“Actually, that may not be the case,” Audie insisted. “The boundary between your country and mine has shifted in recent years due to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and unlike over in Texas where there’s a river to mark the border, here it’s much more nebulous.” Audie waved a hand to indicate their surroundings. “Here, it requires a skilled surveyor to determine exactly where we are. We may be in Mexico, we may be in the United States, in New Mexico Territory, to be precise. We simply don’t know.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “But whichever one we’re in, Captain, one thing is certain. There are a bunch of Apaches out there led by a war chief who wants us all dead.” It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but evidently it found its mark.
Capitan Garazano looked surprised and said, “You speak of Perro Blanco.”
“You’ve heard of him, too?”
“Sí, this devil is the reason we are out here!” Garazano shrugged. “Well, that and to run any gringo invaders off Mexican soil.”
“We’ll have to settle that part of it later,” Jamie said. “For now, it sure seems to me like we’re all after the same thing.”
Audie said, “There’s an old proverb from the Sanskrit that stipulates the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That seems to apply to us, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”
Jamie didn’t know anything about Sanskrit, but the sentiment that Audie expressed was a good one. The logic of it seemed to get through to Captain Garazano, too.
He frowned and said, “You claim you have come to fight this Perro Blanco, as well?”
“We didn’t know about him when we started down here,” Jamie said, “but we kept running into trouble from the Apaches and earlier today we found out why. A fella told about this so-called White Dog who’s trying to band all the Apaches together. That’s why they’re all stirred up and riding out on murder raids so often.”
“And now you wish to destroy him?”
“That’s the general idea,” Jamie said with a decisive nod.
Garazano’s frown deepened as he considered everything he had just learned. After a minute or so that seemed longer, he said, “You are still trespassing on Mexican land.”
“Tell you what,” Jamie drawled. “Why don’t we let your government and my government haggle about that later? We’ll go ahead and do the surveying we came down here to do. That’s not going to hurt Mexican interests. In fact, I’ve heard rumors that there’s some sort of business deal in the works between your president and mine, so if they knew we’d run into each other out here, they might order us to work together.”
That seemed like a lot for Garazano to swallow, but what Jamie said made sense. Finally, the officer nodded slowly and said, “There will be a truce between us for now, Señor . . . ?”
“MacCallister,” Jamie supplied. “Jamie Ian MacCallister.”
“Very well, Señor MacCallister. I will withdraw my men, but we will remain nearby. Your party may continue with its work, but if you do anything that I believe threatens the interests of Mexico, I will take action to prevent it. Do you understand?”
“Clear as day,” Jamie said. To emphasize that, he slid his Sharps back in its scabbard.
Garazano nodded again, turned his horse, and rode back to join his men.
Jamie motioned for the others who were with him to move on up, then said to Audie, “Ride into camp and find out what happened there. Something was going on before these soldiers showed up.”
Audie headed off while Jamie waited for Preacher and the rest of the men to catch up with him. While he was doing that, the Mexican patrol mounted and moved off to the east, about a quarter of a mile along the bluff. The spring where Jamie’s group had made camp seemed to be the only water within several miles, so they probably would have to let the Mexicans fill their canteens and any water barrels they might have on their pack animals.
It might be a good idea to keep Clementine out of sight while any of the soldiers were around, Jamie mused. No sense in tempting fate.
As they rode on in, Jamie watched the ones who’d been left behind emerge from inside and behind the wagons. Then he caught sight of the body lying underneath the surveyors’ wagon and his jaw tightened.
“Edgerton?” he asked as he swung down from his saddle.
“Oui,” Dupre answered. “He was hit in the first volley when we were ambushed.”
“Ambushed by who?” Preacher said.
Clementine brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen over her face and swallowed hard. “It must have been those no-good brothers of mine. That’s all we can figure out.”
“They were up on the rocks to the east,” Dupre explained as he gestured in that direction, “but they stopped shooting and evidently fled when they saw the dust of those soldiers approaching.”
“What about those soldiers?” Stuart asked Jamie. “That captain’s not happy about us being here.”
“He may not be happy, but he’s agreed to go along with it,” Jamie said. “For the time being, anyway, he’s got bigger fish to fry, and I sort of gave him the idea that we’d help him. You see, today we found out that there’s one hombre who’s behind a lot of the trouble down here in these parts, and Captain Garazano wants his hide as much as we do.”
Preacher said, “So we’re goin’ on a dog hunt,” then glanced down at the big cur sitting beside him, who had looked up at him and cocked his head to the side in the universal sign of canine puzzlement.
“No, not you,” the mountain man said.
CHAPTER 38
They laid Edgerton to rest the same day as the ambush that had killed the dour frontiersman, digging a grave atop the bluff and then mounding it with rocks after it had been filled in. Even though Edgerton had never been very friendly or had much to do with the others, not having him around was still a loss—and a reminder of the dangers that always seemed to be lurking nearby.
But after everything that had happened, the next few days were surprisingly uneventful. Because of all the various threats, Jamie wanted to leave a larger group in camp than they had been. Instead of he and Preacher splitting up and heading off in different directions with some of the men, they searched for the Apaches together, taking half a dozen fighters with them each time. They saw no sign of their quarry, however.
