Wolves At Our Door

by J P S Brown

  "I told you, the government already guards the Lupino business in the high Sierra," Adan said. "Kosterlinski and his troop serve as their personal guards."

  "Lucrecia, what do you say?" Kane asked.

  "Kill them all any way you can, as we did the wolves that raided us here," Lucrecia said, her eyes hot. She had been roaming the room as she served the supper. She stopped and hugged Martinillo’s neck from behind. "They’re not brutes, but they have no God. They’re worse than wolves, because the wolves are innocent brutes. Why spare their leaders? Kill that Arab Abdullah first, for he shot my Adan." Lucrecia kissed the top of Martinillo’s head. He rolled his eyes at his compadres, but not so she could see it.

  FIFTEEN

  Che Che was summoned by radio and charged with the care of Las Animas and the three compadres and Lucrecia flew to Rio Alamos the next day. Dr. Oscar Vogel came to Alicia’s house to examine Martinillo’s wound. The hierba el pasimo had healed it. Oscar was happy that Martinillo used the herb and gave it credit for the healing. Martinillo needed to rest the shoulder and exercise it lightly for the next six weeks. Alicia Vogel insisted that the Martinillos stay at her house during his recuperation. Luci decided to stay and help her godmother Alicia with her grandparents and not go home with Dolly Ann. Kane hired his friend Chamaco Ortiz, a veteran Bantamweight boxer, to supervise a daily training schedule for Martinillo. In only five weeks, Martinillo would need to be a healthy, stealthy hunter-marksman again.

  The next morning Kane, Dolly Ann, and Vogel flew to the 7X. Dolly Ann did not want to communicate with Kane and was evasive, even dismissive, when he and Vogel tried to draw her into their conversations. After they landed at the 7X and carried their bags and duffel to the house, Vogel went outside to take a walk, and Kane and Dolly Ann were left alone. Kane decided not to push the girl to talk, but he kept watch for the chance that she would open up. From his office, he saw her go into the kitchen, then heard the Lion’s rumbling voice as he gave her a hug. Kane went in to say hello and his old friend stood up from the table and gave him an abrazo at arm’s length with pats on the back. Dolly Ann had found a few dishes to wash.

  "Did you see Juan?" Kane asked him.

  "No," the Lion said. "Is he here?"

  "l don’t know how you missed him. He just went outside."

  "The Doll looks like she’s been played with too much, doesn’t she?"

  "She’s had a bad time, all right."

  "Well, she can forget it and start feeling better now," the Lion said to her back. He stood up to his full six feet four inches and put on his hat. Kane knew him to be at least eighty-five years old, but he stood as straight as he had when he was seventeen, was still cowboy lean from riding circle on his cattle every day and was brighter than any man that Kane knew of any age. He was the Lion, and always listo, always ready, always figuring which way to go next, even if he needed to connive. Here was one like Kane and Vogel who did not care what sort of misfortune had befallen the girlit could not affect his love for her. He had never let misfortune weigh him down and neither should anyone he loved. Kane knew the Lion could see that the girl carried a new burden and he did not like it. Naturally, he worried about how the kidnapping affected her, so he was sensitive to this evasive attitude that she had brought home.

  Now he spoke to the girl’s back again as she worked at the sink. "You must be tired from that airplane, Muñeca," he said. "You can’t spend the rest of the day in the house. Come with me."

  She turned to Kane for his opinion of the Lion’s order, because it had been an order, not an invitation.

  "You ought to go," Kane said.

  She went out the back door ahead of the Lion, and Kane watched them walk across the yard toward the corrals. Vogel came out of the saddle house and shook the Lion’s hand and gave him an abrazo, and all three went back into the saddle house. Kane sat at the desk in his office to count the cash and checks of the winnings from the race and prepare the bank deposits he would have to make. After a while, he heard the Lion’s hammer on the anvil behind the saddle house and knew he would be shoeing a horse. He knew what Dolly Ann would be doing too, because she had been the Lion’s favorite helper since she was big enough to keep up with him. She had horseshoe nails in her mouth, sweat was running off her brow and the end of her nose, and she was tacking shoes on the horse’s hoof while the Lion or Vogel held it up. Kane had never been able to convert the Lion and Vogel away from the vaquero way of shoeing. One vaquero had to hold the hoof up while the other trimmed it and nailed on the shoes. Cowboys shoed horses all by themselves. Vogel would spell the Lion from time to time, and then sit back, watch, and smoke while Dolly Ann nailed on the shoes.

