by Frank Bonham
“Querida,” he said softly into her hair, holding back nothing of the way he felt now, refusing to admit, in this moment that brought them closer than a mere embrace, that it was too late …
She put her lips up to his and he kissed her, a little stiffly at first, but suddenly bringing her hard against himself. His fingers moved along her back, up into her soft, dark hair; he felt an ache go all through him. He was kissing her and whispering her name.
After a while she moved away from him. But for themselves and a few ranch hands straggling through the door, they were alone in the big room.
Julia held his arms, looking up into his eyes, and he knew beyond a doubt this was the face he loved, this was the woman he wanted.
“Pobrecito,” she whispered. “There was my pride. You do not hate the Yankees all your life and then admit, even to yourself, that you are in love with one. Perhaps if there had been more time, I could have come to you as a woman, not as a frightened ranch owner who feared the Yankee law. But I did not know what to do. The day after I saw you, I had a visitor … Señor Wolfe. He said that you had told him you would not marry me. Your business here was finished. You and he were going away. He said he felt a great pity for me and so, before he left with you, he would do me the favor of this marriage that his partner would not.”
He felt the moment of their nearness slipping from their grasp. “And you believed him?”
“He was your friend, and he seemed so angry with you, for having refused. Yes, I believed him.” The tears welled in her eyes. “Tell me how great a fool I was.”
“You couldn’t know.”
“It is all my fault. But more than stupid. I am also guilty. Of Ramon’s death.” She started to sob again.
“I’m sorry for that.” He put out his hands to comfort her, then drew them back, opening and closing his fingers. “How did it happen?”
“This morning. I tried to stop him, but Ramon rode over to Rancho Temescal. He and Red argued. Señor Wolfe refused to go away. Ramon drew his gun. If it were not for my foolishness, this awful thing would not have happened.”
“You’re not all to blame,” Hank said, so sharply that she was startled. “It’s my fault, too.” He was not attempting gallantry, but examining the facts as he saw them now. “I brought Red Wolfe here as my partner. I told him about your offer of marriage, though I didn’t think at the time he was figuring to do anything about it. And I’m the one who crippled Ramon’s shooting hand. Whatever blame there is, I get some of it.”
He reached for the hat he’d dropped when she had come into his arms. “I brought the horse. Perhaps you can ride it back to Rancho Temescal, when us gringos are gone.”
“There will be little left to go back to when Wolfe leaves,” she said sadly.
“Maybe not. I’ll ride over there and see if I can talk Red into leaving with me tonight.”
She studied the hard lines of his jaw. “You do not have to do this thing …”
“For you?” He shook his head. “No, querida, it is for me as well. And for the other Yankees who would be your friends. I don’t think Red understands that in his own way he ain’t any better than Owen Pike and his gang.”
She twisted the small lace handkerchief in her hands. “But there will be more trouble, more shooting.”
“Only if Red wants it that way,” Hank said.
VII
Julia wanted Soto to accompany him back to the Rancho Temescal, but Hank preferred to go alone. He did not like to think of what might happen if Red were drinking and in one of his ugly moods.
He rode with the soft night air pushing back his hat brim, washing his face with the clean sharp smells of the fields. They’d had some times, him and Red, some good, some not so good. Just last spring, when the bosque was sharp with the fragrance of new leaves and blossoms, they were camped on the sand in the tunnel of cottonwoods along a river. They had hunted some horses that had strayed during a storm. There was venison and quail and wild turkey and trout for the taking.
“A man’d have to be pretty used up, not to go for this,” Red had said, and he’d spoken as if he wanted nothing else out of life. Then, a week later, a sandstorm caught them on the Jornada. They worked in a blinding, choking fury, struggling to keep the herd all in one piece, while their clothes were torn to pieces on their bodies. “Anybody who tries to make a living this way should have his head patched for cracks by godlins,” Red had moaned, forgetting the things he’d said a week before.
