The wind rolling across the desert made me shiver from the excitement of the story and the cold, but Daddy wasn’t shivering. He was hot just thinking about what El Tigré did to José.
“José said, ‘Finally, he got tired. He say loud enough for everybody to hear, “You sorry old dog, you tell that bastard Fountain I’m looking for him. When I find him, I’ll rip his guts out and string them across El Paso like the tiger I am. Your whipping is just the beginning, you old son of a bitch. When I’m through, even my woman can whip you if I tell her. You tell Fountain. You tell him. I’m here waiting to kill him good.”
“ ‘He spat a stream of nasty tobacco juice on me, took a bottle of whiskey and poured it on my face and shirt, it burned like the fires of hell, Señor Fountain. Then he stuck out his elbow for his woman to grab, and he and the whore walked out into the night like nothing happened. He was laughing loud too. The bartender sent old Cardenas to get Dr. Bright, and he put splints on my broke arm. He said there wasn’t anything else broke and that there wasn’t a lot he could do for the bruises and swelling. He gave me a bottle of laudanum for when the pain gets bad. It works pretty good too. I used a little of the laudanum to kill the pain, and the swelling in my face is down some, I think. It don’t hurt too bad now.’ ”
Daddy’s face got blood red as he told the story. I could see it even under the chafing from the wind. I’d never seen him so angry, and he was just remembering how José looked and what El Tigré had said.
Then Daddy said, “I drove him to his place just downriver from Mesilla. When his wife Maria saw him, she started to cry. After I promised her he’d be all right in a few weeks, she got control of herself and helped me get him into the house. I gave Maria some money and told her to get whatever medicine she needed for José and to come see me if she needed more.”
As Daddy spoke, I could see everything in my mind, even the parts he didn’t tell. I pictured José’s wife with coal-black hair, a chunky, middle-aged woman, gingerly wiping José’s bruised face with a wet cloth, and I knew Daddy was thinking about what to do next. “Did you ride for El Paso that same night?” I asked.
“No, son. That would’ve been too far to ride on horseback. I headed straight back to Las Cruces and found Israel Santos putting up stock at Lohman’s Hardware. Do you remember him? He’s a second or third cousin of your mother’s. He’s kinda short, but very strong. I’ve seen him roll around hundred-pound kegs tilted over on their edges, one in each hand at Lohman’s. He’s fearless, and a dead shot with a pistol in either hand.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t perfectly sure I remembered him. Daddy continued, “I motioned him outside into the shadows, told him El Tigré was back, had beaten José to a pulp, and that I was catching the five-o’clock train to El Paso to catch him. I asked if Santos wanted to come with me. He did, and we were in El Paso by six thirty the next morning. Then we rode as fast as we could over to Concordia. Neither one of us spoke a word the entire ride.”
I could picture them riding out on their dangerous mission on horseback, but I didn’t understand their silence. “Why didn’t you talk during the ride?” I asked.
Daddy sighed and said, “Son, it’s a matter of focus. Once you set your mind to do something like that, you just have to keep your mind in the right place. You don’t talk until you need to talk.”
While I tried to absorb that, he continued, “Just outside Concordia, we met a toothless old woman trudging toward the El Paso market with vegetables in a basket on her head. When we asked her about El Tigré, she pointed out the adobe house where he and the whore were staying.”
Daddy had used the word whore once before in this story, and I hadn’t understood it, so this time I stopped him and asked, “What’s a whore?”
Again, he sighed and then paused to think for a moment. “You know the type women who wear clothes your mama doesn’t approve of?”
I asked, “You mean the ones she says look like they don’t care if their bosoms spill out of their clothes?”
“The very ones, Henry.”
I frowned and asked, “Why doesn’t Mama like them? What do they do?”
A line of red began creeping up Daddy’s collar, and he said, “They sing songs to drunks in the saloons.”
“So El Tigré liked singing?” I asked.
“That he did,” Daddy said. “Anyway, we walked the horses down the backstreet where the whore’s house sat and checked it for windows and doors. The windows were too small for El Tigré to crawl through, so I put Israel at the front door and told him when he heard me bust through the back door to come in the front ready to shoot and not to hesitate to shoot the whore if she got in the way.”
