The sun filled the canyon with golden light, and the air turned warm and pleasant. Yellow Boy watched through his telescope. The shadows were still long when he said, “They come.”
I watched the four specks through my binoculars as they spread out on either side of the main trail and began carefully to move toward us. Yellow Boy pointed where the main trail branched off up the canyon toward the spring. “Hombrecito, use Shoots-Today-Kills-Tomorrow. No pass to spring.”
I nodded. “They won’t pass. I claim Camisa Roja. Do what you will with the other two and Gamberro.”
CHAPTER 60
A GOOD DAY TO DIE
For a few minutes, we watched the dorados advance up the canyon, staying low, scrambling from bush to bush for cover, scanning the ridges on both sides of the canyon, and occasionally glancing down the trail to our distant ridge. Their advance, slow as they ran from bush to bush, made Yellow Boy yawn and stretch.
“Hombrecito watch dorados. Keep all in sight. I smoke and then take your place.”
He pulled a cigar from his coat and disappeared below the top of the ridge. I watched the dorados. At the rate they were coming, it would be another two or three hours before the fireworks began. All we had to do was keep them in sight and make sure they didn’t set up an ambush of their own.
I kept track of all the dorados, but I paid special attention to Camisa Roja. He stayed low in the wash that twisted through the middle of the canyon. At least if shooting started, he’d have real, bullet-stopping cover, not just a mesquite bush to hide behind. I had to give him credit. He was a smart, deadly fighter, a worthy opponent.
We waited an hour, then two, and then maybe three, as the dorados approached the spot where the north trail split off for the spring. The cold, still air, fast disappearing, was replaced by a warm updraft breeze flowing toward the tops of the ridges. When the dorados approached within three-quarters of a mile of us, I started using Little David to take sight pictures of each one, using the smallest aperture on Little David’s Soule sight. With the bright sun, I could see each man through the sight’s smallest rear aperture, but given the updraft in our faces, any shot that hit anything at that range would be a very lucky one. We waited. In a while, I guessed they were within nine hundred yards, a little more than half a mile. They kept coming. Yellow Boy and I watched their moves, Jesús occasionally taking a look through our glasses.
Watching them, my mouth grew dry, and I asked Jesús to bring me a canteen. My heart began to race, making my sight pictures wobble all over the dorados, who were within four or five hundred yards of the north trail and maybe seven or eight hundred yards from our position. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my nerves.
The memory of Rufus Pike’s words to me when I was a boy drifted by on the currents of my mind, “Henry, ye gotta be cold and cakilatin’ to survive in this here country.” I smiled. A swallow of water, a few more breaths, and everything I did thereafter became calculated, measured, and steady.
The dorados finally reached where the trail forked. They were smart enough not to bunch up as they hid behind their brush covers, trying to work up the courage to run into the open through the fire of a potential ambush.
I pulled six .45-70 cartridges out of a full box, slid three in my right vest pocket, put one in the breech of Little David, and held the other two in the fingers of my right hand ready for fast use. Rufus Pike had trained me to hold the spare cartridges between my fingers and flip them into the breech with minimal hand motion so the entire shooting cycle became one fast, continuous motion. I could fire the Sharps for those three rounds faster than most men could fire three shots with a lever-action Winchester. I picked the spot carefully for a warning shot for the first dorado when he tried running up the north trail. If he stopped and turned around, I wouldn’t waste another cartridge, but if he kept on running, he’d be a dead man.
Yellow Boy levered a shell into the chamber of the Henry and slowly let the hammer down to safety, his eyes glimmering, black and hard, behind a narrow squint. I sat resting my elbows on my knees, holding Little David snug against my shoulder, sighted on my warning shot target, a place in the middle of the trail.
One of the young dorados was up and running, rifle across his chest, big sombrero bouncing on his back like a rider on a bucking horse, dust exploding in puffs as his boots pounded the trail. I didn’t hesitate pulling the hammer and set the trigger back on Little David, taking no more than a couple of seconds to line up on the spot before I fired.
The ancient thunder-boomer roared, sending echoes of eternity through the canyon, kicking me in the shoulder, flooding my body with adrenaline, as I automatically brought the hammer to half cock, levered the breech open to flip out the spent brass, slid in a new cartridge, raised the breech, and found the line of sight for the running man’s point of no return.
