by J P S Brown
The second sentry came over the last ridge on the trail at a run. Kane still held his knife in his hand. His rifle was slung over his shoulder. The sentry ran past him. Kane swung the rifle into its place, squeezed a burst into the sentry’s back, and knocked him down. The sentry tried to crawl. Kane put another burst of three into his head, then sheathed the knife.
The buildings began to erupt with explosions of armament and fuel. Alarmed, the string of horses and mules wound behind Gato like a big snake and their wide eyes shone sightless with the light, but they did not panic. Kane walked in among them and talked to them.
The people in the canyon screamed and wailed in their hell but did not shoot back. Kane looked over the heads of his partners at the ruined buildings. The whole floor of the box canyon was on fire. Even the rocks seemed to burn. The ruined warehouse disintegrated with the explosions of fuel and ammunition it contained. The opium gum turned into a soft, running coal on the warehouse floor that gushed a multicolored fire and gave off a pleasant smell. Kane could not see one living person in the solid acre of fire where the buildings had been. Debris from the explosions flew sky high but did not reach the horses. Half the poppy field was already in flame from Billy’s grenades.
Kane mounted his horse and led the string to his partners. They loaded their weapons and mounted, and Kane led them, still tied head to tail, to catch up to Billy His throat began to constrict, and he knew his old heart announced that this much excitement might be too much for it, but he could not listen.
Kane sat his horse while the team unloaded more M-79 grenades and helped Billy fire the last of the poppies. He heard three distinct shots of rifle fire from the canyon that seemed directed at the nest where the RPG-7s had been set up. When the last square foot of poppies caught fire, the partners loosed their animals in the string, mounted, and headed for home with everybody in correct order of march.
As Che Che topped the last ridge to lead the string out of sight of the canyon, Kane turned for a last look at the hell of La Culebra. At that moment something startled his pack mule and he lunged forward and smashed Kane in the ribs with his head. Kane’s right kidney and ribs felt pierced by an arrow. He grabbed Gato’s mane to keep from falling off and slumped over his saddle horn in pain.
"Somebody’s shooting at us," Martinillo shouted. "I’m going back."
Kane wanted to tell him to ignore it, but the pain overcame him. As he topped the ridge, he looked back and saw Martinillo fire bursts into the canyon from his seat on Paseador. He thought, My compadre Martinillo is a valiant man and so can’t help but make a valiant picture. Martinillo lowered his rifle, turned Paseador toward home, and ran to catch up with the string. Kane could not see his face but would have bet a new hat that he smiled.
Fifteen minutes later they left the light of the burning canyon behind. The constriction enveloped Kane’s jaws and ears and the pain in his right side did not recede, but he enjoyed a great sense of victory much as he had enjoyed the victory of a hard, ten-round fight as a boxer. A man could get the heart almost beaten out of him for ten rounds, be beaten until even his psyche became one big bruise, but if the referee raised his hand in victory after the decision, or if he stopped his opponent in a late round, he totally disregarded the bruises and cuts. However, if his opponent’s hand was raised after the same kind of fight, a man felt so beaten he might lay down his carcass and not raise his head for a week.
In the pines Che Che hit a lope and as the mounts and pack animals of the raiders warmed to it, he broke into a run. In the darkness and on the soft, loamy trail of the pine forest, the run seemed as real as winged flight. Kane always bragged that cowboys flew and here was the proof. He did not have to rein or spur Gato. All he needed to do was think where he wanted to be and the horse put him there. The youngster had not made one false step, not one nervous twitch, not one start at something scary, and a lot happened that was scary. Gato did not know fear that night, and Kane did not let the pain in his side, chest, and left arm scare him, either.
Che Che pulled up to a full stop at La Brava, where the trail began its descent to the foot of the Sierra. Kane rode up beside him and looked down on the north slope below them and saw only blackness, but heard a tiny, rhythmic sound of metal against metal. He whispered to Che Che and handed him his pack mule. Che Che led the raiders away off the trail so Kane could listen without the sounds of the animals to bother him. A moment later he heard the more audible, multi-click-click of Kosterlinsky’s accoutrements as the troop climbed the final, steepest pitch of the trail. The explosions at La Culebra had probably been heard as far away as Guazaremos, maybe even as far as El Trigo. They had surely been heard at La Golondrina and here came Kosterlinsky. The raiders could hide and let him go by, but Kane decided he did not want him alive on their back trail.
