Traveling with McMasters, the Indian and the Mexican girl was, in spite of the hardships they endured, a refreshing experience for Blade. He had, he decided, been too long among his own people, too long with men who wore store suits and hard hats. Here on the trail life was elemental and he was able to rediscover a Blade he had almost forgotten. He was pleasantly surprised that such an assorted company could have been so amiable.
The Indian girl rode most of the day in silence, keeping close to McMasters, in whom she had come to place complete trust. His knowing her language had something to do with it, of course, but beyond that she seemed to look to him for a lead in everything she did. When they halted, she would slip quickly from the back of her horse and run to take his line and hold his mount while he dismounted. When she had attended the horses, she would rustle around, doing what she could to set up camp and prepare a meal. McMasters, all Indian where she was concerned, took all this as a matter of course. Which did not mean that he did not treat her kindly. Once or twice, Blade caught him laughing and joking with her. The gaiety lit her face and transformed her from a grieving Indian woman into a young girl.
McMasters himself seemed to be affected by the presence of the girl. Once, he said to Blade: ‘I’ve heard it said by men more experienced in these matters than me, that there ain’t nothing better than a good Cheyenne woman in your camp, Joe. And I reckon that ain’t no more than the truth at that. I could do worse’n keep this little lady in my blanket.’
Blade said: ‘I didn’t know she was in your blanket.’
‘Figuratively speaking,’ said McMasters.
‘Doesn’t she get a say in the matter?’
‘Aw,’ said McMasters airily, ‘that ain’t no problem.’ He was the realist; he knew the economics of the wilds. An Indian woman with her man dead and none to take his place was a woman to be pitied. This girl knew the facts of life and would not turn away from the great McMasters’ son.
‘Do you reckon she’ll ever be right in the head again?’ Blade asked.
McMasters shrugged, still the realist—‘Sane or crazy, she’s a good girl. Right in the head or not, she’s a fine looking woman and strong with it. She’d never be a Mormon brake, that’s for sure.’
The Mexican girl was something again.
Blade enjoyed watching her as they rode, admitting that, though he had known a good many women in his time, he had never seen one like her. Not surprising, for they did not come like that one often.
Her name was Pilar Pelaez. There was a lot more to it than that with de this and y that after the Spanish manner, but, as McMasters said: ‘Who the hell has time to remember the whole mess of a Mexican name?’ She had a long name because she came from an important and proud family of Santa Fé, though, as McMasters added, what the hell they had to be proud of he couldn’t say.
She was one of those rare, physically tough upper-class Mexican women, who rode like men and fought the bulls from the saddle with the lance. McMasters claimed that he had seen her playing the bulls out on her Daddy’s ranch.
‘My God, Joe,’ he told Blade, ‘I never saw a sight like it. Not in all my born days. Christ, if I rode half as good as that I’d be proud of it. There wasn’t a bull on earth that could booger her. You watch that one, boy, or she’ll have your ears.’
To look at, she was like no Mexican woman of the leisured classes that Blade had ever seen before. Tall and lean, her once pale face was browned by the sun and the wind. From out of this smooth, but tanned and hard face stared clear, green and intensely beautiful eyes. Though greyhound thin, her body was finely-breasted and entirely feminine. She was all contradictions, this woman. Her age could have been anything from eighteen to ten years older than that.
But what did age matter, Blade asked himself philosophically, in a woman of this caliber?
Now she sat a horse that bore no more than a rough rope hackamore and an old blanket lashed to its back and she had that animal under iron control every pace it took along that hard and dusty trail.
Her story was that she had been traveling from Santa Fé to Taos to visit an aunt in that town. She rode part of the time in the family coach, which carried also her maid, the driver and an armed guard. Accompanying her were three trustworthy men, all well-mounted and armed. They were tough vaqueros and knew how to handle themselves.
As ill fortune would have it, they had stopped to drink at the well of a small Mexican rancho, not knowing that the house was already occupied by the men from the Elbow. Pilar Pelaez had said little of the details of what had taken place there, but Blade gathered that she had experienced the fury of violence that had been visited on the small band of Cheyenne on the Arkansas. The men with her had been killed. She and her maid had been raped by one or more of the attackers. She had lost more than her virginity that day, for they took all her possessions she had with her and would no doubt have taken her life as they had taken her maid’s, had she not managed to escape.
She succeeded in mounting a horse and riding away toward the south. They had followed her and fired at her, but she managed to give them the slip in the dark that came down to save her. In firing at her, however, the bandits had wounded the horse and the animal had gone down under her. Not knowing what to do, she had made her way on foot to the rancho the following day, taking great care not to walk into the arms of her attackers. By this time, she must have been in a pitiful state, but she made no complaint when she told her story.
She found, on reaching the rancho, the terrible result of the previous day’s atrocity. There were all her people dead, with the ranchero and his wife. She needed all her resolution and courage then to prevent her losing her reason and, she hinted, she did not know what she would have done had not McMasters ridden up with the Indian girl. In his rough way, McMasters had tried to comfort her, but all she demanded was human company to anchor her to sanity. She wanted no human hand on her. She bathed herself carefully with cold water from the well, changed into the simple clothes of the dead Mexican woman she found in the house, and moved on with the half-breed and the Indian girl.
