Everyone cursed the Mex bastards and kept firing, but now they threw more lead at us. I wished for hell to descend on them because they were in the way of going to get Marta. It gradually died off as Clay and Lee told everyone to lay off and stay low.
We all sat in the slop, breathed hard, and reloaded. There were nine of us in that pig pen, maybe thirty-foot by twenty.
“Hell of a place to die,” mumbled Musty.
“When you waller with pigs you’re gonna get dirty.” That from Dodger.
“This pen’s too much like the damn Alamo,” grumbled Gent.
“What you think they’ll do now, Flaco?” asked Clay.
“Come at us on horses, all at once. They no wait long.”
The Rurales opened up with a barrage, and the trumpet shrilled again.
“Sessuns, watch the back. Everyone on the wall!” shouted Clay.
Looked like twenty horses coming at us in a cloud of smoke. Bullets hit faster than ever. I fired until I’d emptied all fourteen rounds, picked up the Parker and let loose both barrels of buckshot. The gunfire was like nails driven into my ears. Horses rolled and plowed into the ground. I heard their screaming. One horse rolled on his rider. He didn’t move no more. I saw one man get up and keep coming firing both his pistols, throw them to the ground, and pulled another, still banging away until he was hammered down with pieces of him flying off. Others were running off until back-shot. One climbed to his feet, had a leg knocked from under him and threw his hands up a’yelling something fierce, until his head turned into a pink and red mist.
The wind took the smoke away. Horses lay on the ground, dead, some kicking. Others limped around and others ran back with the retreating Rurales. There musta been ten, twelve Rurales on the ground.
I looked over the hellish mess before us, blood and guts of men and horses. I felt dirty. The scent of blood and shit and gunpowder, it turned my stomach. Dodger rose up and looked at me. I knew he felt the same. Without warning, a Rurale tried to stand with his hands up and Flaco shot him square through the heart. Some of the boys popped lead into the bodies, just to make sure.
Rosy was on his face in the mud with the top of his head blowed off. Lee lay on his side, his left arm bloody. A piece of bone stuck out.
Everyone reloaded, swilled water, and tried to ignore Rosy. Lew worked on Lee’s arm. “It don’t look good, hit below his elbow.” Lee looked white.
“That broke them,” said Clay. Looking at Flaco, “Now what?”
“They come at us on foot, one, two, maybe three sides.” He peeked over the wall. “Soon.”
But they didn’t come. Instead, a Rurale crouching behind a rock waved a stick with a white rag on it. “They want to talk,” said Flaco. “They do not do that too much. We be careful.”
“Don’t shoot,” ordered Clay. Everyone pointed rifles at the flag.
“Keep watch to the sides and back,” cautioned Flaco.
“Anyone got something white?” said Clay.
“My hat’s white,” said Sessuns. “Sorta.”
He tossed it to Clay, who put it on a muddy stick.
“I go,” said Flaco, “so we can talk.”
“Just tell me what’s being said. Be careful, amigo.”
A mounted Rurale came out of the mesquite and took the white flag. He wore two holstered pistols and crossed bandoliers as he cantered toward us. Flaco took the stick and hat and climbed over the wall. His pistols were under his serape. There was no way he could draw them fast if he had to.
The Rurale came on quick, I guess so he could get close to see into the pen and count noses. He sure paid more attention to us than he did to Flaco walking toward him.
That fella sure looked fancy. Lots of silver on his short gray jacket. Even the brim of his sombrero had silver lace, three silver bars on his shoulder straps, and he had a red necktie. He had big mustaches and a little chin beard. His eyes were hard as any vaquero’s.
They started talking Mex, real fast. The Rurales’ jefe was doing most of the talking and didn’t sound real happy, sounded like he was demanding something.
Flaco turned a little, but could still keep an eye on the Rurale. “The Capitán say we fight good, we brave. We have shown honor, but it is over. He want the man that murder Mario Garza. We have five minutes to turn over the man, and then we can go in peace.”
“Yeah, right,” said Clay. “Don Garza sent them.”
“What you say, jefe?”