  Kane finished his figures and put all the money into one envelope for pesos and another for dollars, then leaned back in his comfortable desk chair, listened to the sounds of the horseshoers, and fell asleep.

  Much later, Dolly Ann woke him up when she came through the back door. Before he could get out of the chair, she came and kissed him and knelt beside the chair with her head on his breast.

  "You still worried?" Kane asked.

  She nodded vigorously so he would be sure to know she nodded.

  "No use asking what about, because I know, but tell me anyway."

  "Am I grounded for life? You said I'd be grounded for life if I rode out alone again, like Cody and I did."

  "I have taken that into consideration."

  "I shouldn’t be allowed to saddle a horse again, let alone ride."

  "I’ve been trying to think what else I could find for you to do."

  "What else do you think I could?"

  "You’re getting to be a good cook and housekeeper."

  "Yes."

  "And you’re a pretty good horseshoer."

  "I can tack them on a hoof, but I’m not too good at holding them up yet."

  "I guess you need to build a lot more muscle on yourself."

  "A whole lot more."

  "Then, too, you’re a pretty good boxer. You might be able to do that, but it’s like riding on this ranch. You can’t do it alone, even when you’re alone in the ring. A grownup has to be with you all the time."

  "I forgot I could still do boxing."

  "I didn’t." Kane brought the mouthpiece out of his shirt pocket. "I’ve been carrying this since you ran off and got kidnapped."

  Dolly raised her head and took it. "My mouthpiece. Where did you get it?"

  "It was in my jacket pocket from the last time you and Cody Joe sparred."

  "You’ve been carrying this dirty old thing around in your pocket all this time?"

  "Why not? I had to carry something of yours and it’s had you all over it all its life."

  "Oh, Pappy, I love you so much."

  "Me too you."

  "I’ll take being grounded, if you’ll forget all the problems I’ve caused."

  "You know you can’t stay grounded. We have too much to do."

  "Yes."

  "And most of the problems you caused, you caused the kidnappers, don’t you know? They had to pay me a lot of money before I'd take you back."

  "Oh, Pappy."

  "You think I’m kidding? You want to see the money the kidnappers had to pay me before I would take you back? Look in those two envelopes. One’s for pesos and one’s for dollars. I bet you’ve never seen so much money in your life."

  The next afternoon Kane and Vogel drove to Tucson Hospital to see Cody Joe. As they walked down the hospital corridor, they looked into a room, saw Father Garcia with a patient, and stopped to say hello. At first they recognized only the priest and thought he was there to minister to some old man who looked as though he was about to die.

  When the patient sat up and offered his hand, they recognized Silverio. He was supposed to be an outpatient while he received the radiology treatments, but he lay on the bed in a hospital gown. His grip was brittle and weak. His body had been destroyed. He had lost at least fifty pounds. To Kane, he looked like a burnt kitchen match. Most of
his hair had fallen out and only unhealthy wisps remained. His eyes were dull and his breathing shallow and labored.

  The partners did not stay long. Outside Silverio’s room, Kane said, "Our friend looks bad."

  "They’re burning him alive," Vogel said.

  "I don’t think you need that radiology treatment."

  Vogel laughed at Kane’s expression. "No, compadre, I don’t. However, por las dudas, I think I should have it, don’t you?"

  "I think Ali Lupino has been assigned the chore of incinerating his family’s adversaries. Silverio campaigned against the drug lords in his jurisdiction, so he’s probably uncovered some Lupino dirt. Even if he hasn’t, what would it cost them to eliminate him in this manner, to allay their criminal doubts and fears? As an honest lawman, he’s their enemy."

  "We better tell Silverio to stop the treatment and find himself another doctor. It might already be too late," Vogel said.

