Waltzing With Tumbleweeds

by Dusty Richards

  Her cuss words in Spanish exploded in the empty bar room. He raised up in the side booth from his mescal induced siesta. What had her majesty so upset this time?

  He scrubbed his beard stubbled mouth on his calloused palm. By then, she came whirling up beside him. Her red skirt twisting from side to side, she halted like a trained horse on her heels before him. The fury written on her honey colored face forced him to sit up, lest in her impatience she struck him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Stupid donkey!” Hands planted on her shapely hips, her dark eyes shot darts of anger like a stone grind wheel making a shower of sparks sharpening a steel blade. Her exposed cleavage that showed in the open necked blouse quaked with her upset. Even wound up in her anger, her beauty made him feel strongly attached to her.

  “Who?” His eyes narrowed in serious consideration.

  “Don Pentales.”

  “What the hell did he do to put you in such a vise?” Damn. Enough was enough. Whatever had her so on fire needed to be brought out in the open.

  “You know he was supposed to bring a beef for me to butcher.”

  “He said he had a fat three-year-old steer for your barbecue—” He stopped.

  Someone parted the bat wing doors and pushed his way inside the dimly lit cantina. She turned and looked hard at the great Chihuahua peaked sombrero. Under his tailored short waist coat, he had on a snowy, ruffled front shirt, This fancy hombre wore fine chaps, two six-guns on his narrow hips and the great silver rowels strapped on his boot heels rang like bells. He cast a look sideways at her, then at him.

  “You are open?” he asked in Castilian Spanish.

  “Si, señor,” she said and wadded her skirt in her hand and hurried to get behind the bar to serve him. While she went, the stranger keep a cold gaze on him for longer than would be considered friendly. An appraising stare by one who obviously knew no fear. Her latest customer might be a bustamente, a pistolero or even some apparition that came out of the Sierra Madras like smoke on the wind.

  “Could I buy you a drink?” the man asked and nodded cordially with his invitation.

  “Yes. I would drink with you.” His tongue thick enough by this time from the nap, something needed to cut through the depth.

  “Good. To drink alone is like playing with yourself. There are better ways.” A smile parted his thin lips and even in the dark room, his straight teeth shown like polished pearls.

  “What brings a man like you to Azipe?” he asked.

  “Me?” The look of innocence on his handsome face meant nothing. “

  This town has few things a man of your obvious means would need.”

  “Ah, there you are wrong, my amigo.”

  Regardless of what the stranger said to deny it, if he came to find either fame or fortune in this dingy place of cockroaches and ugly putas, he would be disappointed. Even the chickens about this village laid runny eggs. The skinny cows gave blue john from their cheesy bags and the burros birthed crook legged offspring.

  “Have you heard of a man called Clanton?”

  “Who has not heard of that butcher.” He took the glass of brown mescal and toasted the buyer.

  With his thumb, the stranger raised the great sombrero and nodded. “Then you know where he lives?”

  “Not many miles from here.”

  “Bueno, señor.”

  “What plans have you for Old Man Clanton? Sell him cattle? They say he has all the business with the Indian agencies, the U.S. Army. You want to sell beef to any of them you must first pay the old man.”

  “Him and those bastardos in Tucson.” The voice sounded harsher. His words this time snapped like the braided cotton popper on the end of a six-foot bullwhip.

  “You mean—” He looked around to be certain they were alone and no one could hear him. “The Tucson Ring?”

  “Exactly.” The intruder looked at the glass, then he took another deep drink. “They sell the Apaches guns and sell the army horses, food, and blankets. They keep the Indian agencies warehouses full of wormy bacon and flour that’s half chaff. And they get paid for it as prime stuff.”

  “But that is beyond the border.”

  “There is no border for Old Man Clanton. He kills, robs and rustles in Sonora. Then he sells it for American pesos. What does the border mean to such a weasel?”

  “A convenience.”

  “Ah, si. Have some more mescal, amigo.” He refilled both their glasses and nodded to affirm his words.

