The Sonora Noose

by Jackson Lowry

  “Pull up a rock. You got your own cup?”

  Barker was already fishing around for it. He hesitated as his fingers slipped over the slick glass of the whiskey bottle. He left it where it was, though another nip or two would have set well with him. He knew how awful the coffee these soldiers boiled could be.

  “Where’s your lieutenant?” he asked.

  “The colonel called him back to the post. Reckon you’re out here for the same reason we are.”

  “Not rustlers,” Barker said. He told of the stagecoach robbery—slaughter—and concluded by saying, “I know that vaquero was killed, but I’m doubting it was the Sonora Kid.”

  “You thinkin’ he killed his partner, put the sombrero on him to make us think he was dead, then hightailed it into Mexico?”

  “I’ve seen savagery in my day but nothing like this. Not before the Sonora Kid blew up out of Mexico.”

  “It does look like history is repeatin’,” Sturgeon said. “The cattle thievin’s like before, too.”

  “So the Kid and his gang—or a new one—hid out for a month and then returned?” Barker shook his head. He had doubts that the vaquero had been the Sonora Kid, but when the inhuman killings had stopped, there had been a reason to believe it was over and done.

  “This isn’t the only stagecoach that’s been shot up. One I came on a week back, farther north, was lucky.”

  Barker perked up. “I hadn’t heard about another robbery.”

  “No robbery. The stage line laid a trap. Inside the coach were four riflemen. The first sign of an ambush, they all popped up and returned fire. Whoever’d tried to bushwhack them didn’t have the stomach for the fight and rode away.”

  “Too bad they didn’t have a posse with them to run them to ground. Where was this?”

  “Near Mineral Springs, a week ago Tuesday.”

  Barker couldn’t remember what day it was now, and it hardly mattered.

  “They have a description of the outlaws?”

  “Not a good one. The driver thought he saw the leader wearing a sombrero but couldn’t say more. In this weather, a sombrero makes good sense.” Sturgeon held out his arms to show what area a sombrero might shade.

  “Reckon I ought to go to Mineral Springs and ask around ’bout that trap and see if any of them can give a better description.”

  “Ride with us, Marshal. We’re headed east into the foothills.”

  Barker looked at the purple-clad Organ Mountains, sharply rising from the desert floor. Hidden away in canyons and valleys were decent rangeland and more than one ranch.

  “You just fishin’ or you have a nibble?” Barker asked.

  “Bait is a herd of cattle just waitin’ to be stolen,” Sturgeon told him. “Not that the outlaws seem to be doing more than eating a couple steers.”

  “In celebration of killing,” Barker said softly. Louder, “I’ll ride with you. No telling what trouble we can find.”

  Sergeant Sturgeon smiled, his white teeth almost glowing in the twilight.

  THE CATTLE LOWED, ALERTING BARKER. HE PERKED up. He had been lost in thought about the stagecoach massacre and the chance that the Sonora Kid wasn’t dead, after all. In his gut he knew the Mexican still lived and was responsible, even if Sergeant Sturgeon had declared the dead vaquero to be the gang’s leader.

  “Someone’s ridin’ this way,” Sturgeon whispered.

  “They can’t hear us. They’re across the valley,” Barker said, but he kept his voice low, too.

  “I’m not takin’ any chance, no sir.”

  Sturgeon raised his gloved hand and passed a silent signal along to his squad. They stirred, then mounted. The sound of the horses came louder than the soldiers’ voices as they grumbled at being disturbed from their catnapping.

  Barker turned his head up and studied the stars above. Thin wisps of clouds moved across the sky, but the moon wasn’t likely to rise for some time yet. When it did, the entire valley would be as bright as day. He wondered if that would benefit them catching the rustlers or would work against them. Sturgeon had positioned his men to deal with cattle thieves coming from either up in the valley or off the desert.

  Already his planning had failed, since it seemed as if the rustlers had come off the valley rim from higher country.

  “You see ’em?” Barker asked.

  “I can smell them,” Sturgeon said.