In a real low voice Clay said, “Hell no.” Clay didn’t waste no time explaining his side of the story.
Before I could understand what was happening, Flaco dropped the hat and stick. Before the Rurale cleared leather, Flaco swung up Jerry’s sawn-off 12-gauge from under his serape. He blowed off half the horse’s and the captain’s faces.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Instead of a barrage of fire, there was stunned silence, for a short spell. Flaco didn’t waste any time clearing the wall before the storm of bullets hit. It tapered off quick. To the right, we saw Rurales moving away through the mesquite, and we swung our fire at them.
Lew shouted something about them losing the initiative, whatever that is. He rallied his second squad, threw the troughs away from the gate, and charged though. They ran at a low crouch into the mesquite with the rest of us putting out a hot blaze.
I realized what this strategy deal was. We’d been on the defense, cut them down to size by making them come for us, took out their leader, and now we were going after them.
Suddenly, shots started blasting away from the left when Rurales started shooting back at someone.
“Who the hell’s that?” shouted Dodger.
“Who cares,” said Clay. “Let’s go get them,” and he went over the wall.
With rebel yells and Flaco’s “¡AHHH-haahaaa!” we went over, following Clay, blazing away and running for the brush. Hardly nobody shot at us.
It was over in minutes. We heard a trumpet again, a different tune. “Reunanse—reassemble,” said Flaco.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“They’re getting together to leave or to charge again,” said Musty.
“I hope they be leavin’. I’ve had enough of their noisy company.”
Crashing out of brush to our left were Gent, Jerry, and a stranger rapid-firing their carbines. Just back from the Dew, they’d caught up with us at the best of times.
Before long, the boys were walking round finishing off horses and Rurales. Lew had his boys up at the house firing some farewell shots at the departing Rurales. One flipped over his horse’s rump as he hightailed up the ridge.
Flaco limped around counting dead Rurales. He’d been grazed on the left calf. Jerry was nicked in the left arm. Neither was anything serious.
Flaco finally announced, “Dieciocho—eighteen.” He had counted the two we’d first popped. “There was near thirty here, I think.”
“We shore kicked their asses,” shouted Dodger.
“We was only lucky,” muttered Lew.
Sessuns held his recovered white hat. “Thanks, Flaco. Ya got my hat shot.”
“Over here, boys.” Clay stood in the pig pen.
Lee lay lifeless on the ground, his jaw hung off his face from another hit.
“He was trying to give us cover fire,” said Clay. Clay didn’t look so good.
Most of the boys gathered around, doffing their hats.
“Boys, there’s not many men better than Lee Cleland.” It looked like he wanted to say something else, but his eyes were blinking. “He knows we got us a job to do. Let’s bury our dead and be on our way.”
I thought about him becoming a friend and how good he treated me.
Several of us took turns digging Lee’s, Rosy’s, and Chico’s graves on a little knoll. “Good thing ya’d brunged that pick and shovel,” grumbled Dodger.
While we were doing that, the rest gathered up guns and bandoleers, some picking better pieces. Seems most everyone wanted one of the Merwin Hulberts. We
’d dump the rest.
I’d of thought that Mex farmer would be happy with all the loot we were leaving him, but he didn’t want nothing to do with it. I guess because he didn’t want to be found with it if the Rurales came back. Flaco finished talking to him. Flaco said, “He say all them girls were still wearing nightgowns, was wrapped in blankets. One was wearing long johns and a blue shirt.”
That had to be Marta. They all had to be cold and wet…and scart out of their minds, and soiled. I lobbed rocks at a cactus. Flaco put a hand on my arm, shook his head.
Flaco said the farmer was none too happy he had all them dead Rurales and horses he’d have to bury or burn.
Little freckle-faced Fred Laffin came roaring in with most of the saddle horses, all the pack horses, and maybe half the remuda. The Rurales’ dead horses gave up saddles for those needing them. The kid was grousing he’d wanted in on the action, until he saw what action looked like. He got kind of green-looking.
