by Lyle Brandt
“I didn’t think he would agree to let us go,” Dolores said.
“We gave him no choice,” Sonya answered. “Now, at least, he can absolve himself of guilt whatever happens.”
“You don’t think we will succeed?”
“Por supuesto que sí,” Sonya said. “Of course I do. But we must be prepared for . . . difficulties.”
Dolores nearly laughed aloud at that gross understatement. “Difficulties, certainly,” she granted.
Crossing into Mexico for starters, with their foreman and a small team of handpicked vaqueros, tracking ruthless killers and avoiding federales who were equally as bad. From there, they had to trace their missing horses, with the raiders who had stolen them, and, they hoped, before the herd was broken up for sale across two states or more. If that could be accomplished, then they merely had to take the murderous bandidos by surprise, eliminate enough of them to liberate the herd or what was left of it, and then successfully retreat across the border to New Mexico.
Where, if Lieutenant Colonel Stern made good upon his threat, they might all be arrested by the U.S. Army under charges pending from the State Department, for invading Mexico.
The only way to face that list and deal with it, Dolores knew, was taking one step at a time.
“Has Clint told you which hands he has selected?”
Sonya feigned bewilderment. “Told me. Why would he tell—”
Dolores stopped her sister with a knowing smile. “Because you seem to share a certain confidence. Do you deny that much, hermana?”
“Well . . .” Sonya was blushing as she said, “He mentioned certain names. Unmarried men, younger where possible.”
“And will they be enough, do you suppose?”
“I wonder about that myself. I do have one idea that might assist us.”
“What would that be?” asked Dolores.
Hesitating for another moment, Sonya finally replied, “We have some friends among the Mescaleros.”
“And have you suggested that to Clint?” Dolores asked.
“Not yet. I hoped we might present it to him as a thought we shared.”
“Surprise him with it, eh? Well, if we’re going to . . .”
“There’s no time like the present,” Sonya finished for her twin.
Dolores nodded, and they spent a final moment with Eduardo, praying silently for his assistance by whatever means were feasible for one no longer present in the living world. Then, linking hands, they departed from his grave site and went off to drop their bomb of a surprise on Clint Parnell.
* * *
* * *
You mean that?” Clint asked both of them together. “Mescaleros?”
Neither of the sisters should have been surprised by his reaction. While their family had certain friends among the Mescalero Apaches, that nation’s interaction with whites and Hispanics alike had been frequently hostile, bloodstained, and bitter.
Mescalero Apaches were, in fact, divided historically into at least ten separate bands, which might collaborate or battle one another as their needs and territory dictated. Scattered across America’s Southwest and northern Mexico, they included the Chilpaines (from the mountains south and west of Pecos River); the Ch’laandé (“Antelope Band People,” from New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin); the Dzithinahndé (“Mountain Ridge Band,” of northern Chihuahua and Coahuila); the Guhlkahéndé (“People of the Plains,” centered on the Texas Panhandle); the Natahéndé (“Mescal People,” between the Rio Grande and Pecos River); the Nit’ahéndé (“People at the Edge of the Earth,” found mainly in New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca); the Tahuundé (“Mountains Extending into the River People,” found on both sides of the Pecos River in New Mexico and Texas); the Tsebekinéndé (“Rock House People,” centered on the Nuevo Casas Grandes in Chihuahua); the Tsehitcihéndé (“People of Hook Nose,” found throughout the Guadalupe Mountains of northern Coahuila and Chihuahua); the Tuetinini (“No Water People,” also from northern Coahuila and Chihuahua); and the Tuintsundé (“Big Water People,” of south central Texas and northern Coahuila).
Parnell was familiar with all of the bands, to varying degrees, although his closest ties—perhaps as close as any white man could profess—lay with the Ch’laandé, whose hunting grounds were close to the Aguirre hacienda. After sporadic years of intermittent war between them, Alejandro had forged ties of friendship with the Antelope Band People, hiring some to work around his spread, allowing others to hunt game around the limits of his property to feed their families.
Would they respond if he invited them to join an expedition into Mexico?
Perhaps, if they were properly rewarded and their tribe were promised compensation for whichever warriors fell along the way.
The only way that he could know for sure was to approach their leaders and find out.
And once a Mescalero gave his word, there was no turning back.
Still, Clint had doubts. He asked the sisters, “Have you run this past your father?”
“Not yet,” said Dolores. “We were hoping that you would come with us.”
“But we’re almost certain that he will agree,” Sonya amended.
“Almost certain?” Parnell’s look and tone were equally skeptical.
“He has an admiration for their people,” said Dolores. “Even when they fought, he recognized their courage.”
“And they are renowned for expert tracking,” Sonya added.
