Ambush at Shadow Valley

by Ralph Cotton

  ‘‘No,’’ said Hector, stopping Gates short. ‘‘There will be no posse, not if I am guardia.’’

  ‘‘Then you’ll take on Luis’ job and uphold the law here?’’ Gates asked.

  Hector looked to the ranger, then back at Gates. With a slight sigh, he said, "Sí, I will be guardia for Valle Hermoso, at least for now. I will do it so I can hunt these men down.’’ He pointed a finger at Gates as if for emphasis. ‘‘But I do not want a posse with me. It is better that I go alone.’’ Even as he spoke, a young boy hurried into the widow’s adobe and came running back with the bloodstained badge in his hand.

  ‘‘Anything you say, Guardia Hector Sandoval,’’ said Gates. He took the badge, wiped it off and pinned it on Hector’s shirt. ‘‘On behalf of Valle Hermoso I welcome and congratulate you to office.’’

  ‘‘Gracias,’’ said Hector, appearing humble. ‘‘I will do the best I can.’’ He looked around at the villagers and said, ‘‘Now I have to go. I must gather supplies and prepare my horse for the trail.’’

  Gates looked disappointed, but he tried to cover it with a wide smile. ‘‘Shouldn’t we celebrate first? Just a drink or two? It’s not every day a man becomes a lawman.’’

  ‘‘It is not every day a man loses a brother, or a town loses a good man like Luis Gravis,’’ Hector replied. ‘‘I cannot celebrate a day such as this.’’

  ‘‘You’re absolutely right,’’ said Gates. His smile vanished. ‘‘I meant no offense.’’ He turned from Hector to the other men and said in a somber tone, ‘‘All right, men, let’s go inside the cantina and raise our glasses in solemn remembrance of our dear friends. . . .’’

  Hector had already started walking away as Gates spoke. Watching the serious young man as he cradled the Winchester in his arm and headed purposefully toward the village stables, the ranger let out a breath, shook his head slightly and walked to where Black Pot stood waiting. He gathered the stallion’s reins and caught up to Hector before he turned the corner toward the stables.

  ‘‘Maybe it would be a good idea for us to ride together, after all, Hector,’’ he said quietly, leading Black Pot behind him.

  ‘‘Why now, Ranger?’’ Hector asked without slowing or facing him. ‘‘Is it because now that I am a lawman like you, we have become equal?’’

  ‘‘Wearing a badge does make a difference,’’ Sam said. But that wasn’t the reason. The ranger saw that nothing he could say or do would keep Hector from going after the killers alone. It would be safer to ride with him than to have him out there searching for the same dangerous men on the same trail.

  ‘‘But you are an americano lawman . . . a Territory Ranger,’’ said Hector in a prickly tone. ‘‘I am only a village constable, un guardia,’’ he said with emphasis. ‘‘To someone like you I would be only a lowly town sheriff.’’

  ‘‘To someone like me, a lawman is a lawman,’’ said the ranger. ‘‘It makes no difference whose badge is bigger or who can spit the farthest.’’

  ‘‘Oh?’’ said Hector. ‘‘Then you are saying that all lawmen are treated with the same respect by everyone in your country?’’

  ‘‘No,’’ the ranger said bluntly. ‘‘I don’t speak for everyone in my country. I speak only for myself. Most people in my country have respect for the law, and for any lawman. But there are some who have no respect for anything or anybody . . . and no regard for life and death.’’ He gestured a gloved hand toward the trail leading south out of Valle Hermoso. ‘‘You’re getting ready to go after two such men. I’m offering to ride with you. . . . Take it or leave it.’’

  Hector thought about it for a moment, then said, "Sí, I will ride with you, Ranger, because I want these men to pay for what they have done. We are both lawmen, you and I. We are both after the same thing.’’

  ‘‘Then it’s all settled,’’ said the ranger. ‘‘We ride together.’’

  Suela Soto and Nate Ransdale had wasted no time after leaving Valle Hermoso lying bloody in their wake. By the time they’d heard gunfire echo from along the street of the ordinarily peaceful village, they had reached a higher trail that wound its way upward through steep, rocky terrain. Leaving the two men behind had been no problem for them. Both men had been expendable.

  ‘‘Sounds like somebody’s dead back there,’’ Nate Ransdale said. He slowed almost to a halt and looked back for a moment in the direction of the gunfire while Soto continued on without a backward glance.