Clay looked put out he’d come instead of staying at the ranch. We all knew we needed every gun we could get, even if the kid was carrying a little .32-20 Winchester only good for shooting coyotes. It had a dent in the magazine tube so it just held six rounds instead of fifteen. Flaco found him a Mex Sharpes .50-70 and a Merwin Hulbert. That made the kid happy. “First guns I ever got that makes big holes.” Clay gave him the wrangler’s regular job tending the remuda.
I picked up a Merwin Hulbert. There was plenty ammunition in the bandolier, and I fitted its holster onto it, slung it over my shoulder, and let it hang on my right side.
The square-headed white-blond stranger with Gent and Jerry was Alois Makokicka. He had a guttural Czech accent and kept his shirt buttoned to the collar. Everybody knew him, called him “Snap.” He used to work the Dew; Clay welcomed him with a back-slapping handshake.
Gent and Jerry had run across him on the Eagle Pass-Del Rio Road. He was working as a stocktender for the stage line and running some exchange teams down to a waystation. With the prospect for a hundred dollars and I guess loyalty too, he’d come back with Gent and Jerry. He’d paid Roberto to take the horses to the waystation.
“How come they call you Snap?” I asked.
“Oh, one day I snap my fingers at Lee to get his notice.” He chuckled. “Lee say, ‘If ya snap ya fingers at me again we’ll be seein’ if ya can snap them with your fist shoved up ya ass’.”
Dodger said Snap was a good man. That was good enough for me. He carried an ancient Old Yeller Henry Winchester and helped himself to a Merwin Hulbert.
Flaco showed the boys how to reload the Merwin Hulbert revolvers, fine pieces indeed. Had an odd but fast way of loading them.
Sessuns summed up what everyone was thinking about Flaco. “He’s going to need two horses, one just to carry his balls, what with the way he walked out and blowed that Rurales chief ’way.”
“Hope we don’t run into ’em again,” said Lew, frowning. “Shootin’ him out from under a white flag of truce might not set too well with ’em.” I guess Lew was used to the honor of soldiering.
“El destino. Fuck them,” said Flaco. “They do the same to you.”
We stood uneasily around the graves. Some sentries were set to be safe. Clay said his words. Some of us said something good about each of the men, especially about Lee. “As fine a man that ever stood in boot leather.” Most said something about him being a fair boss or a good friend or there wasn’t no better man to be in a pinch with. Musty mentioned Lee loaning him money to send to his sick mama and Lee wouldn’t let him pay it back.
I could barely say anything, but managed, “I hope to meet him down that long trail someday.”
We hated rushing it, but we had to get.
There wasn’t much time. Clay paid the farmer to plant crosses, said we’d check them on the way back.
We readied to head out, but first Clay had something to say. “Boys, we’ve lost three friends. There’s eleven of us now. Up to now we’ve been lucky.” He glanced at the graves. He looked around at us, fixing each with a look in the eye. “We took them banditos and those traitors back at Rancho Mariposa with about even numbers. We beat three times our number of damn Rurales…Rurales, by God, right here.” He looked at us, all proud. “But we got at least twenty Xiuhcoatls, maybe more ahead of us when we get to San Miguel. There ain’t going to be any white flags there. If any of y’all want to head for home, I understand and no hard feelings.”
It was drizzling and foggy. No one looked around, like they’d be embarrassed if anyone threw in his hat. Nobody moved, barely breathed for fear someone might question their manliness.
Clay looked a little emotional. He nodded. “Thanks boys.”
We all murmured something.
He looked at us steady. “This is a hard biscuit to gnaw on, but anyone who’s so irresponsible as to get himself killed doing this, your next of kin will get that hundred dollars.”
Clay looked around at us all. “Okay then, I paid that farmer to burn us a big pot of beans. Let’s get the horses watered. Fill all y’all’s canteens and water bags, choke them beans down, and let’s get this outfit on the trail.”
Lew called out, “Ya boys what taken money from these here Rurales, y’all divvy it up fair.” We all knew he was now the foreman. No one had a problem with that.
Musty boiled a big pot of iron-bottom coffee. Clay cautioned him not to put too much water in it, meaning, make it strong.
