Laredo turned sharply in his saddle. “Then why in hell would they steal thirty head?”
* * *
Ten miles from that arroyo south of the border, Dunson, Mathew, Laredo, and the other four men riding with them that time had caught up with the rustlers.
Neither Cortinistas nor riders for Don Diego Agura y Baca. Just bandits, men wearing dusty beards and white cotton, with sugarloaf sombreros, Mexican-made imitations of Colt revolvers, shotguns, and muskets. Five of them and a barefoot, sixteen-year-old boy. Seeing their pursuers, the bandits had left the kid with the cattle and ridden back to meet the challenge.
“Damned fools,” Dunson had said, and drawn his Colt.
The fight hadn’t amounted to much, Mathew remembered. Laredo Downs had shot the first man out of the saddle, Dunson had taken two. Mathew shot a horse out from underneath one rider, winged another in the shoulder. The cattle had bolted, leaving the barefooted kid gaping as two men covered him while others went to catch up the rustled stock.
* * *
Mathew shook off the memory, knew he needed to focus on the present. Thinking, Dunson had often told him, gets a man killed in this country. “Don’t think,” Dunson would say. “React.”
“What you thinkin’, Mathew?” Laredo Downs asked as they came out of the arroyo, following the same path the rustlers and the cattle had taken.
“Not thinking,” Mathew answered with a smile at Laredo’s timing. “Just trying to forget.”
But some things stayed with a man. Forever. The man whose horse had been killed was brought before Dunson with the one Mathew had shot and the kid who didn’t even have sandals.
* * *
“There’s no tree here suitable to hang you from,” Dunson said. “So a horsewhipping it will be.” He had uncoiled the blacksnake whip.
The one with the dead horse jerked a stiletto from his boot. Mathew couldn’t remember who had shot him. Not Dunson, whose hands had been filled with the whip. Not Laredo, either. Certainly not Mathew, who had kept his eyes on the kid. It didn’t matter.
The wounded man turned to run. He caught his bullet in the back.
Only the kid remained.
“He was the only man amongst the whole damned bunch,” Dunson had said later, back at the ranch near what eventually, after Dunson’s death, would become Dunson City.
Mathew would never forget that barefooted kid, how he had looked at the dead men, then back at Dunson, then slowly pulled off his shirt, turned his back to Dunson, and wrapped his hands around the thorny branches of a mesquite. He had taken his thirty lashes less one without one word.
Dunson had left him his horse. Hell, Dunson had even left him two of the beeves that had been rustled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Six of ’em,” Teeler Lacey said, and pointed.
“That’s what we figured,” Mathew said.
“Yeah,” Laredo said, “but we didn’t figure on this.”
Mathew nodded. “I know.”
From the grove of mesquite and clumps of catclaw, they stared down into the arroyo where the rustlers had stopped the cattle, letting the beeves mill, graze, and drink from a spring that pooled water underneath a shelf of limestone.
“Hell,” Lightning said, “most of ’em’s sleepin’.” He let out a short chuckle. “Musta worn ’em out chasin’ ’em so hard.”
Which is certainly how things appeared. Two men, a white-haired man with a dirty goatee in dingy cotton and a young boy barely in his teens remained mounted, circling the herd of cattle easily. One of them sang a soft tune. To Mathew’s surprise, it was the old man doing the singing. The boy cradled an old fowling piece across the saddle and kept wetting his lips with his tongue. Yet he never looked back at the mesquite and catclaw where Mathew and the others stared down.
Near the spring-fed pool, in the shade, four men lay asleep in their soogans, sombreros covering their heads. A bottle of clear liquid—presumably mescal or tequila—sat on a rock between two of the sleeping figures. The sleeping figures did not stir.
“Somethin’s movin’ across one of ’em.” Joe Nambel pointed at a black speck crawling over the tan duck cotton covering one of the men.
“Tarantula,” Teeler Lacey said, and sniggered. “Idiots.”
Lightning shot Tom a quick look, but his brother didn’t notice. He just stood in his stirrups, rubbing his chin, staring at the scene below. Uncomprehending.
“Well, I’ll fix their flints.” Lacey began to pull his revolver, but Mathew stopped him.
