The Hardest Ride
Page 12
I heard Mex voices and a laugh, then some shots further away. Flaco or Gent maybe.
A steer busting through the cane scart the shit out of me.
Cracker nickered quietly, and I hushed him.
Horses at a trot, two, three, were coming my way. I could see their shapes against the clearing’s sandy floor. Aiming at a shape, I raised my muzzle to barely above the lead horse. Squeezing the trigger, I levered off five shots as fast as I could and don’t recall the recoil. Each flash showed a different picture of Mexes and horses and steers. Pistol shots flashed, and I dodged into the cane doubled over, went right, came up and shot three more times, shooting low like ol’ Pancho’d taught me, then went flat. Crashing into the cane, a Mex came at me on foot, pistols in both hands blazing away in all directions. Bullets were snapping past me though the cane. I couldn’t bring the rifle around. I got the big Remington out and emptied it. He went down, but was up and horsed and gone. Near scart the pee out of me. There was Mex cussing—I don’t know what they were saying, but I know cussing when I hear it. They emptied their pistols and beat it down the trail to the Rio still shouting.
I laid there for a spell, and then reloaded. I wanted to make sure no one was waiting for me to poke my head up like a turkey. Some steers rustled cane in the clearing. No more shooting.
Presently, I came out of the cane, listened, and called Cracker. He came over, his withers giving little shivers of excitement. He nickered and another horse answered. Two steers were standing there half asleep after all their excitement. Past them was a horse. I went to him and tripped over a body. Jumping back, I pointed my rifle. He didn’t move. Crouching down I laid my hand on his chest. He was as dead as lead could make him. It took me some time to find his pistol, a Colt double-action Thunderer, .41-caliber. I tied his horse up and climbed on Cracker. I figured I’d wait a spell and listen for Flaco and Gent.
I sat there listening to the quiet after all the commotion. Damn, that was something. A fluttering feeling ran all through me. “Settle down,” I told myself. In the east, the horizon had a pale yellow outline.
»»•««
Gent showed up after dawn. We found Flaco on the other side of the Rio talking to three ’queros. Wadding back on his horse, he drove four steers with DeW brands. He said the vaqueros lost a few head too. It was hard to tell how many head they’d run off with all the other tracks about. Judging by the scattered tracks leading into the Rio, maybe twenty. I figured there’d been at least five banditos, four now.
We rode back to the dead Mex and his horse. The Mex looked like any ’quero, but had a big yellow neckerchief. My .44 slug had hit below his left collarbone and come out through his spine between the shoulders. He’d been well mounted, had an American-style saddle. He had a Remington rolling-block carbine, .43 Spanish.
Looking over the dead Mex, Flaco said, “He belong to El Xiuhcoatl.”—pronouncing it shee-oo-ko-ah-tl.
“That be the Fire Serpent,” Gent muttered.
“Scary name.”
“That’s the ideer,” said Gent.
“He bad, have big cuadrilla…gang,” said Flaco. “He bad hombre.”
“How bad?”
Flaco looked around. Gent glanced at him. “One time he cut a hombre’s balls off, stuck them in his mouth, and sew his lips shut with saddle thread.”
“Why’d he do that for?”
“The hombre, he cheat playing Siete Loco…a card game.”
That sounded mean enough to me.
Gent was looking over the horse. “Well shit, this is Jerry Twining’s horse and rig. They took it from him a month ago.”
“He’ll be happy.”
“How big’s the gang?”
“Some say twenty, some say hundred.”
We found blood down the trail.
“Look like you wing one, amigo,” said Flaco.
“Damn,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gent.
“I’m out here again with a dead man and no shovel. I’m going have to start carrying one.”
Flaco dismounted. “You want his boots?”
“Nope.” I’d already gotten everything off of him worth anything. He only had four pesos.
After taking the boots and tying his lariat around the bandito’s bare feet, Flaco dragged the body toward the Rio.
“Guess we don’t need no shovel.”
“Maybe he’ll wave when he floats past Eagle Pass,” said Gent. “Ya look down, Bud,”
“I ain’t never killed no man.”
“’Em injuns.”
