Wife Stealer

by F. M. Parker

  "I don't want to talk about that bastard Redpath," Evan said tersely.

  "Since I'm helping you get her back, then it seems like a fair question."

  "What makes you think she slept with Redpath?"

  "From what you told me, especially the part that he deserved to die, and I talked with John Davis. I just put what both of you said together and came up with that answer."

  "Whether or not she did is none of your business. And further, you have no right to question me because you'd be going after the Valdes brothers for your own reasons."

  After a moment of silence, Ben's voice came low and thoughtful in the darkness. "I think it would make a husband feel better if the man his wife had slept with before she came to his bed was wiped off the face of the earth."

  "I get it now. You have the same problem. You're interested in Maude and she's slept with another man. Now you're thinking about killing him."

  "Maude's married. That makes a difference. "You can't just go and kill a man who sleeps with his own wife." Yet the thought of killing a man for a woman, even if she was a married woman, didn't seem all that wrong to Ben while lying in the dangerous darkness of the desert of Mexico.

  "Unless you do a good job on my face, no woman's about to marry me," Ben said.

  Ben was silent for half a minute, considering whether or not to ask a second question. Then he spoke. "Evan, I've got a serious question to ask you and would like a straight answer. Now that you've killed Redpath, how do you feel about it?"

  "I'm glad that I shot him. Now I've got a question for you. Don't the men of Canutillo have more than one wife?"

  "Some of them do."

  "Most of them, according to what I've heard."

  "Maybe most do."

  "Well, I've got news for you. While you were stealing horses, did you know that a federal law was passed that makes it illegal for a man to have more than one wife?"

  "No, I didn't know that."

  "That's a fact. And if Maude's not the man's first wife, then she's not legally married. She can leave him and there's nothing he can do about it."

  "Except beat her," Ben said.

  "Well, a fellow who cared about her could prevent that. He might even get the chance to shoot him."

  Ben realized that it wouldn't bother him to any great degree to kill the wife-beater Lester Ivorsen.

  "If that certain fellow needed a witness to help him claim self-defense, I know where he could get one cheap," Evan added.

  Ben was surprised by Evan's words, words that meant he would help Ben cover up the killing that had just been in his thoughts. Ben had been sorely disappointed in Evan in Samalayuca when he had failed to help in the gunfight. Now, as he evaluated Evan's promise to help cover up a killing, as Ben had helped with Redpath, and his total commitment to ride into Mexico to get his woman, Ben's opinion of him grew greatly. He was confident that Evan wouldn't fail him in the next battle that was surely coming.

  Ben made a decision that if Maude wanted to leave Ivorsen, he would help her even to the point of shooting the man if he tried to stop her. He had killed men for much less than a woman. In the Army, he had killed men for no reason other than that they wore a different-colored uniform. No, it wouldn't bother him at all to shoot Ivorsen.

  "We have to get the women back before any of this means a damn," Ben said.

  "You're right. I've got to sleep now."

  "Same here." Ben was glad Evan was taking more of the lead in deciding what should be done and when in the search for the women. Ben might be killed in the battle with the Valdes brothers and Evan would have to protect and guide the women north of the Rio Grande.

  He closed his eyes, begrudging the time he must wait to once again see Maude. As he went to sleep, he recalled the touch of her fingers upon his scars and her words that the Ben Hawkins she had known was under them.

  * * *

  The wild grass scissoring in the wind awoke Ben. He rose up on an elbow and looked around. He hadn't slept long, for he could still smell the lava rock of Gallegos Dos cooling in the night.

  The great bulk of the hill obscured the eastern half of the heavens. To the west, the stars were falling down the long, black side of the sky. Brutus had finished grazing and was close by, sleeping standing. The animal's ears were turning just enough to hear danger before it happened. Ben was glad for the faithful horse. With his keen hearing and sense of smell, he made an excellent sentry.

  Weariness was pulling on Ben's eyelids and he wanted more sleep. However, Maude and Rachel couldn't wait for that. He roused Evan and they rode into the darkness with the air still heavy with memories of the day's heat.

