by Rex Burns
Six Mile Spring was at the end of a road different from the one Wager had taken with Orrin. A small pool of water seeped from somewhere beneath a tangle of wind-sculpted boulders and ran in a short stream over the black roots of thick willows before sinking just as mysteriously into the grit. Two by two, the horses were led to the shallow water, where they bent and sucked loudly, their hind legs stamping to jar off the flies. Tice explained that a horse trail shortened the distance to Zenas’s ranch by several miles, and that the party could twist down the shelves of rock and sand without raising dust like a column of automobiles would. “You and me,” he added, “we’ll drive over. One Jeep with two people in it won’t scare off Willis. In fact, if he’s anywhere around he might suspect something if he didn’t see some kind of official activity.”
Wager looked at the rangy horses being blanketed and saddled, their tails switching nervously, and nodded with relief. He’d ridden a horse years ago when he was a kid, and the only thing he remembered about it was the raw chafe of rear end and thighs that had been the result of an hour’s ill-governed jolt around a level and well-marked horse trail.
When the last of the saddles had been unloaded from the pickup trucks that hauled the four-horse trailers, and the corral’s drivers had pulled away in a clank of couplings and chains, Tice called the deputies together for a final briefing.
“You boys know the trail and you know time’s short. Stake your horses down by Jones Bend—there’s enough feed and water there, and you’re only a mile or so from Zenas’s place. Move up on foot and keep it quiet. No radio talk. When you’re in sight of the ranch, give me three clicks on your transmitter, Earl. Three clicks, wait three seconds, then three more clicks, got that? We ain’t going to take the chance they got a scanner somewhere.”
Hodges nodded and spit.
“You move up low and quiet and get under cover,” Tice repeated. “Then give me the clicks and I’ll come out and find you—I know which way you’ll be coming from.”
“You figure on getting there before we do?” asked Yates.
“I sure don’t aim to waste time on the road. But if we’re late just sit tight and wait. You’ll see us coming through the notch. Be sure you stay out of sight at all times.”
“Right.”
Wager and Tice watched the column of horsemen quickly disappear among the interlaced willows, the occasional knock of a hurried hoof loud in the silence. The pungent smell of fresh horse droppings hung briefly in the air until a gust of hot wind blew it away. Then, wordless, Tice put the Jeep in gear and pulled out rapidly.
Their road, scarcely marked in the sand between widely spaced clumps of seemingly dead brush, led south along the edge of one of the stony benches. Ahead, in the rising afternoon wind, a dust devil swirled, erect in a wavering column. It thickened to a solid core of whirling sand that whipped rapidly up the slope, then lifted to disappear as a faint tan smudge against the heat-paled sky. Now and then a gully notched the stone rim and gave Wager a glimpse of tumbled and shattered rock falling away like bleached bones toward the next bench of earth five hundred, a thousand feet below. In the distance beyond that he made out the channeled blue that marked the sky over the river. But the countless spurs and thrusts of contorted mesa walls gave him no idea at all of the site of Zenas’s ranch.
“Is there any other way Willis can get to the ranch?”
“If you know the desert, sure. Six Mile Spring trail’s one. But I don’t think they’ll use that, not if they’re coming up from Mexico.” Tice lifted his mirrored sunglasses and wiped his forehead with his arm, then resettled them. “Most likely, they’ll come up from the southwest—there’s roads enough across the Navaho reservation if you know where you’re going. And they do. Willis was born and raised out there.”
“How close can they drive?”
“Ten, maybe twelve miles. Then they got to walk. The Frying Pan Trail follows along the river, so they’d have plenty of water.”
Wager tried to picture the column of armed men stumbling across the red and sun-heated rock down below the twisting lip of river gorge. “Can they be spotted from the air?”
“Sure. If they stand out in the open and jump up and down.”
He let the sarcasm go. “When they run—if they run—we might call in an air search to round them up. Doyle can get the National Guard helicopters for us.”
