El Paso Way

by Steven Law

  Pang nodded.

  “All right, boys,” Dutton said. “God be with us.”

  *

  The room was dark, as they’d expected. It smelled of perfume and sweat and smoke from cigars. It was a small room, not much bigger than the taberna at Hachita, but with a door in each wall led to another room. In the first room there was a solitary table with an oil lamp on it and four empty chairs around it. The lamp was lit but still shed very little light on the windowless room.

  Though the room was empty, they could hear voices and the laughing of women. They walked forward and peeked into the other room, and there were several men sitting on stuffed chairs while women in corsets gave them liquor to drink and bare skin to touch. They found a table against the wall and sat down. Enrique acknowledged a stairway in the far corner of the room and a short balcony above.

  A woman came to them. She was young, with long brown hair and brown eyes, but not a Mexican. Enrique saw something familiar in her eyes, but thought little of it.

  “This is a private place. You do not belong here.” Her voice was hollow and coarse, without emotion.

  Dutton pulled out his leather pouch of silver and tossed four coins on the table. “Whiskey if you got it. Preferably the Tennessee or Kentucky kind.”

  The young woman looked at the coins cautiously. “I see that it is not only whiskey that you want.”

  “Bring the bottle,” Dutton said. “And tell your boss we have business.”

  She swiped up the coins. Enrique kept looking at her face. She returned a few minutes later with a bottle and three shot glasses. She poured for them. Dutton was quick to slug his whiskey down, but Pang hesitated. Enrique leaned forward to have a better look at the young woman.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere before,” he said.

  The young woman looked at him closely and studied him for a moment, then poured Dutton another shot. “No, I would remember. I do not know you.”

  Enrique brought up his glass and drank half of the whiskey in it. He stretched his mouth then closed his eyes and drank the rest. The woman tried to pour him another, but he grabbed her wrist. Whiskey slopped out of the bottle and onto the table. She looked at his hand, then directly at him.

  “Are you sure, señorita?” he said.

  “I do not know you.” She jerked her arm from his grasp and walked away.

  Enrique thought long and hard about her. He was sure of his intuition, but he could not place her. The only location he likely could have seen her was Tucson. It was the only place where he’d seen other people, especially a woman like this. Very few strangers ever wandered into the mission. Especially women, or beautiful women for that matter. But there was something different about her. And it was in her eyes that he had seen it.

  They watched her walk up the stairs and to a door by the balcony. She knocked and a wedge of light appeared for a moment, then a man appeared at the rail. His face was dark and leathery, clean-shaven but sun-worn like a dried apple. He looked over the rail at them, shook his head, spoke something to the woman, then went back into the room and closed the door. She walked back down the stairs, holding up her cotton skirt as she stepped. This was the first time Enrique had seen her from this point of view. Though she was attractive, she was not done up and she looked tired and overworked.

  She walked back to their table and looked directly at Dutton. “My patrón says he does not know you and wishes you to have your drink and leave.”

  She turned to walk away, but Dutton stopped her.

  “Tell your patrón that we have three young girls with golden hair at our camp and we’re looking for a buyer.”

  Enrique was surprised at Dutton’s boldness.

  The woman looked at Dutton silently for a moment, then back at Enrique. “You do not look like the type. You look more like bounty hunters, or maybe Rangers. I must ask you to leave now.”

  She walked away and left the room through a swinging door that led to a kitchen. A minute later she walked back in and tended to her business as if nothing had ever happened. Then men appeared in the same doorway—three altogether, young men, all Mexican, with guns holstered at their sides and one with a shotgun in his hands. They spread out across the room.

  “Oh, here we go,” Dutton said.

  A realization suddenly hit Enrique. “Dios mío!” He stood from his chair and turned toward the woman.

  “Hang on there, pardner,” Dutton said. “We can’t just go head-to-head with these hombres.”

  Enrique walked toward the woman. Dutton and Pang shared their confusion, then followed him immediately, and the man closest to the bar moved in. Enrique stopped, grabbed the woman’s arm, and turned her toward him. She looked at him with scared eyes.

