Guns on the Border

by Ralph Cotton

  ‘‘Kid?’’ Hallit raised his eyelids only a little and said in a groggy voice, ‘‘I ain’t seen nothing go by here but pretty flowers and dancing animals.’’

  Seeing the greenish-yellow peyote powder in Hallit’s gray mustache, White shook him and said, ‘‘Damn it, man! You’re too old for snorting Mexican dope. Get your head cleared. The captain is here! He’s in the cantina!’’

  ‘‘Captain who?’’ Hallit said unsteadily, his head bobbing as he spoke.

  ‘‘Come on, sober your ass up!’’ White grabbed him firmly by the front of his sweat-dampened shirt. ‘‘You’re coming with me. What are you doing out here anyway?’’

  ‘‘Looking for myself a woman,’’ Hallit said in a drunken stupor.

  ‘‘The whores are all inside,’’ said White.

  ‘‘I don’t want a whore!’’ said Hallit. ‘‘I want a good pretty woman. One that looks like my ma.’’

  ‘‘Whoa, that sounds unnatural to me.’’ Hubbard White glared at him dubiously as he dragged him along the small alleyway.

  ‘‘What’s unnatural to one is natural as an egg to others,’’ Hallit replied mindlessly, staggering along. ‘‘I loved my ma.’’

  ‘‘Jesus, it sounds like you did,’’ said White, pulling him along beside him, following the dark dots of blood, which had grown smaller now. ‘‘I don’t know what’s happened to you. You used to be a hell of a gunman. Now you’re turning into a drunken dope-eating bummer.’’

  ‘‘Watch your language,’’ Hallit said groggily. He tried to straighten himself up and act sober, but it was of no use. The peyote and mescal had the world spinning before his eyes. His feet could hardly feel the ground beneath him.

  From a crack in a doorway thirty yards ahead of them, Sabio Tonto watched the two draw closer, their footsteps sending a flock of chickens and pigeons flurrying aside in their wake. ‘‘Hurry, Louisa!’’ he said over his shoulder. ‘‘They are looking for him. Is he going to live?’’

  Behind him, a stout, little woman hurriedly tied a rough squared chunk of wood firmly up under the wounded young man’s arm. Half-conscious, his head bowed, the young man murmured repeatedly, ‘‘Gracias, ma’am . . . gracias, ma’am . . .’’

  ‘‘Be quiet,’’ the stout woman whispered to him as she began quickly wrapping strips of cloth around him, lashing his upper arm against his side. She called out to the former monk in Spanish, shaking her head. ‘‘This will slow the bleeding, but he has lost so much blood, I don’t know if he will live.’’ She crossed herself and added, ‘‘Only God knows.’’

  ‘‘Forget about God. He only teases us,’’ said the defrocked monk. ‘‘I have seen how these sort of men treat their own. If they find he cannot ride, they will kill him.’’

  Stepping in through the side door, Caridad hurried over to the wounded man as she said under her breath, ‘‘I have a donkey cart. Hurry!’’

  ‘‘Good work, my child,’’ said Sabio. He rushed to help the two women raise the man to his feet. They led him out through the door to the awaiting two-wheeled hay cart.

  Once the man was inside the small cart, Sabio threw hay over him and said to Caridad, ‘‘Take him up to the old mission. I will join you there as soon as I can. I cannot let Louisa face these men. She gets frightened too easily.’’

  Hearing him, Louisa quickly imagined the terrible things the Americano mercenaries might do to her. ‘‘Why are we doing all this, risking our lives for this stranger? A man we know nothing about?’’

  ‘‘Shhh,’’ said Sabio, quieting her, hearing her voice grow louder as she spoke. ‘‘We do this because this is what the day has cast upon us. A moment ago you said to submit to God’s will. Yet now you question the very task that God lays before us. No wonder God thinks of us as fools.’’ He gestured with his hand, a look of disdain on his face. ‘‘Go back inside and keep silent.’’

  Louisa shook her head and looked down in shame, then hurried back inside. Sabio took Caridad by her forearm and guided her to the donkey. He picked up the donkey’s lead rope and placed it in her hand.

  ‘‘But why have you not stopped the bleeding with your hands, Sabio?’’ Caridad asked.

  ‘‘Because sometimes I do not have God’s power to perform such miracles. Do you understand?’’ Sabio replied in a sharp tone of voice. ‘‘Now go. Hurry!’’

