Trail to Cottonwood Falls
Page 17
Ed shook his head and herded her to the door.
“Where are they?” A shocked look on her face, she backed into the cantina, waiting for his answer.
“I’m not certain. I think something bad has happened to them.”
“Oh, no. But who?”
“I have to think those bushwhackers rode to my place after trying to get me and—” He shook his head. The knot in his throat was too large to swallow.
“But we never saw any sign . . .”
“It was up there, but we weren’t looking, I’m certain. Of course, it’s as old as those butts.” He showed her to a table and an older woman brought them two plates.
“I have only some red wine,” the little woman apologized to Unita.
“That would be fine,” she said to the woman.
He agreed, and told her to bring a jug and two glasses. One thing for certain, he didn’t need any more hard stuff. Not that he wouldn’t like to stick his head in a trough of it and drink enough to forget it all, especially what lay ahead for him. Only hell itself could have kept those two boys from coming down there for the celebration.
“Maybe they went to Mexico?” she said under her breath, with her fork idle in her right hand.
He shook his head, chewing on a spicy mouthful. “They’d never do that. Something’s happened to them.”
“When will Jorge be back?”
“In a few days. He’s using a team and wagon, but even if he started today, it would be three days getting back up here.”
“Will we go back this afternoon?” she asked.
“Yes, so we can get a good start in the morning—” He shook his head and considered her. “You may need to get back?”
“They’ll be fine at the ranch. I can help you.”
He accepted her concession and looked at his food, the red sauce running on the plate from the white cheese-coated tortillas. If only he hadn’t left them, but there was nothing he could do about that this late. He used the side of his fork to cut off a bite.
What had those unholy bastards done to those two? He’d damn sure get them.
“Maybe something—”
“Not something. Someone!” he said, sharper than he intended to her. Then he put down his fork and reached over to grasp her wrist. “I am so sorry you have to be mixed in my trouble. That’s all I am anymore, is trouble to all and everyone I touch.”
“I have a stake in you. It’s lot bigger than a cattle drive, bigger than some ruthless killers, Ed Wright. You aren’t any more trouble than any other man caught between some vicious men who want to kill you.”
“I don’t want you hurt.”
“I don’t want you hurt, but stop taking the blame on yourself.”
“Excuse me, Senor?”
Ed looked up into the face of an older Mexican man. He had a snowy mustache and his great sombrero was held in front of him as he nodded politely to her.
“I am Ignacious Vargas. I am the uncle of Ramon and Raphael.”
“Yes, I have met you before, up at the ranch.”
“The bartender, Carlos, says that you ask about them.”
“Yes. They weren’t at the ranch this morning and I rode down here to check on them.”
“We have been worried. They were supposed to come to my casa for Christmas, as well.”
“I am sorry. Have there been any strangers here this past week?”
Vargas turned and asked Carlos.
“Only the three men who were here for two days,” Carlos said. “I will get Maria and she can tell you. They were pistoleros.”
Ed exchanged a questioning look with Unita and he nodded. Was it the three men that Nell wrote him about?
They finished their food and he thanked the older woman. He was savoring his red wine when the bartender returned leading a short girl in her teens with stringy hair and obviously hung over. Wrapped in a green blanket he had little doubt she didn’t wear anything underneath it.
“Carlos said you asked about those pistoleros that were here.” Her voice was a husky, smoky rasp as she retightened the cover around her and made a sign to recognize Unita’s presence.
“Yes, what do you know about them?”
“The one called Roho was the boss. He was big man and not nice—” She glanced at Unita as if to see if it was all right to continue, then went on. “The kind who likes to hurt putas.”
“Big man with a mustache?”
“Sίί, Senor. The other one was a breed named Hatchet. He was, how you say, shifty-eyed?”
“Yes, and the third one?”
“They called him Warlock. He never came inside. They said he was an Apache, but he was no Apache. I knew some in Mexico. He was, maybe, Comanche.” She risked one hand holding the cover closed and swept the greasy hair back from her face.
“He never came inside?” Ed asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “Some Indios are like that. They don’t like to be in a white man’s casa as if it would have some power over them.”
“You didn’t do any business with him?”
Her head back she laughed aloud, as if amused at his words. “Not inside.”
He put a dollar on the table and thanked her. “When did they leave?”
She picked up the coin, stepped back, and clutched it in her small fingers. “A few days before Christmas, and they asked about you, Senor.”
“Oh, what did they ask?”
“If you were good with a gun.”
“What did you tell them?”
She smiled. “I told them you used to be a ranger and would shoot them dead if they crossed your path.”
“That scare them?”
“Roho said he cut his teeth killing rangers, but I could tell it made him uneasy.”
“They said they wanted him?” Unita asked, indicating Ed.
Maria shrugged. “They never say. Just ask about him.”
“Like what?” Unita asked.
“Would he ride down there and see me.”
“Oh?”
“I said I wish he would and kill them, because half the time they wouldn’t pay me. They made me mad.”
“Thank you, Maria. I’d of been mad too.”
The two shared a nod and Maria left the room, sweeping the tail of her blanket on the floor in her exit.