  FORTY ONE

  "Wait," Evan whispered urgently. "I saw something move."

  "What? Where?" Ben said, and instantly halted his reach for the gate of the corral.

  "On the roof of the freight station."

  Ben looked at the freight station, which was immediately adjacent to the corral. The building was long, with a flat roof that had a low parapet along its edge. The upper quarter of the structure was silhouetted against the star-filled sky. Ben quickly scanned along the top. At midpoint on the length of the parapet, he saw a star vanish and another one come into view. A man had shifted his body as he watched down into the corral.

  "I see him. There'll be others with him."

  Ben and Evan had warily approached the Valdes freight station in Terrazas to swap their jaded horses for rested ones. They had almost walked into an ambush. The gunmen, from their elevated position and hidden behind the wall, had an excellent location from which they could guard the horses and shoot would-be thieves. With the night brightened by starshine and the light of a moon, Ben and Evan would have been easy targets.

  "Carlos almost had us that time," Ben said. "Damn good thing that you got cat eyes and saw the man."

  "Close, all right. What now?"

  "I think I know where there'll be some horses. Let's get back out of sight."

  They drew away into the night and circled the station. Behind a second and smaller building, smelling of the dead ashes and iron of a blacksmith shop, they came to several horses tied to a hitch rail.

  "These will do," Ben said.

  "How did you know they'd be here?"

  "Those fellows on the roof wouldn't walk to the freight station. They'd ride. Since I've been here before, I knew the most likely place where they'd hide their mounts, and that would be right here."

  They selected three from the eight and rode the night away, and the sun into the sky, and on into the day until the middle of the afternoon.

  * * *

  Ben halted his small cavalcade on the border of the short-grass plain called Piano de San Augustin. He leaned wearily on the pommel of his saddle and studied the flat expanse of land.

  "What are you thinking?" Evan asked. He held his exhausted body in the saddle by willpower alone. His damaged lung ached and felt like lead in his chest. The old gunshot wound had robbed him of the strength and endurance needed to keep up with Ben.

  "We're within twenty miles of Chihuahua and thirty miles or thereabouts to the Valdes rancho. Carlos hasn't been able to stop us. I'm thinking he'll try something big any time now."

  "He may think they shot us at Terrazas."

  "He probably doesn't know about us avoiding his trap there. And I'm betting he wouldn't put all his money on that one hit-or-miss attempt at stopping us."

  Ben continued to scan the plain, which was some twelve miles east to west and about an equal distance north to south. On his right the plain lapped against the base of Sierra El Tstido, a series of jagged, stony mountain peaks. To his left, it merged into Laguna El Cuervo, a broad and shallow basin that would be a bog hole this time of year. He counted four herds of cattle grouped here and there on the plain and grazing the dry grass. He saw no cowboys.

  "Would you expect an ambush out there on the flat land?" Ben said.

  "No, I wouldn't. Horsemen could be seen for miles."

 
"They could stay dismounted and hide behind the herds of cows. If we came upon them, they could ride us down on our worn-out horses."

  "So what do you suggest we do? Find another way to the Valdes rancho?"

  "We've come straight down El Camino Real because it's the fastest way to overtake Maude and Rachel. We did it even knowing that way made it easier for Carlos to set traps for us. Nothing has changed. We want to get to the girls before they're forced to marry the Valdes brothers."

  "So we go straight ahead."

  "Right. Keep a sharp eye out. This is Valdes land and he could have an army of pistoleros ready to jump us."

  * * *

  “Come out,” Leo said firmly as he held the stagecoach door open and offered his hand to Maude. “This is the hacienda of the Valdes family,” he said proudly.

  Maude stepped down from the coach to the ground. Rachel came to stand beside her. Both looked around at their surroundings. The coach had just arrived at the hacienda and halted in the courtyard.

  Ramos Valdes, outfitted in elegant caballero clothing, came out of the hacienda and walked toward them across the stone-flagged courtyard. Leo raised his hand in greeting and went to meet him.

