by Jory Sherman
“No, we do not go there,” Culebra replied. “We go to the place where the white bull killed our brothers. We follow the track of the white bull and when we find him, we eat when he grazes and we sleep when he sleeps.”
“But why?” asked Tecolote. “Will you kill the white bull?”
“The white bull is a devil,” Oso said. “Bad spirit.”
“The young white-eye, the one called Anson, the young Baron … he will come after the white bull,” Culebra said. “And we will be waiting. I will kill Anson. I will carry his scalp back to our camp in the mountains and I will hang it in my lodge.”
“Ahhh,” the others said, and walked to their horses.
Culebra rode away, knowing they would follow. He looked at the sky and marked the sun’s place as it arced toward the west, and smelled the air, knowing it was the same air that the sun and the stars breathed, and when he saw the floating hawk, he breathed deeply and nodded to it.
“We are one, my brother,” he said. “You hunt in the sky and I hunt on the earth, but we are one. We are the same.”
When the other men rode up, Culebra spoke no more but he felt as strong as if he had eaten one of the cattle with the long horns all by himself.
25
ANSON FOUND JUST the place he was looking for, some five or six miles north of Aguilar’s Rocking A ranch. A large mesquite forest flanked the road on both sides. The trees grew thick through there and anyone venturing inside the dense grove could become lost quite easily. No one had chopped the mesquite away from the road for many years and it had grown back, leaving a narrow defile for nearly three-quarters of a mile.
“Timo, you and your men get some grub,” Anson said to his foreman. “Then, you take both sides of the road here, where you won’t be seen.”
“I think this is a good place,” Timo said.
“Matteo will have to ride right through here.”
“He will have many men?”
“Yes, but I’ll explain how this is all going to work after you and the others have had some grub. Leave your horses back in the trees while you eat so they can shade and graze.”
“I will do this,” Timo said, giving Anson a salute with his right hand.
Timo rode over to his companions and spoke to them in rapid Spanish. He and two others rode their horses into the mesquite on one side of the road, and the others disappeared into the forest on the other side.
“Looks like Timo knows what the hell he’s doin’,” Peebo said.
“He don’t take a lot of tellin’ to get the idea.”
“So, you’ll flank this road and when Aguilar comes through, you’ll light into him. Then what? He comes into that mesquite like a bunch of mad hornets and we end up maybe chasin’ our tails.”
Anson stripped the bandanna from around his neck and wiped his forehead. Then he lifted his hat and ran the cloth around the sweatband inside. “Maybe you think I didn’t think this all through, Peebo.”
“It come to me that you might not have.”
“There’s somethin’ Juanito told me once that stuck with me.”
“Everything Juanito said stuck to you, son.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, what was it this time?”
“He said that a great general going into battle never gives himself an escape route.”
“Jesus, son. You mean to make this godforsaken place your last stand?”
“No. He also said that the smart man, who is outnumbered, always leaves himself a way to get the hell out and run like the devil.”
“I like that suggestion,” Peebo said.
“Better than the first?”
“A whole hell of a lot better.”
Anson stopped studying his hat and put it back on. He retied the bandanna around his neck and dug spurs into his horse’s flanks as he reined him into a tight turn. He rode off the road and into the mesquite just as Timo and three hands, Manuel Lagos, Emilio Fortuna, and Paco Castro, came walking out. The Mexicans crossed the road, carrying a single saddlebag full of tortillas wrapped around beef and beans, and these wrapped in cloth that had started out the day being damp. Peebo followed Anson into the brush.
“Boy, you get in here and you can’t see ten feet in any direction,” Peebo said. “I don’t even know where them boys tied up their horses.”
“I’ve ridden all through this country as a boy and as a man, Peebo. Follow me.”
Peebo and Anson rode single file through the thick mesquite forest, ducking their heads, to keep from being knocked from their horses. They passed the place where Timo’s horse and the others were tied, not far from the road, but invisible from there, even so.
