“Strange to me how a one-eyed Injun can see signs that I can’t.”
“They’ve got their ways.”
“Sure have. Hey, he’s coming back.”
“Water over this hill,” One-Eye said, and took his reins from Burt.
“Good.What else do you know?”
“Girl not prisoner.”
“What? Oh, don’t tell that to Schumaker. He’s been calling her a slut already. Why’d she take up with that Apache, for Christ’s sake?” Faucet looked thoroughly upset by the news.
“Don’t know,” One-Eye said. “She not tied. He not keeping her prisoner.”
“Now, how in the hell does he know that?” Faucet asked Burt.
“You never doubted him when he solved the pepper thief, the file theft, or the mare, so what’s wrong with what he’s saying now?” Burt asked with a shake of his head at the deputy.
“But she’s a white girl.” Faucet made a face.
“And he’s an Indian boy.”
“Yes, but that just ain’t right.”
“Faucet, we ain’t moral judges.We’re tracking down a fugitive from justice.”
The man nodded his head in surrender. “Just don’t seem right.”
“If we don’t hustle up some firewood before it’s pitch dark, we’ll be eating jerky.”
“I’ll help,” Faucet said, still dismayed by the new knowledge. Dismounted, he went off talking to himself.
Been stranger things than that happen in this world, Burt decided. Still, the notion niggled at him in the growing darkness. Something about that German farmer’s harsh words about the girl. Did the man already know more than he had told them back there or that he dared to say around his wife? Locusts in the night sizzled. Lots more to this Deuces deal than he ever expected to find.
A glance at the star-studded sky, and he wondered again about his new wife, Angela. Was she secure? He would be glad when this job was wound up and he could return to her. Where are you, Deuces?
Chapter 16
DEUCES WANTED TO MOVE DEEPER INTO THE HILL country. The deer jerky was dry enough to put in a sack. He returned from a hunting trip with a fat kid and leading a bay horse.
“Where did you steal him?” she asked, hands on her hips and walking around examining the gelding.
Deuces dropped to the ground and laughed at her words. “I found him in the hills. He has been rode before and was turned out. May have wandered away. He is very gentle.”
“Good, now we have two horses. One for each of us.”
“We need to find a new camp,” he said.
She stopped and frowned. “You see any sign?”
He shook his head. “I am concerned they might find us.”
“We can’t have that.” She beamed a smile and took the small carcass from him.
Her smile relieved him.Women did not like to move camp. Men did not care; but still he did not wish to displease her. Though he knew nothing wrong, the spirits sometimes gave him bad feelings, irritations he’d had all day—maybe if they moved to a new location, these notions inside would evaporate like smoke. He hoped so. They were not good signs.
So, in the first light, they loaded everything. She rode the bay and led the gray loaded with jerky and their camp supplies. He covered their tracks and signs going over places in his mind, maybe it was time for him to go to his home country. There he knew how to lose men coming on his heels. Here he could not get high enough to see the dust they made at ten miles. Still, the way west was open, and he was unsure how far away he was from it—the iron horse made many miles in a day.
If only he could lead her back to his homeland. They could live in the cool mountains in summer and the warm lowlands in winter. No man or Apache could ever catch him in Apacheria. Mexicans were easy to steal from or to trade with. They thought nothing of buying a stolen beef or horse. Yes, in Sonora they could live to be old people. She would love the mother mountains with waterfalls to take baths under and air so pure it would cure anything.
They must go west. But for now, while the white man searched so hard for him, they’d best stay hidden in these canyons amongst the live oak for a while longer.
“There’s a creek ahead.” She pointed to the silver ribbon.
He nodded his head. “I will search about and see that no one is here.”
“Good,” she said, and dropped from the gray’s back. “I can wait here.”
He hurried away, staying to the ridge so he could survey anything visible. Then he dropped off the steep-faced house-sized boulders, one at a time, and searched along the watercourse. Only deer and a few cow tracks. This might be the right place for them to hide for a good while. Heading back to her, he hoped this place could be home for a few moons. Then they would go west to his own land.
