by Jory Sherman
“You hear anything, son?” Peebo asked.
Anson listened for several seconds.
“Just my own breathing,” he said, and this time his voice sounded more like his own.
“Keep your eyes open and step light,” Peebo said and emerged from the silhouette of a tree as if he had been part of it and was now separated. Anson had never seen him until Peebo moved.
Anson hesitated when he passed the body of the slain Apache, but willed himself to go on, to catch up with Peebo and leave that place of death. He did not look back, but the dead Indian lay still in his mind, lifeless and yet a part of him, if not forever, certainly for a long time to come.
“What now?” Anson asked as he fell into step with Peebo.
“There’s at least one what got away,” Peebo said, “and we have to step careful. You look left and I’ll look right.”
“The whole bunch could be waiting for us.”
“Might,” Peebo said. “I don’t reckon, though.”
“Why not?”
“You get a good look at that Injun you kilt?”
“No.”
“Well, he didn’t have no paint on him. I figure them two just stumbled on us. Fact is, the one you knifed stepped into my hole and I come up like a snake at him. He liked to jumped out of his skin. Scared the living shit out of him.”
“How do you know? I didn’t hear him yell.”
“He jumped a foot straight up and about a yard sideways, son. He was plumb scairt all right.”
“Why didn’t you shoot him?”
“How come you didn’t shoot the one what jumped you?”
“He ran off,” Anson said, his words lame as they came out of his mouth.
Peebo and Anson crept along, stopped and listened, cupped their ears, breathed slow and quiet, heading away from the lightening horizon where the sun was already burning away the mist of morning.
Anson shivered in the chill dawn air, heard his teeth clack together, cursed himself silently as his hands and arms shook. He wondered if Peebo was as cold as he was, but when he looked at him, he saw no sign.
It was quiet, quiet and eerie, and he heard no bird singing, which alarmed him because he knew he should have heard some natural sounds at that time of day. The silence hung like a long cloak between them until Anson thought his ears would burst. He could almost feel it falling over his head and shoulders. He felt closed in, trapped. Mesquite trees were all around them, and beyond, a heavy mist blocked the view in any direction.
Anson felt like he was suffocating. Peebo just stood there, not saying anything, crouched with his rifle ready to bring to his shoulder. He looked like a statue, Anson thought. He could not even tell if Peebo was breathing.
“Peebo,” Anson whispered.
Peebo turned around. He held a finger to his lips as his eyebrows arched.
“Something funny here,” Anson said.
“What?”
“Listen. No birds. Nothing.”
Peebo shook his head, but he stood there and turned his head to the left, then to the right. Then, he slowly cocked his rifle, bringing it up to his waist. His finger curled inside the trigger guard.
Anson’s heart seemed to stiffen in his chest. He could hear the pulsebeat in his ear, a steady throb in the silence.
“Anson,” called a voice and the voice sounded familiar. “Over here.”
“Who’s that?” Peebo asked in a loud whisper.
Anson shook his head.
“Anson,” the man called again.
Peebo jerked around, swinging his rifle at his waist.
“Mickey?” Anson asked in a querulous voice.
“Tell your friend to take his rifle off cock.”
“Peebo,” Anson said, a sternness in his voice.
Peebo eased the hammer down, but left the frizzen pitched.
“Who is it?” Peebo asked.
“Mickey Bone,” Anson replied. “Mickey, come on out. We won’t shoot.”
Mickey Bone rode out from behind a mesquite tree. He was armed, but did not have his rifle or pistol at the ready. He looked tired and his clothes were covered with dust.
“Mickey, is that really you?” Anson stood, slack jawed, his rifle drooping in his hands. Peebo stood rigid as a post.
Bone laughed. “You ride a dangerous trail,” he said.
“Where are the Apaches?” Anson asked.
“Hell, Bone looks like an Apache to me,” Peebo said, an accusatory tone to his voice.
“He’s a friend, Peebo.” Anson paused. “I think.”
“I am your friend, Anson.”
