Mariana's Knight

by W. Michael Farmer

  I wiped my runny nose, sniffed, and said, “I don’t know. Every time I ran in the desert, every time I picked up a rock for your house, every time I hid when you had company, I thought about it. I thought about how I was lucky to be alive and to have you and Yellow Boy teachin’ me how to survive. Every time, as I was working or training, I told myself I’d make those men pay every last pound and pennyweight owed to justice, or I’d die trying.”

  Rufus spat a stream of juice on a big beetle that had started across a rock next to him. He said, “That there is a mistake, a big mistake.”

  “What are you talking about? Those murderers have it coming, and I’m the one who vowed to giving ’em a start toward the arms of hell.”

  Rufus shook his head, stared off across the basin in the moonlight, and said, “Ye got to be cold and cakilatin’. If ye want to survive bringin’ justice to those men, ye gotta be think-in’ all the time. Yore daddy’s killin’ and them chasing ye is the best of reasons to go after ’em fer shore. But ye can’t let yore feelings about ’em tell ye what to do. Jest like ye a goin’ after Stone with Lil’ David. Yore feelings on that one left ye high and dry when the nut-cuttin’ time come. Ye’re lucky boy, damn lucky, to be alive.”

  “Well I almost killed him, didn’t I?”

  Rufus spat again then looked at me with a squint of cold rationality. “Almost don’t cut it. Ain’t no reward in that. Almost ain’t never killed nobody. Almost ain’t brought nobody to justice. Ever’ time ye try to kill a man, be damn shore ye do it. Ye ain’t likely to get another chance ’fore he kills ye, and he’s in the right to do it, too. Now I ain’t sayin’ ye ain’t brave or didn’t show lots of courage and shootin’ skill tryin’ to kill Stone, but this here range is covered with graves of brave men with a lot of skill who didn’t cakilate what they was a doin’ ’fore they made a challenge. Ye got to be smart when nut-cuttin’ time comes. Ye got to be real smart.”

  I knew Rufus was right. All I could say was, “Yes, sir. What’re we gonna do now?”

  He said, “Well, we need to swap idees with Yellow Boy, but I’m a-thinkin’ we oughta go after Bentene first and get Lil’ David back. He’s the weakest of the three and oughta be the easiest to git. Then we need to try to pick off Stone and Tally separately, if we can, even if it means ridin’ up into Colorado or Wyoming. We can shoot ’em from a mile away if we need to. Hell, I don’t care. I ain’t proud as long as we get the bastards.

  “Now, Oliver Lee? He’s different. People ’round here, they’s loyal as dogs to him. He’s a good man to have on yore side in any fight. He lives by a strict code. I ain’t so shore he was responsible for getting Stone and Tally to murder yore daddy. That there is something ye gotta decide for yoreself. Just be shore yore right about him bein’ guilty. If we kill him, this here whole countryside is gonna come after our tails.”

  I nodded, but deep in my heart, I knew I was gonna kill Oliver Lee. I felt sure he had it coming.

  Suddenly, Rufus reached over, grabbed my forearm, and gave it a little squeeze for me to be quiet. We cocked our heads to one side, listening. Rufus cupped his left ear with his hand to hear better and pulled the hammer back to full cock on his rifle with the other. I could feel my heart pounding and my breath coming in short, quick puffs. Out in the cold, moonlit darkness, a rock rolled down the trail, making an irregular clicking sound as it bounced from one stone to the next. We rose up in a squat and stretched our necks, trying to see over the bushes and into the shadows. We waited, straining to hear the next sign, or to see the first motion of what was out there in the cold gloom of the moonlight.

  “Que pasa?” Yellow Boy asked.

  Rufus and I jumped like we’d been jabbed with cactus thorns. There was Yellow Boy, squatting behind us like he’d been there all night. I laughed aloud and sagged back down in relief. Rufus was gagging and wheezing. He’d nearly swallowed the big wad of tobacco in his cheek.

  Finally, he managed to sputter, “Damn ye, Indian. Ye scared me clean into tomorrow. How’d ye do that?”

  Yellow Boy squatted there, grinning at us, and swung his arm back toward Baylor Pass. “Many big rocks to springs. Easy to walk over with no sound. I make horse walk down trail. You turned eyes to him. Bueno trick, huh? Also, plenty easy to find you. You talk much.”