“They were the men in Fort Worth, that the waitress saw,” Unita said.
Ed nodded and rubbed his palms on his pants. Time to move on—Unita would sure get an education traipsing after him. At least he was not guilty of any past indiscretions with Maria.
Vargas asked to go with them out of his concern over the boys. Ed agreed and the man joined them on a red saddle mule. Headed into the wind twenty minutes later, the animals hated heading into the billowing dust and sharp sand striking them head-on He and Unita wore bandannas for masks, and the old man tucked his head, using his big sombrero for a shield.
The ride took much longer than Ed planned, and it was dark when they reached the ranch. With sundown, the wind abated some, but he was not willing to simply ride in. The three killers might have come back. He told Unita and the old man to wait in the cedars, and when they saw a light in the main house to come on.
They agreed and he circled, coming in checking the corral for horses first, or any sign. After hitching the bay, six-gun in hand, he made his way to the bunkhouse. Inside the dark interior he found nothing. Then he made his way to the main house where Jorge lived, the headquarters for the place when he bought it several years before. But again he found nothing but a ransacked house. Lighting a lamp he put it in the window and went back to put up the bay. On the way he found Jorge’s stock dog’s body, his throat cut and dead for some time. He’d missed it the first time they were there—he’d never checked the area behind the corral. He’d been so upset about the condition of Tina’s house.
He led the bay around and unsaddled him as they rode in.
“Find anything?” she asked.
“Jorge’s dog. They killed it.”
“I am too, but I’m more concerned by the hour about the boys.”
“I’ll go see what I can find for supper,” she said. “There’s no sign of them?”
“Nothing I found. You all right?” Ed asked the old man, still sitting on his mule.
“Sίί, but I have a feeling of death here. I must apologize, Senora, but it is very strong.”
“I agree,” Ed said, and began to unsaddle Star for her. There was something different there. Maybe the old man sensed it better than he did.
“I’ll fix some food,” Unita said, and hurried off toward the lighted door.
At the house, Ed built a fire in the hearth and it soon drove the chill of night away. Vargas held out his gnarled hands to warm them.
“This is a fine ranch. It has water and plenty of grass.”
“I thought so too. When Mr. Fairway offered to sell it, I bought it quick like.” Ed turned to Unita, busy in the other end. “Can we help you?”
“I have some biscuits in the oven and think I have enough fire in the stove to bake them. I’ll make some flour gravy, and that’s about all I can find.”
“We can eat that,” Ed said, looking at the old man.
“Ah, sίί, that would be good.”
“I’ll find us some eggs in the morning. If those hens are still laying.”
“Doubtful this late in the year,” she said. “I’ll cook down some cornmeal and make fried mush for breakfast.”
After supper, they made pallets on the floor in front of the fireplace. Ed didn’t sleep well and the wind had returned during the night, howling at the building corners. He slipped out of his blankets, built up the fire, and then pulled on his boots, coat, and hat.
Outside, in the gray light, he struck out on foot for the canyon. Something told him to check the bridge. No notion why—but all night it was in his thoughts. Sheltered some from the blasts, he followed the old wagon tracks made hauling in the lumber. The predawn was shaded by clouds, but the illumination grew brighter as he strode through the cedars, and at last he moved around them to where he could see the span.
The sight of the two bodies hanging under it stabbed him in the heart. No doubt, even at this distance—they were the corpses of the boys. He began to run. Words slipped from his lips. Words of protest. Words of hate. Even God, who he felt had forsaken him.
On his slick leather soles he ran harder, then he dropped to his knees on the pitchy-smelling flooring, jammed his fist in his eyes, and began crying. Those two innocent boys didn’t need to die. It was all his fault.
It was Unita’s hand on his shoulder that brought him to awareness. “Vargas has ridden for the sheriff.”
He clutched her and buried his face against her breasts. Her arms encircled him and brought the first solace he’d found in an hour or more.
“These men have no value for human life.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
As on the two days before, he was drunk in preparation for their funeral. Unita came over to his place early that morning, made him bathe, and shaved him. Also laid out were his best clothes, all pressed and clean for him to wear. Jorge and Tina were back, and they loaded the children up in the wagon. Jorge came to the bunkhouse and offered him a ride, but Unita said she’d take him.
“You able to walk out to the buggy?” she asked him.
“Hell, yes.”
“Good, then fall down and get your nice clothes all dirty.”
“All right, steady me then.” He took another swig from the neck of the bottle and set it back down beside the chair he sat in.
Busy brushing out her hair, she finished and nodded to him. “Ready?”
“Damn right.”
With a wary head shake, she came over to help him up. With her for a guide, and after two tries, he and the bottle made it up into the buggy.
“You could have left me here,” he said to her.
“I could have done lots of things in my life. But I didn’t.” She clucked to the horse.
The bodies, already decomposed, were in the ground, but the priest in San Juan was holding a funeral mass so that all their relatives from as far away as Mexico who could come to the little church had a chance to be there. Outside the chapel an array of wagons, carreta, burros, and horses were hitched in the warming sun.
