Last of the Breed

by Les Savage, Jr.

  Robles.

  Brian pushed the gun aside so hard it hit Asa in the chin. The young man turned to him with a vicious curse.

  “Damn you—”

  “Slack off,” Brian said. “Can’t you see who it is?”

  Still seething, Asa looked back at the Indians. Brian was staring at Robles. It had been a shock, recognizing the old man. Yet the logic of it took the shock away now. It was natural that Robles should come here. He was no reservation Indian. Brian remembered how often he had seen the old man staring off at these mountains, like a hound sensing something beyond human sight.

  “What’s the difference?” Asa asked.

  “I can talk with him,” Brian answered.

  “They kill you,” Sandoval said.

  “They will anyway. Who’s got something white?”

  Peters had a white shirt on. They all looked at him. Finally he began to peel it off. He was sweating heavily and the heat had made his torso pink as rare steak. Brian took Peters’ rifle from him and tied the shirt to its tip. Then he stood up and walked from the rocks. He saw the whole group of mounted Indians turn toward him and for just that moment he went sick with the anticipation of a gunshot.

  But it did not come. He walked toward them. There was cotton in his mouth and tension made his hands ache on the rifle. He saw Robles staring at him and he took off his hat so the old man would see his red hair and know who it was. Robles seemed to lift in the saddle with the sight of that flaming mane. When Brian was halfway to them one of the Indians started to lift his gun. Robles caught his arm and stopped him.

  The wind was against Brian and when he was close enough to smell the nitrogen reek of their hard-ridden ponies he stopped. A flurry of motion ran through the group—horses fiddling and fretting and men shifting in their saddles. There was a starved and bitter look to their hollow-cheeked faces. Their eyes had a mean agate-glitter.

  “Can we talk?” Brian asked Robles.

  The old man pressed his pinto with a knee and the horse walked to Brian. Robles still wore the faded purple shirt, the age-yellow buckskin leggings pouched at the knees. His face had aged; the countless pleats grooving his cheeks were edged with the silvery fur of senility. Yet his eyes were clear and bright.

  “Why did you do this?” Brian asked. “We aren’t here to harm you.”

  “You go through?”

  It was strange to hear the old man’s whispery voice after so long. It brought a flood of memory, a million fragments of Tiger, and softened Brian’s voice as he spoke.

  “We’re driving to Alta.”

  “Others come.”

  “No. Just us.”

  “Others come.”

  Brian understood then what he meant. If the Apaches let this herd through it might open a route for further herds, then people wanting to settle. It would explode the mythical fear of the Superstitions and would rob this mangy, starved little band of their last refuge.

  “Then the stories are true,” Brian said.

  Robles knew what he meant. The Indian glanced around at the other Apaches. “No,” he said.

  “But the men who disappeared in here?”

  “Men die in Sierra Anchas. No Apaches there.”

  Brian looked at the Indians, sullen, hostile, like a pack of curs waiting to jump. Robles saw the disbelief in Brian’s face. The ancient Apache looked at the tumbled, haze-ridden peaks east of them.

  “Man get lost back there easy. No food. No water.” Something close to a smile touched his face, holding a wise and aged bitterness. “Other ways to die. Two gold hunters, last year. They find the gold. Each want too much. Kill each other.”

  “But that can’t account for all of it.”

  “You ever see?”

  Brian frowned dubiously, realizing how intangible the evidence had always been. The Superstitions had been such a place of mystery for so long that it had become traditional to assign any unexplained violence to them. A man was burned out of his homestead and it was supposed to be a raiding band of Apaches. A man was found dead in the desert and it came from the Superstitions.

  But now Brian was shaken. He had never known Robles to lie. “The rustling,” he said. “So much of it was supposed to come from here.”

  “Why we go outside? We have all we can eat. Water. Earth. Sky. Enough for us.”

  “Then the bad sign you were always talking about.”

  “Not from here.”

  “Did you know that at the time?”