When the trail in front of him suddenly exploded, the running dorado jerked to a stop, confused, his jaw dropping, his chest heaving. He looked back at his friends hiding in the brush, a pale, sickly look on his face.
Yellow Boy watched with his telescope and exclaimed, “Fools! They wave him on!” The runner looked up the north trail, and his legs started churning again. The men in the brush yelled at him, encouraging him, telling him to run harder, run faster. He passed the point of no return.
No man has ever outrun one of my bullets. My sights, smoothly tracking his motion, followed just in front of him. I fired again. The bullet hit him a few inches below his armpit on the left side. The dorado, thrown sideways from the impact, blood spraying from his mouth, collapsed in a heap, dead before his body hit the ground.
I wanted to vomit but swallowed the bile. Jesús, who had seen men torn asunder in Villa’s battles, sat down and put his head between his knees, muttering over and over, “Cristo . . . blessed Cristo.”
Yellow Boy, watching the other dorados, said, “Others no move, stretch out, stay close to ground, hide, pray they are brother to the mesquite. They wait. Mucho thirst comes. We wait. They run pretty soon now. You’ll see by and by.”
I was deciding how best to adjust my Soule sight for the updraft when Yellow Boy said to Jesús, “Muchacho, saddle horses, load the mule. Lead them and the dorado horses to the arroyo behind us. Go quick. Wait there. No move.”
Jesús nodded. “Sí, señor. Rapidamente.”
I asked why Yellow Boy wanted Jesús to move the animals. He pointed toward the mesquites in the draw near Camisa Roja’s hiding place. Through my glasses, I saw a faint wisp of smoke rising in the breeze and disappearing. It was so thin, I almost missed seeing it. It was April, two or three months before the monsoon season. Everything was tinder dry.
Yellow Boy looked at me, eyes glittering, filled with fight.
“Fire comes. Makes smoke. Shoot where you see their smoke. Soon now they bring fire to this side of wash. Wind blow fire up this ridge. Dorados run for water behind smoke. I go to spring. You and Jesús follow dorados. Don’t let turn back. I go now.”
I nodded my understanding without taking my gaze off the increasing whiffs of white smoke below us.
Yellow Boy ran to the horses Jesús held in the arroyo, mounted his paint, and rode off across the road and into the hills where he could reach the spring unseen by the dorados and set up another ambush. I sent a few rounds into the mesquite and piñons where the dorados hid, but the smoke grew.
An arrow, its tip flaming, shot out of the mesquites and landed in a patch of grama grass just across the main trail from the branch heading to the spring. The grass blazed up instantly, fire jumping from patch to patch like the boots of a giant marching up the side of our ridge. I was dumbfounded that one of them had a bow and arrow. It was time for me to join Jesús.
As the wind carried the fire up the front side of the ridge, I scrambled down the backside. Jesús was having a hard time holding the horses, wild-eyed and prancing around, trying to get off the lead rope. I helped him quiet them down while we waited for Roja, Gamberro, and the remainin
g young dorado to run up the canyon for the spring and its cool, sweet water.
They waited until the fire was near the top of our ridge before dashing up the north fork for the canyon and the spring where Yellow Boy waited. They ran right past the man I’d killed, and only Camisa Roja momentarily took a knee and rolled him over to be sure he was dead. Jesús and I waited until they were out of sight, and then we rode up the trail behind them.
When we were about a hundred yards past the body, we dismounted and walked, surrounded by the dorado horses and our own mounts. I wasn’t taking any chances. The three we were chasing would likely make their own ambush for anyone following them up the trail.
We were half a mile up the canyon wash when I heard the thunder from Yellow Boy’s Henry followed by five or six shots from a Winchester. We paused to listen as the echoes died away, only to see a dust plume from a bullet landing right in front of us and hear the rifle-shot echo follow the first ones across the hills. Jesús and I didn’t have to coax the horses into the piñons on the east side of the wash. From the way the dust plumed and the report echoed, I had no doubt the shooter hid on the west side of the canyon. In the piñons covering the east side of the canyon, I used my glasses to study the cliff rocks, talus, and each little cluster of piñons below the cliffs on the west side.
