Mariana's Knight

by W. Michael Farmer

  Daddy had taught me the same procedure with his Winchester. I had just started to squeeze the trigger when the rifle roared, slammed up against my cheek, and kicked hard backwards. I felt like I’d been kicked by a mule. I lay unmoving for a few seconds, stunned by the recoil punch. Slowly, the smoke drifted away. A second bottle had disappeared.

  There was a big smile showing though Rufus’s whiskers. “Henry!” he yelled. “Henry, danged if ye ain’t gonna be a first-class marksman. One shot, one target, by damn.”

  Rufus watched and coached me as I shot about twenty rounds before my shoulder got too sore to shoot anymore. Then he practiced some. He promised we’d practice nearly every day until I was consistently hitting targets at the end of the little canyon, about five hundred yards away.

  When we got back to the shack one Friday, we had our afternoon siesta, and then Rufus got up and made us some supper. As twilight came, Rufus and I sat out on the shack porch while I read some more of The Iliad to him. As I was reading, I noticed Cody’s ears perk up. I looked up and jumped in surprise. Rufus grinned and said, “Howdy, Yellow Boy. Headin’ to Mexico again?”

  Yellow Boy nodded. “Sí. My woman, she waits. Hombrecito, he is better, sí?”

  Nodding, Rufus said, “Yes, sir, thanks to ye a savin’ his hide, I reckin he’s done healed up. How long ye with us this time, amigo?”

  “One sun. Then I leave and return in a moon. Soon I teach Hombrecito Apache ways. Make him ready for war on men who kill padre.”

  Rufus nodded and said, “I reckin we got a lot of teachin’ to do.” He shoved a thumb toward the front door and said, “They’s frijoles and tortillas on the stove that’s still hot. Go help yoreself. We’ll talk while ye eat.”

  Before he went inside, Yellow Boy turned and tossed a packet tied with rawhide strips to me. The clothes I’d been wearing when Daddy was killed were coming to pieces after a couple of months of living with Rufus. I untied the packet and found that Yellow Boy had brought me boot moccasins and Apache clothing to replace my tattered clothes.

  I followed him inside, thanked him, and put them on, delighting in the feel of them. Rufus looked at me and said, “Well, look at that. He could easily pass for a half-breed Apache child now that his hair’s gone uncut for several months. He’d even look full Apache if his hair didn’t have little curl to it.”

  Yellow Boy grunted, nodded, and continued to gobble down the remains of Rufus’s cooking.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE GOING HOME TALK

  The next day was Saturday, and Rufus rode Sally into Las Cruces for supplies, as he always did on Saturdays. Yellow Boy decided to go hunting to see if he could get a deer, but he refused to take me with him. “You make mucho sound,” he said, after I’d sworn to keep quiet for the third time.

  “I won’t talk a bit,” I argued.

  “No talk, pero still make mucho sound,” he said.

  I wasn’t able to convince him I could move through the mountains as quietly as an Apache, although I wished mightily that I could. I finally quit begging to go along and resigned myself to doing my chores and reading.

  Yellow Boy returned in that afternoon with a buck and had dressed it, taken a portion for our dinner into the shack, and hung the rest in Rufus’s cave by the time Rufus came riding up the trail. Rufus waved at us as he rode by the porch and headed for the corral. After he took care of Sally, he lugged his burlap sack of supplies to the cabin and said, “Come on in and eat, boys. We need to talk.”

  I looked at Yellow Boy, and he looked at me. Neither of us had any idea what was going on, so we just shrugged our shoulders and went inside.

  Rufus said, “I see ye got us some fresh meat, Yellow Boy. I ’preciate it.”

  Before long, Rufus had his usual pot hung over the fire and served us up a supper of beans, chilies, steak, and tortillas. He didn’t appear to have much to say, and Yellow Boy and I ate in silence, waiting for him to speak.

  It was strange for Rufus not to say anything. He was usually bubbling over with news from town, but during this meal, he just stared past Yellow Boy at the open door. Yellow Boy, as always, finished eating first, belched his appreciation of the meal, and pulled a Mexican cigar from his vest pocket. He lighted it, smoked to the four directions, and, squinting through the smoke, said, “You talk now, Rufus?”

