“Better put that shotgun down,” said Stewart, “and look out for yourself; you’re outnumbered eight to one.”
“Eight to two,” Shepard said gesturing toward the cabin with his chin. Fitzgerald, having been left unobserved for a moment, had reached around behind the cabin door and grabbed a shotgun which was now pointed at the posse.
Stewart said, “There’s still only two of you.” But he spoke now with less conviction.
Shepard grinned
. “That’s a fact Stewart, but when we get done emptyin’ these scatter-guns into you boys, they’ll have to carry you to the graveyard in buckets.”
Stewart
’s face grew red and mottled with impotent rage. He had expected to make a clean sweep, but now he saw his anticipated triumph fading into defeat. “You’re bucking the law here Shepard,” he stated through gritted teeth.
Shepard snorted disdainfully. “There ain
’t no law here, this is your own private shindig, and I’ll burn in hell before I’ll leave a friend of mine at the mercy of a two-headed snake like you.” His glance shifted briefly between Stewart and Fogarty.
Stewart burst out, “Friend? I
’ve heard you say you’d like to cut out his liver.”
Ollie Shepard laugh
ed and the sound pealed clearly across the desert silence. “Well,” he said presently, his eyes twinkling, “I feel that way about a lot of my friends.”
Fogarty glared stonily at Shepard. He knew, with a gunman
’s sense, he had been neutralized from the outset. The barrel of Shepard’s shotgun moved lazily back and forth, covering at random different members of the group; allowing each man his own private view of the menacing orifices. But the muzzle of Dan Fitzgerald’s weapon was trained on Fogarty alone, and each time the gunman glanced in Fitzgerald’s direction, the old timer met his gaze with a look that conveyed a strong message of warning. Because of this, Fogarty knew he was a non-participant in the encounter, so he leaned back in the saddle and observed. On the surface he appeared calm, even disinterested, but beneath his casual exterior burned a red flame of hatred that was whipped to a white heat, when he and the other posse members were divested of their weapons and sent ignominiously, and with many a muttered oath, on their way back to town. Few had been the times in Fogarty’s life when another man had gotten the drop on him, but far fewer were those when he had failed to exact a heavy price on another day for such unwise behavior. Here too there would be another day.
Before the riders were out of sight, Fitzgerald had his horse saddled. He and Shepard rode to a spot in the hills where they could watch the cabin u
ntil dark against the event the posse should decide to double back and use the elements of surprise and superior numbers against the two old friends. From their present vantage point they could see the dust sent up by the posse’s horses and in this manner were able to track their progress back to town.
Once they were satisfied the posse
had remained together and no trickery was afoot, Shepard and Fitzgerald rode back to the cabin. Aside from a few murmured comments, neither man had spoken. Dismounting in front of the cabin Fitzgerald said, “I wouldn’t have come out of the cabin if you hadn’t been with them.”
“Shepard looked toward town, spat on the ground and said, “Bunch of greenhorns.”
“You can’t go back to town.”
“Not for a while anyhow,” agreed Shepard.
“How long do you figure on staying away?”
“W
eek or two. They’ll need time to cool down. After a while they’ll thank me for keeping you off their consciences.”
Fitzgerald nodded. “Probably right, but what will you do?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who
’ll take care of the stable?”
“I reckon Teddy can handle it. A
fter a week or two of him, I’ll probably have extra business, folks’ll be so glad to have me back. How about you? You can’t stick around either.”
“Nope,” agreed Fitzgerald. “Think I
’ll ride about two days north and go fishin’ for a week or two.”
A wide grin creased Shepard
’s face and he said, “Pard, you always was the smart one in this outfit.”
It was a morose and dispirited group of riders
that returned to town, scarcely recognizable as the angry and boisterous group that had ridden out a few hours earlier, eager to dispense justice. Talking among themselves on the ride home, a number of them had agreed that the posse had been a bad idea to begin with. Moreover, they questioned the logic of lynching Amado Lopez and Dan Fitzgerald merely because Tom Stewart said they were associated with Jeff Havens. And what was wrong with Jennings? He had behaved strangely ever since seeing Julio Arroyo’s mutilated body.
Saying little to one another, most of the men rode directly to their homes, postponing, at least until tomorrow, the ridicule and questions that were certain to come their way
from the townspeople. Stewart and Fogarty rode with Jennings to his office where the weary sheriff dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching rail.
“Lloyd,” said Stewart, “Tomorrow I want you to get up another posse and go find Lopez and Havens.”
Jennings turned to Stewart and there was hatred in his eyes, “It’s not going to be easy to get volunteers after this.”
Stewart leaned in the saddle, bringing his face closer to Jennings, “You don
’t understand Lloyd, I want this taken care of while people are still outraged about the killing of that poor, innocent old man.”
Jennings understood
. He was still in the trap and Stewart wanted to make sure he did not forget it. Like the hooked fish Stewart had compared him to, Jennings was too drained to struggle. He dropped his gaze and murmured, “All right.”
“Good,” said Stew
art, straightening, “I’ll send Fogarty and a few other men into town tomorrow morning to join your posse. Fogarty is an expert at these things. You’ll want to listen to him and take his advice whenever he offers it.”
Another clear message
.
Without further conversation, Stewart and Fogarty swung their ho
rses around and rode toward the T.S. Neither of the two spoke during the ride to the ranch. Fogarty could tell Stewart was angry and his mind was working rapidly, formulating new plans. As for Fogarty, his mind was filled with his own thoughts of blood and vengeance.
