The Right Eye of God

by Bacon Thorn

  “A flash of light inside the branches,” she said. “It’s funny, the minute I saw the flash, I knew what it was. Such a small miracle, isn’t it? And yet it changes the odds for us, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it gives us an edge, but don’t forget—Esquivel thinks we’ve had the gun all along.”

  “Still,” she said, as if to reassure herself, “I think it’s very odd for the pistol to have fallen so far and landed in the only place that would cushion it from the rocks. You know it would have been smashed if it had landed anywhere else. Maybe it’s a sign that God’s on our side.”

  Navarre nodded his head, understanding the depth of her intrigue. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “I wonder where the other dog is? Buzzards or varmints could have dragged him away, I suppose.”

  Yuma accepted the explanation and plodded along beside Navarre thoughtfully. For the next two hours, they trudged at an even pace, his urgency and sense of close pursuit revived as the day brightened and grew hot.

  “How much time . . . ?” she asked after they had covered about two miles.

  “I don’t know, Yuma. Let’s stop for a water break.” He handed her the dusty water bag. It sloshed with a fuller sound as she tilted the neck to her mouth. Thank God for the tiny spring in the cave they had found, he thought. While she drank, he swept their back trail with the binoculars. Nothing . . .

  He couldn’t help grinning at her as she handed him the water bag.

  Her tangled blond hair, underneath the course blue-and-red cloth covering that resembled a paper hat that children wore at a birthday party, was streaked with dust. She had pulled it down over her eyes during the worst of the dust storm. Her face, daubed with dried mud and burned dark cinnamon, was devoid of makeup. She had lost two of the four buttons that closed the front flap of her denim skirt. And it flew open as she walked, revealing her fine brown thighs and lean brown legs. Sweat had soaked through the folds of the saltillo that rested against her neck.

  Her head was erect, her shoulders thrown back, and there was humor in her eyes. She was the only woman Navarre had ever known who could look and feel perfectly at ease in dirty rags and a somewhat barbaric appearance.

  Except for his T-shirt, beneath the rebozo and his crunched hat, he was exposed to the sun from his waist up. From the ragged bottom of Elidio’s shirt, she had torn a strip and bound it like the sweatband she’d fastened for herself around Navarre’s head. It kept some of the dust out of the wound reopened when the falling dog’s body slammed him against the cliff.

  Taking in the bright brown fierceness of Yuma’s bold femininity, he realized how proud he was of their staunch alliance and how much he cherished the caressing they had shared.

  “Well, what are you gawking at?”

  “Just thinking how different you are,” he grinned. “Scared?”

  “Yes, but not so much anymore. Somehow I think we’re going to get out of this. At least . . . I hope.” She laughed, her green eyes flashing. “You’re not the same either. I knew that something might happen between us. Afraid to admit it. Afraid it wouldn’t happen. Afraid it would. I didn’t see how we could . . .”

  “I know . . .”

  -

  Chapter XI

  -

  There came then a muttering, a chattering machine clatter that startled them.

  “Esquivel?” she asked worriedly, her eyes large and white.

  “I don’t know,” Navarre replied, stiffening in a listening attitude. “There it is again.”

  “It seems to be coming from up ahead. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well, the origin of sounds is tricky to figure out in the desert. They echo, rebound, and bounce around, confusing even the most astute ear. Anyhow, we can’t stay here. Come on, let’s go find out. We’ve got no choice.”

  He grabbed her hand, and they discovered, as they hurried, almost buried in the sand, a stretch of warped old wooden railroad ties from which the steel rails were missing.

  “These must be the relics of an abandoned railroad spur,” Navarre commented. “Probably built to haul silver from mines deserted long ago.”

  Ahead of them was a cleft in a rocky hogback formed by two mounds of stacked boulders. The massive stone cairns, which threw deep shadows, must have been built by glaciers ages ago at a time when a river ran deep and strong between them. Over the centuries the wind had patiently sculpted two rounded hills and sized trailing rocks on either side into orderly declining rows. The twin hills rose like sharp battlements at the end of fortress walls. Where the deserted railroad ties disappeared in a dry wash, there was a passage between the twin mounds slightly wider than a single car, making a logical slot for a vehicle to pass through.

