Valley of the Gun (9781101607480)

by Cotton, Ralph W.

  “We could have company overnight,” he said. “The mine has guards they send out on their own. They wouldn’t know us from Orwick’s riders in the dark.”

  “I understand,” Mattie said. “It’s better we see them first if they come this way in the night.” She followed close behind as Sam turned the dun from the trail up along a thin path leading around the large boulder.

  When they stopped behind the boulder, a small clearing lay before them completely sheltered from both the trails below and above. Stepping down from their saddles, they led the horses across the small clearing to a thick stand of brush. As soon as they had dropped their saddles from the horses’ backs, Sam dragged a thick length of deadfall pine over beneath the large boulder, covered it with dried brush and twigs and built a small, sheltered fire. Mattie started wiping down both horses while he poured water from a canteen into a coffeepot, threw in a handful of ground coffee from a tin in his saddlebags and set the pot to boil. Then Sam poured canteen water into his sombrero and watered the horses.

  Sam stood and shook out his sombrero and nodded up the dark trail running beneath them.

  “There’s a good runoff pool up ahead,” he said, concerning the horses. “We’ll water them better come morning. There’s no cover there. We’ll want to get in early and get out and on our way.”

  “To avoid the mine guards?” Mattie asked.

  “Yep,” Sam said. “Men can get skittish and contrary when they’re man-hunting. Sometimes the hardest part of catching outlaws is avoiding other folks who are out to do the same thing.”

  The two sat down in the low firelight, drank hot coffee and ate strips of dried elk heated and softened over the short flames on the tip of the Ranger’s knife.

  As they ate, Sam noted the look on Mattie’s face. She appeared to be wrestling with whether or not to tell him something. Sam didn’t press her; if she wanted to tell him, she would, but if she didn’t want to tell him, he had a notion that no amount of questioning would pry it from her. Finally she seemed to come to a decision. Sam watched her set her cup down and wipe her fingertips across her lips.

  “I know where Dad Orwick is going,” she said quietly.

  “Oh . . . ?” Sam looked at her. He might have asked why she was telling him now. Why not earlier? But he wasn’t going to. It had something to do with him standing up for her with the posse, he thought. His action had gained her trust. Whatever the case, any information she gave him, he was grateful.

  “He has been setting up a new compound for his family in the Mexican hills above San Paulo,” she said softly, “in a place called Valle del Fusil.”

  “Valley of the Gun,” Sam said.

  Mattie gazed away from him, into the low flames as if speaking of Orwick conjured up old and terrible memories for her.

  “Lightning Wade told me Dad’s been gathering in all of his wives and children there for the past year,” she said. “He has always found Mexico to be more tolerant of how he lives—” Her voice took on a wry tone as she spoke. “He saw they let the Mormon Saints colonize there, so he decided to do the same. He figures the land will swallow up him and his followers.”

  “Is that where you were prepared to go kill him, if that’s what it took?” Sam asked.

  She sighed and looked off across the darkness for a moment, then back at the fire.

  “Yes, that’s where I was going if I missed my chance on the trails,” she said. “To be honest, once I saw you were all right, I was planning to cut out from you during the night and get back on his trail. Going into his compound in the valley would be my last resort.”

  “I’m obliged you told me,” Sam said. “I’ve never been to the Valley of the Gun, but I know the hills above San Paulo. It’s good hiding grounds. I can start searching out his compound once I get over there.”

  “Dad has a way of being hard to find when it suits him,” Mattie said. “I was there back when he first discovered the place years ago. By now he’s probably forgot I was ever there.” She paused for a moment. “What I’m saying is, I’ll take you there if you don’t mind crossing the border.”

  “I don’t mind crossing,” he said. “Seems I spend more time in Ol’ Mex of late than I do in Nogales.” He sipped his coffee and added, “So this means you’ve changed your mind about cutting out in the night?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “What changed your mind?” he asked just as quietly. “Because if it was me speaking up to the posse . . . I was only—”

  “I said I’ll take you there,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that for now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sam said with a faint smile.

  He watched the woman set her cup aside, wrap herself in a blanket and lean back against a rock. He sipped the last of his coffee, stood up, draping his blanket over his shoulder and slung coffee grounds from his tin cup.

  “I’ll just let you get some sleep now,” he said. “Let the fire burn on out if you like. Nobody’s likely to see us up in here.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going up atop the boulder,” Sam said. “With this half-moon waxing, I’ll be able to see a long ways in every direction.”

  She looked across the clearing in the darkness where he’d left his saddle near the copper dun.

  “You’re going to sleep on a rock, nothing to lay your head on?” she asked, in a concerned, almost motherly tone. “At least fold your duster for a pillow. Your head must still be hurting from the fall.”

  “I’m lots better,” Sam said. “Anyway, I don’t want to sleep too sound. I might miss something.”

  Mattie watched him touch his sombrero brim toward her and walk away.

  “Good night, Ranger,” she said under her breath, feeling the weariness of the day close in around her.

