The Chicanery of Paco Ibañez Read online

  Wilde turned to look for Allman.

  Gord Bogan had pushed on for thirty yards or so, but had now stopped and was twisting in the saddle to watch the action. Beyond the big grey, the street was deserted. The outlaw was nowhere to be seen. Gritting his teeth, Wilde walked his horse to Lucas. The young Texas Ranger was climbing to his feet.

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ he said hoarsely. ‘First thing I knew, my horse was going crazy. Couldn’t’ve shot that feller even if I’d been able, the bastard was in and out like an Injun.’

  ‘Unless you can catch that horse, you’re out of this,’ Wilde said. ‘We can’t ride double, can’t waste time.’

  Lucas was dusting himself off. His face was pale in the moonlight. He absently probed his injured shoulder with careful fingers, his eyes active as his mind tried to come to terms with the brutal act that had unseated him and injured his mount.

  ‘He was a Mexican. You see what he did? He used that knife on my horse. It’ll be losing blood—’

  He grabbed Wilde’s arm, pointed with the other.

  In the patchy moonlight, Bogan’s grey was dancing backwards. It moved as far as it could, then came up against an adobe wall. Even as Wilde swore and spurred his horse forward, Bogan’s saddle slipped. The ranger went with it. He landed on his back. His feet were trapped in the stirrups. The saddle was between his legs. Another Mexican darted from under the grey. He kicked it with a booted foot. It snorted, and galloped away down the street. This time the Mexican didn’t flee. He turned on Bogan. In his upraised arm, a knife glittered. He brought it down in a ferocious swing. Wilde saw Bogan belatedly lift an arm to parry the blow. He was too late. The knife thudded into his chest. Bogan flopped backwards and lay still.

  To hell with silence, Wilde thought bitterly. He drew his six-gun as he reached Bogan and flung himself from the saddle. The Mexican was stepping backwards. His eyes were glittering. From ten feet, he threw the knife. It flew end over end, its whirling blade catching the light. The needle point snagged Wilde’s sleeve, slid through. The sharp edge of the blade sliced his flesh. His arm was driven back by the sheer force of the thrown knife.

  His six-gun fell from his hand. Clutching his arm, he stepped back awkwardly against the wall as the Mexican jumped over the motionless Texas Ranger and slipped into the nearest dark alley. Then Lucas came pounding up. He grabbed Wilde, looked anxiously into his father’s eyes.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Wilde said. ‘Nicked. No more than that. But Gord…’ He looked down, and shook his head as Lucas released him and went down on his knees alongside his partner. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Wilde said, sinking down the rough wall to rest on his haunches, ‘what a bloody mess this is.’

  Somewhere in distance, as if to emphasize the gulf between fulfilment and failure, a guitar tinkled a haunting melody of love and hope.

  He was an old man, and he was alone.

  Old? Sitting astride his horse on the edge of the moonlight, blood drying on his arm, up against the same adobe wall where his companion had fallen victim to the same knife-wielding Mexican, Wilde allowed himself a small, ironic grin. Too old for Oliver Shank’s liking back in Cedar Creek, sure, so the town councillor had finagled his useless son into a position of power in the incumbent lawman’s absence. Too old to find his own badge of office when the damn thing was snagged on his trouser cuff; too stiff to crawl out from under the desk where he was looking for it without banging his damn fool head.

  Yet here he was, in the border town of El Paso, twice the age of his Texas Ranger companions, the only man left standing and with an impossible task ahead of him.

  Find Charlie Gomez, who would tell him the whereabouts of Paco Ibañez, who would in his turn, perhaps, enlighten him on the aspirations and location of one Porfirio Díaz.

  Fat chance, Wilde mused. Gus Allman had slipped away. Bloodthirsty Mexicans were prowling the dark alleys. He was one man on horseback, chasing shadows. A man on a mission that couldn’t be explained, with no idea what success would bring – and to whom.

  Wilde shook his head, pondering.