  “There.” Barker pointed at shadows drifting along, moving toward the tight knot of cattle. The rustlers approached the cattle like ghosts, not riding directly toward the target but sidling along, keeping in shadow.

  “Get ready,” Sturgeon told his corporal. “When I give the order, have the bugler sound charge.”

  “That’s not the Mexican gang,” Barker said, too late. Sturgeon had given the signal. The clarion sound of the bugle echoed across the valley.

  The shadows stopped moving. The soldiers charged forward, but Barker chose a different technique. He fixed on a dark splotch, the last place he had seen movement, and rode directly for it. When he got halfway to the darkness melting into the deeper black of junipers and pine, he dragged out his rifle and fired. A flurry of motion ahead showed he had flushed out his quarry.

  And it wasn’t a Mexican bandito intent on rustling. The Apache let out a war whoop and attacked, riding directly for Barker. The sight of a brave swinging a hatchet that caught faint glints of starlight momentarily unnerved him. Then he levered in another round and fired as his mare galloped forward. Barker was luckier than he was skillful in knocking the brave off his horse.

  In a flash, he surged past the Apache struggling to get to his feet. The fall had knocked the wind from him.

  Barker could have gone back and taken a prisoner, but he found himself engaged with two more Indians. He fired, dazzling himself each time. He missed both of the Apaches but drove them off.

  As he reached the spot where they had hidden, he wheeled about and readied for a new attack. There was no need. The soldiers had captured the Apache brave he had knocked from his horse and were in pursuit of the other two. Sergeant Sturgeon bellowed orders to his other troopers to secure the prisoners they had already taken.

  The buffalo soldier trotted to Barker and said, “We’ve had one real good night. Caught four and are chasing down two more.”

  “Your men won’t catch them, not in the dark.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Colonel Tomasson will be pleased to have some rustlers to show off.”

  “That matters,” Barker agreed, knowing he ought to do a better job blowing his own horn. Chief deputy marshal would be his if he worried more about keeping the good he did under Armijo’s nose.

  “Come on back to the post with us. You can ride on to Mineral Springs afterward.”

  Barker considered this, then agreed. The lure of the hot springs to ease his back drew him powerfully. There might even be a pharmacy in Mineral Springs where he could buy more laudanum without anyone in Mesilla finding out. More than this, if the colonel put in a good word for him with Marshal Armijo, that promotion to chief deputy might just come his way after all.

  “You have a scout to lead the way or do you want me to find the trail?” he asked.

  17

  MASON BARKER FROWNED AS HE WATCHED THE POST commander step out of his office. Colonel Tomasson returned Sergeant Sturgeon’s salute as the squad rode past, then he called out.

  “You’re the marshal?”

  Barker peeled away from the squad and let Sturgeon take his prisoners to the stockade. With a quick move, he slid from the saddle, landed hard and endured the jolt, then walked forward to meet the post commander.

  “Name’s Mason Barker, federal deputy marshal. Pleased to meet you, Colonel.” He stared hard at the officer, trying to place him.

  “I know you,” the man said, his concentration on the matter as intense as Barker’s. “But how’s that? You’ve never been to the post since I’ve been commanding, have you? No, I don’t think so. I don’t forget a face.”

  “
You were on General Carleton’s staff,” Barker said, finally remembering.

  “I was.”

  “I never met you, but Colonel Carson and I went to a staff meeting in Santa Fe where you were in attendance.”

  “During the Navajo War! Yes, I remember you now. You were Carson’s chief scout.” Tomasson beamed that he had finally put a job to the face in front of him.

  “Not chief scout. Just scout. I was one of a dozen who went into Canyon de Chelly ahead of the troops.”

  “A nasty scout, that. Those winding canyons were treacherous. I remember trying to trace them out on a map that General Carleton used for his overall strategic planning.”