  Somehow he began to realize that this stranger represented a profit for him He did not know how, but he became more confident of his discovery by the minute. This fancy dressed rooster could be quite a valuable acquaintance in his circle of friends. It was not the strong drink they bathed their throats with that made his mind wander into rooms where there were gold bars stacked. He had not felt even a small buzz like a fly from the liquor, but the stranger’s words built castles for him in the great clouds that gathered across the skies in July.

  “They say you are a powder monkey.”

  He nodded. “I can blow a mountain range flat if you have enough or I can crack a seam in a granite mountain so narrow a paper won’t fit between it.”

  The man nodded as if he had heard of such deeds and was satisfied. “Now I want you to work for me.”

  “You have spoken of two things so far.” At ease with this fine dressed one, he put his elbows on the bar and considered his own grizzled face in the mirror behind the bar. The white sprouts on his face. The frost above his ears in the thin dark hair. No longer a young man who could take on three putas a night and make each one at long last beg for him to quit. Still he was not old, except his left ear had a constant ring in it from a too close blast. That fuse had burned too fast.

  The stranger joined him. Shoulder to shoulder, their elbows resting on the edge, drinking her best mescal and making plans. It was like days gone by, when he feasted at great tables with patrons and spoke of opening mines to expose the gold secreted in the mountains’ vaginas. He felt the swell of his youth returning.

  He looked over at him. “What rocks do you need split asunder?”

  The man put down his glass and leaned on his right elbow. “I want old man Clanton and his gang blown to hell and gone.”

  He knew the man’s true purpose at last. To this, he closed his right eye and considered the matter. He had blown up train bridges for various reasons. Once, he failed and that was why he resided in Sonora. But to blow up a person—who was old man Clanton anyway? A killer of innocent woman and children, a rustler who stole the poor rancher’s stock and shot them if they complained. Why would he lose any sleep over such a thing?

  Not just anytime,” the stranger said.

  “Not just anytime?” He looked pained at the well-dressed man beside him; he even felt a little jealous over his ownership of the snowy, ruffled shirt.

  “We must do it when he and all his gang are inside the casa.”

  “But how will we do it then?”

  “You know Generale Crook?”

  “I’ve heard of him. But I never met him.”

  “He is a smart man, he hires Apaches to find Apaches.”

  “The scouts. Tom Horn rides with them. I know him”

  “Yes. An Apache can walk through your room at night and steal you blind and you would never know it.”

  “But I’m not an Apache.” He pointed at his chest with his index finger.

  “I will get you three of them. They can plant the charges for you. Do you see my plan?”

  “I do. But isn’t he well guarded? I mean he has armed men and mean dogs that bark. I heard he was tougher than Fort Bowie to get close to.”

  From his jacket pocket, the stranger produced a ring. Gold band with rubies. Even in the dim light it shown.

  “What is that for?”

  “That ring was on the old man’s night stand beside his bed. It was stolen off Señora Antonette Maria Consuela Reales when they raided the Reales hacienda. One of you
r Apaches went inside the Clanton’s casa four nights ago and took that ring.”

  He nodded. Impressed.

  “They cut her finger off for this ring.”

  A shiver of cold ran up his spine despite the hot bar room.

  “Saturday night, the gang will be there. Both his sons. Spawn of the devil and all his banditos.”

  “I’ll need supplies.”

  “They are waiting on pack mules, not a hundred yards from this cantina.”

  “Fuses, detonators, matches, waxed cord,” he reeled off the things he could think of.

  “They are all here.”

  “The Apaches?”

  “They will be there when we need them.”

  Trapped. He felt that this man would take nothing from him , but ‘I-will-go-with-you.’

  Then from inside his fine coat, he took out two pouches that clunked heavy on the counter.

  “Two thousand in gold coins.”