  “Tengo hambre,” he said.

  She looked perplexed. “This is not a restaurante, señor.”

  They stared at each other silently, and the more he looked at her, the more sure he was.

  “But only you know what I like. Remember, Amelia? Huevos con pimientas—”

  Her jaw dropped then quivered, and her eyes studied him and welled with tears.

  A shotgun blast went off. Enrique grabbed his sister and pushed her to the floor. Across the room the entertaining women screamed, and along with their customers they dove for cover.

  Dutton picked up a chair and threw it at one of the armed men. It gave the sheriff just enough time to run and tackle the man, wrestle him, and knock him out cold. Pang somersaulted then dodged another man, kicking the shotgun before he could shoot. He then punched the man’s stomach and flipped him over his head to crash onto a table. The third man came running and aimed his pistol at Pang. Enrique threw his knife, and it stuck directly in the Mexican’s chest. He groaned and grimaced, shot his pistol aimlessly, then fell to the floor.

  All the commotion brought the man upstairs out of his room. He drew a pistol and shot three quick rounds. Pang dove to the floor for cover, but Dutton growled and grabbed at his abdomen.

  “Sheriff!” Enrique yelled. A deafening shotgun blast rang out from behind him, and the man on the balcony dropped his pistol then fell headfirst over the rail and down onto the tables near Pang below. Enrique looked behind him to find Amelia holding a smoking shotgun.

  He looked at her, her face gleaming and wet from tears. She looked at Enrique, dropped the gun, and sobbed. He embraced her. “Amelia!”

  He held her tight as she cried. But it was not for long, as she looked up into his eyes then held his face with both hands. “Mi hermano. Por fin, mi hermano.”

  “I am in disbelief,” he said. “I have long dreamed of this day.”

  She smiled lightly, her dark eyes very wet with tears. “I, too, have dreamed of this day. Just look at you. You have grown into a man.” Then her face grew solemn. “But it is not safe for you here. You must go.”

  He grabbed both of her arms. “I am not leaving without you.”

  “You have to, Enrique. He will kill you!”

  He gripped her arms tighter, clenched his teeth. “I have waited my life to find you, Amelia. It was my life’s will to do so. If I were to leave here without you, I would rather die. So risk my life to save you I will.”

  Pang shouted across the room. “The sheriff has been shot!”

  Enrique and Amelia ran to him. Dutton lay on his back, grimacing, his face sweating and his shirt soaked with blood.

  Enrique kneeled at his side. “Is it bad, Sheriff?”

  “One grazed my arm,” he said. “Then another went in and out my side. I’ll be okay if we can stop the bleeding.”

  “He must have a doctor,” Amelia said. “I will show you, but we have to get out of here quickly. My patrón has many friends.”

  They all agreed and helped wrap Dutton’s wounds with makeshift bandages that Amelia made from bar towels. Enrique and Pang each held a side of Dutton and helped him walk out the door and into the alley. They stayed in the alley and walked a block away to a back door, where Amelia knocked. There was no answer, so sh
e knocked again, several times and louder.

  “I’m coming!” said a voice on the other side. The door opened, and a bald, gray-bearded man wearing glasses and a black vest looked out at them. He looked at Dutton and down at the blood and told them to bring him in.

  The doctor had them put him on a wooden examining table. Dutton grimaced while the doctor removed the bandages. Blood ran down the table and dripped onto the floor.

  “Ah, you did well,” he said. “Just enough pressure to keep the bleeding down. Don’t look like anything important was hit. I’ll get you sewed up and rebandaged, then hope for the best.”

  “What are you saying, doc?” Dutton said.

  “I’m saying that you’ll heal up so long as we avoid infection. As of now that’s your only danger.”

  “Well let’s make it quick. We’ve got a job to do.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. You’ll need at least a month of inactivity. Maybe more. You need healing time, mister.”

