Mariana's Knight

by W. Michael Farmer

  Then I looked down at my plate of stew, thoughts racing through my mind, roadrunners chasing snakes, juking and jumping here and there, but never making a catch. The day Daddy died felt like a lifetime ago. I knew I had jumped from being a child with no cares in the world to a miniature adult who was weak, who knew nothing about the world he carried on his shoulders. I felt a thousand years old, and I knew in my soul that I could never be a kid again. I remembered what the rider Buck had said about my sister Maggie. She had practically raised me, and I felt so badly for her, I wanted to cry. She had first suggested that I go with Daddy to stop the very thing that had happened to us. Now she must believe we were dead, and I knew she’d think it was all her fault. Lord only knew what Mama was thinking and going through. I wanted so bad to go home and comfort them and then to make those men who killed Daddy suffer before I tore them to pieces.

  I remembered tales Jack and Albert told me around a campfire about Apache torture tricks. Maybe I could bury Jack Stone, Red Tally, and Oliver Lee up to their necks in sand and smash their heads with rocks, but not kill them, so they’d know when the rats and ants were chewing on them before they died. I wanted to pour kerosene on their heads and set them on fire. I wanted to cut their guts out. I wanted their blood. I heard a roaring voice in my head and soul that said no matter what, somehow, someday, I’d make them pay for what they’d done.

  Again, I looked over at Yellow Boy. So many questions were in my mind that I had a hard time focusing on any one.

  I turned to Rufus and asked, “How did Yellow Boy find me? Why did he save me?”

  Rufus shrugged his shoulders and said between mouthfuls, “Why don’t ye ask him yoreself? He’s a-sittin’ right there.”

  “I . . . I thought it was a custom for Apaches not to speak about dead people.”

  “Well, you ain’t dead. Go on and ask him. I’d like to know more about what happened myself. He didn’t tell me much in the way of detail ’cept yore daddy was dead and that he found ye on the other side of Baylor Pass nearly dead.”

  I looked toward the center of the blue haze, through the golden flecks of dust passing through the sunbeams falling through the window. Yellow Boy’s eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping. Smoke slowly poured through his nose, and his thin lips curved slightly in an encouraging smile. I said, “Yellow Boy, I thank you, and know I owe you for my life, but why did you help a white boy whose daddy was once your people’s enemy? Why didn’t you just let me die?”

  Yellow Boy’s eyes blinked open, and he squinted at me, holding his cigar carefully, gracefully rolling it on the fingers of his left hand, his right hand never leaving the barrel of his rifle. He took a long pull on the cigar and blew the smoke in a long, swirling stream toward the rough underside of the shack’s roof as he tilted his head back. Then, looking directly at me with unblinking eyes, he began to speak in English with a little Spanish mixed in.

  “I have una woman in the sierras, the mountains, sud of Rio Grande. These people, they only ones left living from last of Geronimo’s band and others hiding from soldiers in Mexico. This woman no stay with me on reservation. She afraid of soldiers. As a girl, she saw many of her people die from hands of soldiers on reservation until my brothers and me help all our women get away. Even so, many Mescaleros get sick when soldiers there.

  “Now her belly swells with our child. I go many times to Sierra Madre, but I cannot stay. I must come back to my first wife on the reservation. Tribal police and soldiers look for me if I stay too long. My woman in Mexico and my woman on reservation, they are sisters.

  “Five suns ago, I left Mexico and ride to reservation through Baylor Pass after I rest here with Rufus. I think not many riders go through Baylor Pass. Many use other pass the Indah (white men) call San Agustin, so no one see me. Ranchos on other side of pass have many cows, many vaqueros. Move herds to more grass, so hard to hide from vaqueros. I ride slow and hide many times. I use Shináá Cho to watch road, watch herds, watch riders.”

  I must have had a questioning look because Yellow Boy reached in the saddlebag sitting next to his knee and held up a big-barreled, collapsible telescope. It was trimmed in brass and very beautiful. He said, “Shináá Cho, Apache for big eye.”

  I nodded, and he continued. “I watch road with Shináá Cho and wait to ride when vaqueros no see me. I saw you and su padre in wagon with Shináá Cho and also saw tres vaqueros up the road from wagon, and one more that ride out from range onto road toward San Agustin Pass.

  “This was after Barela went by with his wagon, and with him, wagon with old man and two women, and a man on horse.”