  Rufus raised his brow, wordlessly asking the dreaded question, and Yellow Boy said, “No fire at your rancho. Water still good. Cattle still graze. Stone and Tally, they come, but Bentene no with them. Stone call you and shoot many time en su casa. Glass in windows gone. Now roof no stop water when rain comes. Tally laughed and called Stone fool. Stone said he thinks you and Hombrecito vamos a Mexico. He said you come back. He kill you next time.”

  “Well, boys, I reckon we got off lucky.” Rufus stood and spat all the way across the little stream of water. “Now all we gotta do is find ’em ’fore they find us. Let’s git outta here and down to the Jarillas ’fore the world wakes up.”

  Yellow Boy disappeared but soon came back with his pony while Rufus and I loaded up Elmer and tightened saddle cinches on Sally and Midnight. Yellow Boy led the way, keeping us in the same formation we had used riding up Baylor Pass. We passed slow and quiet through the creosotes and mesquites, bypassing little groups of grazing cattle owned by Cox. The curious cattle watched us with their ears up. Once in a while, we saw the low, red glow of a banked fire from ranch hands staying out to keep an eye on the stock.

  We got past the Cox ranch and breathed a sigh of relief, as it was unlikely we’d see any more cowhand camps or run into other night riders. Finally, Yellow Boy set his horse to a good canter and headed straight for the middle of the Jarillas, painted in stark shadows from the setting moon.

  We reached a little canyon in the Jarillas just before dawn. Yellow Boy said he’d often used it to rest and take cover on his travels back and forth from the reservation to the Sierra Madre, and we planned to hide and rest there for the day. Mesquite and tall ocotillo with long, cable-like stems with sharp thorns hid its entrance. There was a thin trail only Yellow Boy’s sharp eyes could pick out in the early morning gloom that wound through the thicket and into the canyon’s entrance. Once through the mesquite and ocotillo, it was easy going for several hundred yards on a little winding trail down the center of the canyon. Near the end of the canyon, Yellow Boy showed us a large rock shelf that we could crawl under and use as a shelter from the sun.

  CHAPTER 34

  RIDE TO SIERRA BLANCA

  “Rufus and Hombrecito, rest here until sun is there,” Yellow Boy said, pointing straight overhead. “I watch for riders from the canyon lookout. Then you watch until sun goes down. You sleep now, si?”

  Rufus spat and gave a quick nod of approval. Yellow Boy climbed up the canyon wall on a series of footholds and hand-holds that led back toward the mouth of the canyon. Rufus and I unloaded the stock, tied them where there would be shade, rubbed them down, and fed and watered them. We ate a little of the cold beans and meat Rufus had brought from his last cook pot back at the shack.

  We had come a long way, and I was sleepy and so sore in my thighs I could barely walk. It was just beginning to sink into my young brain what hard work this justice for Daddy and me was going to be.

  As the sky in the east started to brighten and long shadows from the mountains began to form, Rufus found an old ocotillo stalk and swept under the ledge for snakes. Finding none, we spread a blanket, crawled up under it, and stretched out for some sleep. Rufus was snoring in minutes, but the night’s excitement and the coming light kept me awake until I finally pulled a bandanna over my eyes and passed out from exhaustion.

  Mid-morning sunlight was creeping down the canyon walls, driving the dark, cool shadows away from where we lay, when I snapped awake, startled by the sound of distant, bawling cattle and human voices. I raised up on an elbow and started to get up, but Rufus grabbed me by the arm, shook his head, and said in a coarse whisper, “They’s just some stock bein’ driven by here, probably just headed fer the s
tockyards in Alamogordo. Nothin’ to worry about. Go on back to sleep.”

  Rufus was snoring again in less than five minutes, but I had a hard time getting back to sleep. It was hot, and since it was the monsoon season, the humidity was high. Some insects kept biting me, raising little, bloody welts on my arms.

  I was slowly drifting back to sleep when I felt Yellow Boy gently tapping my foot with the barrel of his rifle. Rufus was already up and pulling on a canteen in long, slow swallows. I crawled out from under the ledge and had a long drink, too.

  Yellow Boy put his finger to his lips, motioned toward the handholds and foot notches up the side of the rust-colored canyon wall, and pointed out the best place to sit while on watch. Then he settled down on a blanket and instantly fell asleep.

  Rufus climbed up the handholds to the lookout, as I scrambled up behind him to take my turn watching, so he could nap if he wanted. In the spot Yellow Boy had shown us, a mesquite bush had grown precariously close to the edge of a wide ledge and provided a little shade and perfect cover against being spotted by someone on the desert floor below.

