“Damn it, man. I can see it’s a sidesaddle,” Siebert said impatiently. “What’s the idea trying to palm it off on me? Do I look like a woman to you?”
“Oh no, señor! You do not look like a woman!” the old Mexican said quickly. “And I am not trying to palm the saddle off on you. It is the only saddle on the place. It is the only saddle Sens Priscilla ever uses on Beauty.”
Siebert looked at Herjico closely and decided he wasn’t lying.
“Throw it aside, then,” he said. “I’ll just ride this big girl bareback ’til I get a proper saddle somewhere.”
“You cannot ride her bareback, señor,” Herjico said. “She will not allow it. She will only allow you to ride her sidesaddle.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” said Siebert. “Get her bridle on. I’ll take it from there. She’ll ride me any way I choose to ride. I’ve broken bigger animals than this—”
“But, señor, your wound,” said Herjico, trying to keep any harm from coming to the big mare if he could. “Do not start yourself bleeding again. You must take it easy until you are well!”
Siebert touched his free hand to his bandaged chest. The old man was right. This was not the time to be wrestling with a headstrong riding mare.
“Damn it to hell,” he cursed, “saddle her up. I’m through wasting time here. Just because she’s wearing a sidesaddle doesn’t mean I have to use it like a sidesaddle.”
“Sí…?” The old man looked a little puzzled, but he carried the saddle to the black mare and began preparing her for the trail.
Siebert looked at the hay-chewing donkey, then at the girl and the goat in disgust. A bean fell from his tangled hair and bounced off his bare foot. Son of a bitch…. He kicked the bean away and looked at the big, glistening black mare.
“Belleza, my gal, you and I are going to get along just fine, soon as you come to know your place and what’s expected of you.”
He yanked the reins from the old Mexican’s hand and swung up across the sidesaddle rig as if it were a regular saddle. He scooted around, gun in hand and tried to make himself comfortable while the old Mexican watched with curiosity.
“Hell, this ain’t going to get it. Not for long anyway,” he said angrily. He sat awkwardly to his left, his right leg cocked over the hard edge of the leather side cantle, his left foot in the saddle’s only stirrup. But it would have to do for the time being. He wasn’t going to sit like a woman—huh-uh. He felt his face burn red with embarrassment just thinking about it. “What are you laughing at?” he said to the old Mexican, who stood looking at him stone-faced.
“Nothing, señor.” The old Mexican shrugged. “I am not laughing, only watching, to make sure you are ready to go before I open the doors.” He didn’t mention to the gunman that he was leaving barefoot, hatless and without his gun belt. It was not his place to mention such things, he told himself. He only wanted this killer gone before Priscilla awoke.
“Well, now, old man,” Siebert said with resolve in his voice and his eyes. He looked over at the girl and goat, then back at the old man with a cold stare. “You want to tell the girl to go on back to the house?”
“Gracias. I do.” The old man swallowed a dry knot of fear in his throat. “Erlina,” he said in a shaky tone, “take Little Felipe and go back to the house.”
“But, Abuelo—” the girl started to protest.
“Now, my precious,” he said, cutting her short. “Go, quickly, por favor.”
The young girl read the urgency in her grandfather’s voice and led the goat out the front door and toward the hillside house. Siebert sat atop the black mare with his Colt raised and cocked in his hand.
“Now you can open the doors for me,” he said to the old man, staring intently at him.
The old man walked over to the barn doors and threw them both open wide. He turned and looked up at Siebert as the gunman stepped the black mare forward, stopped and looked down at him.
“Señor, I beg of you—” the old Mexican tried to say.
“Huh-uh, forget it, old man,” Siebert said with finality, taking aim down at Herjico’s bony chest. “Nobody beans me from behind and lives to tell it.” The Colt Pocket roared in his hand, but the mare only flinched slightly beneath him. Good gal….
The old man crumbled backward to the ground, a bullet through his heart. Siebert felt no power come to him from killing the old Mexican, only disappointment. He looked toward the house, then toward the trail. He tried adjusting himself in the sidesaddle, but gave up and sat leaning uncomfortably to his left. Damn it. He tried to shove the Colt down into his waist, but after three attempts he gave up and let the gun rest on his lap for the time being.
