Del was still feeling the pain; like rats chewing at his every nerve, it was stripping away his sanity in thin layers.
When Old Toad motioned toward the third figure, the chill I’d felt along my spine when I saw Ed and Del turned into a river of ice. Luis Vega was stretched out farthest from the village, and looked like he’d been there since we were brought in the day before. The green rawhide they’d used on his arms and legs was still drying in the sun, pulling tighter with every passing hour. His face and torso was swirled with bruises, and there were already a few small cuts along his legs. But the Yaquis hadn’t really started torturing him, not seriously. Of course part of his torment, as I knew it had been for Del, was the anticipation, watching the Indians work on other prisoners and getting an idea of what was in store.
I’d lived among the Yaquis for three years, and I’d seen this more than once. The first time—a vaquero—had turned me nearly numb, until I’d thought I might be the one to lose my mind. By the time I left, I still hadn’t become used to it, but I no longer became physically ill after witnessing a three- or four-day session of cruciation. Like I’ve said before, torture was a part of the Dead Horses’ culture, a means of extracting a portion of their enemies’ strength, while also making sure to cripple the man’s spirit on the Other Side. The side where Slayer was even then doing battle, if what Old Toad believed was true.
Luis watched my approach with a look of abject acceptance, but no recrimination, for which I’ve always somehow felt guilty. He’d wanted to fight when Ghost first stepped out of the brush, but I’d nixed the idea, believing we stood a better chance if we surrendered. Now Luis was about to pay a horrible price for my mistake, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it. As far as my negotiations were concerned, Luis Vega was off the table.
“How do I know you are telling the truth about the bullets?” Toad asked softly.
Staring into Luis’ eyes, I said, “You know I would not lie to you. Have I ever?”
Toad thought about my reply for a moment, but I knew he’d eventually have to concede the truth of my words. I’d hated the man, but I’d never lied to him.
“How many guns?”
I held up all ten fingers four times—forty guns, more or less, counting carbines and revolvers. The Colt-Brownings had been destroyed in their long fall off the top of the bluff, and would be useless to the Dead Horses.
“And the bullets?”
“As many as the stars.”
He nodded, satisfied at last. “Your life I have already given to you. For the guns and the bullets, I will trade the woman and both children. But not the Mexican. He belongs to the People, and will pay for the many wrongs his tribe has caused us.”
Ignoring the watching Indians, I told Luis about the trade. I spoke in Spanish, which I knew Toad understood, so that the old war chief wouldn’t think I was trying anything underhanded. When I finished, I said, “I am sorry, amigo.”
“De nada. It is for the niña and her madrecita.”
“And the niño. The boy is also here.”
Luis nodded. He understood. My decision had been the only one I could’ve made, the situation being what it was. I started to turn away, but Luis called me back.
“Don’t leave me like this, J. T.,” he said in English.
I swallowed hard but didn’t reply. He knew I didn’t have a choice. What did he expect me to do, slip him in my pocket before I left? I started toward the village, but his voice reeled me back.
“J. T.!”
“Goddamn it,” I practically shouted. “There ain’t nothing I can do!”
But there was. Luis’ gaze dropped to the bullet-shredded vest that hung limply from my gaunt frame, his eyes pleading, and my mouth turned to cotton. At my side, Old Toad watched in fascination. He didn’t know about the semiauto that still resided within the lining of my vest; it had been there for so long I was barely conscious of it myself.
“For the love of God, hombre, you know what they are going to do to me. Finish the job! ”
And that, finally, was what it all came down to. Finishing the job.
I turned to Toad, my voice harsh. “Our deal is completed, is it not? I will tell you where to find the guns and ammunition, and then I will take the woman and children and go.”
He nodded suspiciously, his distrust returning when Luis and I began speaking in English. “The Mexican stays,” he said.
“Yes, the Mexican stays.” Then I told him where to find the munitions. I told him about the dead soldados under José Alvarez’s command that we had left on the battlefield, and that seemed to please him. He knew the place I was talking about, and told me he had killed a jaguar along that very bluff when he was a young man, not much older than his grandson.
