Wild Country

Erect as a blond Masai, a tall sunburnt specimen with a clipped mustache leaned on an eight-foot lance, its weighted butt on the ground. The long, barbless point of the lance was bloodstained. The man gnawed his mustache and said nothing as Quantrill raced up.

At the blond man's feet squatted Cleve Hutcherson, talking to the old fellow who lay stretched out with a folded wind-breaker under his head. Hutch swatted at a deerfly brought by the smell of blood. 'You wanted someone with a recorder,' Quantrill said.

The old man's eyes fluttered open, seemed to focus with difficulty. 'A lawman,' he corrected. There was surprisingly little blood puddling the caliche dirt, considering his gaping abdominal wound. Quantrill had seen that transparent gray pallor on swarthy victims before; he judged that he was looking at a man who would not live much longer without a transfusion. The bloodless lips formed words through waves of evident pain, and Quantrill knelt on both knees to hear. The old man was stem: 'ID, please.' Even in this extreme, Judge Anthony Placidas was a man who could show caution.

Quantrill fumbled out his wallet. Three five-dollar pieces and a couple of smaller coins, the entire contents of his wallet, fell out as he showed his Department of Justice shield. Placidas blinked slowly; dropped the wallet on his breast. 'Only seventeen dollars,' he said, his voice almost a whisper. 'You must be one of the honest ones.' A spasm of agony. 'I'll chance it. Recorder, please.' Quantrill displayed the little machine, flicked it on.

'I, Anthony Somoza y Placidas de Soto, being — ah! — of sound mind and expiring body' — the faintest of smiles from this brave old curmudgeon—'understand and waive my rights to silence.'

From time to time Placidas paused for long, shuddery breaths. The others scanned the skyline for that rescue chopper, but Placidas seemed resigned to dying. 'Added to my income with — cash contributions from a loose cartel based — in Coahuila, to the best of my knowledge. Its activities include transport of illegal fuels, foodstuffs, and — ahh — drugs to outlets in — DalWorth, New Denver, and Kansas — Ringcity.'

Placidas breathed more shallowly now, and quickly. Quantrill had heard nothing so far beyond what was already known. 'Can you give me names?' He urged.

'Felix Sorel was — source of my funds,' Placidas said, panting. 'I used influence — to reduce bail for his people. Sorel knows the bail is to be forfeit. Man named Slaughter is — his favorite bodyguard. Slaughter has special — weapons, they say.'

Quantrill: 'There's got to be a regular thieves' highway for that stuff. What's their route?'

Placidas had trouble swallowing, and for a moment Quantrill thought he would hear no more. Then: 'Never knew — details. Sorel — cagey. But conduit always — maintained — through Garner Ranch.'

'Mul Garner?' This from Jess Marrow in disbelief. Marrow knew most of the cattle barons in Wild Country.

Softly, so softly that Quantrill almost missed it: 'The young one.' It was as if the mention of youth stirred Placidas toward another train of thought. 'My apologies to Marianne,' he said, loud enough for the erect Englishman to hear.

'The fault was mine, sir,' said Wardrop, stiffening.

'Mierda.' the old man cursed to himself. 'My daughter would like to remember me as an honorable man. Do what you can,' he whispered, his eyes boring into Quantrill's. 'She is — naive about the likes of — Felix Sorel.'

'I'll do what I can,' Quantrill hedged. 'You must know names of more of the people in that bunch.'

A pause, then the faintest of headshakes. 'Tell Jim Street — his channels are not secure,' he said, shutting his eyes against the pain.

Then the old man relaxed. He was still breathing, but even that effort ceased before the rescue chopper appeared from the north. Quantrill sighed, stood up; wondered if there was a cool breeze in hell for men like Anthony Somoza y Placidas de Soto.

Chapter Thirteen

'First client I ever lost on a hunt,' Hutch admitted, elbows propped on the table in the lodge at ranch headquarters. In unspoken agreement, the four men who had watched Placidas die waited for the daughter to arrive, drinking the time away. 'Them ponies of yours. Lieutenant — the ol' man wasn't used to a hog-trained horse.'