“What happened to that Apache that snuck off?” Peebo asked.
“He is gone,” Bone said. “But, Culebra waits just ahead for you.”
“Where?” Peebo asked, still suspicious.
“There is a deep draw about a mile ahead of you,” Bone said. “He waits there where you cannot see him. Those two braves are not of his band, but he made them find you.”
“How come you know all this?” Peebo asked. “How do we know you ain’t just trickin’ us?”
“Shut up, Peebo,” Anson said.
“I come to warn you, Anson. I have tracked you from the place of the fire.”
“Why?” Anson asked.
“I am going to Mexico to bring my family to Texas. I did not know about Culebra, but Matteo Aguilar wants to kill you.”
“He sent Culebra after me?”
“Yes. And, there is another who would kill your father. Ten cuidado.”
“Who is this man?”
“His name is Reynaud. He is a slave trader, but he bears a grudge against Martin.”
“I never heard of him,” Anson said.
“Go back to your ranch. Tell your father that I have warned him.”
Anson let out a breath. His eyes narrowed as he mulled over what Bone had said.
“Why did you come to tell me all this?” Anson asked.
“It is no matter. I was riding this way.”
“No,” Anson said. “Mexico is south of where the Apaches burned us out.”
“You do not believe me,” Bone said. It was a flat statement. “No importa.”
“You run off once,” Anson said, remembering when Bone had left in the night. “I never expected to see you again.”
“Sometimes trails cross when we do not know that they will.”
“We can take them Apaches,” Peebo said.
Bone turned to look at Peebo. His eyes crackled with a lambent fire. “No, not Culebra. Not this time. He waits for you, and you will not see him until just before you die.”
“Bullshit,” Peebo said. “He stole my horses. I aim to get them back.”
“You do not know the Apache,” Bone said. “Anson, if you want to see the sun another day, you will take your friend away from this place. Now, I must go.”
“To Mexico?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you work for Aguilar?” Anson asked.
“Because he pays me,” Bone said.
“How do I know you won’t come and try to kill my father?”
“Because I told Matteo that I would not.”
Bone turned his horse and before either Peebo or Anson could say anything, he had disappeared into the brush. They did not even hear his horse’s feet, even though they were shod. It was as if he had turned to smoke, or become part of the mist.
“What do you make of that shit?” Peebo asked.
“I believe Mickey.”
“A damned Apache?”
“He once rode for the Box B, Peebo.”
“And now he rides for your enemy, this Aguilar feller.”
“Yes. But Bone doesn’t lie.”
“Well, now we got us a full crock, ain’t we, son?” Peebo stomped the ground in helpless anger.
“I think we better head west, to the ranch, Peebo.”
“Well, shit fire, that damned cuss Culebra’s gonna get away with my horses.”
“We can catch horses or buy t
hem, Peebo. I’m glad we saw Bone.”
“I ain’t,” Peebo said.
“He probably saved our lives.”
“Or he cut himself in for some of them horses.”
“No,” Anson said. “Bone wouldn’t do that. I know him.”
But, he wondered if he really did know Mickey Bone. He had not seen him in a long time, and his father hated him. I should hate him, too, Anson thought.
But, he could not. In a way, he wished he had ridden off to Mexico with Bone. It would be like it was when he was a kid and followed the Apache around like a shadow, like a puppy wagging its tail.
But, he was a boy no longer and Bone, he realized, no matter his warning, was no longer a friend.
21
KEN RICHMAN NUDGED Ed Wales in the side with his elbow as the wagon rumbled into Baronsville from the southwest, a Mexican driving the team of horses. Whatever was in the wagon was covered by a tarp, and it looked heavy from the strain on the shock flanges bulging underneath. Behind the team rode a tall man on a tall horse with four white stockings, flax mane and tail, a horse with spirit even though its flanks glistened with the sheen of sweat.
“What, a wagon?” Ed said.
“Nope. Coming up behind it. That’s Martin Baron himself, Eduardo, and he seldom comes to town.”