“No.” He sucked in a deep breath, shook his head, and drew the Yellow Boy Winchester from the scabbard. “Let’s give them what they want.”
“That’s a fool’s play, Mathew,” Laredo said.
“Maybe.” Mathew’s head bobbed. “But we have to flush out those other four.” He tilted his head behind him. “They could be behind us.”
“You mean—” Lightning stopped in midsentence. Tom sank back into the saddle and drew his revolver. Lightning looked at his younger brother. “Those aren’t men in them bedrolls,” he said.
“You just figured that out,” Tom said.
Mathew grinned. He doubted if even Tom had realized that until hearing the conversation between Mathew, Lacey, Nambel, and Laredo.
“Teeler,” Mathew said. “You and the boys stay here. Laredo, let’s pay those boys a visit.”
* * *
The two Mexicans spread out as Laredo and Mathew descended into the arroyo and rode into the camp. Mathew kept his rifle butted against his thigh, the barrel pointed skyward. Laredo had drawn his revolver and thumbed back the hammer, but kept the barrel aimed at the ground. They reined up. No one spoke.
Mathew had to give the group credit. This part of the country lay miles from nowhere, and if Rurales or Indians or anyone might be in the vicinity, the walls of the arroyo would keep the sound of gunfire from traveling too far. Mathew saw the mesquite thicket lining the top of the arroyo, to his left, but he pretended to pay no attention to that spot. He nodded at the white-haired man.
“¿Habla usted inglés?” Mathew asked.
The old man shrugged and smiled a toothless grin. “Lo dudo,” he said, “pero nunca se sabe.”
That wasn’t the answer Mathew had anticipated. “I doubt it. But you’ll never know.” It made no sense. Nor did Mathew expect the old man to whip an old Manhattan Colt revolver from behind his back. Yet Mathew was dropping out of the saddle as the old man fired. His knees bent, and he stayed down as the horse bolted down the arroyo, past the kid, past the bedrolls that did not stir. Mathew did not even consider the kid who was drawing a revolver or the old man who had shot at him. Mathew aimed the Winchester at the mesquite at the top of the wall.
Gunfire erupted beside Mathew, and on the other side of the arroyo. Mathew waited, but not for long.
A big man in a black, gold-trimmed sombrero appeared with a shotgun. “¡Come mierda y muerte!” he cursed, and died. Mathew put a bullet through the bandit’s left cheek. One load of buckshot from the double-barrel blew his foot off as he fell backward. The second round shredded the mesquite branches above him.
Another bandit appeared far to the right of the one Mathew had just killed. Mathew swung the barrel, but was too late. The man, holding a lever-action rifle, spun to his side, dropping the rifle over the arroyo’s edge, then falling after it. Joe Nambel had shot that one before Mathew could draw a bead. The tall man somersaulted and landed hard on his back across the Winchester. He did not move.
Mathew’s ears rang, and the arroyo smelled of burned gunpowder and dust. Gunfire sounded around him, and he quickly scanned the arroyo and the top banks. The old man was on his knees, clutching his stomach, blood spilling from his lips as he prayed in Spanish. The kid, hand clutching a smoking Remington .44, lay spread-eagled, a small splotch of crimson on his breast, another hole in his forehead. Laredo Downs had dropped to one knee. His revolver smoked in his right hand, while his left hand held the reins to his horse, for Laredo Downs wa
s not about to risk being set afoot anywhere, anytime, and his horse was so well trained that it did not buck or resist, but stood there, ears alert, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, but no threat to run until it felt Laredo’s spurs across its flanks.
Six men, Mathew thought. The two left in the arroyo were dead or dying. Mathew had gunned down the one with the shotgun. Joe Nambel had taken care of the one on the other side. He heard more gunfire, and a scream off maybe twenty yards from where Laredo and he had climbed down into the arroyo.
“Got him!” came a voice. Sounded like Lightning, but it could have been anyone, the way Mathew’s ears rang. But the voice had not been Mexican. Mathew didn’t look that way. That bandit was no longer a threat. Which made five. Only one remained.
He thought: Unless they lured us here where more outlaws waited.
