Deciding to go back wasn’t a conscious choice. Fact is, I don’t know that it was a choice at all; it’s just what I did. Yelling a frustrated curse that could have easily been mistaken for a war cry, I bolted toward where Slayer and the troopers were fighting hand-to-hand. I don’t recall now if I was screaming in Yaqui, Spanish, or English, but I do know the sounds I was making that day were coming from my soul.
I fired on the run and my ball flew true, spinning a hapless soldier out of my way and opening a path into the center of the brawl. One of the soldiers on top of Slayer saw me coming and shouted a warning. He was a short, broad-shouldered man with lank black hair sweat-plastered across his forehead, a huge ebony mustache nearly obscuring his mouth. He rushed to meet me with a bull-like roar, but I deflected the downward blur of his saber with my rifle, then drove its butt into his paunch. He dropped to his knees with a wheezing screech, and I lifted the rifle above my head and brought it down like a club. I can still hear the ripe-melon thunk of the steel butt plate connecting with the soldier’s skull, the look of astonishment on his face as he crumpled at my feet.
With a crazy, garbled yell, I jumped over the dead soldier and slammed into the two Federales still struggling with Slayer. Swinging my rifle like a bat, I caught the taller of the two troopers on the back of his neck and dropped him like bucket of hot coals. He fell as the first two had, with a startled grunt and a look of utter surprise.
Slayer was wiggling out from beneath the fourth soldier by the time I got there. The Federale was already dead from several powerful knife thrusts to his chest, but Slayer was also badly injured. Blood had soaked his shirt a dark crimson, and a gash running from his eyebrow all the way down and across his jaw was deep enough that I could see his teeth through the laceration.
Although our own battle had been won, the fighting continued. It rolled back over us in clouds of dust and debris, kicked up by the shod hoofs of the troopers’ mounts. My route into the chaparral was cut off by a dozen or more Federales, their sabers glinting in the sunlight as they hacked at the swarming Yaquis.
I grabbed Slayer by the arm and yanked him to his feet. We couldn’t stay where we were, but there were an awful lot of soldados between us and where Old Toad was fighting with a large contingent of his warriors. My rifle had been lost in the fray, but I spotted another not too far away. Briefly leaving Slayer to fend for himself, I made a dash for the gun. It was a double-barreled shotgun, its battered stock decorated with brass tacks in a series of whirling wind designs. (Editor’s note: The “whirling wind” pattern Latham references here is probably the swastika, an ancient symbol of power, strength, and good fortune that has been used by numerous cultures around the world for more than three thousand years; its current negative connotation stems from its more recent adaptation by Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.)
Snatching it from the ground, I turned back just in time to see a knot of Federales spurring their horses toward us. I shouted a warning to Slayer, then threw the shotgun to my shoulder and tripped the hammer on the left-hand barrel. I’d been more than a little concerned that the gun might be empty, but its shoulder-rocking kick dispelled that fear.
If that first round proved fatal to anyone, it had to have happened later on, because it sure didn’t unhorse anybody at the time. Still, it was a good shot. Three of the troopers hollered loudly as they grabbed at their faces and shoulders, slapping at the peppering sting of the lead shot.
The charge from the left-hand barrel slowed the Mexicans’ assault, but it didn’t stop it. Two of the soldiers who had been galloping toward Slayer and me escaped the blast entirely, and were frantically spurring toward our position. I fired again, and by then the Mexicans were close enough to absorb the bulk of the shot. The nearest rider screamed as his right arm blossomed red from shoulder to elbow, while the soldier next to him was sent tumbling from his saddle. The second man’s horse went down with its rider, the trooper hanging up in the stirrup, then tangling himself with the animal’s legs, causing the horse to fall hard only a few yards away.
