Maria's Trail (The Mule Tamer)

by Horst, John

  He winced, cried out. He could not catch his breath. He watched as the blood flowed out onto the ground beneath him. “I ain’t never been shot before.” He curled his body. “I want to tell you boys, I didn’t have no part in all that yesterday.” He gritted his teeth. “I ain’t tellin’ you I don’t deserve to be shot. I’m glad you killed me. I can’t keep livin’, seein’ those folks go the way they did and ever time I close my eyes, that’s all I see.” He bent forward again, and let out a groan. “I didn’t do anything for ‘em, and shame on me. I will go to hell for it, sure enough.”

  “You a praying man?” the reporter spoke up. He looked at Arvel and Dick for approval.

  “I, I guess.”

  “Well, you may atone for your sins and see where it gets you.” He regretted, as a man who used words for a living, the inarticulate way he was stating it, but he was not certain what fate awaited the dying man. He felt better when Hedor seemed to take comfort at the thought.

  The deputy pushed past them. “Get him on a horse; we’ll take him back for trial.”

  Incredulous, Arvel replied: “He won’t live another hour.” The dying man begged for water, he looked down at the ribbon of gut, squeezing between his fingers. His eyes darted back and forth, first at Arvel and then to Dick.

  “He’s been gut shot, don’t give him water, it’ll only make his situation worse,” said the deputy, with authority.

  Arvel pulled out his canteen and gave the man a drink. He glared at the deputy. Hedor drank, but just barely, the color fading from his face. He cried out again.

  “Get him on a horse.”

  Arvel faced the deputy again: “He will not be moved.”

  “And I say he will,” the deputy put his hand on the grip of his six shooter. He hoped for some live prisoners. At least he would have one. He stared back at Arvel, who was no longer smiling. Arvel knew the man’s game. He was driven by greed for recognition and any potential bounty. Arvel had no great compassion for the miscreant, he knew he would soon be dead, but there was no call to add to his suffering.

  “I say…” Arvel was interrupted by a shot from Dick’s Winchester. The bullet pierced the desperado’s heart. The deputy looked at the two old-timers. He swore, and marched off.

  “Well, there’s an end to it,” said the reporter from under his derby.

  The deputy should have been pleased. All the bandits were dead. None of his posse suffered so much as a scratch. It was true that they did not get Gold Hat but, with his reputation, it was unlikely that he would have waited around for any posse to catch up to him. He was simply too slippery. The deputy was angry, nonetheless. More likely, it was because he was disappointed in himself. He’d lost his nerve. He knew the score, and he didn’t like it much. The reporter did not help as he chattered incessantly about the two real heroes of the day.

  As the deputy sauntered back to his horse, the little man encountered Sally, quietly resting among the horses. He pushed her on the flank, and when she did not move, thumped her smartly across the neck with his quirt. She hee-hawed and jumped aside.

  “Whoa, there, cowboy,” Arvel stiffened at his mule’s cry. “You don’t touch my mule, son.”

  The deputy’s face reddened. He kicked the ground and jerked the hat from his head. He swatted Sally with it, then pushed her all the harder. “Then get this goddamned beast out of my way.”

  “Partner,” Arvel softly said, “you molest that animal one more time, and I swear I’ll put a ball in you.”

  The young deputy scoffed and continued to attack the mule. “I hate mules! They are worthless beasts!” raising his quirt. Before he could hit Sally again, Arvel pulled out his Navy Colt and shot the deputy in the toe.

  Falling over, the deputy let loose a stream of obscenities. He held his foot, rolling about on the ground. “You son-of-a-bitch, you shot me!” He looked up at Arvel, fury and pain welling inside, and reached for his revolver. Before he could clear leather, Dick buffaloed him senseless, blood now pouring from the gash on his head as well as the hole in his boot.

  Arvel attended to Sally, holding her face and speaking softly to her. He kissed her on the muzzle. He did not look at the deputy again.

  By now the others had had enough of the young upstart, and they looked at him with disdain. No one blamed Arvel. They would not blame him if he’d shot the man dead. They admired his restraint. Arvel was a legend for his love of his mules. He’d even been known to buy mules back from people whom he thought did not deserve them, or who had misused them in any way. He often balked at selling them to the Army, as there was no guarantee they’d be treated properly.