  Even as the Ranger stepped out of the small circle of firelight, under her blanket she eased her rifle up against her and closed her eyes with her finger inside the trigger guard and her thumb over the hammer. In spite of the long, hard day that lay behind her and the weariness she’d felt only a moment earlier, when she closed her eyes, sleep didn’t come easily.

  The Ranger’s coffee? Yes, partly . . . , she told herself.

  But the fact was, it had been years since sleep came easily to her. Anytime she fell asleep too soon or too sound, in minutes she would awake with a start, like someone dreaming of falling off the edge of a great precipice. Only in her case, it was not falling that terrorized her. It was the face of Dad Orwick hovering above her. She drew up inside her blanket and clutched the rifle tighter just thinking about it.

  In such short, tortured dreams she became a child again, and before her mind mercifully released her from sleep, once again she witnessed, heard and felt the pain of that broken child as clearly as ever.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to sleep too sound. I might miss something,” the Ranger had said. If only that could be her case, she thought, feeling herself give in only grudgingly, ready to stave off sleep at any point should the old dream return to haunt her. Careful, careful, she warned herself, drifting warily, hearing the crackling of the fire grow more distant in the darkness. . . .

  And in what seemed like only a moment, her sleep was over as the Ranger stooped beside her and nudged her shoulder with his fingertips. Her eyes opened instantly and darted all around. Already alert, like some creature of the wilds, gauging the safety of its terrain. She stiffened at his touch; her eyes fixed onto his, questioning, anticipating his intent.

  “What do you want?” she asked in a harsh, threatening voice. The warning growl of a she-panther, Sam thought. He noted the shape of the rifle beneath her blanket.

  She saw him stand up—a black silhouette against the purple sky, his rifle cradled in the crook of his arm.

  “Time to go,” he said softly.

 
“Oh . . . yes,” she said, catching herself, her voice going softer as sleep cleared from her mind and recollection came upon her. She looked at the smoldering coals barely glowing in the campfire. She saw Sam’s gloved hand extended down to her and she took it and rose, keeping the blanket around her.

  The Ranger reached out a boot and crushed the already struggling coals. He rubbed the fire site around in the dirt as it gave up its last waning puffs of smoke.

  “No coffee this morning,” he said. “If all’s clear at the water hole, we can stop after sunup and build a breakfast fire up in the rocks.”

  She only nodded, dropping her blanket on her saddle lying on the ground. In the grainy light of a half-moon, she adjusted the rifle into the crook of her arm and looked at the Ranger.

  “Old habits,” she offered, even though he had made no mention of her sleeping with the gun.

  “I understand,” he said.

  She stared at him. No, he did not understand, she told herself.

  With no more on the matter, Sam turned and walked to their horses. The copper dun chuffed under its breath as he walked closer. He pitched the saddle blanket, then the saddle atop the dun’s back. Cinching the saddle, he shoved his rifle into its boot and led both horses over to where Mattie stood tying her rolled blanket behind her saddle on the ground.

  She stepped over to her horse, saddle in hand. Sam watched in silence as she readied the animal for the trail. Feeling his eyes on her, she wondered if she had cried out in her sleep. She would not ask, of course. Instead, she cinched the horse and took the reins from Sam.

  “Ready when you are,” she said.

  The Ranger noted a tightness in her voice, but he let it go.

  “We’ll walk them down to the trail,” he said, turning, leading the copper dun behind him.

  —

  Dawn lay in a long, thin glow beneath the dark eastern horizon as the two reached the water hole. While the animals drank their fill, Sam sank six canteens into the water and stepped back from the edge while they filled. Without speaking, he reached out, touched Mattie’s arm and motioned for her to move away from the water’s edge.

  As she stepped back beside him, he nodded toward the water, the shine of moonlight on its glassy surface rippling slowly now, disturbed by the horses’ muzzles. A reflection of the moon wavered on the slightest ripple.

  “You’re easier seen against the water,” he whispered.

  She nodded without reply.

  Sam looked around on the ground for any sign of hoofprints. He understood that Orwick’s men might have bypassed the water hole, having split away from one another on the hillside. But it struck him as stranger that the guards from the mines had not been here. They would have had time by now, and they would have most certainly followed the robbers down here from the mine trail. Unless something had prevented them from following, he thought.

  Whatever the case, this was not the time or place to consider it, he decided—not here with darkness their only cover.

  He stepped forward, stooped and capped the canteens without raising them from the water. When the canteens were all capped, he lifted them at all once by their straps, keeping them close to the surface until they had shed their excess water quietly.

  Mattie watched as he stood and hooked all six canteens to the dun’s side for the time being. Stepping back from the water’s edge, he handed her the reins to her horse, turned and stepped up into his saddle. In a moment the water hole lay behind them and they were headed back into the cover of rock along the stretch of flatlands.

  As they rode along at an easy gallop, Sam sidled up close, reached over and hooked three of the canteens onto her saddle horn.

  “In case we get separated,” he said.

  Mattie nodded as they rode on.

  As daylight seeped over the horizon, they stopped amid a cluster of larger boulders and built a fire of brush and twigs. They made coffee and ate more heated elk from their knife blades.

  While they ate, Mattie looked at the Ranger from above her steaming cup of coffee.

