Now Pine Leaf stood and stepped back from the wall, her lance butt planted in the sand, the head tilted forward a bit, and a horse came fast out of the dark, clipping the pumice with its hooves; Pine Leaf’s lance took it in the belly as it passed overhead. The pony fell screaming, and from it tumbled Delgadito. She was on him in an instant with her knife… . Then I looked to my left and Mangas stood there, tall, it seemed, as the stars themselves. He swung a hatchet at my head. I blocked the blow with the Manton, the ax edge taking a great ugly sliver from the fine checkering of its oiled English walnut forearm. … I felt a pang of regret at that, but as you know, I have always loved fine tools, especially rifles—perhaps more than the people in my life… .
One barrel was loaded and primed. I thumbed back the hammer, placed the muzzle against Mangas’s chest, and fired. He disappeared in a welter of smoke and blood. I could smell burning meat… .
“Run, tonto … to the horses!”
I followed Pine Leaf into the pony herd, saw her swing up on the back of the alazan. I grabbed at the mane of a black, but he kicked me loose, kicked the wind out of me and what little sense I still had left… .
Bar-che-am-pe, the Pine Leaf, was gone, out into the night.
6
HOW I ESCAPED from that place I do not know. Probably I held onto the black gelding’s mane, maybe his tail, and he dragged me out into the night where, curiously enough, the Apaches chose not to follow. After all, I still had the rifle, and their leader lay dead or dying (or so I thought at the time. In point of fact, my ball had barely penetrated the heavy muscles of his upper chest, missing both heart and lung; he recovered in short order, much to the sorrow of many a Mexican and Anglo household in that sad territory). They probably decided to track down Pine Leaf, I thought, figuring they could always find me, a mere white man. Or they may have felt their medicine had suddenly gone bad. Quién sábe? The mind of the Indian is always a mystery.
I discovered the truth of the matter later that day.
At first light I found myself deep in the desert. Pine Leaf was nowhere in sight. Though I still had the rifle in hand, powder horn and bullet pouch slung across my shoulder, a knife at my hip, I was thirsty, exhausted, and bruised blue-black from navel to sternum thanks to the hoof of my horse. The knife cut across my chest and arm was no longer bleeding, but it still hurt a lot. Moreover, three or four of my ribs felt cracked, and I spit frequently to reassure myself there was no blood in my sputum. Had there been, I don’t know what I might have done to remedy the matter. But the most pressing need, I realized when I sat quietly for a few minutes in the shade of a rimrock ledge, was for something to drink. Remembering the spring where we’d watered the horses the previous day, I headed south and east hoping to find it. A low range of hills in the hazy distance looked green. Perhaps there was water in them, a spring or one of those brief rivulets that quickly sinks into the sand once it’s left its source. I made for it on my flagging horse.
As we neared the hills the horse’s head came up, his nostrils flared, and he put on a burst of speed that even a cruel Spanish bit could not curb. When he stopped he began digging in the sand with his forefeet. Water bubbled up into the hole thus excavated. We both drank from it at once, grit, froth, and horse saliva be damned. I walked him closer to the hills, and sure enough, we found the spring which fed this “sand river.” As I filled my canteen, though, I heard what sounded like gunshots from the far side of the hills. I picketed the horse away from the water, for I did not want him to founder from drinking too much too fast, then made my way, rifle in hand, over the ridge.
In the desert beyond I saw Pine Leaf’s horse lying dead. Half a dozen Apaches had wrestled her to the ground. Among them I recognized Delgadito, badly cut by Pine leaf s blade, but still alive—still raging. As the others held her down, he drew his own knife. He was less than two hundred yards from me. I raised the Manton to my shoulder, laid my sights on the Slim One, cocked the hammer … and then, even as his knife slashed Pine Leaf’s face, thought, But I only have two shots. The Apaches will be on me before I can reload… .