The raiders tied their animals off the trail and Kane told Che Che to hide near the place where the troop would reach the top of the climb. He sent Martinillo to hide fifty yards up the trail. Then he, Joe, and Billy took cover on the stretch between Che Che and Martinillo.
Kosterlinsky did not let his horses stop to blow when he topped the climb, but spurred on toward La Culebra. When all the troopers made it over the top and Che Che stood up behind them, Kane stepped out into the open and shouted, "¡Alto, cabrones!"
At the sound of his voice, Che Che and Martinillo turned on their lanterns, blinded the troop front and rear, and stopped it. Not one trooper carried his rifle at the ready.
Kosterlinsky drew his pistol. The man behind him spurred his horse and jerked his rifle out of its scabbard. Kane fired two bursts into the man and his horse. The horse flipped over backward and crushed his rider beneath the saddle when he landed. Kane targeted the horse, because he could not let him get away and cause the twenty-five-man troop to scatter. Kane and the four other raiders did not have the firepower to stop them. `
The sight of their comrade and his horse dead in their path froze Kosterlinsky and his troopers in place. Blood poured from the heads of the horse and rider. Kosterlinsky dropped his pistol so that it dangled on its lanyard and raised his hands over his head.
Kane used the falsetto voice that the mascaritas, masqueraders, used in the streets of Mexico during Mardi Gras so Kosterlinsky would not recognize it. "That’s one dead trooper to your discredit, Captain," Kane shrilled. "Now, throw your pistol on the ground and tell the live ones to dismount."
Kosterlinsky and his troopers complied. The troopers’ eyes were opened as wide as they would go but could not see one thing outside the halogen light.
Kane ordered them to take off their boots and tie them to their saddles and to lead their horses back to the top of the trail and turn them loose. When they had done that, he ordered them to walk up the trail toward La Culebra and keep going. Martinillo and Che Che kept the light on them and followed them a half mile, then came back.
Billy picked up the dead trooper’s rifle and Kosterlinsky's pistol and threw them off the mountain. The raiders mounted their horses and drove the troopers’ horses down the trailahead of them. Kane was sure that the troop had not seen one raider or his horse. Dull pain in his chest and the sharp one in his side made him short of breath, but could not dampen the good feeling that soon he and his partners would have accomplished their mission to the letter and be gone from the high Sierra.
Dawn caught the raiders in sight of La Golondrina. They drove the troopers’ horses to the bottom of the mountain, passed them and left them behind, and galloped on toward Cerro Prieto and their trucks. As they neared the trucks, Martinillo shouted for everyone to stop. Kane passed the word and Che Che raised his arm and brought the string to a halt.
"Abdullah and Ibrahim are right behind us," Martinillo said when he had ridden up to the front of the string.
"How far back?" Kane asked.
"Not real close. They’re not dumb. I don’t think they want to catch us. They’re probably only following us to see what they can see."
"Can we outrun th
em to Cerro Prieto, load, and be gone before they catch up?"
"I don’t think so. They can wait until we load, then come up and take a good look at us."
"All right." Kane ordered Che Che to lead everyone but Martinillo away to the trucks and make the dust that the two hawks needed to see. Kane and Martinillo rode off the trail and hid their horses inside a deep wash that ran through a dense thicket. They dropped their hats in the sand of the wash where their horses would not step on them. They grinned at each other and donned their black hoods.
Martinillo pointed to a puff of dust that rose above the brush close by. Abdullah and Ibrahim came in sight around a bend only fifty yards away with their rifles in their hands.
Abdullah was in the lead. Kane could see by the look on his face that he thought that he better pull up. Then he saw Martinillo and jerked hard on his horse to stop him. Martinillo let go a burst of fire as Abdullah’s horse reared. The burst sent the horse over on his back, but thick brush cushioned the old man’s fall.