  I said, “Yeah, tell us what you found out today.”

  Rufus wiggled his nose, trying to nudge his wire-framed glasses up higher. He dropped his fork on his plate, folded his hands in front of him, and said, “Well, fellers, here it is. I’ve been a-worryin’ and a-scratchin’ my head about this ever since ye came here, Henry. I ain’t slept good fer a lot of nights a-worryin’ about what I oughter do. I’ve tried out all kinds of schemes in my head to make it happen, but I always find they ain’t a-gonna work after I think out all the angles.”

  Yellow Boy took a deep draw on his cigar, making the ash glow brightly in the twilight gloom of the shack. He rolled the cigar between his fingers and said, “Speak straight, Rufus. No comprendo when you say you no sleep good. You make big noise in your sleep. You sound like you sleep plenty good.” He grinned and winked at me.

  Rufus, however, remained grim. He pushed his half-eaten supper away and cut himself a chew of tobacco with a short, deliberate knife stroke. He chewed in silence for a while, and then he sighed and said, “Maybe I’m just a kidnapper.” Looking sadly at me, he said, “Henry, I prob’ly shoulda carried ye back to yore mama a long time ago. Maybe it’s long overdue that I do. They was a-talkin’ today in the barbershop about how yore mama still wears black all the time and nobody ever sees her smile. Fact is, some folks in Cruces think she just went plain crazy with grief after she lost ye and yore daddy. It ain’t right she’s sufferin’ like that when her son she thinks is dead ain’t but twenty mile away, playin’ and helpin’ me.”

  I wanted to cry. I remembered how sad Mama had looked when Daddy and I left for Lincoln. I knew my absence was keeping her in dark places. I imagined her sitting by herself in a dark house, going through hell.

  Rufus suddenly shouted, “Damn it to hell! I’m the one who’s made her crazy ’cause I didn’t carry her son back to her.”

  Yellow Boy took a long draw on the cigar and stared at him, waiting.

  I said, “Rufus, have you forgotten what you said? You said if you took me back to Mama, Stone and Tally wouldn’t waste any time getting somebody to finish me off, along with whoever was with me.”

  I paused a moment to think and plunged on, dangerously close to shedding tears. “You and Yellow Boy promised you’d teach me how to be a warrior so I . . . so we, can bring those . . . those . . . bastards to justice. Has any of that changed?”

  Rufus winced like I’d just hit him. He sat rubbing his neck and watching the last sunlight fill the doorway. Finally, he shook his head, looked at me through his dusty lenses, and said, “Naw, Henry. Ain’t none of that changed.”

  I heard Yellow Boy grunt beside me. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as he stared at Rufus.

  Rufus stared back, slowly scratching his week-old chin stubble with his stubby fingers. Then he sighed and said, “Somehow, this still just don’t feel right. I like the boy, and I enjoy his company. Maybe I am just a kidnapper.”

  Yellow Boy leaned toward him and asked, “What does this thing you say, kidnapper, mean, Rufus?”

  “Well, I reckin it means someone who’s a-grabbin’ a body and a-holdin’ him fer money or as a slave. Hell, yore people used to raid down to Mexico and up here, too, fer women and young’uns to keep as slaves, wives, or even sons. Sometimes ye even sold ’em back again fer money or maybe swapped ’em fer guns.”

  Yellow Boy held up one hand and asked, “Rufus, did you steal muchacho?”

  “Naw, but I shore as hell kept him.”

  “Is muchacho slave? Muchacho works. You make him sweat much, carry rocks. Muchacho uses Shoots Today Kills Tomorrow good. He shoots many times. Is muchacho prisoner? Quien es, Ruf
us?”

  Rufus shook his head. “Ye’re right. He ain’t no slave or prisoner. He earns his keep, but that don’t make him no slave. He’s been a-makin’ hisself strong a-carryin’ those rocks, an’ I’ve been a-teachin’ him to shoot over long ranges with the Sharps. He can come and go when he wants outta this here shack, so I reckin kidnapper ain’t the right word. Still, I ain’t took him home yet, and it’s hurt his mama mighty bad to think her little boy’s lying dead somewhere out in that desert. I don’t think that’s right.”

