Death Rattle

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Then they’ll pull off,” Purcell hollered.

  But only when the trappers and the soldiers both were well out of sight by anyone in the village—several miles on up the valley road to San Gabriel and well-hidden behind several intervening hills. And not before Scratch’s belly started crawling with apprehension that the pack animals were about to go bust and give in. He could see it in their wide, rheumy eyes, read it in the thickening phlegm around the nostrils of every animal straining around him. One thing especially telling was Scratch remembered they hadn’t watered the horses since early that morning. Hardly any bottom left in them by now.

  This chase couldn’t have lasted much longer before the Americans had to pull back, fort up, and force a showdown of it. But from all his years of experience with them, Titus Bass hadn’t been a bit impressed with the bottom, fortitude, or fight in the Mexican soldier. Not those around San Fernando de Taos who had left it up to the trappers to track and trap a large band of Comanche raiders. Not those drunk, jealous soldiers who had busted into the tiny cribs at the back end of a Taos bordello either. And surely not this crop of Mexicans who cuffed their whores around as if that brutality would make them big, brave men in front of the foreigners.

  “Tell ’em to pull up!” Bass cried at those fanned out in front of him the moment he watched one of their pursuers wave his arm and signal the others to rein back and pull around.

  He watched over his shoulder as the soldiers slowed to a halt, got their horses circled up, then lined out into two short columns to start back down the road winding through the tall hills, returning for the village after making a good show of it. They’d run off the infidel extrajanos. Showing the invaders who was boss in California.

  Titus thought of Captain Janus C. Smathers and his seafarers—hoping nothing the trappers had done at the cantina would make things hard on those few Americans who had come a long way under sail to do some business with the Californios. Here and there, up and down the coast, he figured there were plenty of Mexicans who didn’t mind having some foreign visitors—even if the Mexican government did not want to tolerate the strangers. And chances were good there were even more Mexican citizens who, even if they did not particularly want to rub elbows with any Americans, at least coveted those American goods brought to their coastal towns.

  Odds were, nothing untoward would rub off on Smathers and his crew because they had been long gone from the watering hole before any of the trouble raised its ugly head. Fact be, only one who could make things tough for the captain would be that cantina man. But then, any Americans who entered a foreign land had to figure that the chances were good someone, somewhere, wouldn’t be real happy seeing such well-armed strangers show up uninvited. That sort of thing lay in the cards. Americans coming in ships off the ocean. Or Americans crossing that great moat of an impenetrable desert, come all the way from the Rockies.

  Trouble was, these trappers were about to give the Mexicans one more reason to hate gringos.

  Not since the days of that great ’33 rendezvous had he seen near so many horses as this!

  None of those warrior bands of Shoshone, Crow, Assiniboine, or Ute he had ever run across could boast anywhere near this many animals in their individual herds. As he stared at the sight, Titus couldn’t reckon on how they would manage to get this many horses back across all that desert, and over the mountains too. But he was getting ahead of himself. First, they had to get the herds—and their own necks—out of California.

  Not to mention that little business about busting into the soldier outpost to free Frederico’s sisters.

  Scratch figured he’d just worry about one thing at a time. No sense in fretting himself over that homebound journey when they hadn’t even put California behind them.

  After escaping Pueblo de los Angeles by the skin of their teeth yesterday afternoon, the raiders hurried east into the foothills, at sundown circling south a little until they ran across a canyon where Williams and Smith determined they’d spend the night. It was a cold camp. No fires. Only some dried longhorn beef to chew on as they nursed their hangovers. Twenty-four men with pounding heads that made them grumpy, even a little belligerent, especially when six of them were awakened at a time to take their rotation on night guard, ordered to watch the valley and listen for the approach of any soldier patrols.

  But the self-assured Mexicans hadn’t pressed their pursuit. No one followed the infidels into the hills. So the trappers laughed at the cowardly soldiers who had given up the chase far too easily—and congratulated one another on this expedition that was turning out to be far easier than any of them had expected.

