The Good the Bad and the Ugly

“It fits you, Whitey, to select a room with a ready-made gallows. This rope is a little present—just for you. Take it, amigo, and climb up on that table.”

Silent, his face devoid of either alarm or rage, the hunter caught the tossed coil and swung himself up on to the table. The beam was still inches beyond his fingertips. Tuco snatched up a low wooden stool and set it on the table.

“Step on this. Ah, that’s better. Now tie the rope around the beam, Whitey. Make sure the knot is good and tight so it can’t slip. I wouldn’t want you to fall and break a leg.”

The distant rumbling began again, louder, heavier, making the plank floor quiver underfoot. A low whistle invaded the sound, seeming to rush nearer. It rose to a piercing shriek that ended in the thunderous crash of an explosion somewhere close by.

“Hurry up, Whitey,” Tuco said, “Ah, that’s good. Now—the noose over your head. That’s right. Don’t worry if its a little loose. The weight of a pig on it will tighten it to a perfect fit”

The hunter adjusted the noose with steady hands, fitting the thick hangman’s knot with its traditional thirteen turns of a rope snugly behind his left ear. If he felt despair or hopelessness, neither emotion showed on his face nor in the cold eyes. He had not spoken a word since taking the rope.

“We’ll play our old game, Whitey,” Tuco said, backing to the wall. “The one we played so often on the stupid sheriffs, only this time it is turned around. You’re wearing the rope and I have the gun. And I have worked out a new system. Instead of shooting at the rope, I will shoot at the legs of the stool. I’m a very good shot. Not as fast as you—but I don’t often miss. So, adios, old partner.”

He took careful aim, ignoring the rising shriek of another cannon shell. His finger was tightening on the trigger when the shriek ended in a great, deafening thunderclap of sound. The old building rocked violently. Under Tuco’s feet a section of the floor heaved up sharply, fell away with a rending crash.

The hunter watched as, yelling, the bandit plunged down into a dense cloud of adobe dust where the hotel’s small lobby had been. He landed heavily and lay partly stunned while debris rained down upon him. Outside the tempo of the Union bombardment was picking up rapidly.

When the fall had ceased Teo clawed his way up out of the wreckage. Aside from numerous bruises he seemed to have suffered no injury. He discovered with pleased surprise that he was still clutching his gun and suddenly remembered why.

Cursing wildly, he peered up through the thinning hue at the gaping hole in the ceiling. The table stood at the edge of the hole, the stool perched on top. Above it, the hangman’s noose still dangled from the beam—but now it was mockingly empty. There was no trace of the nameless bounty-hunter whose neck was so recently occupying that loop.

The wounded trooper with the shoulder patch of the Third Cavalry sagged back against the wall, watching from hungry eyes as Senteaaa rolled and licked a cigarette. The soldier took it between bloodless lips and sucked gratefully at the match flame.

From another room of the makeshift infirmary came the grating of a saw on bone and a man’s voice screamed in wordless agony. Two orderlies in bloody unif owls tame out, lugging a tubful of severed limbs. Their faces bore the bolt of dull detachment men wear when taking out.garbage. They went out and came back moments later with the empty tub.

Sentenza, on his knees beside the pallet, said impatiently, “You’re sure Bill Carson was alive the last time you saw him?”

“Positive,” the trooper said. “He was hit pretty bad but he recognised me and called me by name when I was helping load him into the ambulance. He was the last of the load and the wagon started right out. It headed here but it never got here. I was hit about a half-hour later and brought in. I asked about Bill and about our major, who was in the same ambulance. Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of either one. That load just never arrived here.”

“Maybe it went to another field hospital.”

The trooper gave him a look of bitter scorn. “You think we had time or surgeons for more than one, mister? Even this place is short of medicine and instruments.”

“What do you think could have happened to them?”

“Only one thing I know of could have happened. They most have been captured on the way. Those damn Colorado mountain goats were swarming around as like wolves by then. Some of ’em even chased the ambulance I was in but we got away, thank God. I’d rather die here than in the Yankee stockade at Battleville prison camp.”

Sentenza got to his feet. “Thanks, soldier.”

“Tell me one thing, mister,” the trooper said. “Why are you so all-fired anxious to find Bill Carson? Is he a friend of yours?”

“That,” Sentensa said grimly, “remains to be seen.”

CHAPTER 9