  I sat up a bit straighter and said, “Yes, that was Mr. Ruiz and his daughters and Fajardo. They stopped to talk with us. Fajardo could speak English well. Where did you learn to speak English so well?”

  Yellow Boy grinned, nodded toward Rufus, and said, “I pick up from talking to Rufus and mi amigo, Doc Blazer, on reservation.”

  I smiled and said, “Doc Blazer was Daddy’s friend, too. He didn’t want us to ride out without an escort, but my daddy didn’t want to show fear to the men who had threatened us, so he refused the offer.” I sighed and asked, “What else did you see from up high?”

  “Tres vaqueros stay away from Barela, and Barela didn’t see other hombre on road. Hombre is too far away. Lead rider has much red hair on face. He leave others and hide behind big bush with his rifle, I think, Indah ambush. Red beard waits like cougar for deer. I wait and watch. Rider from range waits at San Agustin Pass.

  “Tres vaqueros walk horses slow toward San Agustin Pass. When your wagon come, Red Hair on Face step out from bush and shoot quick.”

  I relived that horrific scene as Yellow Boy described what had happened from his perspective. I tried to imagine how it would have been to watch those events unfold from a distance. “Then you must have seen the horses rear up and run,” I said.

  “Sí, then Red Hair on Face shoot again pronto. Su padre fall off wagon. You stop wagon quick, jump down, run to su padre. Then Red Hair on Face comes and watch su padre on ground. He laugh. Makes joke, I think, and make you go sit in wagon. Tres vaqueros came back quick, talk, smoke, and watch su padre on ground.”

  Remembering the cold indifference to my daddy’s death, I bit my lip to keep from crying again. I wondered if Yellow Boy had felt any emotion as he watched that scene. “Do you see me get away?” I asked.

  “I see you make wagon run, but riders don’t chase you. You brave. You act like little man, not little boy. When you saw other man on road, you took wagon into desert. Wagon goes fast like wind. Hard to see wagon good. The bushes were muchos grandes. You ask why I help you. I help por que you brave muchacho, and you give me warm heart. You were mouse and riders, gatos. I think soon they carry you off or kill you. I want to find you and not let gatos get mouse.”

  I felt a surge of pride when Yellow Boy said I was brave. “How did you find me?” I asked. “The riders didn’t find me.”

  “I found trail of your wagon and hid my horse. I waited until dark, tracked wagon on foot. Es muy dificil. I found where you fell out of the wagon and saw blood sign on rocks. I followed trail to big mesquite and find you. You mucho frio. Shake mucho. I set broken arm. You bite stick and no made sound. You no make water in eyes like little boy. Rufus is Indah. Knows many Indah. I thought Rufus know su casa and take home.”

  Yellow Boy finished his smoke, got up, and tossed the butt into the iron stove. Then he turned to Rufus and said, “Muchacho is brave hombre. No es muchachito, el es hombrecito, little man.” He looked at us and shrugged his shoulders as if the things he’d just described happened every day.

  CHAPTER 20

  PACT

  Rufus finished his plate, sat it on the floor, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and tilted his chair back on two legs while he cut himself an after-dinner chew. He looked over at Yellow Boy with a raised eyebrow and said, “When ol’ Yellow Boy rode up to the door with ye ’fore daylight yestidy mornin’, my old ho
und Cody started raisin’ hell.” Rufus winked and said, “I named him after Buffalo Bill ’cause he can make more noise and pass more gas than a bugle band.”

  I couldn’t help giggling.

  Then Rufus said, “I grabbed my shotgun and run outside in my long johns and socks. It was colder’n hell, and I’s ’bout to git frostbit inside the back flap of my long johns while I was off a-lookin’ to see if there was a cat after my stock. ’Bout made me mess my drawers when that there Indian just floated in outta the dark with somebody on the front of his saddle. Soon as he showed me who it was, I ’bout puked, I’s so upset, but I thanked God at the same time. It didn’t take no lawyer to figger out ye and yore daddy had come to no good and that somehow ye, at least, had got away. Yore face was a mess, and Yellow Boy had splinted yore arm. He said ye had the cold shakes when he found ye, but ye had gotten better a ridin’ next to him comin’ over Baylor Pass. I carried ye inside, and fixed this here spot fer ye with a cot over close to the stove door so’s ye’d stay warm and thaw out. Worked too, didn’t it?”

