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  “At most,” Fargo said, “you might save a few weeks. And it’s true there are some settlements along this route, places like San Antonio and Las Cruces, and a few good stores and trading posts. But it’s mostly a better military route. You spent many years in northern Mexico, don Hernando. You must know about the tribes of the Southwest, especially the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches.”

  “Bad medicine,” Booger threw in. “And you got the Mex’can freebooters, Comancheros—”

  “Bottle it, Booger,” Fargo cut him off, nodding discreetly toward the ladies.

  “Yes,” Quintana replied, “I am aware of those dangers, certainly. And on the subject of such dangers, I owe you the truth about the attempt on your lives a few minutes ago. It was not my men who fired on you, Senor Fargo—I strongly suspect it was the work of a notorious and vicious gang out of northern Mexico. They are freebooters and contrabandistas, and at times form a scalper army. They also purchase slaves from the Comancheros and sell them in Chihuahua Province.”

  The viceroy paused and studied Fargo’s face closely before adding, “They are led by a hellish monster known as El Lobo Flaco.”

  Fargo started visibly.

  “Ah, I see by your reaction that you know who I mean?”

  “I know him, all right,” Fargo replied grimly. “El Lobo Flaco—the Skinny Wolf. He came within an ace of dousing my glims south of the Pecos Stream in west Texas. He’s trouble raised to the fifth power. So are those lunatic hyenas who side him. If that bunch is in the mix, it’s gonna be a rough piece of work to whip this party through to California.”

  The viceroy smiled. “That is why I sent for you. Rough work is your specialty, true?”

  “It is,” Fargo agreed on a sigh. “But I’m damned if I enjoy it. How do you know the Skinny Wolf was behind the ambush tonight?”

  The viceroy’s smile melted like a snowflake on a river. “He is obsessed, I believe the word is, with my daughter. Her portrait was painted by the celebrated Mexican artist Juan Gabriel Marquez and reproduced, by copperplate, all over Mexico. It was impossible to keep the news of my California expedition secret—not from his all-prying ears. He intends to abduct her for the obvious reason, and I do not mean ransom.”

  Fargo glanced at the young beauty, whose flashing eyes boldly met his gaze. Damn, but she’s a looker, he thought.

  “I can understand all that,” he said. “But this attack on me and Booger tonight isn’t all. I was dang near killed in a poison pitfall trap earlier today. How would the Skinny Wolf know I was coming to Powder-horn?”

  Quintana’s face twisted into an indrawn, bitter mask. “Because, my friend, I fear there is a traitor among us.”

  “Any idea who it is?”

  Quintana stuck a pinch of snuff under his lip. “No, and it is only a suspicion.”

  “Could it be Captain Salazar or one of the two soldiers who seem to be joined at his hip?”

  Quintana’s lips twitched into a smile. “Salazar, no. Impossible. I can sympathize with your tone of voice. He is an extremely proud man—to the point of arrogance. You see, he is a graduate of Seville’s elite Colegio Militario and a former comandante of the royal barracks in Spain’s capital. As for Lieutenant Aragon and Sergeant Rivera . . . it seems unlikely they could intrigue with El Lobo Flaco without Diego knowing about it.”

  “Well, then,” Fargo said, “if you’re right, it would be one of the other men. Is it true, don Hernando, that they are former plantation workers and not soldiers?”

  “True . . . and not true. You see, they were the sons of enlisted soldiers in my garrison during my viceroyalty in Mexico. They and their families escaped with me to New Orleans, where I purchased a sugarcane plantation outside the city in Faubourg Marigny. We Spaniards have outlawed slavery, and even though Louisiana law permits it, I chose to use my former soldiers, and eventually their grown children, as wage laborers.”

  Quintana looked pensive for a moment. “Now, unfortunately, my health forces me to the more temperate climate of Alta California, and they have elected to accompany me.”

  Fargo nodded. “But I’ve been around soldiers much of my life, and these men of yours seem to have a . . . hair-trigger readiness about them you don’t find in common laborers.”