I frowned, not believing I’d heard Daddy right. “You mean you told him to shoot a woman?”
Daddy squinted and said, “Henry, those women often carry pistols or knives, and they can kill you just as dead as any man can. Don’t ever forget that, son.”
I nodded as I squinted out toward the mountains trying to look serious and he continued his story. “I took my pistol out at the back door and made sure it was loaded.” Then Daddy paused again, leaned down so he was eyeball-to-eyeball with me, and said, “Always be sure your gun is loaded. An empty gun will get you killed in a hurry.”
Again I nodded and he continued, “Taking a deep breath, I was just reaching for the door handle when it turned, and the door swung open. There stood El Tigré in his long johns, boots, and gun belt, yawning and heading for the privy out back. As soon as he saw me, he tried to slam the door shut, but it hung on a rug and wouldn’t close. He saw my old Walker Colt was cocked and ready and knew I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he tried for his pistol, so he put his hands up. If we hadn’t caught him like that, there’d have been a hell of a fight.
“I called out, ‘Israel. Come round back and see the skunk I’ve caught!’ Then I yelled into the doorway, ‘Lady, you stay inside, and stay quiet, or my man will make you wish you had!’ Israel came running around the corner of the house with his shotgun in one hand, both hammers cocked, and a revolver in the other. I said, ‘Israel, disarm El Pussy Gato and put the shackles on him.’ Israel holstered his revolver, walked over to him, and said in a low voice, ‘José Padilla es mi amigo, you son of a bitch.’ Then he smashed El Tigré’s face with the butt of his shotgun and broke his nose. And that’s how we caught El Tigré.”
I liked it when Daddy said words in front of me Mama would object to because I knew he was talking to me as if I were a man. Daddy grinned at me as if he’d finished the story, but I frowned, sensing there had to be more to it. “How did you get him back to Las Cruces?” I asked. “Did they hang him for riding with the Kinney gang?”
Daddy tightened Mama’s rebozo over his ears and said, “Israel saddled El Tigré’s horse while I kept an eye on him and the whore. He found a brace of the new Smith and Wesson pistols in El Tigré’s saddlebags, but most of the money he’d stolen was gone. I figured the whore probably had most of it, but I decided not to pursue it, since I really was out of my jurisdiction. We threw El Tigré over the saddle and tied him on. As we headed out for the train depot, the whore stood in her doorway and yelled, ‘El Tigré will keel you, Fountain. He’ll keel you.’ I just grinned and called back to her, ‘El Tigré isn’t going to do anything except go to hell.’ After breakfast, I sent a telegram to the sheriff in Las Cruces asking him to meet us at the station to pick up El Tigré and put him in jail.
“The ride home was quiet; however, as we got close to the depot, El Tigré seemed to revive and started growling about how he’d get free and shoot us in our heads and cut our cojones off. I got tired of hearing it, got up to stretch my legs, and walked back to where a Texas Ranger was sitting. The Ranger told me I ought to fix my pistol like his, which had a lanyard around the handle with the other end tied to his belt. He said it had saved his bacon several times when he had scuffled with prisoners and had his weapons knocked out of his hand. I thought that was pretty smart thinking, so he gave me
a string of rawhide and showed me how to rig my pistol up that way.”
I knew Daddy was telling me this for a reason, and I could guess what it was. “Did El Tigré try to knock your gun out of your hand?” I asked.
Daddy nodded, smiling, and said, “There was a big crowd waiting with the sheriff on the station platform when we got to Las Cruces. I reckon people just wanted a look at a famous outlaw. Israel and I got off the train with El Tigré between us. I had hold of the shackles chain between his wrists. As soon as we stepped off the train, the sheriff ran up to us with a big grin on his face, held out his hand, and said, ‘Well done, Fountain. Well done.’
“Like an idiot, I relaxed my grip on the chain as I shook his hand. El Tigré instantly pulled free and tried to jerk my pistol out of its holster, but my new lanyard jerked it out of his hands. Then, quick as anything, El Tigré jumped off the platform and ran for the desert.