  That was about how Barker remembered the colonel. A staff officer who never strayed from a safe bivouac and three squares a day. Since the man remembered him, it made him wary to come to a conclusion about Tomasson that might not set well with the present reality. Barker hadn’t said a word in that meeting. For all that, Colonel Carson had said damned little, listening to James Carleton spew his wild-ass plans for the war. Barker continued to be amazed that the strategy had worked, except the part about Bosque Redondo that had been doomed from the day the first Navajo stumbled into the reservation, no matter that it had been well intentioned.

  “If it hadn’t been for the Apache scouts with us, it would have been more dangerous. Navajoland wasn’t an easy conquest.”

  “As I know, as we all know.” Tomasson chuckled as he remembered what seemed to be better days for him. He hadn’t commanded a post of buffalo soldiers then nor was he plagued with rustlers who could simply disappear across the border, where he dared not go to capture them.

  “Sergeant Sturgeon’s squad captured some Apaches off the Warm Springs Reservation, from the look of them. You’ve got a good man there.”

  “Where is Lieutenant Greenberg?”

  Barker shrugged. “Can’t rightly say. I was after a gang of Mexican banditos that’ve been causing considerable trouble, when I came across the sergeant. For a while we thought the banditos were also rustling the cattle. Turned out that wasn’t the case.”

  “You must join me for dinner, Marshal. We can discuss combining forces to bring a semblance of law to this godforsaken country. It will be good working again with a man of your tracking ability.”

  “Much obliged,” Barker said. He was thinking about telling the colonel how duty called and he had to ride on to Mineral Springs, but Sturgeon interrupted with his report.

  Barker stood to one side as the sergeant gave the salient points of the patrol.

  “Good work, Sergeant. What happened to Lieutenant Greenberg? Why didn’t he return with his command?”

  Sturgeon stared directly ahead, braced as if he stood on the parade ground waiting for inspection. Barker saw the quick play of emotions as the noncom worked on a possible answer, then said briskly, “Sir, he was after the same band of rustlers, but he took a different trail. We became separated.”

  “When can I expect his report on my desk? But then, you wouldn’t be able to answer that. You’re only an enlisted man.” Tomasson grew even angrier at his missing lieutenant. Barker started to come to the man’s defense since Greenberg wasn’t present to speak for himself, but Sturgeon did it first.

  “I’ve never served under a better officer, sir. If the lieutenant is still in the field, it’s because he is after other Apaches off their reservation. Ones that I neglected to capture. Sir.”

  “Yes, well ...” Tomasson scowled. “Good work, Sergeant. Dismissed.” He returned Sturgeon’s crisp salute and turned to his office. Barker wasn’t sure what to do when Tomasson closed his office door without saying another word.

  It took him a few seconds to gather the reins on his mare and go after Sturgeon.

  “Wait a minute, Sergeant, I got a question.”

  “What is it, Marshal?”

  “Where’d the lieutenant really go?”

  “He didn’t confide in me, but he took a half dozen men and rode north from where we caught the Apaches. He’s been on his own for close to a day.”

  “Could he have heard some rumor and gone to investigate?”

  “Could be. The ranchers talk to him and not me. What I hear comes from the cowboys, not the ranch owners, ’cept when they’re griping about rustlers taking their cows.”

  Barker knew the heart of this problem. The ranchers might hire black ranch hands, but dealing with black soldiers was a different matter. Greenberg was likely to have been told something by one of the ranchers that would never trickle down to the buffalo soldiers. Barker glanced over his shoulder at Tomasson’s closed office door. Tomasson didn’t seem too pleased with his command, either. Unlike some officers, of Ben Grierson’s stature, the colonel considered this command a demotion or possibly even a punishment.

  Barker was glad not all officers were like Custer and Tomasson.

  “You talk to the post sutler to find if anybody’s seen Mexicans wearing a sombrero without a concha?” he asked.

  Sturgeon turned and stared at him, then laughed.

  “That’s the stupidest question you could ever ask a merchant,” the sergeant said. “They don’t notice Mexicans, much less if they are missing a bit of silver decoration on their hats. The only way this post sutler would notice is if he traded for that concha. And even then, he wouldn’t pay no never mind to the man with it. His eyes would be on the silver and nothing more.”