  “Rufus, is muchacho better dead or alive?”

  “Why, hell. Alive. Ain’t no doubt of that there.”

  Yellow Boy leaned forward again with his elbows on the table, his arms still crossed, and the cigar still stuck in his jaw. He said, pointing back at his chest, “I pulled muchacho from the mesquite bush and brought him to you.” Then he slapped the table and almost whispered, “I took mouse from gato. He hurt muy mal, almost die. You fix him, make his arm strong and his face good now. He now carry good scar, warrior scar. Now, he is no more muchacho. Hombrecito is little man. Without us, he die in desert. Now we teach him many things. In maybe ten harvests, he avenges padre. Hombrecito cannot learn what he needs to learn from mamacita. If he goes home to her, gatos kill him, kill her, maybe kill all family. Hombrecito hides here, learns all man needs know.”

  Rufus stopped chewing and stared at Yellow Boy, then at me as the shack faded into darkness. The only light was the glow of Yellow Boy’s cigar and the coals glowing in the open door of the old, cast-iron stove. Rufus didn’t move to get up and light a lantern.

  It seemed like time just stopped until Rufus finally stirred and walked out the door, and we followed him onto the porch. He stood leaning against a porch post, staring toward the Floridas as the last purple and orange streaks filled the sky across the Mesilla Valley.

  At last, he eased himself down on the porch step with his hands folded in a prayerful attitude and his elbows resting on his knees. I sat down beside him. Yellow Boy squatted off to one side, making the ash on his cigar glow brightly as he puffed contentedly. Cody got up from his corner of the porch, stretched, yawned, and padded over to flop down beside me. The only sounds were the spring crickets and Cody’s tail flopping on the porch floor while I scratched his ears. Yellow Boy finished his cigar and ambled over to the corral to rub the nose of his horse.

  Rufus smelled of sweat and tobacco with just a faint scent of lilac toilet water he had slapped on his face in the barbershop. He finally spat his chew out, wiped a brown tobacco dribble off the bottom of his chin, and said, “Aw hell, boy. I tried imaginin’ ever’ way I could to get ye back to your mama. I ain’t thought of one that won’t get at least one of us killed, most likely along with your mama or some other members of yore family.”

  “Like what?” I asked, feeling a twinge of hope that I could help him find an answer.

  “I thought about just riding up with ye and saying, ‘Look a-here who I found, but ye can’t tell nobody he’s here.’ Yore family might not tell, but a servant, a neighbor, or even a passerby might see ye or tell somebody else, and the news would be all over town in an instant.”

  I considered this and decided it was true. My sister Maggie would be the most likely culprit in that scenario. It also struck me that, if I went home, I’d have to stay in the house nearly all the time, and that wouldn’t be much fun.

  “I thought about sending yore mama a note saying I had ye and she can come see ye anytime she wants. Then yore brothers Albert and Jack would be up here a-fillin’ me full of holes fer kidnappin’, and Pat Garrett would be right behind ’em. I don’t trust that son of a bitch. I also thought about writin’ a note and tellin’ yore mama to get on a train east and I’d meet it somewhere ’tween here and Dallas with ye and that she couldn’t tell a soul. She’d do that, but all it’d take is fer someone on that train to know who she was, and the news’d spread like wildfire. Henry, I believe they’s just no way to hide it if ye go back to your mama. And, if ye go, ye’ll be killed, and—”

  I looked up and calmly said, “Rufus, stop. We’re talking in circles.”

  He sighed and said, “I reckin we are. Looks like ye’re stuck here.”

  CHAPTER 25

  DESERT LESSONS

  As the seasons and years passed and I grew bigger and stronger, in addition to carrying rocks, I helped Rufus with other chores around his place, feeding and watering the stock and chickens and carrying water and wood to the shack. When Yellow Boy came visiting, after the chores were done and it got cool, we’d sometimes walk or ride Sally back into the Organ canyons or down to the desert behind Tortugas Mountain. That’s when he and Rufus started my desert training. I learned what plants could be eaten, how to find water in cactus, how to find springs and rain tanks, how to catch and cook rabbits and other little ground animals, to avoid snakes—the Apaches didn’t have anything to do with snakes or things that ate snakes—and, most important, how to hide anywhere at any time.

