Sidewinder

by Jory Sherman

  A few minutes later, he walked through the barn, out of breath and panting.

  “You kill the Mex?” Delbert asked.

  “He—he got clean away. Hell, I chased after him, but he was quick as a damned fox.”

  “You dumb cluck,” Delbert said. “Was he packin’?”

  “I don’t know. He must’ve heard me, ’cause he ran like a deer out the back of the barn. Up in the timber. Hell, it’d take a week to find him.”

  “Saddle up two horses,” Delbert ordered. “You men put these gals up on ’em and keep ’em in sight. They try to get away, shoot ’em.”

  “Yeah, boss,” Smoot said. He and Ridley went in the barn.

  “Let’s get after them cattle,” Delbert said. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Felicity’s jaw tightened as she realized what was happening. She and Brad were about to lose their herd. These men were killers, and no telling what they planned to do with her and Pilar.

  And, where was Brad?

  What would he find when he came back?

  Nothing, she thought, nothing at all except a dead dog and an empty pasture.

  She started to cry and hated herself for showing such a weakness. She wanted to cry out, but she knew it would do no good.

  These were hard men, and would not hesitate to kill her and Pilar.

  Had Carlos gotten away? She hoped so. For she knew in her heart that they wouldn’t take him prisoner.

  That man who had shot Curly, he would kill Carlos without batting an eye.

  She shivered at the thought, and the sadness over Curly welled up in her like a fountain of grief.

  And the tears kept coming as something inside her began to die.

  EIGHTEEN

  Delbert Coombs licked his pudgy lips when he rode to the north end of the pasture, counting heads of cattle. Behind him trailed his brother, Hiram, his belly sagging over his belt like a ball of blubber, an unlit cheroot in his mouth. Coming up in the rear was Ridley Smoot, a bone-thin, wiry man with a protruding Adam’s apple that appeared to all but puncture his throat. He was small but deadly, and wore two Smith & Wesson six-guns on his belt, each a .38 caliber. He was kidded by the others for packing such small pistols, but he said that anything heavier would snap his bony wrists and cripple him for life.

  Delbert reined up his horse before he reached the north end of the valley. He turned to face the others who halted their horses.

  “Toad,” he said to Tod Sutphen, “all I want you to do is ride along the timber with your Sharps at the ready. If you see that Mex, shoot him between the eyes.”

  Sutphen was the best rifle shot in the group. His three days of beard covered most of the scars on his face, the pocks a result of a childhood skin disease. His bulbous nose was pocked as well, with ugly bumps that he continually popped and squeezed to push out the pus. He grew boils on the back of his thick neck that had to be lanced periodically. But his deep-sunk eyes were like an eagle’s, and he could shoot a blowfly off a fence post at ten yards.

  “I’d dearly love to get me a Mex,” Sutphen said. “Make a terbacky pouch out of his nuts.”

  He cut away from the others and rode his mottled gray horse up behind the barn and began patrolling all along the line of timber, looking for any scant movement, listening for any human sound coming from the trees. The butt of his Sharps rested on his leg, the safety off.

  “The rest of you fan out and bunch the cows toward the center of the valley,” Delbert said. “We don’t want them stampeding across the creek. Ridley, you and Fred take the right flank. Work ’em slow.”

  “Got it, boss,” Ridley said, tweaking his brushy mustache with two fingers. He had lifeless pale blue eyes that always seemed as vacant as smoky glass marbles, and his chin came to a sharp point below a thatch of beard that he kept trimmed with a straight razor. His bloodless lips held a dangling, hand-rolled quirley. “Let’s go, Freddie.”

  Fred Raskin, a wizened, bow-legged man in his forties, with thinning hair—looked fifty, with his pinched face, deep lines across his forehead and on his stubbled chin—followed Smoot as he broke away from the others.

  “I’ll take the women with me,” Delbert said, “teach ’em how to drive cattle.”

  “One thing, nice, Del,” Raskin said.

  “Well, look at them cattle. We can sell their hides. They ain’t got no brand on ’em. Just ear markings.”

  “Yeah, we can cut off their ears and nobody’ll know where they came from.”

