He stepped back when five more riders charged past him, creating more screams and curses. Dust rolled. An ugly fear clawed at Clay’s insides. Were those men after Nina and Emilio? And if so, why? He told himself it was really none of his business, that it was not an Army matter. He had his assignment, and he had better get back to it. He would see about buying a horse with his own money before he left, compensating the man who had lost his. He would be repaid when he got back to Camp Verde.
Without even talking to the sheriff, he walked back toward the holding pen where the camels waited, glancing up the street where Emilio and Nina had disappeared once more. What would happen to them? It irritated him that he cared. He had known them all of ten minutes, and if they were in trouble, they probably deserved it. There was nothing he could do about it. Still, he didn’t like the thought of any harm coming to the beautiful Nina, even if she had done something wrong.
He returned to his men and began asking one of the Arabs questions about the camels: How much did they eat? Had they had water recently? He was furious with whoever had sent these Arabs who were not experienced with the animals. Apparently those in charge figured that just because a man was Arab, it meant he was an expert on camels.
He could hardly concentrate on the Arab’s answers for thinking about Nina Juarez. He climbed up on the fence to watch the camels, looking out in the distance where Emilio and Nina had ridden, but he could see nothing. It irritated him that thoughts of a woman he had known such a little while could preoccupy him like this. Why had they suddenly ridden out leaving their horses behind after being so anxious to sell them to him? He came to the regretful conclusion that they must indeed be thieves. Telling them he was going to check with the sheriff must have frightened them off. The men who followed were probably part of their gang, had probably used the beautiful Nina as a front to attract men to a sale.
His concern was replaced by anger at the thought. He had already been made to look like a fool by the arrival of the camels. Now a pretty little Mexican girl had made him twice the fool. He contemplated checking with the sheriff anyway, what with all the recent problems with horse stealing, then scowled and sighed, deciding to forget about it. He would have enough on his hands getting these damn camels back to Camp Verde.
Chapter Four
Clay lit a thin cigar while some of his men packed up their gear and others trotted their horses around the corral full of camels to keep their mounts acquainted with the strange newcomers, hoping to avoid the wild melee of the day before. Clay glanced at Sergeant Johnson, who was just finishing loading and tying together a string of pack mules. The man looked back at Clay sullenly, having already made it known he was thoroughly disgusted with the idea of using camels, basking in some small victory he had felt at the disturbance the beasts had caused the day before. He had a feeling Johnson enjoyed watching him pay money that morning out of his own pocket to the disgruntled citizen who had lost his horse.
Clay called over one of the Arabs who seemed to know the most about the camels. Pekah Akim came over to him obediently. He always smiled, always seemed eager to please, bowing low, his dark eyes glittering with friendliness. Clay thought what a grand mixture of people there was in the world. Pekah Akim’s dark skin did not have the black tone to it that most Negroes’ had, but neither was it the shade of native Indians. He seemed darker than both races, which made his teeth seem even whiter. Clay wondered if he ever removed his turban, wondered what life was like in the strange land from which this man had come.
“Mr. Akim, I would like to put on a little demonstration for the people of Indianola today, and for my own muleteer. Will you help me?”
“Yes, yes, I help,” the man replied, bowing.
Clay appreciated his friendliness, since the other two Arabs sent along were much more reserved, almost sullen. They kept to themselves and spoke little, and Clay suspected they would rather be back home—wherever that was. Pekah Akim, on the other hand, seemed very happy to be in America, obviously considering his trip an adventure.
“I want to show Sergeant Johnson how much one of your camels can carry. You pick the one you think is biggest and strongest and bring it out here.”
“Yes, yes,” the man answered, hurrying away.
Although it was early, a crowd had again begun to gather around the corral to gawk at the camels. Clay hailed the driver of a flatbed wagon passing by, carrying several bales of hay and pulled by six mules. One of the mules began braying and nervously scuffling as Pekah brought out a camel. “What is it?” the man asked Clay. “I’m a busy man.”