  “Well, I guess we can’t just leave him here,” the reporter finally said. A couple of the men threw water on the young deputy, who regained his senses. They bandaged his foot, now absent one toe, and put him on his horse. One of the young men rolled up the toe in the deputy’s big scarf, stuffed it in his bloody boot and tied the whole affair with a piggin string onto their former leader’s saddle horn. Half of the detail escorted him back to town. The other half stayed to arrange the corpses and collect their traps. They would later inform the undertaker who would bring out a wagon and retrieve the bodies.

  Arvel and Dick stayed with this group, deciding it best to avoid any further dealings with the new amputee. Arvel thought of the Mexican girl as he looked amongst the dead men’s belongings. He felt a little cocky. The evil Sombrero del Oro did not seem so difficult to beat. He was ultimately disappointed when he realized the leader was not among the corpses. The bandit leader had once again slipped away.

  Dick talked the whole way back to town. It was how he unwound from battle. He liked to talk to people he liked and this was incongruous with his otherwise stoic demeanor. He laughed about Arvel’s shot. He spoke of the good shooting, and teased Arvel about his Henry rifle, his old fashioned gun. “Guess those old-timey shootin’ irons still work.”

  They rode a little farther, Dick continued: “Did you smell that white boy’s breath? My God.”

  “I thought that was from his intestines, you did notice they were mostly in his hands.”

  “Nope, nope, that was definitely his breath. I definitely discerned breath.”

  Arvel was preparing to drink from his canteen and remembered giving a last drink to the dying man. He upended the container, draining it onto the ground, lifted the opening to his nose and sniffed doubtfully. He recorked it and put it back on his saddle horn. “I’ll boil that later.” He took it back off his saddle horn, “On second thought,” he flung it into the desert. “I’ll just get another one.”

  The posse met up at the saloon later that day. They convinced the two old-timers to join them in celebration. Most of the town folks and all of the inhabitants of the nearby ranches seemed to be jammed in the saloon and overflowing onto the streets. Even Miss Edna, the church organist, made an appearance, pounding out some happy tunes on the establishment’s upright. They all were celebrating the end of the bandit gang. It would not bring the Knudsens back, but at least some solace could be gained from the fact that the bad men were all dead.

  This was a quiet town which never attracted the rough company such as what was seen in Tombstone and Bisbee. No gamblers found it worth their time, no cowboys had business there. Most of the men were married, or well enough settled that whore houses could not be sustained. But today, the townsfolk were giving the saloon good commerce and the beer and whiskey flowed freely.

  The younger men talked and joked and backslapped their comrades. It was only in such a life and death struggle that one could form this kind of bond. Many of these men were tough, tough from living on the land, living rough, but few had experienced the sting of battle, as they were born after the war. Certainly they had been in the occasional bar fight or disagreement at the branding fire, but none had yet experienced mortal combat.

  They all spoke excitedly of the two old-timers. They had never seen shooting like this. They each took up Arvel’s old Henry rifle, which most of them had
never seen before. The men began pressing the veterans about their time in the war. They wanted to know where they had fought and how many men they had killed. Arvel just smiled and told them that it was too long ago to remember and that Dick was the man with the most battle experience.

  Finally, when everyone was sufficiently drunk, the reporter stood up and offered a toast: “To the great toe-shooter of the East. Boot makers fear him, chiropodists revere him!”

  The younger men looked on silently. Most did not understand the joke and wondered if it was not an insult. Finally, Arvel began to laugh, and everyone cheered. He patted the reporter on the back. “Anyone who can weave a chiropodist into a toast has my undying respect, son.”

  As the drinking continued, and the conversation inevitably deteriorated, Arvel seized the opportunity to slip out. He headed home. He rode alone and began to feel a little melancholy. He regretted shooting the boy in the foot. He always regretted doing things out of anger. He did not mind killing the bandits.

  Soon, he would be back to the mule ranch. He preferred the company of mules to people. He hoped that there would now be an end to the little excitement, and that he could go back to his simple uneventful existence.