“Israel had unloaded his shotgun for the ride back and was cursing and yelling that he couldn’t fire. The sheriff and his deputy froze and just stared at El Tigré’s fast disappearing backside. I used the lanyard to jerk my big Walker Colt revolver back as I yelled at him to stop. I dropped to one knee to steady myself, knowing I’d have only one shot, and a long one at that, to stop him. Just as he was about to disappear into the mesquite, I fired, and the forty-four-caliber ball from that six-pound revolver struck him square in the back. It hit him so hard he did a somersault forward and landed faceup. I felt bad I had to shoot the man, but I wasn’t about to let him get away after the beating he gave José and the threats he’d made about killing me.”
I looked at Daddy and felt mighty proud to be his son. For a long time, I sat looking over the yuccas, mesquites, creosotes, and brown, black, and white patches of sand between the far blue San Andres Mountains and us. I thought about all he had told me. The lessons I had learned from his story have stood me in good stead for a lifetime.
CHAPTER 4
ROY TIBBETS, COWBOY
On the way to Tularosa, Daddy stopped about a mile from the first road leading through White Sands and checked the loads on his long-barreled Colt revolver and the Winchester. In those days, outlaws who had been run out of Texas liked to make hideouts around there, so he kept the rifle on his knees during the ride through the Sands. Daddy was supposed to meet a man in Tularosa, but he wasn’t sure he’d be there because we would be two days late.
We stopped for dinner that night at Pat Coghlan’s store and cantina in Tularosa. Charlie Esparza ran it then. It was a clean, well-lighted place with a small bar at one end, and it had Mexican waiters who didn’t keep us waiting for our supper. We sat at a table close to a fireplace so big I could have walked into it if there had been no fire. I was a little short for the chair, but sitting on one leg made up the difference. That night, the house special was caldillo. Charlie Esparza’s wife used the best beef, potatoes, onions, and fiery chilies and cooked it just right. My mouth still waters when I think about her stew. I remember Daddy leaning toward my ear and saying, “Careful, Henry, this cadillo will be hot coming and going.” I grinned a moment later, when I figured out what he meant.
While we were eating, a cowboy walked through the door, looked around, and then came over to our table. He was wearing a soft, buckskin coat with lots of fringe; a rough, wool vest buttoned top-to-bottom; and shotgun chaps that showed thousands of scratches. He had a big, blue bandanna tied around his neck, and on his left hip, he carried a big, long-barreled Colt revolver in a fine, double-loop holster. It was the first time I had seen a cowboy up close, so I couldn’t help staring at him and taking in every detail. I was a townie, and Daddy didn’t let me play where cowboys liked to congregate in Mesilla or Las Cruces. When he saw me staring at him, he grinned and winked. I winked back and immediately liked him.
Daddy stood up, shook hands with him, and introduced him to me as Mr. Roy Tibbets. When Roy shook my hand, I noticed his hand was rough and powerful with short, stubby fingers. My daddy’s hands were powerful, too, but his hands had long fingers with well-manicured nails, and they were smooth like my mother’s.
Roy’s hair stuck out from under his hat like old, weathered straw falling out of a barn, and he hadn’t shaved the scraggly beard around his big, swooping mustache in quite a while. He smelled of sweat and tobacco, and I could tell that his squinting eyes took in every detail about us.
After we’d made our introductions, Daddy said, “Pull up a chair, Roy, and tell us what you have for me.”
Roy pulled up a chair and sat up straight, looked Daddy in the eye, and said, “I been working for a rancher named Fremont. He told me to ride over to Tularosa and give you some pieces of cowhide.”
Even I knew who Mr. Fremont was. He owned one of the biggest ranches on the east side of the Black Range, and Daddy did a lot of legal work for him. Daddy nodded and said, “I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you have dinner?”
I don’t think Roy had eaten for a while because he went through two bowls of caldillo as fast as he could pitch it down with a big spoon. He was done with two bowls before I’d even finished one. He wiped his bowl clean with a flour tortilla, ate it in three bites, and, sighing with contentment, wiped the outside of his mouth and mustache with the back of his hand. He leaned back, patted his lean belly, and belched so loud everyone in the cantina must have heard him. Then he reached in his vest and pulled out a sack of tobacco and some cigarette papers. While rolling himself a smoke with one hand, he pulled the sack’s drawstring closed with his teeth.