“Ride me out of here, Beauty,” he said, tapping his bare feet to the mare’s sides.
The big mare did not take the light tap as a signal to move slowly. She shot away from the barn so quickly Siebert had to clutch on to the sidesaddle with his free hand to keep from flying backward to the ground.
“Damn, you’re fast on the takeoff, gal!” he said, managing to right himself in the awkward saddle.
As the mare crossed the rocky yard, Priscilla ran from the house, staggering, half-conscious, the long welt left from the pistol barrel leaking blood down her cheek. She ran toward the mare, her arms flailing in the air, screaming in a language Siebert had never heard before.
“Huh-uh, witch woman, she’s all mine now,” he said, gigging the mare hard with his bare heel as she tried to veer toward Priscilla. The witch shuddered to a jerking halt as two bullets from Siebert’s Colt Pocket hammered and sliced through her chest.
The big mare reared and whinnied. She circled the yard and stopped beside the healing woman lying crumpled in the dirt. Siebert jerked the animal’s reins and pulled it back a step, taking control.
Priscilla managed to push herself up onto an elbow.
“Look at you now, witch,” Siebert said. “For a woman who can’t die, your future doesn’t look real promising.” He grinned darkly and held the smoking Colt up in his hand.
The mare thrashed, trying to buck the man from her back. But Siebert held her in check, the steel bit in her mouth twisting her lips mercilessly to one side.
“Keep it up, I’ll shoot you too,” Siebert warned, pointing the barrel down at the mare’s black withers.
“No, Beauty, no, usted debe vivar! You must live!” Priscilla rasped to the mare.
The big mare seemed to understand; she settled a little and whinnied under her breath.
“You best listen to her, mare,” Siebert said, the pain in his wound intensifying. “It’s the best advice you’ll get all day.” He laughed and looked back down at Priscilla in the dirt.
The healing woman lay whispering, as if chanting to the mare.
“How about one for the trail?” he said after listening curiously for a moment. Cocking the small Colt, he shot another blast of gunfire into Priscilla, sending her flat to the ground. The mare whinnied and screamed in grief and horror.
“Shut the hell up,” Siebert commanded, waiting for just a second to feel what power he might gain from killing the healing woman. Nothing came to him right way, but it would; he knew it would.
He jerked the mare’s reins with brutal force. The big animal continued whinnying but turned and raced away. Siebert laughed under his breath in spite of his throbbing wound. “You just need a strong hand, is all,” he said, sitting awkwardly in the sidesaddle. As he rode away, he looked back and saw the girl and her goat race from the house, across the yard.
“Sens Priscilla! Sens Priscilla!” Siebert heard the child cry out as she ran. He wasn’t going to waste a bullet on her, he told himself. He only shook his head and started to ride away.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed, realizing for the first time that he’d forgotten his hat, his remaining left boot and his gun belt. This ain’t like you, Aces, he thought. Get a grip on yourself…. He turned the big mare and rode back toward the house.
Chapter 6
Riding
in, Sam knew something was wrong. He’d heard the gunfire from a long way across a deep canyon, so he’d circled the house warily under cover of the sparse woods. Riding first to the open barn door, he’d seen the body of the old Mexican lying on the dirt floor—no doubt the flat soles of the larger sandals he’d first spotted at the water’s edge. The donkey stood chewing a mouthful of hay in the corner of the barn. This was as far as the old man had made it.
What about the child? Sam asked himself as he’d looked around and saw the fresh hoofprints leaving the barn at a fast pace. The wounded outlaw had taken the donkey as far as he needed to in order to get help and a horse. Now, with a fresh mount beneath him, the donkey and its owner were of no more use to him.
“Hello, the house,” the Ranger said quietly from just outside the open doorway. He waited for a second in anticipation. When he heard no answer, he repeated himself in Spanish, saying, “Hola, la casa,” and waited a moment longer.
Still no reply.
