The Chicanery of Paco Ibañez Page 4

  His fears were justified. The forest thickened. The horse was forced to slow to a hesitant walk. Brush crackled beneath its hoofs as it tossed its head, snorted, tried to back and turn. And suddenly a deep boom followed by the snick of a branch being severed told Waco that the rifle Allman favoured was a big one, probably a percussion Hawken.

  The mountain rifle was single shot – but Waco’s desperate situation gave Allman all the time in the world. Forced upright in the saddle, fighting against the horse’s desire to turn and make for open ground, Waco found himself side on to the gunman’s position. In his sudden fear he could almost hear Allman working at the breech, inserting the fresh load, fitting the percussion cap. Tugging at the reins, trying to force the reluctant horse to push on through the woods, he found himself counting the seconds. He reached five, then ten—

  He didn’t hear the sound of the second shot. A tremendous blow on the back almost knocked him from the saddle. He fell forward, clutching for the mane, the muscular neck, but all the time his senses were failing and before his hands could reach their objective the darkness enveloped him and his last memory was of a sensation of falling into a bottomless pit that was as cold as ice.

  SIX

  It had been intended as a brief halt to gather their thoughts and come up with ideas, so there was no camp to break in frantic haste. Almost before those two heavy explosions had rolled into silence like distant thunder, Thornton Wilde and Gord Bogan had flung themselves into the saddle and were on the trail heading west at a fast clip. In the thin moonlight, Wilde swiftly pulled ahead of his deputy, spurring his sorrel like a man possessed. He was tormented by the conviction that his son, the Waco Kid, had been the target for the volley of shots. His mind was haunted by a vision of the dark young man falling from his horse, his body riddled with bullets.

  Riding with the ease of a born horseman, Gord Bogan effortlessly pulled level and rode his buckskin in close enough for stirrups to clash.

  ‘Camp-fire not too far ahead and away to the right.’

  ‘Your ancestors’ spirits talking to you again?’

  ‘I can smell smoke. And the breeze is from the north-west.’

  ‘Yeah, and if I’m not mistaken I can hear a bunch of horses. Whoever’s on ’em’s riding away from here like bats out of hell.’

  ‘You’re right – but there was a reason for that gunfire, and it’s telling me they’re down to three men.’

  Because Wilde’s son was one of those men, Bogan’s words sent an icy chill rippling through his soul. Grim faced, the marshal ducked his head, the wind flattening his hat brim as he rode on. And now his nostrils had picked up the scent of the campfire. Bogan had been right, the breeze was carrying the smoke across the woods from the north-west. But should they push through the timber, or go round? Skirting the woods was the longer way, but could be quicker—

  Before he could open his mouth to give the order, Bogan had pulled away from him and was hammering along the edge of the woods. The trail took a wide swing to the right. As they followed that broad sweep, the marshal caught another scent mingled with the smoke. Then, ahead on the trail he saw a haze of dust settling in the pale moonlight, caught the fading drumbeat of hoofs as the outlaws made their getaway.

  ‘There,’ Bogan called, flinging an arm right and reining in so hard the buckskin slid to a halt in a cloud of dust with braced forelegs and a shrill whinny of protest.

  Wilde rode on by, swinging in the direction his deputy had indicated as Bogan fought to stay in the saddle and control his agitated mount. He rode into a clearing beneath a sheer rocky bluff, swiftly noted the dying fire, the signs of a hurried departure: a blackened coffee pot on its side in the embers, a blanket dragged in haste then left in the dust and, close to the fringe of woods marking the clearing’s perimeter, a man’s Stetson.

  ‘If they’re down to three as you suggest,’ Wilde said as Bogan trotted in to join him at the fire, ‘where’s the fourth?’

  As if in reply, the marshal’s sorrel whinnied softly, and swung its head towards the woods. There was an answering whinny, the crackle of twigs.

  The two men exchanged swift glances. Then Wilde swung from the saddle and hit the ground running. But again he was overtaken by his fast moving deputy. By the time Wilde reached the edge of the clearing, Gord Bogan was crashing through the undergrowth to where a horse could be seen, stock still, quivering. As Wilde drew nearer he could see a still figure slumped in the saddle, and was shocked to realize that what was spooking the horse was the raw, coppery scent of blood. Then Bogan had grasped the hanging reins. Whispering, coaxing, he began to turn the horse.

