by Steven Gould
Meanwhile, the westbound caravan had arrived and would stay two nights before heading on. This was a regular rest stop in both directions, but the schedule was normally set to avoid hitting the tanques with both caravans at once. Tomás took some soundings and decided it would be all right, especially if they got some of the late summer thunderstorms.
Kimble didn’t think the westbound caravan would carry his target. The meeting had been set for the tanques according to the DEA. But one thing is sure. The east and westbound caravans would’ve passed each other at some point.
Meanwhile, two ranch families, three different peddlers, and a freight outfit with two six-team wagons had all hit the tanques that afternoon and planned to stay at least the night.
After evaluating all the travelers, his money was on one or more of the peddlers, though he hadn’t ruled out the freighters. He couldn’t see the ranch families, traveling with young children, as the drug-dealing type. After playing with some of the kids and fetching water for some of their mothers, his conviction was strengthened.
Mrs. Perdicaris continued to follow Kimble, though she shied away from other livestock and would threaten grown men who came too close. She didn’t seem to mind the kids or women, though.
For the last three days he’d put Mrs. P’s saddle pad on and cinched it in place. The day before, he’d added his bag and bedroll, tied behind. Mrs. Perdicaris had twitched a bit, but when Kimble made no attempt to climb aboard, she would still thrust her head at his hands and pockets, and if not tied, she would follow him around, even once having to be shoved back out of Tomás’ store when Kimble was buying oats for her.
Now, whenever she came up to him, he put his weight on the pad, leaning into it. She just twitched her ears and leaned back. She was with him when he spotted the caravan. They were still at least ten miles out. Kimble patted the side of Mrs. P’s neck.
“Well, let’s go.”
Kimble figured they could wander slowly down to the tanques and find an unobtrusive spot by the store from which to watch the arriving group. He turned away from the ridge’s cliff edge and saw Mrs. P’s ears stand up and swivel back up the ridge, not toward the tanques.
After a moment, Kimble heard hoofbeats, horses at a walk, more than one.
What the hell are they doing up there?
Tomás had told him the ridge kept rising for about three miles then dropped off precipitously, a good four hundred feet above the surrounding countryside. There was a good view, but you couldn’t get down, at least not on horseback.
He took a few steps over toward a hollow between three piñons and Mrs. P followed. Three horsemen trotted down the wide trail near the middle of the ridge, not the rocky back-and-forth trail at the cliff’s edge. A loaded packhorse on a long lead followed.
Kimble heard Mrs. P draw a deep breath and her lips went back to bray. He stabbed his hand into his front pocket and found a few oats and held them out. The bray died, stillborn, as she lipped the oats from his hand. In the time it took her to verify his hand was completely empty and to nudge his pockets, the three horsemen had moved on.
“Huh.” So his pool of potential distributors had just gone up. He walked over to the trail. The path was sand and rock, mostly, but where the piñon mulch had accumulated there were some decent prints. The horses were shod, epoxied composites probably, but the packhorse was wearing trail boots.
If they’d been camped up at the high end of the ridge, they could’ve seen the caravan even sooner than Kimble had. What have they been doing for water?
The spring several hundred yards above the tanques was in a rocky outcropping, hard to get to on horseback, but fifty yards up the ridge, Kimble found several days worth of horse droppings and several circular imprints where a bucket had rested. The hoofprints matched, including the booted feet of the packhorse.
He looked around. The clearing where the horses had been watered was sandy, with patches of piñon mast and, unlike other parts of the ridge, the spiky cholla and prickly pear was absent. He put his arm over Mrs. Perdicaris’ back and pulled himself up.
If he was going to be thrown, this was as good a place as any.
Mrs. P whiffed and took several steps sideways, then stopped still. Kimble leaned forward, careful to keep his head off to one side. He’d once been whacked in the face by the tossed head of a fractious horse—only once. He draped himself across her withers and stretched out his hand to where he could rub her poll. He felt some of the tension drop out of Mrs. P’s back as he rubbed the muscles.