“What’s in the wagon?”
“I don’t know. But, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
Ed held a copy of The Baronsville Bugle in his hand. The ink was still wet. Behind them, in the newspaper office, a printer was pulling levers and gears were grinding as people gathered up the pages and assembled them. The headline read: CIVIL WAR LOOMS in seventy-two-point Bodoni Bold.
Martin Baron rode up to the driver of the wagon, leaned over and spoke a few words, then rode on ahead. He pulled up a few yards from where Ken and Ed stood, swung down from the saddle and wrapped one rein around the hitchrail. The horse stood hipshot and switched its tail at the flies that swarmed over its sweaty hide.
“Martin,” Ken said.
“Ken.”
“What brings you to town?”
Martin didn’t answer as he looked over Ed Wales, his glance raking him from balding pate to dusty boots. He took in the newspaper, too, pausing for a second in his visual survey to read the headline. The wagon stopped a few yards away and the Mexican drover set the brake and sat there, seemingly impervious to the blazing sun that hammered his straw sombrero.
“Ken, I need a favor,” Martin said. He pointed to the wagon. “I got that four-pounder there and it needs a place to sleep.”
“The brass cannon?”
Martin nodded.
“Why, I guess we could store it in the livery. How come?”
“Just so it’s no place Caroline can set eyes on it. She’s plumb spooked about that cannon.”
Ken nodded. “Consider it done. Drink?”
“No, I got to get back. See that boy on the wagon there?”
Ken shaded his eyes, peered intently at the Mexican on the wagon seat. “Don’t recognize him right off. One of your hands?”
“One that Anson hired for branding over on the Nueces side of the Box B. Name’s Jose Hidalgo. He and three other Mexican hands come back to the ranch with their tails tucked between their legs.”
“Trouble?”
“I don’t know,” Martin said. “They said Anson was all right. One hand stayed with him. They said they were about finished with the branding, anyway.”
“What made them come back like that?” Ken asked.
Martin slid his Stetson over the back of his head. His forehead glistened with beads of sweat. “I couldn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense of it. Something about a great big old longhorn bull. El Blanco, they called it. One called it El Blanco Diablo. Scared the living shit out of them.”
“Chased after them, did it?” Ken asked.
“I reckon. One of them had a horse gored, plumb reamed its guts out. They’re a superstitious bunch.”
“Well,” Ken said, “there is a superstition about white steers, bulls too, I imagine.”
“Yeah, I know. Some say a white steer’s the first to bolt in a stampede. Might be something to it.”
“But, you’re worried about Anson.”
“I am some,” Martin admitted. “He ought to have better control over the hands, him grown and all.”
Ken detected a note of bitterness in Martin’s tone, but he suspected the real problem was Caroline. She had not been quite right since the Apache attack, when Martin had used the four-pounder on them, had left more than one man and woman pretty badly shaken.
Still, this was not the time to press it, Ken reasoned. Martin had his hands full and he seemed in no mood to talk any of it out. Let sleeping dogs lie, Ken thought. But, the Caroline thing worried him more than Martin’s obvious irritation with his son, Anson.
“You could have a cup of coffee with us, couldn’t you, Martin? While I get that cannon put away.”
Martin squared his hat on his head and nodded. “I reckon,” he said. “Long as it’s not public. I’m in no mood for a lot of gossipy chatter from the womenfolk in this town.”
Ken suppressed the urge to laugh. Martin didn’t come to town too often and when he did he was the object of stares from all of the women, and some of them were married. Stares and whispers. Baron was still a handsome man, young enough to attract the pretty girls, old enough to set the older women’s hearts aflutter, their tongues to stutter.
“I know just the place,” Ken said. “Besides, I want you to meet the new schoolmarm.”
“Oh, no,” Martin said.
“Be quiet,” Ken said. “I’ve already staked my claim to her. She’ll make us coffee, then disappear. You won’t even know she’s there.”
“Why in hell isn’t she teaching school?” Martin asked.