  ‘Wait,’ Wilde said sharply. ‘Without someone holding him, that feller’ll topple over.’

  He moved in close enough to reach up, grasped the slumped man’s arm and took a firm grip on his belt.

  ‘OK, go ahead.’

  Together, with Bogan leading the horse and Wilde steadying the wounded man and at times taking most of his weight, they slow-walked the horse through the undergrowth and out into the clearing. There, back on firm ground and with room to move, they eased the semi-conscious man out of the saddle and down onto the ground close to the camp-fire’s still warm embers.

  ‘Find dry sticks, get that fire blazing,’ Thornton Wilde said. ‘I’ll fetch blankets, see what I’ve got in the way of medical supplies.’ He cast a fierce yet imploring glance at Bogan. ‘It’s exactly what I hoped for, and what I feared the most: it was my son laying that trail, and he’s paid for it. But after losing him for a full twenty years through my pig-headed stupidity, I don’t intend to repeat that mistake.’

  It took a half-hour of bloody, amateur surgery to remove the bullet from Lucas Wilde’s left shoulder. In that relatively short time the kid hung on grimly with the help of a stick to clamp his teeth on and a half-pint bottle of moonshine whiskey Gord Bogan just happened to have in his saddle-bag. And Thornton Wilde, his face carved out of stone, discovered that slicing and probing into his son’s flesh with a knife blade cauterized in the flames of the now blazing fire was more terrifying than anything he had ever faced as a lawman.

  When it was over, when the slippery chunk of lead from the Hawken mountain rifle had clinked onto a tin plate, Lucas Wilde was propped up by the fire with a feeble grin on his pale face and a blanket draped across his shoulders. Marshal Thornton Wilde felt drained. He sat close to the flames, elbows on spread knees and the almost empty whiskey bottle hanging loosely in a hand that seemed to have lost all his strength.

  His mind, however, was still alert.

  ‘Tell me if I’m barking up the wrong tree,’ he said, ‘but a sixth sense developed over the years is telling me you fellers are acquainted.’

  Lucas chuckled. ‘Gord’s Cedar Creek’s town drunk,’ he said, his voice weak but steady. ‘I’m the notorious Waco Kid. We’ve got nothing in common.’

  ‘I recall Bogan riding in six months ago. Looked all right to me, yet within a week he was staggering around like an injun on mescal. A man doesn’t become a drunk overnight – and, as I recall, there’s nary a dodger in my office relating to someone calling himself the Waco Kid.’

  He cast a calculating look at his son.

  ‘One man turns into a bum. Another takes on an identity. Could it be that day six months ago was one of some importance? Like, one when a certain planned sequence of actions was put into effect?’

  ‘For what purpose?’ Bogan said, ‘and by whom?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s sounds like a Yale man talking, which gives some weight to what I’m saying,’ Wilde said. He shrugged. ‘You’ve just heard me thinking aloud, making a stab at what might’ve happened. So why don’t you save us some time, and tell me if I’m right?’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Thank you. So what are you two? Feds?’

  ‘Texas Rangers,’ Bogan said.

  ‘Really?’ Wilde said, his voice dryly sceptical. ‘Me, I know I’m a lawman, and despite what you say my first inclination is to thr
ow my own son in jail. So, tell me a plausible tale. Convince me I’m wrong. Describe the connection between a man playing drunk in a town on the Pecos and another who helps a bunch of no good outlaws rob a bank more than a hundred and fifty miles away in San Angelo.’

  SEVEN

  ‘We were in Austin when we got wind of a bunch of outlaws,’ Gord Bogan said. ‘Not just any old wild bunch out to get rich quick, but a bunch who looked like they were aiming much higher. They were working their way west, picking off banks as they rode. It began when they crossed from Louisiana and robbed the bank at Shreveport on the Red River. Next was Waco. They robbed the bank there – and that was on the Brazos. San Angelo was next—’

  ‘On the North Concho,’ Wilde said, ‘but by then you’d got a man in place.’

  He’d rescued the outlaws’ blackened pot from the embers and, using his own supplies from his saddle-bag and water from the nearby spring, had brewed fresh coffee. Now, his mind on the story he was hearing, he poured the thick black java into three tin cups.