“Where are you headed with that hay?” Clay asked him.
“Over to Sam’s Feed Store,” he answered. “What’s it to you? And what the hell is that ugly-lookin’ thing?”
“That is a camel, mister,” Clay answered. “I’d like to put on a little demonstration, using some of those hay bales, if you don’t mind. I’d like to load some of them onto this camel. If my plan works, I’ll have the camel led to the feed store to unload the hay. Otherwise, my men and I will help reload it onto your wagon.”
Onlookers began to mumble, and the wagon driver frowned, his curiosity getting the better of his busy schedule. “Go ahead.” He put the brake on his wagon, offering no help as Clay instructed three of his men to unload two bales of hay and tie them to the camel Pekah had brought out.
Pekah touched the camel’s front legs with a stick, commanding it to kneel. The animal obeyed, and Clay ordered his men to strap a bale of hay onto the animal. Sergeant Johnson, pride and skepticism in his eyes, walked over to Clay, folding his arms and watching the procedure. “That’s nothing,” he told his commander. “Most any mule can carry a bale of hay. A good three hundred pounds I’d say those bales are.”
Clay smiled inwardly. “Mr. Akim, can that beast carry two of those bales?”
The grinning Arab nodded. “Oh, yes, yes. Four, I think.”
The mumbling grew louder, mixed with a few gasps and some laughter. “That’s impossible,” the sergeant scoffed.
Clay ordered his men to tie on another three bales. A fourth man helped, since the hay was so heavy and bulky. It took two men on each end of each bale to carry it from the wagon to the camel, which remained kneeling, scanning the crowd calmly and quietly chewing on some grass. People shook their heads and stepped back as the fourth bale was tied on.
“Have her get up,” Clay told Pekah. People shook their heads, most, including the sergeant, ready for the lieutenant to be thoroughly embarrassed. Pekah touched the camel again, uttering a command in a foreign tongue. The camel hesitated, then rose up first on its hind feet, then its front feet. Pekah grasped the animal’s rope bridle and led it around in a circle. It ambled along easily, giving no sign of carrying too much weight.
Sergeant Johnson dropped his arms, and his jaw. There were more gasps, and some people actually clapped and cheered. The camel was carrying roughly four times the weight a good mule could carry. “I’ll be damned,” the sergeant muttered.
“Their feet are webbed just right for walking through desert sand,” Clay told the crowd, needing to prove the animal’s worth in order to recover some of his own pride after the embarrassment of the day before. “Besides being able to carry much more than any horse or mule, the females can be milked, their meat can be eaten, and their skins can be used for clothing. Their heavy eyelids and long lashes help them survive sandstorms, and they can go for weeks, even months, without water. They aren’t very fast or very comfortable for riding, but you can see their value as a pack animal.”
“Put on another bale,” one man requested.
“No, no,” Pekah said to Clay, shaking his head. “Four is enough.”
“Come on,” the man challenged. “I’ll bet she can do it.” The rest of the crowd joined in the man’s demand, becoming excited at the thought of an animal being able to carry up to fifteen hundred pounds.
“If she can carry twelve, she can carry fifteen,” one man near Clay shouted.
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Clay walked closer to Pekah. “Just try it,” he told the Arab.
“She will be very angry,” the man answered.
“Angry?”
“Ah, yes. The camel with too much load gets angry. She will not get up. She might even bite me.”
Clay snickered. “Just try it, Mr. Akim.” His own pride at the challenge was getting the better of him. He ordered his men to put on one more bale, as Pekah urged the animal back to its thick-skinned knees. The camel obeyed, still chewing a cud and appearing totally unconcerned. A fifth bale was added, and Pekah cautiously touched the beast, commanding it to rise. It just turned its head and looked at him. Pekah looked at Clay.
“Five are too many,” he said. “When a camel carries more weight than she can handle, she will not get up.”
“I’ll make her get up,” the man who had instigated the challenge replied. He approached the camel, grabbing the stick from Pekah and hitting the animal twice with it. “Get up, you ugly thing!” he commanded. The camel just turned and looked at him as it had at Pekah.