While this canyon and the hills around them looked secure enough, he still felt concerned. Perhaps because this was not his own land. In Apacheria, he would be home, and then he could ease his mind, for no one could find him there. He meant them. Him and his woman. Why would he think only him—she would go there; she had said so. He shook his head to clear away any doubts. And they would have children there, too.
He would teach them the ways. A smile in the corner of his mouth, he hurried uphill to hug her. Ussen had provided her for him in these troubled days. Tomorrow he would not eat any food and would meditate about what he must do next. Perhaps a sign would come to him of how he should go forth. A good one, he hoped for, as he hugged her tight to his chest.
“This is a pretty place,” she said. “I will dig a hole and make a small fire.”
He agreed and went to unpacking things off the horses. She would require another deer to jerk. Already her supply of food was building, but they would need a large one to cross the barren land to the west. What he saw from the train window left nothing to his imagination about the scrub country they must ride over. Still, the desert was a good place for the Apache.
“You are not angry with me?” she asked, offering him a cup of her mint tea.
“Why would I be angry with you?” He nodded in thanks for the tea.
“You have acted different the past few days.Will you have to leave me?”
He nodded for the cup and then shook his head. “I only must be careful. I have told you what they would do if they capture me.”
“Put you in prison.”
“Maybe shoot me—” He shook his head to show her he was uncertain of the consequences.
“We will not let them get you.”
He smiled at her defiance. She would defend him if she could. The notion warmed him. He reached over and hugged her to him. Soon his fingers were unbuttoning her dress. His woman sat up on her knees and helped him.
“If you must, run away and leave me. Run away. I will always find you.”
“Will they put you in jail?” he asked, his breath short at the sight of her bare flesh. Her snowy body always aroused him.
“I don’t think so. I have done nothing wrong,” she said, and shrugged her dress away.
He took her in his arms, and all his concerns of the future floated away like a fluffy cloud. Never had he thought he could love a woman this much, and he gently laid her on the blanket.
Days passed for him like a river flows. He wandered in great circles but saw nothing alarming, no pursuit. One day, he returned with a sack of dried corn picked from a field miles away.
She ground it with a round rock and made a gruel they enjoyed. He found honeycombs, and, despite the few stings that swelled his face so she laughed at him, they licked their fingers, gorging themselves on the luxury.
Once on Deuces’s rounds, he spotted a drifter crossing the nearby country on horseback. Deuces shadowed him for half a day until he decided the white man had a purpose and was not in those hills searching for them.
She picked ripe fruit like the wild purple plums and blackberries to vary their meals. They ate venison, jerked the rest for their trip. In the long days of late summer, he helped her tan th
e hides so they would have enough leather soon to make new clothing for her. They both spoke together of the new dress they would sew for her. He fashioned needles from bones for the task.
They spent their leisure resting and stream bathing in the golden sunshine that saw the sumacs turn fiery red in the droughty days. He perfected his arrow making and soon could drive one through his quarry at impressive ranges. Their shelter was a ramada of poles lodged in tree forks, then covered in brush and grass.
Deuces would pray his thanks to Ussen each day. He even thought less of leaving this land. They had a good source of food, each other, and two horses.What else did they need? He sat cross-legged on a small bluff and meditated—the white men had done him a favor sending him here to her.
Unlike Marshal Egan, who cussed everyone and everything, he found good fortune in his life and raised his face so the sun could shine upon him. Thank you, Ussen.
Chapter 17
“NO WORD,NO SIGN OF HIM,” BURT SAID ALOUD, AND rose off his log seat. “We’ve been here almost three weeks, and not one word has come out about any sighting of Deuces.”
He walked to the fire and considered what he should do next. His hands above his head, he stretched and for the hundredth time reviewed their situation. One-Eye, with his back to the tree and his arms folded over his chest, was half asleep.