  “I don’t understand it,” Navarre muttered as he drew Yuma into the shade of a rock overhang at the foot of one of the trail cairns. He took a deep breath. It was cooler there; the sun never fully penetrated the place where they stood except to change the distribution of shadows. It was bone dry and semidark, a refuge, and a lonely place for dying if that was how things were going to be.

  There it was again, but far off—a pulsing, rattling vehicle sound. Navarre warned Yuma with his eyes to be silent, and he crept to one of the stone buttresses that guarded the entrance to the area where they were hidden. Careful to keep his body concealed, Navarre edged forward and swept the desert in front of him with the binoculars. He was surprised to spot a rusty mound of steel rails partially covered with shifting sand and stacked parallel to the path that led between the boulders. How long, Navarre wondered, had they sat in the desert, forgotten, slowly moldering, and never reclaimed? Slowly he focused on the crawling white van blinking flashes of sunlight from its wide windshield. Esquivel, of course, with Elidio, other men, and dogs. He must be extremely edgy by now, Navarre thought with grim satisfaction, over the absence of his three dogs.

  Navarre judged the van to be a few minutes away, and it was inevitable that, as it drew closer, Esquivel would discover the fresh tracks he and Yuma had left in the sand.

  He returned quickly to Yuma, explained his sighting and sketched out a plan of action that had come to him as he explored the horizon for their enemies.

  “What I’ve got to do is to crawl on my belly to that hackberry bush on the far side of that pile of rocks. Our tracks lead in here, and they’ll come after us, I’m sure. The path between the boulders is too narrow for them to get out of the van easily, or to open the sliding doors to release dogs. I think I can kill them while they hesitate.”

  “You really think we can trap them in that narrow place?”

  “If they follow our tracks, I think I can.”

  -

  * * *

  -

  Ruperto Esquivel was hot, tired, a little frightened, and boiling with anger. The silent, suffering Elidio at the wheel of the van was driving in an awkward position, trying unsuccessfully to prevent his behind from transmitting the jarring bumping of the tires to his swollen genitals. Both of the men could see the Indian dog handler in front of the crawling van and beyond him, ranging far ahead, the two tan-and-black dogs, Arkad and Ripper. Another man, short of stature and armed with a pistol, was a dog handler who’d proved to be inept with animals.

  Esquivel had maintained a tight control over his mounting frustration when three of his animals failed to return the night before. After all, he had reasoned, Navarre had Elidio’s gun. He could have killed the dogs. But Esquivel had heard nothing, and everybody knows how sound carries a long distance in desert country. Besides, the trio of dogs he had sent were superb animals trained to kill. What could have happened? As for Blackie, the voiceless monster, who could have outwitted that huge, murderous beast?

  He’d spent a miserable night in the van. When, after sunup, there was still no sign of the dogs, Esquivel’s quandary turned to fear.

  Three days before, when he fired the futile shots at the rolling van the American had stolen, he’d been convinced it was the blackest day of his life. T
here was no doubt in his mind, after he found Elidio wounded and curled on his side in a whimpering ball, that the man and woman were heading into the mountains. He was furious and ashamed that they had gotten away while he skulked in the bushes like a frightened rabbit. Elidio had sat up and shared with him the burning indignation of defeat at the hands of a cunning woman and a treacherous gringo. He had forced Esquivel to run like a coward and hide and enfeebled Elidio like a mule-kicked old man.

  Worse than their defeat was their fear of the consequences if Pappe Nuños learned of the Americans’ escape. There could be no question of what would happen to them if they admitted carelessness to their jefe. Esquivel had confided his trepidation to Elidio, who had agreed they must make up a story to cover themselves. They couldn’t go as far as to report the Americans dead and buried. Somebody just might decide to check. So they agreed on the lie that Navarre had put up a terrible struggle before they killed him, and in the confusion the girl slipped away in their van.

