by Stephen Bly
Howland packed his rifle over his right shoulder. “I’ll go relieve Mateo.” He walked to the outer edge of the firelight, then whirled and blurted, “Mr. Brannon? Do you think you’ll ever get married again? Julie and me was talkin’, and she said she doubted it, but I ain’t too sure. A man gets mighty lonely livin’ by himself… mighty lonely.”
Brannon sprang to his feet so quickly, he startled them both.
“My word, what is it?” Fletcher exclaimed. “Do you hear something?”
“It’s them Apaches, ain’t it?” Howland added.
“No… just sort of a cramp in my leg. I’d better stretch it out. I’ll go relieve Mateo, Earl. You and Fletcher can stay by the fire and discuss nuptial bliss.”
“I do say, Earl, I believe he’s running from your inquiry.”
Brannon didn’t hear what Mateo said when he relieved him on guard. He didn’t even know what he replied. His mind drifted back to Lisa. And to another trip to Mexico.
After a few moments, Fletcher stepped to his side. “Stuart, you’ve got young Howland worried sick. He didn’t mean any hardship for you.”
“I know. I’m too sensitive. Harriet made that quite clear. She’s right, you know.”
“So, what memories haunted you this time?”
“Did I ever tell you about Bomista’s bull? I can’t believe the two of us rode two hundred miles into Mexico for a bull. It was Lisa’s idea. She met me at the barn rattling on about Teresa’s grandfather’s brother’s bull.
“The calves were reported to be the largest, strongest, healthiest, sturdiest ones in all of Sonora. So we saddled up Sage and Roanie and rode south in the middle of June. We were too happy to be scared and too dumb to worry.
“It was the dirtiest Lisa ever got in her life. Her face smeared, her dress caked with mud. Her hair—that had to be the worst rat’s nest I’ve ever seen. I’m glad I never told her that. There was supposed to be a beautiful hacienda. We found an adobe cabin. He owned thousands of head of cattle, we were told. But we saw only fifty. They said he had servants to wait on him hand and foot. We saw only Jose.
“Bomista. Antonio Rafael Bomista. Cattle buyer, horse trader, land developer... crook. Tobacco juice on his beard and dribbling down his vest. With a less than gentle mix of aromas of cheap whiskey, dried sweat, and cow manure. Lisa planned on hugging him once for Teresa, but settled for a distant handshake.
“‘Go and get El Toro Bomista!’ he shouted in Spanish to Jose.
“‘And which bull is that?’ Jose asked.
“The first one you catch,’ Bomista hollered.
“I don’t believe he knew I spoke Spanish. And Lisa was so thrilled to have found the perfect bull. What could I do? El Toro Bomista—1,800 pounds of the most worthless bovine ever produced on the North American continent.
“‘Two hundred dollars,’ Bomista insisted. ‘He is like one of the family.’
“‘He’s not worth fifty, and you know it,’ I said.
“‘Stuart,’ Lisa gasped.
“‘Sold for fifty,’ Bomista grinned. ‘Any friend of Teresa’s is just like family to me. He will follow you home like a puppy,’ Bomista claimed.
“On the second day, the ‘puppy’ broke the rope, tried to gore Sage, and ran off into the sand dunes. It took us all afternoon to pull him out of there and get back on the trail.
“‘Serves you right,’ Lisa scolded. ‘You probably insulted El Toro Bomista when you paid such a lamentable price for him.’
“‘Insulted him? Lisa, you have the…’”
Brannon’s musings halted. He thought he heard a noise in the dark shadows. He squatted on his haunches and cocked his rifle.
There it is. A whistle? A signal? A snore?
He walked ahead about twenty paces and stood very still, trying to make out the figures on the ground ahead of him. “It’s Filippe and Cerdo. Sleep, niños, sleep well.”
Returning to the fire, Brannon lapsed back into the story of Lisa and the bull. “The next day we tried driving the bull ahead of us, but when he wasn’t charging horses, he tried to run into the brush. Finally we dallied him to both saddles. We almost had to drag him to Tucson. I figured a week on the trail would settle him down, so we pulled off the ropes when we neared Phoenix. He ran off and hid in the banks of the Salt River.