Although badly wounded, Slayer instinctively threw himself at the first horseman, the one with the pulpy arm. Dragging him from his saddle, Slayer pinned the man to the ground with a single plunge of his blade. The trooper cried out once, the sound shrill but short. Staggering to his feet, Slayer headed for the second horseman, but the youth’s wounds were finally catching up with him. His knees buckled and he might have gone down if I hadn’t grabbed him. Slipping a shoulder under the Yaqui’s midsection, I headed for the first trooper’s horse. Slayer struggled briefly, then abruptly went limp, for which I was grateful. Grabbing the animal’s reins, I was trying to heave the injured warrior across the saddle when he unexpectedly regained consciousness.
“Put me down,” he yelled weakly. “Let me die as a man.”
“Shut up and get on this horse,” I grunted, shrugging him, belly first, over the saddle. “Go help the others. Your responsibility is to the People and their protection, not to collect more scalps for your wickiup.”
“You are a coward, White Dog. I spit on your bow.”
“Go spit on someone else’s bow,” I snapped, suddenly out of patience with the whole Yaqui experience. “Go on, go help the others before it is too late.”
I got Slayer’s leg over the saddle, then slapped the horse’s rump with the flat of my hand. It wasn’t much of a blow, but it didn’t take much, as jumpy as it was. As the horse bolted toward its new life as a Yaqui, I could still hear Slayer’s sibilant battle cry, all the more pitiful for the way he clung to the saddle horn with both hands, tossing like a rag in the wind.
That was the last I saw of Slayer, and good riddance was my thought at the time. I walked over to where the second horse was still on its side in the dirt, the Federale’s leg pinned beneath it. He was hanging onto the reins, and had the animal’s head pulled so far around its muzzle was nearly touching the cinch. I think even as seriously injured as the trooper was, he understood that if he lost his horse, his life would soon follow. I didn’t care, and kicked him hard in the face. He let go of the reins and the horse lunged to its feet, the trooper spilling free.
I grabbed the reins and pulled the horse around. The space between me and the chaparral had opened up again, a bare but bloody piece of earth, marred only by the litter of the battle—military hats and guidons, a crushed bugle, a dead horse, a handful of discarded weapons I wouldn’t take time to search through. The heart of the fighting had moved to the west, maybe two hundred desert-hardened warriors, some of them in dusty uniforms splotchy with blood, others nearly naked, fighting to preserve their homeland.
And within the midst of the battle was the hate-twisted face of the Yaqui’s war chief. Old Toad had stepped away from the swirling dust and confusion, and was standing quietly with a Mexican saber in one hand, a revolver in the other. The warrior’s eyes were fixed on me as if welded there. I think he knew I was going to run before I did, and I was almost certain he’d try to kill me first. After three long years there was no love lost between us, no unexpected moment of warmth. To me, Toad had never been anything other than pure evil. Then the old cutthroat swung back into the fighting as if I didn’t exist, and I climbed onto my confiscated steed and raced out of there as fast as that horse could carry me.
Six days later, both of us more dead than alive, we arrived in Nogales in the chill of an early December evening. I was wearing a Federale’s jacket and spare shirt, cotton trousers the Yaquis favored in cooler weather, and moccasins worn nearly through from all the miles I’d walked, leading my horse and trying to keep both of us alive in that harsh wilderness.
* * * * *
And after all that, here I was, once again sitting on the banks of the Río Concepción, still trying to understand that wily old man’s thinking. Had he really seen me in a dream before I’d been captured? I doubted it. Toad had another motive in mind. I just didn’t know what
it was.
Feeling more restless than rested, I pushed to my feet and returned to the village. The sun was well up by then, the wide street, if you want to call it that, busy with people. I was keenly aware of the hostile gazes that followed me, the distrust and hatred that dogged my every step.
I went to the ramada where I’d seen Susan and the white boy earlier, but they were no longer around. I didn’t really expect them. More than likely they were being hidden somewhere, which is what the Yaquis usually did when there were strangers in their village. Hide the captives and the plunder, and profess their innocence to anyone stupid enough to … wow, there’s that anger again. I don’t guess it will ever totally go away, but I won’t dwell on it.