“You are satisfied?” I asked when our conversation came to an end.
“Yes. The woman and children are waiting at the ramada with a horse and some food. Go there and get them. My people will not stop you.”
I nodded stiffly, then walked over to where Luis was lying on his back with his eyes closed. His lips were moving rapidly in what I assumed was a prayer. I didn’t dare risk giving him time to finish. With my back to the Toad, I drew the semiauto from the lining of my vest, rocked the hammer to full cock, and pulled the trigger.
So now you know, and I guess soon enough the rest of the world will, too. I … I asked you this question once before, when I told you how I wouldn’t let Luis kill Spencer McKenzie. Now I’m going to ask it again. Am I a hero, or a coward? A saint or a sinner? Was what I did an act of mercy, or murder? I’d like to know, because I’ve lived with that damned question since the day I walked away from Luis Vega’s body, past Old Toad’s stunned face to find Abby, Charles, and Susan and take them home.
Session Twenty-One
Old Toad had lied … somewhat. There was no horse waiting for us at the ramada, but Abby and the kids were there, and Charles was looking a heck of a lot better than the last time I’d seen him.
Not knowing how Toad or the others would react to my killing Luis, taking away something that was important to them in a way most gringos could never understand, I didn’t want to push my luck by demanding a mount. There was a canvas water bag hanging from one of the ramada’s posts, dripping fresh from the Río Concepción, and I grabbed it and tossed it to Abby and told her to bring it along.
“What’s happening?” she asked, obviously surprised to see me.
“Just take the goddamned water bag and your kids and start walking,” I replied in such a cutting manner I think she might have actually blanched. She was a swift-thinking woman, though, and didn’t take offense or ask a bunch of foolish questions. Slinging the bag’s strap over her shoulder, she swung Susan onto her hip with one hand and grabbed Charles with the other, practically yanking him along as she followed me out of the village.
I’d picked out a spot on the horizon just about due north of the ramada, and headed for it in swift, purposeful strides. When Abby tried to come up beside me, I barked for her to stay back.
“Get behind me and keep your eyes on the ground,” I snapped, and she immediately complied.
I had no doubts that we were being watched. I could feel the cold eyes of the People fixed on us like gunsights, but I didn’t look back, or reveal any inclination I might have had to run. Not even when a howl of rage engulfed the village as word of my treachery spread through the community.
We crossed the Concepción about a mile north of the village and continued on in as straight of a line as that scabrous terrain would allow. After about five miles of steady tramping, I veered west toward the Sea of Cortez. A hard push for Arizona was out of the question now. Without horses, we’d never get close. But we’d been moving more west than north ever since leaving Sabana, and I knew we couldn’t be far from the Gulf. There weren’t any real towns along the coast that I knew of, but there used to be a f
ew trading posts and fishing camps, and I was hoping we might find one of those, and that it would be inhabited.
We kept moving for another couple of hours before I finally ordered a stop. Abby promptly sank to the ground, then scuttled into the mostly illusionary shade of a wait-a-minute bush, pulling her kids in with her. I remained on my feet, staring back the way we’d come. The land in that part of Sonora is about as flat as the bottom of a skillet, and, if not for the chaparral, I’m pretty sure I could have still seen the Yaqui village. Or at least the low rise of land it sat on. Instead my view was limited to thorny scrub and cactus. I knew it wouldn’t be difficult for a few hotheads to slip out on the sly and come after us, but an instinct honed by years of smuggling beer and tobacco into the American markets told me that we weren’t being followed. Toad had given his word that we wouldn’t be molested, and I felt confident the People would honor the old man’s promise—whether they agreed with it or not.
I don’t know how much you want to hear about the next few days. They weren’t very exciting compared with what we’d already been through, although they were certainly death-defying. In spite of all the hardships we’d endured since leaving Arizona, none of it really compared to that last sixty or so miles to the Gulf.
