Lawless Land

by Dusty Richards

  “I’m sure he’ll try.” There was nothing he could do for them at the moment. He watched Da-yah lead the horses back and forth to cool them. Sam T. felt anxious to take up their trail When the horses cooled off, then they could set out again on the outlaws’ trail. This time they were close.

  Sam T. began to worry about Mrs. Stauffer’s well-being and decided Jesus should follow Mrs. Stauffer’s trail to make certain she was safe. He and the two Indians would track down the outlaws. They separated. Jesus rode east to track her and the cowboy’s trail. Sam, Too-Gut and Da-yah headed north after the gang.

  The desert lay flat to the north It was bordered by jagged mountains so distant they simmered in the rising heat waves like mirages. Sam T. watched Too-Gut study signs. Lamas and his crew had left no obvious clues, but the Apache had little trouble keeping on their faint trail. Sam drew abreast of the tracker and scanned the dull area ahead of them. Too-Gut pointed his rifle northwest.

  “See their dust?” Too-Gut asked.

  Sam T. squinted, but was unsure whether he saw a small wisp of dust or if it was a distortion. “No,” he finally said. “But that’s why I have an Apache scout.”

  Too-Gut smiled. “They will camp in the mountains.”

  “Is there water?”

  Too-Gut shrugged as if that were unimportant and dismounted onto his bowed legs. He squatted, the rifle across his knees. Da-yah came and took his horse away.

  “We rest here,” he said. “They will grow careless if they think we are not after them.”

  Sam T. looked one more time in the direction of the outlaws. Why was Lamas riding north? He had better odds of survival in Mexico. At his current direction of travel they soon would be in Arizona, and arresting him there would be no problem. What was the man’s logic? Some criminals had none—Lamas was smarter than that.

  Justine’s horse ran until it couldn’t go any farther. It slowed to a trot, then a walk, until finally it simply stopped. Sides heaving and lathered with foam, the horse’s deep coughs rattled the stirrups.

  The creature’s legs buckled, and it dropped to its front knees. Justine quickly dismounted and looked at the beast in shocked sympathy. She glanced behind her, expecting to see Lamas appear out of nowhere.

  “Get up here, ma’am,” Sid said, bringing her out of her dazed stupor.

  “It’s no use.” Her eyes flooded with tears. She wanted to do something for the rasping animal, but knew there was nothing that could save the dying horse. She stood, trembling helplessly, dismay and confusion clouding her mind.

  “Come on, lady,” Sid insisted and reached down to help her on the back of his horse.

  Justine gazed up at Sid’s dirt-streaked face. His persistence and determination instilled some strength in her. Despite his assistance, she was unable to mount on the first try.

  “Try one more time,” Sid urged. “We’re going to make it.

  Again she scrambled, and finally in a tremendous effort she hauled herself up behind him. For a moment, they simply rested on his horse. Then the animal began to move beneath them. She placed her hands on Sid’s shoulders to steady herself.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Stauffer?”

  Justine swallowed dryly, then in a hoarse whisper assured him that she was fine.

  Late in the afternoon, they rode into the outskirts of Nogales. The sounds of civilization instantly revived Justine’s weary spirit. Here they would surely be safe from Lamas and his wild gang.

  In front of the hotel, she dismounted stiffly and looked back at the hills closing in behind them. Was she really beyond his grasp? she wondered.

  A young boy stood beside Sid’s horse. “Señor! Señor!”

  Sid shook his head as he dismounted. “We don’t need any help.” He smiled at Justine. “Do we?”

  “No, not now,” she said with a smile of relief. The outlaws could not get them.

  Sid wrapped the reins around the hitch rack in front of the Santa Cruz Hotel. Justine swayed on her feet and wrinkled her nose at her filthy dress. Exhausted to numbness, they shared a private look at each other of Thank God.

  “My gawd! Sid’s found her. Go tell Narrimore!”

  Justine looked up in surprise at the men gathering on the hotel porch.

  “Sid, where are the others?” one of the men asked.

  “Dead.”

  Justine heard his words, but they became a roar of water in her ears. The last of her energy had drained away.