  The lookout spot was in a crevice about fifty feet up from the canyon floor, and it gave good protected lines of sight everywhere on the west side of the Jarillas. The monsoon rains had changed the range from dull, summer browns to a mottled patchwork of dark, cedar green creosote bushes and delicate, light green mesquite thickets on a carpet of turquoise-colored succulent grasses and weeds. Delicate little flowers in blues and purples, red poppies, and large white and yellow gourd flowers were blooming everywhere. I could see little wisps of smoke from some activity far away at the Cox ranch, its buildings against the Organs lost in the hazy distance. There were small groups of cattle scattered everywhere, filling their bellies with the new green grass. I could see the occasional cowboy far in the distance, trotting his horse down the cattle trails through the creosotes and mesquites. Sometimes only a hat or a horse’s head was visible until the cowboy broke into a small opening that provided a quick, full glimpse of the man and his mount.

  Rufus and I surveyed the countryside for a while, then, handing me his rifle, Rufus said, pointing toward the middle of the sun’s arch on its downside, “Here, Henry, ye watch till the sun is right there, then I’ll relieve ye.” As I took the rifle, he pulled his beat-up old hat over his eyes and lay back in the shade. He was asleep again almost instantly, and I wondered how he and Yellow Boy managed to sleep so soundly so fast in the heat and with the worry of discovery hanging over them.

  I wasn’t a bit sleepy at first, and my heart was pounding as I watched the range and tried to be careful not to miss anyone who might ride toward us. The rock where we sat had been absorbing sunlight all day and was hot to the touch. Soon, sweat poured off me, and I drank the canteen nearly dry. Then I began to feel sleepy. Only because of the discipline and self-control Yellow Boy’s training had taught me could I endure the tedium and discomfort of being a lookout. I needed all my willpower to keep from dozing off. Being a lookout wasn’t fun, but I realized it was necessary if we were to avoid detection and not have to endure someone questioning us with guns to our heads.

  I shook Rufus awake in the mid-afternoon. His eyes blinked open instantly, immediately alert. When I shook my head to his inquisitive look, he took the rifle, scratched his scraggly beard, and yawned like a big tomcat just getting up from a nap. He motioned me back into the shade then crept up to the place behind the bush and began surveying the scene. I lay back and swatted at insects that tried to get to the sweat that bathed my face. I yawned once or twice in the soggy, hot air, then fell asleep. I awoke with Rufus gently shaking my foot. The sun was nearly gone. A cool breeze floated down the canyon, giving the evening a pleasant, easy feel.

  Getting down from the lookout was harder than getting up because some of the footholds and handholds were far apart and hard to find in the dark shadows filling the canyon. Yellow Boy had made a fire in a shallow pit while it was still light. He’d let the wood burn down to nothing but hot coals so its glow couldn’t be seen after dark. He cooked us some fry bread and beans. All that remained of the fire when Rufus and I came in were a few hot coals, but they were enough to make coffee and keep the food hot. After being up on that lookout through the hot part of the day, I thought that meal had to be about the best I’d ever eaten.

  Yellow Boy sat with us holding his rifle between his legs while we ate. He said nothing as the sun slowly faded behind the San Andres and long shadows crept silently down the canyon walls. After Rufus and I gobbled down the beans and bread, we gave the tin plates a sand wash and began loading the gear on Elmer and saddling the horses and Sally. When we were ready to travel, Rufus cut himself a chew and sat back to wait for full dark. Yellow Boy rolled a cigarette and lighted it in his cupped hands. The cool air made the heat from the lingering fire coals feel good. We could hear doves calling as they settled in for the night. I lay back, resting my head on my hand, watching down the canyon.

  Yellow Boy asked, “Many men between here and sharp mountains today, Rufus?”

  Rufus nodded and said, “Yes, sir, seems like right many more than I thought they’d be. They’s more stock than I thought they’d be, too. It looks like the range is bein’ pushed too far and too hard to support ’em fer long.”

  “Ummph,” Yellow Boy grunted. “Here we are closer to Tally and Stone than at place near Mescalero, but Mescalero place better and safer than here. You think this is true, Rufus?”

  Rufus spat into the fire’s coals, causing a little puff of steam to rise. “Yes, sir, I reckon that’s about right. Do ye know a place we can hide and scout ’round from at Mescalero, Señor Yellow Boy?”

  I cupped an ear with my free hand to be sure I didn’t miss any of their conversation.