  ‘It was a weak chain you were following,’ he said, as he handed the coffee to Lucas, ‘because they could have changed their methods at any time, or simply disappeared. So what I can’t understand is why you two rangers let them run. Why you didn’t arrest them as they walked into the San Angelo bank. And why you, son, as the man in place, stood by while the bank was robbed then worked your way in under an assumed name that would give you some kind of fragile credibility.’

  ‘We gave them their heads because the way they were operating was out of the ordinary,’ Lucas said, clutching the hot cup in one hand as he pulled the blanket around his shoulders.

  Wilde frowned. ‘There has to be more to it than that. Those banks were losing money to men known to the authorities, and no attempt was made to stop them. Hell fire, no bank would stand for that—’

  ‘The banks were reimbursed, compensated, whatever you like to call it,’ Bogan said. ‘Someone, almost certainly the US Government, decided the cost of repayment was small change compared with what they might discover by giving the outlaws their heads.’

  ‘Which suggests,’ Wilde said, ‘that the end is important enough to make the means insignificant.’

  ‘We knew they were up to something big all right,’ Lucas said, ‘but we were left scratching our heads. Also, there was a Mexican with them, Charlie Gomez, and that Mexican was known to us. He was a bad hat, regularly skipping between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. What he was doing there is another mystery we need to solve, but we do know he works for a Mexican called Paco Ibañez. So, Gomez was involved in those bank robberies and, as the direction they were taking was almost due west—’

  ‘The likelihood is they wouldn’t stop until they reached the border,’ Thornton finished for him.

  ‘Right. And as they were using banks located on river towns as their stepping stones to immense riches,’ Gord Bogan said, ‘it seemed likely they’d rob the bank at El Paso – on the Rio Grande—’

  ‘Or Rio Bravo del Norte, depending on your viewpoint,’ Wilde said. ‘So if that was the way you read it, why did you choose Cedar Creek as the place to turn to drink?’

  ‘The town’s got a bank. It’s on the Pecos.’ Bogan shrugged. ‘It’s the one time we figured wrong: they gave your town a miss. Yet, in my estimation, that hasn’t changed the outcome: they’ll help themselves to one final heap of cash from the El Paso bank – then cross the river into Mexico.’

  For a few moments there was silence as all three men savoured their coffee while gazing into the flickering flames. Then Thornton Wilde glanced across at Bogan.

  ‘At which point,’ he said softly, ‘we come to Marshal Reb Tindale.’

  Lucas Wilde chuckled. ‘Yeah, Tindale was the maverick we had our eyes on, but plumb forgot. The San Angelo town council knew they’d elected a lawman who liked bending the rules. What they maybe didn’t know was he was also a greedy lawman tortured by indecision. From the official wires reaching his office he knew what was going on; knew those fellows were robbing a series of banks, and likely to pass through his town on their way to the Mex’ border. And the one decision he didn’t dither over was his determination to stand by while they robbed his town bank, and see what transpired. What he didn’t know was there was a wild card: Lucas was there, waiting to join the bunch at San Angelo – and for obvious reasons, Lucas couldn’t tell him.’

  ‘So what Tindale did,’ Gord Bogan said, ‘was go after those bank robbers. He was out on his lonesome chasing three Texans, one Mexican and an undercover Texas Ranger. All the way to El Paso. Where, in the blink of an eye, he found himself facing just two men. Gomez, Ryan and Jago walked away into the town’s mean back streets, leaving me, and Gus Allman who was holding all the cash.’

  ‘Allman being the bunch’s honcho,’ Wilde said, nodding. ‘Least that’s what I figured from the way he was acting in the jail.’

  ‘You’re right, but the point is, we were caught cold,’ Lucas said. ‘Tindale showed himself, arrested me and Gus Allman – and the rest you know.’

  ‘Or will do when you tell us what you’ve learned in the short time you’ve been with them.’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘You up to it?’

  ‘I’m light-headed and aching, like I visited a country fair, stayed on the carousel for a full hour then fell on stony ground.’ He grinned, and held out his empty cup. ‘But in answer to your question, yes, I am up to it. Give me a refill, then sit back and I’ll tell you a story that’ll leave both of you enlightened, but confused.’