  “More money,” Raskin said.

  “You bet,” and Delbert’s eyes danced with light. The light of pure greed.

  The riders fanned out along the far reaches of the long valley and began the drive, working very slowly. Those along the creek ran the cattle toward the center of the pasture, and those nearest the timber and the houses pushed those cattle down to mingle with the others. As the herd grew in size, it began to amble south in the direction Delbert wanted them to go.

  Felicity looked at the terrified Pilar. Pilar’s face was still wet with tears, and she seemed on the verge of collapse. Delbert had to prod her horse with a kick to make her move. Although her hands were tied, she was squeezing her knees into the horse to make it turn and balk. Both women had their feet tied to the stirrups, so they couldn’t jump down and make a run for it.

  Pilar will fight to her death, Felicity thought, but didn’t voice it.

  Her own mind was processing possibilities at a high speed. She was glad that Carlos had gotten away. Perhaps he would track them later, and then go back and tell Brad where they had been taken. She wondered if Carlos had a pistol or rifle with him. Maybe he would kill the man they called Toad, and there would be one less for Brad and Julio to deal with when the time came.

  She thought about Curly and how he had died. He had just wanted to be friendly with that Delbert, and the man had shot him dead. Poor Curly never had a chance.

  And what would Brad think when he got back and saw that all the cattle were gone and Curly was dead? Unless Carlos survived and told him some of what happened, he would never know.

  And she might never see Brad again.

  She had no idea who these men were or where they were from, but she thought they might be the same ones who murdered the Seguin family, stole all their cattle, and burned their home down. The thought gave her a shudder. She might eventually suffer the same fate as poor Mrs. Seguin, her husband, and her children.

  She also wondered what Pilar was thinking. She just hoped she wouldn’t do something rash. These men were killers and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her if she got out of line.

  The morning sun rose in the sky and the coolness left the ground. A meadowlark trilled at the far end of the valley, and birds flew overhead. She could hear the jays squabbling up in the woods, and beneath it all, the mumbling tumble of the creek as it rolled past exposed stones, a faint gurgling that spoke of life and the orderly system of the universe itself.

  The men said little. They were good at herding and driving. They were obviously experienced with cattle, even though Felicity knew them to be outlaws. Common thieves. She hated every one of them, and her anger was fuming like a volcano about to erupt.

  Every so often, Delbert looked up to his left to see what Toad was doing. Toad was riding back and forth, very close to the timber, hunching low over the saddle at times, venturing into the brush every so often and wiping his rifle barrel over the tops of bushes. As if he were hunting a rat, Felicity thought.

  The herd began to swell. The slowness of the drive allowed the cattle to graze, and none of them got spooked or tried to break ranks with any major attempt. The men worked methodically, pushing the cows southward to the ford across the creek. When a cow did break ranks, Wicks or Smoot or one of the others quickly hazed it back into the herd, uttering only soft, gruff words to back their play.

  “Take a look at your homes, gals,” Delbert said, toward the end of the drive. “It’s probably the last time you’ll ever see them.”

  “W
here are you taking us?” Felicity demanded.

  “Oh, I’ve got a place for you, never worry about that. You might come to like it.”

  “Never,” Felicity spat, and Pilar gave her a look of gratitude.

  “Never’s a hell of a long time, lady,” Delbert said.

  “Not long enough for you once my husband gets back. He’ll hang your sorry hide to the highest tree.”

  “Big words for a little lady who ain’t got no choice. Your man comes after me, I’ll gut him like a fish.”

  Delbert tapped on the handle of a big Bowie knife he carried on his belt.

  Felicity didn’t say anything. Del was not only a common thief, he was a heartless killer. She looked at Pilar, with what she hoped was encouragement, but Pilar was looking back at the bunkhouses, the Storm’s house, the barn. There was a sad look in her eyes. Felicity wondered what she was thinking and wished she could give her some comfort.

  The men bunched up the cattle and held them prior to fording the creek. Smoot rode back from the vanguard and spoke to Delbert.

  “Want us to run ’em acrost, Del?”

  “Yeah, but you stay here. Hiram will give the order.”