  Gord Bogan was alive, smiling bravely through clenched teeth, but bleeding from a serious knife wound in the chest. A friendly Mexican had opened the door of his adobe to them. They had carried Bogan inside. The Mexican’s wife and her daughter had begun tending the ranger’s wounds with boiling water and strips torn from sheets. Lucas had gone with the Mexican to the nearby home of a doctor.

  Out of my hands, Wilde thought. And now, so’s Bogan’s sacrifice is not in vain, I’ve got to see this through. Never mind the small problem of where the hell do I start. I start here, and I start now.

  He moved off. Staying in the shadows where possible, he took his horse at walking pace along the narrow, twisting streets. His aim was to find Gus Allman. Without Allman he was a blind man in a dark alley looking for the shadowy shapes of men he wouldn’t recognize in the full glare of high noon. But the outlaw had seized his chance: the Mexicans had come out of the darkness with their knives, and Allman had slipped away. If he’d been telling the truth and had already taken his cut from the stolen money, then he would even now be putting distance between himself and the town of El Paso.

  Trouble was, Wilde thought, starting nervously as a dog slunk like an evil-smelling shadow beneath his mount’s hoofs, he had a hunch Allman had been lying through his teeth from the moment Tindale walked him into the Cedar Creek jail. OK, lying was expected if a man was twisting the truth to gain his freedom. But when Allman had caught up with Tindale, hanged the hapless marshal from a beam and his share of the bank’s cash was safe in his saddle-bags – when he was home and dry, according to him – then what did he do? Instead of taking the cash and getting the hell out of there, he’d risen at dawn and tried to gun down three lawmen in the town’s livery barn.

  Only reason he’d do that, Wilde thought bleakly, was for a heap more money. Only reason he’d be paid to do that was because something big was about to go down and the lawmen were in the way.

  The street had widened. The moon was high and bright, shining on tiled roofs, on rusting tin roofs, on clothing hanging limp on lines stretched across back yards and on the clean white tower of a small church.

  Baffled, with the feeling of running his brains ragged without making any progress, Wilde eased his sorrel into the shadows and drew rein. There he hesitated. Then, thinking to hell with it, he took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. The match flared. Smoke tickled his lungs as he inhaled, and he smothered a cough with the palm of his gloved hand.

  ‘Something big,’ Wilde repeated softly – and he narrowed his eyes as an idea stirred.

  Funny, he thought – without a trace of humour – how one random thought triggers another.

  Something big had sent his mind racing in a dozen different directions all at the same time, and for some reason he’d ended up musing on the way Lucas had been shot by Allman using his big Hawken mountain rifle.

  And then, with growing excitement, he recalled Allman, on the banks of the Rio Grande, stating the one non-negotiable condition for his co-operation. Crane’s holding my Hawken rifle, Allman had said. I want it.

  What had Lucas said, back in Tom Crane’s office? ‘We now believe Ibañez is here as front man for Porfirio Díaz,’ and a few minutes later he had added, ‘As far as I know, Allman has no idea where Ibañez is holed up.’

  Supposing, Wilde thought as he drew on his cigarette, just supposing Lucas had been wrong both times? What if Allman knew precisely where Ibañez was holed up; and Ibañez, far from being Díaz’s front man, was a dangerous enemy of the would-be president? What if Gomez was paying Allman to assassinate Paco Ibañez?

  Fit the bill?

  Damn right it would, Wilde thought, flicking his cigarette so that it sparked away into the darkness. And if a man with a Hawken rifle was planning on eliminating a powerful politician’s enemy on a bright, moonlit night in El Paso, then he, Thornton Wilde, knew exactly where the killing would take place.

  He was
right, of course – but, frustratingly, he was also very wrong.

  NINETEEN

  The way Wilde had it figured, a man planning on using a powerful rifle as an assassination tool would establish the time when he was going to pull the trigger, and he would set that time based on his knowledge of the target’s movements. Those movements had to take in an open space: you don’t use a Hawken rifle to kill a man in a back alley. With the time and the place settled, the assassin would then select a high vantage point that would give him a clear view of the open space. He would also make sure that after he’d fired the fatal shot, he could slip down from his vantage point and make his escape through the maze of narrow streets.

  For high vantage point, Wilde thought, look no further than that pretty white church.