  I nodded and smiled. I didn’t feel like talking much, but I knew Rufus didn’t expect me to.

  “Yellow Boy hid his horse up the canyon and then we doctored yore arm with a splint that’ll last a while longer than his mesquite sticks. He come back with weeds he’d found fer the poultice. That there is gonna be a nice scar, Henry, but it ain’t deep, and it don’t need no sewin’. After that, we waited fer ye to get yore sleepin’ done. I told him to go on back home, that I’d get ye home soon as ye were strong enough to sit a horse, but he wouldn’t leave until he knew ye were a-gonna make it.”

  Rufus paused a moment to spit into an old coffee can he used for a spittoon, and then he said, “Now I’m a-thinkin’ Yellow Boy needs to lie low here until the other side of the mountains settles down from those posses riding ever’ which away. Then he can get through without being seen or caught. Them posses, though, they ain’t a-gonna find nothin’. Bastards that killed yore daddy, they’s long gone. I ’spect Yellow Boy can get through in three or four days. So maybe in a few days he can take off fer the reservation, and we can ease on down to Mesilla and take away a little of the grief your family’s a-feelin’.”

  At this, Yellow Boy said, “I watch. I go when my Power says go.”

  I finished my plate. Rufus took it and set it inside his on the floor. I looked at Yellow Boy, who was sitting between two wall studs while listening to Rufus with his eyes closed for a little while, and then he’d look at Rufus, who had that earnest look I remembered from talking to him in Lincoln. I hung my head, thinking about the miracle of salvation visited on me by those two good men.

  I remembered seeing the glazed look in Daddy’s eyes and the bubbles in the blood coming from his chest, and those murderers just sitting and laughing, while they smoked and waited for him to die. The dam finally broke, and I hung my head and cried. I cried from my guts like I’d never cried before. I couldn’t stop.

  Rufus just reached over and patted me on the shoulder. He said, “Go on and grieve, Henry. Ye’re due. It don’t make ye less a man that ye loved yore daddy that much.”

  Yellow Boy just sat and watched. Then he said softly, “Show eye water now, muchacho. When you become man, no longer make sound of woman with heavy heart for one gone to grandfathers.”

  I finally stopped crying and wiped my eyes. I sighed, and I felt better.

  Rufus said, “Did ye hear anything, boy? Did ye hear anything at all that’d tell us who those men were that killed yore pa?”

  I nodded, still snuffling up the snot and tears. I forgot about how tore up my face was and wiped my nose with my sleeve. It hurt like the devil. It felt like someone tore at my face, and I felt the poultice crack and shift a little, but somehow it hung on.

  I said, “Jack Stone, Charlie Bentene, and a cowboy they called Jake were up the road before the shooting started. I remembered Stone and Bentene from when we stopped in Tularosa on the way to Lincoln. I think Red Tally is the name of the man who shot Daddy. He said he was going over to Oliver Lee’s to see if he could get more money, said Lee oughta be real grateful ’cause he’d made life easier for him by killing Daddy.”

  Yellow Boy crossed his arms and stared at me. Rufus frowned as he spat into the old coffee can. He shook his head and said under his breath, “God a’mighty damn.”

  “Tally and a couple of others followed us down from Mescalero after we stayed with Doc Blazer. I heard Stone say he wished he’d had Tally come and kill Daddy two years earlier.” Suddenly, I felt a violent rage rising up inside me. I clenched my fists and said, “I hate their guts, Rufus. I hate ’em, and I’m gonna kill ’em all.” Then I started crying again. I couldn’t help it.

  A gust of wind shook the creosote bushes outside the door and made the window and door rattle. Then Rufus said, “We gotta be real kerful here, boys. I hear tell Red Tally is one brutal, mean, son of a bitch. He’s deadly at long distances with a Winchester. Most people he’s bushwhacked never knowed what hit ’em. Up in Colorado, they say he even shot a preacher standing in the middle of the street whilst he’s a-talking to a sheriff. Couple years back, he burnt down a house with a woman and two little ’uns still in it ’cause she wouldn’t leave after he killed her man. If they’s money to be made, he don’t hold back from killing nobody.” He stared at me, his eyes narrow and full with anger, and said, “They was gonna kill ye, too. You know that, don’t ye, boy?”