  In the cold, predawn darkness, Thomas Smith and Bill Williams, along with the four others on their watch, moved through the brush and those eighteen forms wrapped in their blankets and robes on the cold, bare ground. In minutes the raiders had gathered up their animals, slipped halters over noses or slid bits into the horses’ jaws, cinched down saddles, and relashed diamond hitches over the bundles on the backs of the pack animals. The shivering Americans moved out in the starlit darkness, the breath of man and horse alike spewing with the consistency of a puffy, silver gauze in the last shimmer of a sinking half-moon.

  Peg-Leg had them on a hillside overlooking a broad, oval valley before the sun tore itself off the hill at their backs. The meadows were thick with grazing horses. Williams and Smith quickly talked things over.

  Then Bill reined his horse around and announced to their twenty-two. “This here’s where we get on with what we come to this here Mex country for. Drive them horses north till we strike that valley where the mission stands. Just short of there we’re gonna turn east for the pass.”

  “You all drove horses afore,” Peg-Leg reminded them. “So you know what to do.”

  “A horse here or there gonna get fractious and take off on you,” Williams warned. “Let ’em go. Keep the herd together and let a few rambunctious ones go.”

  Titus snorted, “Didn’t think you was aimin’ to leave any horses behind in California, Bill!”

  As the men chuckled nervously, Williams grinned apishly and replied, “Only ones I plan to leave these greasers is the gentled horses they got tied up to some rico’s porch rail this mornin’!”

  Smith waited until the restless raiders got quiet. “Your bunch ready to leave off when the time comes, Titus Bass?”

  Scratch quickly glanced over the five who had elected to join him on their own quest for adventure. And Frederico’s eyes were on Bass too when Titus turned back to the leader. “I don’t figger any of us knows what we’re biting off, Peg-Leg. As for me, I callate my li’l ride’s gonna be lot more of a hurraw than get forced to suck down the dust of all those horses you’re gonna start toward the pass.”

  Williams brought his horse up beside Scratch’s, reached over, and the two of them grabbed each other’s wrists, squeezing tightly. Bill said, “You’ll watch that poor, half-skinned topknot of your’n now?”

  “I allays do my best,” Bass replied. “Don’t let your horse go step in no prerradog hole.”

  Tugging his hat down on his forehead, Bill eased his horse back, sawing the reins to the left. “Awright, you niggers! Let’s go run us some California horses!”

  None of them whooped and hollered as they started down the slopes, spreading out in a broad front nearly a quarter mile wide as the valley brightened below them, sunrise coming moment by moment. Soon enough there would be noise from the hooves to muffle any man’s exuberant revelry. But for now they swallowed down the urge to holler and shout. There’d be time enough once they got a few thousand head of horses up to the pass and started over for the desert.

  Jehoshaphat! More horses grazing down there than he had seen in many a season. And from what he could tell in the early light, the herds blanketed this meandering valley all the way to the horizon. Bass and Frederico, joined by the five others, angled off to the left away from the others, racing toward the west side of the grassy oval to sweep clean those slopes and
turn the Mexican horses north. Ahead of them and off to the right a half mile or more rode the first two of the raiders. Appeared to be Smith and Williams, driving those six broodmares still alive after the desert crossing right in through the midst of the first herds, threading their way up the middle of the valley.

  It almost took his breath away for a moment to watch that amazing sight from where he was perched up here on the gentle slopes, seeing how the California horses initially parted in fear as the trappers drove their six wet mares through their numbers, those herds regathering behind the two trappers and their mares to start loping north. Just like a man would take a lone strand of fringe, soak it in blood, and drag it through the sand … picking up more and more grains the farther he dragged it along the surface of the ground. Hundreds now, even more, streaming together in that one direction. North for the valley of Mission San Gabriel.

  For the first few hours they didn’t spy any sign of a Mexican, not until late morning when Bass spotted a small band of vaqueros appear on a knoll northeast of the swelling herd. Bill and Peg-Leg were intent on keeping the pace of the march slow enough that the horses wouldn’t tire before they faced the hardest work of their escape. Best to leave some strength for that climb into the hills, making for the pass. And by pushing the leaders no faster than a lope, there was less of a chance that the horses would tire of this run and drop out. Scratch decided this slower, more deliberate, pace of the march made a lot of sense … but the pace might well make it easier for any pursuers to catch up to the raiders.