I did not fire. I could hear Delgadito yelling down at her in Spanish. He ripped her shirt open and lay bare her breasts. “Puta! Esposa infiel!” As his knife flashed downward into her chest, I slipped away, back to my horse. I mounted and we sped back into the wasteland. Yes, I was scared senseless, more frightened of those devils than of Hell itself. Only later did I feel the shame of my sorry performance. I should have killed Delgadito and then, with the second barrel, Pine Leaf herself. Anything to spare the woman I loved that ignominious death. I should have offered myself to their slow, skilled knives.
BUT I WAS a coward.
FOR HOURS THAT morning we plodded over an empty gray prairie that stank of sage, through flats of alkali or black sand, threading our way past wind-shifting dunes as tall as circus elephants, until at last, with the sun directly overhead, I had to admit I was lost. Utterly, inconsolably lost. We climbed a dune, the horse slipping two steps for every three he accomplished, and I looked out at the country.
Bleak …
Dry …
Nothing. …
A hot, hard blue sky with the sun slashing down like a madman with a razor.
Only then did I realize that, in my funk, I had left the canteen behind, soaking in the rivulet. Again we were without water.
Toward late afternoon I spied movement against the blue shimmering haze: black dots at first, tilting and circling, which resolved themselves at last into a kettle of sopilotes, turkey buzzards, turning high over broken ground, a volcanic malpais by the look of it, in a direction which I took to be the south. I rode toward it.
As I neared, I saw black figures standing motionless, with outspread arms, against the background of gray and black rock. Men! But were they Apaches, waiting to kill me? Well, so what? Maybe they’d give me a drink of water before Delgadito’s knife fell. But still they did not move. Only when I had closed to within a quarter-mile did I realize, and bitterly, the truth of the matter: they weren’t men, but rather the very crosses which Mangas had erected for our crucifixion. I had ridden all day in a circle, only to arrive at my point of departure. Laugh if you must at my greenhorn stupidity. …
At least the Indians were gone. Jorge’s body still hung from the thomwood spikes, the blood from his wounds gone black in the heat of the day. Flies buzzed around his mouth and nose. I could not bear to look at him. Instead I dismounted and went over the wall to see what I could find in the fort. The Apaches had removed their dead and wounded; only a few pools of sun-caked blood marked the scene of that desperate fight. I picked up some broken arrows from the barrage which had opened the combat, thinking that perhaps the steel arrowheads might come in useful should I survive the day. The Apache pony Pine Leaf had speared lay bloating in the sun; vultures flapped at its torn belly, turning away from their feed only to hiss at my approach. For a moment I thought of opening the dead pony’s veins to drink some of its blood, anything to quench my burning thirst. But blood is salty; it would only make matters worse. I slumped to the ground in despair, my eyes roving wildly over the scene of desolation, hoping, hoping still… Then from a tumble of pumice boulders I saw protruding the rounded neck of a familiar huage: one of the gourds we’d filled with water at the spring yesterday, the spring where we’d made love.
God bless you, Pine Leaf. …
I drank my fill, then drank it again. The water was lukewarm, green, thick as pea soup, but to me it was nectar. …
Of a sudden from behind me came a faint croaking voice: “Owen, por Dios … agua!”
Jorge was still alive. His red eyes stared at me from a black, blistered face; blood welled from cracks in his lips. I went over to him, stunned, and raised the gourd to his mouth. He finished what was left, then smiled his gratitude. His teeth were amazingly white in that ruin of a face.
How could he still be alive after all Mangas and his men had done to him? You might well ask it; I know I did. But of all
the tribes in the West, the Apaches are the most adept at the fine art of torture: they will keep a victim alive as long as possible, so that even after they depart the scene they know he’s still suffering.
With no small effort I removed the wooden nails which pinned Jorge to the cross and lowered his maimed body to the sand.
“I’m finished,” he said at last. “Maybe I’m dead already and this drink of water is merely my first taste of Heaven. But I think not. Promise me …”
He fainted for a while. I moved him to the shade of the pumice-stone wall.
“Promise me,” he continued when he regained consciousness, “before God, that you will go to Guaymas and seek out my mother. Senora Josefina Diaz, for she remarried after my father was lost at sea. She used to live near the waterfront, where the fishing boats haul out. Tell her of my fate, and that my last thoughts were of her. Ask her to pray for my soul in Purgatory.”