  "When Father Garcia hears our story, he’ll convince his brother to stop it. By the way how’s your little cough, compadre?"

  "What cough? It went away when I quit smoking."

  "You’re smoking again, though."

  "Why not? I'm rid of the cough."

  Dolly Ann and Marine Captain Fitzgerald were in the room with Cody Joe when the partners walked in. The captain respectfully stood for the two older men.

  "The lad is not doing well, Mr. Kane," Fitzgerald said. "About the time the doctors quell the infection in one spot, it flares up in another. He has a cyst in his hip from the infection on his heel."

  Cody Joe’s handshake and color were not good, but when his godfather Vogel fanned his face with his big hat, he smiled big. Dolly Ann had just finished telling Captain Fitzgerald about the kidnapping and her recovery by her marine grandfather. Fitzgerald shook hands with Kane and Vogel, then turned and made a big show of asking Dolly Ann if she would consider joining the marines. Kane saw in her face that she was starting to put the ordeal behind her and felt no shame over it.

  The captain’s visits to Cody Joe had made them good friends. He told Kane and Vogel that the Marine Corps had decided that it would be better if Cody Joe was cared for by doctors who knew more about bullet wounds and garlic. He would be transferred the next day by army helicopter to the hospital at Fort Huachuca.

  "Be warned, Private First Class Kane," the captain said with a straight face. "Fort Huachuca is an army base. The army has been known to use marines for experimentation when it could get its hands on sick ones. It needs to find out what makes us tough. Its doctors might cut out your brain, lay it under a big light, and pick it apart with tweezers."

  Cody Joe only grinned at him uncertainly and tried to decide if he was serious.

  When he read the young man’s look, the captain laughed. "Don’t believe it, Cody," he said. "The Marine Corps decided that you belong in a service hospital and the fort will be your new station until you get well. If you have any trouble with the dogfaces, I'll send ten marines on bicycles with .41o shotguns and capture the base. We can call it Fort Chesty Puller after we take it over."

  Dolly Ann wanted to stay and visit with her brother for the rest of the afternoon. The following day she intended to register at the Tucson YWCA for a class in physical fitness and begin her own boxing regime. She planned to stay in town at the home of a girlfriend who had also enrolled in the class. Kane told her it was a fine idea. He did not tell her of the plan to get even with the Lupinos.

  Before they left the hospital, the partners took Father Garcia outside, sat him down, and told him about their recovery of Dolly Ann, about the Lupinos’ involvement, and about their fears for Silverio.

  "My brother is disintegrating," Father Garcia said. "He was a healthy man when he began these treatments."

  "Get him out of here," Kane said. "Take him home. Don’t even say good-bye. Radiology treatments might be good when administered by the right hands, but your brother is in the wrong hands."

  ”What will you do about your treatment, don Juan?" the priest asked Vogel.

  "My compadre Jim and I are on our way back to the Sierra. I’m not going to say good-bye to anyone here and I’m never coming back. I won’t even 1ook back."

  "What will you say to Ali Lupino?"

  "I doubt I’ll see him, but if I do, I’ll tell him the truth. We need to get back to our cattle."

  "I understand." Father Garcia looked puzzled to hear that the partners could turn away from their trouble with the Lupinos and return to ranch work. "Maybe that’s the best way to do it, the Christian way" he said. "I guess it’s always best to steer away from trouble with your neighbors."

  When the partners returned to their pickup, Kane said, "Well, we deceived our friend the priest. It remains for us to deceive our enemies. If a single outsider to this project finds out what we intend to do, we lose. We are too few to engage in open war with Los Lobos, the Arabs, government cavalry troops, and the Lupinos."

  The partners began to blueprint their raid on La Golondrina at Kane’s office in the Montezuma Hotel in Nogales. Kane knew two expert government agents who could help with advice, guidance, and technical expertise, so he telephoned them. His friend Jackie Lee Brennan’s son Joe was an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Jack and Kane had grown up together in boarding school and served in the Marine Corps together. Jack still enjoyed a successful fifty-year career as a movie actor.