  The men rushed forward and assisted her inside the hotel. Their kindness and consideration filled her with gratitude. Was she hungry? the man asked. Thirsty? She shook her head. Sleep was all the comfort she needed. To sleep in a warm, comfortable bed would be the greatest reward for all her sufferings.

  It was dawn when Justine awoke in the hotel room. Her eyes and her throat felt parched. A glass of tepid water from the pitcher on the washstand quenched some of her thirst. She attempted to wash her face, but her sun-fired skin was too sore, the soft cloth felt like sand against her cheeks. She looked around the room, sighing with contentment at the rich maroon and gold furnishings.

  A knock came at the door, and she was able to summon up a reasonably bright smile.

  Upon opening it and seeing the man standing in the hallway, Justine sucked in her breath sharply. Tears of joy filled her eyes.

  “Dan!” She fell into his arms, burying her face against his shoulder. He pecked her on the cheek, then disentangled her arms from around his neck.

  Justine watched him move to the window. A sense of hurt and bewilderment flooded over her. Something was wrong. Was this the same man she remembered? His Prince Albert jacket, ruffled shirt and wavy black hair beneath the stylish flat-crowned hat were the same. But his handsome face wore a hard, determined expression that she had never seen before

  “Where are your husband’s papers?” he asked flatly.

  Justine blinked her eyes. “Wh-what?”

  His face darkened. “I need the final reports on the Silver Lady Mine.”

  “Dan? I—I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Stop stalling. I want those papers, Justine!”

  She sank down onto the bed, her head reeling with confusion and humiliation. Through troubled vision, she looked at the man she thought she once loved. He was a total stranger. Oh, God, what had happened to him? To her? Was she still in the thrall of some kind of nightmare?

  “Get ready to travel. You’re going to my ranch.”

  “But I—”

  “No buts. Walker will take you. And perhaps on the way you’ll remember where those damned papers are at.” Scowling with contempt, he strode past her and out the door.

  Shocked into speechlessness, she stared down at her rough hands. Had Dan rescued her to use her for his own purposes? Her face reddened with shame. Dan Narrimore cared nothing about her. All he was interested in was Tom’s report on the mines. She had no idea where the papers were. The last time she had seen them was at the stage stop. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Perhaps it was. Her life was not the same and probably never would be again. Lamas might have taken the reports and thrown them away, or maybe they were left lying on the ground with the rest of the unwanted baggage. Who knew? Shaking her head in dismay, Justine flinched when someone knocked on the door.

  A man opened the door and stuck his head through the opening. “Are you ready, ma’am? We need to go out the back way.”

  She rose. Justine had not the strength left to oppose anyone. The cowboy led the way down the stairs, through the rear of the hotel and into the alley. She was silent as he helped her into the waiting buckboard. Then, sighing deeply, she raised her eyes.

  At the end of the alley stood a Mexican, wearing belts of ammunition. She gasped, her face drained in fear. Surely he was one of Lamas’s men. Then, she wondered if she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

  “What is it, ma’am? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Walker said with mild concern.

  Swallowing hard, she forced her gaze back to the e
nd of the alley. The Mexican was gone. She blinked her eyes. Had she imagined the man? “It’s nothing,” she told Walker.

  He raised his brows, but never spoke. Then he clucked to the team and they were on their way. She looked around. The Mexican was nowhere to be seen. When the buckboard pulled up the long hill out of Nogales, she gave one last look over her shoulder. Nothing.

  Sarge’s horse turned up lame. Lamas was furious. Bad luck dogged their every footstep. He knew the horse would never last the trip. They halted to allow Sarge to inspect the horse’s pad.

  “Stone-bruised,” Sarge said with disgust.

  “Is anyone coming?” Lamas shouted to Sanchez, who was ahead of them on the lookout.

  “There is no one coming.”

  Lamas leaned back in his saddle. To ride one of their other horses double might cripple it. How expendable was the man? If they ran into a posse he would be very necessary. Otherwise … .