  Robles shook his head. “I know nothing then. I just feel. Bad sign. Some kind of bad sign.”

  Brian remembered how he had scoffed at Robles’ talk. Now he was more willing to believe. “If it didn’t come from here—”

  “Tarrant,” Robles said.

  It checked Brian for a moment. Yet it was no surprise. He knew now that the Tarrant faction had probably been working for a long time to undermine the Double Bit and get Tiger into a position where he would have to do their bidding. Tiger’s death had merely shifted their attention to Brian, and Brian’s weaknesses had played right into their hands. But all of Tarrant’s activity had been gradual, undercover, shadowy. It was logical that Robles, with his primitive sensitivity to the slightest change in the country, should have sensed something wrong without being able to pin it down.

  “That time we found Nacho with the Double Bit cattle,” Brian said.

  Robles nodded. “Part of it. Nacho say he work for Latigo. He say truth.”

  Brian leaned forward. “You mean Latigo was in it even then?”

  “All the time. Latigo work for Tarrant.”

  It brought another piece to the picture. It made Brian realize how the Double Bit had actually been bled dry of beef. Apparently his profligacy had little to do with it. Robles told him that Latigo and Nacho had been working at it through the years. The cattle run off by Nacho had been attributed to the Apaches in the Superstitions or the small-time border-hoppers. Latigo had stood ready to cover Nacho should he be discovered, as he was when Tiger and Brian had come up with him. At the same time, by falsifying the tally books, Latigo had covered the depletion of the herds.

  At the same time, Robles said, Latigo was responsible for the loss of cattle by the Salt Rivers. One of their greatest strengths had lain in the mutual trust between the Salt Rivers and Tiger Sheridan. But if the Salt Rivers thought the Double Bit was mixed up in the unusual drift of their cattle onto the Rim, that trust would be undermined and finally ruined by a corroding suspicion. It was only one of the many ways Tarrant had worked to ruin the Salt Rivers, weaken the Double Bit, and gain the upper hand. Brian wanted to spit.

  “You found this out, here?” he asked.

  Robles nodded. “These people know what happen. Better than anybody. Like in the old days. A snake crawl a hundred miles away. Apache know.”

  But it had been too late to help. Brian knew that. By the time Robles had discovered the truth, they had already smashed Brian. He looked at the line of dark faces. They were growing restless, muttering among themselves, jerking at their fretting ponies.

  “And you’re saying they’ve stayed back in here all these years?” Brian said. “They haven’t raided, they haven’t rustled, they haven’t been responsible for the men who disappeared in here?”

  ‘Sometimes they kill. Only to save themself.”

  “I could almost believe you, except for today.”

  “You shoot first.”

  Brian had to admit that. His face grew grim. “What about Pancho?”

  Robles lifted a veined hand in a signal. The ranks parted and the Mexican was led forward by a pair of riders. He walked between them, hands tied behind him. He was sweating and his eyes rolled in his head.

  “Dios de mi vida,” he said. “Ruegue por mi alma, Señor Brian, lastima de Dios—”

  “Settle down, Pancho,” Brian said
. “I think it’s all right.” The man subsided and Brian spoke to Robles. “What do you want, then?”

  “Take your cattle. Go back.”

  “You know we can’t. This is our last chance.”

  “If you get through, others come.”

  “If we get through we’ll stand a chance against Tarrant. And if we beat him nobody else will drive cattle through here. I give you my word.”

  Robles was silent a long time, studying Brian. Finally he asked, “Coming through here. Your idea?”

  Brian knew the whole thing hung in precarious balance now. He couldn’t sense what Robles was driving at, and hesitated with his answer. It made Robles look at Pancho. The Mexican nodded vehemently.

  “Si, si, Señor Brian’s idea—”

  Robles looked at Brian. “You think we kill you?”

  Brian grinned ruefully. “I guess I believed the stories.”

  “And still you come.”

