“I'll watch you,” Ruben Vega said.
Sundeen looked over at the riders again, saying, “Who wants to earn a month's wages this fine afternoon?”
8
“Now we're getting to it,” Bren Early said, seeing the five men assembling, starting to come out from the tank, spreading out in a line. “I don't see a rifle amongst them; so they intend to come close, don't they?” And told himself not to talk so much, or else Dana would think he was nervous.
“The other two,” Dana Moon said. “Leaving or what?”
Two with Mexican hats, mounted, were moving away from the tank, off to the right, heading out into the scrub.
“Do we want them behind us?”
Uh-unh,” Bren Early said. He picked up his Spencer as Moon hefted his Sharps, watching the two Mexican riders swinging wide, going out to nearly two hundred yards as they began to circle at a gallop.
“The horses first,” said Moon, “if that's agreeable.”
“I suppose,” the cavalryman answered, “but it's a shame.”
“If they keep coming, you finish it. I'll tend to the others.”
Moon stole a look at the five on foot coming out from the tank, taking their time, one remaining back there with the horses.
He said, “When you're ready.”
They pressed Spencer and Sharps to their shoulders and almost instantly the hard, heavy reports came BAM-BAM in the stillness and the two running horses two hundred yards out stumbled and went down with their riders in sudden burts of dust, the tiny figures flying, tumbling.
Moon turned his empty Sharps on the line of five, saw them stop dead.
Bren Early called, “Sergeant!”
Moon didn't look around. He heard off behind him, “Suh!” And Bren Early calmly, “Two on the flank. Keep 'em there. They move, shoot 'em.” And the black voice saying, “Suh!” and that was done.
The five had broken line and were looking out that way, losing some of their starch maybe. But the one with crossed gunbelts and silver buckles was saying something, getting them back in business and they were coming again, the line of men about fifteen feet wide—Sundeen in the middle—every one of them shaggy and scruffy, rannies with hard squints trying to look mean, and they did.
The last exchange made between Moon and Bren Early was Moon saying, “If it comes to it, work from the ends,” and Bren Early saying, “And meet at the silver buckles.”
Now the floor was Sundeen's, bringing his line to a halt at a distance Moon's eyes measured as a long stride short of forty feet. A good working range: close enough for a sawed-off, far enough you'd have to aim a revolver if you had nerve enough to take the time. Who were these brush poppers? Were they any good? Moon and Bren Early were about to find out.
Sundeen said to the two at the wall, “Are you nervous or something? We come to talk to you is all.”
He waited a moment, but they didn't say anything. Then looked off into the distance at the two dead horses and the riders stranded out there before bringing his gaze back to the wall.
“Like shooting a buck, that range. I guess you've done it in your time. But here looking at it close to earth is different, huh? You see what you got on your hands? Now then,” Sundeen said, “you also got that red nigger in there by the name of Loco we want you to hand over to us. Do you see a reason to discuss it any?”
“He's mine,” Bren Early said. “He goes home with me.”
“Oh, are you the gent in charge?” asked Sundeen. “Then tell me something. What difference does it make who takes this Indin, long as we rid the earth of him?”
“I was sent to get him,” Bren Early said, “and I did.”
“A long piece from home without your uniform on, soldier boy. I bet you shouldn't even be 'cross the border here. What I'm saying, it looks like I got more right to the red nigger than you have. I got the law on my side.”
“But I've got the Indian,” Bren Early said. “What remains is how dearly you want to pay for him.”
“Turn it around,” Sundeen said. “Why would you put up your life to keep him? I'm gonna ride out with him, one way or the other.”
Moon said then, “You ever mount up again you'll do it bleeding to death.”
Sundeen shook his head. What was the matter with these two?—and had to make himself calm down. He said, “Listen to us grown men arguing over a little one-eyed Indin.”
“What's he worth,” asked Moon, “couple thousand pesos?”
“Sure, there's something in it, or we wouldn't be talking,” Sundeen answered. “But you can't hand him in and collect the bounty, not if you're U.S. Army. They find out back home, they'll cut your buttons off, won't they? Drum you out. It may be duty with you, if you say it is; but it's pure business with me. Way to make a living.” Sundeen paused. He said then, “It gives me an idea. What we might do is divvy him up. You give me his hair and his eye patch, something to identify him to the Mex gover'ment, and you take the rest of him back where you came from. And if that ain't a deal I never heard one.”
Sundeen glanced both ways at the pair of riders on either side of him, then looked at the two behind the low wall again, pleased with himself, his display of wisdom and generosity.
Bren Early did stop and think a moment. Yes, if they'd had to shoot the Indian they'd be bringing him back dead anyway. But how would they explain his tonsured head, the scalplock ripped from his skull? Then realized, No, that wasn't the point at all. It was a question of principle, beyond reason or even good sense. A question of standing at the drawn line and never backing off.
Bren Early said to Moon, but for all to hear, “Do you want to tell him to stick it in his horse, or should I?”