Daddy had finished his meal, too, and pulled a cigar out of his coat, which he’d thrown over the chair to his right. He’d also hung his pistol belt there, out of sight but within easy reach. He struck a sulfur match and used it to light up for both of them.
Roy said, “Sorry about eatin’ like a wolf, Mr. Fountain, but I’ve been sittin’ on ol’ Claude since ’fore daylight, and the wind off them mountains is downright cold. I’d expected to meet up with you in Lincoln tomorrow, but when I saw you in here, I figured I was just lucky and decided I’d gotten my days confused, which ain’t that hard for me to do.”
Daddy nodded his head appreciatively and said, “I’m glad you showed up when you did, Roy. We got delayed a couple of days in San Agustin Pass ourselves. Horses ran off and left us stranded. Fortunately, they went back home, and my son Albert and his father-in-law brought them back to us. So being a little late actually saved a little time in the long run.” He looked over at me and winked like we were fellow conspirators.
Roy nodded and grinned. “Yes, sir, horses, they’s just like women, can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.” We all had a good chuckle, although I had no idea what he was talking about.
Then Roy glanced over at me and said, “You got a good-lookin’ son there, Mr. Fountain. You ever done any ranchin’, boy?”
I answered, “No, sir,” but I got kind of puffed up, thinking I must look older than my age if he was asking me that kind of question. Daddy just grinned, stuck his lower lip out, and slowly shook his head.
Roy took a draw on his cigarette and asked Daddy, “You wanna wait till later to discuss business?”
Daddy shook his head and said, “No, sir. Henry knows to keep his mouth shut, and he does. He’s my assistant. Tell us about what you have.”
Roy and Daddy talked in low voices for nearly an hour. I had to sit up on the edge of my chair and lean forward over the table on my elbows to hear what they were talking about, and even doing that, I didn’t catch it all.
I heard enough to piece together that when Roy had butchered a couple of Fremont’s cows for a fiesta back before Christmas, he’d noticed something odd about the brands on the hides. Mr. Fremont’s brand was the Bar F. He had just bought some stock from Charlie Bentene, who was trying to start a little ranch called the Circle Eight over in Black Canyon. Bentene’s brand was a fancy, straight-sided eight with a circle around it.
One of the steers Roy had slaughtered had just been bought from Be
ntene, and one was from Fremont’s original herd. When Roy compared the flesh sides of the Circle Eight hide next to the one from the Bar F, it was easy to see the Bar F brand had been changed to make a Circle Eight. However, Roy said a man wouldn’t have been able to tell it if he was sitting on a horse ten feet away from the branded cow. Bentene had used a running iron on stock from Fremont’s ranch and then sold the stock back to Fremont. I had to work to keep from grinning. I thought it was a pretty clever trick. Roy said Fremont and some of the other big ranchers were hopping mad about tricks like that, and they wanted blood.
CHAPTER 5
WOLF EYES
As we sat there in Pat Coghlan’s place, Daddy took out a little notebook and wrote down everything from Roy Tibbet’s story he thought he might use in Lincoln at the grand jury presentations. Daddy had just reached over and dropped his notebook back into his coat pocket when the cantina door swung open and was slammed shut by the wind. Two well-dressed men walked in. They might have been cowboys, but their clothes weren’t covered with dust like nearly everyone else’s. They were younger than Roy, wore stockman dress coats, and carried big, heavy revolvers. One was tall and skinny with a big, hooked nose and crooked teeth that stuck out under his walrus mustache. The other was short but walked with a cocky strut. His face was clean-shaven. He grinned and nodded hello to everyone. His hat, a big-brim, white Stetson, was pushed back on his head, letting his straw-colored hair hang down toward blue eyes that were hard and piercing. When he looked at me, I felt like a wolf was sizing me up for a meal, but I felt safe with Roy and Daddy there.
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