After a few moments, he sat back up and rested his hands on his thighs. He leaned back, about to swing his right leg over her withers and slide off her left side but, before he raised his leg, Mrs. P began backing up. He stopped leaning and she stopped. Kimble blinked. “Mrs. P! Are you kidding me?”
He squeezed in with his right knee and she turned calmly to her left. “You were trained!” He leaned forward and Mrs. P walked forward. She wasn’t even wearing a hackamore, much less a bit and bridle, but on leg aids alone, he steered her down the ridge and up to the cluster of mixed piñons and maples above the tanques.
* * *
HE beat the caravan in, but the three saddle horses and the packhorses were watering at the trough when he came in.
At the store he asked Tomás, “Who are they?”
Tomás shrugged. “Those are the Jonas brothers. Lee, Bob, and Terry. Been through before. They live up on the Jemez. Near the springs. Terry has the worst teeth I’ve ever seen.”
Kimble had a hard time keeping his face still. He asked for another bag of oats.
“You’ll spoil that mule.”
“You thought Heimie treated her bad and you think I’m babying her. Make up your mind!” As if it were an afterthought he said, “By the way, I was up on the ridge. Caravan is coming in.”
Tomás swore. “Figures. You want these oats for free, and some cash as well?”
“What do I have to do?”
“Get on the pump when the caravan gets in and keep the water coming. After, help muck out. There’ll be thirty to forty horses tonight and twice that tomorrow.”
“That’s a lot of horse apples. How much cash?”
“Well, since you’re so nice to that mule, I’ll be generous.”
* * *
HE took his pictures of the Jonas brothers before the caravan came in, using the binoculars from fifty yards, up by his bedroll. He used Mrs. Perdicaris as a shield, peering over her neck. He took three full-face exposures of each of them, convinced he’d found his distributors.
It was the teeth. They all had bad teeth, stained, with discolored gums, but the thinnest and youngest, Terry, had clear gaps where the enamel was rotted away. Bad teeth weren’t uncommon in the territory, where you had to travel outside for dental work or deal with manual work done with ceramic tools in broad daylight by traveling clinicians, but this looked to Kimble like a classic case of meth mouth.
Meth users aren’t too good about brushing, but they also get dry mouth from the drug and tend to grind their teeth during the first rush, cracking the enamel. Kimble had seen several when he lived in the capital. Terry’s thinness was another mark against him. Meth is a serious appetite suppressant.
Yes, his money was on the brothers.
The trough was eight feet long and, with crowding, could water five or six animals at once. Kimble pumped it full as soon as the brothers led their animals away. He could hear the caravan by the time he finished. He took the plastic manure fork and policed the yard, throwing the few piles into Tomás’ fiberglass wheelbarrow. He kept his head down but he was watching just the same.
The freighters, on seeing the size of the incoming caravan, grabbed their teams and watered them briefly. By the time the tail end of the caravan was in, they’d hitched up their wagons and packed their camps. Kimble raised his eyebrows at one of them, who shrugged and said, “Too crowded. We’ll make some trail while it’s still light.” They pulled out without attempting to talk to th
e newly arrived passengers, who were walking stiffly around the yard.
The peddlers reacted as they had with the westbound caravan, opening their wagon cupboards and displaying their wares. They were smiling, talking to the passengers.
But they weren’t talking, as far as Kimble could tell, to the outside contact. He’d spotted the man before he’d dismounted, though the large cowboy hat and sunglasses had thrown him for a moment. Bentham’s picture showed the man bareheaded, wearing a suit. But it was him, one Charles “Chuck” Hohner, though Bentham had said he could easily be traveling under a different name.
Hohner had limped to the nearest shade, off to the side of Tomás’ store, and taken off his hat. He was looking around the yard casually, wiping his forehead with a bandanna.
Lee, the eldest Jonas brother, walked over to the store, swinging wide to pass a couple of yards away from Hohner. He didn’t turn his head but, as he went by, he said something. Kimble saw Hohner’s eyes flick toward the man and then back away.