“Hell,” said Dodger as he spooned down the sour-tasting watery beans. “I’m doin’ this, so we can get Marta back and get some decent frijole beans.” He winked at me.
That was as good as I felt all day, or for a long time to come.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The rain was a heavy mist, enough to be annoying and make one’s bones feel colder. The ground was rising gently. This is barren high-mountain desert, but a cold, wet one. We headed west.
“Ya know, if we keep goin’ we’ll strike Texas,” said Musty. He’s right; a big loop of the Rio turned into Texas, and we’d hit the Texas Big Bend a long ways across rough barren land.
Flaco called it the Sierra Madre Oriental—Mother Range of the East. He said this part is the Sierra del Burro—Burro Range—because burros were the biggest critters could stay alive out here. It’s a good place for a fella to come to if he didn’t want to be found. He could just as easily die out here too.
We rode through yucca, creosote, cactus, and mesquite, thick in some places, not so in others. Not a tree to be seen. There was lechuguilla too, called shin daggers because of being topped by sharp spines. The limestone soil sucked up the rain. It wasn’t the kind of soil that left good tracking sign, but the trail left by the rustled herd was churned up good. Sometimes a bandito rider’s trail was found to the outside, but most of the riders stayed in the herd’s trail. It was impossible to guess their numbers.
I checked the tracks where they showed up better and finally found what I was looking for. A horse had a broken shoe. Most of the inside quarter’s heel was broken off, almost two inches. It was my marker, an easy-to-find print to make sure we followed the right tracks.
We rode on, our heads hunched down in our slickers, hats tied on with bandanas, and the horses bending their heads against the wind and rain. A ride like that set you thinking about what you’d seen and about what lay ahead. That ain’t good. Mostly, I thought about Marta. I made myself stop, and next thing I knew, I was worrying about her again. When I did that, I tried not to think about what had happened to her, but about her, being with her, watching her. Watching her hunt, watching how she concentrated when she cooked, watching her brush all that hair. Heck, I surely missed that little gal. If…when I get her back, I’m going to… Well; I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. I only wanted her back safe.
The ground leveled out, and I made myself check for sign. I was so foggy-headed it took some time for it to sink in that two pairs of horse tracks coming toward us. They were fresh and we sure hadn’t met anyone. I h
alted everyone and pointed the tracks out to Clay. Flaco took a look at them too.
“I’m going to follow these and see where they pulled off the trail. They may have seen us.”
“Hell, Bud,” said Clay. “You could track a leaf blown across the ground.”
Clay took the crew off the trail for a break, and Flaco followed me. On the lip of the level shelf, a couple of hundred yards back, we found where they’d stopped. From that point, they could have easily seen us over a mile away as we came up the slope.
“They know we come and how many we are,” said Flaco.
The two lookouts had turned to the right and went back west through the brush. We followed. One had taken off at a gallop. The other had veered off to the northwest where the ground was higher. We headed back to the crew.
“Clay, they know we’re coming and how many. One’s most likely still watching us from up yonder. The other headed back to San Miguel to warn them I’d guess.”
“Well, dammit all, I should have expected something like that.” Clay really looked hangdog. “We’re probably riding into a bushwhack.”
“We could head out toward that ridge over yonder and come in a different way.” Lew was pointing to a higher ridge to the south that bent around toward the northwest.
“They’d still see us coming,” said Clay.
“Yeah,” said Lew. “They’ll know from which way we’re comin’ no matter where we head now.” He frowned up at the high ground where the lookout was most likely watching us.
That gave me an idea. “There’s something we can do.”
“What’s that, Bud?”
“Leave.”
They looked at me like I’d grazed on loco weed.
Clay finally said, “What?”
“We leave. That lookout up there’s watching us. He knows why we stopped, why Flaco and me rode back, and came here. He knows we know they’ve spotted us.”
“So?”
“We call it quits and go home, or we make them think we did.”
“But we don’t go home, not really,” said Clay, nodding.
“Yep.”
The Hardest Ride Page 17