Tice shook his head. “Not even a helicopter can get in some of those cracks. An air search is all right if you’re looking for somebody who wants to be found. But there’s too many places where a man can curl up and hide. No.” He shook his head once more. “It’s got to be on the ground, and I hope to hell we’re lucky.”
They bounced in silence, Tice picking his way as quickly as he could along the crumbling rim. The scattered clumps of desert brush gave way to a valley so wide that Wager would not have noticed it if the Jeep’s motor had not slackened. Juniper trees no taller than a man stood far apart, dotting the slope like sentinels, and at the valley’s bottom spread a delta of rippled sand. When the Jeep’s motor once more strained uphill, Tice bobbed his head. “The road’s just up on that ridge. Then we can make some good time.”
With the last few dragging, jouncing miles, Wager’s mind had returned to an earlier question, one there hadn’t been time to ponder in Tice’s busy office. “Is there any way Orrin or Mueller could have learned about Willis’s plans?”
Tice steered around a broken outcropping of pitted sandstone. “You mean that’s why they might have been killed?”
“Just another possibility.”
The sheriff chewed it over. “Maybe Orrin found out something. Damned if I can see how, though. Mueller, no. Too long ago. It would be before the Kruses ever got to Zenas’s ranch. If they got there.”
That was true. And it didn’t tie into the sale of Mueller’s land to this Carmen Louisa Gallegos. “Did your clerk Esther ever find out anything at the courthouse?”
The sheriff grunted. “I forgot to ask. All this news of Willis, and the goddamn reporters …” He keyed his microphone, calling his code number to the dispatcher. Only static answered. “Can’t get there from here, I guess. Maybe up on the ridge.”
They finally lurched up the last bit of slope and turned onto the now-familiar dirt road. Tice tried the radio again, getting a faint, thin voice in return, “Go ahead, go ahead. I’m receiving you.”
“What did Esther find out at the courthouse? I’m in a hurry.”
“Wait one.”
They fidgeted in the hot wind that blew through the open sides of the Jeep and carried a fine grit that clogged the nose and crackled faintly between the teeth.
“She says no sales …” Static broke the transmission. “… has been trying to buy options.”
“Say again—you’re breaking up.”
“She says no sales recorded last two weeks. But her uncle told her that somebody’s been trying to get options on all the land that’s up for sale.”
“Ten-four. Any name on that somebody?”
Static. Tice tried again and then said, “To hell with it, the band’s breaking up. Options wouldn’t be recorded anyway. Let’s move—we’ve wasted enough time.” He plunged the Jeep in gear and tore through the sand toward the next series of switchbacks.
They paused at the notch that overlooked the Winston ranch. The line of Lombardy poplars tracing the main irrigation ditch cast shadows like a giant picket fence across the shaggy surface of the cornfield. The square house sat in the deep shade of the cottonwoods, and behind it the sun on the river glinted a quivering silver. Out of the trees came the startled squawk of a blue jay, and then only the wind.
Tice used his binoculars to scan the surrounding rock walls, quartering the vista and working methodically and slowly through each section. Finally he said, “Nothing. Not even a dog. They’ve pulled out.” He dropped the roughly idling Jeep into low gear for the sharp descent.
“We’re ahead of Willis?”
“I didn’t see an
y buzzards.” Tice added, with that twist at the corner of his mouth, “But if he did beat us, I hope he’s had time to leave before you and me get there.”
Dust swirling around them, they pulled to a stop in front of the house. Tice killed the motor and they sat in the Jeep, the radio giving a muted hiss, waiting. The sheriff was right about the dogs; no frantic barking, no nervous bleats from the penned goats broke the silence. Only the soft chatter of cottonwood leaves blending with the rush of the shallow river.
“How long does it take from Six Mile Spring to where they leave the horses?”
“Couple hours. But it’s a long country mile from Jones Bend, and the boys can’t walk too damn fast in cowboy boots. A lot of it’s across slickrock, too.”
It took another half hour; the blue jay jabbered occasionally, and once they heard the distant, rusty croak of a crow gliding the updrafts above the cliffs. But no voices came from the house or the trees surrounding it.