  Pursuers like any band of angry vaqueros who would ride down off the hills to prevent the Norteamericanos from stealing this unbelievable bounty of Mexican horses.

  Scratch kept his eye on those horsemen kicking into a lope for the right side of the herd where Thompson and three others were strung out to keep the stragglers bunched. Ten vaqueros, maybe less. Two-to-one odds against the Mexicans wasn’t anything to worry about. The greasers were far better horsemen than they were with their weapons.

  The first puff of smoke appeared above one of the vaqueros. A moment later the faint boom of that gunshot rolled across the valley. None of the Americans fell, and the horses didn’t appear to shy. Then one of the Mexicans galloped in too close, and gunsmoke appeared above the far edge of the herd. A louder, deeper boom reverberated from those hills to the east now.

  “Bass!”

  Adair’s fearful cry yanked Scratch’s attention back to his west side of the valley. Just as Scratch was turning to his left, another gunshot rang out, just up the hillside.

  “Rifleros! Rifleros!”

  He twisted in the saddle at the cry, spotting the on-rushing horsemen who were warning one another that the Americans were accomplished riflemen. Titus spotted at least another ten, maybe a dozen, vaqueros starting down the slope toward the trappers. Another puff of smoke blossomed just above them and a shot rang out.

  Suddenly the small of his back burned, causing Bass to flinch so violently he almost pitched forward out of the saddle.

  Immediately shoving his reins into his right hand that clutched the rifle, Titus put the fingers of his left hand to the small of his back. More than tender, that shallow furrow along the muscles was on fire. Blood not only tinged his fingertips but was soaking the edges of that long rip made through his faded calico shirt.

  “Goddamn these greasers!” he roared as he stuffed the reins into that left hand again.

  “Gonna be just like Blackfoot!” Jake Corn bellowed, kneeing his horse to the left on a course that would carry him for the vaqueros.

  “’Cept there ain’t no damn greaser’s scalp wuth takin’,” Titus hissed, wincing with the pain the flesh wound caused him as the wind whipped past them.

  “The sonsabitches figger they can get the horses back from us?” Rube Purcell hollered.

  “They want ’em back bad enough,” Elias Kersey warned, “we better see to it they don’t get in close enough to the herd!”

  “Empty your gun only when you can empty a saddle!” Bass ordered, sensing the wounded muscles starting to cramp, hot and tight.

  “Chaguanosos!” one of the vaqueros shrieked in fury at the raiders.

  So, they call us desperados, Scratch brooded, wishing he were close enough to the man who shot him, within reach so he could rip out the Mexican’s eyes, his tongue, maybe his windpipe too.

  Another Mexican smoothbore popped as the horsemen approached within fifty yards, then angled away from a collision with the Americans. To Scratch’s rear, Frederico cried out. Bass turned in time to watch the Indian waver in the saddle, clutching at the horse’s mane as he struggled to reach down for the dangling reins. Easy to see from the way the guide bounced on the horse’s back that the Indian was not doing well. And by the time Titus slowed his own horse to match the speed of Frederico’s mount, he could see the dark smear of blood on the youth’s left arm, just above the elbow. The arm hung, but it did not flop around as if the bone had been broken.

  Snagging the reins into his right hand again, Bass shouted, “Do this!” He curled up his left arm tightly, pressing the elbow against his ribs, clamping the fist in the pocket of his shoulder.

  “Si” Frederico obeyed.

  “Get down there with the horses!” Scratch ordered in his poor Spanish.

  The guide would be safer in among the stolen animals than he would out here on the left flank, with these Mexicans popping shots at them.

  By the time Bass turned his attention back to the vaqueros, about half of them were peeling off to sprint along the slope against the direction the herd was taking. The rest, however, were still headed for the trappers, prepared to strike the edge of the herd at a sharp angle.

  “You can shoot ’em now—or wrassle ’em later!” Scratch bellowed.