I said nothing.
His eyes opened wider, black as coal, black with reproach and the threat of retribution from the grave. He raised himself to his elbows.
“Promise me now,” he said. “On your honor!”
“I promise.”
Jorge died at sundown. I scraped out a shallow grave in the sand at the foot of the cross on which he had hung, laid him in it faceup with his hands folded over his chest, covered him with logs from the other crosses, then piled rocks atop that to keep coyotes and vultures from his body. With my knifepoint I carved on the cross these words:
JORGE GUAYMAS
KILLED BY APACHES
SUMMER, 1837
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
I will not recount my further adventures on that awful jornada del muerto. Suffice it to say that I made my way with no mishaps back to the Gila, followed it down to the Colorado, turned south, and continued down into the lush delta of that river. There was plenty of game to sustain me along the way, so I fed well. The Yuma Indians were peaceful that year, at least when I came to their village on the Colorado, and I passed safely after paying a “toll” of the peltry I had accumulated along the way. Some very primitive Indians who call themselves Cocopos occupy the delta. They treated me kindly. A Mexican fishing boat trading with them for ocelot and jaguar pelts took me aboard and carried me at last to Guaymas, where I located Senora Diaz and apprised her of Jorge’s final words. Then, my promise redeemed, I sought gainful employment.
Across the Sea of Cortés, near the town of Mulege, I heard from a French engineer of a silver mine at San Ignácio, the owners of which were seeking a skilled Anglo overseer. Applying there, I was promptly hired, and here I remained. The work was simple and straightforward, allowing me abundant leisure time to explore the mountains hereabouts for precious metals or stones. During these excursions, which have rewarded both my employers and me with several new finds, I find myself putting into practice all the Indian arts Pine Leaf taught me during our escape from Mangas. As you know, I have always been a good shot with a rifle. Now I have added the spear and the bow to my repertoire. Bandits and Indios Broncos infest these mountains, but where once they stalked me now they flee at the first sign of my presence. It is reassuring to be feared. …
ONCE OR TWICE a year since my arrival here I have made journeys with our conductas to the seaport of La Paz. There, a month ago, I met an English sea captain who had left the United States only last September. He provided me with newspapers from New York, Baltimore, and Savannah, from which I learned of the rise to sudden fame and fortune of our old friend Lafcadio Dade. It seems that since the American conquest of New Mexico he has managed to purchase, for an unstated price in gold, the Hidalgito mine in the cerillos south of Santa Fe. This, as you doubtless know, is one of the oldest and richest gold mines in the entire territory. How Dade, a mere fur trader, managed to accumulate the wherewithal—in bullion—to make this grand purchase the writers of the articles said they knew not.
But I know.
He got it from my gold mine, in White Hart Hollow.
He got it at the expense of my suffering.
He got it at the cost—to me, and to me alone—of my only male friend in this cruel Mexican world and the only woman I have ever loved.
I buried Jorge with my own hands. I saw Pine Leaf die beneath the blade of Delgadito.
THIS BITTER KNOWLEDGE has not rested easily on my soul. I wake at night from dreams of Lafcadio Dade, laughing uproariously and running his fingers through mountains of gold dust. …
Thus I have made a vow.
I am returning to Nuevo Méjico to exact a vengeance on this source of my woe. Just what form it will take I cannot tell. But rest assured that however it should fall, Lafcadio Dade will be compensated in full for all the pain and loss and suffering he has caused me.
CHAPTER I
Hidalgito, May 5: Special to the Santa Fe Republican.
Word has just arrived of a dreadful mining disaster at the gold-fields south of here. At three minutes past two o’clock Monday morning, an explosion rocked the Number Three shaft of the Minería de Hidalgito, some 30 miles south of the capital. The subsequent collapse of the shaft killed 96 miners and half a dozen overseers. Another 20 or 25 men managed to escape by scaling a ladder leading up from the shaft.