I finally found what I was looking for in one of the piñon groves next to the talus, a glimmer of red showing in the branch shadows. Camisa Roja had fired a warning shot to go no farther, and I was content to wait for Yellow Boy to take care of Gamberro and the other dorado before forcing Roja out of his piñons. We waited.
Up the canyon, there was a brief tattoo of Winchester rifle fire. As the echoes faded away, the Henry thundered again, and its echoes were followed by screams of mortal agony that lowered to desperate, grunting moans that soon stopped, leaving the hot, still air silent. I stretched my neck as much as I dared, and looked up the canyon, but saw nothing.
Camisa Roja left his cover and ran along the edge of the cliff talus up the canyon toward the spring. I fired my own warning shot in front of him, a ricochet into the talus that sprayed his face with tiny pieces of stone that didn’t blind him but covered his face with a hundred scratches, each oozing its own few drops of blood. He turned back for the piñons, and I fired again in front of him. He got the message, sat down where he was, wiped the blood from his face, and pulled the makings of a smoke from his coat pocket while he tried to see what happened between Yellow Boy, Gamberro, and the young dorado.
I was consumed with worry and curiosity about Yellow Boy, but I dared not leave a boy to do a man’s job, and my job was ensuring Yellow Boy was not in danger of being flanked by the man I covered. The screams and moans we’d heard from near the spring told me Yellow Boy had mortally wounded, if not killed, the young dorado with Gamberro. Gamberro would have died in silence and excruciating pain before he would scream like a woman in childbirth.
Gamberro was twice the size of Yellow Boy, half his age, had fought in some terrible, bloody battles, and was a Yaqui. Yellow Boy had twenty more years of fighting experience, knew every trick in guerrilla warfare, and, most importantly, was an Apache warrior who asked no quarter and gave none. Gamberro was at a definite disadvantage.
I pulled the hammer back on Little David, ready to fire, and said to Jesús, “I have Camisa Roja in my sights and can kill him instantly. Step out where he can see you, raise your arms in a surrender sign, motion him in this direction, and sign he’s to leave his weapons.”
Jesús stuck out his chin and nodded, apparently determined to prove he had as much courage as anyone else in this fight. “Sí, señor.”
It took him a couple of minutes, but Jesús finally got the message across to Roja. He very deliberately held up his empty right hand, and with his left laid down his rifle and pistol where we could see them. He stood with both his hands up, and slowly walked, making a switchback path down the side of the canyon to the wash immediately in front of us. The only sounds were the breeze rustling through the piñons and the occasional rock his feet dislodged that bounced and rolled down to the wash. If groans still came from the wounded man, we couldn’t hear them for the breeze was gently shaking the trees and brush.
I said, “Jesús, get the reata from my saddle, and when Roja gets to the wash, sign for him to stop. If he does, tie his hands behind his back and search him well, even his boots, for knives or guns. When you have him tied, sit him down cross-legged, and I will come claim the prisoner.”
He smiled and said, “Sí, señor.”
Ten minutes later I walked up to Camisa Roja, hands tied, sitting straight, his jaw stuck out defiantly, his legs crossed in the sand. Holding the end of the rope, ready to jerk Roja back in place if he attacked or ran, Jesús squatted nearby, rolling a smoke from the makings he took from Roja’s pockets.
“Very good, Jesús. You’ve saved an hombre’s life.”
“Muchas gracias, Doctor Grace. Here’s your prisoner.”
I looked at Camisa Roja, his grim face expecting the worst. “Buenas tardes, Señor Roja. It’s a good day to die, no? Tell me, señor, why did you run from your cover like that? Did you not think I’d see you?”
Roja smiled the grimace of the damned. “I couldn’t see you or your horses and thought you’d gone farther back down the canyon where you couldn’t see me. It was a foolish boy’s mistake. I deserve to die. Take your vengeance, Hombrecito. You’ve traveled many miles to spill my blood.”
“Sí, I’ve traveled many miles to settle a matter of honor. I’ve traveled many miles with a dream trying to speak to me, haunting me like a ghost. Before anything is settled, we’ll speak of this dream, and then you’ll make a choice for life or death.”