That was his way. Blowing hot one minute, cold the next. So maybe, Hank thought, he’ll have changed his mind about making a big thing out of the Rancho Temescal, maybe something else will have struck his fancy by now.
The main house blazed with light but, like the Calder ranch, it was quiet. Hank reined before the courtyard gate, which was closed. He had one leg out of the saddle when he heard the whine of a slug and felt his hat spin off into the darkness.
His mount shied, but Hank wasn’t thrown; it was his own idea to leap from the stirrup and roll into the protection afforded by the thick wall, away from the doorway. Gun out, he waited, but there was no second shot.
“Red!” he called, changing position, just in case.
“Is that you, Hank? Well, hell, man!” Red Wolfe sang out. Hank heard his footsteps in the courtyard, then the gate swung wide and Red stood framed in the light from inside. “Hank! Sorry, amigo. I didn’t know it was you.”
“Man comes to pay a sociable call and gets shot at. You that touchy?”
The redhead grinned apologetically, putting up his gun. “Thought you might be Pike, or some of his boys. Ran into them this morning, up in the north quarter, and they seemed downright unfriendly, the way they were showing their hardware. I slipped them and got back here … Well, come on in, come on in.”
They went inside.
“You all alone?” Hank asked.
Red studied him for a moment, as if trying to read the full intent behind the question.
“Yeah, Hank. Damn Mexes have been pulling out steady on me since I took over. I got some boys coming out from town. Should’ve been here today, matter of fact.” He gave an imitation of the old, brash grin. “By the way, you ain’t offered me congratulations on my wedding.”
“That’s right,” Hank said, “I haven’t.”
Red turned and led the way into the parlor where they had first spoken to Julia de la Torre. Now, another girl—a young, pretty Mexican—got up from the sofa and stood there.
“Go get us some food, sweetheart,” Red told her. “Two platters of enchiladas and plenty of eggs.”
He flopped on the sofa, while Hank took the seat he had used the last time. The antimacassar was gone, he noted. “You ain’t been making friends right and left, have you?”
“Ain’t it a fact, though. Tell you what’s the truth. I can’t understand how come a nice, lovable fella like me has got so many people looking down their noses at him.” When Hank merely stared at him, he went on. “You can’t blame a man for feathering his own nest, now, can you? Hell, if I hadn’t grabbed off this place, the vultures like Pike would’ve.”
“You were pulling out for the mines.”
Red laughed. “This here can be a gold mine, Hank.” He indicated a bottle of brandy on the low table between them. “Pour yourself a nugget.”
They had a drink. Hank watched the redhead take two more in quick succession before he allowed his own glass to be refilled. Wolfe was struggling mightily to keep the light smile on his mouth, but Hank knew what the effort was costing him. This thing had not gone as easily or as well as Red thought it would.
Hank shifted in his chair. His holster hung free. “Ramon Calder died a little while ago.”
Red frowned, started to say something, and thought better of it. “Damn, I’m sorry.” He rubbed his chin a while. “Hank, the straight of it … I didn’t want to shoot him. Go
d’s honor. But the little hothead wouldn’t give me a chance to talk. Went pawing for his iron. Hellfire, what could I do?”
“You could have left before any trouble started.” He got to his feet, careful not to make a sudden movement of it. “I think it’ll be better all ways around if you and me just sorta mosey out of here.”
Red’s glance sidled up and veiled itself. He smiled. “So that’s what’s on your mind. The way I been figuring, Hank, was you might be looking to go partners again. Now the girl … this Julia … she don’t mean nothing to me. You know the way I am about women … one’s about as good as the other. Just ’cause she happens to be my wife—”
“Cut it,” Hank said.
“Man, you got that preacher look again. Whenever you gonna relax and start enjoying life? This here spread is big enough for the both of us. We could live like kings.”