  “Listen, Lamas, we can split up here. I’ll head northeast and when this horse gives out, I can walk and hide my tracks.” Sarge shook his head like that made no difference. “I’ll get another horse somewhere and meet you. Hell, there’s lots of places up. there I can get one.”

  Lamas considered the plan and then nodded in agreement. That way the man would not slow them down. Besides, Sarge was tough; walking wouldn’t hurt him. “You be in Tucson at the Guiterez brothers’ in four days or we won’t wait for you.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Here is some money. Buy a good one.” He handed the man four double eagles and checked his own shifting horse. “See you in four days.”

  “And keep your eyes and ears open,” he reminded the man. “I want to know about this big man in the brown suit. I do not trust such a brazen hombre.”

  Sarge wiped his gritty face on his sleeve. “I’ve got connections. I’ll find out who the hell he is.”

  Lamas turned and motioned for Sanchez to lead out. He gave a last look at Sarge headed northeast on the crippled horse. Lamas was not sure that the man would make it. But Sarge was desert-tough, a veteran of the Apache warfare. Maybe he would meet them in Tucson.

  Lamas reasoned that if they were being followed, the trackers just might follow Sarge, allowing him and Sanchez time to escape. Lamas kicked the horse he had stolen from the Apache. He regretted not cutting the Indian’s throat. Later he planned to ask Sanchez again who he thought the Indian might be. Maybe the Apache worked with the men who had rescued that gringo whore.

  The vision of Justine riding hell for leather from that abandoned hacienda filled him with red-hot fury. When he reached Tucson he would hire the Guiterez brothers. They knew each pistolero in Tucson who would gut his own mother for a gold coin. Just the kind of men he needed. He would ride at the head of his new army and find all these bastards who had made him run like a coyote.

  Lamas looked at the blue, cloudless sky. Apache, you have joined my roster for the dead. If the bluecoats do not get you first, I will have my turn with you. You have not long to live in my land.

  Amused at his private thoughts, he laughed aloud. Then he slapped his palm on the pommel of his saddle. “You see any dust behind us? You have looked thousand times. Is it the Apache you fear?”

  Sanchez shook his head to dispel Lamas’s concern. “I wondered who he was.”

  “Was he with the cowboy who took the woman away?” Lamas asked

  “No. He is a scout for more Apaches or someone else. That cowboy did not know him.”

  “You were close enough to see that?”

  “Plenty close.”

  “He was with a band of them?”

  “I don’t know. He was a Chiricahua.”

  Lamas glanced behind them. He was not afraid, but Chiricahuas were a bunch of bad marauders on both sides of the border. When he turned back in the saddle, he studied the hills ahead. He and Sanchez would spend the night in them. And soon he must do more planning.

  In the late evening, Sam T. and his crew reached the place where the trail of the outlaws split. He stopped to hold a council. In the glow of sundown, Too-Gut and Sam squatted on their heels, while Da-yah wiped the horses’ muzzles with a rag soaked in water from their canteens.

  “Da-yah can follow the trail of the two men. Sam T., you ride with her. I will catch the one on the cripple horse and come back to join you,” Too-Gut said.

  “You think the horse is crippled?”

  Too-Gut nodded. Sam studied the Apache’s profile in the orange-red light. The small bump on his slender nose indicated that it had probably been broken at one time.

  “All right. Da-yah and I will go slow. I want to surprise these outlaws. I have a pair of handcuffs in my saddlebags for you to use. Don’t kill this man unless you have to.”

  Sam T. was not certain the ex-scout had heard his orders. Too-Gut took the pair of irons and grinned at him, then moved away to Da-yah’s side.

  He spoke curtly to her in his own language. Sam looked away to the distant mountains. He felt in his bones they were close to the outlaws. By this time Justine Stauffer must be safe. One day, he planned to look her up and see if the real woman matched the beauty in the tintype.

  “We eat soon,” Da-yah announced. Too-Gut had already left to follow the lame horse’s trail. Sam moved by the small fire pit that she had fashioned earlier with her longbladed knife. The beans were already beginning to steam and gave off a delicious aroma to his starved senses.

  He realized if he had not been so hungry, he would not have appreciated the unsalted, half-cooked beans. But as it was, he was not going to complain about her frijoles.