  ‘‘Sí, I go,’’ said Caridad, sounding disappointed. ‘‘But I do not understand.’’

  Seeing the pleading look in her eyes even as she began leading the cart away along the narrow dirt street, Sabio called out in a guarded tone, ‘‘All right. I will try to heal him when I arrive.’’

  As Caridad led the donkey cart around the corner of the street, toward the trail leading to the old mission ruins, the two mercenaries walked past her with no more than a glance. Relieved, she led the cart on and looked back for only a moment, in time to see the front door of the adobe swing open. She turned away and continued on as Sabio stared out at the two men and said in calm English, ‘‘Yes, what is it you want?’’

  ‘‘We’re looking for one of our men. He’s wounded,’’ said White. ‘‘We followed his blood to your rear door. Is he in there?’’ Even as he asked, he pressed closer. Sabio held his ground at the partly open door.

  ‘‘There is no one here but me and the woman. We heard someone knock at the rear door. But it is bad luck to use the back door at this time of day, so we did not answer.’’

  White gave Hallit a look and muttered, ‘‘Damn superstitious peasants.’’ Hallit only weaved drunkenly in place.

  ‘‘I need to come inside and take a look around,’’ said White, eyeing the stout woman who bustled about beyond Sabio. Louisa had already gathered the bloody rags and swept the drops of blood onto the dirt floor.

  Sabio resisted the slight shove of White’s hand on the door. ‘‘Of course you can look around but, señor, I beg of you, be quick. The woman’s husband might return at any moment . . . . He does not know about me.’’ He gave White a worried look and stepped back, letting the two men inside.

  ‘‘Oh, I see,’’ said White, with a dark chuckle. ‘‘Well, we don’t give a damn about her husband, or you.’’ Yet, looking all around the one large room and seeing no sign of the young man having been there, he turned and said to Hallit, ‘‘Let’s go. Hell, I can’t stand the smell in here.’’

  When the two stepped back outside and had walked away, Sabio leaned against the door and sighed in relief. Seeing the dubious look on Louisa’s face, he asked, ‘‘What is it?’’

  ‘‘You lied,’’ she said, her voice bitter with disappointment. ‘‘A man who took a sacred oath, and yet you lie to have things go your way.’’

  ‘‘I took a sacred oath, but the men I made that oath to took it back from me when they cast me out,’’ he said.

  ‘‘But your oath was to God, not to those men,’’ Louisa countered.

  Sabio gave a thin wry smile and said, ‘‘A man who vows not to lie has broken his vow in its making. Listen to me, my precious.’’ He grabbed her by her thick wrist and drew her against him. ‘‘All—men— are—liars,’’ he said, staring into her dark eyes, his lips only inches from hers. He pronounced each word separately and distinctly as if to make certain she heard and understood.

  ‘‘But for a holy man lying should not come so easily,’’ she responded, feeling his warm breath on her lips.

  ‘‘I lied to save a man’s life,’’ Sabio whispered. ‘‘What good is truth if it causes violence and death? How sinful is a lie if it prevents these things?’’

  ‘‘But you used my dead husband in your lie,’’ said Louisa, feeling passion well behind her breasts. She crossed herself instinctively upon the mention of her deceased husband.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Sabio, ‘‘and who among the dead has ever felt wronged in being used to prevent more death?’’ He shrugged and added wryly, ‘‘None that I ever heard from.’’ He drew her tighter against him, making certain she felt the hardnes
s below his waist.

  ‘‘Oh, my!’’ Louisa said, feigning embarrassment as she shoved herself away a few inches. ‘‘I see what all this excitement has done for you.’’

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Sabio. ‘‘Lying, saving a man’s life, defending my morals to you. These things have aroused my animal urges. Now you must relieve me—take this terrible lustful aching from my belly.’’

  Louisa held him at bay with a hand against his bony chest. ‘‘You forget that I am still in mourning?’’

  ‘‘Forget it? How can I forget it?’’ said Sabio, still holding her wrist. ‘‘I walk around as stiff as a gate handle, desiring you! If I had forgotten your mourning, I would have been mounted upon you and we would have refused to go participate in the game God had planned for us this day.’’

  ‘‘Always, you twist God’s will to suit your own thinking,’’ said Louisa. ‘‘How can you think of such a thing in the midst of all this? A man is hurt, perhaps dying.’’