Kane fired a burst over Ibrahim’s head and the man threw his rifle on the ground, turned his horse’s tail toward Kane, and left the country. Kane watched him race away as though the owls were after him, watched the dust mark his progress through the brush and guessed he would run all the way home. So much for the Lupino loyalty to Abdullah, the family’s oldest retainer.
Kane kicked the rifle and saw that it was an M-16. He picked it up and dropped it in the brush to hide it from the road. He wanted to throw it farther off the trail, but the ribs that the mule had bashed were too stiff and sore.
Abdullah lay under his horse. The animal’s blood poured out of its heart as it wallowed on the man in its death throes. The weight and bulk of the horse pressed the man deep into a tangle of brush. Blood from scratches and gouges of the spines and the hard wood of the thicket covered Abdullah’s eyes, and he was too shocked to decide what to do. His rifle lay out of reach. Kane saw Martinillo check his rifle to see if he had a round in the chamber as he stepped purposefully toward Abdullah. Kane knew that he intended to walk up to the old man, look him in the eye, and kill him.
Kane stopped him and pushed him gently toward their horses. They mounted and galloped on to catch up with their partners. The trail widened enough for them to ride side by side. Martinillo galloped up beside Kane and looked at him. "Lástima caballo," he said. "Too bad about the horse."
"Too bad I killed that trooper’s horse too," Kane said.
"You know, compadre, at the exact moment he came in range, the minute he was able to see me, the old Arab’s eyes locked with mine again, as I told you they did at La Culebra, just before he shot me."
"He’s quite an old Arab," Kane said.
Kane rode in the pickup between Joe and Martinillo to Cibolibampo. He was the last of the three to step out of the truck. Martinillo held the door open for him, and when Kane walked by, he stopped him. "Where did all the blood come from, compadre?" he asked.
"What blood?" Kane asked.
"Your hip pocket is covered with blood." Martinillo lifted the back of Kane’s jacket.
"Curay, your shirt is sopping with blood."
"What's it from? Look and see, compadre," Kane said.
He looked back as Martinillo pulled his shirttail out of his belt and saw blood drops scatter on the ground. Martinillo helped Kane take off his jacket, shirt, and undershirt. The other raiders stopped unloading the horses and mules when they saw the bloody clothes. Martinillo found a small hole between Kane’s ribs and kidney. "Who stuck you with an ice pick?" he asked.
"Nobody. The mule I was leading bashed me with his head," Kane said. "He must have had something sharp on his halter."
Che Che led up Kane’s pack mule and no sharp object could be found on the halter.
"It looks like somebody stuck you," Martinillo said.
"Never mind," Kane said. "Let’s throw hay to these animals and go to town for a steak and a beer."
Billy and Joe unloaded first-aid gear from Joe’s mule to treat the wound. "It’s deep," Billy said and powdered it with sulfa.
"I bet it’s bled more inside than outside," Joe said.
Martinillo held up Kane’s shirt so everybody could see the shirttail.
"Never mind/’ Kane said. "I’ll give Oscar Vogel a look at it while you fools are getting drunk."
"I’ll dunk the shirt and jacket in a bucket of cold water," Martinillo said. "Shall I throw the undershirt away?"
"Throw them all away," Kane said. "No, wait. I’ll wear the jacket to town."
Martinillo searched the pockets of the shirt and pulled out a brand-new package of gum and a tiny jar. "You have some gum here, compadre," he said. "What’s in this little jar?"
Kane held out his hand and Martinillo handed them over. "I forgot I had the gum. When did I have time for gum?" he said. He looked at the label on the jar and finally remembered Oscar Vogel’s nitroglycerine for chest pain.
"What’s in the little jar?" Martinillo asked again.
"Nitroglycerine tablets for his heart," Joe said in English.
"¿Cómo?" Martinillo asked.
"Only aspirin," Kane said. "I forgot I had it."
"Does the wound hurt?" Martinillo asked.
"Not much," Kane said.
"Liar," Martinillo said. "At least take an aspirin."
"I will. Let’s unsaddle these animals and get going."
