William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

It was an idea he’d had, to lay out a special welcome mat for Red Hand. Surprise package, so to speak. He’d pitched it earlier to Hutto and Barton and through them to the Cattleman Crowd. The town powers had bought his idea.

Sam and Latigo were laying the groundwork to make it happen. They were not the only agents of the plan. Others were at work in other parts of Hangtown, carrying out similar preparations.

Moonlight or shadow, which is best, Sam wondered. Moonlight meant he could see better, but he could also be seen. Shadow hid him, but also hid others who were lurking.

Comanches, it was said, didn’t attack at night. Not true. They preferred not to attack at night, but they weren’t ones to pass up an opportunity no matter what the hour, day or night.

Sam and Latigo labored on the flat below the church and Boot Hill. With them were two horses, and a mule laden down with sacks full of hardware: bundled sticks of dynamite, wooden stakes, digging implements, and strips of cloth.

We’ve got our necks stuck out a country mile, thought Sam.

Two men in the church tower were keeping watch for Comanches, but Sam preferred to trust his own perceptions. Not that he trusted them so well.

A breeze was blowing from the west, making the night air cool and fresh. Latigo held the horses’ reins and the mule’s lead rope. Sam was down on one knee beside a shallow hole on the ground. A wooden stake had been hammered partway into the hardpacked clay. A narrow band of cloth twelve inches long was knotted around the top of the stake. In the moonlight the cloth was gray; its true color was red.

Sam placed a bundle of dynamite in the hole, laying it on its side, lengthwise. Rising, he took up a spade, sticking the blade into a pile of dirt that had been excavated from the hole. Carefully—very carefully, for all the sticks of dynamite were fitted with blasting caps—he sprinkled the dirt over the bundled explosives.

The dirt mound disappeared quickly as he refilled the shallow hole. Using a leafy branch he’d broken off a bush, he evened off the dirt on top of the hole to disguise the marks of digging. Only the stake with the strip of cloth tied to it marked the spot where the dynamite had been buried.

Five more such banded stakes were studded at regular intervals across the broad apron of ground fronting the rise to the church.

Sam put the spade and the leafy branch in one of the burlap sacks slung across the mule’s back. He rubbed his palms together, wiping the dust from them. “That’ll do it for here,” he said, low-voiced.

He and Latigo mounted up, Latigo holding the mule’s lead rope. They started forward. The mule balked, staying in place. Latigo tugged on the rope several times, but the mule wouldn’t budge. Leaning over in the saddle so his mouth was close to the mule’s long ears, Latigo spoke softly to him in Spanish. The mule began moving in the desired direction.

“What’d you say to him?” Sam asked.

“I tell him I leave him for the Comanche,” Latigo said. “Nothing they like better than roast mule meat.”

They followed the dirt road up the rise, through the gap between the two knolls and down the other side, riding toward Hangtown. “A couple more here should do it.” Sam halted.

He and Latigo climbed down and dug two holes on the down slope, one a man’s length below the crest, the other at the base. As before, bundles of dynamite went in the holes and were covered with dirt. Banded stakes marked out each hole. They talked as they worked, their voices hushed.

“Do you know the Truce of God, amigo?” Latigo asked again.

“No, can’t say I do. What is it?”

“In Mexico, in the swamps around Vera Cruz on the coast, they say that when there is a great flood all the animals in the jungle flee to higher ground. Trapped all together, the creatures do not follow their natural way. El Tigre , the jaguar, falls not on the sheep to kill and eat it. The snake preys not on the rabbit, nor the fox on the chicken. All are at peace with each other until the waters go down. This is the Truce of God.”

“Tell me, Latigo, have you ever seen this Truce of God?”

“In flood—no, for I have lived most of my life here on the plains of Tejas , where the floods are not so much. But with my own eyes I have seen something like it, during prairie fires. When animals flee the fire, none attacks the other.”

“Because they all fear being eaten by the flames.”

“So it is with the folk of Hangtown, no? Fear of the Comanche is stronger than their hate for each other.”

“It’s a truce, mebbe, but not of God. The Lord and Hangtown are pretty far apart,” Sam said.

“ Quien sabe, amigo. Who knows?”

“Well, that’s the way to bet it.”

Sam brushed over the filled-in holes with the leafy branch, smoothing out the dirt. He and Latigo got on their horses and Sam rode up the side of the hill to the church, careful to stay off the road for fear that an iron-shod hoof could set off one of the tricky, touchy blasting caps.

He tilted his head back, looking up. High atop the bell tower, the outlines of the two watchmen formed a deeper darkness against the night sky. Sam whistled to get their attention. “All done. Keep off the road!”

“We will,” a sentry replied.

“Be sure to warn the replacements, when they come to relieve you.”

“When’s that gonna be? We been here since before sundown.”

“I’ll tell Barton.”

“See that you do,” the watchman said.

“Tell him to get his ass up here, see how he likes it,” the other said.

Sam had nothing to say to that. He rode downhill, joining Latigo. They started into town, walking their horses east where the dirt road became Trail Street.

“A good trick, that dynamite,” Latigo said, “if the Comanche come this way.”

“If they don’t, the other approaches to Four Corners are planted, too. We’ll get ’em coming or going.”

“Is it that you like Hangtown so well or hate the Comanche so much?”

“I like living. If we beat Red Hand here, we live. If not ...”

Red Hand was wary of mysterious activities his scouts had observed going on around town in the hour before midnight. The Texans were up to something. Groups of two prowled around the edges of Four Corners for reasons unknown. His men were unable to get close enough to determine what exactly it was they were doing.

He would give the Texans something to think about during the long hours of the night watch. He sent in a band of skirmishers to start trouble on the west side of town, shooting it up to draw the whites’ attention to that sector. A classic piece of misdirection.

The moon came out from behind a cloud, shafting silver rays. Sam and Latigo continued on Trail Street.

“What now?” Latigo asked.

“We get something to eat and drink, mebbe catch a few hours of shut-eye, and wait for sunup.”

They neared the Alamo Bar. Strange to see the Alamo dark—shuttered and locked up, Sam thought. Ordinarily it would just be hitting its stride, riotous and ablaze with light. But it was black and silent as a tomb, as was the rest of Hangtown outside Four Corners, itself dimly lit with few figures showing.

Something burst out of the north sidestreet, streaking overhead. Great wings beat the air as an owl soared up and out of sight. A big one, its flapping wings sounded like a blanket being shaken out.

Startled, Sam’s horse upreared, forelegs leaving the ground. He clung to the animal to keep from being thrown. Unseen objects whipped past him in the dark, scorching the air with the speed of their passage.

Arrows!

The thud of a shaft striking flesh meant Latigo was hit.

Shadowy forms shifted in the dimness deeper in the side street.