  “Whatcha want me to do, boss?”

  “I want you to ride back there and get Toad. If he ain’t found that Mex yet, he ain’t goin’ to.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then, Ridley, I want you and Toad to burn them houses and that barn clean down.”

  “That’s what you want us to do, boss?”

  “Burn ’em,” Delbert said, and Felicity saw the strang est look in his eyes. It was a look of enjoyment and satisfaction, as well as a look of pure lust, almost as if he were bedding an unwilling woman and getting great pleasure from it. Pilar saw the look, too, and winced as if he was looking directly into her eyes.

  “Burn ’em to the ground, Ridley,” Delbert called after Smoot, who was already riding toward Tod Sutphen.

  “I wanna see smoke, you hear?”

  Ridley raised his hand and nodded. Then he put the spurs to his horse’s flanks and galloped toward the houses.

  Hiram rode to the head of the herd and gave the order. The cattle began to cross the creek, splashing through the shallows, some trying to drink, others prodding the slow ones with their horns.

  Felicity saw her life flowing away, everything she and Brad had worked for, leaking out of the pasture toward some unknown destination.

  Pilar said something that Felicity could barely hear. But it chilled her blood and made her want to cry.

  “Mi casa,” Pilar whispered. “My home.”

  NINETEEN

  When Carlos saw the man ride up to the barn, he knew it meant trouble.

  He knew it wasn’t Brad or Julio.

  He knew it was a man he had never seen before. And the man had a rifle, and he looked like he was ready to shoot.

  Carlos dropped the bridle in his hand and ran out through the back doors of the barn, shoving one door open just wide enough for him to escape. He ran, and he kept running into the timber. He cursed himself for not strapping on his pistol that morning. And his rifle was still in the bunkhouse. He was defenseless.

  He ran because he knew his life depended on it.

  When he got to the woods, he kept on running and then he started looking for a place to hide. He stopped when he came to an old well site that hadn’t panned out, a depression in the earth that was now overgrown with scrub brush, blackberries, sumac, and alder. Thick brush. He stepped down into the shallow hole, and started pulling dirt and pine needles down into it so that it covered his legs and chest. He took off his hat, crumpled it up, and put it beneath him. Then he smeared dirt on his face and held his breath for several seconds until his pulse stopped racing.

  Later, Carlos heard screams. A woman’s screams. But he did not know if the screams were from Pilar or Felicity. The sound sent shivers up his spine. He heard a gunshot, muffled, probably coming from inside the bunkhouse or from the house where Felicity lived.

  There were voices. Men’s voices and the sound of hoofbeats. Then a long silence, fragments of conversation, words floating up through the timber, distorted fragments that made no sense. And the crunch of iron hooves on small sticks and stones. A man on horseback riding along the fringe of trees just below him. Baffling. Unnerving. Carlos held his breath often. To listen. Trying to decipher what the sounds meant.

  The lowing of cattle, the soft breeze through the trees. The muffled voices of men. And the horse, walking along, back and forth, slow and methodical. The rustle of brush, the sudden glint of sunlight shooting through the trees, vanishing like will-o’-the-wisp. The nothingness of nothing. The silences and the low moans of cattle on the move.

  It didn’t take Carlos long to figure it out. The cattle belonging to Brad Storm were being rustled, being driven from the valley toward the south. And still, the rider waited, riding back and forth, slow and steady. He pictured him. A rider with a gun, watching, looking for Carlos. But not coming into the timber, not in any hurry. Watching and waiting. Looking for him.

  He was a rabbit, hiding in a hole. A rabbit with fear and a twitching nose for a mind. Un conejo. And much fear. Mucho miedo.

  He thought in both English and Spanish, and he did not want to die. He did not want to be shot down like a rabbit and left for the buzzards.

  Carlos began to tremble. At first the shaking was inside. Then it quivered to his skin and to his hands and legs. He was shivering as if it were winter and there was snow on the ground, frost in the wind. He could not stop shivering.