  Three of the trappers’ guns roared simultaneously. The fourth an instant later. A vaquero pitched backward off the rump of his horse into the onrushing herd. Another wobbled in the saddle, clutching his belly. A third rider’s horse skidded to a halt, fought the bit, slashing its head side to side, then collapsed to its knees and keeled to the side, tumbling downhill, crushing its rider the moment it smacked the ground and rolled through the grass atop the screaming vaquero. The last rider spun out of his saddle, landing spraddle-legged on the slope, and didn’t move.

  From the looks of things, only he and Elias Kersey had their guns still loaded. Corn, Purcell, Coltrane, and Adair were about the business of reloading on the run: bringing up those long rifles, pressing muzzles against their lips to blow down the barrels in snuffing out any errant spark that might still linger from the last charge, or some tiny fragment of a smoldering patch. Up came the curved, carved powder horns, black grains flying like crushed peppercorns as the trappers attempted to pour what they could down the barrel, struggling to match their efforts to the rolling gaits of their horses. After spitting a lead ball from their cheek into the muzzle of the gun, most of the men yanked out their wiping sticks to ram the ball down against the breech. But Roscoe Coltrane seized his barrel near the muzzle, then swung the rifle butt against the ground as his horse continued its uninterrupted lope. More of the powder spilled and flew as the four scattered the fine, black grains into the pan before snapping down the frizzen.

  “They’ll be comin’ up behin’t us!” Kersey warned after a glance over his shoulder.

  Twisting round in the saddle where the trappers galloped at the back of the herd, Titus watched those vaqueros still atop their mounts turn away from their wounded and dead, regrouping as they stabbed their horses with those huge, cruel rowels on their spurs and bolted into a gallop. This time it was clear they were no longer attempting to match the easy lope of the herd and the American thieves. The Mexicans intended to strike back for the hurt just inflicted upon them.

  “Merciful a’mighty!” Adair cursed. “I don’t like havin’ them niggers ahint us!”

  “Keep a eye on ’em, boys!” Bass said. “They come close enough again: we’ll rein about and thro
w down on the bastards!”

  “Spread out now!” Kersey ordered. “Don’t bunch up!”

  Titus could hear the vaqueros hollering among themselves now. Only voices—nothing he could discern as words. Just the noises of men working themselves into a fighting lather. A shot rang out. At this range, and one of the damn fools was trying to shoot the Americans in the back with their smoothbores, on the run too!

  “Here come more of ’em!” Purcell screamed his warning into the thunder of the hooves.

  Far off to their right the vaqueros who had initially attacked Thompson’s flank side of the herd were angling sharply across the valley now as the stolen horses streaked on by them.

  “Be-gawd! They’re groupin’ up!” Corn shouted.

  Sure enough, there were more than ten of the Mexicans now arrayed in a wide front directly behind the stolen horses. Step by leaping step, moment by fleeting moment, the vaqueros were angling to the left on a dead run, racing ever closer to the half dozen Americans on Bass’s corner of the herd.

  For the moment, Scratch scolded himself—wondering what had ever come over him that made him decide on this journey to steal some California horses with Bill Williams. He’d never stolen a horse in his life, but here he was about to get shot in the back and left for dead by some greasers in a faraway foreign land where his wife and his young’uns could never mourn over his bones. How stupid an idjit was he?

  “W-we gonna turn and fight ’em?” Adair prodded, his voice pulsing, rising and falling with the horse’s gait.

  “No! We don’t stand us a chance like that!” Bass cried loudly. “Get everyone in there atween the horses!”

  “What?” Corn demanded.

  “Geddap in there!” Scratch ordered. “They can’t shoot us so good if’n we got all them horses around us!”

  Jabbing heels into his mount’s flanks, Titus spurred the animal into a gallop, weaving it a little left, then a little right, leading the way while he plunged into the back of the herd. His pace a little faster than that of the stolen horses, he led the others deeper and deeper still, putting more and more of the animals between them and their pursuers. Glancing over his shoulder again, Scratch saw how the five others were spread out right behind him—stabbing their way into the thick of the herd.