  ‘‘I’m hoping it’s the ranger,’’ Soto said, his horse’s steady pace not missing a beat, ‘‘but I’ve got my doubts. I figured Shala was no match for the ranger.’’ Suelo Soto had a small tattoo of two red teardrops dripping from the corner of his left eye. When his right hand was bare, Soto kept it closed enough to hide a large, circular tattoo on his palm.

  Ransdale looked at him and grinned. ‘‘That ain’t what you told him and Hirsh though.’’ Ransdale had no idea where Suelo Soto came from. Spain, Portugal, Guatemala? He didn’t know, but it was a fact that Soto had savagely cut more than one fellow inmate for speaking Spanish to him when it was assumed Spanish was Soto’s native tongue.

  ‘‘I told them both what I needed to tell them,’’ Soto said with not even the slightest trace of an accent. He nudged his boot heels to the sides of a dark roan. He led the big brown and white paint stallion that had belonged to Ramon Sandoval on a lead rope behind him.

  ‘‘Hirsh—that poor unlucky bummer,’’ Ransdale commented, shaking his head in reflection. He nudged his horse roughly in order to get back beside Soto and keep up with him. ‘‘I never knew him to have anything go right in his life. Nothing but bad luck.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, well . . .’’ Soto spit and said, ‘‘Even bad luck runs out. I saw that Hirsh was bound for buzzard bait as soon as we started planning this breakout.’’ He nudged his roan a little harder as the trail steepened beneath its hooves. ‘‘I’m surprised one of the guards didn’t kill him before he got out of range—the damned fool.’’

  With a dark chuckle Ransdale said, ‘‘You don’t even have a kind word for the dead, do you?’’

  ‘‘I’ve never had time for the dead or dying,’’ Soto said bluntly, his roan’s pace adjusting to the steeper climb without slowing a step. ‘‘Once a man is dead or shot up the way Hirsh was, he’s no longer any use to me.’’ Giving Ransdale a quick, sidelong glance he added, ‘‘That goes for anybody I’m riding with.’’

  ‘‘I’ll keep that in mind and try my best not to get shot," Ransdale said, his grin gone now as he got Soto’s message.

  ‘‘You do that, Nate,’’ said Soto. ‘‘Here’s something else you might want to keep in mind. Harvey Simms and the Hole-in-the-wall boys sent word to me in Yuma prison. They wanted me and nobody else. I brought you along for my backup, because I know you’ve got a reputation for being good with a gun. Your job is to cover my back. If you stop doing that, you’re no more use to me than Hirsh or Shala. Think you can remember that and not let me down?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I think so,’’ Ransdale said stiffly, not liking Soto’s attitude. ‘‘Think you can remember who helped you break out of that Yuma rat hole? Think you can remember it was me back there who killed the trigger-happy Mexican vaquero before he managed to get his sights on you?’’

  ‘‘Like I said,’’ Soto replied matter-of-factly, ‘‘that’s your job. Keep doing it, and you and I will get along real well.’’ He cut Ransdale a sidelong glance, and with it a flat smile. ‘‘Before you hooked up with me, did you ever suppose you’d be riding with the Hole-in-the-wall Gang?’’

  ‘‘No, I never.’’ Ransdale grinned. ‘‘But I knew when it came to robbing and raising hell, I always had what you’d call a ‘natural gift’ for it. I expect the Hole-in-the-wall Gang done themselves well attracting the likes of either one of us.’’

  Staring off across a deep ravine at a winding trail circling below them, Soto spotted a single, two-wheel mule cart and said quietly, ‘‘Well, well, look what’s going the
re.’’

  ‘‘Hmm . . . ,’’ said Ransdale, speculating as he stared. ‘‘Do you suppose there’s anything of value in that cart?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Soto replied. ‘‘Are you hungry?’’

  ‘‘I could eat, sure enough,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘All that shooting and killing back there has got my guts growling for something.’’

  ‘‘Then come on,’’ said Soto, batting his heels to the horse’s sides. ‘‘Let’s get on down there and get ourselves some fine Mexican hospitality.’’

  On the lower trail, the old man driving the mule cart had looked up and over and caught a glimpse of the two horsemen across the ravine before they’d ridden out of sight. Had he seen them in time, he would have raised his wide, straw sombrero to them in a courteous gesture. But since they had disappeared so quickly, he only shrugged a shoulder and turned back to the trail ahead.