Clint nearly shook his head, then stopped himself at the last instant. He could not dispute the points the twins had made in favor of allying with the Mescaleros, probably the Ch’laandé, to avoid more wasted time in searching for a contact with them. Still, he understood that crossing into Mexico with Native riders doubled any risk their plan had carried previously. Back before the Alamo, in 1835, Sonora’s government had placed a bounty on Apache scalps, specifically one hundred pesos for a male aged fourteen years or more. Soon afterward, a fifty-peso bounty had been tacked on for the hair of women, half that for the scalps of children. Prices soared after the Mexican-American war, and some scalp hunters, like John Glanton’s gang, enriched themselves by killing random Mexicans as well. One dead Apache warrior was worth more than most Mexican peasants earned in any given year, but while those heinous laws expanded throughout northern Mexico, remaining on the books for close to half a century, sheer risk eventually drove the scalpers out of business.
Yet still, a brooding legacy of bitterness remained among the people of both sides, and federales working for Díaz were not above annihilating tribal villages if they perceived a chance for what some of them deemed as “sport.”
Another problem to be dealt with, Parnell thought.
But he told the anxious twins, “All right. Let’s find out what your father says.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I do not like the added risks involved,” said Alejandro, when his foreman finished laying out the plan. Although Clint Parnell had proposed it, Alejandro recognized his daughters’ influence at work and heard an echo of their voices in Clint’s words.
Clint nodded. Grudgingly admitted, “I was thinking that myself, jefe, but—”
“Even so,” the hacienda’s owner interrupted, “I reluctantly agree.”
Three pairs of eyes blinked back at him, Parnell starting to frown, apparently confused, while Sonya and Dolores broke out into smiles, confirming Alejandro’s first impression of the notion’s origin.
Before one of the twins could speak, their father pressed ahead. “Two things I must insist upon,” he said. “First, Clint and I will ride alone to the Ch’laandé village.”
“Jefe—”
Before Clint could protest, Alejandro cut him off. “Their friendship is primarily with me,” he said. “For them to honor this entreaty, it must seem to be my personal request.”
He saw Clint’s frown and caught the worried look exchang
ed between his daughters. Alejandro was expecting it when Sonya said, “But, Papa, what about your injury?”
“Never mind that,” he replied. “It pains me but is healing. I must speak to Nantan personally, as one headman to another.”
Nantan—“spokesman” in the native tongue of the Ch’laandé—was chieftain of the local tribe, a few years Alejandro’s senior, battle-scarred and proud. It must be his decision whether to lend a few of his young men for the excursion onto hostile soil.
“And the second point, jefe?” Clint asked.
“We offer the Apaches the same terms we shall apply to our vaqueros. First, no men with wives or children. Second, all must freely volunteer. And finally, we will negotiate fair payment to the men who ride with us, as well as to the tribe itself. For those who fall along the way, if any, there must be indemnity.”
“Makes sense,” Clint said, although his tone said he was having doubts about the plan originally offered as his own.
“They will have guns and ponies of their own,” Aguirre noted. “We shall supplement whatever food they bring along with them.”
“And if they don’t agree?” asked Clint.
“Then we part company and go ahead without them,” Alejandro said. “Tomorrow morning is the latest that our party can afford to leave.”
And as Aguirre knew too well, they were already lagging untold miles behind the raiders who had struck his hacienda three nights earlier. Each passing hour placed them that much farther out of reach unless some unknown circumstance delayed their flight. Nothing could be predicted or anticipated except trouble, once his people crossed the Rio Grande and began the chase that might lead them nowhere except to bloody, dusty death.
How long that search might last could not be guessed. In the worst-case scenario, they might be ambushed early on, by the bandidos they were tracking or by federales, neither showing any mercy to intruders from el norte. Another possibility: that they might chase a phantom trail for days or even weeks on end, defeated finally by the knowledge that their quest had failed and nothing lost could ever be restored, nothing put right.
But that would not forestall the effort being made.
Whatever consequence it brought about, they must at least attempt to balance out the scales or die in the attempt.
* * *
* * *
Before the terms of their enlistment in a private war had been explained, every vaquero on Aguirre’s ranch had volunteered to join the hunt. They had lost friends during the raid and, worse, their self-respect, a debt of honor that they owed to their jefe for failing to protect his herd.
A moan of disappointment greeted Alejandro’s order that no men with families would be considered for the hunting party. Their jefe would have no widows and no orphans left behind. Some of the married men tried pleading with their boss, ignoring the expressions of anxiety written across the faces of their wives, but all in vain. Aguirre thanked them all but stood firm on his original decision limiting the team to bachelors in fighting trim. That ultimately narrowed down the field of prospects to five men.
Their foreman, Clint Parnell, would serve as leader, while his function at the hacienda was assumed by José Esperón for the duration. Other members of the posse would be Joaquín Cantú, Ignacio Fuentes, Arturo Lagüera, and Paco Yáñez, ranging in age from twenty-one to roughly thirty-five. Upon selection, they shook hands with fellow members of the hacienda’s staff who had not made the cut, and then fell out to organize their mounts and trail gear for the task that lay ahead of them.
That would include whatever guns and ammunition each possessed, plus bedrolls and canteens, dusters and neckerchiefs, spare clothing for the trail, and any creature comforts—pipes, tobacco, and the like—that would not weigh them down unnecessarily. Provisions for the trip would be provided by Aguirre’s kitchen staff, including smoked or salted meats, hardtack, tortillas, dried beans, hominy, with a few all-purpose cooking tools, the lot assigned to a packhorse known for its easy-going temperament.