“How long do you think you’re gonna last around here?” Hank demanded angrily. “How long do you think it’ll be before these people get sick and tired of the gringos pushing them around, robbing them blind, deaf, and dumb? Red, get some sense.”
Red laughed. “I don’t want to live to be an old, old man. I just want to live like a man. Not like somebody sucking favors from a Mex gal, getting her ranch back for her from the big bad gringo and …”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, Hank. You’re the one’s been nibbling that locoweed if you think you can talk me into giving up all this. I ain’t leaving. Now, if you propose to try and make me …”
Red started to his feet. Hank’s leg lashed out against the low table, skidding it across the tiles. It crashed into Red’s knees and he swore, falling backward, his hand clasping his gun. Hank followed the table in a low dive. He and Red piled into the sofa and it went over backward, spilling them upon the floor. Hank’s greater weight worked for him. He landed hard on Red and held him squirming, unable to reach his gun around.
“Drop it,” Hank muttered.
Red struggled to get free. Hank ground an elbow and forearm against Red’s throat, cutting off the flow of curses, choking him.
Red dropped his gun and Hank picked it up.
“Let’s, go.”
The redhead rubbed his throat. “I keep forgetting you’re a knife man,” he said wryly. “You knife men are just too damn’ sneaky to suit me.”
“C’mon.”
“You really mean it?” Red was amazed. “Hank, how the hell you fixing to keep me? Chain hobble me or something? I’m telling you, first chance I get, I’m heading right back here to my good old rancho.”
“Shut up,” Hank said. “You get any ideas and I’ll make Julia the happiest widow in California.”
They got as far as the door to the hall when the night erupted into violence. A fusillade of shots tore through the house; horse hooves pounded in the courtyard.
They heard the big, East Texas voice of Owen Pike bawling to his riders: “Burn the bastard out! Burn it all! Wolfe, just show your mangy head!”
They did not know how many squatters Owen Pike had brought with him on this raid and ride, but it sounded like a regiment. The riders whooped their horses in different directions and slung firebrands that painted weird shadows in the hall beyond where Hank and Red lay low. One torch crashed through a window in their room; it caught in the curtains. The dry cloth went up with a sudden, sizzling roar.
“He really means to burn the whole place out,” Hank said.
Red grinned. “You know, I do think friend Pike is peeved ’cause I made Julia’s title too legal to bust up.”
“Helping me take part of his ear didn’t make him love you none, either.” Hank had Red’s Colt out. “Partner, let’s get back in business.” He handed over the gun and clapped Red on the shoulder. “Let’s see if we can get the rest of that ear!”
Red raced over and pulled down the flaming curtain, stamped it dark with his boots. He snapped a couple of shots out the window at the horsemen, who were swinging back into the courtyard. “You man enough to come and get me, Pike?” he hollered.
While Red backed down the wall from the doorway, Hank dropped to one knee behind a heavy table.
Outside, Pike’s voice raised in a shout: “The bastard’s in there, all right!”
A volley of shots drummed through the door. Pike came into the shadowy hall but did not enter the room at once. There was some conversation, and then two other men appeared, neither of whom Hank knew. Brown, who Hank had met previously, came in. Finally, bulwarked behind the other three, Owen Pike entered.
Pike had his gun out. So did Brown. The others merely had their hands on their holstered revolvers.
“Raise ’em, boys,” Hank said.
He guessed what Pike might do, and he was a move ahead of him. He had his gun barrel trained on the doorway, and, when Pike fired wildly at the table top and lunged backward for the safety of the hall, Hank’s shot caught him, splitting him in the middle. Pike, still moving, crashed against the wall opposite the door and slid away.
The room was dense with smoke, but Hank saw Brown throwing down on him, and he ducked, and leaped aside. The bullet ripped a gash in the table as it tore through. There was the thunder of this shot and the tumultuous, echoing roar of Red’s Colt. Hank did not need to look to know that Brown was out of it.
“Look out!” Red called. “Behind you!”