Anson seemed to follow some hidden trail through the brush and he did not look back. But he could hear Peebo behind him, his horse rubbing against tree limbs, trunks, Peebo’s hat-scraping low-hung branches. It was like riding through an emerald world and Anson remembered how, when he was a boy, he sought out such places where he could be alone and live in a world that was of his own making, a world of fantasy and dreams, inspired by his book-reading with his mother.
Anson was fascinated by the tales of knights and castles, of King Arthur and the Round Table, of Merlin and Sir Galahad. After he read these books, he would saddle his pony and become a knight. He rode into the wilderness on a stallion draped in gold-and-velvet raiment to do battle with the enemies coming to storm the castle. He rode into the brasada and there he could imagine himself back in that place and time so long ago. He had built forts out of mud, surrounding them with moats, and pretended he was a king at court with his subjects.
His mother read history to him, and he liked the stories of long-ago battles and wars and he carried these with him into the mesquite thickets and played them out while hidden away from the real world that seemed so harsh to him. There, in the woods, he did not have to hear his parents argue and fight. He did not have to hear his mother weeping alone in the bedroom and hear his father storm out of the house to be gone for days. It was easy, at such times, to steal away and ride his pony into the mesquite jungles and pretend that he was grown and wearing silver armor. He made swords out of tree branches, cutting them to size, making them flat and sharp and tying a crossbrace on for a handguard. Then he would pretend to engage in swordfights with imaginary enemies. He made lances and threw them at pretended attackers, or charged at trees and unseated knights vying for the favors of the beautiful princess.
He remembered those times now, and recalled all the secret trails he had made, trails that only he knew, and how he had been able to find his way through the mesquite, through the many mazes, and find his way out again. He had read about the Minotaur and he pretended the mesquite forests were mazes, and there he fought dragons and monsters and escaped every time.
Anson rode up to a place he had visited as a boy, and he stopped his horse. The memories flooded in on him when he saw the boxes he had hauled there in his little wagon. He had built a fort at this place and the boxes, weatherbeaten and bleached of their oils, had all collapsed. He remembered he had gathered stones, too, and stacked them as breastworks. These were now scattered, though he saw some still piled up there. But there was his wooden rifle and part of a bow he had made that had never worked right. He remembered that this had been his last fort, built when he was eight or nine, and he recalled sitting in it, and fending off Indians, shooting them dead as they charged him in imaginary battle.
Peebo rode up along Anson and stopped. “What’s all this, you reckon?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Anson replied. “A child’s playhouse.”
Peebo glanced hard at Anson, but said nothing. Anson swallowed hard. “Let’s go,” he said.
They rode on and the forest began to thin. Not long after, the trees stopped and they rode into a wide, flat open plain.
“God,” Peebo said, “I never thought we’d get out of that jungle yonder.”
Anson pointed across the plain to another mesquite forest. “This is our escape route on th
is side of the road. If we ride across this open place and into those woods yonder, Matteo will never find us.”
“Is there a way out of that one, too?”
“Yes, but it runs all the way up to the Box B and there’s an old cow trail right through the middle of it.”
“How do you know about all this?”
“It’s all Baron land, Peebo.”
“Yeah, but how do you know the lay of it so damned well?”
“I rode every goddamned mile of it.”
The two turned their horses and followed their return path through the mesquite. “Looks easy once you do it,” Peebo said. “Oncet, anyways.”
“Matteo wouldn’t know about this place,” Anson said. “Nor any of his men. Bone might, though. In fact, I’m sure he knows this land better than I do.”
Just before they reached the road again, Peebo rode ahead and stopped, turned his horse. “Mind tellin’ me what that was back there?”
“Back where?”
“In that mesquite. Them rocks and boxes. You been there before.”
Anson made a sound in his throat, pulled in air through his nostrils. “Looks like a place where some kid once played,” he said.