  Sparkling new, the yellow buckskin sacks gleamed on the wash worn wood. For a moment, he dared not to touch them. The words, pieces-of-eight crossed his mind. Then at last, he shoved them toward the back of the bar and his gaze met hers. The paleness in her complexion made the circles under her eyes look like rings of charcoal. For once, this firecracker made no loud explosion. She stood behind the bar and fizzled in some depleting form. He gave a wave of his hand for her to put them away. Then with a dull nod, she took one in each hand and dropped to her knees to place them in the small safe beneath the bar.

  “Get me some things,” he said to her and she obediently rushed off. She knew what he meant. A towel, soap, a change of underwear, a shirt. Some tobacco, papers. He’d add a few bottles of the good stuff to his tucker.

  Damn, how long since he had had an adventure? The strength began to grown inside him. Only this job he could never brag about. Not like the time he opened the great silver vein in Los Gados Mine. Or when he found the streak of gold they’d lost—she piled his sack on the bar.

  “Dos mescal,” he said and smiled at her.

  She nodded. The ghostly pallor still on her face; he felt a twinge of guilt. The bottles wrapped in cloth stowed in his bag, he picked it up and nodded to his new amigo.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Vaya con el dios,” she whispered and crossed herself.

  He reached over the bar, swept her up against it and kissed her hard on the lips. “Sleep well, my love, I will return in a few days. We can do what we want then, no?”

  “Yes,” she whispered like the wind in the cottonwoods.

  So he rode a fine gray gelding beside the stranger’s dancing horse, the fiery color of polished copper. The steed’s blood boiled with the pedigree of a king’s stable. The purest of lineage, the fleetest of the desert Moor’s great breeding.

  They said the Mohammeden conquest gave Spain the spiral turrets on their buildings. But besides the long horned cattle, they left behind strains of their equine stock that knew no equal for endurance and speed. And as he rode beside this knight, he began recalling his own days of youth spent in Madrid at the bullfights. Of women he toasted, loved and the hot winds on the plains. He raised his hat and wiped the gritty sweat on his shirtsleeve. The same flames of hell toasted this land of greasewood as it did the Iberian Peninsula.

  The Apaches weren’t there one minute, then like mirages out of the heat waves, they appeared, riding short legged horses, tough as mesquite wood. They came in spotted colors. Those stiff trotting ponies. An affection for such coats afflicted the aborigines across the land. It was not only an Apache trait, but rather all such men of the red race coveted the paints and piebald.

  In his mind as he rode, he planned the length of each fuse. The size of the charges. No need to be stingy, the many boxes of explosives aboard the mules could flatten a mountain range if properly planted. His operation would be to send the Apaches inside with enough dynamite, fused and ready for them to light it and still be time for them to get outside before it went off. There could be no mistakes.

  If anyone in the house discovered the lighted sticks they could rush outside and perhaps miss being blown up. So care in planting them would be everything.

  “Yes, they will put them out of sight,” the one on the copper horse assured him.

  The next day was spent in an oven hot canyon, wrapping the sticks in bundles with waxed string. The ends of the dynamite pried open and the blasting caps inserted. Fuse stuck in them after he carefully burned lengths and used his pocket watch to learn the time necessary to consume the footage.

  He showed the pan-faced Apaches the consumption of the fuses. They nodded in approval.

  Then came the sunset. A fiery ball that sunk slower than usual. This may have been the longest day in his life. He could recall none this long before. Charges ready.

  His messengers of death spent the day, squatted in their loin cloths, smoked cigarettes and were unmoved by either the pesky flies or the oppressive heat. At last, darkness veiled the land.

  “I thought all Apaches dreaded the night?”

  “Only dying during the night disturbs them,” his employer said. Then he went over and spoke to his Apaches in guttural words and they went for their ponies. The five of them rode out on the grease wood flats and in the distance they could make out the yellow lights of the Clanton House. He could even turn his good ear and hear music and laughter.

  Fandango going on. They must have scored a big one. The Apaches dismounted and squatted. In the starlight, he was uncertain if they were a few yards from him or if they were ghosts. Somewhere a coyote called and another answered.

  The one in charge drew out a brass telescope and looked across the plains. He handed it to him to use. Through the eye piece, he could see a half naked woman being pursued by two men on the porch. One wore no pants.