“I would not hit her again,” Pekah warned. “You cannot make a camel carry more than she should. She will not obey.”
“If you can make horses and mules obey, you can make a camel obey!” the man replied haughtily. He hit the camel again. “Get up!” he growled.
The camel pulled back its head, its big brown eyes fixed on the man. Suddenly its head darted forward, and the beast spit a huge wad of brown cud smack against the man’s chest. The crowd burst into laughter at the sight. The angry instigator raised the stick, but the camel bared its teeth as though ready to bite, and he backed off, throwing the stick onto the ground, his face red as a beet. Clay himself could not hold back a good laugh, and even Sergeant Johnson joined in the humor, secretly admiring the proud camel’s feistiness, and its incredible ability to carry so much weight. Four bales had been enough proof of its abilities. He didn’t blame it for refusing to take on a fifth.
The man who had started the challenge looked down at the front of his shirt, making a face as though he might be sick. “My God, this thing stinks,” he groaned, stooping down to pick up a piece of splintered wood and using it to flick the thick cud off his shirt. While the laughter continued, he hurried over to a watering trough to throw his body chest-down into it in an effort to wash most of the smelly remains from his shirt. Clay ordered the fifth bale removed, and the camel then got up on command.
“Sergeant Johnson, you go with Mr. Akim and the wagon driver to the feed store to unload those bales.”
Johnson looked at Clay sheepishly. “I guess you were right, sir, about the weight they can carry. Does this mean mules and muleteers won’t be needed anymore?”
Clay’s smile faded. He sensed a hint of sadness in the words, and he knew how attached the sergeant was to his mules. “That is yet to be seen, Sergeant,” he answered. “This is just an experiment, you know. We still have a trip to California ahead of us. Besides, the government tends to move slowly on new ideas. In the meantime, it won’t hurt you to learn what you can about packing and driving the camels.”
Johnson nodded, glancing at his mules. “Yes, sir.” He walked off with Pekah, and Clay sighed and shook his head, thinking how this was the strangest assignment he had ever been given. He turned and ordered the rest of the men to prepare to leave as soon as Pekah and the sergeant returned with the unloaded camel. He took another drag on his cigar, turning when someone called out to him.
“Lieutenant!”
Clay waited as the local sheriff approached him.
“I’m Sheriff Ames, Lieutenant,” the man said, putting out his hand.
Clay shook it. “Lieutenant Youngblood. What can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“Well, I’m not sure you can do anything. Looks to me like you’ll have your hands full heading back. Camp Verde?”
“Yes.”
The sheriff put his hands on his hips. “Well, I just wanted to tell you to keep an eye out. There’s been a rash of horse stealing around these parts.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“A man just came in this morning—said a small herd of mustangs he had rounded up was stolen a few nights ago before he could even get a brand on them. Said he thinks one of the thieves just might be a woman.”
“A woman?” A small, unwanted suspicion crept into Clay’s mind. The pretty young señorita he had seen the day before—a horse thief? He had already suspected her, much as he didn’t want to.
“A Mexican woman,” the sheriff continued. “The man says he ran out to try to stop them when he heard them conversing in Mexican. Sounded young—a man and a woman. He knows one was a woman because of her voice, and he said he could see her long hair in the moonlight. He never did get a close, clear look, mostly just shadows, but he’s sure they were young and Mexican.”
Clay sighed, feeling strangely sad at the thought of Nina Juarez being a thief. “Sheriff, you’d better have your victim check out that corral over there,” he said, pointing down the street, “the one with a little shed in the corner. A young Mexican man and woman were after me yesterday to buy some horses for the Army. When I went to check the horses out, there were several unbranded mustangs among them, and some horses with brands. The man and woman claimed they rounded the horses up legitimately on the open range, but they seemed awfully nervous. When I told them I was going to check with you, the two of them made a mad dash out of town before I could even reach your office. I should have said something to you then, but I was so involved with these damn camels that I just said the hell with it.”