“You?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Look, Anson, you don’t have to tell me nothin’, but if we ride together, we better not have too many secrets between each other. I run away from home when I was a skinny youngster. That time was for good. But I run away more times before that, to a place where I wouldn’t be bothered none.”
Anson tried to ride around Peebo. Peebo blocked his way. “Peebo, that’s what you did and it’s damned interesting.”
“Didn’t you do that?”
“What?”
“Run off to be by yourself when you was just a tadpole.”
“Run off to where?”
“This here mesquite grove.”
“I never run off,” Anson said tightly. “I left that to my pa.”
“Jesus, you’re a hard damned nut.”
“Come on, we got plenty to do before that sun goes down.”
“Okay, Anson, keep your damned secrets. I just thought we might have had something in common.”
Anson said nothing. Peebo tried flashing his smile, but it didn’t work. He glummed up and switched his horse’s rump with his reins, turned it back toward the road.
Anson looked at Peebo’s back as he rode off, and he clucked to his horse and ticked the flanks with his spurs. What he had done as a boy, he thought, was nobody’s business but his own. If it was a secret, then that’s what secrets were for—to keep, and he meant to keep this one. Once you let another person get inside you, you could get hurt. He didn’t want Peebo to know what he did as a boy. It was none of his business. It wasn’t anybody’s.
They met Timo and the other Mexicans. Anson told them where he wanted them to wait. He showed them all the path through the mesquite and the open plain and left Peebo to watch the road.
When Anson, Timo, and the others returned, Peebo was sitting behind a tree where he could watch the road. His horse was ground-tied a few yards away. Peebo was munching on a dry tortilla fat with beans and beef. His canteen rested against his leg. “All’s quiet,” he said.
“Good,” Anson said. “You and I will take the other side of the road. Timo and the rest of the bunch will spread out along this side.”
“Any escape from the other side?” Peebo asked, just after swallowing the last of his food. He stood up and drank from the canteen in his hand. He reached for his rifle, which was leaning against the tree.
“Do you really want to know?” Anson asked, looking down at Peebo from his saddle perch.
“I reckon you’re going to tell me there ain’t none.”
Anson turned to Timo and spoke to him in Spanish. “Go gather up your horses. Spread out along here, in the trees,” he said. “One hundred paces between each man. Stay on your horses.”
“Do you think Matteo will come soon?” Timo asked.
“I think he will come after the sun falls in the sky.”
“In the night, then.”
“Yes. Near the dawn maybe. I think he will want to attack the house at the ranch just as the sun rises.”
“You know this Matteo well?”
“I know if he is not here now, he will want to fight at dawn.”
“You are a smart man, Anson. Muy sabio.”
“So is Matteo. Ten cuidado.”
“I will be careful,” Timo said.
“I told your wife I’d bring you back. Alive.”
Timo laughed. He had crooked teeth and these were stained with the tobacco he kept tucked in the pouch of his cheek. All of his teeth showed when he laughed—all ten of them, none of which touched each other.
“I think she would like you to bring her back a younger man, one more handsome than I.”
“That is not what she told me, Timo. She said that you broke her bed last night, as you do every night, and that you must come home and fix it.”
Timo laughed again.
“Ai, that woman,” he said. “It is she who breaks the bed. She is a tigress. And she has claws. My poor back will never heal, I think.”
“Do not brag, Timo. You do not have to boast. There are five children in that house and each one is as ugly as you are.”
“That is true. I am trying to make one that will look like my Lila.”
“Well, Lila wants you back so you can keep trying. Now, think of this when Matteo comes. You shoot and run. I do not want to stop him. I just want to slow him down.”
“I will slow him down,” Timo said, and drew himself up proudly and grinned crookedly, for emphasis. The grin, in his mouth, was an absolute leer, as obscene as any smile Anson had ever seen.