“Someone is coming,” the Apache said, and sat up wide awake.
“I hear them now,” Burt said, when for the first time the drum of horses approaching became evident to him. Apaches possessed keener hearing than his own. Maybe he didn’t listen enough.
The riders drew up. Sheriff Grimwell stepped down, and someone held his horse’s reins.
“No word on the Apache, Green. But we’ve got some horse rustlers working the country, and we can’t seem to be able to run them down. Would you and your Indian give us a hand? I’d sure appreciate it. Harry Faucet tells us One-Eye can track a mouse.”
“One-Eye?” Burt asked the reclining Apache with his face covered by a hat. “Want to help them?”
The Apache rose up and gave him a slow nod.
“That’s the answer.Where do we meet?”
“If you don’t mind, we’ll camp here tonight and ride that way in the morning.”
“Fine. If you need to cook, use the fire,” Burt said, and shook Faucet’s hand when the farmer stepped up.
“Can’t believe that you ain’t found him, Marshal,” Faucet said, and began to introduce the posse members. On the last, he nodded his head to a familiar face in the outer ring of fire’s light. “You know Hans?”
“Yes. Evening.How is your wife? Give her our regards.”
“Yeah, I do that,” the man said, and went by with a bedroll and his new .44/40 rifle to make himself a place beyond.
While the posse members waited for their food to cook, the sheriff broke out a bottle of bonded whiskey and passed it around for everyone to have some in his own tin cup.
“Faucet says that you found a link of the scout’s hand-cuffs?” Grimwell asked.
Burt nodded his head slowly and felt in his vest pocket, then tossed the piece to the lawman.
Grimwell caught it and held it up to the firelight. Burt wanted to chuckle; the lawman no more expected him to have that than snow on the Fourth of July.With an effort, Burt rose and went over to reach in his saddle bags and toss the cut handcuffs that they’d found at the two other locations to the man.
“You found these up there and didn’t find him?” Grimwell asked, shaking his head.
“Yes. One-Eye found the first one near an old home place north of here. The last one near a windmill tank, ten miles west. Took lots of filing to get them off. But I do recall with us crisscrossing this country, we’ve seen plenty of horse tracks up here.”
“Think Deuces has been horse rustling, too?”
“Doubt it. He’s more careful than that, or your boys would have found him by now.”
“We’ve sure looked. I’m grateful that he hasn’t murdered any outlying ranchers or stray cowboys so far,” Grimwell said.
Burt shook his head. “Only person we know he’s killed is a worthless army scout, who probably needed it, according to Tom Horn’s testimony.”
“Still, I’ve been worried sick about him doing something like that. There’s been no sign of Hans’s daughter since she disappeared. Faucet said you thought she was with him.”
“Faucet talks a lot,” Burt said, and sipped on the good whiskey.
“What do you think about her disappearance?”
“I don’t know for certain. One-Eye read some of their tracks. He says she’s not his prisoner.”
“Well, you never know. I never believed you’d really found these,” Grimwell said, rattling the cuffs in his hands. “Thought that was all made up. When I first heard they were sending you here, I figured you’d run your search from the Euphoria Hotel in town. You’ve been a real puzzler to me, Green.”
“I came to find a fugitive. You don’t do that on your butt in a hotel. But as each day goes by and we can’t find a sign of him, I’d venture that Deuces has gone back home.”
“Maybe, but I’m still damn impressed that you got this close to him.” He handed the broken handcuffs back, then the link.
“Where do you want to start looking for these rustlers in the morning?” Burt asked.
“That cabin place where you found one of them. Faucet said there were lots of tracks up there.”
“We’ve seen tracks of folks driving horses through up there. Fine,” Burt said, and finished off his whiskey. “Good stuff. Good night, men.”
A chorus of good nights went among the men, who were about to eat some hastily prepared food. Burt went past One-Eye and shook out his own bedroll.