While the selected riders gathered up their gear, loaded their guns, and sharpened their knives until they could have served as shaving razors, Alejandro and his foreman saddled up their mounts for a ninety-minute journey to the Mescalero village where Chief Nantan would decide whether to risk the lives of his best warriors on a quest that would not normally concern him.
White men fighting Mexican bandidos was no problem for the Ch’laandé tribe, unless Aguirre could induce them to enlist as mercenaries on his side. That role was alien to Mescaleros, although some had taken sides during the War Between the States, typically fighting on the side opposed to slavery.
And if they decided not to join the hunt . . . what then?
Clint would proceed with fewer men and strive to do the best he could against long odds.
That would inevitably make the job more dangerous, less likely to succeed, but Clint was not a quitter and he could not change his nature this late in the game.
Whatever happened in the Mescalero village, there would be no turning back.
* * *
* * *
They chose a buckboard for the journey, drawn by a matched pair of overo geldings. Both men traveled fully armed with long guns and six-shooters, as prepared as they could be for any danger met along the way until they reached their destination.
Two scouts spotted them when they were still a mile out from the nameless village, closing on the buckboard with their single-shot Sharps carbines cocked, their index fingers flush against the trigger guards. One of them seemed to recognize Aguirre, although Clint possessed no memory of meeting either mounted rifleman before. He noted that their ponies were unshod in standard Mescalero style and ridden bareback, with reins made from handwoven rope.
The older of the riders raised his open left hand to Aguirre, asking him in Spanish whether he had any business with Chief Nantan. Alejandro answered in the same language, briefly explaining that he had an offer for the chief and elders of the tribe. After a hastily whispered conversation, the first Mescalero who had spoken told Aguirre and his foreman to proceed, escorted to the settlement by his companion.
The last mile struck Parnell as the longest of their journey from the hacienda, though he understood that was illusory, based on his heightening anxiety. As they approached the cluster of some forty tipis—conical tents stitched from animal skins with vents at their peaks for emission of smoke—Clint noted men, women, and children coming out to greet them. The adults seemed wary, and most of the men were armed, while younger faces mirrored curiosity at the advent of unexpected visitors.
Chief Nantan stood before his lodge, the largest in the village, by the time their escort stopped and signaled Alejandro to rein in his team at a respectful distance from the headman’s tipi. Parnell had not seen Nantan for three years, give or take, and now he saw the chief had put on weight since then, his hair shot through with streaks of gray that somehow made him look stronger, more resolute, than at the last occasion of their meeting.
Nantan raised an open hand as Alejandro pulled up short, addressing Parnell’s boss in what Clint took to be the Mescalero’s native tongue. Aguirre answered fluently in the same language, handed Clint the buckboard’s reins, and climbed down from the driver’s seat with barely any hint that he was freshly wounded.
Nantan saw it, all the same, switching to English as he said, “You have been injured, nitis.” Parnell recognized the Mescalero word for friend before the chief continued, saying, “We were told of the attack upon your home. I grieve the passing of your son and loss of property.”
“You have my gratitude. It’s for that reason we have come.”
“Oh, yes?”
“We need your help if you believe it to be possible.”
Nantan considered that, not quite frowning, then half turned toward his lodge and said, “Come in. We talk.”
Parnell stayed on the buckboar
d’s high seat until Alejandro gestured for him to climb down and trail his elders to the tipi. Handing off the reins to their escort, Clint left his weapons where they were, following Nantan and his jefe through a flap into the tent.
A fire was burning in the middle of the lodge’s floor, inside a ring of stones on desert sand, but clever ventilation drew the smoke away, upward, before it irritated eyes or throats. Two women waited in the tipi, one approximately Nantan’s age, the other some years younger, until both were sent away with an instruction Clint could not translate. As if on cue, three other Mescalero men entered the lodge, circling the fire, until all five within had formed a ring and taken seats on blankets spread around the ring of stones.
When they were settled in, Nantan spoke first. “What is this help you seek, nitis?” he asked.
Aguirre kept the story short, since Nantan had already heard of the nocturnal raid. He spent more time explaining how the U.S. government had failed him, ruling out pursuit of the bandidos while insisting that Aguirre take no action of his own accord.
“You plan to disobey them,” Nantan said, stating a fact, not questioning.
“I have no choice,” said Alejandro. “Once ladrones learn that they can victimize my family and face no consequence, we shall be finished in the territory.”
Clint picked up the Spanish word for thieves and waited for Nantan to ask his next question.
“How would you have my people help?” Nantan inquired.
Aguirre raised a hand to lightly touch his wounded shoulder. “With my injury,” he said, “I cannot travel fast or far enough to overtake the men responsible. Clint here will lead four of our best men, but their numbers were depleted by the raid. They face perhaps ten times as many enemies.”
“You come for warriors, then,” Nantan observed.
“If you can spare them, old friend. No men pledged to wives and families. I am prepared to pay in gold and any other form of compensation that you may require.”