“Don’t count.” I was thinking of Marta’s butchered family and that murdered cowboy.
Gent and Flaco stayed out, and I took the horse into the ranch. I turned it over to Fred Laffin, the kid wrangling the remuda. Said he was sixteen, but everybody knew he was barely fifteen, between hay and grass. When Jerry came in, he was happy to see his horse and saddle. Over dinner, I told Clay and Lee what all happened.
“You done good, son,” said Clay nodding at me. “There wasn’t much more you boys could’ve done. Maybe it’ll give them pause before they come back.”
Lee was shaking his head. “Or maybe they’ll come back for revenge. That’s the first time we killed one of Xiuhcoatl’s hombres.”
Lew Cassel, Lee’s number two, spoke up. “I think it’ll be a good ideer to post a sentry here at the house at night, two-hour watches. Maybe give another man to the monitors.” Lew used to be a corporal, two hitches in the cavalry. “Least fer now.”
Clay was looking round the place. “Who you want for monitoring, Mr. Eugen?”
I tried not to smile. He was showing some faith in me. “Dodger Lampe’ll do fine.”
“Well, cut him out and take him with you.”
Before riding out Marta gave me a stack of tortillas wrapped in paper and a Mason’s jar of tomato-rice for tonight’s supper. Gave me a big ol’ hug too, and a long worried look into my eyes. She gripped my arm, peered at me, and nodded. I knew she was saying in her head for me to be careful. Inés caught Marta’s arm and whispered in her ear. Marta cut her eyes to me, and they were both laughing. I surely wish I knew what they was talking about.
I decided there was something I had to tell Marta. She didn’t never have to worry about me trying to give her away again. I wanted her to stay with me, just as a buddy. She could have whatever I had. I don’t expect that would ever be much, but we could make it, and she’d not have to worry about where she’d go.
Now I got to figure out how to tell her that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nothing dire happened for a spell. Gent got shot at from across the Rio once. Dodger and I both found hoof prints coming from the other side, but never saw anyone. Flaco made a lot of visits to his amigos across the river. The ’queros weren’t being bothered none by the banditos. Maybe shooting that Mex done some good after all.
I always shaved when I came in. The next time in, Marta had an old rocking chair with the rockers knocked off in front of our feed shed. “Afeitado y corte de pelo—shava & hairs cut” was painted on a plank with boot polish.
She had a tray with a mug, brush, straight razor, and Cody Carpenter shaving soap, and a big mercurochrome bottle. Grinning, she patted the chair, had a towel hanging over her arm. She started stropping the razor on a harness strap real businesslike. I didn’t know about this, what with the blue bottle of mercurochrome handy. Ain’t never no one shave me excepting my ownself.
She arched an eyebrow firmly at me.
“Well fine,” I said.
A bunch of the giggling Mex kids collected to watch the bloodletting.
I was a bit nervous, but she put me at ease real quick after soaping my whiskers with the lavender soap, and she started scraping real gentle like. I almost dozed off as she sorta hummed some tune—sounded like a cat growling low. She trimmed my hair too. Holding her hand mirror up, she’d changed the shape of my mustache some. I liked it. I liked her even more that day. Maybe I should be claimin
g her as my woman.
I found out that she’d started giving most of the boys their shaves, once a week for most. She got a nickel a shave, same for haircuts. She didn’t charge me. Some of them boys needed to be thrown like a calf to take a haircut. Found out, too, Gabi was paying her a nickel for the rabbits and squirrels she shot. I knew one thing; she liked being on the Dew.
»»•««
Three days before Christmas, Clay let half the crew go to Del Rio. The rest could go in for the New Year. Flaco, Musty, Dodger, Snorter Cadwell, and I went, planning for some high times. Clay had paid us a week early for the occasion. Problem was Weyland went with us. He was pissed having to drive the supply wagon. Made him feel less a cowboy. He tied his horse to the wagon and brought it along anyways. Lee came with us with a long list of supplies.
Our mob departed the Dew with a word from Mrs. DeWitt cautioning us to spare our mortal souls. “You boys remember it’s the Christmas season, and for your own good, shun low women.”