While the other raiders ate steak and drank beer that afternoon, Kane bathed and changed clothes in Alicia’s empty house. He figured she had gone out for a card game or a visit to a relative. From Alicia’s he went to Oscar Vogel’s house and caught him home after his siesta. Oscar inserted a long needle beside the wound and removed several syringes full of blood, but this did not satisfy him. He told Kane that he would arrange for doctors at Tucson Hospital to insert a tube and use a pump to remove the blood. Kane said he would head for Tucson in the morning, thanked Oscar, and left his house. Outside, he said to himself, ”Like hell, I will" and he went to join the raiders’ party. However, the pain made him worry. Ibrahim had carried an M-16. The wound under Kane’s ribs was about the right size for an M-16 bullet. What if he was carrying a slug somewhere in his gizzards?
EIGHTEEN
Kane and Joe Brennan flew back to El Trigo at dawn the next morning. As Kane cut Little Buck’s engine to descend toward the airstrip and soared close over the high pass of Las Parvas, they saw a pall of smoke on the horizon above La Golondrina. The phosphorous fires had spread.
The other raiders had left San Bernardo with the horses and mules at midnight so they could be at El Trigo by noon. Kane figured the raiders better make themselves available at El Trigo in case someone suspected them of the raid on La Culebra and came to look for them. El Trigo was straight south of La Golondrina, but the raiders had fled northwest. Four of the raiders were at El Trigo and their animals had been turned out to pasture when Ibrahim Lupino showed up.
Martinillo had gone home. Kane, Joe, Billy Buck, and Che Che were sitting on the veranda of the hacienda after a noon meal when they saw Ibrahim ride over the pass of El Trigo. Che Che opened the bars on the gate to the hacienda grounds for him. Kane stood and invited him to dismount and have coffee or a swallow of soyate or both. Che Che took his horse to the stable and unsaddled, fed, and watered him.
Ibrahim looked fifty pounds lighter than when Kane had last seen him at La Golondrina. Of course, the very last time he had seen him had been in the brush near Cerro Prieto the day before.
Ibrahim tiredly dragged his spurs across the cement of the veranda and Che Che’s wife brought him coffee. While he sugared and stirred it, Kane contentedly studied his face. He was much disturbed. His mouth turned down at the corners and he dragged himself to a chair like a man in mourning. He moped, and this made Kane feel good.
"How goes the filmmaking?" Kane asked him. ’Are you about finished?"
”Nooo," Ibrahim said. "They barely got started when a fire erupted in the high Sierra. We’ve had a terrible
fire on our hands since early yesterday morning."
"I wondered about that. We saw the smoke, but didn’t think the fire was close to La Golondrina."
”It’s in the high Sierra."
"What’s the problem? Don’t your people clear new ground and burn the slag anymore? I didn’t think a fire up there would find enough fuel to make that much smoke."
"This one destroyed a field of dry cornstalks that we needed as fodder for our horses, then spread to the buildings of a camp we have, had, at La Culebra. You know that camp?"
"I’ve never been to that part of La Golondrina," Kane lied, and he felt so good about it.
"Che Che must know that country. You’ve been to our camp at La Culebra, haven't you, Che Che?"
"Oooo, I’ve never been to that part of the high Sierra, either," Che Che said. "I have no business there and I’ve never been invited."
"We had a large camp down in a box canyon of La Culebra, but yesterday a fire took every stick of it and leveled every brick."
"Lástima," Che Che said. "A shame."
"Lástima,” Kane said. "I know how you feel. Somebody burned down this hacienda of Vogel’s five years ago, but that was arson. Someone started it with kerosene. How did the fire at La Culebra start?"
"We don't know. Maybe lightning. We don't think anyone’s to blame."
"It’s a terrible thing."
"Yes, well, that’s why I rode over here. We need Che Che’s oxen. You, Che Che, can you rent or sell us a yoke of oxen and a Fresno? We’ll pay you well."
"What do you need them for?" Che Che asked. "I’m sure we can loan you the yoke, but it’s not mine. The animals and Fresno belong to El Trigo hacienda."
"We need to widen some pools alongside La Culebra River. We have to move a lot of earth, and we can only get in there with oxen and a Fresno."
"You can have our oxen and Fresno for as long as you need them, but we can’t charge you for them," Kane said.
"I can start out for La Golondrina with the oxen tomorrow, if you wish," Che Che said.