  “Tienes razon,” Quintana replied. “You are right. That is Diego’s doing. You see, he, Aragon, and Rivera were sent to protect me and Miranda after the Mexican government sent agents to make attempts on our lives. Those three have turned the rest into a well-trained citizens’ militia of sorts.”

  Fargo caught Booger’s eye for a moment, then said, “That might prove handy if the Skinny Wolf and his jackals are on your spoor. We’ll also be crossing the ranges of the Kiowas and Comanches, no boys to trifle with. Both tribes have made common cause, and they’ve killed more whites than any other tribe. And once we get into New Mexico Territory, we might have to lock horns with Apaches.”

  “As to that . . . excuse me a moment, gentlemen.”

  Hernando Quintana stepped through the fly of the tent. Immediately his “demure” daughter spoke up.

  “I saw you staring at me earlier, Mr. Fargo.”

  “Of course. What man with sap in him wouldn’t? And you stared back.”

  “Certainly. You are a dashing figure of a man. Do you like what you see when you look at me?”

  “Well, the ribbon is sure pretty. But what’s in the package?”

  Booger snickered. Katrina Robles, the duenna, spoke up. “It is time that we retire, Miranda. We will set out early, and we have many long, hard days ahead of us.”

  “Perhaps,” Miranda suggested, coyly working her fan and watching Fargo from those bewitching eyes, “they can be made more pleasant.”

  “Fargo,” Booger muttered with animosity, “why must you always be the lone rooster in the henhouse?”

  Before Fargo could reply to Miranda, the viceroy stepped back inside. “If you gentlemen will kindly come outside, I have asked Ernesto to bring one of the wagons around.”

  Fargo wasn’t all that eager to play clay pigeon again in the glaring torchlight, but he complied. A reinforced wagon sat just outside the tent.

  “I am aware of the increased danger from savages along this southwestern route,” Quintana explained. “So I came prepared. Ernesto, hazlo, por favor.”

  The young bracero turned militiaman whisked away a canvas tarp.

  “God’s trousers!” Booger exclaimed. “That’s medicine!”

  “They are securely bolted to the wagon bed,” Quintana said. “And there are plenty of rounds for both weapons.”

  Fargo took in the muzzle-loading artillery rifle and a solid brass one-pounder cannon.

  “The cannon fires exploding balls,” Quintana explained. “It is my understanding that the savages of the Southwest have little experience with such weapons and will likely find them very intimidating.”

  “Yeah, the big-thundering guns will definitely scare hell out of Kiowas and Comanches,” Fargo allowed. “Not so much the Apaches, though. They’ve been facing Mexican armies for a long time, and they’ve got used to them. There’s another problem, too.”

  “That being . . . ?”

  “All three tribes prefer the sneak attack at night. Unlike the northern tribes, they got no taboo about fighting after dark. It’s good to have these guns, but you best keep those men of yours vigilant all night long.”

  “Good advice,” Quintana agreed. “I gladly defer to your experience in such matters.”

  Quintana loosed a long, fluming sigh. “I envy you, Skye Fargo. They say wisdom comes with age. I, for one, would rather be a bit younger and a bit more stupid.”

  Fargo chuckled, admiring the viceroy’s candor.

  “Well, gentlemen, we must start early. I apologize sincerely for making no special sleeping arrangements for you.”

  “Hell,” Booger s
aid, “I could sleep in a hammock filled with cats. And Fargo will not abide any walls or roof when he sleeps.”

  The two men said good night and headed back toward the makeshift corral to spread their blankets.

  “I don’t like this deal, Catfish,” Booger complained.

  “Something ain’t quite jake,” Fargo agreed. “I knew the pay was too good.”

  “But, say! That Miranda is a fine-haired, sweet-lavender bit of frippit, uh? I’d eat her pussy till her head caved in. And of course you, lucky bastard, will make the naked pretzel with her. They all lip salt from your hand.”

  “Never mind that. Your tongue is swinging way too loose, old campaigner. No more cracks about how heavy that coach is. Like you said, there’s something queer about this deal. And in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly surrounded by friends.”

  5

  Five miles south of Powder-horn, Texas, stood a deserted, dilapidated wooden structure that had once been a U.S. Army mirror-relay station before the magnetic telegraph finally worked its way west of the Missouri River. Lately it had become the temporary quarters for El Lobo Flaco and his notorious gang.