  I nodded. Rufus scratched his beard and was quiet for a few moments, apparently thinking about the situation. Finally, he said, “I know Stone couldn’t afford to pay Tally by hisself, so they’s shore to be a group what’s anted up to the pot to pay Tally. They’s most likely little ranchers ’cause yore daddy was working fer the big ranchers. Oliver Lee is the biggest little rancher. He probably put some money in that pot hisself. He’s smart, that one is. If’n he thinks the law’s a-gonna come after him, he turns hisself in and lets Albert Fall get him off. I notice ye seen ’em all ’cept Lee murderin’ your daddy.”

  Rufus paused again and gave me a somber look. He said, “Yore word could send ’em all to hell at the end of a rope. Onct they find out ye’re alive, they’s got to be rid of ye, Henry. If’n ye show up again—” Slowly, he shook his head.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  Rufus said, “I ’spect right now they’s thinkin’ ye froze to death out there on the range or wolves or coyotes made a meal of out ye. If I take ye back to yore family now, it’s likely ye’ll be dead in less than a week.” He stroked his beard and added, “And yore family, too.” He turned to Yellow Boy and asked, “What do you reckin we should do?”

  Before Yellow Boy could answer, I said, “I want to kill ’em all.” I felt fire burning in my belly and added, “If the law doesn’t get ’em first, I will. I want to hide until it’s done. After all, it’s my fault Daddy’s dead, and I promised Mama I’d protect him.” I began sobbing again. Rufus just stared off into space for a while, chewing, spitting streams of tobacco juice into his can, and wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

  Then, with a wrinkled brow, Rufus said, “Let me get this straight. Ye want to stay here with me until ye can take revenge on them there killers. Is that what you’re a-tellin’ me?”

  I nodded and wiped at my eyes.

  “Dang, son. Ye sound like ye’re twenty or thirty years old. I can agree with what ye said, ’cept fer one thang. It ain’t yore fault yore daddy’s dead. Ye mustn’t think like that.”

  Rufus sat down and looked out the window, but it seemed to me he wasn’t really looking at anything in particular. After a few minutes, he said, “It’s smart not to give anybody anywhere a hint ye’re alive ’cause, when word gets out, they’ll fer a fact come after ye. ’Specially Stone and Tally ’cause they muffed it letting ye get away. They’s a-hoping ye’re dead. If ye ain’t, they’ll be shore to shut ye up at the first opportunity. Hellfire. Ye’re not more than ten or eleven year old. How do you plan on gettin’ them kill
ers?”

  All I could answer was, “I’m eight, Rufus, and I don’t know how, but I will. Will you help me? Please?”

  He nodded and a little trickle of tobacco juice ran down the side of his mouth before he could spit. He chewed a couple more times and spit the whole wad into the can and said, “Hellfire, son, what’d yore mama and daddy do? Cast ye outta steel? Sire theyselves a wolf pup? I’ve lived a right long time. I might as well die now as later. Yes, sir, I’ll help ye. I can at least help keep ye alive until the law catches those bastards. Maybe we might even get one or two of ’em ourselves, if’n Yellow Boy helps us.”

  I looked over at Yellow Boy who was watching Rufus, and asked, “Will you help us, Yellow Boy?”

  His thin mouth cracked a smile, and he said, “Sí, I help. We take life for life many times.”

  “Can we go after them tomorrow?” I said, tingling with excitement. “I’m sure I’ll feel better. Can we?”

  Rufus roared with a laugh and nearly choked on his fresh chew of tobacco. “Listen to this little chicken hawk, would ye?” Yellow Boy’s faint trace of a smile broadened to a big grin as I looked from him to Rufus and back again. I didn’t see what was so funny. Now I had some real fighters who could help me get even for Daddy. I thought, Yes, sir, we’re going to make Stone, Tally, and Oliver Lee pay for Daddy’s murder.

  When Rufus finally stopped laughing and choking, he looked at me with kind eyes and said, “Now, Henry, ye gotta start thinkin’ like a smart scout. Ye gotta be cool and cakylatin’. Now ye’re a little boy, a mighty fine one, but still not close to growed yet. To go after these here killers, ye gotta get big and strong. Ye gotta be a expert with a weapon. I watched ye with yore daddy’s rifle, and ye was good fer a little feller, even if it was too heavy fer ye, but ye ain’t nearly good enough to hunt men.”