“¡Ándale!” I yelled and spurred the horse. Marta was already about to pass me.
The bandito was coming down the ridge side, and it looked like he aimed to get ahead of us. I’d no idea where or how far away his amigos were, but I figured they weren’t far. There were only a couple of places near here that we could ford the Rio, maybe. With all the rain, we might have to swim the horses. I didn’t know either where those fords were to where we were now. The banditos likely knew where. Maybe the best bet was to head straight for the river and swim it, if it wasn’t too fast, which it could be.
The bandito coming off the ridge disappeared into the mesquite. We could run into him at any time. I didn’t want him to see us because he’d fire more signal shots.
I looked back at Marta. She was plain scart. I winked at her trying to perk up her spirits. Her shotgun was in her lap. I brought my Remington out. We slowed down in the thickening mesquite. I stayed bent over trying to look under limbs. We moved forward slow, listening. Marta was to my right and a little behind. I looked back at her, and Cracker tossed his head.
I don’t know if I heard or felt the rifle shot first. It slammed me forward into the horse’s withers, and I fell to the left, hitting the ground. The horse jerked forward, taking me with it. He couldn’t run the brush was so thick. Hitting the ground knocked the wind out of me so hard the bullet hit didn’t mean nothing. My boot hung in the left stirrup, and the horse shoved through the thick mesquite dragging me over rocks. The shotgun made a double boom causing my horse to go faster or try to. I’d lost the Remington, but I pulled the Merwin Hulbert from its right side holster, almost lost it when I bounced, and fired into the horse’s belly four times. He crashed to the right with his falling yanking me into his underside. A hind hoof clipped my jaw and right shoulder. That’s when the hit in my left shoulder felt like a branding iron was jammed onto me. I couldn’t even yell—I tried. All I could do was gasp. My head swam, and I puked all over myself. The dry heaves wrenched my guts out, each one feeling like a mule kicking me in the belly and shoulder. I dropped the pistol, tried again to scream. The only thing that came out was, “Marta!”
She was there, her lips a tight grim line, her eyes dark and wide open. All I could do was gasp. Lines of dirt on her face made her look older and grimmer. I only wanted to lay there, never move. Marta shoved the Remington and Merwin Hulbert back in my holsters. After twisting my boot out of the stirrup, she grabbed my right hand with both hers and tugged, trying to get me to my feet.
I pulled back, “No!”
She weren’t having none of that. She slapped both hands together and stamped her foot. Her eyes said, “Get off your ass!” She grabbed my hand again, holding tight, around the wrist. Bracing her left foot against the horse’s stifle, she leaned forward and threw herself back, giving it everything to drag me up. I was up on my knees, pain shooting through me like a hot poker was twisted into me. She got up under my right arm and heaved me to my feet. I gave about as loud a groan as I could.
Cracker was directly behind me. She couldn’t have gotten me much further on her own. Marta shoved me up against Cracker’s nearside. I got my right arm up hanging onto the saddle horn. She helped lift my left boot into the stirrup. I stood upright pulling myself up and got my right leg over. After putting the reins in my hand, Marta mounted her horse and moved up beside me. Using my knife, she cut away my coat and then the shirt. Ripping it open—that really hurt—she wadded up the bandana and a rag. I could tell where I was hit now. It went through the muscle atop my shoulder leading up to my neck. Felt like my collarbone was broke. Felt like the Dew brand was burned into my shoulder. Unbuttoning one of my coat buttons, she stuck my left hand into the opening to hold it up like a sling. I saw the dead bandito laying in the mesquite. Double loads of buckshot at thirty feet surely make a mess.
We set off with her leading, shotgun pointing ahead. Every step Cracker took was a burning jolt. We came out of the thick mesquite and onto sorta open ground sloping downward. That slope was covered with scattered yucca, sagebrush, creosote, and rocks. The Rio was rolling past only a third of a mile away. It surely looked grand. I knew we weren’t home free even if we got to the other side. That’s when I thought of the others, the banditos behind us and coming this way hard. They’d have heard the shots and knew which way to head.