  Barker had to laugh at this. His eagerness to track down the gang—whether it was the Sonora Kid’s or another, newer one—had consumed him and made him stupid. Or maybe it was simply being in the saddle all day long. He needed some laudanum for the way he hurt, the way his hands shook, and the way he was acting like a damned fool.

  “I don’t rightly know if the colonel expects me to stay for dinner. He invited me, but that was before he got all pissy.”

  “Stay. If he don’t feed you, I’ll see that the cook slops up a plate of beans for you.” Sturgeon looked around, then grinned. “He owes you something for making the deal with Dooley. We’ve been gettin’ almost decent food.”

  “That was a deal between him and your lieutenant,” Barker reminded him. He saw that this turned Sturgeon morose again. In the field, the sergeant was alert, but when he rode past the sentry at the low wall surrounding the fort, he became a different man. Barker suspected most of that attitude change came from the commanding officer.

  “Can I stable my horse? She won’t eat much, and if I have to, I can sleep in the stall tonight and be on my way tomorrow morning ’fore reveille.”

  “One more horse isn’t going to upset nobody in the stables. I’ll see to that.”

  Barker spent the rest of the afternoon tending his horse and talking with the soldiers, most of them veterans of the chase through the Peloncillas after the Sonora Kid. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to learn, but one of them might have seen or heard something that he had missed.

  “No, suh,” the corporal said. “I didn’t follow nobody from where we shot it out. But I seen a single rider headin’ off. Took that trail to the southeast.”

  Barker pictured the land in his head and nodded. That trail curved around awhile, then went straight south into Mexico. Anyone escaping the cavalry and wanting to hide out for a spell would go that way. The other trail was equally winding, but it curved out and spit any rider following it into Arizona.

  “You see his face?”

  “Only the back of his head. And then not so much,” the corporal said.

  “What kind of hat was he wearing?”

  “No hat. Bare head. Dark brown hair or maybe it was just dirty and some other color. He was bent almost double like he was carryin’ one o’ our slugs in him. Or might be he just rode that way.”

  Barker thought more on this. If the escaping bandito had been shot, it explained why there hadn’t been any stagecoach robberies or much in the way of thievery in the territory for close to a month. The outlaw had been recuperating. But now he was healed and back.
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br />   From the brutality of the murders in the stagecoach holdup, Barker had to believe it was the Sonora Kid who had escaped and had finally returned like a bad penny. If it wasn’t the leader of the gang, it was someone who had learned brutality firsthand and enjoyed the bloodletting. From a practical standpoint, it didn’t matter if the vaquero had been the Sonora Kid and was dead with his partner back and acting in the same murderous way, or if it had been the Sonora Kid himself who had escaped.

  Dead was dead when lead started flying, no matter whose finger pulled the trigger.

  “You tell me any more about—” Barker clamped his mouth shut when a private ran up, breathless.

  “You the marshal the colonel’s goin’ on about?” The private looked at the corporal with a hint of defiance. Interrupting like this wasn’t done unless on higher orders.

  “Colonel Tomasson want to see me?” Barker heaved to his feet. He had asked about moonshine on the post and been told that it didn’t exist. Sturgeon and three other sergeants were too vigilant to allow it. He wished he could take a swig before seeing the colonel again, but he had done harder things in his life.

  “Right away, suh. You need me to show you the way?”

  Barker looked past the private. The colonel’s office was across the parade ground, where a tall mast from a sailing ship held the unit banner. The extra rigging kept the pole from snapping in the high winds that often whipped across the post. Barker wondered how many flags had been lost until somebody—a former navy officer?—suggested the pole.

  “I can find it.”

  Relief on the private’s face showed that none of the soldiers enjoyed the colonel’s company all that much. Barker said his goodbyes to the corporal and the private and sauntered to the office, where he rapped sharply and waited.

  “Come!”

  Barker pushed open the door and stepped into the close, small office. It would have been better to leave the door open, but the vagrant desert breeze might have scattered papers on the desk all over the floor.