From his seat in the buggy, Ed looked hard at the tall, ornate, carved doors, nodded to Unita, and lowered himself to the ground. The bells tolled loudly and many people were going inside. Women with their heads wrapped and carrying babies slipped in. Men in their Sunday best suits nodded to him.
In the sanctuary, a young boy showed them to the front row. He sat on the bench as the priest’s monotone in Latin began, the audience answering in Spanish. It was like his body was there and his mind in the log rafters high overhead. He looked down on the dedicated. The mother silencing a baby as the priest prepared the way for the two boys to walk into heaven. It was all miles away from him.
The straight-backed woman in the black dress beside him—why did she continue to mother him? She ought to have had her fill by now. Why didn’t she marry Frank Hogan, even if he was a little stiff on the dance floor. Just so she left him alone. Those boys were dead as sure as if he’d pushed them off the bridge to strangle on the end of the hemp rope.
And the note pinned on Ramon. If U follow us, we will do this to U.
Goddamn them!
He felt her hand squeeze his. Had he sworn out loud? No, but he felt like it.
Chapter 22
Late February came, and the brave yellow jonquils bloomed in the last gasps of winter winds. Cheat and wild oat blades waved inches tall. Ed was sleeping off another drunk when he heard a wagon pull up. He could hear the mules outside in the yard breathing hard and snorting, and the familiar jingle of harness. Sitting up, he mopped his face in his hands. What the hell was it doing at his place?
Rusty soon blocked the door, and the blinding spears of sunlight that came around him forced Ed to shut his gritty eyes.
“The boss said for us to load your things and you in the chuck wagon.”
“What if I don’t want to go?”
“Then our orders are to hog-tie you.”
“She think—”
“Ed, I don’t really know what the lady thinks. But I do know orders, and they were to get you and all your gear on that wagon out there.”
“I ain’t ready—my steers . . .”
“They’re already road branded and in the herd. Jorge and his new crew already did all that.”
Ed blinked his eyes. Had he been that drunk? Probably.
“I’ll need my saddle—”
“The boys are getting it. You want anything else?”
“Blankets—hell—I don’t know.”
He managed to tell Jorge, Tina, and the two children good-bye. And he left on the seat with a grizzly old man who called himself . . . Cuddle, but Ed discovered later that his name was Caudle. After a few miles of the old man’s squeaky, toothless voice, Ed decided he must be Unita’s cook.
Things were happening too fast for his numb mind. Hell with it. He had two bottles of good whiskey left. The next thing he knew, after just about being pitched off the seat a dozen times by Caudle’s erratic driving, they were at the herd.
It was the Comanche captive boy he saw first. He’d forgotten all about Blondie. Unita had put him to work cleaning up around her place, cutting stove wood, etc. Blondie was working hard at slowly turning a beef quarter on a spit where the big iron kettle hung over the fire. He looked up and nodded to Ed.
“Goddamn Injun,” Caudle said, and spit tobacco off the side. “He ain’t white. Sumbitch is still Injun. Don’t talk no English. Hell, he even stinks like one when you get downwind of him.”
Ed wasn’t sure that the old man wasn’t smelling himself, and lowered himself off the wagon feeling stiff as a board.
“You ain
’t burned it, has you?” Caudle demanded in Spanish.
Blondie shook his head.
“Good to see you,” Billie said, riding up on a small Spanish pony with a dish face. “Heard you’d been under the weather. Lots of folks saying you’d never make this trip. Me and Ida Mae, we knowed you’d get off your deathbed to go.”
“Good to see you too,” Ed said, and went to where several hands were gathered, repairing girths and saddles around another fire. There was still a chill in the air and, while he dreaded any conversations, he wanted to warm up.
The big string bean of a swing rider Ich Strang came over and squatted down beside him. “Thanks. When Mrs. Nance’s foreman came for me he brought the money. Hiedie’ll be fine till I get home.”
“Unita Nance is straight.” The winey smoke from the fire was burning Ed’s eyes until the wind switched enough to move it aside.
“I’ve seen that. Good looker, too.” He cut a sly, knowing grin at Ed.
He ignored it. “How’s Shorty?”
“He’s here. I went down there with Rusty and they let us have him. He’s so damn glad to be out of jail, he’ll be fine for a while.”
“For a while?”
“Shorty’s got bad about appropriating stuff ain’t his. I’ll watch him close so he don’t piss any of the boys off.”
“Maybe we should have left him?” Ed absently tossed some grass he’d pulled up on the red coals and watched it melt in the flames. Maybe they really should have?
“Naw. Hell, I’d get my worst enemy out of there. That jail business ain’t no joke.”
“Who else she got? We ain’t talked much lately.”
“Pretty good bunch. Several green kids, but they can ride. She’s got lots of sound horses and that wagon is a dandy, all painted up.” Ich smiled and then rubbed his mouth with his palm. “I’m ready to ride.”
Ed nodded. He wished he was half that anxious to be under way.
He heard the rowels of Unita’s spurs, and both of them stood and removed their hats.
“There won’t be time for hat removal on this drive. So we’ll start skipping all that.” She was using her teeth to pull off a kidskin glove. “I need to talk to Ed for few minutes. If you’ll excuse us, Ich?”