Sundeen was a grunt away from giving in to his violent nature; but knew his men had to look at him or hear him and all of them pull at the same time to do the job right. Put the two off guard and then hit. It wasn't gong the way he thought it would—that goddamn Ruben Vega telling him, knowing something. With the hook still in his belly but holding on to good judgment, Sundeen said, “I'm gonna go talk to my partner a minute. See if we can think of a way to satisfy us.”
Moon and Bren Early watched him turn away from them, his rannies looking at him like, What's going on? Sundeen dropping a word as he glanced left and right, all of them moving off now.
Bren said, “He's used to having his way.”
Moon said, “But he didn't come prepared, did he?”
“I'll give them three more steps,” Bren said and pulled his matched Smith & Wesson .44s. Moon drew his Colt's, gathered the sawed-off Greener from the wall in his left hand.
Three more strides—that was it.
The five came around with weapons in their hands, Sundeen hollering something, and his two men on the ends fell dead in the first sudden explosion from the wall, before they were full around, Bren Early and Moon with revolvers extended, aiming, firing at the scattering, snap-shooting line, Bren holding both the big .44 Russians out in front of him and moving his head right and left to look down the barrels and fire; Moon holding the Greener low against its hard buck and letting go a Double-O charge at a half-kneeling figure and seeing the man's arms fly up with the big-bore report, swinging the Greener on Sundeen and raking his boots with a charge as Sundeen stumbled and Bren Early fired, shooting his hat off, firing again and seeing the man let go of his revolvers and grab his face with both hands as he sank to the ground.
They went over the wall and walked out to where the five lay without moving.
“Four dead,” Bren Early said.
Moon nodded. “For no reason. This one looks to be right behind.”
Sundeen was still alive, lying in the sun as his life drained from shotgun wounds in both legs, bullet wounds in his neck, through his left cheek and where part of his left ear had been shot away.
Ruben Vega came out to them, looking at the men on the ground. He said, “Well, I tried to tell him.”
The Mexican began to think of how he would get Sundeen to Morelos
, or if he should try; and if he should take the others over their horses or leave them here. He walked around them, nudging one and then another with his boot, making sure they were dead; then began to recite the names of these men, as though saying last words over them:
Lonnie Baker.
Clement Hurd.
Dick Maddox.
Jack McWilliams.
Moon and Bren Early heard him, but they were looking toward the adobe now, seeing the girl and the sergeant and the Indian in the yard, and they didn't listen to the names carefully and store them away. It could have helped them later if they did.
3
1
When the news reporters first came here to cover the War they had to look for the “angle.” The Big Company trying to run off the little homesteaders was good stuff; they could write it as factually as need be from both sides. But it would be far better if Personalities were involved: names of newsworthy individuals that readers would recognize, or, feel dumb if they didn't after the news articles described their colorful and exciting past histories.
What could you do with William A. Vandozen, the LaSalle Mining vice-president who was completely lacking in color, appeared in town once in awhile but would not talk to anyone when he did?
What kind of story would you get from an Apache Indian homesteader named Iskay-mon-ti-zah who didn't speak English anyway?
This was, in part, the reason Dana Moon and Brendan Early were elected to be the principal antagonists, bound to come together sooner or later, which would be the climax, the Big Story: two living legends in a fight to the finish.
Fine, the editors of the newspapers would wire back to their reporters. But who are they? What did they do? GET TO WORK AND DIG UP SOME BACKGROUND! was the tone of the wires if not the actual words.
The news reporters hanging out at the Gold Dollar would shake their heads. Just like a goddamn editor—like asking what Wild Bill Hickok did for a living. (What did he do? No one asked.) They all nodded their heads in agreement as to editors.
All right, they'd go talk to the principals involved.
But try to get a straight answer from Brendan Early, who was stuck-up, high-and-mighty, vain and rude when interviewed. They would ask him questions such as: “What is it like to kill a man?” He would stare back at them and not answer. “Do you think you will die by the gun?” Answer: “If you don't leave, somebody will.” Or they would ask a question in a group none would dare ask alone: “What turned you against humanity?” The famous Bren Early: “Pains in the ass like you people.” They would see him drinking whiskey and playing faro, then not see him for days while he remained holed-up in his room in the Congress Hotel or visited the mysterious Mrs. Pierson who lived in a house on Mill Street without any visible means of support.
Or try to locate Dana Moon, having to go all the way up into the mountains on a two-day pack. Finally, there he was. Ask him a list of shrewd questions and have him say, “You people don't know what you're talking about, do you?”
So the reporters filed embroidered stories based on heresay and sketchy information they accepted as fact. They wrote that Bren Early had been court-martialed following the Sonora Incident and cashiered out of the Army. Since then he had been:
A hunting guide.
Road agent.
Convict in a work gang.
Gold prospector.
Had shot and killed anywhere from ten to twenty men.
All this before selling his claim to LaSalle Mining and joining the company. Great stuff, plenty of material here to work with.
Dana Moon's background wasn't as colorful, though it was solid ground to build on. After Sonora he had been fired from his position as Assistant Supervisor, San Carlos Indian Reservation, and had entered the business of mustanging: supplying remounts to Fort Huachuca and stage horses to Hatch & Hodges, before they shut down their lines. He was known to be a rough customer who had shot and killed a few men himself. Now, and for the past few years, Dana Moon was in charge of the Apache sub-agency at White Tanks.
