion to a halt and looped the reins over a handy branch. He dismounted and went to sit in the shadows where he could contemplate the very near future, his thoughts interrupted by the fat man's snores.

The bitterness that had driven him on to trace this obscene fat man had been his constant companion, riding always just behind his shoulder. Now he had found him. He rolled a cigarette from his sack of Bull Durham for a last smoke before he did what he had to do. As the smoke swirled deep in his lungs the hatred writhed in the pit of his stomach and his lips twisted into a silent snarl. The snores invaded his ears again. It would be the last sleep Mace Howbry ever enjoyed. There could be a little of his own medicine too. A box of cigars had languished inside Quantro's saddlebags for the last six months. They wouldn't taste too good, but then, they would cover up the taste of Howbry's burning flesh.

The sun's opening eye was bringing the warmth of the coming day to the land when Quantro ground the butt of his last cigarette into the earth and walked over to the buckskin. He stroked the horse's muzzle gently, then slid the Winchester silently out of the saddle boot. His boot heels made no noise as he trod the dew-soaked grass to stand over the fat bundle of blankets. Lining the Winchester up on Howbry's head, he stooped and eased the pistol from the snoring man's holster. He straightened up and tucked it into his waistband.

Viciously, he jammed the rifle barrel into Howbry's stomach and worked the action to pump a shell into the breech. The fat man came awake in mid-snore, eyes wide. His hand snaked to an empty holster.

“Too late,” Quantro said quietly.

“Who…? What in…?” The words blubbered from Howbry's lips.

Quantro smiled a little. “Remember me ?”

“Wha…?” The pig-like eyes frowned in the half light. Quantro leaned on the Winchester, pushing the breath out of the fat man.

“A little prodding to remember? Maybe you're not such a tough
hombre
when your three
amigos
aren't with you?”

Howbry's eyes clouded and he looked more intently at the shaggy mop of blonde hair hanging almost to his attacker's shoulders. Those blue eyes. Yes, now he knew him.

“No,” he lied, “I ain't never seen you before.”

Quantro's mouth made an ugly movement and he jammed the rifle into the broad band of fat that girded the man's loins. Howbry's lips trembled as he winced.

“You're funnin', Howbry. You remember.”

“No. I've never seen…” The rifle rose and fell. A grunt of pain.

“…Yes… Yes. Damn it. I remember. You're the boy from the ranch…”

Quantro turned his head and spoke to the black horse that was cropping the grass.

“See. My friend remembers with only a touch of persuasion.”

Howbry took advantage of the brief relaxation of Quantro's attention on him. Surprisingly quickly for a man of his size he twisted sideways and came to his knees. He was not quick enough, and too late he realized he had done exactly what Quantro had expected him to do.

The Winchester was out of line but the hard heel of Quantro's boot swung in a clear arc. It landed with a muffled thud on the side of Howbry's head, driving the fat man back to the ground.

“All right,” he spat. “What do you want from me ?”

Quantro smiled. “You and me,” he said quietly, “have got some talking to do. Like three names and three places.”

***

At noon Mace Howbry was hanging from a tree. His hands were tied behind his back to the belt of his trousers. The rope that hung him from the tree was passed under his armpits and across his chest. His full weight was borne by his arm sockets, and the strain pulled his taut arms outwards, pulling against his pants. They in turn exerted pressure on his crotch. His screams were not pleasant.

Howbry's face had been transformed too. Not even a ten dollar whore would welcome him to her bed now. His eyes bulged sickeningly from their sockets and his lips dribbled in fear. Cigar burns festered in the heat all across his face and chest. The deer flies came to feed on the congealed blood on his scabrous flesh.

Quantro had learned all he wanted to know. The fat man possessed a similar trait to most men who enjoy inflicting pain on helpless people. Namely, he was a coward. It hadn't taken even one cigar to make him tell all he knew. Three names and three places. Now Quantro knew a long ride lay ahead of him yet.

There was nothing more to be learned from Howbry.

The frightened eyes of the man on the end of the rope widened briefly when he saw Quantro unsheathe the knife. His eyes watched in morbid fascination as the sunlight splashed across the honed edge of the blade as Quantro walked over to stand below him. The shadow cast by a branch above lay across his face like a bandana, leaving only the cold blue eyes looking up. When the tip of the blade dug into his stomach and sliced smoothly across the full width of his flesh he screamed. The sound tapered off into a useless gurgle.

Howbry's bowels slowly burst out through the widening slit and hung like purple carrion in the warm air. The flies that had been gorging on his face and chest transferred their affections to the abundant feast of his entrails.

Quantro cleaned the knife with a handful of grass and thrust it back into the sheath. He collected all Mace Howbry's belongings and stuffed them into the saddlebags on the black horse, then fastened a lead rein to the buckskin's saddle horn. The horse and equipment would at least fetch a few dollars to sustain his eating habits for a couple more months. When the horses were ready, he walked back and kicked dust over the fire that had warmed the coffee pot. He swung easily up into the finely-tooled saddle and walked the stallion over to the tree for a last look at his handiwork. The black horse followed without complaint.