Marta gave the horses their head, and they loped for the river. She was taking it as fast as she thought I could take. Truth was, I couldn’t take it at any pace. We’d closed short of half the distance when I heard, “¡AHHH-haahaaa!” My blood chilled, and Marta looked back, her face pure terror. I lashed with my reins in fury no matter the gouging pain ripping through me.
Marta’s horse crashed into Cracker, about taking me out of the saddle. She slammed into me, bounced off, and went ass-over-tea-kettle onto the ground, her shotgun and sombrero flying ahead. Cracker reared, snorted, crumpled into the ground, and I rolled off to the right. The pain was like being dropped into a hog-scalding vat. I kind of remember hearing shots. Marta was on her hands and knees looking at the Rio. It might as well been on the moon. I dragged out my rifle and three banditos barreled straight at us.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Marta scrambled for the shotgun and came up gripping it. She smiled at me, grim, defiant. She knew what was coming. She ran toward me. Blood ran down her left hand. Was she hit? I got up using my rifle, but I couldn’t lift it to my shoulder. I dropped it and drew my Remington. I pressed my left arm to my chest trying to ease the numbing pain. Marta was right beside me. She didn’t even reach chest high.
I’d figured on two. No telling where they’d picked up the third hombre. They came at us at full gallop like an arrowhead with El Xiuhcoatl in his fire-red shirt at the point. My hand shook, and I turned sideways to make a smaller target. I locked my eye on his horse’s pounding chest, stretched my arm full length, and felt the recoil. The bandito jefe went straight over the horse’s head when it plowed into the ground, tearing through yucca spikes. Xiuhcoatl slid across the rocks face-first. The man to the right was coming on with his pistol arm stretched forward, and it spewed smoke. I fired twice, and his horse took one through the neck and throwed the bandito off. Marta let go one barrel and then the other, and I fired, both of us aiming at the third Mex. His horse reared, running into a wall of buckshot and rolled hard to the ground. I shot at the man twice, hitting him once when he tried to get up. Marta reloaded and staggered into my side with the sound of a pistol shot. She dropped to her knees.
Lord, please don’t take her from me, my mind screamed.
All I can do is fight back.
I dropped my empty Remington and pulled the Merwin Hulbert. Marta jerked again, slumped to the ground, and my heart shrieked. I shot the second Mex twice as he got to a knee and aimed at me. He fell backward, kicking.
El Xiuhcoatl rose off the ground. He’ll never stop! His torn knees were bloody. There was blood on his face. With the red shirt, he looked like the Devil rearing from Hell. I aimed real careful, lining up the rear sight notch with the front sight blade on the Devil’s face. I let out my shaking breath and squeezed the trigger. The hammer clicked. I knew what the Devil’s grin looked like, and I’d take it to my grave. I clicked the pistol a second time and dropped it.
He lowered his pistol, dripping blood and vileness. He lunged toward us, glaring at Marta slumped against my leg. The Devil aimed his big Army Colt .44 at her. He wanted to take her away from me like his brother and everything else had been taken from him. I pulled Flaco’s short-barrel Schofield out of my coat pocket, jerked the trigger six times, and fell onto the rocks on my side. El Xiuhcoatl staggered and crumpled to his knees and dropped his Colt, his Devil’s mask replaced by a clown’s painted face of surprise. But he still lived.
Marta was on her knees hanging onto me. The girl pushed herself up with the shotgun, sagged against me gripping my arm, and rose again with some huge effort. Marta staggered toward the Devil, swaying like a storm-blown sapling. Sh
e went through the steps of reloading, with great care, without haste. I couldn’t see her face. I didn’t want to. Standing before the Devil-once-was, she lifted the double barrels, lifted them like they were the heaviest weight in the world. She pressed the muzzles between his eyes. His eyes, not an inkling of a soul. He gripped the barrels in his bloody fists, like he’d chosen her to end his nightmare. She squeezed both triggers, and the top half of his head disappeared in a spew of blood and glistening fragments.
I died and finally felt safe.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
When I came back to life, I was blind. I was numb, until I made the slightest move and Hell’s fire poured through me, the Devil’s fire. I figured then I was still alive. That didn’t seem to be that good of a deal right then. I laid there awhile, more or less warm. Trying to look around, I couldn’t see a dang thing. All I could feel was pain, my whole left side, and I felt like I wanted to puke up, and faint-headed too with a fever. And weak, no strength to lift a finger.
