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Three weeks. Three weeks of riding, and looking over his shoulder. Now he sat in some piss hole just beyond the New Mexico territory where only degenerates would gather. Or so Vasquez hoped. He would continue north. It was not a question.
But for how long? How far will I be pursued?
In the moment of stillness and fatigue, the questions crowded his mind.
Just eat, drink and sleep for a little while, he told himself, willing the tension away from his shoulders.
How far? His mind persisted.
Vasquez sat with his elbows on the tabletop. He kneaded the nape of his neck, though he was unable to ignore the grime of the road, mixed with his perspiration.
Better that than a noose, he told himself.
“You look familiar.”
Vasquez’s skin went hot in a way that had nothing to do with the climate, and his stomach knotted itself. The pearl handles of his Peacemakers may as well have been miles away. He put both hands on the tabletop and raised his eyes, wary and challenging, to look at the speaker.
Coarse blond hair, bearded. The man’s pale, double breasted leather coat stood in stark contrast to his red pants. In fingerless gloves, each of the stranger’s hands rested on a butt of a break top revolver.
“I don’t think so, guero.”
Vasquez’s words were etched with a warning, but they lacked any real menace. His voice was barely a whisper, and it occurred to him that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d used it for more than hushing his horse. He hadn’t even broken words with the bartender. Coin for a bottle had been a simple, wordless transaction.
Tension grew at the corners of the man’s mouth in an imitation of a smile. There was cold humor in his gray eyes and something that might have been curiosity. Whatever it was, Vasquez didn’t care to find out.
“Naw, naw,” the man said as he narrowed his gaze and took several steps closer. “I seen posters. Must have been a couple weeks back. Mexican killed a Ranger. Substantial reward, too. Vasquez, was it?”
Vasquez searched the newcomer’s face. Surely not a Ranger or a Marshall of any sort. A bounty hunter, then? Vasquez was a quick draw, but he saw no way an attempt would be successful. Even so, the intrinsic and needful impulse to reach for his guns needled at him. Sweat stung the back of his neck and his fingertips dug into the table’s rough-cut wood. Cornered like a dumb animal.
“You know who I am?” The man asked, stepping within a foot of Vasquez, searching his features.
The furrows in the blond’s brow told Vasquez that the question wasn’t rhetorical. Whatever side of the law the man was on, Vasquez guessed that he was not someone who was accustomed to leaving survivors.
“Should I?” Vasquez asked; something dangerous edged its way into his tone. Perhaps it was unwise, but Vasquez refused to kowtow to the stranger’s posturing.
The blond smiled at this. It was a jagged and vicious thing, fit only to someone who had nurtured a philosophy of hatred. After a beat, the man removed his hands from his guns, and raised them, palms outward. He chuckled at whatever joke he was playing at, apparently having decided that there was no more sport to be found.
“Charlie Prince,” he said as he sat down and pulled his chair next to Vasquez.
The name tugged at something in Vasquez’s mind, and if he had not been teetering on exhaustion, he thought he might have recognized it.
“I’m sure he had it coming to him,” Charlie said, bunching his chin as he nodded, more to himself than to Vasquez.
You have no idea, Vasquez wanted to blurt. His heart fluttered with hope; but his dark, mistrustful eyes studied Prince, waiting for the trap to spring shut.
“Him being a Ranger? That’s good enough cause in my book,” Prince continued as he pointed to Vasquez’s bottle of whiskey and raised an eyebrow.
Vasquez lifted his shoulders in a show of ambivalence, and Prince took a generous swig of the liquor. Vasquez found a portion of his suspicion, however small, falling away from him.
“See,” Charlie said, setting down the bottle louder than was necessary. His gaze was direct. The only other patron in the bar spared them only a small glance. “I run with this gang: meanest sonsofbitches you ever met. Numbers are low right now, and the boss could use another good gun. Someone who has half a brain in his head. The way I see it, with us, you’d be the least of the law’s concern.”
Without any connections beyond the band he’d most recently been a part of (They were all dead, or scattered now.), Vasquez’s only concern had been escape. He hadn’t thought to seek out another gang, nor had he had the opportunity.
“What sorts of jobs?”
“Robberies, mostly. Stage coaches. Banks. Trains. Real good money in it.”
Vasquez nodded, but frowned.
That’s why you’re in this mess, he reminded himself. We couldn’t be content with cattle rustling. Had to go bigger. Riskier.
He would be lying if he said he hadn’t found the danger appealing at the time, but the memories threatened to drag him down and swallow him whole.
Doesn’t mean they deserved what they got, he thought as he mulled over Prince’s proposal.
“Think about it,” said Prince before punctuating his words with another pull on the bottle. “I’ll be here a couple of days.”
Another nod.
Vasquez wondered he appeared as hollow and weary as he felt.
He rode out the next morning.