He’d seen a wide, dark bloodstain in the dirt, a blood trail leading away onto the rocky hillside. Yes, there had been big trouble here, he thought, stepping inside the open doorway, expecting anything. Yet nothing could prepare him for what he found.
His rifle barrel made a slow sweep left to right as he entered the house, his finger on the trigger, the hammer cocked. But he lowered the hammer when he saw the dark, dead eyes of the naked young girl staring up from the dirt floor. A wide puddle of blood was drying beneath her head. A deep, terrible gash ran across her slender throat.
My God.
He let the Winchester slump in his hand as he felt for the doorframe, managing to find it just in time to lean back and brace himself against it. Beside the girl lay half of a young goat’s carcass, its rear carved away. Its picked-over hindquarter bones lay in front of the still-glowing hearth. Only then did the Ranger notice the lingering aroma of roast meat in the air.
He winced and forced his eyes back to the young girl, seeing the many dark bruises, cuts and burn marks running the length of her small, thin body. He looked at the rear door, which stood open a crack. He eyed the large pot of beans still soaking on the table, more beans strewn loosely on the floor. He no longer asked himself what kind of man would do this sort of thing. He no longer asked why. His job was to hunt him down, plain and simple.
As he stepped across the floor, rifle ready in hand, he took a frayed blanket down from a wall peg, shook it out and spread it over the girl’s body and the remains of the goat. Then he opened the rear door, gazing out along the shadowy tunnel in the flicker of torchlight still burning on the stone walls.
“Hola,” he called out into the cavern. He stood listening to his echo repeat itself until it fell away in the darkness. Then he searched for a good throwing rock on the ground at his feet, found one and hurled it away.
He stood listening to the rock clatter, bounce and echo until it finally came to a silent halt. After a moment, he opened the front door and gazed out along the trail, seeing the fresh hoofprints reach out of sight onto the steep, jagged hillside. Whichever outlaw had been here couldn’t have gotten over a half hour’s head start. But first things first…There was burying to be done here, he reminded himself.
He let out a tight breath, walked to the barn and found a short-handled shovel. Outside, he scraped the hard ground free of rocks, cleared a large enough spot for two graves and began digging.
When he’d finished digging, he wiped his forehead with a wadded bandanna, carried the bodies to the spot in turn, wrapped them each in a blanket and laid them gently into their respective graves. Gathering rocks from the hillside, he piled a mound of them atop the shallow graves to protect the dead from the creatures of the wild. Using the shovel as a hammer, he pounded a simple cross into the ground between them—two planks bound together with a length of rope. When he’d finished every detail, he stood by the graves, took off his sombrero, held it to his chest and recited the Lord’s Prayer to the high, rugged terrain.
“Amen,” he said after a further moment of silence.
He put his sombrero on, took the reins to both horses and led them to the large circle of blood in the dirt. He followed the blood trail until it disappeared from his sight, just like the other blood trail he’d tried to follow from the water’s edge. Looking all around at the steep hillsides and thin rock paths, he sighed and propped his rifle over his shoulder.
“This is good country for people who don’t want to be found,” he said to the horses. Then he stepped into his saddle, turned the horses back to the rocky yard and rode away, following fresh hoofprints along a winding trail.
In the middle of the night, Hodding Siebert sat atop the black mare at the edge of a cliff, staring down at a single candlelight burning in a window on the narrow canyon floor. He felt his stomach moan and growl, the meager meal of goat meat already leaving him on empty. Beneath him the big mare grumbled and pawed insistently, as she had all afternoon. This hardheaded bitch….
The outlaw squirmed in the unyielding sidesaddle. His fingers opened and closed, adjusting around the handle of the Colt Pocket lying on his lap. He had strapped his empty gun belt on when he’d gone back to get his boot and his hat. But he didn’t like the way the smaller pocket gun fit the large holster. He could use a larger gun, some bullets—maybe even a rifle.
His stomach growled again.
“Hear that, Aces?” he said aloud to himself. “You’re riding down there, that’s all there is to it.” He jerked hard on the reins, backed the restless mare and turned her onto a thin path running down the cliff side.