  “This place is like a fortress,” Maude said to Rachel. She spoke quietly so that the stagecoach driver and the pistolero, who were close by, couldn’t hear.

  “More like a prison for us,” Rachel said as she surveyed the six-foot-high stone wall that encircled the hacienda and its wide yard.

  The house was a huge one-story structure made of adobe and stone with a flat roof. A round thirty-foot-tall watchtower made of stone rose from the center of the hacienda. The walled compound contained some two acres and sat on the top of a low hill a half mile from the base of Sierra Las Tunas Mountain. The Santa Isabel River flowed past at the bottom of the hill.

  “The hacienda must have at least fifteen rooms,” Maude said.

  “More like twenty,” Rachel said. She was still considering how to escape. There had been an armed guard at the gate when they entered. At this very time a man was watching them from the watchtower. Her spirits sank as she realized the steep odds that were against them for slipping away.

  A middle-aged woman, fair-skinned with blond hair and wearing a blue dress, came from the hacienda and joined with Leo and Ramos. She took Ramos’s arm and the three moved together toward Maude and Rachel.

  “That must be Father and Mother,” Maude said nodding at the approaching man and woman. “Why, she’s an American,” she added with surprise.

  “She’s beautiful, and her hair is more blond than yours, Maude.”

  “She’s one of us and will help us get out of this place.”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  The three were close now and Rachel saw the woman had brilliant blue eyes. That explained tie source of Carlos’s and Leo’s blue eyes.

  “Aren’t they lovely, Father?” Leo said.

  “Most lovely,” Ramos responded. They were young and strong and should make fine babies. His sons had done very well in their selection of wives.

  “I am Ramos Valdes and I welcome you to our home,” Ramos said. “And this is Señora Valdes.”

  “I too welcome you,” said the woman.

  Rachel thought the woman’s expression showed sadness, even regret, at their presence here. Perhaps Maude was correct, that Señora Valdes might help them. Then the woman smiled and whatever she was feeling was hidden.

  Señora Valdes moved forward and hugged Rachel and Maude, an arm about each of them, pressing them tightly to her. Both girls stood rigid in her embrace. They were captives brought to this alien place by force. This was so regardless of the gracious greeting bestowed upon them.

  Señora Valdes felt the stiffness and moved back.

  “Which one do you claim?” Ramos asked.

  “This golden beauty here.” Leo took Maude by the arm. He looked at his mother. “Her hair is just like yours, Mother.”

  Maude pulled free of Leo’s hand. “Are we guests or prisoners?” she asked sharply. “If we are guests, then I want to leave.”

  Ramos’s face hardened at the question. Leo looked angry.

  “Helena, take them into the hacienda,” Ramos said. “Explain how things are to be for them.”

  “Come with me,” Helena said. She gestured at the hacienda and then walked off leading the way.

  Rachel and Maude glanced at each other. Rachel shrugged and nodded. Both followed the woman.

  Ramos stared after the two young women. “Without turning, he spoke to Leo, “Does anyone know that you have them?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “What about Hawkins?”

  “Carlos stayed behind to kill him. He should be here soon.”

  “Carlos will most likely succeed in slaying him. Even so, I will put two men in the watchtower and start men patrolling the grounds of the hacienda.”

  “Carlos wants a quick marriage. No banns announced.”

  “I agree. The sooner the señoritas are your wives, the better it will be. I’ll send a rider to Chihuahua for our priest.”

  “I stopped to tell him to come and perform the wedding ceremonies when I passed through Chihuahua. He wasn’t there, but his assistant said he was scheduled to be back within two days. So I left a message for him to come here when he returns.”

  “He will come promptly. Now let’s have some wine to celebrate the family’s good fortune to find such beautiful wives for you and Carlos.”

  Once inside the hacienda and out of the men’s sight, Rachel caught Helena by the arm and stopped her. “We were kidnapped and brought here as prisoners. You must help us to return to our homes in the States.”