  Brian nodded. Robles looked at Brian’s hands, callused and scarred and crisscrossed with rope burns. He looked at Brian’s clothes, tattered and filthy. Finally he looked at Brian’s face. Weather and work had taken all the youth from it. There was no softness of flesh to hide the raw and shining ridges of cheekbone and jaw. The eyes were narrowed habitually against the sun now and a fine netting of wrinkles was forming at their tips. Where dust didn’t cover the skin it showed a burn as dark as Robles’ face and a hard fighting shape had come to the lips. Finally Robles wheeled his horse and walked back to the Apaches. He began talking in their guttural tongue. It started a big argument. A half-naked buck moved his horse till he was knee-to-knee with Robles, talking viciously, making wicked slicing gestures with one hand at Brian. The others set up a monkey-like jabbering.

  Robles held up his hand and finally silenced them. He began an oration. By the way they listened Brian could see the power the old man had gained over them. Pancho stood between the two riders who had led him to the front, breathing heavily, working his mouth. Finally Robles stopped. There was silence for a while. Then one man answered from the group. It was just a couple of words. The buck who had argued with Robles pulled away from the old man, and Brian couldn’t tell whether it was triumph or defeat on his face. Robles turned his pony and came back. He came up to Brian and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We decide,” he said. “We take your word. You go on through. We help you get cattle back in bunch.”

  CHAPTER 15

  It took them a week to reach Alta, driving by day now, going easier on the cattle and on themselves. They were conscious of being watched as long as they were in the mountains but saw no more of the Indians till the last day. It was sunset and they were trailing out of the last canyon onto the flats of the desert. Brian looked back and saw a figure sitting a horse on a westward bluff, white-headed, lonely, as much a part of the land and sky as the rocks or the wind. Brian raised his hand and Robles lifted his in answer.

  Brian had the impulse to ride up and speak again with the old Indian. But in the next moment Robles was gone. Brian understood then. This had been his benediction, in a way, and it was as much as he would get from the old man. Their relationship had changed. Robles had seen something new in Brian—perhaps the manhood he had always looked for—and had acknowledged it by letting Brian take the herd through. But that was as far as it could go. Robles had come here to stay and to die. He had said good-by and further words would have added little. It was his stoic way and Brian had to accept it. But it was like brushing his fingers against something in the night—a sense of finding something and losing it all in an instant. Filled with intangible sadness, he turned his horse back to the herd.

  It was the wrong time of year for a beef drive and they got a poor quotation on their cattle at Alta. But they had expected that and it did not dim their triumph. They got one hotel room and slept out a night and a day, four of them lying crosswise on the bed and the other two in their saddle rolls on the floor. Then they had themselves a big drunk. And then they started back to Mescal Springs.

  It was a bad ride through the desert. They found none of the Tarrant men at the waterholes they would have used on this route. There was barbed wire around several of the sinks and signs of a camp near by. Rabbit Sink was deserted. The corral they had used still stood, occupied now by nothing but the rotting carcasses of the cattle that had died there. Five days out of Alta they reached Sandoval’s place, exhausted and triumphant.

  Morton Forge was the first one they saw. He was coming from one of the bear-grass huts as they crossed the trickle of brackish water seeping out of the springs. With a whoop he ran heavily toward them.

  “Dammit,” he shouted. “We thought you’d been lost in those Superstitions for good.”

  He ran among them, slapping at their saddles, pulling on their arms, shaking hands all around. When he heard they had gotten the cattle through he was even more excited.

  “You get as much credit as us,” Brian said. “Looks like you kept those Tarrant hands tied down a long time.”

  Forge chuckled. “I never saw such a bunch of sitting ducks. I kept trailing those cattle in and out every day. Finally they must of come in close enough to see what they was watching. I found their tracks real close the next morning and—”

  He broke off, looking toward the house, and his humor fled. Brian saw that Estelle had stepped from the door. Her hair was a golden glow in the fading light. The expression on Forge’s face made Brian ask:

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I guess you better know,” Forge said. “Pa’s pretty bad. We had to call the doctor.”