It was almost as if the Apaches had given up and abandoned the area.
“You reckon the varmints headed deeper into Mexico, into them mountains south of here?” Preacher asked as he and Jamie returned to camp with some of the others after another day of fruitless searching.
“I suppose they could have,” Jamie replied as they slouched along on horseback. “We killed several dozen of them. They might have decided that was too high a price to pay for staying around these parts.”
“Never knew an Indian who didn’t want revenge, though, when he felt like he and his people had been done wrong. And killin’ them, even though they were tryin’ their best to kill us, is wrong in their minds.”
“But they can be practical, too, and figure that it’s better to just cut their losses.”
Preacher nodded solemnly. “That’s true. What it comes down to is that they’re a plumb notional people, and you can’t ever be sure what they’re gonna do.” He gazed around. “They could be out there watchin’ us right now.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it a bit,” Jamie said.
* * *
Noah Stuart and Chester Merrick had been allowed to make some surveying and cartographic trips along the bluff for several miles in both directions. Stuart also rode out to the mesa with a well-armed escort and sketched it, adding it as a landmark to the rudimentary maps he had drawn. While they were there, he asked, “Can I climb it?”
Tennysee, who was in charge of the group that had accompanied the surveyor, frowned at Stuart and said, “Why in blazes would you want to?”
“So I can see better, of course,” Stuart answered without hesitation. “It’s not a terribly tall formation, but in land that’s as flat, overa
ll, as this is, you don’t have to get up very high in order to be able to see for a long way.”
Tennysee took off his battered old hat, scratched his thinning hair, and said, “Well, I reckon if you want to give it a try, there ain’t no reason for me to stop you. I warn you, though. It probably ain’t as easy as it looks. I know the sides of that mesa are pretty rough and ought to give you plenty of handholds and footholds, but if you slip, you’ll fall into that cactus growin’ around the base. And then you’ll look like a gosh-darn porkypine!” The thought of that tickled Tennysee, and he slapped his thigh and laughed.
“I won’t fall,” Stuart said. “Or at least I’ll try not to.”
He walked around the mesa until he found a good place where he could approach the wall without getting tangled up in cactus, then tucked his sketch pad inside his shirt and started climbing. The wall leaned in slightly, so it wasn’t sheer, and that made the climb easier. As Tennysee had said, there were enough cracks and knobs that Stuart found numerous places where he could hang on or plant a foot to push himself higher.
As he went up the side of the mesa, he warned himself not to look down. He didn’t want to make himself dizzy and slip. He was high enough that a fall could be pretty bad, and besides, there were all those spiny cactus down there.
Finally, he reached the top and pulled himself over the edge, rolling onto his back. He lay there for a moment with the sun beaming into his eyes while he caught his breath. His shirt was soaked with sweat from the exertion of the climb. When he had recovered somewhat from the effort, he rolled farther away from the brink and pushed himself to his feet.
Mesa meant table in Spanish, he believed, and that was a reasonably accurate description of this flat-topped geographical feature. The top of the mesa wasn’t really flat. It was rough and rugged and heavily worn by erosion just like the sides were. A few clumps of hardy grass grew here and there, as well as some very scrubby bushes covered with what looked like wickedly sharp thorns.
He recalled hearing Preacher make some comment about how most things on the frontier could bite you, sting you, stick you, or make you miserable in some other way. “And kill you if you weren’t careful,” the mountain man had added. So far on this trip, Stuart hadn’t seen anything to convince him that wasn’t true.
He had been right about the view. He could see a long way from up there. When he looked back to the north, he saw the shallow escarpment stretching out for miles to the east and west, much farther than he had explored so far. But from what he could tell, it looked the same in both directions, other than minor irregularities. He thought the bluff began curving to the north several miles away to the east, but he couldn’t be sure. That might be something to look into later.
He also had a good view of the campsite and the nearby tents of the Mexican army patrol. Captain Garazano had been keeping a close eye on the so-called invaders. When Stuart and Merrick went out on their surveying and mapmaking forays, a small group of soldiers always followed them at a distance. The same was true when Jamie and Preacher went searching for Apaches, although Garazano sent a larger force to trail them. It was like the captain was afraid the visitors would get up to some sort of mischief that would harm Mexico.
The top of the mesa was roughly fifty yards in diameter. Stuart started across it, veering sharply around a pile of rocks, when he heard a distinctive buzzing sound coming from it. A rattlesnake was denned up in there, he knew, and he wanted nothing to do with the reptile. The pistol was holstered on his hip, so he wasn’t defenseless, but why seek out trouble? he asked himself.
When he reached the other edge, he gazed off to the south for several minutes, intrigued by what he saw there. At least five miles away stretched a darker band of ground that ran east and west as far as he could see. Stuart couldn’t tell for sure, but it appeared to be a several-mile-wide area of ravines and gullies, the sort of badlands that cropped up here and there. The dark color was puzzling, but it would require a closer look to solve that mystery. Beyond the badlands—if that’s what they were—was a low, gray-blue line that Stuart figured marked the location of some hills.