No. He jacked another round into the Winchester and saw the unfired cartridge arcing up and over and landing on the ground in the sand. He was getting rusty. He had already levered a fresh round into the chamber. Thirty-plus years ago, Thomas Dunson would have raised hell at him for such a mistake.
“You might need that bullet, Mathew! One bullet can mean the difference between living and dying in this country.”
He bent, keeping the rifle level, and instinctively picked up the unfired shell and slipped it into his vest pocket. He could hear the cattle running down the arroyo, frightened into a stampede by the gun blasts. But they would not run too far, and as long as they stayed in the arroyo, they’d be easy to round up.
After they had found the sixth man.
“One more’s left!” Laredo Downs yelled. He called up toward those lining the top of the arroyo. “Y’all seen anyone?”
“Maybe he runned off?” Joe Nambel called back.
“Cattle’s stampeding, Pa!” Tom yelled.
“Let them run.” Mathew’s voice sounded odd. He looked up, then heard a short gasp. His eyes landed on the old man.
“¡Qué putada!” The old man straightened, staring skyward, and shook his head. Then he looked at Mathew as the light faded from his eyes, and he sank onto his side, still staring, just not seeing.
A shadow crossed the dead man’s face, and Lightning bent over, withdrew a machete from a sheath on the man’s side, and tossed the big blade into the sand—just to be careful. As Lightning examined the old man, he suddenly broke out laughing, and pointed to the sandals on the man’s feet.
“First he stepped in some doo-doo, then he dies. What a shame.”
“Jiminy, Lightning,” Tom sang out, “have some respect for the dead.”
“Why?” Lightning rose. “He didn’t respect none of the living.”
Mathew was studying the dead man when something caught his eye. At first he thought it was the tarantula crawling across one of the bedrolls, but then he realized that the tarantula had stopped moving during the gunfire. What had moved wasn’t on the first bedroll, where the tarantula remained, but the third, and what he had seen was not a hairy spider but the case-hardened iron of a Colt revolver.
Mathew came up and put a bullet near the bedroll, showering the duck cloth and the battered green sombrero with sand.
“You can die in your sleep,” Mathew said. “Or you can sit up real slow.” He switched to Spanish. “Se llama a la melodía.”
The long-barreled Colt came up slowly, elbow on the sand, then the dark-skinned hand flipped the revolver. It sailed to the next bedroll. Slowly the rest of the figure sat up, the duck cloth and sombrero falling away. The black-bearded man in a fancy blue shirt with a silver crucifix dangling from his neck raised both hands. He shrugged.
Laredo Downs kept his revolver on the man, who seemed to be a few years younger than Mathew. As the man rose and stepped away from the bedrolls, and his revolver, Downs shoved his pistol in the holster and turned to Mathew.
“Well, I’m just a suck-egg mule,” he said. “That rapscallion could’ve gotten us all.”
“I doubt that,” Mathew said, keeping his rifle trained on the smiling bandit. “But he damned sure could have gotten me.”
“What do we do with him, Mathew?” Joe Nambel called out.
“Nothing,” Mathew said. “For now. But you, Lightning, and Tom need to catch up to that herd.” He called out to his sons, relieved to hear their voices.
“I got one of ’em, Pa!” Lightning shouted. “Shot him deader than he’ll ever be.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah!” That was Tom. “And you?”
“I’m fine.” He could hear now. He could breathe. “Get the cattle. Drive them back here. We need to get across the river and back into Texas as quick as we can.”
“What about him?” Laredo lifted his jaw at the one surviving bandit.
Mathew approached him. He never lowered the barrel. “I know you speak English,” he said, “and don’t tell me otherwise.
The man lowered his hands without asking. “And some French,” he said.
Mathew nodded. “So tell me this. Why shouldn’t I hang you?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Horsewhip him,” Mathew said.
He had tossed his Winchester to Lightning, picked up the long-barreled Colt the lone surviving rustler had dropped, and shoved that into his waistband.
Teeler Lacey immediately went to the Mexican, but Joe Nambel and Laredo Downs stared at Mathew, who could also feel the eyes of his sons boring into his back.
“You heard me.” Mathew’s jaw tilted toward Lacey and the Mexican bandit. While Nambel and Laredo moved to help Lacey lash the young rustler to the nearest mesquite, Mathew turned to pick up the blacksnake whip lying on the ground near the empty bedrolls. The whip had given Mathew the idea. He picked it up, loosened it, and walked back to the center of the camp, stopping in front of Tom and Lightning.