  Certain that he was right, that Allman would already be up in the small, blocky tower with the bronze bell at his back and the big rifle’s steel barrel propped on the stone parapet, Wilde knew it was time to abandon the big sorrel. He slid down from the saddle, tied the reins to a timber upright, then patted the horse and moved away.

  He moved through the shadows, slipping silently from one alley to another, creeping stealthily past empty back yards as he avoided the open streets. As he worked his way towards the church he was using his long experience of life to come up with facts, and supplementing those facts with shrewd guesswork he knew would be pretty damn accurate. From his knowledge of small towns he knew the church would overlook a small square lined with a few shops, a cantina, and a hotel or boarding-house. What he was guessing was that Ibañez would spend some time drinking in the cantina, then walk back across the square to the hotel.

  From high up, in bright moonlight, Wilde thought grimly, Allman couldn’t miss.

  Suddenly, ahead of him, the light began to change. The alley he was in twisted between the backs of the adobe dwellings. When he came out of that snaking turn he saw an opening ahead of him – the mouth of the alley. All such openings had led to yet more dark alleys. Now, ahead, where the walls ended, there was mostly light – and Wilde’s pulse quickened as he realized he had almost reached the small square.

  Carefully he eased his six-gun in the supple leather holster. He hugged the nearest wall. As he approached the opening, his eyes instinctively lifted to the white tower of the small church. It lay directly across the square, no more than forty yards away.

  Near the top of the tower, cut into the walls, there were oblong windows. In the window overlooking the square, metal gleamed.

  Wilde’s skin prickled. He had got that far – but without a plan. The obvious action to take was to scream a warning when the target appeared and began walking across the square. But would that save his life? On hearing a shouted warning, Ibañez’s first reaction would be to freeze. Confused, he would become a standing target.

  The alternative was to begin blazing away at the window up in the church tower when Ibañez appeared and Allman was forced to step closer to the opening. That would do two things. If he, Wilde, was accurate – and over a distance of forty yards, with a six-gun, Wilde knew that couldn’t be guaranteed – he would kill or wound Allman. But he would also send a clear warning to Ibañez, and when a man hears gunfire he doesn’t freeze, he runs.

  Wilde took a deep breath.

  There was a third alternative – and it was the obvious one. If he began blazing away now, Ibañez would be safe. He would hear the gunfire from his seat in the cantina, and he would sit back, order another drink….

  Face set, Wilde reached down and grasped the worn butt of his six-gun.

  As he did so, an arm snaked around his neck. He could smell hot, foetid breath, heady spices. Muscles tightened, cutting off life-giving air. Then, in a deathly silence, he was lifted off his feet and flung back into the shadows.

  ‘Gomez?’ Wilde said, massaging his throat.

  He was backed up against the wall. Several Mexicans with rifles stood around him. The man who had been choking the life out of him wore a sombrero that was a faded red, an embroidered vest over a white shirt. He still had a firm hold on Wilde’s sleeve. He also held a wicked-looking knife. The edge of the blade was against Wilde’s throat. Absently, Wilde wondered if it was the same blade that had been plunged into Gord Bogan’s chest.

  The lean man he had spoken to wore a black suit, polished boots. Under the suit his white shirt looked crisp. A black sombrero shaded his face, and a fine moustache drooped over thin lips. He was smiling.

  ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I am not Gomez. And you will please keep very, very quiet if you value your life.’

  As if to emphasize the advice the knife pressed against Wilde’s throat. A drop of blood crawled on his skin.

  ‘I am Gomez,’ the man holding the knife said, and his eyes were as cold as wet black stones. ‘But I do not want you to start a friendly conversation with me, because we are not friends, and that is not why we are here: to be friendly, or sociable—’

  ‘I know,’ Wilde cut in. ‘Because very soon now a man is going to come out of the cantina and begin walking across the square. There’s a man up in the church tower. He has a Hawken mountain rifle. You are paying him. When the man begins walking across the square, the rifleman will kill him.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Gomez said. ‘Tell me, why would he do that? And why would we pay him to do that?’