Roja squinted at me from under his brows, curious, defiant. “Life or death? You truly give me a choice, Hombrecito? I’ll make it. You know I’m not afraid to die. Sometimes death rotting your bones is better than living in hell—”
We heard a horse pounding down the wash toward us and instinctively moved to one side to get out of its way. I thought that Yellow Boy, having killed Gamberro, must be hurrying to join our fight and end it before Roja could slip away. The horse rounded the bend, stretching its neck out in a dead run down the middle of the wash, throwing small clods of dirt and pebbles in looping arcs high in the air, raising waist-high puffs of dust each time its flying hooves hit the ground. Yellow Boy’s paint swept by us, Gamberro urging it on with whacks on the pony’s rump from his Winchester and swearing in a scream, “I’ll be back. You bastards will die.”
I’d never seen anyone take Yellow Boy’s paint in all the years we’d been together. My heart sank, caught by the belief that the only way Gamberro could take the paint was to put Yellow Boy down, maybe even kill him.
I turned and dropped to one knee, pulling the hammer back on the Sharps, snugging it against my shoulder, trying to see Gamberro, rapidly disappearing in the center of his cloud of dust. I was fearful a wild shot would hit the paint. I decided that if I couldn’t hit Gamberro, I’d have to take the paint or I’d never have another chance at Gamberro. My finger was closing on the trigger when I heard running feet behind me and looked up to see Yellow Boy stripped to the waist, sweat streaming down his body, race up to Jesús and take the reins for Satanas. He shook his hand at me, palm up, a signal to wait, and said only, “Mine! Back pronto.”
I sat back, relieved beyond words, and laughed. Jesús and Roja looked at me as if I were crazy. Roja, on the edge of a smile, said, “Gamberro escapes, Hombrecito. Muchacho Amarillo can never catch Gamberro with a long head start on a good horse. Why do you laugh?” The look on Jesús’s face showed he was thinking the same thing.
I shook my head smiling. “Señor Roja, you have a very short memory. Nearly twelve years ago, Muchacho Amarillo took my horse, the one left at the Comacho Hacienda, the one Señor Comacho called Espirito Negro, Black Spirit. He gave it to me, and I called him Satanas. Working with me, it took Muchacho Amarillo nearly a day to conv
ince Satanas to let us ride him. In those days, there was not a horse three hundred miles north or south of the border that could outrun him. Now there might be a few, but the paint is not one of them. The remainder of Gamberro’s life can only be measured in minutes to hours, at the very best. Gamberro’s bones will soon bleach white in the llano sun, and coyotes and buzzards will have a belly full of him. Muchacho Amarillo will return this night. Get up. We go to the spring, water the horses, and have a little talk.”
CHAPTER 61
THE RECKONING
Between the horses and us, we practically drank the little cliff tank dry. It was a peaceful, pleasant place, and I was glad I could see the top edge of Rafaela’s cairn on the cliff ledge above us. Camisa Roja sat with his back against a large juniper and stared at the cliff’s crags and crannies. Jesús slept under a juniper near where he hobbled the horses.
I sat with my back against a large boulder and studied the man I’d wanted to kill for ten years. I’d ridden hundreds of miles to take my revenge for his attempt to murder me, but let him and Villa live. Everything I’d learned as a child and young man about justice fromYellow Boy said I had every right, maybe even a duty, to send Camisa Roja to the grandfathers. I no longer had a desire for his blood, but I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, either. Whatever happened here would end our trails twisted together. Fate made me judge, prosecutor, jury, and executioner. How ironic, I thought, that Rafaela’s killer stands in judgment before her grave.
In the canyon’s falling light, I pointed toward the cairn. “Can you see the burial place of the woman you murdered, señor? The woman I took as a wife, the only woman I’ve ever loved and will probably ever love, the woman who carried our child in her belly when you murdered her?”
Roja frowned and shook his head. “Murdered her? I did not murder her. Sí, I killed her. I freely admit that. She was with Apaches who tried to wipe out mi patrón. She dressed as an hombre, and she was running away after searching the pockets of a dead man in the road. Sí, I can see the place of the stones you say is her burial place. I’m truly sorry if I killed an innocent woman, but I didn’t murder her. Will you murder me now?”
Knight of the Tiger Page 34