Hank spun, the gun held sideways in his hand, throwing lead as if he were scything grass. Something burned him in his shoulder, but he saw one of the squatters disappear before his fire, kneeling almost as if in prayer. The other squatter was fanning the hammer of his gun with the hard heel of his hand, and Red was answering, crouched low, weaving with each shot. They were within whispering distance of each other. Their bodies jerked as the bullets sped between them.
“Red!” Hank cried, “Red!” He used his own gun on the squatter. He drove the man down, but he knew that it was too late. Red fell heavily before he could reach him, his face drained of color. The freckles stood out sharply, like rust spots touched to wax, and the boyish mouth, relieved of all strain, was younger than Hank had ever seen it.
* * * * *
Afterward, he worked with Soto and the other Mexican hands who had ridden over from the Calder ranch, attracted by the flames. They killed the fires in the main house, but two of the outbuildings were leveled to the ground.
Hank did not remember that he had been shot until he fell down in the courtyard. He crawled over and sat against the wall, and it was there that Julia found him when she rode up in the turnout.
“¡Pobrecito! ¡Pobrecito!”
She lay her face against his cheek and he thought that she was crying, but he could not tell for sure. The night and all the people in it swirled in his vision. When he awakened, she had removed his shirt and had bound his shoulder with clean cloth.
He pulled her to him, and they sat together by the wall. High over the vineyards a half moon shone. There was a faint mist from the irrigated fields, a fragrance of wetness and vines that overrode the smell of charred wood.
The burial party filed past them. With his good arm Hank held Julia lightly, and silently they watched until Red’s body was taken out through the entrance of Rancho Temescal.
King of the Defiances
I
Above the mountains the sky was as gray as a bullet. Evening had settled in with cold dampness. From where Cameron stood beside his horse, he could see long brush strokes of rain sweeping over the dark ridges of the Defiances. The trail, high in the mountains, followed the bottom of a wide and sandy canyon flanked by timbered slopes. Cameron had dismounted where the tracks he had been following left the trail, and now he knelt to study them.
He was a tall man, swarthy, with dust and whisker stubble, wide across the shoulders but fleshed down to brown skin and weariness. His eyes and Stetson were gray, and everything about him—even the
man himself—had a look of solidness, of long use and serviceability.
Suddenly he heard a man laugh somewhere, and he glanced up, tense with surprise. But the sound came from some cedars high up a slope at his right. It had been three years since Troy Cameron had taken a pack horse and a rifle and gone man hunting, but uneasy memories of riding into situations too late to handle them were still fresh in his mind. Then he heard an ax strike wood with a clean, sharp bite. Again it rang in the heavy evening air. Cameron mounted and started up the hill. The hooves of his pony dislodged small slides of loose volcanic soil. After that there was no more sound from the trees, and he knew the men were waiting for him.
When he reached a narrow, timbered bench, he saw two horses grazing on the whitening needle grass. Nearby two men silently watched him jog in. One of them was leaning against a tree with an ax resting against his leg. Cameron recognized him. His name was Red Roth. For a week he had been camped with his men and his huge-wheeled log wagons in the plaza at Frontera.
The other man, the one Cameron had been trailing, was lounging on the ground, propped on one elbow, a match in his teeth. His name was Tom Doyle. He was short, broad shouldered, blond, and Irish, looking more like a saloon brawler than a cowboy. A few hours ago Doyle, who was repping for Big Jim Jackson’s Anvil Ranch on the mountain roundup, had left his place in a canyon, and thirty wild cattle had broken for the canyons from which they had been laboriously driven during the roundup.
Doyle touched his hat brim in a mock salute. “Howdy, Marshal,” he said cheerfully. “Pull up a rock and set down.”
Cameron leaned both gloved hands on the horn of his saddle. “Can’t spare the time, Tom,” he said. “I’m on a roundup. Some of us thought you were, too.”