At the bottom of the trail, he heard the yapping bark of a small dog coming from the direction of the house. He stopped the mare, slid down from the sidesaddle and stood stone still for a moment, hoping the yapping would stop. It didn’t. Instead it came closer. He heard the dog barking through dry brush on its way toward him. An oil lamp came on in a window.
Son of a bitch!
The flickering light moved through the house like some fiery apparition. The yapping grew more intense; the sound of the small dog running grew louder, closer. Siebert quickly hitched the mare’s reins around a stubby juniper. He stooped down and searched around on the ground for a rock, a stick, anything.
“Break that little son of a bitch’s neck!” he growled.
Beside him the mare grew even more restless. She nickered loudly and jerked against the tied reins.
“Don’t you start too!” Siebert warned her. Grabbing up a palm-sized rock, he saw a small whitish blur streaking through the darkness, headed straight for him. At the house, the front door opened; light spilled out onto a porch. “Come on, you little feist bastard!” he bellowed at the yapping dog. “I’ll crush your damn little yapping brains—!”
His words stopped short as a huge mongrel shot through the air from his right, hit him at shoulder level and took him to the ground. As Siebert and a big, hairy wolflike creature rolled and tumbled back and forth, the little house dog bounced and jumped in place, yapping wildly. As Siebert beat the big dog’s side with the pocket pistol, he saw the light from the porch move down onto the wild grass and come toward him swinging back and forth.
Atop the fallen outlaw, the big mongrel’s fangs ripped and slashed at his shoulder, his face, the side of his head, his wounded chest. Siebert screamed loud and long; the mare reared and jerked at the reins until the juniper brush pulled free from the hard, dry ground. As she thrashed wildly, the bush swinging in the air, a shotgun exploded from behind the lamplight.
The little dog let out a yelp, as if the gunshot had actually hit him. The big dog froze in place with its wet jaws clamped around the side of Siebert’s head. Silence fell instantly over the chaotic scene.
“Turn him loose, Big!” a voice commanded behind the cloud of looming gun smoke. The mongrel opened his jaws and let Siebert’s head drop like a rock. But he stood panting, his big front paws planted on the mauled outlaw’s chest, staring down at him with bloody drool swinging from his fle
ws. A low growl persisted in the dog’s throat.
Siebert groaned in pain and fell to the side, the pocket pistol still in hand. The little black-and-white-spotted feist sat down on its hindquarters and whined anxiously.
“Mother of God,” Siebert moaned.
“Deje caer su fusil! Sea rápido acerca de ello!” said the voice in the flickering circle of lamplight.
“Wha-what?” said Siebert. “I mean, No hablo Mexicano!” He held up his bloody free hand between himself and the big dog as the dog’s low, menacing growl grew louder.
“I said drop your gun and be quick about it,” the man repeated in English. “How come you don’t speak Mex?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
“Because I’m not a Mex!” Siebert said quickly, gasping for breath against the weight of the big dog. “That’s why I don’t speak Mex. Please get this dog off me!”
“I won’t tolerate thieving Mexes around here,” the voice went on.
Siebert saw the shotgun barrels leveled down at him, one of them curling smoke.
“Jesus! This is Mexico!” Siebert reasoned. The growling grew more intense; the little dog joined in, springing up onto its tiny paws.
“All the more my concern,” the voice said. “Mex or no Mex, drop the gun or I’ll kill you where you sit.”
Damn my hide!
His impulse was to turn the Colt toward the man and pull the trigger, but in a flash, it dawned on him that he couldn’t remember if the little Colt was a five- or a six-shot—not only that, but he couldn’t remember how many times he’d fired it. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it to everlasting hell!
Siebert let the Colt Pocket fall from his hand.
“There, it’s dropped. What do you want from me?” he said, sounding like the one being put upon. “I only pulled it because your damn dogs were eating me alive.”
At the sound of Siebert raising his voice, both dogs growled with renewed vigor.
“Get back, Big. Get back, Little,” the man commanded the two dogs.
Big and Little, these sons a’ bitches….
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