  “Jefe,” reported the Mexican named Ramon Velasquez, “we were not able to get close enough. Fargo and the hombre grande with him were pinned down but not hit.”

  “Que suerte tan malo!” the Skinny Wolf swore quietly. “The Devil’s own luck! In one day this gringo legend has eluded death twice. He is a hard man to kill, Ramon. But the cat sits by the gopher hole, verdad? I am a patient man, and Fargo has a long journey before him. Here, cut the dust, amigo.”

  El Lobo sat at a crumbling deal table drinking from a bottle of the milky cactus liquor known as pulque. He handed the bottle to his segundo. El Lobo was a thin but sinewy man with a skullish, tight-to-the-bone face and a lipless grin. He wore leather chivarra pants with a silver concho belt, a rawhide vest, and a low-crowned black hat that left most of his face in sinister shadow in the flickering light on an old skunk-oil lamp.

  “Where are the rest of the men?” Velasquez asked after drinking pulque and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

  The Skinny Wolf flashed a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth. “Where else? Out back taking turns on the indio girl we brought back from the raid on Poca Agua. It is a good thing the two of us bulled her first, for I assure you she is no longer as tight as a mouse’s ear. They have not let up on her.”

  Even as he fell silent, a piercing cry rent the fabric of the night. Ramon’s smallpox-scarred face divided itself in a smile.

  “Paco must be doing some knife work on her, uh, jefe?”

  El Lobo flashed his lipless grin. “Yes. It would seem that we are rough unshaven men with poor manners. But once we capture Hernando Quintana’s coach, no one will care about our manners. That will not come to pass, however, until we have put this Trailsman below the horizon.”

  “According to our spy, they still have about eighteen soldados,” Velasquez reminded his boss. “Well-armed soldiers.”

  “Only three who are true soldiers and battle tested, Ramon, and of course one of those three we do not need to worry about. As for the others—yes, they can march and drill and lick the fingers of their masters. And Miguel claims they can fight. But all of us have survived shooting battles—with the famoso Rangers of Texas, with the godless Apaches, with the Guardia Civil of our own nation. No, the only rock we will split on is Fargo—the ‘savage angel’ as he is called in the fawning norteamericano newspapers.”

  “Thanks to these same newspapers,” Velasquez pointed out, “Fargo’s death could prove quite profitable. His severed head could be packed in brine, like a buffalo tongue, and put on display for a precio of a few centavos.”

  Another almost inhuman scream from behind the old station was followed by raucous, drunken laughter and cheers.

  “This foolish viceroy,” Velasquez said. “Do you believe his secret plan can work?”

  The Skinny Wolf nodded. “Not with the small number of men with him now. But Miguel claims that hundreds more are waiting in Alta California. Vaya! Two men who drink black coffee could take that unprotected state—but, of course, it will never come to that. Not after we seize that coach.”

  El Lobo wore a .41-caliber magazine pistol in a canvas holster under his left armpit. He pulled it out and laid it on the table.

  “Tell Paco to put his knife away and bring the girl in,” he told Velasquez. “I have thought of a plan for her.”

  Velasquez stepped outside under a vast night sky peppered silver with stars. He shouted an order, and a moment later a drunken man appeared in the doorway.

  “Con permiso, jefe?”

  “Pase.”

  Paco half led, half dragged a slender young Papago Indian girl inside. She had been stripped naked, and several knife slashes on her arms and legs streamed blood. Her dark eyes were glassy with shock, her face and badly scraped and bruised body smudged with dirt.

  A close look, however, revealed that she had once been a beautiful girl before this bunch of devils unleashed from hell descended on her small, peaceful farming village south of Matamoros, Mexico.

  “Oye, chica,” the Skinny Wolf said, picking up his pistol. “Listen, girl, I know you speak my language. Would you like me to shoot you?”

  She nodded, her eyes begging him to do it.

  The Skinny Wolf laughed. “I will. But first I wish to show you something. Ramon, bring the morral.”