Just so you know, I’d told Abby to stay behind me with the kids and the water because that was the proper position for a woman of the Dead Horse clan, but once we started for the coast in earnest, things returned to normal. Abby still walked behind me most of the way, but that was only because I was following the path of least resistance, and she was following me. She kept her kids close the whole way. I think after nearly losing them to the Yaquis, she would have chained them to her if she could have.
Those were good kids, Charles and Susan, but they weren’t Yaqui. They lacked the stamina of a desert-born people. They did OK that first day, and even into the second, but by the third day it was as if they’d hit a brick wall. They couldn’t go on, and Abby and I weren’t doing much better. She was carrying Susan almost constantly by then, and I had Charles with me, riding on my shoulders. The water bag was empty, and the few tortillas Abby had managed to snatch on her way out of the ramada had long since been consumed.
By the fourth day our situation was getting desperate. We’d been crossing one sandy swell after another since dawn, trudging numbly forward under a cloudy sky, when all of a sudden I heard Abby stumble and fall. I staggered to a halt, took a moment to be sure of my balance, then slowly turned. Charles swayed limply above me, barely hanging on. Abby lay curled on her side, while Susan crawled around her as if looking for a niche to snuggle up in, something safe and familiar.
Very carefully, so that I didn’t end up on the ground at Abby’s side, I eased Charles from my shoulders. He immediately dropped down beside his mother. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted, and I thought his breathing seemed shallow and maybe a little irregular. I wanted to tell Abby of my concerns for him, but she wouldn’t have heard me.
For a long time, maybe ten minutes or so, I stood there in an indecisive daze of my own. A voice in my head was urging me to keep walking, insisting that I’d done all I could, and that I needed to think about my own safety. But something else was probing at my brain, like the niggling sensation of a fly walking across your face when you’re trying to nap. I turned to the west. A breeze rustled the limbs of a burro bush at my side, and a brackish odor toyed with my sinuses. From somewhere up ahead I heard a faint but rhythmic pounding. When I finally realized what it was, I told Abby to get on her feet.
“Come on,” I croaked around a tongue that felt twice its normal size. “We’ve made it.” When she didn’t respond, I nudged her with my toe. “Come on, now, we’re almost there.” She still didn’t move, and I kicked her lightly on the hip, loosening an unintelligible mumble, but nothing else. Running out of patience, I hoarsely shouted, “Damn it, woman, get up!” Then I kicked her harder. That time she groaned as the pain wormed through the dehydration and exhaustion blanketing her mind. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her gaze kind of wandered over to settle on my face.
“We’re there,” I said. “Just a little farther.”
For a moment she stared at me as she might a stranger, and I wondered what I’d do if she refused to go on. Then she sat up and looked around as if awakening from a deep sleep. “Where?” she asked in a voice nearly as unrecognizable as my own, and I motioned vaguely to the west.
“Over yonder.”
She thought about my reply for a moment, then struggled to her feet. It was just about all she could do to pick up Susan, and it didn’t occur to me until she already had the girl in her arms that I could have helped. Like I said, I was feeling more than a little off-plumb myself.
Being careful not to lose my balance, I gathered Charles in my arms, then slung him over my shoulder like a sack of grain. After a glance at Abby to assure myself that she was ready, we struck out across the low dunes, pushing forward one slow, dragging step at a time. Twenty minutes later we were standing ankle-deep in the Sea of Cortez, staring up the coast toward a rambling collection of adobe shacks and brush-and-mud jacales.
“Mister Latham,” Abby rasped. “I believe we have made it.”
Session Twenty-Two
I just got off the phone with Iowa Electric. The guy said the outage was caused by ice dragging down a power line, but they’ve got it fixed. I’m just glad it didn’t hurt your Dictaphone.
We don’t normally get a lot of power failures out here, but it’s been a bad storm. I checked the thermometer and it’s thirteen degrees outside, which is funny, because before the electricity went out, I would have sworn it was the hottest part of summer. I guess that’s what happens when you get too deep into your memories.
