“Pull the tarp back,” Falcon said. “I want to have a look.”
“It ain’t pretty,” the liveryman said as he reached for the piece of canvas that covered the body lying in the back of the buckboard.
“Hold on a minute, Jimmy,” the sheriff said, holding out his hand to stop the liveryman from turning the tarp back. Corbin turned to address the crowd. “Now, some of you already know this fella has been butchered up pretty good,” he said. “So if there’s anyone among you that’s got a queasy stomach and don’t want to see this, I’d advise you to turn your heads now,” he said. “I’m sorry to do this, but we’ve got to take a look.”
A few of the women did turn away, forcing their children to turn away as well, but most did not. And some of the more morbidly curious actually moved nearer to the buckboard for a closer look.
The liveryman put his hands back on the tarp and looked up at the sheriff. Corbin nodded, and the liveryman pulled the tarp back.
There were several gasps from the crowd.
“Oh, my God!” one of the women who had not turned away said.
“Would you look at that?” a man said.
Johnson was lying on his back. His eye sockets were bloody holes. His stomach had been cut open and his entrails were hanging out. His right hand was missing. He had also been scalped, and Falcon examined the method by which the scalp was taken. The knife cut had started in the forehead, then made a complete circle around to the back of the neck. Following the cut, the hair was jerked off the top of the head, bringing the scalp with it.
This was, Falcon knew, the way the Indians scalped their victims.
Falcon looked into Johnson’s inside jacket pocket and pulled out a billfold. When he opened the billfold he found forty dollars in cash. He held the money up for the sheriff to see.
“Damn, whoever did it didn’t rob him, did they?” Corbin said.
Falcon shook his head. “All right, you can re-cover him now,” Falcon said.
The liveryman pulled the tarp back over Johnson’s body and Falcon walked away without saying a word, leaving the crowd behind him. He heard the sheriff moving quickly to catch up with him.
“It wasn’t Ford, was it?” Corbin asked. “Otherwise, he would’a took the money. Damn, I should’a checked that first thing myself.”
“It was Indians,” Falcon said simply.
“So, does this mean that Keytano has gone on the warpath?”
“Not necessarily. If I had to guess, I would say this is Chetopa’s doing. Chetopa and whoever he has managed to get to ride with him. I don’t believe it’s Keytano. And I’m sure that Chetopa only managed to get a handful to ride with him.”
“Nevertheless, I’d better ride up to Fort Lowell and let the Army know about this,” Sheriff Corbin said.
“I’ll go with you,” Falcon offered.
“I thought you were going after Fargo Ford and his bunch.”
“I am,” Falcon said. “But for the moment it’s clear that Chetopa represents the most danger to the people that live around here. So I think the first thing I’d better do is go after Chetopa.”
It was after dark when Fargo Ford and the others rode into the tiny town of Mesquite. Although it was dark, the town was still sweltering, slowly giving off the heat it had absorbed during the day.
It lay before them, bathed silver under the full moon. The buildings of the little town were, for the most part, low-lying structures of adobe. However, here and there, and prominent by the contrast, could be seen houses made of unpainted ripsawed lumber. Straw appeared to be the building material of choice for the roofs, though on a few of the more substantial buildings the roofs were of tile.
Little squares of light projected through a few of the windows, forming dim yellow splashes in front of the buildings. As the four men rode up the street, they passed in and out of these splashes of light so that sometimes they were visible, and sometimes they were not.
The yap of a barking dog came from behind one of the houses. The sound of a crying baby came from one of the other houses. Guitar music and the sound of a trumpet spilled out of the town’s one cantina, accompanied by laughter; a high-pitched trill from the women, and a deep guffaw from the men.
“Hey, Fargo, it’s been a long, hard ride. What do you say we tie up here for a little while and let’s get somethin’ to drink,” Dagen said.
“You got ’ny money?” Fargo asked.
“No, but you do.”
“What makes you think I got ’ny money?”
“I know you took a whole packet of money out of the money pouch, ’cause I seen you do it.”
“Yeah, I did, but for now, that’s all we got left. We’ve got to make it last until we get our money back,” Fargo said.
“What’s the use of havin’ it if we don’t spend some of it?” Dagen asked.
“Come on, Fargo, Dagen’s right,” Casey said. “I gotta have me somethin’ to drink to get the dust outta my throat. Hell, I’m that dry now that I can’t even work up a good spit.”
“Yeah, and I’d like somethin’ to eat too,” Monroe added. “Or was you maybe plannin’ on starvin’ us to death?”
“All right, all right, we’ll stop and get us somethin’ to eat and drink. Just quit your bellyachin’,” Fargo said, heading toward the cantina. “I need to ask a few questions anyway.”
The brightest building in town was clearly the cantina, with bright golden light shining through every window. The men tied their horses off in front of the cantina, then stepped up onto the little wooden porch and pushed through the curtain of hanging, clacking beads. It was easy to see why the inside was so brightly lit. It was accomplished by the expedient of using two wagon wheels suspended from the ceiling, each of which supported half-a-dozen lanterns. In addition to the overhead light, there were several lanterns placed on shelves around the walls. The result was a light that made the room almost daytime bright.
Mesquite was further north than Sassabi Flat, and whereas Sassabi Flat had been almost all Mexican, in this little town there appeared to be nearly as many Americans in the bar as there were Mexicans. Fargo found a table in the corner and then ordered a meal of beans, bacon, and cornbread.
“And beer,” Dagen said. “Don’t forget the beer.”
“And whiskey,” Casey added.
“And women,” Monroe said. “Don’t forget to send some of them women over.”
“We ain’t got time for no women,” Fargo said. “You seen what happened to us the other night when we was messin’ with the women.”
“Yeah, but that don’t count,” Monroe said.
“Why don’t it count?”
“’Cause it was one of us what done it to us. And there ain’t none of us goin’ to do somethin’ like that to us again,” Monroe said. “Not without I kill ’im first,” he added determinedly.
Fargo shook his head and chuckled. “Monroe, I’m sure there must be some sense in what you just said, but damn if I can figure it out.”
Evidently, Fargo’s admonition to his men to avoid the women had not reached the women themselves. For as the men were eating, a couple of the bar girls came up to the table. Like the other girls in the cantina, and like Carmelita and Rosita from the other night, both of these soiled doves were Mexican. They had long black hair and smooth, clear skin that shined golden in the lantern light. One of the soiled doves was a little younger than the other, and she was considerably prettier than most bar girls any of the men had encountered. Somehow she sensed that Fargo was the leader of the group, and she sidled up to stand beside him.
“My, all of you are such handsome hombres,” the younger girl said, smiling seductively, not only at Fargo, but at every man around the table.
“We’re more’n handsome, honey, we’re ...” Dagen started, but before he could finish his comment, Fargo interrupted.
“I’m looking for an American whore,” he said.