  “Sí, I know place with good agua and plenty wood. Tribal police no find us there. Not far from Lincoln. Close to my woman, too, so I sleep warm at night. Good place, Rufus, even if Season of Earth is Reddish Brown find us there.”

  Rufus spat on the glowing coals again and said, “Close to Lincoln, eh?”

  Yellow Boy grinned and nodded. I grinned, too. Had it not been for my training in self-control, I might even have laughed as the image of Rufus hopping into bed with Mrs. Darcy came to mind.

  Rufus said, “Well, can ye get us there tonight so we can burrow in and get us some rest? Then tomorrow night, I’ll take a little ride into Lincoln and see what I can find out from Miz Darcy. She oughter know the whereabouts of them fellers we’re a-lookin’ fer.”

  “Sí, vamonos tonight. We there by sunrise if no rain.”

  I spoke up and said, “Rufus, won’t somebody see you in Lincoln and let Stone or Tally know where you are? For all we know, they might even be there now. I thought we wanted to stay outta sight till we found ’em.”

  “Naw, I ain’t gonna be seen crawling through Miz Darcy’s bedroom winder in the middle of the night ’cept by Miz Darcy herself. Git my drift, son?” Rufus got up and started kicking sand over the ashes. “Well, come on, then. Let’s haul ourselves on over to Mescalero, so’s I can rest up fer my ride to Lincoln tomorrow night.”

  It was full dark when we rode out of the canyon and across the western end of the Jarillas by Monte Carlo Gap in the same formation we’d used the night before. Yellow Boy led us toward the edge of White Sands, but stayed back in the shadows of the bushes, away from the sands gleaming in the moonlight, as the moon came up big and bright over the Sacramentos.

  We passed Alamogordo to the west, tracking along the edge of White Sands. Yellow Boy turned northwest after we passed Tularosa to the west. We rode along at a steady pace, but stopped several times to rest the animals in the dark shadow side of big creosote bushes.

  Once past Tularosa, Yellow Boy rode up the right branch of Temporal Creek and into Dry Canyon. It was dark and scary down deep in that canyon with the moon casting tricky shadows as it sailed across the night sky. I felt safe enough, knowing Rufus was behind me and Yellow Boy was in front. We followed
along a thin, little trail that climbed up out of Dry Canyon. Then the moon began to set, and it was downright scary-looking off the trail back down into the dark pit from where we were climbing. When we topped Dry Canyon, we rode across a gentle slope that paralleled Pete Gaines Canyon and was covered by stands of juniper bushes among the long, fuzzy shadows of tall, scattered pines.

  CHAPTER 35

  BOW AND ARROWS

  When Yellow Boy finally stopped, I could see the first faint glow of dawn. We were above and within a mile of Jose Second Canyon. It was pitch black under those trees, but, looking out across the platau, I could see that every clearing was filled with juniper bushes or covered with short, deep, green grass that cattlemen often killed for. Yellow Boy led us to a thicket of large junipers in front of a small spring, which dribbled out of a shelf of rocks and collected in a little pool before rolling down into Pete Gaines Canyon. A clear, half-circle-shaped area lay in front of the spring.

  Yellow Boy slid off his paint and motioned for us to dismount. He led the paint to the pool and let it drink long, soothing draughts. Rufus came up with the other animals, and we gave them all a good, long drink. In the receding gloom, Yellow Boy swung his arm around and said, “Good place, Rufus?”

  “Good? Hell, it’s perfect. Suit you, Henry?”

  I was cold and tired, and the insides of my thighs were on fire. I doubted if I could ever walk or ride again. If my protectors thought it was good, it was fine with me. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Good. Boys, let’s make us a camp, cook a little breakfast, and get some rest. Don’t reckin it’s necessary fer lookouts in here, is they, Yellow Boy?”

  “No lookouts for men. Horses and mules say when bear or cat comes. No worry, fire keeps away.”

  Fighting off bears and cats was not my idea of a good time, but I wasn’t about to tell Rufus or Yellow Boy I was fearful. After what I’d been through at the hands of men, a bear or a cat was the least of my worries. We unloaded the stock, fed them some grain, and put some hobbles on them so they were free to graze. Rufus set up a little fireplace under a big pine tree a few yards from the spring, so the smoke diffused before it could be seen. Then he made a little lean-to with a tarp next to it so that we could cook, sleep, keep our gear dry, and keep a fire going when it rained. Yellow Boy and I gathered a pile of wood, being careful not to leave any signs for wandering eyes.