  ‘‘Thrusting myself inside you is always on my mind, for I am a real and normal man,’’ said Sabio. ‘‘It does not matter what human intrigue is afoot. A man who is a man thinks always of thrusting himself inside a woman and riding her like some fine hot mare in season.’’ He cupped the front of his trousers and whispered as if in pain, ‘‘Ah, mi amigo duro, she is killing you!’’

  ‘‘Your hard friend is no concern of mine!’’ Louisa jerked her wrist free of him and stepped back, adjusting her clothes and dusting herself as if being against him had left her disheveled and dirty. ‘‘Do not think you can talk coarsely to me, especially while I am still mourning my blessed husband.’’

  Sabio studied her expression, seeing that she was not yet ready for him, but also seeing, as he had after each such encounter over the past few weeks, that her defenses were weakening with every new advance. Paciencia, he reminded himself. Yes, be patient. She wants you too. He took a deep breath and said, ‘‘I am sorry, my precious Louisa. It is just that I burn so deeply for you, and I know that somewhere inside you, you burn deeply for me, as you always have.’’

  She stood in silence for a moment, then said, ‘‘What would Caridad think if she heard you talk this way?’’

  ‘‘I apologize,’’ Sabio said humbly.

  But Louisa wasn’t through. ‘‘What if she saw the front of your trousers bulged out like some billy goat’s horn?’’

  ‘‘I apologize,’’ Sabio repeated. ‘‘To Caridad I will always be a monk—a holy man. But she must understand that I am now a man like any other, no longer bound by vows I made with the mother church.’’

  ‘‘With God,’’ Louisa reminded him again.

  ‘‘All right, as you wish. With God!’’ Sabio said, giving in to her for the moment. ‘‘Now I must go see about the wounded man. Maybe I can save his life again.’’

  ‘‘So my denying you will send you off to do something good in this game God has made for you this day?’’ She planted a hand on her stocky hip as if in victory.

  ‘‘There would have been time for me to do both,’’ Sabio said, hoping for the last word on the matter.

  ‘‘Yes, but through me, God has willed otherwise this day,’’ Louisa said, not giving an inch.

  Sabio murmured under his breath and turned to the door. He was not going to ask why she had given herself to him with abandon while her husband was alive and while he himself was so bound to the holy mother church. Yet, now, the two of them both free to do their own choosing, she denied him. ‘‘God forgive us all our craziness,’’ he said under his breath, checking and smoothing down the front of his trousers before stepping out into the street.

  Chapter 3

  From within a long tangle of wild tamarinds, magnolia, and Jacaratia trees lining the trail, Caridad had stopped the donkey cart long enough to look down on Esperanza. ‘‘Still they come,’’ she whispered to herself, seeing the two Americanos walk past the last small adobe at the edge of town and look up across the meandering hills. For a moment it appeared as if they stared right into her eyes. But she shook off her fear, knowing better, and watched until she saw them turn back toward the dusty street, as if they might be giving up. Yet, deep inside herself, she knew better.

  ‘‘Come, donkey,’’ she said, tugging on the animal’s lead rope. ‘‘We are still at the task Sabio has given us.’’

  Below, at the edge of Esperanza, Hallit wiped a hand across his sweaty forehead, still drunk on mescal, high on cocaine and mildly hallucinating on the peyote. ‘‘We gave it our best though, eh?’’ He looked sidelong at White, batting his eyes to get them into focus. White’s solemn face appeared to change from one dark glowing color to another beneath his hat brim.

  ‘‘We’re not through, Hallit,’’ White said, walking with determination toward a faded sign that read ESTACIÓN DEL LIVERY, a long row of public livery stables where their horses were billeted out of the sun.

  Hallit’s drunken heart sank. ‘‘Hey, if we can’t find him, we can’t find him. Good riddance, I say. I never cared much for the sonof—’’

  ‘‘Damn it, Riley,’’ said White, cutting him off in disgust. ‘‘You have no idea who we’re looking for or why, do you?’’

  ‘‘To be honest, no, I don’t,’’ Hallit admitted, looking ashamed of himself. ‘‘I’m trying to sober up and catch on as we go, all right? I mean, a man can get caught drunk and unawares, can’t he?’’

  White relented a bit. ‘‘I expect so. But now it’s time you get yourself straightened out and into a saddle. Prew said take care of that kid and that’s what we’re going to do.’’