  He could not stop shaking until he felt the first sting on his arm. Then he felt another on his neck. He looked down and saw them. Ants. They were crawling all over his arms, up his sleeve, and onto his neck. Then he saw the anthill, a foot or two from the sunken earth where he was hiding. Hundreds of red ants were streaming toward him, their tiny antennae twitching, their little legs pumping. He slapped at the ants on his arm, batted those on his neck, and got more bites for his trouble.

  Carlos scrambled from the hole and felt stings on his crotch and belly. He was crawling with ants, and the stings were like poison needles in his skin. He slapped and brushed, clearing the ants from his trousers, off his arms, and from around his neck. He hopped away from the anthill and waddled to a large pine. He leaned against it and dropped his trousers. He began to pick ants off his body, felt a sting on his ankles. He removed his boots and socks, shook them out. Ants tumbled from his boots and off his socks.

  He mashed some of them that were on his body, flicked others away until he was satisfied that he was free of the stinging creatures. He pulled his pants up, sat down and donned his socks, and pulled on his boots. He brushed himself all over, then looked through the trees.

  He saw the man patrolling the strip of land just below the woods. He did have a rifle and it was straight up, the buttstock anchored to his ham hock of a leg. He wore a pistol and a cartridge belt, too. He was peering into the trees, looking for any sign of movement.

  Carlos knew that as long as he stood still, he was not likely to be seen. He touched his head and realized that he had left his hat in the hole where he had been hiding. He felt naked without it, but he knew he dared not move to retrieve it. He turned his head slightly, hugging tight against the pine tree. He must not move.

  It seemed to Carlos that he stood that way, unmoving, for hours. His legs ached, his neck was stiff. And the stings still hurt and began to itch. He knew he could not scratch those places where he had been bitten, and it was torture to just stand there as the poison seeped into his flesh, his veins. Small as the bites were, they were annoying. Maddening at times. He ached to scratch the itching places, but he stood there, knowing his life depended on it.

  The man on horseback rode on, up the line and back, disturbing the bushes, stopping to look at something suspicious, slowing his horse every few yards. Looking, looking, always looking. Carlos cringed as one of the ant bites on his neck flared and stung again, then began to i
tch as if something unseen was burrowing into his flesh.

  Then he felt the thirst. His throat began to dry out until it was parched. He felt hot all over his body. He felt sick to his stomach. But there was nothing in it. He had not eaten, nor taken coffee. He was empty and drying out. He licked his lips, and there was very little saliva. He wanted to stoop down and find a small pebble to put in his mouth. That would help take away the thirst. But he could not move. He would not move.

  Then, after what seemed like hours, like an eternity, he heard voices.

  It took him a moment, but Carlos realized they were calling out to the man who was hunting for him.

  “Toad, come on down,” one of the men shouted.

  “Ain’t found him yet.”

  “Let it go. We’re going to burn down the whole shebang.”

  “Whooeee,” Toad yelled, and Carlos saw his horse blur by him, then show his rump as it galloped down the slope toward the barn and dwellings.

  “Mierda,” Carlos said, and scratched his neck, legs, and belly.

  He walked slowly down to the edge of the timber and stood behind a tree that shielded his entire body. He peeked out and watched the stalking man ride down to the barn and dismount.

  Two other men were just walking into the barn. The one called Toad entered the barn behind them. Several moments passed by, and then Carlos saw a thin plume of smoke rising from the hayloft window. Smoke leaked from the roof, spewing out from beneath the eaves on the three sides he could see. The three men emerged from the barn carrying torches. One was carrying a shovel, another a rake, and the third a bucket full of flames.

  They ran down to his bunkhouse, and the one with the bucket opened the door and threw the entire bucket inside. The other two split off. One ran to Julio’s bunkhouse, the last one dashed to the main house. Soon, there was smoke rising from each of the dwellings. The three men mounted their horses and rode off toward the creek.

  Carlos looked at the long valley. There was not a single head of cattle to be seen. The pasture was empty of all life. He saw dust rising from across the creek, and then he ran down to the well and pulled up a bucket of sloshing water, untied the rope, and lugged it to the main house. He opened the front door and flames leaped out at him. He threw the water through the doorway straight into the fiery wall that was just beyond the entrance.