  ‘Because there’s another ambitious man, who is opposed to Sebastían Lerdo de Tejada, the Mexican President. This man failed in an attempt to overthrow your government, and came to Texas. Maybe he would like to take de Tejada’s place, and be president himself – I don’t know. But I believe the man who will soon be walking across the square is dangerous. He’s the enemy of the ambitious man, the man who would be president. This dangerous man’s name is Paco Ibañez. If you have your way,’ Wilde said, ‘Ibañez will die.’

  One of the Mexicans encircling Wilde chuckled.

  The man in the dark suit was no longer smiling.

  ‘I am Paco Ibañez,’ he said.

  Wilde closed his eyes. He was leaning back against the Mexican, held there by the encircling arm. In his mind he replayed what he had said, examined all his theories. When he opened his eyes again, everything had become clear.

  ‘I got it wrong, didn’t I?’ he said wearily.

  Ibañez shook his head. ‘In a way, yes; in a way, no. I am Paco Ibañez and, yes, I am dangerous. And I am that ambitious man’s enemy; I will do everything in my power to prevent him from becoming president of my country.’ His smile returned. ‘But, of course, where you got it wrong is that I am not the man who will soon walk across the square.’

  ‘No,’ Wilde said. ‘That man has to be Porfirio Díaz.’

  Ibañez nodded. ‘Of course. And he is well protected. We are here, in the shadows. In other shadows, over there’ – he waved his hand vaguely – ‘there are other men whose task it is to protect Díaz. So there is a need for silence and’ – the smile broadened – ‘for Allman, the man with the big rifle who can shoot to kill from a distance and make fools of those bodyguards.’

  Wilde stared at the neat Mexican. ‘How much was it worth? How much are you paying Allman?’

  Ibañez shrugged. ‘It does not matter.’

  ‘He’s been paid?’

  ‘Si. But the money will come back to us within the hour. Allman will gun down Porfirio Díaz and then he will die up there in the tower. Díaz’s bodyguards will see to that. Enraged at what he has done, they will kill him.’

  ‘That’s the way we want it,’ Gomez said into Wilde’s ear. ‘That’s the way it was planned.’

  Ibañez nodded. ‘We allowed for it, planned for it. It is the finishing touch. Not only will Sebastían Lerdo de Tejada continue as President of Mexico, but a prominent politician – Diaz – will have been murdered by a Texan, on Texas soil. Mexican citizens everywhere will be very angry. There will be official protests from Mexico City. Texas will be forced to apologize—’

  A man at the mouth of the alley lifted a han
d in warning.

  ‘Preste atención,’ he called softly. ‘Díaz is coming out.’

  TWENTY

  An evil-smelling hand came up and clamped over Wilde’s mouth and nose. The knife was pressed cruelly against his throat. There was a low metallic clattering as the Mexicans with rifles stepped back against the walls. They blended with the shadows, became silent and still.

  Ibañez moved to the mouth of the alley. He stood like a statue against the wall, not exposed, but not hiding. About him there was an air of expectancy; of inevitability.

  Wilde reached up with his fingers and dragged Gomez’s hand down from his nose. Breath hissed through his nostrils.

  Against the hot palm he mumbled, ‘Move the knife, I’m not going anywhere.’

  Gomez’s interest lay elsewhere. His head was turned as he looked towards Ibañez, and beyond him to the moonlit square. Distracted, he let the bladed weapon drift away from Wilde’s throat. Not far – not far enough. But now Wilde was restrained only by the hand clamped over his face, and no longer in immediate danger.

  He was conscious of the seconds ticking away. There was no sound of footsteps, but he knew that Porfirio Díaz must be making his way across the square. He had been in the cantina. Comfortable, made drowsy by drink, he would be content to stroll in the moonlight. His men were there, hidden, but all around him. They would protect him. How could he possibly be in any danger?

  Allman was high above them. He would see everything, but remain unseen. And he would wait. Then, when his target was directly in front of him, below him, he would pull the trigger. The big rifle would kick against his shoulder. The dying man would fall in the dust of the square, driven backwards and off his feet by the huge bullet.