When they arrived at the ranch, Stewart finally spoke
. “Now that Jennings is with us we can move ahead. I want all the land between here and Mexican Town, and I want the greasers off!”
“How do you want me to handle that?” asked Fogarty, and Stewart detected a hint of eagerness in the killer
’s voice.
“However you want to.”
Fogarty smiled.
“Just be careful,” added Stewart. “Don
’t kill any white people, unless it’s Havens, Fitzgerald, or Shepard. And if you kill any Mexicans, be sure there aren’t any white people around to see it. Give each Mexican two warnings to move; after that, if they don’t, it’s their fault, not ours. The closest one is Moreno. I want him out of there.”
“He
’s already been warned twice,” commented the gunman.
Stewart shrugged, “
Then he’s all out of chances.”
“You riding with us?” asked Fogarty with a trace of a sneer.
“No, that’s your work.”
Fogarty smiled again
. Looking sideways at Stewart, he spat a long stream of tobacco, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, “You’re no better than I am, Stewart.”
St
ewart gave him a hard look, dismounted, and stepped into the house.
Unlike the previous times when the riders had come, this time Pancho Moreno didn
’t hear them until they were too close for him to do anything. He only had time to run a few yards away from the house before the riders surrounded him. He looked up now into the faces of the men he hated and feared most in the world.
Fogarty spoke, “Y
ou didn’t leave like I told you to.”
Pancho Moreno was no coward, but he was a farmer, and he had always been a farmer. He had no means of protecting himself against such men as these. And what was even more terrifying was that he had no way of protecting his wife and child, who were still in the hous
e. He had convinced himself the men were just trying to scare him into leaving so they could have his land. But he saw now in their faces he had been wrong.
“I leave no
w,” he said. “I leave tonight. You come tomorrow, I gone. You give me ‘nother chance, please.”
“Too many chances,” said Fogarty
, and in one fluid movement he pulled his gun and fired it. The bullet tore a path through Pancho Moreno’s chest and threw him backward. Fogarty rode to the house, not bothering to look down as his horse stepped over the body on the ground. Dismounting, he walked to the door and tested it. It was barred from within.
Three
hard kicks sent it flying open and he entered the one small candle-lit room of the adobe house Pancho Moreno had built with his own hands.
Maria Moreno was huddled in a corner, wide eyed and trembling. She had heard the shot and knew what it meant.
Fogarty strolled casually around the room, overturning furniture and wiping shelves clean of objects with a swipe of his arm. Stopping in front of the door, he turned to face the woman he had just widowed. She was trembling uncontrollably.
“Your husband told me you
’ll be leaving now, is that true?”
Maria, wide eyed, bobbed her head up and down. “Yes,” she said in a hoarse, windy voice that seemed to come from her lungs instead of her throat.
“Fine,” sneered Fogarty and he turned to leave. As he did, there was another sound in the room that made him stop and wheel around. The sound came again, enabling him to locate its source. It was the sound of a baby, probably just waking up, making the small noises babies make before they start to cry. The sounds were emanating from a barrel in a corner—one of the few objects in the room Fogarty had not overturned.
“So the greaser woman has a baby and she hid it in a bar
rel,” he said pulling his gun again.
Maria
’s face registered an indescribable horror and she lunged at him, a horrified “No!” scraping past her throat. Fogarty swung his gun in a horizontal arc, which connected with the side of her head, and she fell in a heap on the floor. Taking careful aim at the bottom of the barrel he fired three shots, punching evenly spaced holes in the wooden staves. Then he listened. The room was silent.
When the riders were gone, Maria picked herself up and staggered to the barrel, jerking the lid off and hurling it aside. The baby smiled up at his mother from his resting place, on top of the beans that half-filled the barrel
. She lifted him out and sank to the dirt floor, her thin frame shaken by sobs. For a long time she sat there, rocking back and forth, holding the child tightly to her breast, wishing she didn’t have to go outside. Much later she finally did.
That night, several more of the Mexican farmers who occupied land adjacent t
o or near the T.S. were visited by Fogarty and his riders and received warnings to move. Fogarty felt sure after the other farmers learned of Pancho Moreno’s death there would be complete compliance with his warnings.
Two nights later Lloyd Jennings finally showed up at the rendezvous. Juana was anxious to see him, not only because she had missed him terribly, but because she wished to find out what he knew about the murders of Julio Arroyo and Pancho Moreno, and what he was doing about them. After their customary embrace and lingering kiss, Juana said to Jennings, “You
’re not the same tonight, what’s wrong?”
She co
uld tell as she kissed him he had been drinking, but she decided not to mention it.
“Just tired,” said Jennings
. “I’ve had a lot of work.”
They sat on the rock, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. “You are a
hardworking man, Lloyd. It is good. I would not want a lazy husband.”
“Yeah, I
’m a real gem.”
She pulled away and looked up into his face, but he didn
’t meet her gaze. “What is it, Lloyd, what’s wrong tonight? You’re so different, is it about the killings?”
Jennings said nothing.
“Lloyd you need to talk to me when something is wrong. It always helps to talk about things. Talking is good, especially between husbands and wives.”
He surprised her
with the sharpness of his reply. “If you’re going to be my wife, you’ll need to learn not to ask about my business.”
Juana was offended
but swallowed her anger. He was right, of course. It was the way of things: men had their business and women did not interfere. But she wondered why a man couldn’t talk to his wife about things in his life without it being considered interference on her part. Why was that so unacceptable, as long as she didn’t offer advice, or meddle or try to influence him? This seemed unreasonable to Juana, but she decided against voicing her thoughts at this time. He was obviously not in the mood for it.