Now she rode, distant and stony-faced, and joined them in their hunt for the men who had ravaged her. When Blade suggested that she and the Indian girl be left with some rancher or farmer, she said: ‘The Indian girl can do as she wishes. I shall go after these men with you or without you. That, I think, is my privilege. When we reach the time of truth, you will not find me wanting, I assure you.’
That sounds a little melodramatic in English, but in her rolling Spanish it sounded just as it was meant to sound, sincere and determined. Blade, who had known only scatter-brained, lovely and flirtatious Mexican women, marveled at this one’s courage and resolution. He found it possible almost to pity the man who faced her at the end of the trail.
They were entering the foothills and, after the stifling air of the plain, the light breeze touched them like a cooling hand. The animals perked up and their steps grew livelier. The two men and women felt their spirits lift a little. And when they came to the trees that encircled the little lake, they all knew they would rest here. The animals that bore saddles were stripped and all the horses rolled to ease their hot and sweating backs.
McMasters, declaring that the men they followed had camped here, went at once to look around for tracks and pick up what information he could. He said also that he would set some snares, for they were running dangerously short of supplies. Pilar Pelaez lit a cigaro and went down to the creek to sit on a rock and stare pensively at the water. It was left to Blade and the Indian girl to build a fire and prepare a meager meal.
As they ate later, McMasters said: ‘This is the craziest thing I ever did. We know where these men are headed. We should be reasonable and find some ranch or town and get fresh supplies. We don’t have enough ammunition to fight a saloon drunk.’
Pilar was obviously used to expressing her opinions among men—which again put her apart from other Mexican women. She said: ‘We do not know where these men are going.’
Her English was slow and careful, quite fluent, but she used it as if she were a stranger to it. ‘When they are sure we’re following them, they will possibly change their minds. Already they will have scattered.’
McMasters said: ‘Maybe they’ll get reinforcements. Maybe they’ve already turned back to kill us.’
Blade said: ‘There’s no telling. They’re mad dogs and who can say what mad dogs will do?’
Pilar turned quickly to look at him. In swift Spanish she asked: ‘But you are not changing your mind? Your courage is not running out?’
Blade smiled innocently—‘That’s assuming I have some.’ His Spanish was as swift and true as hers and he saw her blink at the sound of it. ‘And assuming that it is my courage that keeps me on this trail and not my dislike of what I saw in that Indian camp.’
In that moment, she saw in him something that she had not seen before. Possibly it was his fluent use of her language. Maybe it was because he remained cool under the insult of her tone. She smiled suddenly and surprisingly for the first time.
‘Perhaps,’ she said tauntingly, ‘you have some dignity—when you have your boots on—after all.’
He laughed. The Indian girl looked in puzzlement from one to the other. McMasters explained what Pilar had said. She nodded to the sound of his Cheyenne and then she grinned. She said a few words and McMasters laughed.
‘She said,’ McMasters explained to Blade, ‘that you should always go without boots. You have pretty white feet.’
They prepared for bed. Pilar slept apart from the others. The Indian girl lay close to McMasters. Blade catnapped through the night as he had learned to do over the years of night alarms, sleeping lightly and waking fully on the hour. Around midnight the horses grew uneasy and he went quietly to inspect them, but found nothing amiss. When he returned to the camp, the Mexican girl was awake.
‘Come and talk to me,’ she called softly, ‘I cannot sleep.’ When he hunkered down beside her, he found that she was smoking, so he loaded his pipe and fired it. She said: ‘You are a strange man. What do you do for a living?’
‘Amongst other things,’ he replied, ‘I hunt men.’
She shuddered slightly.
‘I don’t think that is a nice thing to do,’ she told him.
‘Not nice,’ he said, ‘but somebody has to do it.’
‘Do you enjoy your work?’
‘No.’
‘Then why do you do it?’
He shrugged. ‘I daresay if I tried I could find a good reason. Most men find reasons for what they do. But it’s a waste of time when having a reason doesn’t make any difference to what you do.’
‘Were you hunting a man when these men attacked you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So while you hunt these men, the man who you hunted may have escaped.’
‘That’s likely.’
‘Then you lose money by following these men with us.’ That seemed to trouble her.
He said: ‘I’ll catch up with him. Don’t fret.’
‘Do you always catch them?’
‘Always.’
She said as if in a little awe of him: ‘You must have a special talent for this not nice work.’
‘Just patience.’
When he returned to his blanket, McMasters’ voice came softly and mockingly out of the darkness -’Oho, who is sparking the rich Mexican’s daughter?’
‘McMasters,’ Blade said, ‘you have an evil mind.’
‘That’s a fact,’ agreed McMasters.
When they rode on the following morning, Pilar had not spoken to Blade. She did not look at him. Respectable women were often like that toward him when they learned how he earned a living.