I felt bad about leaving Marta, but Gabi said she really didn’t want to go. She took it that Marta didn’t much like towns.
San Felipe Del Rio was sorta like Eagle Pass, but even though Del Rio means “on the river,” it sat several miles from it. San Felipe Spring poured out of the ground with a creek running to the Rio Grande. Irrigation canals ran all over.
My first stop was the gunsmith, who also repaired timepieces according to the sign.
“Welcome,” he said looking up from a pocket watch with its innards exposed.
“Howdy, I got some guns to sell.” I laid the dead Mex’s Remington rolling-block carbine, the Colt Thunderer, and the old rolling-block single-shot pistol on the counter along with a sack of spent 16-gauge shells. All the cartridges I had too for the Mex’s guns, a lot, three bandoliers.
Looking them all over, peering down barrels, and cocking and snapping the Colt, he made offers. “’Fraid there’s not much call for the Remington carbine, but I give you seven dollars if you toss in the ammunition.”
I hadn’t expected much. I nodded.
“Colt’s good,” he said rotating the cylinder. “They’re twelve dollars new. I’ll give you eight, nine if you throw in the ammunition and rig. Fancy rig, that.”
I nodded.
Picking up the Remington single-shot he cocked the hammer and thumbed back the breechblock to glance down the bore. “A little pitting, been around a while. Hell, it’s older than you.” He looked up at me over his spectacles. “Be honest, I don’t think I could sell this for a buck. Ain’t no call for single-shot pistols.”
I dropped it back in my flour sack.
As he counted out the spent shotshells I said, “Need two cartons of those, Number 6 shot. One more of Number 4.” Clay said the heavier Number 4 would be good for geese and ducks, longer ranged too.
“Got any 16-gauge slugs?” They’d be good for deer in thick brush and for banditos too.
“Yes, sir. Carton or singles?”
“A dozen.” The marble-sized lead balls killed game good, but weren’t accurate over forty yards.
He counted out the spent shotshells, stacked the new cartons and figured what he owed me for the guns after deducting the shotshells. “Wait a minute,” he said. He started rummaging through boxes and tins on a shelf and came up with a carton. “I recalled, I got eight rounds of .50-caliber for that old pistol. If nothing else maybe it’ll help you sell it. They’re on the house.”
“Why, thank you,” I said. “I can pay.”
“Doing me a favor getting them outta here.”
»»•««
We got rooms at the San Felipe Hotel. Dodger and I doubled up. The other boys flipped nickels to see who doubled with Weyland. Snorter Cadwell lost.
Baths were in order, and the barber was complaining because none of the boys needed shaves or haircuts, excepting Weyland. Appeared he didn’t trust Marta with her razor at his throat. Can’t say I blamed him. They did some slicking up on their own, pasting their hair down with bear grease pomade and gussying up with Cuticura soap.
The crew had decided another heating stove for the bunkhouse would make winter more tolerable. Those staying back had pitched in. Those living in the tent pitched in too because they’d spent time in the bunkhouse including dressing. “Musty” Musson was in charge of the purchase, and he took a couple of hands with him to the Hansen General Store. They got a Merit Sunshine coal and wood stove for thirteen dollars. It took a bunch of us to load, it weighing over two-hundred pounds.
Lee studied the stove and said, “You bunch of knot heads; don’t you think you might need some stovepipe?”
Musty stomped back in. “Ain’t figured that into the money.”
Wandering the streets, I found an outfitters store. I got Marta a blue flannel shirt, smallest they had. On a whim, I picked up a pair of black whipcord wool pants. Maybe she’d not like pants, and it might be considered strange by some, but dang, we still had a cold couple of months before us. At an emporium, I got her a proper hair brush. It was feeling like a real Christmas coming up.
»»•««
The boys liked the Double Eagle Saloon, their regular hangout. Reasonably honest dealers they claimed at the poker, faro, Mexican Monte, and twenty-one table—no waxed cards. It was a fancy and clean dive and not too rowdy.
“That dive’s as hot as a hookhouse on two-bit night,” declared Musty.