Yes, Moon and Early had crossed paths several times since the Sonora Incident, which is what made the “angle” of these two eventually tearing into each other a natural. Headlines, with facts slightly bent, practically wrote themselves.
PERSONAL FEUD SETS STAGE FOR LAND FIGHT
MOON AND EARLY FACTIONS LINE UP FOR BATTLE
Great stuff.
While all the “color” was being written, a young Chicago Times journalist by the name of Maurice Dumas, who had not yet mastered a pose of cynicism or world-weariness, did talk to both Bren Early and Dana Moon. Young Maurice Dumas asked straight questions and didn't know any better when he got direct answers.
Beginner's luck, the other news reporters said.
2
Was it luck? Or the fact Maurice Dumas had trained himself to jump out of bed each day at 6:30 A.M. and immediately check his list of THINGS TO DO. At seven he walked into the Congress Hotel dining room and there was Brendan Early, alone: the first time Maurice Dumas had ever seen the man without a crowd around him.
“Excuse me, but would you mind if I interviewed you?” Nervous as hell.
Brendan Early looked up from his T-bone steak, tomatoes and scrambled eggs. He looked different than he did in the C.S. Fly photos: his face was thinner and he now wore a heavy mustache that curved down around his mouth and was darker than his hair.
“Let me hear your first question.”
“Well—were you chucked out of the Army or did you retire?”
“You mean you are asking instead of telling me?” Brendan Early said. “Sit down.”
Both surprised and encouraged, Maurice Dumas took off his cap and did as he was told. He couldn't believe it.
“I quit, resigned my commission,” Bren Early said.
“What did you do right after that?”
“I rested.”
“Thought of what you would do next?”
“Thought of staying alive. I thought quite a lot about it.”
“Meaning you had to make a living?”
“I thought of ladies somewhat. But most often I thought of staying alive.”
“I believe you advertised your services to lead western hunting expeditions. In Chicago and other eastern papers?”
“It's true. The advertisement said, ‘Ladies welcome…Your dear lady will be well protected and taken care of.’”
“How long were you a hunting guide?”
“I wasn't guide, I hired guides to do the work while I led the expeditions.”
“How long did you do that?”
“Till I got tired of smiling.”
The news reporter wasn't sure he understood that; but he preferred to cover ground rather than clear up minor points. He watched Mr. Early take a silver flask from inside his dark suitcoat and pour a good slug into his coffee.
“Is that whiskey?”
“Cognac. I don't drink whiskey in the morning.”
“May I continue?”
“Please do.”
“It's said you've killed between ten and twenty men. How many exactly did you?”
“That's not the question to ask.?”
Maurice Dumas thought a moment. “Did you know their names?”
And saw Mr. Early pause over his breakfast and look at him with interest.
“That's the question. How did you know to ask it?”
“It seemed like a good one,” the reporter said.
Brendan Early nodded, saying “It's interesting that some of them—I don't mean the backshooters, of course—would announce themselves with the sound of death in their tone. ‘Mr. Early…I am R.J. Baker.’ Then stare with a hard, solemn look, like I was supposed to faint or piss my britches.”
“Really? What happened that time? The one said his name was Baker.”
“Don't you want some breakfast?”
“I'll just have some of this coffee, if I may.”
Eating his steak, watching the young reporter pour himself a cu
p from the silver pot on the table, Brendan Early said, “Are you sure you're from a newspaper? You aren't like the rest of that snotty bunch at all.”
“Chicago Times,” Maurice Dumas said. “There are so many things I want to ask you about.” Including the mysterious Mrs. Pierson, who lived over on Mill Street. Was she just a friend or what?
“Don't be nervous.” Brendan Early looked through the doors to the railroad clock in the hall. “We got till I get tired of talking or you decide you know more that I do. This morning I'm going shooting.”
“You mean—up there?”
“No, I'm gonna step out into the desert and limber up my revolvers and test my eyesight.”
“Getting ready for the showdown,” Maurice Dumas said, squirming in his chair a little.
“You're starting to sound like the others,” Brendan Early said. “Don't tell me things. Ask me.”
“I'm sorry. How come you're going out to limber up your revolvers?”
“Today and tomorrow. I intend to shoot off several boxes of forty-fours. Because sometime soon, I've been told, an acquaintance from long ago will arrive in Benson by train, get here somehow or other, and I don't know his present frame of mind.”
“You mean somebody who wants to kill you?”
“Ask him that one. Fella by the name of Phil Sundeen, come back from the dead.”
Maurice Dumas frowned. What was going on? He said, “Sundeen. I don't believe I've heard that name before.”
“Well, write it down. It could be an item for your paper.”
4
1
Dragoon Mountains: April, 1888
The smell of the mares was on the wind, but the stud did not seem to like this graze as a place to breed. He lowered his head, giving the signal, and the mares and the stallions skitting around them followed after as the lead mare moved off.