I listened. I was outside; thought at first I was in a bed in a dark room, but I was in a bedroll, mine by the smell of it. It was sticky wet on the left side, and I knew it was blood.
I listened. Only the wind. I could tell I was among thick mesquite by the sound of the breeze. It smelled like any other time out on the range, but I could make out the smell of a fire and of water, the Rio, I guess. There was no light from a fire, only the smell. I said, “Hello,” then called for Marta, not too loud. Nothing.
I drifted in and out of sleep, dreams of dying horses, the red Devil dancing in Hell’s flames, Marta holding a blood-dripping skull. One time I woke and knew Cracker was gone. I’d had him over six years. I’d never known anyone that long. Marta and Cracker gone. I felt empty.
»»•««
The dawn was lead gray and misty. More dark than light. I felt no different, the pain, weakness, the need to puke. I tried to touch my shoulder. It hurt a lot. It still bled. The wet sky lightened in the east. I could make out things close by. A burned-out fire and a coffeepot, a plate beside the bedroll, cold beans and jerky. I tried to chew on a piece of the meat, but it gagged me. There was an ice-cold cup of coffee covered by a tortilla. I couldn’t deal with it either. Too bad she didn’t leave her frijole beans, but she didn’t have the makings. But she was back…and still with us I hoped. A canteen was laying there and I sipped some.
Nearby was a big pile of something. Before long, I could see it was saddles, horse jewelry, bedrolls, and saddlebags. I could smell death, the stench of blood and shit. As the gray-blue sky lightened I made out the lumps of men and horses.
I knew Marta had gone for help, or had she? Maybe she was laying someplace nearby, all bled out. I remembered her being shot and falling. Where was she hit, how bad? Did she even make it across the Rio? Was her corpse floating down the river? Was she laying out there on the other side too weak to move or worse?
»»•««
“Bud.”
My eyes came open, barely.
“You going to lay there all day, son?” I was looking at Clay DeWitt’s anxious face.
“Damn, boy, ya’d best get y’all’s butt up,” said Dodger. “Its way past sunup, and Lew’s goin’ dock your pay.”
I couldn’t say nothing. My mouth and throat were sand dry.
Clay held a canteen to my mouth, and I drank it down. Its coldness felt good, like it was dousing my fever.
“Let us turn him over and look at his shoulder.” It was Gabi.
It hurt a lot, them turning me. I smelled mercurochrome, then felt burning and more pain.
“I’ll put a bandage on that,” said Gabi.
That weren’t no fun either.
I was on my back again. “Bud, we’re going to get some laudanum in you. It’ll make it easier for the ride home.”
Home. I remembered that was a good thing. “Can’t ride,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Ya can ride in a wagon, idgit,” said Dodger.
There was something nagging at me that I wanted to ask. I remembered. “Marta. Where’s Marta?”
“She’s waiting for you, son. She came crawling up to the front door at two o’clock this morning. About kicked that door in. A dreadful sight to see, but one that gave our hearts joy.”
“She was shot—how bad?”
“She’s good, Bud,” said Gabi with a smile.
“She got hit in the right side, busted a rib. Took nicks in the arm and a leg,” said Clay. “She waded the Rio and lost her shoes. Her feet, knees, and hands are all torn up walking and crawling all that way—five miles. She’ll be as right as rain.”
“Me and her don’t need no more damn rain,” I croaked.
“I bet you don’t, son. Y’all had enough.” He laughed. “Hell, that little gal even handed over the ransom money I’d paid them bastards. Plus over two thousand more she found on Xiuhcoatl. That two thousand goes to both of you, by the way,” he grinned. “Bud, you got yourself one hell of a woman there.”
I thought what I used to answer to that, but I said, “You’re right. I do have one hell of a woman.”
They sorted me out in the bedroll. I saw Gent and Musty on horses with rifles at the ready.
“Gotta ask you, Bud. There any banditos still hereabouts?”
“They’re dead, all of them.”
“You mean all of them?”
“All of them.”