  Kane called Jack to get Joe’s telephone number. When he called Joe, the young man listened for a few minutes and said that he would not only give Kane the advice he needed, he would take thirty days leave and help him in person.

  Kane then called Billy Buck, a cowboy who had worked for Kane and Vogel in Arizona and Sonora during his teens, then served in Special Forces in Vietnam and Cambodia, and later in Afghanistan. Now a civilian, he still disappeared from time to time on contract missions for his government. He told Kane that he did not need to sit and talk about a raid on the telephone. He would never have anything better to do than to help his two old mentors.

  With these professionals, the partners would have all the help they needed. These men knew every legal and clandestine way to obtain arms and explosives, knew the laws and how to dodge them, and would lend their youth to a project dangerously peopled by oldsters. As an agent for ATF, Joe Brennan welcomed the chance to see an unknown region of the Sierra Madre with two cattlemen who knew the people and the trails.

  Billy Buck wanted to help because he did not give a damn about doing anything else. Brennan lived in Phoenix and Buck lived in Flagstaff, and they both promised to be on their way to Nogales that day Kane’s office in the Montezuma Hotel was comfortable, with leather easy chairs, a sloppy leather sofa, and a sprawling old desk that had been scarred by fifty years of boots, spurs, spilled ink, and whiskey. A bookcase full of books in English and in Spanish about cattle, horses, and cowboys covered one wall. Kane registered Brennan and Buck in the hotel, and he and Vogel began to plot the raid against the Lupinos.

  Five horseback raiders would hit La Culebra. Their staging area would be in a clearing near Cerro Prieto, at the foot of the Sierra. The place had been named after a mountain of black rock that stuck up out of thick brush on the coastal desert northwest of La Golondrina hacienda. In bygone times, the partners had cleared and scraped out an airstrip there to land contraband Johnny Walker Black Label whiskey that they flew into the country. They had also cleared a narrow road through miles of impenetrable thicket to the strip. As far as they knew, cattle and horses still used it for a trail and kept it open. Kane often flew over it on his way between Nogales and Rio Alamos. People did not use it now, because it was on Lupino property and inside their strong fence. The area was so hidden, lonesome, and hard to traverse that not even the Lupinos went near it.

  In one night of full darkness the partners could truck their animals, equipment, and people to Cerro Prieto, pack in to La Culebra on horses and mules, burn everything there, and return. The run from La Culebra to Cerro Priet
o would be all downhill and their tracks would lead any pursuit away from El Trigo. After they loaded their trucks and fled Cerro Prieto, the brush would hide them during the hour-long run to the paved international highway. Once on the highway, their tracks would be lost.

  The partners would know what they needed in explosives and arms after Martinillo took Buck on a surveillance of La Culebra. The horses and mules would be trained and conditioned for a fast raid of forty miles. The raiders would try to hit La Culebra at about three o’clock in the morning.

  Billy Buck showed up at the Montezuma at nine o’clock that night. Two Brennans instead of one arrived an hour later. Jack Brennan had hired a plane from Palm Springs to Tucson and intercepted his son after he decided that he would never get another chance to go on a commando raid. How could Kane, his oldest buddy, let him sit at home while he took his son on high adventure?

  While the partners sat with drinks in the office, Kane called Jack’s wife Apache to complain. Her real name was Mona, but Jack had called her Apache since the day they met while on location for a picture he filmed in her hometown. When asked why he called her Apache, he always answered, ’Apaches are wild people, aren’t they? So, what better name for a wild woman?' "

  "You sent this man to me because you’re tired of him and want him to die, didn’t you, Apache?" Kane said on the phone. "Don’t you know he’s too old and slow for this?"

  "That’s why I told him I had to go too," Apache said. "I don’t think it’s fair. If I don’t look out for you two old geezers, I’ll probably have to live another forty years a widow. Go without me and neither of you will come back."

  "If Jack gives you permission to go, I’ll come and get you," Kane said.

  "He already told me I couldn’t go, so don’t tease me about it. You probably really believe you’re going to do it."

  "He’s in good shape for an old geezer, isn’t he?"