There was a stew of some kind bubbling in an iron kettle on the fire, and tortillas warming on a large flat stone next to it. I didn’t wait for an invitation, having learned during my earlier captivity to either help myself or starve. Squatting nearby, I spooned a concoction of meat, wild onions, and squash onto a tortilla and started shoveling it down my gullet. The women had discreetly vanished when I walked in, which suited me just fine. I ate my fill, and I’m not ashamed to admit that kettle was considerably lighter when I finally walked away. I was heading toward the center of the village when the kid who had cut me loose that morning stepped into my path. I stopped warily, expecting trouble, but he was only there to deliver a message.
“Grandfather has made his decision. He wishes to speak with you.”
Grandfather? My eyes narrowed as I studied the youth’s features. As far as I knew, Old Toad had only the one child, Slayer. Could this be Slayer’s son, or was the boy merely showing respect for an older warrior’s wisdom and leadership?
I followed the young man silently—it would have been rude of me to ask about his father straight-out—and ducked through the entrance to the lodge. This time the kid left immediately, pulling the antelope covering over the door to afford us some privacy.
Old Toad was sitting in the same spot as before, and motioned me to a place on his right, which I took as a good sign. I sank down cross-legged, studying the old man’s profile in the dim light.
“You have eaten?”
I nodded, surprised by the question.
“I saw the way you were studying my grandson. You wonder if he is the son of my son?”
“They look the same.”
“That is because he is who you think he is.”
I felt a peculiar sadness creep through me. “You haven’t mentioned his name,” I remarked, knowing he probably wouldn’t if Slayer was dead.
Toad nodded, almost sadly, I thought, then dismissed the possibility. Old Toad wasn’t capable of those kinds of emotion.
“When did he cross to the Other Side?” I asked quietly.
“In the battle with the soldiers at the rancho.”
Something in my reaction must have given away my surprise. Toad finally looked up, our eyes meeting for the first time.
“It was the wounds he received from the soldiers,” the old man explained. “But because of you, I was able to bring him home, and the soldiers did not cut away his scalp or mutilate his body.” He sighed loudly, and his gaze dropped back to the whispering flames of the fire. “For a long time after you left, after my son went away, I wondered about my dream. I wondered what it meant when I saw him rising from the field afterward to become a great warrior. I finally decided that my son is still fighting, leading his people in the land on the Other Side, where I will someday go to meet him. He would not be able to do that if his body had been desecrated, and so my prophecy was correct. For that reason, White Dog, I have decided that you may leave our village and return to the land above the line that only the Mexicans can see.” (Editor’s note: Old Toad is referring to the International Border between the United States and Mexico here.)
Toad was watching me with the smile of an iron-fisted patriarch handing out gifts at Christmas. His offer seemed generous enough, but I suspected treachery. I always anticipated the worst where that old butcher was concerned.
“And the woman and our children?”
He started to reply, then hesitated as the meaning of my words reached him.
“The boy is also mine,” I stated flatly. “The one I saw with the girl this morning.”
Old Toad shook his head. “There is no boy, and the woman and girl are to remain here.” He sounded irritated that I wasn’t satisfied with my own life, and I guess he had a point. Damned few white men ever got the kind of gift Old Toad was offering me, not among the Dead Horses.
“The woman and children are mine, as is the Mexican called Luis. I will have them before I leave.”
The old Indian’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You demand much for a man with nothing to barter.”
I didn’t reply at first. Then for some reason I remembered the rifle, still propped against the Mexican saddle. Rising, I walked over to pick it up. Toad smiled derisively as I turned back to the fire.
“My death will only bring about your own,” he asserted calmly. “There are but a few bullets for that rifle, yet a thousand arrows for a hundred bows. You will be hunted down and killed.”
“I am not seeking your death,” I replied, returning to my seat with the Krag across my lap.