“You’ll see,” Ken said, a cryptic tone to his voice. “Come on, Ed, bring that paper with you.”
“I should really stay until the run’s finished.”
“If you trained your people right, they can do it,” Ken said.
Ed shrugged, his face lighting up with a grin. “You’ve got me there,” he said.
Martin took a longer look at Ed Wales as the three men passed the wagon. Ken gave instructions in Spanish to the Mexican cowhand. The wagon creaked as the horse took up the slack in the traces.
Ed walked slightly ahead of Martin on his right, while Ken took the lead on Martin’s left. Martin saw a man with his shirtsleeves rolled up, ink on his hands, hair that was thinning fast on his head. A flask jutted from Ed’s hip pocket and Martin knew it didn’t hold apple juice.
He sized the man up as a hard drinker, but a hard worker, just the kind of man Ken would pick to run his newspaper. Ken had insisted that the town of Baronsville start with a newspaper and Martin had agreed, although he hadn’t seen the use of it at the time.
But, The Bugle had brought in settlers, merchants, farriers, blacksmiths, people of imagination and gumption. To Martin’s amazement, the town had grown into something more permanent than a tumbleweed, and seemed still to be growing. As they walked along, he could hear the sizzle of a handsaw, the ring of hammers on iron nails, the clap of fresh lumber and people were moving about the town as if they meant to stay.
Ken turned off Main Street and ambled down one he had named Poplar, although Martin saw no such trees. There were shops on both sides of the street, some finished, some still under construction, and he liked the feel of the shade thrown by the false fronts. At the end of the block, there was, indeed, a small tree growing that he thought might be a poplar, but he knew little about trees.
Ed folded up the newspaper, tucked it under his arm. Ken turned on a street he had named Baron Lane, and in a few minutes, the three men had walked to the edge of town, where a man could see for miles. In the center of their view, however, was a small frame house, and next to it, a building that was not quite finished, but, from its bell tower, Martin knew it was a schoolhouse.
“Nice,” Martin said.
“It will hold fifty children,” Ken said.
Martin laughed. “Back east, we never had more than ten kids at a time.”
“Baronsville is growing,” Ken said. “We only have a dozen or so children who want to go to school, but in a year or so, I expect we’ll be crowded.”
“You’re a dreamer,” Martin said.
Two Mexicans were working on the schoolhouse, and as they approached, Martin saw a young woman, her dress hiked up, her sleeves bunched, hammering a board on what would be the front porch.
“Hey, Grant,” Ken called, and the woman stood up. Two or three nails protruded from her mouth and a wisp of hair raked her face gently in the breeze.
“Ho, there, Richman,” the woman said, pulling the nails from her mouth. “Coffee’s all boiled, a-setting on the stove. It’ll positively grow hair on your chest. Or remove it, one.”
The men laughed.
“Who’s the tall one?” Miss Grant asked. “He looks like one of our nighthawks.”
Ken said nothing. The woman laid down her hammer and approached the men, a faint smile on her face. “Hello, Ed,” she said, stretching out her hand. “My name is Nancy Grant,” she said. “Pleased to meet you. Any friend of Ken’s is a friend of mine.”
“Nancy, hon, meet Martin Baron.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Baron. Don’t you own some cows or have a ranch around here?”
“Call me Martin, Miss Grant. And, yes, I have a few head of cattle.”
“And you must call me Nancy,” she said lightly. “Well, Ken, you and your friends go on inside. I’ll be there directly.”
Ken led the two men inside the small house, which was neatly appointed. They went to the modest kitchen where they could smell the coffee as soon as they entered. Martin saw that there were four chairs and he was surprised. He and Ed sat down while Ken got out tin cups and poured the coffee.
“What’s that about war?” Martin asked Ed. “I read your headline.”
Ed set the paper down on the table and unrolled it to reveal the headline. Martin stared at it for several seconds. “Civil?” he asked.
“Nothing civil about war, of course,” Ed said, “but that’s the term being bandied about in Washington and Austin.”