Anson watched the Mexicans ride off. He wanted them all to come out of this alive, and if they followed Timo’s orders, they would. He knew he was no match for Matteo’s small army, but he wanted him to think long and hard about riding on the Box B, and if he could cut some of Matteo’s numbers, Matteo would have something to think about while he completed his ride to the north.
“You’re mighty chatty, son,” Peebo said. “Can’t them Mexicans find a way to cut their talk shorter?”
“It always sounds longer when you don’t understand it.”
“I savvy enough of it.”
“Enough to get you into trouble south of the border.”
“I have enough trouble right here. I don’t have to go to Mexico to find it.”
“Let’s ride on up to the edge of the mesquite so we can get off the first shots, warn Timo and his men when Matteo comes.”
“Why don’t we just get some sticks and pie plates and bang ’em together? That ought to give our position away enough and we’d save some lead and powder.”
“Let’s see how funny you find all this when the shooting starts.”
“Hell, Matteo might not even ride out today. We could starve to death waitin’ up yonder.”
“Oh, he’s coming, all right. Otherwise all those men would be out working cattle, not marching like soldiers.”
Peebo said nothing. Anson nodded to him and rode across the road and into the thick mesquite on the other side. He knew he was right, and he knew Peebo knew it now. Sometime that night, toward morning, Matteo and his army would come riding up that road.
He wondered what his father was doing at that moment. He wondered if he had spoken to Esperanza and found out the truth of how Caroline had gotten sick and died. He thought about his mother, too, and wondered if he would ever get over her death. He was sure his father would not. But, maybe, they each could turn some of their grief under, plow it beneath the hatred they carried for the Aguilar family.
Maybe, he thought, that was why men fought each other, fought wars. This war between the states. Neighbor fighting neighbor. Why? Because men hated. But why did they hate? Because they wanted what another man had. Because, he thought, they coveted what the other man had. Maybe
that was it. They hated what their neighbor had and if they had been wronged, then they carried grudges, like he was carrying for Matteo and his family. Well, if that was the way it was, he was no different.
But, he thought, a grudge is a terrible thing to bear. A grudge eats at a man’s innards and keeps eating at his guts until it eats his very soul.
By the time he and Peebo reached the edge of the mesquite forest, Anson was sick inside. Sick in his heart, sick in his belly. He found a spot where he and Peebo could wait for Matteo’s army and he slid out of the saddle and promptly threw up all that was in his stomach.
“You sick?” Peebo asked. “Or just scared?”
Anson looked up at the grinning Peebo and saw him through watery eyes, like some imaginary figure rising out of a mirage.
“Both,” Anson said, and gagged again.
Maybe, he thought, it would be easier to kill in the dark, and he prayed for the sun to go down so he could hide his feelings and his thoughts and he would not have to see the faces of the men he would kill. And maybe the killing would wear down some of the grudge before it ate him alive.
26
MARTIN HEARD THE rumble and jouncing clatter of the wagon long before he saw it. He fingered the trigger guard on his flintlock rifle for several anxious moments as he stood in the shadows next to the wagon bearing the cannon.
It seemed to him that the Mexican hands around and underneath the wagon were all holding their breaths and then he realized he had been doing the same thing.
“Who comes, Patrón?” Ramón Mendoza asked. In Timo’s absence, Ramón was Martin’s segundo, in charge of those who would lift the wagon and turn it on Martin’s command.
“I do not know, but the wagon is coming from town.”
“Yes, that is good, maybe.”
“Ojalá que sí,” Martin said. “I hope so.”
The two men listened as the wagon drew closer. On the still night air, the sound carried from a long way, Martin knew. He looked up at the sliver of moon and then back into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wagon before it was too close to the house. He wondered if the women upstairs had heard it. Wanda, Hattie, Ursula, Esperanza, and Lucinda were all in the house, upstairs, sitting by windows in front, back, and the south side. Only Esperanza and Lucinda did not wait with rifles in their hands. The two Mexican women were to hand loaded rifles to the other three and reload the empty ones when the fighting started.