Kimble pumped more water as the caravan guides brought up the next set of horses. As he finished, he saw Hohner put his hat back on and wander into the store. Kimble grabbed the rake, scooped up a fresh pile of horse manure, and crossed the yard to the barrow parked at the corner of the store.
He dumped his forkload into the barrow and paused by the side window. Through the nylon screen he saw Tomás step back into his stockroom for something. Lee Jonas said something then, and Hohner shook his head and said, out of the side of his mouth, “No! After dark.” Then he turned abruptly and left the store.
Kimble was satisfied. He would’ve ridden away then and there if he hadn’t promised to help Tomás.
He filled and emptied three wheelbarrow loads, running down the road to the manure pile, and helped the guides with their horses. The passengers weren’t expected to curry or feed their mounts. The guides and grooms did that but, from what he overheard, they were shorthanded because there were more passengers than usual.
“Hey, kid. Wanna make some money?”
Kimble fed and curried fifteen horses before dark. Mrs. Perdicaris protested and threatened the tired horses, but when Kimble tied her within sight, but out of kicking distance, and spilled a bait of oats on the ground, she stopped being a pest.
Just upwind from the picket line of horses, in the camping space recently vacated by the freighters, a large passenger with Polynesian features set up a tent for Hohner, then began cooking a meal for them both.
Huh, guess he travels with a servant.
Two horses later, one of the guides walked past quietly. The Polynesian turned suddenly when the guide scuffed his foot and stepped between the guide and Hohner. His hand dropped into a large cargo pocket on the right leg of his pants. When he saw it was the guide he turned the movement into a stretch, then bent back down to his cooking.
Guess Hohner travels with a bodyguard.
Kimble was kneeling, cleaning out the hoofs of a bay mare, when he saw one of the peddlers approach Hohner holding a burlap bag in one hand. The man held up two apples in his other hand. “Apples? Best in the territory?”
“No, thanks,” said Hohner.
Then the peddler lowered his voice and said something else. Hohner shook his hand side to side, below his waist. “No. After dark!”
Oh, crap. I’m going to have to take more pictures.
* * *
WHEN Bentham rode into the tanques two days later, Kimble was asleep on his bedroll. The sound of hoofbeats, braying, and swearing brought him awake.
“Oh, sorry.” He called Mrs. Perdicaris off, distracting her with an apple before tying her to a tree. Except for the two of them and Tomás, the tanques were once again deserted. The westbound caravan, which had left three hours before, had also been shorthanded. Between mucking out, pumping in, and rubbing down, he was exhausted. On the other hand, he’d replaced most of the contingency cash he’d used to buy Mrs. P.
Kimble gave Captain Bentham the binoculars.
“If I haven’t screwed up, the pictures that matter are the first fifteen. Three exposures each of Lee, Bob, and Terry Jonas of Jemez Springs. Three exposures of Perry Brochert, a peddler based out of Los Crucitos. And three exposures of Mateo Encino, another peddler based out of the Raton checkpoint.”
“All of them matter?”
“Yeah, but it was three separate contacts. The Jonas brothers and those two peddlers. He waved off all three attempts to contact him in the afternoon. The meetings were held after dark. I’d say they’re setting up three different distributors with different territories.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well, I didn’t get close enough to eavesdrop, but I’m pretty sure.”
“You followed orders?”
Kimble was hurt. “Don’t sound so surprised. Jeeze.”
“What’s with the mule?”
“That’s Mrs. Perdicaris. She … uh … well, she’s with me. Oh, there’s three shots of her in the camera, too. Can I get prints?”
PART III
“But cannot the Government protect?”
“We of the Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our names are blotted from the book. That is all.”
—RUDYARD KIPLING, Kim, Chapter 11
14
Half-healed Scars
Kimble’s first thought when he heard the feet pounding down the path from the compound was They’re coming for me! But then his breathing calmed and the sudden thud, thud of his heartbeat subsided as he remembered that they wouldn’t be coming for anybody, not for a long time.