“Why is father here?” One-Eye asked softly.
“Guess he’s part of the posse.Why?”
“No one would steal his sorry horses,” the Apache said, and rolled over in his blankets.
Burt smiled and shook his head at the dark mound beside him in the night. No telling what an Apache was thinking, either. He never noticed about the German’s stock. Though he did have a sorry horse when he rode with them a few days. But few farmers owned good saddle stock.
At daybreak, they saddled and lit out. The smell of campfire smoke had permeated not only Burt’s clothing but his nose as well. It would be a good thing to escape when this was finally over. He rode at the head of the line, with the sheriff and One-Eye trailing along. They reached the cabin site, and Burt made them all stay back while his man examined the tracks.
“Men and horses have used this way,” One-Eye told Burt.
“How long ago?”
“Two days, maybe.” The scout shrugged.
“You ride ahead and follow them. We will hang behind a ways. You spot them, you come barreling back to tell us.”
The scout mounted his horse and left the pack mule with Faucet. Then he galloped up the sandy dry wash and disappeared.
“What next?” the sheriff asked.
“Can’t charge in. Might scare them off.We’ll hole up here an hour or so. He’ll find them and come tell us all about them.”
“Sounds easy, but all we’ve ever found is empty camps. This Deuces must be pretty sharp. These rustlers are, too. I’ve not had much luck tracking them down.”
“I’d bet they’ve never had an Apache on their heels before.”
“You and them handcuffs got me convinced.” Grimwell turned his horse to drop back and talk to the eight men riding with him. “We’ll wait here an hour, then take up his scout’s trail.”
The time went by slowly. Impatient posse members squatted on their boot heels and whittled, spit tobacco in the dust, and drew maps in the sand with sticks.
Burt checked his watch and went to cinch up the dun. “Time to go after him.”
Past noontime and deep in the hills, One-Eye returned. “They are three men. They have maybe twenty horses, and they are headed—” He pointed southwest.
“Yes,” One-Eye agreed.
“Good. I’ll take half the posse and try to head them off. There’s a pass they must go through west of here, and if you will bring up the rear, we’ll have them hemmed in,” the sheriff said, pleased for the first time that day.
“Good. Pick your men, and we’ll ride up the trail. Good luck,” Burt said.
“You know, I judged you plumb wrong, Green. I won’t ever do that again.”
“How’s that?” Burt asked with a smile. The poor man obviously never met a real marshal was all. Lots of political appointees wanted to be big shots; he couldn’t stand them, either.
“I’ll tell you sometime. Hans, you ride with them, your horse ain’t stout enough for this ride,” Grimwell said.
“Ya,” the man said, and went for his black horse.
The sheriff and his hand-picked men galloped off to the south in their long circle to head the rustlers off. Burt and his crew trotted up the dry wash after the Indian.
Long hours in the saddle had hardened Burt for the ride. The dun horse proved to have plenty of bottom. During the time in the field, he’d purchased grain from farmers and in town to keep both of their horses in good shape. Though the ride began to tell after three hours hard up the nearly dry stream bottom, it was only the farm horses that snorted wearily, while his dun and One Eye’s roan showed little effect of their efforts.
Soon fresh signs appeared where the rustlers camped—horse apples, mostly. Their flight from the posse was obvious by the dust boiling up ahead. They were on the run. Burt decided the plan could work, if the sheriff and his men made it to the pass before the rustlers.
“Ease up,” Burt told them. “Things are looking good right now.” He turned to his scout. “Find a high place, and see how far ahead of us they are.”
One-Eye nodded, then reined the bay off through the live oak and disappeared.
“He’s going to see how far ahead they are,” Burt told the others. He noted that Hans carried his rifle all the time. Balanced it on one knee—poor guy didn’t own a scabbard for it. Must get tiring to ride like that all day. Burt booted the dun to make it walk faster.
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