  ‘‘Do you suppose you can not tell Prew what a shape I was in when we met up?’’ Hallit asked, almost pleading, his eyes still aswirl with dope and mescal.

  ‘‘Do your part, and I promise you Prew will never know a thing,’’ said White, the two of them turning a corner toward the livery stables.

  ‘‘I’m obliged,’’ said Halitt, ‘‘and if I wasn’t sorely attempting to get myself sober, I’d buy you a drink right now.’’ As he spoke, he looked all around for another cantina, other than the one where Prew and the men were.

  ‘‘Hold it!’’ said White, planting a hand firmly on his damp chest.

  ‘‘I was joking!’’ said Hallit. ‘‘Can’t a man make a little joke about—’’

  ‘‘That’s not what I mean,’’ said White. He stared straight ahead, watching Sabio slip along the edge of the narrow street thirty yards in front of them. ‘‘Isn’t that the little weasel we called upon?’’

  ‘‘I—I can’t say for sure,’’ said Hallit, struggling with it, the dope and mescal not letting go of his senses easily.

  ‘‘Yep, it sure is,’’ said White, answering himself. ‘‘I’ve got a hunch that tricky little sumbitch knows more than he was telling. I’m going to follow him.’’ He gave Hallit a shove toward the livery stables. ‘‘Get our horses and catch up to me.’’

  ‘‘Get our horses . . .’’ Hallit murmured to himself, as if getting his instructions clear in his foggy mind.

  ‘‘If you screw this up, Hallit, you’ll wish to God you’d never heard my name,’’ White threatened. ‘‘Now get your drunken ass going!’’ As he spoke he’d already begun slipping away toward where he’d seen Sabio’s bald head disappear into a crumbling adobe building with a weathered sign above the door that read COMERCIO E INTERCAMBIO DEL FRANCÉS (French Trade and Exchange).

  ‘‘This might be easier than I thought,’’ White whispered to himself, drawing his pistol as he reached the front of the building. ‘‘You’re going to tell me something this time, you little weasel,’’ he said as if Sabio were able to hear him.

  Yet once White was inside the open doorway of the abandoned building, all he saw was the windowless, doorless rear wall. ‘‘What the hell?’’ He looked all around, but saw no place where a man, even a small man like Sabio, could have hidden.

  The crumbling building had been stripped of furnishings and gutted of any interior walls. In st
reams of sunlight through missing roof thatch, White stared bewildered at a few sticks of furniture remnants and broken wooden crates, all covered with a coating of pigeon droppings and undisturbed dust and cobwebs. Along a broken and sagging roof rafter a line of pigeons sat cooing peacefully.

  ‘‘Hell, he couldn’t have ducked inside here,’’ White growled, shoving his pistol back into his holster. Backing out the door, he saw a thin footpath leading around the side of the building. He could have sworn the man had gone into the building, but upon seeing the path he rethought himself and said, ‘‘All right, tricky little weasel. I see what you did.’’

  ‘‘White, here they are!’’ Hallit called out, riding up on his horse, leading a big fine bay by its reins.

  Stopping at the entrance of the darkened path, White looked at the horse beside Hallit and said, ‘‘Damn it, man, that’s not my horse. That’s Prew’s!’’

  ‘‘Aw, hell!’’ Hallit cursed. ‘‘I’m still too doped and drunk to know what I’m doing.’’ He started to turn back toward the livery stables, but White stopped him.

  ‘‘I’m not letting this weasel get away,’’ he said, taking the reins to Prew’s horse from Hallit’s hand. ‘‘Prew will understand. He’ll have to if he wants me to take care of the kid.’’

  ‘‘I know I’m blind drunk,’’ said Hallit, ‘‘but why are you so convinced this man can tell us anything?’’

  White took a breath, considered it, then said, ‘‘All right, it was just a hunch at first. But now I can tell he wanted to give us the slip. He acted like he went into this building, but then he cut around this way.’’

  He nodded toward the path as he swung himself up atop Prew’s bay and nudged it forward. But fifteen feet along the path, White stopped abruptly and sat staring at another adobe wall.

  Behind him Hallit sat atop his horse, batting his blurry eyes in bewilderment. ‘‘He didn’t come this way unless he can climb like a squirrel.’’ The wall reached twenty feet straight up with nothing lying around to be used in scaling it. Along the upper edge sat more pigeons, cooing peacefully.