  “Moon come up soon, be better light,” Da-yah said as they ate.

  “Yeah.” He used his tongue to dislodge a bean skin from between his teeth.

  “You have a wife?” she asked. In her halting English, the words sounded like an accusation.

  “No.”

  “White man crazy.” She shrugged and used her fingers to scoop up more beans from the bowl. “White man cook own meals, sleep by himself, hold own horse. Stupid.”

  Sam chuckled softly. Here he was in a desert so vast that a man could ride for days in any direction and not see a soul, yet he was receiving a lecture.

  “White woman no good for you!” she asserted severely.

  “I suppose you’re right. One wouldn’t be much use out here.” For a moment, he thought of Mrs. Stauffer and the murdered Indian girl who had been stranded in the desert. Impatiently he shrugged the thought away. That part was over. He looked at Da-yah and forced a smile. “I guess I need an Apache wife.”

  “You need one when Da-yah not here to take care of you.”

  “Do you have a home?” he asked her curiously.

  “Here is home,” she said flatly. “Da-yah not like reservations.”

  He sympathized with her. She hated confinement as bad as he did.

  When the moon rose they saddled up and rode the ridges. She halted often and dismounted. Then, satisfied by whatever tracks she found, she leaped back on her horse and waved at him to follow her.

  A distant coyote yapped as the dark wall of the mountains drew closer. He rode with his right hand on the butt of his Colt. His ears strained to hear over the night insects’ orchestration, and his eyes open wide to see as much as he could in the ivory light of the half moon.

  At the mountains’ base, Da-yah once again dismounted and handed him her reins. “You wait here. Two quail whistles means I am coming back.”

  “Yes.” He watched her melt into the inky scrub desert.

  After taking a drink of the tepid canteen water, he followed the woman’s method of washing the horses’ muzzles. Then he picketed them to a scrub brush and took his .44-caliber Winchester from his scabbard. He found a place to sit aside and wait for Da-yah’s return. The moon arced westward, crawling towards the distant horizon.

  The desert cooled and a gentle night wind touched his sun-baked face. Hours passed while he fought his heavy eyelids, which acted determined to clo
se.

  A quail’s call jerked him to awareness. Again—two whistles came from north of his position.

  It was Da-yah. She came into view almost silently.

  “They are close. Sleep a few hours. When the sun rises, we can be in their camp.”

  “Two men?”

  “One is wearing a fancy shirt. The other is a Yaqui.”

  “A mean one?” The term Yaqui was new to him, but he knew it meant an Indian tribe.

  “He killed the Indian woman.”

  Sam tried to see her face in the dim light. “You saw that happen?”

  “He is the one,” she said obstinately.

  He sighed. Her testimony would never hold up in court, but she was probably right. He considered both men maddog killers.

  “Shouldn’t we go up there now?” he asked.

  “Bad luck at night. Apaches wait for light, so the bad spirits can’t steal our souls.”

  He shrugged and rose stiffly. A few hours of sleep, even if on the hard ground, would be very welcome. He untied his roll and spread it out. Tomorrow, perhaps they would have the leader and his henchmen in custody. At last he felt better, as the noose closed in on the Border Gang.

  In the early morning light, Sam T. crouched in the shoulder-high brush close to the outlaws’ camp. He heard a horse stomping nearby. Stealthily he edged through the salt cedars toward the sound. Somewhere out there were two killers. His face was set in grim lines, the cocked Colt ready in his right hand.

  On the other side of the canyon, Da-yah worked her way opposite him. She told him that if he heard one quail whistle it would mean to rush the killers. Two whistles would mean that she had them covered. The only problem with her plan was he could hear real quail far up in the canyon. He wasn’t sure he would recognize Da-yah’s call from theirs.

  He stopped and surveyed the red walls above him. There was potential for an ambush high in this canyon. The fact that he could only hear one horse somewhere ahead bothered him.

  Where was the other outlaw’s mount? Had one of them circled around? He hoped not. Using his left hand, he wiped the back of it over his lower lip to remove the beads of perspiration.