Old Toad’s thin brows furrowed as I drew a figure in the dirt between us, a circle with the initials REM-UMC in the top arch, and in the rocker, .30 USA. Working the side-action bolt, I extracted a live round that landed at the old man’s feet. Sitting the rifle aside, I picked up the cartridge and turned the base toward him so that he could see the headstamp. I knew he couldn’t read the letters, or have any idea what they meant, but he could see that they were the same as in my drawing.
“These markings identify the cartridge as belonging to this rifle,” I said, my finger tracing the letters and numbers in the brass. “You say you have only a few, but I know where there are many, all of them identical to this one. There are thousands, as many as the stars in the sky.”
Taking the cartridge from my fingers, Toad turned it over slowly, as if really seeing it for the first time. In the past he’d simply mated a cartridge to a rifle based on the shape and size of the round. I don’t think it had ever occurred to him that there might be other ways of determining a cartridge’s fit.
“As many as the stars in the sky?”
“Guns, too,” I said, remembering the Remington carbines we’d left among the dead. The cartridges, of course, were the crates of ammunition Luis and I had tossed over the side of the cliff, the .30-40 Krag rounds used in Davenport’s machine guns, but which would also fit Toad’s rifle.
The old Indian was watching me closely, searching for any hint of deceit. I met his gaze evenly, waiting for his decision.
“Where?” he finally asked.
“For the woman and children.”
“The woman only. The child we have need of.”
I shook my head. “The woman and both children and the Mexican.”
Toad eyed the fire silently for several minutes. I didn’t speak, knowing better than to disturb his ruminations. Finally he pushed creakily to his feet—showing his age, I thought—and told me to come along.
We exited the lodge and Toad paused to face the still-hazy light of the sun, breathing deeply of the mesquite-tinged air. “It is good to live,” he murmured, then turned to me with a wry smile. “You should not be so eager to give that up, White Dog.”
“I am not,” I replied coolly.
We headed east toward the rising sun—downwind, it would later occur to me. Leaving the river’s influence, the mesquite and willows soon petered out and the landscape turned hot and dry, studded with cactus. Just outside the village we came to a clearing, and it was as if my heart slammed into my throat, choking off my wind. Half a dozen Yaqui men were standing around, casually talking and smoking. Occasionally one of them would go ch
eck on three figures staked to the flinty soil. Old Toad led me to the nearest one first. I recognized Ed Davenport, though just barely, as the Yaquis had been working on him for a while.
I’m not going to take any pleasure in telling you this, but like some of the other things I’ve mentioned, it’s important for you to understand exactly what happened down there, what the options were, if you want to understand the decisions I made.
Ed was stripped naked and spread-eagled, and someone had built a small fire at his side, its blaze turning the skin along his lower ribs black, the flesh peeling back like the hide on a piece of pork left too long in a skillet. But that’s not why they built the fire there. I think it was just a matter of convenience, like a doctor keeping his tools close by during an operation.
In addition to the deep searing along Davenport’s ribs, hot coals had been placed between the toes of his bare feet, and a single coal, as big around as a man’s fist, had been inserted inside his mouth and his jaws tied shut. I saw that because the sizzling burl had burned a silver dollar-sized hole in the man’s cheek.
There were other holes containing burned-out cinders and gray ash—in his stomach and along both thighs, and at the base of his neck. There were cuts everywhere, little slices of skin peeled off and probably fed to the dogs—I’d seen them do that. Other wounds had been left raw and open. His fingers had been pulled back and broken, and coals had been added to each nostril.
The worst part was that he was still alive. Not by much—I doubt if he would have recognized me if I’d spoken to him—but his chest was rising and falling in irregular spasms, although I suspect his capacity to feel pain had long since dissolved.
That was probably why the Yaquis had moved on to their next victim. They’d been working on him for a while, too, although Del’s features had yet to be so altered that I couldn’t identify him. Someone had cut away his eyelids, allowing the sun to boil the orbs to a gray mush. They’d also broken both shins so that the jagged ends of the bones were jutting obscenely in different directions. They’d just started the skinning process, but hadn’t yet gotten to the fire.
Leaving Yuma Page 30