  Enrique looked solemnly at Pang.

  “Now,” the doctor said, looking at all of them, “leave me alone to attend to your friend. You can all wait in the parlor.”

  They walked out slowly and followed the doctor’s instructions. He closed a curtain between the rooms, and they all sat on wooden chairs padded with red center-tucked velvet.

  Enrique looked at Amelia. “Can you help us?”

  “All I can tell you is to leave town. If I go with you, they will track me down and we will all die. So go and spare your lives while you still have them.”

  “You know I cannot do that. Mamá and Papá, they are dead. Valdar’s men killed them. Did you know this?”

  Amelia stared gravely. “No, I have always wondered, but I did not know.”

  “Have you been here all of this time, in El Paso?”

  “Sí,” she said. “Most of the women he captures go to Mexico. But he kept me for his own.”

  The thought of it made Enrique regret he hadn’t come to El Paso sooner.

  “My patrón, the man I killed, he and all of his men look after me while Valdar is away. I always dread the day he returns. About a year after he brought me here, I finally gave in to him. Before that, every time he came to me I fought him. After a while I realized it was what he liked, so I stopped doing it, figuring he’d take me away and sell me somewhere else. But it did not work that way. He just didn’t come around as often, and I remained here, his prisoner, his mistress, his slave.” She looked at Enrique and smiled. “I kept my mind at peace only because of hope.” She knelt in front of him and held his hands. “Hope that one day my family would come for me. And at last that day has come.”

  He rubbed a hand along her cheek. “Yes, it has.”

  “That was a horrible day, when they came. How did you get away from them?”

  “Valdar and his renegades … they would have killed me, too, but I escaped. I lived in the wilderness for days. I thought a lot of our grandfather, and coming here to find him.”

  Amelia looked sadly away. “I thought of that, too. Occasionally, strangers would come, and I would ask them if they’d heard of him, but nobody had. I always hoped that one day someone would, and that he’d come for me. But I’m not sure even our grandfather could have withstood the power and influence of Valdar.”

  “Like you, I still hope to find him. The priest told me to have faith, because with the right amount of faith, all things are possible.”

  “The priest?”

  “Father Gaeta. He took me in shortly after Valdar’s visit. I stayed with him at the mission all these years.”

  Amelia smiled. “Mamá would have liked that.”

  “I owe much to him,” Enrique said. “More than I’ll likely ever repay.”

  “And he approves of this? You taking vengeance?”

  “He is letting me make my own choices.”

  “I am afraid for you, Enrique. Do you have any idea how bad these men are?”

  “Did I not see the bodies of Mamá and Papá? I saw more than I ever care to see again. It is what drives me. I believe it is my destiny. I have already killed Beshkah. Now there are two left.”

  Amelia seemed astonished. “You killed Beshkah?”

  “Sí. I was glad to do it.”

  Amelia stared solemnly at the floor. “Beshkah—dead.”

  Pang leaned forward, holding his hat between his knees and fondling the brim. “Valdar is coming back here, and he has my fiancée.”

  Amelia looked up at both of them.

  “That’s right,” Enrique said. “It is not only me and my own yearning. Pang has his as well, and together we will see justice done.”

  Amelia rose to her feet and looked out a window as the setting sun cast many shadows on the street. “There is a place not far from here, by the river, an old mine. When he comes to town with women, he hides them there until he is ready to cross the river into Mexico. I should know. I spent a month there many years ago.”

  “Can you tell us how to get there?” Enrique said.

  “No, but I can take you there.”

  “No, Amelia,” Enrique said. “It’s too dangerous. Stay here with Dutton and the doctor, and we will come back for you.”

  She turned to him. “You are forgetting, mi hermano, that I am your big sister. I have endured much since I was taken from you and brought here. My heart is hard but my mind is clear. There is nothing I am afraid of now.”

  Enrique acknowledged her willfulness. “All right. But what if we rescue Sai Min? After that, where do we find Valdar?”