  There was enough of the color of truth, mixed with negligence, to make the raw fabrication stand up. Elidio would remain behind to watch for the girl in case she reappeared. His absence would verify the lie and give him a respite to rest his aching groin. Esquivel would walk to the farm, a half-day trek cross country, and obtain trail dogs, another van, and a dog handler with which to track the woman. If the handler questioned the absence of a grave, why, they would have to kill him, concocting a plausible story for his death later.

  Things had worked out better than Esquivel hoped. Pappe was gone when he returned to the farm. A crew of six men were packing important records and preparing the ranch buildings for the fire that would engulf them. They were glad to have Esquivel remove five of the trained dogs for fieldwork.

  The only person to be found who could handle the dogs and track was a despicable old Indian named One-Eye who had been hired to poison the dogs in Duelos and to intimidate its human inhabitants. He was a strange, silent indígena who gave Esquivel the shivers. He insisted the old man ride in the back of the van with the dogs. His stink was memorable. Esquivel also picked up a second man who was supposed to be an expert with machine pistols, water, and food. He made the return trip in one hour. Elidio had been able to walk, mincingly, when he got back to him.

  It was the third day of their hunt, and three fearless canine trackers were missing. Two nights past, they had discovered the abandoned van. He had given the yanqui strong points for being smart, desperate, and cunning, but how in all creation had he escaped three savage, man-wise dogs? They had vanished without a sign to indicate their fate. The idea defied reason. And where could the American hide that the dogs could not find him and the prick-teasing woman?

  At this point, Esquivel instructed the Indian to loose the remaining pair on a scenting foray. At first, he refused to credit One-Eye’s report when the dogs returned. The mahogany-skinned old man with his one milky eye and ragged petate hat was scary to Esquivel. He hopped like a crow when he walked and often stopped to examine an object he found on the ground as ordinary as a pebble dislodged by a footprint. As if by sniffing it, and rolling it between his fingers, and tasting it, he would discover a fascinating secret about the desert traffic. Esquivel had been repelled when he saw One-Eye pick up a round brown pellet of dried rabbit dung, sniff it, roll it rapidly between his thumb and forefinger, then pop in his mouth, chew, and swallow it. Following his ritual of scrutinizing the desert floor, he would strike off with certainty on the trail, never once losing the tracks of the fugitive Americans. A terrible, filthy, crazy old man, but he was a wizard with the dogs. Never once did he command them with an oral instruction. He merely pointed in the direction he wanted them to explore and they bounded away, but only after he released them by some silent signal that only they could understand.

  “Hey, hombre,” One-Eye said in a crackling, insolent voice to Esquivel, “the dogs tell me the man and woman went that way, toward the Sierra Madres. They crossed the arroyo and they headed along the track that disappears between the sentinel rocks.”

  “I don’t believe it! The dogs have found an old human scent.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” One-Eye cackled gleefully, pleased with Esquivel’s angry dismay. “The tracks don’t lie. They are fresh. Even a fool like you could follow them. The man and the woman killed the first dogs and escaped.”

  “What do you think happened, then?” Esquivel asked grudgingly.

  One-Eye laughed, clapped his hands together sharply, and shuffled his feet in a little hopping dance. Then he crooned in a high, falsetto voice, “The yanqui straddled a mountain and danced in the air. Yes, he did, and he killed the dogs. And I think he will kill you too.”

  Despite himself, Esquivel cursed the Indian, angry that he had allowed the crazy old indígena to get under his skin.

  “You’re out of your mind,” he said, and then, in command of himself once more, he added curtly, “Whistle the dogs into the van. Chain them. I don’t want them raging ahead, warning the man and woman that we are close behind.”

  One-Eye did as he was instructed without comment. When the dogs were safe in the van, he closed the doors and hobbled away in his scuttling, quick shuffle.

  Esquivel screamed at him, “Where are you going? Get in the back!”

  One-Eye ignored him and scampered a few feet, where he bent over a clump of wildflowers and uprooted them. Then he returned to the van and climbed into the back. He was unperturbed by the furious oaths Esquivel shouted at him, or the puzzlement of the man who had been brought along by Esquivel.