  In the cart bed behind the old man, his fifteen-year-old granddaughter looked up from the weaving work spread across her lap and stopped working long enough to ask him in their native tongue, ‘‘Grandfather, what is it like in Méjico City?’’

  The old man smiled to himself in reflection and replied, ‘‘Ahh, mía pequeña, it is difficult to describe a city of such magnificence. It is something one must see with his own eyes.’’

  ‘‘But I know that I will never see it with my own eyes, Abuelo,’’ she replied sadly with a soft sigh, returning her attention to the weaving work on her lap.

  ‘‘How can you say such a thing? It is still the beginning for you. You have no idea what magnificent sights you will see in your life.’’ Her grandfather smiled again, watching the slow sway of the mule trudging along in front of his reins.

  ‘‘No,’’ the young girl said in earnest, her voice expressing some dark regret, ‘‘I have always known that I will never see Méjico City.’’

  ‘‘Always you are the gloomy one,’’ her grandfather said over his shoulder to her, his smile waning upon hearing the melancholy in her voice. ‘‘When I was your age, there were many things I thought I would never see. But I saw them.’’ He considered his words for a moment. ‘‘Those things I have not seen. Who knows, perhaps I may still see them someday. If not, so be it,’’ he added with resolve.

  ‘‘It does not bother you,’’ she asked, ‘‘knowing there are things you have always wanted to see or things you have always wanted to do, and yet you might never see or do them?’’

  The old man shrugged slightly. ‘‘If it is meant to be, it will be. . . . If it is not meant to be, then it will not be. Who am I to question what plans God has made for me?’’

  The girl declared quietly to herself, ‘‘I will never see Méjico City,’’ and returned to her work.

  The two rode quietly on for the next hour until the old man stepped down from the slow-moving cart and led the mule to a thin spring of water beside the winding trail. As the mule drew in the cool, mountain water, the old man listened intently to the sound of hooves coming along the back trail. Inside the cart the young girl rose up with her weaving in hand and asked, ‘‘Who is coming, Grandfather?’’

  Upon seeing the riders and the spare paint horse draw nearer around a turn in the trail, the old man said warily, ‘‘Sit down, mía pequeña. Stay out of sight until these two are gone.’’

  But it was too late. As the men rode in closer and slowed their horses a few feet away, before acknowledging the old Mexican, Ransdale turned his horse toward the mule cart and called out, ‘‘Hello in there, young lady. You may just as well step on out here. We’ve already seen you.’’

  ‘‘No! Stay down in there, mía pequeña!’’ the old man shouted to his granddaughter.

  ‘‘ ‘Little one,’ eh?’’ Ransdale grinned, recognizing the old man’s words in Spanish. He raised himself in his stirrups for a better look down inside the tall mule cart. ‘‘Now, you stand up, little one. Let’s just take a little look-see, make sure you’re not holding a nasty ole scattergun or whatnot.’’

  As the young girl stood up shyly in the cart, the old man said harshly, ‘‘What do you want from us? We have nothing of value for you.’’

  Seeing the young girl clutch her thin shoulders and turn her eyes away from him, Ransdale said with a dark chuckle, ‘‘Oh my, but I dare to differ with you, old hombre!’’

  Staring at the girl for a moment as a warm breeze swept her dark hair across her face, Soto turned back to the old man, his pistol out of his holster, and said, ‘‘We come hoping you might share some food with us. My partner here is hungry from the long day’s ride. Right, partner?’’ he called out to Ransdale.

  ‘‘Not me. Not anymore,’’ said Ransdale, without taking his eyes off the young girl. ‘‘There’s some things makes eating have to draw up and wait.’’ As he spoke he loosened his gun belt and stepped his horse closer to the mule cart.

  ‘‘No! No!’’ The old man cried out, seeing Ransdale’s intent. ‘‘Por favor, senors! She is only a child!’’

  ‘‘Shame on you, pard,’’ said Soto, giving Ransdale a mock look of disgust. ‘‘Ain’t this the very thing that got you thrown into Yuma in the first place?’’

  ‘‘It might have been a part of it. I can’t remember everything,’’ Ransdale said, reaching down and lifting a knife from his boot well.

  Chapter 3

  Evening light had turned pale and grainy in the hill country by the time the ranger and Hector Sandoval came upon the mule cart sitting beside the trail. Seeing the mule lying stretched out dead in front of the cart, both men stepped down cautiously from their saddles and walked their horses closer, their guns drawn and ready for anything. Yet nothing could have prepared either of them for the grisly sight they found awaiting them at the edge of the stream.