  “Finding Valdar is never hard,” she said. “It’s knowing who to ask, and then finding the courage to face him.”

  Pang took a deep breath, his nostrils flared. “We’re halfway there, then. You supply the knowledge, we’ll supply the courage.”

  *

  The doctor sewed up Dutton and bandaged the wounds, and the new trio moved him to a hotel room and put him to bed. The doctor agreed to check on him hourly. The loss of blood made him weak, and sleep found him easily.

  Amelia stayed with him while Enrique and Pang went back for their horses. It was dark now, and they knew they’d be able to sneak into the alley without being spotted. But when they got there, their horses were gone. They retreated back to the hotel, and Amelia told them that she was sure the horses were taken to the personal livery of Francisco Juarez, her late patrón. She also told them that it was there that Valdar kept his own horses that he brought Juarez to sell.

  “Horses he stole, you mean?” Enrique said.

  “Sí,” she said.

  “It could be that the horses and mules he took from us on the trail are there as well.”

  “But we should not be greedy,” Pang said.

  “There will be a young livery boy there,” Amelia said. “He will not be difficult for me to persuade.”

  “Very well,” Enrique said. “Let’s go get our horses back.”

  *

  The livery was near the center of El Paso and almost a stone’s throw from Fort Bliss. While approaching the livery, they could hear the sound of a fiddle playing inside the fort and see the shadows of guards near the corners of the bastion. Amelia went inside through the main entrance of the livery, while Enrique and Pang snuck in on either side, through the corral and into the stables. As she had envisioned, the young Mexican stable boy was there, and she found him carrying a wooden pail of water. He seemed startled by her presence and slopped the water as he stopped.

  “Pedro,” she said. “Necesito los tres caballos de los gringos. Dónde están ellos?”

  Pedro dropped the bucket and ran. Two men appeared out of the darkness of the stables. Amelia recognized them as men who worked for her patrón. She took two steps backward, and then Pang swung in from a rafter above and lit on the ground in front of them. The men stood frozen for a moment, then one of them smiled, one front tooth missing, and lunged at Pang. The Chinaman darted to one side, and the man fell clumsily into the straw and dusty muck of the
stable floor. The other man rushed Pang, but Pang blocked his punch with a forearm, jabbed his chest, and as the man fell, wheezing, Pang knocked him unconscious with a jab to the back of his neck. The other man rose from the ground, his face partially covered with dust, making his lips appear pinker than they really were. Straw fell from his hair and his eyes glared as if they were equipped with their own weapons.

  He growled and dove for Pang, but Pang jumped, twirled on one foot, and brought the other foot up against the Mexican’s chin. He spit blood through his lips and his eyes rolled back in his head before he hit the ground. Slowly, he tried to get up, but Pang delivered the same crippling move to the back of his neck that had put his compadre out of commission.

  Enrique made his presence known, holding a pitchfork. Pang turned to see who he was, then stood at ease. Once Enrique saw the two men down, he leaned the pitchfork against a stall.

  “Glad I could be of help,” Enrique said.

  Pang wrinkled his mouth and shook his head.

  Amelia came forward and kneeled down by the men, then looked back up at Pang. “I’ve never seen a man fight like that. You have some gift.”

  “A gift taught by my father,” Pang said. “A good and wise man.” His face grew solemn. “A man whom Valdar murdered in cold blood.”

  Amelia did not know what to say, but she now understood his purpose more than before.

  Enrique put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get our horses and go find Sai Min. Then, we can pay our respects to Valdar.”

  *

  The young Mexican ran with all his might to the adobe hideout south of El Paso. He saw a faint light and stopped to catch his breath, then took off again toward the sounds of laughing and drinking men and women.

  When he came to the door, he knocked wildly. All grew silent inside, and then he heard pistols cocking. The door opened slightly, and the eye of a woman peeked out at him; then she turned and said: “Es el chico del establo.”

  The door opened, and Baliador looked out at him, his eyes glassy and red. “Qué quieres?”