  Well, Thornton Wilde later reflected, Lucas was certainly right on that score. Talk of a Mexican peasant planning the takeover of Texas would have been laughable if the story Lucas told them hadn’t borne the ring of truth, and the thought of Marshal Reb Tindale hightailing for El Paso, saddle-bags stuffed with cash that was supposed to begin financing an invasion army of Mexican peasants, really did have Thornton and Gord Bogan spluttering into their coffee.

  Trouble was, if the story of a Mexican annexation of Texas was all so much bull, what the hell was going on? Lucas was convinced Reb Tindale was a maverick lawman on the loose with a heap of cash. If Allman was to be believed, that cash had been illegally acquired on the orders of one Charlie Gomez. Gomez was working for Paco Ibañez.

  If the trail ended with Ibañez, then he was the man with the answers. No doubt the two Texas Rangers, Gord Bogan and Lucas Wilde, would track him down – and he, Thornton Wilde, would go with them. But before they set out on that quest, there was time to indulge in a mental activity Thornton thoroughly enjoyed: the exercise of intelligent speculation.

  After telling his story, Lucas Wilde had tired rapidly, and been made comfortable in blankets placed close to the glowing fire. Gord Bogan had settled on the opposite side of the fire, finished off the whiskey – most of which had been used as an anaesthetic – then winked at Thornton Wilde, rolled over and immediately begun snoring. Thornton, happy with his fourth tin cup of coffee, was now stretched out with his head on his saddle, gazing up at the stars.

  If Lucas was right they were, he realized, involved in a crazy situation. Tindale was racing for the border with money he’d stolen from a bunch of outlaws, the outlaws were hot on his heels, and they in turn were being followed by two Texas Rangers and a tired old town marshal. It only needed an unknown someone to be following the rangers and one Thornton Wilde, and the crazy situation would become a farce.

  That was a fair description of the crazy goings on, but it didn’t begin to explain the whys and the wherefores. What it came down to was the idea of a Mexican peasant scheming to annex Texas. It took but a moment’s thought for Thornton Wilde to reject that out of hand. It was easy to see Gus Allman being hoodwinked by a talkative Mexican in a Texas jail, and the implausibility of the crackpot scheme wouldn’t worry him as long as he was making money. But nobody was about to take over the State of Texas.

  With that said, it was back to the unanswered question: what the hell was going on?

  Fact
. A Mexican peasant named Paco Ibañez was making a lot of money out of a bunch of gullible Texans. He’d invented a death-or-glory grandiose scheme of territorial warfare to get them on his side, when he could simply have said, ‘Hey, gringo, I am but a poor Mexican. Go rob some banks for me. We will split the proceeds, and I will give you sanctuary in my country.’

  In the starlight, Thornton Wilde chuckled silently, but hard enough to spill his coffee. Christ, never mind Paco Ibañez, now who was letting his imagination run riot? The bank robberies were fact. The jail break was fact. Beyond that, they were struggling, and not just with striving to understand a bizarre situation. The answers they were seeking lay in El Paso and beyond, and Lucas Wilde had been weakened by a heavy chunk of lead that had drilled into his left shoulder. They would be forced to ride at the pace of the slowest member of the group. Inevitably, they would be outdistanced by Reb Tindale and the outlaws.

  When they did eventually catch up – as he was damn sure they would – they’d also be outnumbered, Wilde thought ruefully, and about that there was not a damn thing they could do.

  But of course, he was wrong.

  EIGHT

  A hundred miles of rugged terrain lay between the three lawmen and the border town of El Paso. They set out when the sun was a dazzling promise painting the skies above the eastern horizon, knowing that with Lucas Wilde stoically suffering agonies from his injury the best they could hope for was a couple of hours riding between rests, with little more than fifteen miles covered in each two-hour spell.

  Each rest period swallowed up another hour. Riding ever more slowly, they reached the end of the hot, dusty, twelve-hour day having put just sixty miles behind them. Not surprisingly, in all that time they had seen nothing of Tindale or the outlaws. Tindale was riding to keep hold of the money he had stolen, and to hang on to his life. The men chasing him would be riding hard, but without undue urgency. They knew the lawman fleeing with the banks’ money would be hunted down if he stayed in the United States. If he crossed into Mexico he was a gringo in a land were gringos were fair game, and as good as dead.