“That’s where the snake spooked Roanie and Lisa got bucked off. I shot the snake and El Toro Bomista disappeared over the horizon. Took us two days to track him down. I tossed a rope on him, and before I had time to dally, he jerked me out of the saddle. Being drug through the cactus isn’t my favorite activity, but Lisa’s screamin’, ‘Don’t let go, Stuart, don’t let go!’
“Right at that moment I remember thinkin’ how much I wish I had my Winchester in hand. El Toro Bomista would have become El Toro Muerto.
“I let go, of course, and that bull disappeared over the rim with my best rawhide. I believe I bruised every bone in my body and Lisa is sitting up there on Roanie yelling, ‘Why did you let him go?’
“When she slowed down a bit, I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean, I busted loose somethin’ fierce. Soon as I’d cup a mouthful of air, away I’d go again. Pretty soon, Lisa busted up, too. “‘Stuart,’ she cackled, ‘you must be the dirtiest man in the West. Now I know why Bomista looked like that—he spent his life trying to catch that bull.’”
Brannon let out a deep sigh while Howland and the others howled, soon including Brannon too.
“Stuart,” Fletcher choked as he sucked air, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh this hard.”
“That’s what it would take.”
“I say… what?”
“A woman who could make me laugh like this.”
“You still want a perimeter guard?” Howland asked.
“ Nope.”
“Why?”
“Those boys are sleeping about twenty feet from us. They aren’t going to warn anyone tonight. We’ll just keep one guard like before. Earl, you take the first shift. Mateo will take the second. I’m turnin’ in.”
“I say, Brannon, you didn’t finish the story.”
“About the bull?”
“Quite. Surely the fabled Stuart Brannon didn’t walk away from an inhospitable bovine.”
“Yes and no. Bomista said the bull would follow us like a puppy. So I told Lisa we were going home and the bull could follow us. We sank the spurs into our horses and took her at a lope for most of the afternoon. We stopped for the night at the top of Pine Ridge. I’ll be if Lisa didn’t look back down the trail and spot old Bomista Bull.
“That’s the way it went for the next two days. Then, just before we hit Sunrise Creek Valley, he disappeared. I figured we’d finally lost him.
“So we get to the ranch and clean up. All evenin’, Lisa walks out to the porch to look for that bull, but he doesn’t show. Lisa wanted me to go search for him, but I refused. She fussed for a few days, then we got busy with other things. Lisa spent three days puttin’ in the garden.
“Well, I’m up on the ridge doctorin’ some sick cows up by the spring. Then I’m ridin’ home and hear a rifle shot from the direction of the house. As far as I know, that’s the only time Lisa ever fired a gun in her life.
“I ride into the yard and there, sprawled out in her fresh garden, deader than a nail, is old El Toro Bomista, with my rawhide still draggin’ around his neck. By the time I get to the house, Lisa’s in the kitchen cookin’ supper like nothin’ had happened.
“‘Stuart,’ she says, ‘an 1,800-pound pile of manure just ripped up every inch of my garden. Would you go out there and bury it right where it lays? At least we can get fifty dollars worth of fertilizer out of it.’”
“So I did. Later that night we were sittin’ out on the porch and not talkin’ much. ‘Someday, Stuart, our grandchildren will ask why we call that piece of ground Bomista Memorial Gardens.’ We laughed until midnight.”
“Someday, Stuart, you’ll find a woman who’ll make you laugh again,” Fletcher a
lmost whispered.
Howland scraped bacon and beans in a smoking, black frying pan over a fire when Brannon returned to camp aboard El Viento.
“Any sign of them?”
“Nope. They even brushed out the tracks where they slept. I trust they headed back to White Mountain.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?” Fletcher said.
“Nope.”
Fletcher pointed. “My guess is that’s them right up on the knoll.”
Brannon stood in the stirrups. Filippe and Cerdo ambled toward them, with Cerdo carrying a rabbit.
“Looks like they’ve got breakfast,” Howland observed.
Brannon swung out of the saddle. “You boys went huntin’ early.”
“We have eaten ours already,” Filippe reached for the rabbit. “This is for you. Cerdo ate many beans and biscuits last night and wants to pay you back.”