“I wish Chester and I could bring some of our equipment up here,” he said aloud, not worrying that some of the men down below might hear him and think he’d gone mad. “I wonder if we could rig a rope sling and bring it up that way.”
Of course, that would mean Chester would have to climb the mesa, too, and Stuart wasn’t sure that would ever happen.
He really wanted to explore and map that desolate area. Along with the escarpment and this mesa, it would make a good landmark. The area running between the bluff and the badlands might provide a passable route for the transcontinental railroad, especially if the escarpment curved to the north and out of the way as he thought it did.
To run a railroad through here, though, would require more negotiations between the United States and Mexico. As far as far as Stuart could determine—and he had shot a number of readings with his sextant—they actually were south of the current border, although not by much. He had gone along with the fiction that it was difficult to determine their exact location, but the truth of the matter was that for a couple of days now, he had had a pretty good idea where they were and could have pinpointed it on a map.
“Hey, Mr. Stuart!” Tennysee called. “You about done up there?”
Stuart walked back across the mesa, looked over the edge at the men gathered below, and replied, “Yes, I’m coming down right now!”
“No rush,” Tennysee told him. “Take it nice and easy. You don’t want to slip and fall.”
With all those cactus waiting down there, he certainly didn’t.
* * *
“Taking a look at those badlands will mean moving our camp,” Jamie said when Stuart told him that night about what he had seen from the top of the mesa and how he wanted to explore that area. “There’s probably water to be found in those hills on the other side.”
“Movin’ might not be a bad idea,” Preacher put in.
The three men were standing beside the surveyors’ wagon and keeping their voices down so the rest of the party wouldn’t overhear.
“We ain’t seen hide nor hair of any ’Paches for days now. Maybe we’d have better luck somewheres else.”
Stuart said, “It’ll also mean going farther south. Will Captain Garazano agree to that? He already doesn’t like us being here. A move such as that will convince him more than ever that we’re interlopers.”
“I don’t plan on letting that Mex dandy tell me what I can or can’t do,” Jamie stated bluntly. “We came down here on a job of work, and it’s not finished yet.”
Stuart hesitated, then told them what he thought about running the railroad between the bluff and the badlands. “Of course, I have no idea what obstacles might exist east and west of here. That’s going to take a much more extensive survey, probably starting in Texas and proceeding westward along the entire potential route. But what Chester and I are doing is a start, anyway. I think we’re going to be able to see enough to state that a southern route is feasible.”
Preacher said, “Only if the crews can work without havin’ to worry all the time about bein’ massa-creed by a bunch of bloodthirsty Apaches. And to make sure that don’t happen, we’re gonna have to find that varmint Perro Blanco and put a stop to his shenanigans.”
“We’ll find him,” Jamie said. “In fact, I’ve got a hunch he’s waiting for us.” He nodded toward the distant badlands. “Down there.”
CHAPTER 39
Early the next morning, while the others were breaking camp, Jamie rode over to the Mexican camp to talk to Captain Garazano.
Several guards challenged him with lifted rifles. Jamie reined in, and while he was sitting there waiting for one of the troopers to let Garazano know he was there, he clenched his jaw and tried to keep his anger and resentment under control. He had known that being around Mexican soldiers might be difficult because of what had happened at the Alamo, but he hadn’t
expected his reaction to be quite so strong.
Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Garazano stepped out of his tent and waved Jamie over. He called to the guards in Spanish, telling them it was all right. With surly reluctance, they stepped back to let Jamie ride past them.
“Good morning, Señor MacCallister,” Garazano greeted him. “What brings you here?”
Jamie swung down from the saddle. “Just wanted to let you know that we’re moving our camp. We’re heading down to a stretch of badlands about five miles south of here. Mr. Stuart, our chief surveyor, noticed it from the top of the mesa yesterday and wants to explore it. He said it looks like there are some hills on the other side, so I figured we’d make our new camp over there, if we can find some water.”
Garazano, who was dressed in his uniform except for his beribboned jacket and big, plumed hat, frowned at Jamie. “Such a move will take you even deeper into Mexican territory. I was willing to make an exception due to the vagueness of the border’s location, but I have seen those badlands and I know they are part of my country, not yours, Señor MacCallister.”
“I imagine you’re right about that,” Jamie admitted, “but it seemed to me those badlands might be a good place to look for Perro Blanco. And if he’s not there, he may have pulled back into the hills. I don’t think he’s around this escarpment anymore, and if we want to chase him down, we’re going to have to look somewhere else.”
Garazano’s frown deepened into a scowl, but after a moment he gave Jamie a curt nod. “What you say is true, Señor MacCallister. But I must draw a line. Those hills where you intend to make camp are as far into Mexico as you are allowed to go. If you try to penetrate further into my country, I will stop you.”
Jamie shrugged in seeming acceptance, but in truth, he wasn’t agreeing to anything. He would do what was necessary and go where he needed to go in order to complete his mission.
He mounted up and headed back to camp. By the time he got there, everything had been packed into the wagons, and the mule teams were hitched up.
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