  Velasquez reached into a corner. He grabbed a bulging fiber bag and set it on the table. El Lobo spilled its contents out—a heap of bloody scalps. The girl retched and her knees buckled, but Paco held her up.

  “The gobernador of Chihuahua,” El Lobo taunted her, “has declared war on the Apaches. He pays a generous bounty for each scalp. But, of course, many indios in Mexico have the same coarse black hair as Apaches. And Apaches are very difficult to kill—unlike you dirt scratchers who have been Christianized by the Spanish padres. All your prayers to a virgin who had a child without spreading her legs for a man, and look what it got you, estupida.”

  “The gauchupines,” she said, using a Southwest Indian term of contempt for Spaniards. “They drove us in herds like cows to their churches to warn us about the Devil. But you Mexicans are the true devils!”

  El Lobo laughed with delight. “Yes, straight from hell. And I am the leader of all the devils.”

  He used the muzzle of his pistol to pull out one silver scalp that still had a tortoiseshell comb in it.

  “Do you recognize this, estupida?”

  The girl’s dirty and bruised face twisted into a mask of sheer horror and revulsion. “Abuela,” she managed, choking back a sob.

  “Yes, your grandmother. A dried-up old crone who will earn me one hundred pesos. And this pile has the hair of the rest of your family and of all in your village. Only one is missing . . . Paco!”

  The girl was too weak and spirit broken to resist when the brutish Mexican threw her to the rammed-earth floor and drew the bone-handle knife from his sash. Placing one knee on her neck, he made a swift, savage outline cut. Then he entwined his fingers in her long hair and gave a mighty jerk. The scalp snapped loose with a sound like hundreds of tiny bubbles popping.

  Her piteous shriek of pain was cut short when the Skinny Wolf’s pistol bucked in his fist. Her bladder emptied reflexively in death, and the stench of urine, blood, and spent powder stained the air.

  “Drag her outside, Paco,” El Lobo ordered his minion. “We will use her to send in our calling card to Fargo. This time, unlike out at the Pecos River, the famoso gringo in buckskins will not outwit me. Lo juro—I swear it!”

  • • •

  Even before the birds began celebrating sunup, Fargo and Booger were tying in to a piping-hot breakfast of buckwheat cakes, soda biscuits, and ham gravy.

  The three Spanish soldiers and Hernando Quin
tana’s former plantation workers had taken their food and separated themselves in a group well away from the norteamericanos. But don Hernando and the two young women, in a gesture of civility, remained near the cooking fire with Fargo, Booger, Bitch Creek McDade, the wrangler, and the cook, Deke Lafferty.

  Deke goggled at Booger as the huge reinsman devoured an entire buckwheat cake in one mouthful. “Holy Hannah, Booger! Can you eat just one cow?”

  Booger belched so loudly that Miranda Quintana and Katrina Robles winced.

  “Yes, if we are forced to half rations,” Booger replied.

  Fargo glanced toward the group of Spaniards. Yesterday only the three uniformed soldiers had openly carried weapons. But now every former “plantation worker” was armed with a rifle and a Colt Navy revolver, and many wore crossed bandoliers stuffed with rounds.

  “I am told, Senor Fargo,” the viceroy remarked, “that the route we are taking is quite familiar to you.”

  Fargo nodded, blowing on his coffee. The well-established southern route to California crossed all of Texas, a good chunk of New Mexico Territory, a corner of Utah, and then up coastal California. The next major stop was San Antonio, and from there along the San Antonio Road to El Paso. From there it was on to Fort Yuma where they would ford the Colorado River. Major settlements and resupply points along the way included Las Cruces and, much nearer, Victoria, Texas.

  “It’s been pretty well traveled since the army finished it in 1849,” Fargo replied, “but mostly by troops and mail carriers or well-protected bull trains. Mainly that’s because Powder-horn is hard to reach by land from the north.”

  “Yes, but steamers arrive five times a week from New Orleans, the principal reason I settled on this route. I am told the road is well tracked and defined.”

  Again Fargo nodded. “The first two hundred and fifty miles are well settled, and supplies can be had at reasonable rates. But you don’t seem to lack for supplies.”