  It was like a chill running through Brian. He turned his horse up to meet Estelle as she hurried from the house. The other riders followed, with Forge trailing on foot. Brian stopped his gaunted horse by the girl and she reached up to grasp his arm. For a moment her pleasure at his return filled her face.

  “Brian,” she said. Her voice was husky and seemed to tremble a little. “We didn’t know … you have no idea … it’s so good to have you back.”

  “We got the cattle through,” he said. He knew she’d want to hear that. He dismounted stiffly and stood with his back against the horse looking at her. “Forge told us about Pa.”

  It had become an effort to retain her smile and she didn’t try any longer. She let him see the trouble like shadows in her eyes and then she looked down at her clasped hands.

  “He’s a little better since the doctor came.” She took a quick little breath. “He’ll want to see you.”

  They walked together to the house. He kept looking at her. He couldn’t help it. There was something like a hunger in him, a hunger he hadn’t really known was there till now. It was like seeing her for the first time. At the door she became aware of it and she stopped, raising her head in a quick response. Their eyes met. They were on the edge of something again. She moistened her lips.

  “Do you want to go in?”

  Her voice sounded thick. He hesitated a moment longer, then ducked into the house. Sandoval’s wife was bent over the stew kettle. She wheeled at their entrance; when she saw Sandoval following Brian her fat moon face began to shine. Sandoval went to her and took her by the arm. Their eyes met and he grinned sheepishly and squeezed her arm.

  “Old woman,” he said gruffly.

  Pa lay on the same pallet against the wall. The ravages of fever and pain had turned his head to a sunken skull. His roached hair had begun to grow out and it lay in a tangled gray mat against the pillow. Asa cursed softly and went to one knee by his father. The bitterness was gone from the youth’s face; its edges were softened by troubled concern and unashamed affection. He put a hand on Pa’s shoulder. The man’s eyes opened, fever-filmed, wild-looking. When he saw Asa he tried to smile and his hand came from beneath the covers like a claw, seeking Asa’s.

  “We got ‘em through,” Asa said. “Tarrant hasn’t licked us yet.
”

  “Good boy.” Pa moistened cracked lips, trying to smile, and his eyes moved around their faces. “Good boy.”

  He sighed, as if the small effort had exhausted him, and closed his eyes. Asa got to his feet. He looked at Brian, as if seeking help. For that moment all the antagonism was gone from between them and Brian found it hard to remember how he had clashed with this youth. Asa’s eyes dropped and he ran a hand through his tousled hair.

  “Well—what now?”

  “You’ve got to eat and rest,” Estelle said.

  They did not respond. Sandoval was looking at Pa. “When was doctor here?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Then Tarrant knows,” Cameron said. “Everybody knows.”

  “And the weak ones will be jumping over the line,” Peters said. “There won’t be any Salt River party left.”

  “We still have a chance,” Brian said. “Getting these cattle through proves we can buck Tarrant. It might hold us together. ‘

  “Without a leader?”

  “Choose a new leader. What’s wrong with Sandoval? He’s got enough guts to hang on a fence.”

  “Better face it,” Sandoval said. “Not many of these men they will take orders from an Indian.”

  Peters looked at Asa. “The Gillette name still has a lot of pull.”

  Brian knew a deep reluctance to let either Asa, with his hot head and his thoughtless impulses, or Cameron take the reins. It must have shown in his face for some of the defiance returned to Asa.

  “It was your idea,” he said.

  Brian said, “Why not make nominations and let them put it to a vote?”

  Forge nodded. “We’d better call a meeting right away, if we want anybody left.”

  “If we ride right now we could get most of them here late tonight,” Asa said.

  “You can’t,” Estelle said. “You’ve been in the saddle all day.”

  “No time to waste,” Sandoval said. “If we do it, we got to do it now.”