  As the van moved forward, One-Eye reached into a leather pouch fastened to a belt that circled his waist. It was concealed by successive layers of dirty shirts, one worn on top of the other, that reached down to his shiny, brown, naked thighs. The fabric was colorless, having been bleached by the sun, except for overlapping stains of grease and smoke and dirt. The buildup of the coarse, thin layers of faded cloth added bulk to the Indian’s thin-chested frame, giving him the top-heavy appearance of a strutting bantam rooster.

  From the pouch, One-Eye drew forth several pieces of charcoal. Then, with the palm of his hand, he wiped the dust from a large spot on the wooden floor of the van and drew the crude image of a bird with long black wings and a curved beak. He paid no attention to the swaying and bumping of the van or the dogs, who regarded him without curiosity. When he had drawn the outline of the bird, he proceeded to shade it with black strokes. The chore finished, he discarded the charcoal remnants and stripped the flowers from the bright red trompetilla plant he had uprooted. He arranged them at the bottom of his picture with the points of the flowers facing upward. The effect was dramatic. The black bird appeared to be rising out of a curling fire.

  Satisfied, One-Eye smiled and began to hum to himself with his hands extended over the drawing as if he were warming himself in the flames of the trompetilla.

  In the front, secretly, as the van toiled, creaking and bumping toward the twin sentinels, Esquivel began to wonder more fretfully if Pappe had not seriously underestimated the American’s resourcefulness. He swore to himself. He had followed Pappe’s order, with the exception of the business with the woman. Her long legs flashed in his mind and he remembered the hard press of her breasts against his thighs and his excitement to get her alone after he killed the American and Elidio. Conniving bitch! What had started out to be a simple killing job had turned into a nightmare of uncertainty. He had two dogs left and heavy firepower. That combination was unbeatable, but he could not banish his feeling of disaster, his sense of something mystifying about the ominous prediction of the milky-eyed brujo that he would be killed by the American. Of course, that was nonsense, the superstitious raving of a desert wanderer, a swindler of the poor and gullible. Stupid, mysterious old fart. The man’s only redeeming quality was his power over the dogs. He would be glad to see the last of him.

  “Quit fidgeting,” he snapped at the unhappy Elidio, who was seated behind the wheel steering the van.


  -

  * * *

  -

  As Navarre prepared to leave the protective shade of the overhanging rock where he and Yuma had sheltered while they discussed his plan to ambush Esquivel and his party, Yuma suddenly embraced Navarre in a comradely hug, stepped back, and said with her marvelous woman’s wisdom, “Thomas, it’s our turn. They’ve had it all their own way. Pay them back for your friend they killed and buried, for the prostitute they butchered, and for those we don’t know about, and for us, for what they have tried to do.” She squeezed his hand and ran back into the shadow of the rock to wait for him to act.

  She was right, of course, Navarre reflected, as he crept to the narrow slot between the giant rocks where he hoped to end the lives of those sent to kill him and Yuma. He noticed then an inscription he had not seen before carved into the solid stone of the biggest boulder, Travesía de Montaña Roja; translated from the Spanish, it read Red Mountain Crossing. It was comforting to know the name of the place where he would launch his desperate surprise on the killers who followed them.

  It was the sparse shade and thick protection of a bulky hackberry bush that was Navarre’s primary goal. He had spotted the bush earlier when he first sighted the fortress of rock with its narrow path. He scrambled to it now, running in a low crouch to reduce the chance of discovery. The shrub was located about one hundred feet from the pass at a right angle from the path the van must take to enter the narrow corridor. But it was the secondary ambush spot Navarre had chosen to launch his attack. Between the tree and the path the van would take stood the triangular stack of deserted railroad rails. The pile of rails was located only about ten feet from the expected course of the van. About twelve feet wide and eighteen feet long—the standard length of each steel rail—the stack was imbedded a foot or so deep in the sand. Through interstices between the rails, shifting streams of dust blew into the air at the whim of desert breezes. The pile of corroded steel—once serving a silver mine—had gradually taken on the uniform camouflage of the desert. It resembled a hulking, triangular monolith. It was a mysterious presence, impenetrable and solid as any strange icon whose isolated solidarity impressed infrequent desert travelers with an uneasy sense of awe.