  ‘‘Oh no . . . ,’’ Sam said under his breath. The body of the old Mexican was draped over a large rock, his lifeblood still flowing pink down the middle of the stream.

  ‘‘Santa Madre . . . ,’’ Hector whispered, his gloved fingertips instinctively making the sign of a cross on his chest. In the water the naked body of the girl bobbed facedown in the shallows. Her head was scalped to the skull bone so severely and completely that her gender could not be detected until the ranger stepped into the stream and turned her over.

  Hector clasped a hand to his mouth and hurried a few feet downstream, as if to keep the ranger from seeing him lose control and heave violently. The ranger swallowed a black, bitter taste from his mouth and kept his eyes on the surrounding rocks and trees as he dragged the dead girl to the stream bank. He stepped over to Black Pot, took down his spare blanket and returned to the body. Hector came walking back, his gun slipping back down into his holster.

  ‘‘Walk the horses down and water them,’’ Sam said, his words still brittle and sharp with anger and outrage at what the escaped convicts had done.

  ‘‘No, I am all right now,’’ said Hector. ‘‘I can help do what we must.’’

  ‘‘Good,’’ Sam said stiffly. ‘‘Now walk the horses downstream and water them,’’ he repeated. ‘‘That is what must be done.’’ He gave Hector a grim look. ‘‘Nobody here is in a hurry. We got here too late to be of any help.’’

  Forcing himself to look down at the dead girl, her face and chest slashed and mutilated beyond any possible recognition, Hector said, ‘‘What animal does something like this to one of its own?’’

  ‘‘Only man,’’ Sam said flatly. His eyes still warily searched their surroundings. He flipped the blanket out and let it settle over the pale, tortured corpse.

  Hector looked the ranger up and down. ‘‘Does this not affect you? Do these people’s lives mean so little to you—’’

  ‘‘Stop where you are, Guardia,’’ the ranger said, cutting him off. ‘‘Don’t start thinking you know what I care about and what I don’t.’’ He nodded toward the land surrounding them and at the hoofprints leading away on the ground. ‘‘For all I know these men could have staged this whole terrible scene, stunn
ed us just enough to catch us with our guard down. I have to try to protect the living. I can’t protect the living unless I’m one of them.’’

  Hector turned his eyes to the rugged terrain. ‘‘But they know you are on their trail. Would they dare stop long enough to set a trap for you?’’

  ‘‘They’re running, Hector,’’ said Sam, stepping out into the water toward the old Mexican’s body, ‘‘but they’re not running scared.’’ As he spoke he dragged the old man’s body to the bank and laid it beside the girl. ‘‘Yes, they will take time to set a trap, or get drunk, or rob and kill.’’ He nodded at the girl’s blanket-covered body. ‘‘Or, take time to sate their own twisted pleasures.’’

  ‘‘I must apologize to you, Ranger,’’ Hector said. ‘‘I had no right to say such a thing.’’ He also nodded at the girl’s body. ‘‘All of this has affected me in a way I cannot explain.’’

  ‘‘I understand,’’ Sam replied. ‘‘I would be worried about you if it didn’t affect you. Remember, we’re all after the same thing out here, we lawmen. We just go about it in our own ways.’’

  "Sí, I will remember,’’ said Hector. ‘‘Now that I am a lawman, like you, I must learn not to let such a sight bother me, no matter how terrible it is.’’ Hector’s eyes were fixed on the blanketed body. Shaking his head slowly, he added, ‘‘It might take me some time.’’

  ‘‘Learn fast, Guardia,’’ said Sam. ‘‘Time has a way of stopping short on a lawman.’’ Turning to the horses, he took their reins and stepped away downstream, to let them drink in clearer water.

  Catching up and taking the reins from Sam, Hector led the horses and said, nodding back toward the bodies, ‘‘Which of these animals do you think did this?’’

  ‘‘Both,’’ Sam replied. While the horses dipped their muzzles into the flowing water, he stopped and scanned the winding trail as it reached upward around the hillside, then disappeared into the rock and trees. After a moment of consideration he said, ‘‘Nate Ransdale has been rumored with doing this sort of thing before. But he’s never been charged with it. If I were to speculate, I’d say it was his doing, and Suelo Soto went along with it.’’ He spit and ran a hand across his lips. ‘‘Far as I’m concerned, anybody stands by and allows something like this to happen is just as guilty as the one who did it.’’