“Two bits? Them days is gone,” responded Dodger.
There was a shotgun-watcher sitting on a high chair at the end of the bar. We had to check our guns.
I wasn’t much into gaming. Played twenty-one, lost three dollars. I felt better hanging onto my bucks. I’d never had so much money. Instead, I drank beer and watched the stage shows—singers, readers, a lady playing a mandolin, and some dancing girls—they coulda at least tried to make the same moves at the same time. One of them readers read from Last of the Mohicans. Told us about injuns bushwhacking soldiers and settlers. Everyone listened and got riled up. I watched the goings-on, gaming, arguments, and some almost fights.
I figured the fights were started by punchers driven nuts by a booze called Tanglefoot. Snorter claimed, “That coffin varnish’s made from corn alcohol, sugar, turpentine, and chewin’ tobacer.”
The watcher in his high chair didn’t put up with any fighting. He had a three-stage way of stopping fist swinging, kicking, and biting. First, he’d click the hammers back on his 10-gauge coach gun. If that didn’t get the troublemakers’ attention, he’d slide down and easygoing-like stroll up to the adversaries and stick the scattergun in the most troublesome’s face. If they paid him no mind, he’d let the hammers down and beat them into the plank floor until they behaved or went away. He was a big fella. If that didn’t work, I reckoned he’d take the next step and re-cock his double-barrel hand-cannon.
Dodger and Snorter and I were arguing which beer was better, Buck, Erlanger, or Alamo. Before, we’d been arguing about those new bottles compared to keg beer. We’d been trying them all. Musty wandered up with a lanky calico queen hanging on his arm. She looked a little frayed, but that could be said of most “low women.”
“Ya buncha clods.” Musty said stamping his boot. “They’s all bottled by Lone Star up San Antone way.”
I looked at the labels and it was so. “You right, partner.”
“No matter,” Musty declared. “They all first-rate. Them krauts knows how to make beer. There’s more square-heads in San Antone than ’mericans and Mexes.” The whore was tugging on his arm; time was money on her busy schedule. “Gotta go, fellas, my lover can’t wait.”
“Here’s how!” Snorter bawled, hoisting his bottle in a toast.
“Put in a knock for me,” shouted Dodger. Looking at me, “Ya gonna get some of that?”
I didn’t say nothing. I’d been pondering that, me hooking up with a painted cat. Marta and me, I don’t know what we were. We did things for each other, counted on each other. I wanted her to stay with me. But that was it.
There’s nothing wrong with a man needing a woman. Marta didn’t have no claim on me like that. I still felt like hell even thinking about hitching up with a painted cat. That didn’t mean I weren’t any less horny.
“What the hell happened to ya?” said Dodger breaking my pondering thoughts.
We jumped to our feet. “Lordy Slick, ya tangle wit a puma?” shouted Dodger.
“Slick” Sealeger was standing over us kind of lopsided and all muddy, his face all woppy-jawed and his eyes sported shiners.
“Got mugged, boys. Sumbitches took all my money and my pappy’s watch.”
We took him up to his room and cleaned him up. We staked him some money. He told us about getting waylaid at the outhouse. One of the muggers had a deep gouge in the outside of his right boot heel. He noticed that while getting kicked. “Big feet. I ain’t never seen anything that big that didn’t breath on its own.”
We spread the word among the boys, and they’d be on the lookout, for his fancy watch too. Dodger said, “I recomember that watch.” We all did. A couple of the boys headed out to nose around.
Stepping out for some air I found Flaco moseying down the street, told him about the mugging. I noticed he wasn’t wearing the red Rurales necktie. He said he was going down to Cantina El Cielo. “Cielo means heaven. Eet is quiet place, no fights… Well, not many. Good cerveza, clean chiquitas. Wanna go?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A few ’queros glared at me when we walked in. Flaco said something to an older fella with a short gray beard, hooded eyes, and a huge sombrero. That vato said something to another, and no one paid me further mind. Another fella sat on a stool in the corner playing a big guitar real quiet. Most of the ’queros were drinking beer or playing cards, Pokar, Flaco called it. “Not like American poker,” he said.