“Certainly you boys can keep—”
Brannon interrupted Fletcher. “Thank you. You boys must be fine hunters. Did you shoot it with your arrows?”
“Yes, Cerdo shot this one.”
Howland carried a plate of fried meat. “Come on, Brannon, those little bows are just toys.”
“I have a feeling they are very good shots.”
“I say, you’d have to sneak right up on top of a rabbit to hit him with such a lightweight outfit,” Fletcher said.
“You might be underestimating these boys,” Brannon said. “Cerdo? How would you like a biscuit?”
The boy nodded.
“I’m going to toss this biscuit in the air. If you hit it with your arrow, you can have it.” Brannon tossed the biscuit about ten feet above his head.
Instantly two arrows whizzed through the sourdough, both holding fast at the feathers. The boys left the rabbit, took the biscuit and another Brannon offered and sauntered into the sage.
“Are you going to White Mountain?” Brannon called.
“We are going to our grandfather.”
“My word,” Fletcher said, “we certainly can’t let them go out there on their own.”
“We don’t have any choice.” Brannon yelled, “Filippe and Cerdo, you are welcome to eat at our campfire.”
Cerdo turned and nodded, then walked on. Filippe shouted, “The Brannon is always welcome at our campfire as well.”
The trail across the desert wound through arroyos and over mesas as the men and horses plodded along. Finally they broke out into a flat desert valley. The sun straight up, they had seen no sign of the boys since daylight.
Then Brannon noticed a cloud of dust on the far-off mountain horizon.
As he pointed, two quick shots rang out from a distant rifle.
THREE
“Are we going to go take a peek at that?” Howland asked.
Brannon pulled his Winchester from its scabbard. “Not until we know a little more.”
Fletcher turned in the saddle on his mahogany bay gelding. “How many do you suppose there are?”
“I heard only one rifle.”
“But two shots.” Howland stood in the stirrups as he gazed across the desert floor to the outlying hills.
Jaime, hat dangling by the stampede string and bouncing on his back, rode up to Brannon. “El Viejo, I believe that is the direction of the two Apache boys.”
“What did he call you?” Fletcher asked. “Doesn’t viejo mean old?”
“The boys call me the Old Man, just like they do the foreman of any ranch in Texas. Miguel thinks that’s the direction the Indian boys headed.”
“But they don’t have a rifle,” Fletcher said.
“Nope. That’s why we’ll take a little excursion. Someone might be taking shots at them.”
“Maybe they’re already dead,” Howland added.
Another shot echoed across the desert… then another.
“Well, someone’s still shootin’, so not everyone’s dead,” said Brannon. Then in two languages he ordered,
“Pull your rifles—and let’s take it slow and easy.”
If he knew for sure it was the boys, or the strength of the attacker, or their position, Brannon might have spurred El Viento and raced to the rescue. Instead, he led the men in a slow, methodical path, keeping a low profile on the desert floor.
An occasional shot rang out from the rock of the treeless hills, but Brannon could distinguish only a single gun. As they reached the base of the mountains, the ground sloped down to a huge field of rock and boulders.
Brannon held back the others and surveyed the scene.
At first the bright noontime sun reflected by the granite blinded him. Brannon wondered if an ancient lava flow had lapped right up to the granite, then receded. But his reverie was broken by a puff of smoke, an explosion, and a curse.
Brannon rubbed the thick stubble of his unshaven face and brushed away a pesky fly. “There he is. There’s a buckskin horse tied at the sage on the right. He’s propped up on a boulder at the back.”
“Just one?” Howland asked.
“So it seems.”
Fletcher took a swig from his canteen and looped it back over the saddle horn. “What is he hunting in those rocks?”
“Don’t know, but I doubt he’s spotted us yet.”
“The Apache boys.” Miguel pointed.
“Where?” Brannon strained to see.
“They are out of sight now.”
“We’re moving in. Miguel, you, Jaime, and Mateo slip around to that sage and grab his horse. Don’t let him escape. Edwin, you, me, and Earl will ride up on him like we’re coming down the trail. Don’t get too anxious to shoot. There might be a good explanation for this.”