“Sounds like our thieves to me.”
“I hate to think it’s true. They are young, and the woman is just barely a woman, and beautiful at that. I can’t believe they’re just no-good thieves. You sure the man who reported this saw only the two of them? There wasn’t a whole gang?”
“No. Just the two. Why?”
Clay adjusted his hat, irritated with himself for feeling worried about the pretty Nina, who was obviously a wild little troublemaker. “Just wondering. When they lit out of town yesterday, about five more men rode out not far behind them. I figured maybe they all belonged together. Now I’m wondering if maybe those men were after them.”
“Probably stole some of their horses. They might take care of our problem for us.”
“Could be. I’ll keep an eye open and report this to my commander.”
“Well, I’m alerting the Rangers also. Somebody is going to get hanged over this.”
When the man left, Clay again looked up the street where Nina and Emilio had ridden out the day before. He felt a strange ache at the thought of Nina Juarez being hanged. Was that what those men intended? Or would Nina suffer something worse than hanging? Again he fought off the ridiculous feeling that he was somehow responsible for her—not to capture her, but to protect her. It made no sense to feel this way about a stranger, especially one who probably deserved whatever she got.
He walked back to the corral of camels and mounted his own horse, edging back as the camels were led out. Pekah was returning with the demonstration camel, and a small group of men was gathered around the man who had suffered the spit of cud. He was still fuming, saying he’d “just as soon shoot those goddamn ugly beasts as look at them.”
Clay just grinned. Men and camels and mules were mustered into order, and the unusual caravan headed out of town in the same direction Emilio and Nina had gone, toward San Antonio. From there they would head north to Camp Verde. Sergeant Johnson returned to his mules, patting one of them on the neck and remaining unusually quiet.
“Do you think we have finally lost them?” Nina asked her brother. She peered from the doorway of an abandoned shack they had found, looking out in the direction from which they had ridden.
“I hope so. We must rest the horses,” Emilio answered. “But they must also rest theirs so they will hold up also. After riding through that river for such a long way, I do not think they will find our tracks again.”
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br /> Nina sighed, sliding to the dusty floor of the shack. “Oh, Emilio, we should never have stolen from them. They will not give up. They will kill you, and then I will wish I myself was dead.”
Emilio turned away, his pride hurt over making such a blunder, his heart heavy for his sister. He loved her, but sometimes he almost resented her for creating problems he would not have if she were not always with him. What had started out as a game of revenge for them both was becoming a threat to their lives.
Emilio had to admit to himself that he liked the danger, felt challenged at becoming notorious for his cleverness at stealing horses. Someday he could be as rich and powerful as Hernandez, but it would be more difficult with Nina along. Still, he did not like leaving her alone. It was a dilemma, and for now, he could not get them out of this mess even if he wanted to. They were broke, and he knew no better way of getting money than by stealing.
“They will not find us. We will let them think we plan to continue heading north, but tomorrow we will head south and go back to Mexico. We will stay there for a while, work at whatever we can find to get by. Jess Humes does not know where our home is down there.” He pulled out his handgun and walked to a window. “Take the horses out back below that hill where they cannot be seen from the road. And unsaddle them so they can cool off. Bring some of our gear back here and we will eat something.”
“There is little left.”
“It will have to do. We cannot make a fire, and I cannot shoot my gun to kill a rabbit. If we get out of here in the morning and make two days travel south without any problems, I think we will be all right. I will find us some food then.” He watched the sprawling horizon, seeing nothing, worried about the fact that there were hidden arroyos and gulleys out there, as well as patches of trees, all of which could hide men.
Nina left through a back door, glancing around before going to the horses and taking them below a hill behind the shack. She unsaddled them, then hobbled them in an area of long grass. She removed her hat and poured some water into it from a canteen, holding it out to one horse to let it drink, then to the other. “You have been swift, my friends,” she told them gently, patting their necks. “Now you can rest.”
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