  Yellow Boy became my physical trainer, and he started me out running up and down the length of Rufus’s canyon. I found it very hard at first. I had pains in my side and usually had to stop and vomit before I completed the circuit. After two or three days of that, he said, “Hombrecito, no run so fast. You run. You finish, even if run slow. Get better poco a poco (little by little).” After that, I slowly built up speed.

  I enjoyed running in the early morning when birds sang in the canyon bushes. The creosote bushes and the piñons had a smell about them near daybreak that made me want to fly, especially if it had rained in the night. I enjoyed running even more as I became better conditioned.

  The first few weeks, I just ran the path back to the shooting spot once a day. Then, when Yellow Boy decided that was too easy for me, he’d make me run it again. On the days when he was gone, he had me run it early in the morning and again late in the evening.

  Before long, he had me running the canyon in the heat of the day, which was hard. The first time, my lungs felt on fire, and I started vomiting again, so Yellow Boy had me slow down again and build into it.

  During these runs, I sometimes carried that ivory watch fob in my right hand and thought about Mama and Daddy and my vow to avenge his death. As I’ve mentioned, earlier, I came to realize that Daddy’s pride was partly responsible for his death. Not long after that, I’d begun resenting the way he’d put me at risk. If he was such a tough man, I’d wondered, why had he caved in to Mama’s demand to take me with him? I began struggling with such questions as I ran up that canyon every day in scorching heat.

  I wondered why Daddy had felt he had to get back to Mama on that fateful day. I knew he’d promised her to come back as fast as he could, and he had already stayed two nights with friends on the way home. I guessed that maybe part of his reason was just guilt for not getting home sooner. I knew he was always fearless in fights and had always come out on top, so I guessed he had felt he had no reason to be afraid, even if protecting me was something of a handicap. But then, surely he’d known someone could shoot him from long distance, and me, too, for that matter.

  He was right, though, I thought, in believing that if he backed down even once, the threats and attempts at intimidation would grow worse. The way I saw it, Daddy had been in a box—damned if he backed down in order to protect me and damned if he didn’t. I’d heard him say he felt he wouldn’t be able to live and work as an attorney in southern New Mexico anymore if he showed the least fear.

  As I pushed my body to run through the heat day by day, answers to my old questions formed. It came to me that Daddy had learned his ways of doing things through trial and error. His personal code required that he be fearless, even in the face of great danger. It required that he always do what he believed was right, and that he must never back down from any opponent or any threat, regardless of the consequences. I had to feel proud of him for that.

  The more I pondered it, the more I felt he honestly believed that if he faced those men trailing us,
he’d come out on top. It seemed he’d just never learned that living to fight another day was better than being dead. I figured that on the day he died, Daddy wasn’t really thinking of the consequences or that his personal code just might not apply at that time and under those circumstances. I reckoned it just hadn’t been possible for him to factor me into the risk he took, and I forgave him for that.

  About three years after I’d come to live at Rufus’s shack, Rufus returned from Las Cruces with news that made my rage over my daddy’s death run even deeper. I knew Pat Garrett had been looking for Oliver Lee and his friends, Gililland and Mc-New, because Rufus had told me he was convinced they’d killed my daddy. Then Rufus came in and told me there’d been a big shoot-out at Wildy Well, and Lee and Gililland had gotten away. “But ol’ Lee was smart,” Rufus said, “and after a while, they turned they selves in. Said they’s innocent and knowed they’d git ’sonerated. Now they’s about to go to trial fer yore daddy’s murder up to Hillsboro.”

  His words made me so angry, I had to stand silent and stare at the ground for a minute. I said, “Do you expect they’ll convict Oliver Lee when he goes to trial?” I realized my voice was cold and flat, just like Daddy’s had been when he was speaking to Stone in the cantina Charlie Esparza ran in Tularosa.

  Rufus frowned and said, “I doubt it, son, ’cause they’s saying down to the barbershop that the murder case is all circumstantial evidence and that Fall will get him off.”

  About three months later, I learned that Lee had been found not guilty. I calmed my fury by telling myself that Lee might get exonerated in a court of law, but he need not expect mercy at my hand.