'First rule with a mount trained for Muckna pig.' The tall Englishman shrugged. 'Leave your horse alone. The judge should've let the mare have her head. And I should have mine examined,' he added in furious self-accusation. 'What shall I tell Marianne? Why, that I lent her father the means to suicide!'

'Aw, shit, once he heard what you was up to, you couldn'ta stopped him with hobbles and a Spanish bit,' Hutch gloomed. 'Crazy old coot, I never seen him happier on a hunt. I think he'd've ridden against Ba'al hisself after you got that first one. He kept askin' me what you was yellin', but I didn't have no idea.'

'Oh. 'Woh-h-h jata!' Just wogtalk, or was in my grandfather's day. It means 'There he goes,' more or less.'

'Well, woh jata for Tony Plass, too.' said Jess Marrow, now slightly drunk on his favorite vice, Old Sunny Brook. 'Every boar in his prime thinks he is Ba'al.'

Quantrill had done more listening than talking, but now he spoke quickly to divert the topic. 'Lieutenant, I don't know what you heard out there, but it might be… um. kinder to Placidas's girl if we pretended he didn't have any last words.'

'Girl! My lad, Marianne Placidas is only a girl the way Horatio was only an infantryman,' Wardrop said, draining his glass in salute. 'Waaagh, this whiskey — well, sorry. My arse is tough, but my palate is rather tender. As I was saying.

Marianne can be very, very hard cheese. And I did lend a mount for the old gentleman's madness. The fault was mine,' he said.

'Hope you won't mind sayin' that to my foreman,' Hutch put in.

'My pleasure,' Wardrop said, and reached for the bottle with something like mortal resignation.

Hutch heard the high-pitched snarl first, turning his head toward the window. Quantrill was first out of his chair. 'Christ,' he said, 'it sounds like one of the little Spits.'

But it was not one of the half-scale Spitfire aircraft from LockLever's Battle of Britain complex. It was a gasoline-powered Ocelot roadster, shrilling its turbocharged challenge to anything else on wheels. Useless as an off-road vehicle, on macadam the Ocelot's racing tires could hurl it faster than many light aircraft.

'That will be Marianne,' said Wardrop. He stood up, straightened his shoulders and his hunting jacket, then strode outside to meet his fate.

The others watched from inside. Marianne Placidas was a surprise to them all, older than they had expected and beautiful without much femininity. Her helmeted dark curls and scarlet neckerchief, her graceful motions, all reminded Quantrill cruelly of the long-dead Marbrye Sanger. She exited the little roadster, whirled back to retrieve a stained overnight bag, recognized Wardrop, spoke quickly with him. Then something in his response snapped her erect posture, and she sought Wardrop's shoulder for a time. More talk; Wardrop gestured toward the ranch clinic and followed her sprint into the place. She did not relinquish her heavy bag.

'Handsome pair,' said Quantrill.

'Oh shut up, Ted,' snapped Marrow, who had been thinking exactly the same thing.

Quantrill strolled out to look over the Ocelot, a limited-production toy favored by the shuttle set. He noted the metallic plum paint job, the suede seats, the spatters of mud around the enclosed wheel wells, the sand in the driver's footwell. Marianne Placidas had finally been contacted somewhere north of Wild Country Safari; and the nearest source of mud or wet sand in that direction was the Llano River, which meandered past Junction. He pondered the unlikely notion of such a shuttle-setter as Marianne Placidas tooling her Ocelot along a riverbed, then turned away from the car and the question. The motives of the spoiled rich were not his province — or so he thought.

Quantrill, Marrow, and Hutch returned to the lodge and watched without shame from a window as a succession of LockLever people converged on the clinic. Hunt-party waivers gave the company protection against lawsuits, but Wild Country Safari did not need the anger of a Placidas heiress.