  Their party must be wild. Then he turned at the soft shuffle of more horses coming.

  “No worry. They are with us.”

  He could see they were armed with new Winchesters when they drew up, staying apart from him, the stranger and the Apaches. Their faces hidden in night by the shade of their hats. No one smoked. No one talked. Only sounds were the creaks of their saddle leather, or an occasional snort of a horse.

  He did not dwell long on who they were. They were his backup, he decided. If the charges failed to eliminate any of the clan, then they would do the job.

  He kept time by the big dipper. Past midnight, the sounds from the far away party grew muted. The man waved his Apaches toward the house. Each one was armed with a gunnysack, full of charges; they soon evaporated into the silvery night.

  Then the organizer gave instructions for the gun bearers to surround the place and sent them off in pairs. The two of them were alone with the horses.

  “Him and his kind deserve no mercy,” he said and handed a bottle to him.

  He shook his head. He had no need for a drink. He might never drink again. The dipper stopped its movement. Perhaps the earth too had stopped spinning on its axis. Only the night bugs buzzed. No Apaches, no riflemen.

  If a great bear had vomited up fire, then that would best describe the multi explosions that send shock waves across the open ground at them. High in the sky projectiles shot in an eerie red-orange light. The night held fearsome screams. Then a few rifle shots. Not many, but they reverberated across the flats and echoes answered.

  “Mia amigo, gracia for your time and expert work. If I ever need you again. I will send word. The gray horse is your bonus for a job well done.”

  Alone, he rode back to Azipe. By mid morning, when he reined up before the cantina, his eyes felt like sand pits and his spineseemed deformed from the long hours in the saddle. He spotted the boy of ten.

  “Take my grand caballo. Water him slowly, rub him down and feed him soft hay.”

  “Ah, si, Señor Gringo. I am good with horses.”

  “I know that is why I chose you.” He dismounted slowly and let his sea legs take form before he released the saddle horn. Then hi
s gaze stopped on the faded green bat wing doors; he hobbled for the cantina’s sanctuary. Anxious to see her again.

  She rushed from behind the bar. Her arms flew around him.

  “You’re all right. You’re fine.”

  “Sure.” He set the bag on the table and the bottles clunked.

  She frowned. “You never drank the mescal?”

  He looked up at the dusty buffalo head above the bar and shook his head. “I may never drink again,” he said aloud.

  What was a stuffed bison head doing in Mexico anyway? What was he doing there? He rocked her in his arms to savor her ripe body against his.

  “Have you ever been to Texas?” he asked her, kissing her sweet smelling hair and ear.

  “No. Why?”

  “Let’s sell this place. Get a casa along the Guadalupe River. I can catch catfish. You can grow a garden.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause I belong there. With you.”

  “If you say so, my darling, we will go there.”

  “Good, now I must sleep.”

  Twenty years later, he sat in the warm sun before the jackal. The rays felt good. The young reporter from the San Antonio Herald was asking questions and taking notes.

  “Ah, Señor Kelly, did you ever know any big bandits on the border in those days?”

  “I heard of one.”

  “Who was that, señor?”

  “Old Man Clanton.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes, I saw him go to hell one night.”

  “That must have been something exciting, señor. Can you tell me more.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s my siesta time. But believe me, he really went there.”

  Q Q Q

  Author’s note: Historical legend blamed Old Man Clanton and his gang for the brutal robbery of a Mexican gold mule train in Skeleton Canyon. The story goes that a single survivor of that massacre, a boy, grew up, became wealthy and led a well planned raid on Clanton’s Hacienda, which leveled the place to the ground. Neither the old man nor any of his gang members present survived the raid.

  Luckily, Ike Clanton and some his siblings were in Tombstone that evening harassing the Earps and Doc Holiday. Later on, after trying all day to pick a fight with the Earps, Ike chickened out at the OK Corral gunfight—he fled into Fly’s Studio, screaming, “Don’t shoot me! I’m unarmed.”