“Pa . . .” Tom said.
Mathew turned sharply. “I told you to get the cattle. Before somebody else does. Now get moving.”
Neither Tom nor Lightning moved toward their horses, and Mathew didn’t push them.
“He would have killed us without hesitation,” Mathew tried to explain. “His friends tried to kill us. He stole our cattle. Ask me, a whipping isn’t extreme punishment at all.”
The bandit let out a Spanish curse, probably from cutting himself on one of the mesquite’s thorns as his wrists were lashed to the branches.
“You don’t have to watch,” Mathew said, his voice becoming more and more hollow. “A horsewhipping is an ugly thing.”
Lightning managed a false grin. Tom wet his lips, but said in a detached voice. “We’ll watch, Pa.”
Mathew turned back to face the Mexican. He took in a deep breath. He remembered . . .
* * *
Bunk Kennelly’s eyes. Mixed with fear and anger. And the eyes of Thomas Dunson, who held the whip, facing the wrangler whose bad luck had caused a stampede. Three men had died under the hooves that night. They had lost three hundred steers.
Dunson blamed Bunk Kennelly. After all, the weary wrangler had been climbing into his saddle when the rigging on his scabbard broke. The Sharps rifle fell to the ground, discharged, and sent the frightened cattle into a stampede. This was early in the drive. They had yet to reach the Lampasas River. So Dunson said he’d give Kennelly twelve lashes.
When Kennelly refused to turn around, to brace himself against Groot’s wagon wheel, Dunson had seemed to brighten at what was about to happen. He lifted the whip.
Kennelly palmed his revolver. So did Dunson. But it was Mathew who fired first, the ball breaking the wrangler’s right shoulder.
Maybe that was Mathew’s first rebellion against the old man. He had done it to save Kennelly’s life, and Mathew’s intervention had certainly angered Thomas Dunson.
The old man had holstered his revolver, handed Groot his whip, and told Kennelly to pack his gear, mount his horse, and ride off. Mathew had never seen Bunk Kennelly again. Sometimes he wondered if the wrangler had made it back to the Rio Grande, or the wound had mo
rtified and killed him. Maybe it would have been quicker had he let Dunson drill the wrangler with a bullet between the eyes.
And later, Cherry Valance had grinned at Mathew, saying he was fast . . . but soft.
* * *
“Not that soft, Cherry,” Mathew heard himself whisper.
Laredo and Nambel had backed off to the bandit’s sides. Teeler Lacey ripped off the back of the young bandit’s cotton shirt.
“Oh . . . my . . .”
Mathew heard Tom’s voice, and he could see the pained expression on Laredo’s face. He let the blacksnake fall to the dust, and slowly Mathew walked to the mesquite, past Teeler Lacey, and studied the scars on the rustler’s back.
“He’s probably just one of ’em Penitentes, Matt,” Lacey said.
Mathew felt the bile rising in his throat. No, those scars had not been inflicted in the name of Jesus Christ. This wasn’t flagellation.
He recalled the kid that Dunson had lashed twenty-nine times all those years back. Could this bandit be . . . ?
No, Mathew determined. The teen Dunson had whipped would be in his forties by now. This bandit couldn’t be out of his twenties.
“What’s your name?” Mathew asked.
“No sabe,” the bandit answered.
“All right, No Sabe. I’m giving you a choice. Work for me. Or thirty lashes less one.”
“Mathew!” Lacey objected, but Laredo Downs told him to shut the hell up, and Teeler Lacey complied.
Sweat streaked down the young man’s forehead as he turned, lifting his chin to avoid one of the mesquite thorns. He couldn’t turn that far, but he could see Mathew’s face.
“Work for you?” he said in English.
Mathew nodded.
“Doing what?”
Mathew pointed down the arroyo where the cattle had stampeded. “Those beeves are bound for Dodge City. That’s in Kansas.”
“I know where it is.”
“Good. And I figure you also know your way around cattle.”
The man’s thin lips turned up in a smile. He shrugged as best as he could do, lashed to a mesquite.
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