by Tony Masero
Ender hunched over his saddle horn, easing the shotgun so the grip was in his hand and his finger inside the trigger guard. “And what’s your interest?”
“Well, Mister Quinlan would appreciate you handing that Indian over to us. He has a bone to pick with the fellow. You turn him over and I reckon Mister Quinlan will see you and your friends will be well taken care of.”
The Mexican had moved away from Land and had propped his Winchester up on his thigh as he watched the Indians with obvious distaste. “Cabrones!” he muttered, under his breath. The deep-seated and long historical hatred between Mexico and the Apache written plain to see on his sneering face.
Peyote turned his pony to advise the Mexican that he was under the Apache’s eye.
“That a fact? Mister Quinlan’ll take care of us, will he?” Ender smiled easily. “Afraid, we can’t oblige you or your boss on that score. He goes back to the fort with us.”
Land shrugged and gave Ender a pitying look. “Big mistake, Marshal. Save everybody a heap of trouble you hand him over here and now. He’ll go down, it’s just a matter of time.”
“You going to give us the way or just sit there and make veiled threats all day.”
Land sat up straight, hands resting on the pommel of his saddle and well away from the short-barreled pistol strapped cross-draw at his side. Ender also noted the butt of a long-range Sharps rifle sitting in a sleeve under his saddle.
Land’s thin face creased into a grin and exposed an even set of surprisingly well-maintained teeth.
“You’re a breed, ain’t you?” he asked, waving a hand in front of his face. “You being painted up with all that red paint like that. What is it? Some kind of war party thing?”
Ender lifted the shotgun, cocked both hammers with his thumb and pointed it at him. “Don’t matter what I am, fella. You don’t stand aside I’m going to poke a hole in you big enough to ride through.”
Land, still smiling looked away up to the crest of the low hill on one side of the road. “Didn’t I tell you?” he said, turning to look at Ender, the smile dropping from his face. “We didn’t come alone.”
Ender saw the three men crest the rise on his left, their rifles out and moving in a controlled manner down towards them.
“Don’t let him take my brother,” begged Catowitch from the rear and Peyote hissed at her to be silent.
“That your woman there?” asked Land, his eyes appraising Catowitch narrowly. “Fine piece of tail. Bet she uncurls your wrinkles.”
“I ain’t going to tell you twice,” warned Ender.
Land sighed. “I hoped we could do this peaceable, Marshal. Looks like you’re going to make me come on strong.”
“Why do you wait?” frowned the Mexican, his impatience getting the better of him as he leveled his Winchester at Ender. “Listen, mister. You are all dead men; we are too many for you. Give the bastard to us and be on your way or you die here.”
“Somebody will,” growled Ender, finally tiring of all the word play and jerking his horse’s head around so the pony swirled side on, he fired both barrels at the Mexican. The main spread of twelve gauge slammed into the man, lifting him from the saddle as his pony reared up, its shoulder peppered with the peripheral dispersal of pellets. The Mexican dropped to the ground and his squealing pony fell across him before struggling awkwardly to its feet in a cloud of dust.
Peyote had his pistol out and was covering Land, who quickly raised both hands in surrender. Sanza dragged out his Spencer rifle and raised it towards the advancing riders who pulled up on the slope at sound of the shotgun.
Ender drew his Colt, cocked it and pointed the barrel directly at Land. “One word, pinhead, and you join your Mex friend down there.”
“I ain’t saying nothing,” said Land, still verbal and risking the warning whilst he waved his hands in the air.
“Tell your partners to hold off,” ordered Ender. “Say it loud, I want to hear it clear.”
Land turned to the hovering riders. “Alright, boys!” he called. “Just stay where you are.”Ender looked down at the Mexican, who was lying gray and still, his shirtfront and one arm bloody and torn apart.
“Now, move away,” he ordered Land.
“I ain’t bothered, you see?” said Land casually, moving his pony with his knees, his hands still raised. “Don’t matter one teensy bit to me. You kill that fool Rodrigo, that’s just fine. He don’t work for me and was never worth much anyway. Maybe, Mister Quinlan though, now he might be a tad upset by all this.”
“Bury your friend,” said Ender, geeing his pony on.
**********
On their return journey, Ender had not liked the look of Land’s sniper gun and had worried that their slow passage with the travois would make them an easy target for a hidden marksman. He well knew that the modified post-war big-bored Sharps could launch a .45 Government shell packed with five hundred grain black powder accurately for a distance well over three thousand yards.
They were lucky though.
They ran into a detail returning from Piney Canyon with a load of lumber for building works at the fort and trailing along together with the loaded wagons brought them safely to the post.
Fort Bowie stood on a plateau overlooking Apache Pass between the high mountains of Dos Cabezas to the north and the stretch of the Chiricahua's running to the south. Originally it had stood as a guard post for the precious springs at Puerto de Dado; water was always a valued commodity on the fringes of the Sonoran Desert and the springs still counted for a treasured item in the fort’s positioning.
The site covered a thousand acres and was a sprawl of adobe buildings in a flat, unwalled enclosure. A temporary measure initially, the continuing problems with the Indians had forced expansion and development of the site. The post commander, Major Gene Bowmont was busy initiating those improvements.