  Helena removed her arm from Rachel’s hold. “I would never do that. My sons have chosen you two and it isn’t my place to act against them.”

  “Kidnapping is a crime, even in Mexico. You would be protecting them by letting us go.”

  “They are in no danger from the law for my husband is a powerful man with much influence.” She looked directly into the eyes of the two young women. “You can find happiness with my sons for they will make good husbands. It will take time and you must search for it, but it is possible.”

  A sudden understanding came to Rachel. “You were forced to come to Mexico too. And to become a wife against your will.”

  “What was your original name?” Maude asked.

  “That’s not important. I have been Señora Valdes for twenty-five years. I will die as Señora Valdes.”

  Helena looked from Rachel to Maude and back to Rachel. “The Valdes family is very rich. You can have everything you desire. Already Carlos and Leo have their own ranchos, and one day they will inherit great wealth.” She paused looking at them. “You will stay here for a few months and then be taken to your own homes.”

  “We want to go to our homes in the States,” Rachel said.

  “And right now, not later,” Maude added. She might return to El Paso, but she knew that she would never return to the house of Lester Ivorsen.

  “That will never be,” Helena said.

  “We have friends who will be looking for us,” Rachel said.

  “Maybe you do,” Helena replied. “However, you are many hundreds of miles from the United States and they will not find you. Even if they should, they will not be able to help you for my husband has many pistoleros, hard ruthless men who are loyal to him. It would be better if any friends of yours did not find you, for then they would die.”

  “You should help us to leave,” Rachel said pressing the woman. “You of all people know what this means to be kidnapped and forced to marry strange men.”

  “I disapprove of what Carlos and Leo have done. However, they are men and very much like their father.”

  “And they see how he has gotten away with kidnapping a fair-skinned wife,” Rachel said.

  “Why don’t they get wives like other men do instead of stealing them?” Maude said in frustration at the wom
an’s unwillingness to aid them.

  The woman looked stonily at Maude and Rachel. “I tell you again, you must find happiness with my sons for you will never leave Mexico. Now come with me and I will show you the hacienda and your rooms.”

  * * *

  "Un caballero venga mucho rapido," shouted the boy Carlos had stationed on the roof of the hacienda.

  Carlos stopped pacing the courtyard and looked up at the boy. "How far away?" he called back.

  "He's just crossed the arroyo."

  "Is he waving his hat?"

  "Yes, like a crazy man."

  "Bueno." The rider was giving the signal that Hawkins had been spotted. It was now time to kill the damn horse thief.

  Carlos moved hurriedly across the courtyard. The hacienda and the thousands of acres surrounding it formed a small rancho Ramos Valdes had acquired for the nonpayment of a debt. Carlos had chosen it as his headquarters due to its location on the south end of Piano de Augustin and near El Camino Real. From there he had gathered twenty pistoleros, ten from among his own men and another ten from the outlaws and thugs of Chihuahua's underworld, men that his father had used from time to time. He had promised payment of two hundred pesos to each man who rode against Hawkins. In addition, a bounty of one thousand pesos was put on Hawkins's head and five hundred on the head of the man who traveled with him. The bounty would be paid to the man who fired the bullet that killed either one of them. Carlos had put one of his trusted lieutenants in charge of the Chihuahua hard cases to insure they followed his orders.

  The message informing Carlos of the failure of his men to kill Hawkins in Samalayuca had caught up to him within a day after the fight. He would have liked to know what had gone wrong that had prevented four men from stopping the horse thief. No word had yet reached him from Terrazas, but Hawkins was now here and so the men he had placed at the freight station had failed.

  Carlos had been surprised to learn that there was a second man traveling with Hawkins. His presence worried Carlos. Could it possibly be that it was known Leo and he had stolen the two American girls? That the second man was riding with Hawkins to get them back? The girls were to be the mothers of the next generation of the Valdes family and must not be taken from Leo and him. They would not be, because the large number of men Carlos had assembled would overwhelm Hawkins and his companion.