What looked like a field of stones at the edge of the lava turned out to be broken walls of what once had been a small but fortified village. Not one building remained, and the erosion of wind and weather obliterated all traces of habitation. Only a few straight lines of forgotten adobe architecture divulged the past.
Brannon trained his eyes on the bushy-bearded man with the rifle near the well. He removed his wide Spanish hat and waved them in. They circled the stone and broken adobe and approached the stranger cautiously. He wore shotgun chaps, ragged at the boot. He reached into his brown leather vest and pulled out a plug of tobacco.
Only when he spoke did Brannon guess his nationality. “Welcome, boys. Help yourself to a chaw of tobaccy. You jist drifin’ down the trail, or you lookin’ for someone in particular?”
“We’re goin’ down into Mexico to visit a friend,” Brannon replied. He tilted his black hat back with his left hand, but kept his right hand on the Winchester.
“Well, you’re in Mexico right here, friend.”
“We crossed the border?” Howland asked.
“Yep.” The man spat tobacco juice over on the rocks. “Used to be a little town here years ago. But since it ended up so close to the border, no one bothered to rebuild it.”
“This wouldn’t be called Adobe Wells, would it?” Brannon asked.
“Why, yessir, it is. The well still has some water, though it’s mostly caved in, behind that sage where I hitched my horse.” The man eyed Miguel and the other two parked at the sage. “Hey, them Mexicans is tryin’ to steal my horse.” He lifted his rifle.
Instantly, Brannon’s Winchester pointed at the man’s head. “Drop it, Mister,” he shouted.
“You partnerin’ with them Mexican horse thieves?” He lowered his rifle.
“Drop it on the rocks,” Brannon growled.
“You’re makin’ a big mistake.”
Brannon’s shot sailed harmlessly into the desert sand about a foot to the left of the man’s feet. The man dropped his rifle.
“And the revolver,” Brannon ordered.
“You’re in a peck of trouble, stranger. They hang horse thieves around here.”
“We’re not stealing your horse. We were ridin’ by and heard the shots. You seem in a hurry to waste bullets.”
“You ain’t goin’ to steal from me?”
“No
pe. But we don’t intend to get shot by a jumpy trigger finger neither. You signaled us in, remember?”
“I thought you was somebody else. I been waitin’ for a friend to show.”
“You target practicing, or what?”
He flashed a yellow-toothed smile. “Huntin’ rabbits.”
“Rabbits in those rocks?”
“Yep. Got two of them flushed in there. Soon as they appear, I’ll finish them off. You boys like to help out?”
“You sure those are rabbits in there?” Fletcher asked.
“He’s an Englishman, ain’t he?”
“So goes the rumor,” Brannon said. “Mister, I’m lookin’ for two little Apache boys. Have you seen them?”
“’Course I’ve seen ’em. I told you I was huntin’ rabbits, didn’t I?”
Brannon swung down from El Viento and let the reins drop, his rifle barrel only inches from the man’s head. “You were shooting at those boys?”
“No, sir, I’m shootin’ ’Paches.”
The barrel of Brannon’s rifle jabbed the man above the sternum, causing him to stagger among the boulders. “Mister, you’re shootin’ at little boys. They hang men for that in every country on earth. Earl, hogtie this snake before I get really mad.”
Gazing across the rocks and ruins he called out, “Filippe! Cerdo! It’s all right. Come on out.”
First one head and then another popped up from the rocks.
Filippe helped his brother to his feet. They cautiously picked their way across the jagged rocks toward Brannon.
“You didn’t take any bullets, did you?”
“No. He is not a very good shot,” Filippe replied.
“How in the world did you let such a worthless fellow get the drop on you?”
“Cerdo was singing, and I did not hear the horse breathe.”
Cerdo grinned. “I was singing about tortillas filled with brown sugar and dates.”
“Why didn’t you shoot this gunman with your arrows?” Fletcher asked him.
“We thought perhaps he was a friend of El Brannon.”
“No one who shoots at little boys is a friend of mine.”
The bound man coughed. “Brannon? Stuart Brannon from Yavapai County?”
“You got a point to make, Mister? Then make it.”