Living conditions were still primitive and his troops were having to camp out in tents on the parade ground as the roof of their dirt-floored barracks leaked copiously in the changeable climate on the plateau, where hot desert air rose to meet that of the cooler mountains. First though, the Major had rather selfishly set the men to work building an adjutants office and officer’s quarters, then he might allow them to get around to shingling their own barracks roof.
Sounds of nails being hammered and wood sawn echoed around the fort as they entered, smoke from fires filled the air and the restless noise of cavalry horses came from the corrals. Men at work were everywhere, the soldiers, with sleeves rolled and braces hanging, hauled planks and carried buckets of hot pitch as they teemed over the upper levels of the fort.
Ender left Common Dog and Catowitch at the hospital, and then he told the two Indian police to take the ponies to the corral as he made his way across to the post commander’s office to make his report.
The grizzly duty sergeant, an old salt that had seen plenty of years on the frontier was the first to greet him. Sergeant Giltrap was due to end his term of service soon, yet he showed no sign of relaxing and was still all spit and polish with his uniform kept clean and boots shining. The Sergeant was an amenable, older man who had known Ender since his arrival at the fort and the two got along well together.
“Ender,” he said, his immigrant Irish accent still strong. “A sight for sore eyes.”
“How’re you, Giltrap?”
“Feels like a damned construction site here,” complained the Sergeant. “I thought I’d left the sight of men breaking their backs shoveling shite behind me in the old country.”
“Ah! You’re just an old woman,” grinned Ender. “Always moaning about something.”
“It’s a soldiers privilege, I’ll have you know. Now, is it the Major you’ll be wanting?”
Major Bowmont sat at his desk with plans for a new commissary spread before him. He was a tall, forty-year old, bookish looking man with a no-nonsense attitude and a decisive air and he looked up quickly when Ender was ushered in.
“So!” he said, laying
aside the drawings. “Mister Smith, any luck?”
“We have him, sir,” Ender reported. “He took a slug in the side and is down at the hospital now.”
“Put up a fight did he?”
“Nigh on nailed me but Peyote put that out of his mind.”
“Good man,” nodded Bowmont approvingly.
“There is one thing though, Major….”
“Yes?”
“He had his sister with him.”
The Major frowned. “Oh, indeed. Aiding and abetting, d’you think?”
“Not so you’d notice, sir. It seems their mother is ailing and near her end, the old lady asked to see Common Dog before she passed.”
“Well,” said the Major, his attention already drifting back to his plans. “She can’t stay here. Best send her back to her own people.”
“You want me to do that, sir?”
Bowmont looked up at the query, a frown crossing his brow. “I do, Mister Smith. Is there a problem?”
Ender shrugged uncomfortably. “It may be I’ve upset the girl. She may not take kindly to my word.”
Bowmont dragged the plan sheets in front of him again with a dismissive air. “I’m sure you’ll manage it, Marshal. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“I should tell you we had a run-in with some of Able Quinlan’s men on the way back.”
The Major looked up with a frown, “Is that so? What kind of run-in?”
“They tried to take the prisoner from us. It seems Quinlan bears a grudge.”
Bowmont drew a deep breath. “I’m not at all surprised, the savage did slaughter his kin.’
“Might just be Common Dog had good reason to do that, sir.”
“Well, that’ll be decided when we have all the facts of the case. In the meantime get that Indian squaw off the post, we have enough damned trouble with her people as it is. Can’t have one of them prying into our new fortifications.”
“Very well, Major. I’ll be heading back to my ranch, if you need me.”
He found a disconsolate Catowitch sitting on the porch step of the hospital, her hands wrapped soulfully around the knees of her skirt.
“You have to leave here, woman,” Ender said, as he approached. “The Major says so.”
“They will not let me be with my brother in the hospital,” she answered in complaint, ignoring the request.
There were tear stains marking the dust on her face and her bottom lip trembled. “I do not know if he will live or die.”
“He will not die. The surgeon is a good man and well used to taking bullets from men, Common Dog is in safe hands.”
“Where shall I go then? My people are far away.”
Ender jerked his chin in the direction of the mountains. “Anywhere but not here,” he advised indifferently.
“It is far to the reservation and I do not like it there.”
“Well, your sick mother must need her daughter,” he shrugged.
“She has many members of her family around, she does not need me.”
In frustration, Ender turned away. “I’m going to get my pony,” he said. “When I get back you should be gone.”
A half an hour later he rode past the hospital on his way to the gate and Catowitch was still sitting there looking as crestfallen as before. He drew up and stared down at her sad figure.
“Will you not leave?” he asked finally.
She looked up with a proud tilt of her chin. “Take me with you,” she said suddenly. “You have thrown me from my wickiup, it is right you should take me.”
Ender snorted a laugh at her audacity. “You have some nerve, woman. Remember me, I’m the mongrel dog without a heart or soul?”
“It is fitting,” she said, getting to her feet and staring up at him brazenly. “My brother is laid low by your hand and I have no protector. You must take his place.”