“Well, I be damned. Gabi couldn’t work that out trying to talk to Marta. All of them.”
“Marta killed half of them. Killed El Xiuhcoatl her ownself.”
“Well, I be damned,” muttered Clay, looking around at the corpses.
“Xiuhcoatl be the one missing his crown.”
“I’m going have to make sure I don’t ever cross that girl.”
“Inés and Flaco’s dead,” I said.
“Yeah, we got that from Marta,” he said sadly.
“The girls, the Misses, they good?”
“They’re having rough times, Bud, but they’ll pull through.”
Clay, Dodger, Roberto, and a young fella I’d never seen, lifted my bedroll on the count of three. They hoisted me into the back of a wagon. It hurt. It hurt when they slid me across the bed planks. It hurt until I opened my eyes and saw Marta laying there swathed in blankets.
The young fella clicked his tongue to start the wagon team.
Clay grinned like a coyote. “Hang on you two.”
Marta’s lips curved into a smile, her eyes glowed like nothing I’d ever seen. Those eyes said we’re going home.
El final
The Bean Recipe
It was a cold wet December afternoon in Morelos, Coahuila, fifty kilometers from Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass, Texas. I love Morelos, and when I was introduced to it almost thirty years ago, I discovered a genuine ranch town with the mores and values of the 1880s.
It’s a place of paradox—a hot, dusty, cold, wet place far from anywhere of consequence, yet the most essential place of all. It’s ranching country, making it an unforgiving place where mistakes can be fatal, but it can offer beauty and delight in exchange for only some sweat and just a little blood. It’s give and take…you give a great deal and take away little, in the material sense. But you can take away so much more, if you persevere and aren’t too greedy. What comes back can be sweet, or at least bittersweet. It’s a hard land and life. But even with the incursions of modern materialism, the nightmare of the drug war, and pervasive government corruption, a strong sense of tradition prevails. Vaqueros here are still respected, for they own horses, and they honor tradition.
We rushed from our pickup into my wife’s cousin’s little tortilla factory, La Herradura—The Horseshoe. It was a little four-room adobe house containing a very welcome warmth. The kitchen’s where the flour tortilla dough is mixed, and the former living room houses the tortilla machine. This wondrous device cuts the stream of thick dough into lumps that are automatically pressed into perfectly round shapes and fed into the baker on endlessly rotat
ing trays. The baked tortillas were laid on table-tennis ball-sized tables of chicken wire to cool. The smell was mouth-watering, especially since our last meal was a five thirty a.m. breakfast before heading out to the family ranch to start the roundup.
But on the kitchen stove was something that smelled even better. There was a big iron pot filled with frijoles. Now these weren’t just any old beans bubbling in a pot, they were Licha’s frijoles charros—ranch beans. They emitted a sweet spicy smell competing with the baking tortillas. We were chilly, hungry, and enlivened by the day’s work and fun. Filling bowls and passing them out only increased our anticipation. The beans were filled with cubed ham, chorizo, tomatoes, green peppers, sweet onion, jalapeño, cilantro, and more. There was a stone bowl of sour cream, and we filled big mugs with steaming hot cocoa boiled with bhut jolokia peppers, vanilla, cinnamon, and a dash of ancho chile powder to give it a spicy kick. I smeared fresh butter on a piping hot tortilla, folded it, and dug into the beans. In this simple old adobe house with an entrepreneurial tortilla bakery crowded with family on a blustery day, I had one of the best meals I’d ever eaten.
With the door banging open, in tramped four teenage girls clad in jeans, denim jackets, Stetsons, and boots. Our nieces, vaqueras all. They’d been on the range since before dawn cutting out cattle, hazing them to the corrals, and helping out with branding. They’re thirteen to fifteen years old and competent, trustworthy, and hardworking. They’re tops in school, and at the weekend dances they’re satin-dressed heartbreakers. Watching them wolf down frijoles charros, popping one another on the shoulder, and spraying others with shaken Cokes, I saw their fiery spirit. With those girls’ no-nonsense smiles and flashing dark eyes, their liveliness, all the experiences I’d had working with vaqueros, and the atmosphere of this town, I had an idea for a story.
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