Zenas could see them, Wager knew. But the man was not going to show himself in the open. He would wait, like last time, until they were close enough to be called quietly into the shelter of the bushes. And that would take as long as Hodges and Yates needed to sneak into hiding nearby.
Tice’s thick fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel. Gradually, the shadow of the stone house moved toward the Jeep’s square bumper, touched the dusty knobbed tire, rose an inch or so up its bulging, dusty flank.
When the signal came, it was sharp and strong, three clicks like river stones popped together, a short silence, then three more clicks. Tice thumbed his receiver twice in reply and then heaved out of the driver’s seat. “Let’s find Zenas.”
The two men stood briefly, eyes searching the cliffs, ears listening through the liquid sound of the cottonwoods. Out of courtesy, they knocked at the door of the house they knew to be empty. Then Wager led Tice around the side toward the barn. “He was waiting in those willows last time.”
He was again, his soft voice greeting them when they were halfway across the barnyard. “If you come in peace come this way.”
“I don’t know how much peace we bring,” said Tice. “But we got to talk.”
They pushed through the tangled screen of willow branches. Zenas, rifle ready, kneeled to peer past the two until they were totally hidden. Then he gestured at them to sit down. “What is it this time?”
“It’s nice to see you, too, Zenas.” Tice crouched heavily on one knee and panted against the bind of his cartridge belt. “We got word this morning that Beauchamp’s come north with about fifteen armed men. We figure they’re looking for you and the Kruses.”
Zenas’s hand stroked lightly down his beard. “Fifteen. That’s a lot. He comes looking for blood atonement then.”
Wager raised his eyebrows.
Tice explained, “That’s where you wash away a man’s sins with his own blood. It’s a lot more convenient than using your own.”
Zenas’s dark eyes widened slightly with anger. “You may mock, Tice, but a man’s flesh is only temporal. His soul is eternal. Eternal!”
The sheriff grunted. “Let the good Lord look after the souls. My job’s to look after the flesh. And that’s what I’m here to do, Zenas, like it or not. I want to get me some destroying angels.”
“They are not Danites—they don’t labor with the blessing of the Lord. They are apostate!”
“They sure don’t labor with the blessing of the law. That’s why we’re here.”
“With the help of the Lord, we will look after our own. We don’t need you.”
“You need every gun you can get and you know it.”
The bearded man could not bring himself to agree, but his silence marked the truth of what Tice said.
“Counting me and Detective Wager, we got ten rifles. Eight of them are already in place.”
“I know,” said Zenas, a glint of cold humor in his eyes. “My son watched them come in from Jones Bend. You gave him a good scare.”
Tice poked at the soft dirt with a twig. “I figured you got all the trails watched. You’ve seen nothing of Willis then?”
Zenas shook his head.
“He’s coming. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. But he’s coming. You believe me, don’t you?”
“Even so.”
“I’d like to set a trap for him.”
Interest rippled behind the blank expression Zenas wore for Gentiles.
“I’d like you to put your family back in the house so we can draw them in. Then we can get them before they scatter.”
“No.”
Tice poked again. “If we get them they’ll be out of your hair. If we don’t they’ll be back. How long you think they’ll take to find where you’ve got your people hid?”
“I’ll not sacrifice one of my family.”
“Nobody’s talking sacrifice, Zenas. We’ll have people inside the house and outside. And when Willis comes in we’ll close on him fast. He won’t be expecting as many guns as he’ll find.”
“He will plan for the worst and hope for the best, and he has all the guile and craft of the Antichrist. If you fail then he has my family. I will not bring them into that danger.”
“Well, I can’t deny there’ll be some danger.” Tice scratched his ear. “God alone knows what can go wrong. But if it works and we do get him we can put him away for a long time. Him and all the people with him.”