Ender mulled it over and he remembered the scent of deer roasting from her cook fire that morning. The thought appealed he had to admit. “You will cook and clean?” he asked. “You will do the things expected of a woman?”
“I will not warm your bed at night but the other things I will do.”
“Come then,” he said, holding out his arm that she might mount behind him. “It is agreed.”
She swung up behind and he urged the pony towards the fort gateway and the road out.
“Where do you take me?” Catowitch asked.
“To my ranch at Powder Creek,” he answered.
“Your ranch,” she said, pondering over the notion. “Is it a good place?”
“My partner runs it whilst I’m away. We have cattle and grow vegetables. It is fair enough.”
“You have a woman there?”
With a nod of farewell at the gate sentry, Ender urged the pony out and headed down a sloping path away from the fort.
“There is no woman,” he said. “Only my partner, Gale Hunnicut.”
“What manner of man is he?”
Ender breathed a soft laugh. “A tired man, I think. He is getting old and does not like to work so hard any more.”
“Not a good partner then.”
“Agh!” breathed Ender. “We get by.”
“You should have a young man who works hard,” her tone was critical.
“Well, all I’ve got is old Hunnicut, if you don’t mind?”
He could feel her shrug behind him. “No,” she said. “I do not mind.”
“Well, that’s okay then.”
Ender was beginning to wonder if he had made a wise decision, taking in this obstreperous woman. He considered though, that at least she was good to look at.
Chapter Three
As it turned out, once a piled plate of steaming food had been placed in front of him, Hunnicut took to the advent of Catowitch with no hint of protest. Without saying a word she had gone into the larder and the vegetable garden and started cooking, soon a mutton stew was bubbling and mushrooms boiling, peas, beans and cut bread joined the dish. It was a veritable feast for the cowhand and his partner who were more used to Hunnicut’s dubious skills in the kitchen.
Gale Hunnicut was a fifty-nine year old man, a war veteran who had suffered a leg injury at Chickamauga and still limped under the effect. When Ender had met him three years before and they had agreed to build a log cabin and set up the homestead, he had still been fit enough. But the years in between had taken the toll and a steady roll call of physical complaints had beset the older man. It was a hard enough task running the place if young but with his advancing years Hunnicut was tiring fast.
He was a handsome enough fellow, with a heavy drooping mustache and a broad frame although the wide shoulders were beginning to slump now. His sun-bronzed, square-set face was lined and crinkled around the eyes but dark rings ran underneath like bruised stains and Ender often caught him rubbing his brow as if troubled by unseen dark thoughts.
“Care for a hand of cards?” Ender offered, as Catowitch removed their plates and began scrubbing them out in a galvanized tub.
“Sure,” agreed Hunnicut, taking out his pipe and stuffing tobacco into the burnt bowl. “Mighty fine meal, ma’am,” he called out but Catowitch paid him no attention and kept her elbows in the suds.
“She understand me?” asked Hunnicut.
Ender raised his eyebrows, “I guess,” he said, taking up the worn pasteboards and shuffling the sticky pack awkwardly.
“It’s a good thing that she’s here,” Hunnicut decided, patting his belly. He lit his pipe and eyed Ender over the burning match, “Look, Ender. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, this seems as good a time as any.”
“Sure, Gale. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, I guess you know how it is with me, the years ain’t been kind.”
“I know it,” agreed Ender. “But we shuffle along okay, don’t we?”
“Sure, I know but now I’ve a mind to quit the labor part of things. I’m sorry Ender but it’s hard on a body and I can’t keep it up no longer.”
“I see
,” Ender was thoughtful, his fingers toying abstractedly with the pack. “I know it ain’t the best arrangement, Gale. What with me being away so much on reservation business. Maybe I can get to help out a little more.”
“It ain’t that,” said Hunnicut. “I know you do your best, no, it’s just I’m tired and wore out and that’s the truth of it.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“I guess I’d like to keep my end of the ranch here but just lay of the working part of it.”
Ender knew this would be a far from satisfactory solution, he did not have enough cash to buy out Hunnicut outright but the prospect of having the ailing man around, no matter how much a friend, did not appeal. Ender looked at the tired pack of cards in his hand. He made a quick decision, not unusual amongst men whose lives could so often hinge on a passing whim of nature. There was a simple answer.
“What say we cut for it?” he asked.
“Cut for it? You mean for the whole deal?” Hunnicut asked in surprise.
“Sure, low card wins the whole package, ranch, cows, everything. Hell, it’s the easiest way. What do you say?”
Hunnicut sniffed, he sucked on his pipe a moment, and then nodded, some of the old daredevil fire of his youth coming back into his eyes for a moment. “What the hell,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Ender pulled a deuce of spades. Hunnicut drew a red queen.
“Damn my luck,” he chuckled, stabbing the deuce with his pipe stem good-naturedly. “Don’t that beat all?”
“I guess it does,” grinned Ender.
They parted still friends, Hunnicut packing his few possessions and pulling out the next day and heading east, back to some relatives in Virginia he claimed.
It left Ender alone in the house with Catowitch. He wondered for a while how they would make out but soon the chores came along and Ender’s days were full and he had little time left to ponder on the presence of the female.