“It was a moment of sheer hell down there,” said Ephraim Ings, 48, the Missouri-born supervisor of night operations at the mine. “A great tongue of flame came roaring toward us from the depths of the tunnel, carrying with it the severed appendages of men and mules. Men on fire staggered every which way. Those of us who could got out of there as soon as possible. And well that we did, for we had scarcely reached the top of the ladder when the whole mine caved in.”
The mine owner, Mr. L. R. Dade of Santa Fe, when apprised of the calamity said he could not understand how an explosion of such force could have occurred, barring a mishandling of the gunpowder used in mining operations. “My powder men were all well versed in safety procedures,” he said. “Mr. Ings, the supervisor, was an artillerist with Colonel Price in the late affair at Taos, and his entire powder crew was American.”
Spy was out tracking some Kiowa horse thieves over toward Sandia Peak, and Jim was due back any minute now from the La Fonda hotel, where he’d gone to pick up the mail, so I was holding the fort by myself that day, the fort being our small ’dobe office on the Calle Don Pablo García near the Misión San Miguel in downtown Santa Fe. Usually Plover sat up at the front desk, interviewing prospective clients, but that morning she’d stayed home—the baby had the croup and the older children had had to go to school, so they couldn’t look after the young-un—thus I was sitting there alone, having finished the newspaper and now nodding off over the chapter on torts in Blackstone’s Law, when Dade came stomping in.
Of course I’d read of the dreadful blast in one of Dade’s subsidiary mines, not just read of it but heard the boom itself that night. It rattled the glass in the bedroom window, and Plover said she could see the red flash of the explosion. She’d just come back to bed from nursing the baby. Close to a hundred men had died when the mine roof came down on them. Mostly Mexicans, sure, but they’re people, too.
“Damn your lights and liver, Griffith, your brother did this!” Dade yelled as he came through the door. His face wore a high color, higher even than its normal brick red, and his hair leaped out from beneath his sombrero like flames in a hayrick. Through the door behind him stepped his bodyguard, Lenny LeNapier, the sole survivor of that band of murderous Delawares who once accompanied him on his rambles through the Wild West.
“Now easy, Lafe, easy does it, or you’ll have a syncope for sure. You know my brother is dead. What did he do, come back from the grave to haunt you?”
“He blew up my most productive mine,” said Dade. Of course, he made no mention of the men who died in it. … “Take a look at this.
” He reached inside that cute little blue velvet don’s jacket he favors and pulled out a folded paper. “My secretário here”—he flicked a thumb at Lenny—“just picked up t
his letter at La Fonda with the morning’s post.”
The new post office wasn’t completed yet, and all the town’s mail was still being delivered to La Fonda, the old inn that marked the end of the Santa Fe Trail. I unfolded the letter and read it.
Don Lafcadio Dade
Hidalgito Enterprises
City
Sir:
For too long you have rode roughshod over the innocents of the West, indio, Mexican, and Anglo alike. Your cruelties are legend from the Three Forks of the Missouri to the Plains of Chihuahua. It is unfortunate that so many miners had to die in the recent explosion, but I blame that on you: for making men work round-the-clock. This is just the first taste of my vengeance. By my count you have half a dozen minerías in New Mexico alone, three in Colorado, and another, perhaps the richest of all, somewhere to the north. Which will be the next to go?
Owen Glendower
“That is not my brother’s hand,” I said, though it did look familiar. “As you’ve told me often enough, he was captured by Rees after you released him years ago in the northern mountains. We found the fire in which they’d burned him. His bones and boots as well.”
“Isn’t your brother’s name Owen?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t this letter signed ‘Owen’?”
“Owen is a common name among both the Welsh and the English. His last name, in case you’ve forgotten, is Griffith, not Glendower.” I didn’t mention that Owen Glendower was a famous Welsh hero, a rebel against the English. If Dade didn’t mention it, why should I?
“Then how does this ‘Glendower’ know about the mine ‘somewhere to the north’? If your brother is in fact dead, that leaves only you and me, your wife, your Shawnee pal, and Beckwourth who know anything at all about Los Padres Perdidos. And I have had your word that you would say nothing to anyone about that place. God knows I paid enough for your discretion. No, I believe your brother escaped from the Rees and for some unbalanced reason has now decided to raise hell with me.”
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