Five
It was during the morning that McMasters’ sharp eyes found an interesting sign that stopped him. They sat their horses while he dismounted and made a closer and wider study of the ground. They could all see that somebody had camped here on the flat among the rocks near the creek. But even Blade, who was a pretty fair tracker, could not read signs with the ease and speed of McMasters. Within fifteen minutes, McMasters had a pretty clear picture in his head. When he came back to them, he told them of his interpretation of the sign.
There had been a man camped here for some time and he had been digging for gold. He had pulled out of here a couple of days back. He could tell that from the droppings of the burros the man had led. The burros were heavily laden -he could tell that from their tracks. So whoever he was, the prospector was most likely packing gold out.
The men they were following had been here, too. They had messed up the gold hunter’s sign or he would have read it quicker. His guess was that the men they were following were now on the trail of the prospector.
‘Which,’ he ended, ‘may indicate that they think we are no longer following them.’
‘They will kill the prospector for his gold,’ Pilar said.
‘It seems likely,’ McMasters agreed.
‘George,’ Blade said, ‘maybe we should step up the pace some. We have mounts a-plenty. Could we catch ’em and jump ’em at dawn?’
‘By that time,’ Pilar said, ‘the poor prospector could be dead.’
McMasters said: ‘We could blunder into a trap if we travel too fast. Let’s get on and see what signs we find up ahead. It all depends on whether the digger knows he’s being followed or not. Maybe he’s smart and knows a few tricks.’
Their next halt was further down the creek. McMasters pointed at the ground and said: ‘Well, maybe he knows they’re after him and maybe he don’t. But sure as God made little apples, he’s guarding his gold by losing his tracks. He took to the water. One of our friends followed him. They’ve got one man who’s good at reading signs. So maybe we should rattle our hocks a mite.’
Lucky for them, the killers had made no attempt to hide their tracks. McMasters picked up their trail before the malpais and even found faint traces of their horses’ iron shoes on the bare rock. Indians, he told them, would have left no sign with their unshod horses or rawhide hoof-shoes. Once off the malpais and into the timber, McMasters lifted the pace considerably, taking them through the trees at a breakneck speed, risking the loss of some of the loose horses. There were no tracks on the pine needles, but he read the mind of the prospector and reckoned he was following the slope of the land. Sure enough, when they came to bare ground, McMasters found all the signs he could want.
They stopped the horses very briefly at noon, more to ease their own aching backsides than to rest the animals.
It was now that McMasters said: ‘That grave we found back there. We whittled ’em down some and that’s a fact. You reckon the Spanish lady can fire a gun?’
Blade called across to Pilar where she lay on her face to rest her ass: ‘Can you fire a gun, señorita?’
‘As good as you, my friend, have no doubt about it,’ she replied.
McMasters spoke to the Cheyenne girl and she gave him a short sharp reply. He told Blade: ‘She says she ain’t never fired a gun, but she knows how to break skulls with a club. That good enough for you?’
‘Good enough,’ said Blade. ‘Maybe we shan’t do so badly at that.’
‘You bet your sweet life we ain’t going to do bad,’ said McMasters.
They chose fresh horses and went on, sweeping down off the high country, until McMasters reined in abruptly, holding up his hand for silence.
They listened.
‘I thought I heard a shot,’ the half-breed said. ‘Very faint.’
‘Por Dios,’ Pilar declared, ‘we are too late.’
Blade said impatiently: ‘Sitting here’s not going to solve anything.’
‘Nor’s rushing in,’ said McMasters. ‘Everybody choose a good horse. We’ll leave the rest.’
Pilar said angrily: ‘I must have a gun. One of you give me a gun.’
Blade drew his Colt and handed it to her.
‘We’re almost out of ammunition,’ he informed her. ‘Use it sparingly.’
Her reply was a snort of disgust.
They chose fresh horses and turned the others loose. Then they mounted and went on. As they headed downhill, Blade informed himself as if he were telling himself something he didn’t already know: This is the craziest thing you ever did in your life.
Old Charlie Hedges tramped purposefully on. As he came down on to lower ground, the heat increased and he began to hanker for a long cool drink and a nice shady spot by a running stream. He felt a little ashamed of the hankering because he prided himself on being all rawhide and vinegar. He faced the daunting fact that he wasn’t getting any younger.
He wasn’t exactly scared, but he had to admit that he had the feeling that he was being followed. And he didn’t care too much for that. In fact, he stopped with increasing frequency to inspect the country above and behind him, feeling certain that, sooner or later, he would see riders behind him.
He was so prepared to find somebody behind him that his discovery that there was somebody in front of him was a double shock.
He walked around a giant boulder in a dry canyon and there right in front of him, there she was. She was sitting there, glaring at him and presenting to him the muzzle of the biggest shoulder gun he’d ever seen in the hands of a fellow human.
‘Jesus H. Christ,’ he said.
‘Stay right where you’re at, you sonuvabitch,’ roared the lady, ‘I got you dead to rights.’
When he had shaken awhile, he said: ‘Annie, it’s me, you old fool. Put your specs on.’
‘I know that voice,’ she declared in a tone that suggested it could reach the highest peaks of the sierras. ‘Sing out.’
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