His second thought was It’s too damn hot to be running. He’d picked this time of day to pull weeds in the bean patch because it meant the sun was low enough that the cottonwoods growing by the Rio Puerco shaded the field. But it was still too hot to be running.
He straightened as “young” Martha, one of the uchideshi, reached the field.
“Who’s dead?” he asked.
Martha stopped in the shade and bent over, hands on her knees. “No one, Sempai,” she gasped. She was a redhead and her face was flushed from the run in the heat. “But Tommy wishes he was. Mrs. Perdicaris kicked him over the paddock fence.”
Kimble pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut.
“And what was Tommy doing in Mrs. Perdicaris’ paddock? No. Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He pulled off the leather gloves he wore. Most of the weeds were purple nightshade or tumbleweed and both had pointy bits. He picked up his plastic water flask. “How bad is it?”
“Sensei thinks it’s a greenstick break of the right radius. And he’s got the most amazing bruises on the back of his thighs. I didn’t see him get kicked but I did see him land.”
He took a sip and handed the flask to Martha. “Did he roll?” Tommy was also an uchideshi. His ability to take a fall was normally pretty good.
“Tried.” She smiled as she accepted the flask, then took a gulp of the water. “Came down on the edge of the cistern.”
He winced. “How mad is Sensei?”
“She’s furious! She said if Tommy had broken the cistern … well, you know.”
“Now, Martha, it’s not as if I didn’t tell everyone several times to keep out of the paddock—”
“Oh, Sensei’s not mad at you. She’s mad at Tommy.”
“Ah.” He frowned. “Does Sensei need my help to set the arm, or something?”
“Oh, no. It’s that man from the Territorial Rangers. The one with the great nose and the bushy eyebrows? He rode in during the flailin’ and the wailin’.”
Kimble felt his face tighten. Martha licked her lips and took a sudden step back. “Uh, he talked to Sensei for a half hour on the veranda and”—Martha looked around reflexively—“and she shouted at him. And ten minutes later, she sent me down to get you.”
Kimble shook his head, as if to throw water off, trying to return his face to neutral. “Why’d you step back, just then?”
Martha opened her mouth and shut it
. “It was like you were going to hit me, Sempai. Never saw you like that, even on the mat—even when you were trying to hit me.”
“Sorry.” He felt funny with her calling him sempai. She was a year older than he was, but he’d been training with Sensei for years and Martha had come to be an uchideshi, an inside student, only five months before, in late spring, while Kimble was gone. When he came back, two months ago, she’d helped with the nursing, during those first two weeks in bed.
Kimble took a deep breath. “Better run back and be handy for Sensei. I’ll be along directly.”
* * *
HE could’ve run back easily enough. He’d been back on the mat for a full month and the wounds were scarring up nicely, but he wasn’t going to run for Major Bentham.
He stopped at the paddock. Mrs. Perdicaris walked up and stuck her head over the top rail. When he was close enough, she shoved at him with her nose, not feeling a bit of shame at kicking Tommy.
“Mrs. Perdicaris, you are a lot of trouble.”
He found a lump of sugar in his pocket and let her lip it off his palm, then went between the rough wooden rails of the paddock and ran his fingers down each of her legs, looking for signs of strain. “That Tommy is pretty hefty, girl. You oughta think twice before kicking him. You could hurt yourself.”
She brayed lightly and nuzzled at his waist. He turned the pocket out, showing her it was empty, so Mrs. Perdicaris contented herself with letting him rub her poll while she shed copious amounts of mule hair across his shirt.
After a moment he sighed and climbed back through the rails, but didn’t go to Sensei’s cottage yet. Instead, he ducked into the men’s dormitory behind the dojo, washed his face and hands, and put on a clean shirt.
He found Sensei and the major sitting across from each other on the stone benches under the twisted grape vines that wrapped the ramada on the north side of the cottage. They both turned their heads as he came through the gate in the coyote fence. Sensei kept her seat while Major Bentham stood. He held out his hand, but Kimble bowed to Sensei before taking it.