  “When I told you I wanted to kill Dad Orwick, you didn’t have much to say about it,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Sam said. He sipped his coffee, waiting.

  She shrugged and said, “I found that a little odd. You being a lawman, I thought you would have had something to say about it.”

  “You mean try to talk you out of it?” Sam asked.

  “Some lawmen would have tried,” she said.

  “Yep, some would,” Sam said. He gave her a curious second glance. “Is that what you want . . . someone to talk you out of killing him?”

  “No,” she said firmly, “I’m just speculating.”

  The Ranger sipped his coffee.

  “Whatever happened between you and Dad Orwick happened a long time ago, the way you told it,” he said. “I figure you’ve had all the time you need to make up your mind whether or not to kill him.”

  “That’s true. I have,” she said.

  Sam shrugged and said, “No point in me reopening the issue. If you’ve made it right in your mind, who am I to question it?”

  She cocked her head curiously.

  “See?” she said. “That doesn’t sound like something a lawman would say.”

  “If it was somebody besides a man like Orwick, I might try to talk you out of it—for your sake, not his,” he added. “But there’re lawmen, bankers, posses all out to kill him. They post bounties that anyone is free to claim. I can’t say much in his defense when so many have legally demanded his blood. Had you said you were after him for bounty, I wouldn’t have said anything to try to stop you. Because your reasons are personal, that makes them no less justified, in my book. Is what he’s done to others any worse than what he’s done to you?”

  “No,” she said. “What he’s done to them is nothing compared to what he did to me. Not only to me, but to many other women.” Her expression turned dark. “We were none of us much more than children when he bought us, when he married us.”

  “Bought you?” Sam asked, hoping she’d keep talking, get some of it out of her system.

  “Bought, traded for . . . swapped back and forth like breeding stock,” she said. “That’s all any of us were to Dad Orwick and his disciples. All of it in the name of his self-concocted religion—his powerful ‘mandates from God.’”

  Sam listened as she acquainted him with her life as a child and as a young woman under the rule of a madman. He was determined he would listen for as long as it took.

  Yet, before she had spoken much further on her life with Dad Orwick, they both fell silent and swung around, guns up and ready to fire, as a strange horse peeped around the edge of the boulder and blew out a breath, giving them a curious look.

  “Stay here,” Sam said to Mattie as he rose in a crouch, seeing no bit, bridle or reins on the horse’s muzzle. He stalked forward slowly until he saw the horse step into sight, bareback, and dusty from the trail.

  “What is it, Ranger?” Mattie whispered.

  “Beats me,” Sam said. He stepped forward and rubbed the horse’s muzzle. He looked toward the boulder and said, “Let’s climb up and take a look.”

  Chapter 7

  The two climbed up to the top edge of the boulder and scooted forward on their bellies until they were able to get a good look out along the hillside to their right. Strewn out on a path, weaving toward them through rocks, brush and boulders, nine more bareback horses strolled along as if following the first horse, now standing over beside the Ranger’s dun and Mattie’s dapple gray.

  “Wild horses? Mustangs?” Mattie whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam whispered in reply. “They look too well fed and curried.” He studied the hillside for a long while, still puzzled. “We’re going to have to see what they’re doin
g here, though. Anything out of the ordinary is cause for concern.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have to round them up,” Mattie whispered. “It looks like they’re coming right to us.”

  “Another good reason to think they’re not wild,” Sam said quietly. “They scented us from a mile away. They wouldn’t come looking for us if they were wild.” He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of the water hole, trying to figure it out.

  “They’re horses that have been turned loose, spooked or something,” Mattie said, her voice less of a whisper now.

  “I’ve got it,” Sam said, still looking back toward the water hole. “It’s water they’re after. They came to our scent because they’re tame. They’re used to people and our smell.”

  “But where are they from?” Mattie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, moving back toward the boulder’s edge. “Let’s go down and ask them.”

  Sam slid over the edge of the boulder and took a footing on a thin, protruding crevice halfway down its side. Stopping, he turned and held a hand up toward Mattie. But she ignored his hand and slid down, took a foothold on the crevice for only a second, then jumped the remaining few feet to the ground.

  Sam jumped down behind her and walked toward the gathered horses, Mattie right beside him.

  “No brands,” he said, looking the horses over. He touched a gloved hand to the nearest horse’s side. He gave the animal a rub and saw no signs of the horse shying back from his gesture. Turning his back to the horse’s shoulder, he stooped and raised its shod hoof between his knees and looked at it. “No shoe markings. . . .”

  He set the hoof down and looked all around as the horses gathered around him and Mattie curiously. He gave a gentle but firm shove to get one of the horses’ noses away from the canteens hanging from the dun’s saddle horn.

  “They’re thirsty,” Mattie said, rubbing a horse’s sweaty, dirt-streaked neck.

  “Yes, they are,” Sam said. As he spoke he stepped over and took down a coiled rope he carried at his saddle horn and let out a couple of loops. “Somebody must’ve woken up this morning and found their corral empty. There’s a good chance someone is looking for these fellows right now.