“My family is a sacred trust. It is our duty to God to work his will on earth. No one else—Gentile, infidel, Antichrist—no one else has been chosen for this duty and this joy.” The words came out like pebbles tossed on the ground between them. “If I bring harm on those who are God’s true laborers then my soul will wander unregenerate and so will theirs. What you want, Tice, is that I risk not only their lives but their eternal bliss in the highest heaven. I won’t do it.”
Wager spoke for the first time, trying to keep exasperation from his voice. “Maybe it’s God’s will we’re here,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t think you do either. But we both know what that man wants to do, and it won’t be just your family that’s in danger; it’ll be the rest of the people in your church, too. If Beauchamp’s not caught, none of you are safe. Look.” Wager pointed through the thick tangle at the house. “He outnumbers us. But if we can pen them in a small area and catch them by surprise we’ve got a chance, and a good one. The way to do that is to make the ranch seem normal so they will move in close. God, or somebody, has given you this chance to get Willis. You ask your people—see if some of them are willing to take the risk. If they are it won’t all be on your soul if something happens.”
Zenas’s eyes narrowed with thought. “Despise not wisdom though it be from the serpent himself.”
Wager wasn’t sure if he liked that serpent bit, but he saw that the man was weighing the argument. He and Tice waited; the only sounds were the rustling leaves and the occasional zing of a hurrying insect.
“I will ask my sons.”
“It’s got to look real,” said Wager again. “It’s got to look natural enough to fool Beauchamp into coming in close.”
Zenas added grudgingly, “And my women. But you two will have to be in there, too.”
It was nearing sunset by the time Tice had briefed his men, warning them repeatedly against smoking and unnecessary talk or movement. “We want as many of them in as possible before we make our move. We don’t want to scare them off. If it works you hold your fire until I call you in—everybody got that?”
Silent nods from the men seated or sprawled on the cooling sand of the small, deep crevice that served as an assembly area.
“Don’t move up to your positions until just at dark. And then, by God, you set still and keep quiet. If it don’t happen tonight pull back to this assembly area as soon as you can see your fingers in front of your face.”
“How long you think this’ll take, Sheriff?” asked the nasal voice.
Tice shrugged. “It can’t be too long—Willis won’t wa
nt to stay in the States too long. Two, three days at most, I’d say. Why, you in a hurry to get someplace?”
“He’s in a hurry to get his pecker dipped before somebody else gets there.”
“You be go to hell,” said Nasal. “If you could even get yours up you’d maybe know something about it!”
“That’s enough,” said Tice. “Now I don’t want any horseplay from you people. This here’s damn serious, and we got a lot of lives we’re responsible for—women and children. You hear me?”
The nasal voice mumbled a “Well, he started it. …”
“Now, Wager and me are going to drive out like we’re leaving. When it gets dark, we’ll double back and set up in the house. Remember, if they come tonight don’t anybody spook them—let them take the bait good, you hear me? We’ll raise enough hell so they think they got the whole bunch trapped and bring up everybody. Then—and only then—you people make your move. I’ll radio for you.” Tice paused to give emphasis: “We only have one chance. I don’t want nobody screwing it up. Earl, you and Roy got any questions? Anybody else?”
There were none. Tice and Wager shared cold camp with the group and then picked their roundabout way back through a series of cracks and fissures between the cooling and gigantic rocks toward the farmhouse. As they approached the shelter of the trees, they heard wood being chopped and the loud rattle of cooking pans carried on the breeze.
“Well, I guess you talked him into it,” said Tice. “You old serpent.”
Zenas had brought only three of his family: his first wife, Miriam, and two boys between ten and twelve years old. Those two watched the approaching strangers with large, solemn eyes; their shotguns, almost as tall as they were, leaned handily inside the kitchen door. Miriam, her graying hair in a tight bun at the back of her neck, avoided glancing at either Gentile; but her worry trailed behind her like an odor as she strode through the kitchen and downstairs rooms, lighting the fire in the stove as the afternoon cooled into evening, carrying oil lamps from window to window, attending to all the business of getting a large farm family ready for supper. And sharply bossing the two boys, as if she did not think they should be there.