Those buildings Missus Davenport and I saw, they belonged to a German named Hans Gruder, who traded with the Seris. The Seris were a coastal tribe that used to hunt and fish throughout that region, and kept the Yaquis mostly inland, along the riverways.
We stayed with Gruder for nearly a week, recuperating under the able care of his Seri wife Lola. We’d been lucky after leaving Toad’s village in that the sky had remained overcast the whole way, shielding us from the worst of the sun. If not for that, I don’t think we would have made it.
Gruder had a flagpole in front of his trading post, and would run a triangular red pennant to its top when he wanted to flag a passing ship. That’s how we caught a ride on a stern-wheeler called the San Angelo, six days after stumbling into Gruder’s post more dead than alive.
Other than the lingering effects from the sun, we were all looking halfway decent by the time we boarded the San Angelo. I was freshly shaved, recently bathed, and decked out in a new suit of clothes that Gruder sent a bill along for, and which Abby promised to make good on when we got back to the States. Because her face was still peeling, she insisted on wearing a veil to hide her features from the other passengers, although no one seemed to care. They were fascinated by our tale of desert survival, but likely would have been appalled, if not outraged, had they known what we left out. Three days later we docked at Yuma, the prison sitting on the hill above town like an accusing eye. Or at least that was my take on it.
If you’re wondering how Missus Davenport and I got along after our return to civilization, it was probably about what you’d expect if you aren’t romantically inclined. I reckon Abby had a lot of emotional garbage to sort through, and kept mostly to herself. From what I heard, she seldom let her children out of her sight. As soon as she got in, she telephoned her family in New York and had them wire her funds to take care of her needs while in Arizona, which included a suite of rooms at the Riverside Hotel. She also tried to pay me a reward for rescuing her and the kids, but I refused. I guess I had my own baggage to deal with.
Last night while we were waiting for the electricity to come back on, you asked me to think about some of the things I’ve left hanging—like why Old Toa
d allowed me to walk away after I shot Luis, and why he didn’t punish me for revealing the location of the Cañon Where the Small Lizards Run—but I’ve already said I never understood an Indian’s way of thinking, and that especially applied to Toad. Still, I’ve thought about it over the years, and I’ve come to some conclusions that may or may not be anywhere near the truth.
The deal Old Toad had made with me was that in exchange for the information on the munitions, I’d get to leave with Abby and the kids, but I’d also have to leave Luis behind—and that’s what I did. That I’d also cheated the Dead Horses out of their fun, not to mention whatever spiritual gains the clan might have harvested from Luis’ torture and death … well, I always figured Old Toad admired my audacity for that. I’d beat him at his own game, so to speak. It was something the old cutthroat might have done himself, and I think it kind of made him proud that I’d pulled the same stunt on him, made him feel like he’d done right in my training.
As far as the Cañon Where the Small Lizards Run, it’s true I’d revealed its location to others, but the only person left alive by then—if you don’t count what remained of Ed Davenport or Del Buchman—was Charles, and, despite his claims to the contrary, I don’t think Toad wanted anything to do with the boy. Charles Davenport’s name comes up in the newspapers every once in a while, and he’s a pretty sharp politician from what I can tell, but back then he was still walking in that shadowy land between the living and the dead, and that had the Yaquis spooked. Hell, it had me spooked, if you recall.
Spencer McKenzie died there in the Cañon Where the Small Lizards Run, I’m convinced of that, but I don’t know what became of Felix Perez. I never saw or heard of him again. I doubt if he survived, but who can say? He was a tough ol’ bird, I know that. (Editor’s note: A Felix Perez was located in an Internet search as having been sentenced in Guaymas, Sonora, on February 6, 1909, to life in the Federal Penitentiary at Islas Marías for the murders of Fillipe and Joséfina Cartol; there was no way to confirm if this is the same Felix Perez of whom Latham speaks.)
Leaving Yuma Page 31