by David Xavier
“There is that much difference between you and I,” he said. “That much. Write that down.”
They sat again and Charlie Milton took up his writing tablet and pencil. “It was a miner from near San Francisco who gave you that name.”
The man was Jake Stattner, and he was a miner at a claim in San Francisco but was run off for stealing. He went south to Santa Maria where he saw Marquez in a cantina. Marquez was drunk and talking too much. When Jake Stattner asked if he rode with Salomon, Marquez looked the other way and ordered another drink. Stattner slid closer. Marquez told him to stop asking questions and swung a fist over Stattner’s head. He buried his face in Stattner’s chest and dug punches into the man’s sides, but he was thrown out the cantina doors by the bartender who knew Marquez and told him to keep his mouth shut. Marquez sat with a bottle of tequila in an alley, waiting for Stattner. When the man appeared, Marquez broke the bottle on the back of his head, threw a rope around him and tried to set him ablaze.
Salomon turned to Marquez. Marquez shook his head.
“I did not.”
Milton pushed a finger to the middle of his spectacles. “He said you did.”
“That man was probably six and a half feet tall,” Marquez said. “Even Arturo would be a short man next to him. And how could he tell the story if he was burned alive?”
“He had burn marks on his legs. He said he fought you off and escaped.”
“The liar,” Marquez said. He looked to Salomon. “I could not get the flames to catch for good.”
Milton pointed to Marquez with his pencil. “The Santa Maria Man.”
“What kind of name is that? That is not a name.”
Milton pointed down the line. “The Santa Maria Man. The Butcher of California. And The Angel Bandit.”
Salomon did not react.
“The Angel Bandit?” Marquez looked from one face to the other. “He is the Angel Bandit and I’m the–” He stood and walked off muttering. He squatted to pick up a stone with two hands and heaved it with a groan and walked on. Milton watched him go. His eyes shifted back to Salomon.
“There is one more, isn’t there?” He craned to look beyond, searching. “The Demon Indian.”
Arturo gave a short laugh without looking up from the sage hens and wiped his wrist across his nose. Charlie Milton creased his brow.
“It is said he savors brutal torture.”
“It is said,” Salomon shrugged. “I have never seen it.”
Arturo dropped a butchered hen and looked up at nothing in particular, his bloody and feathered hands hanging free at his knees. “He is quick. There is no torture about it.” He picked up a second sage hen and whacked the head clean off.
“He is described as a giant. As ‘outerwordly’.”
“Outer-what?”
“From another place entirely. A peculiar place.”
Salomon exhaled. “Tejas?”
Milton shrugged. “Is this savage a part of the gang?”
“He rides with us,” Salomon said. “I don’t think he would say so.”
“He is a Comanche?”
Salomon nodded.
“Does he speak other than Comanche words?”
“When he speaks he does.”
“He is said to be a ghost.”
“We see him from time to time.”
The fragmented story of Tsunipu as a rider with the well-known Salomon Pico gang was a myth among legends. An indian with a skeletal frame so tall he could plug his fingers in the stars and rotate the sky. Men swear they could put both their boots heel-to-toe in the indian’s footprint if they could find one, and that he had an arm-span portioned to that of eagle wings, if an eagle ever grew the size of a man. US Cavalry out of Mission San Jose sent to patrol the California lands for Comanche tribes tell of an eagle’s shadow stretching over ten yards from feathertip to feathertip chasing behind them, sending their horses to running beneath them.
“I’ve heard he has no shadow.”
“He doesn’t, at night.”
“Is he a shaman?”
“A what?”
“A medicine man. An elder. Can he – heal himself? Does he practice magic?”
Salomon just looked at him. They were silent for a time.
“Why do you ride a Comanche pony?”
“Because a Comanche pony was what was available.”
“You ride without a saddle.”
“The pony and I are used to it.”
“Is that the Comanche pony there?”
“The painted one, yes.”
Charlie Milton set aside his writing things and stood and walked to the picketed horses staring back at him. He approached with one hand outheld.
It was said among the mining camps that Salomon Pico could ride up to you in noon daylight and not be seen or heard, the pony was that swift. That the rider could slip up next to you on desert sands and put a pistol to your head before you knew he was there. That he could cut the bags from your saddle and the buttons from your shirt and your skin would be bubbled bright red before you found out you were barebacked. The Comanche pony had grown to a status of its own, towering over muscled military steeds and fast and nimble enough to run down antelope.
“It is normal height,” Milton said. “Shorter even that this other one.”
Arturo jabbed a skewer through the two skinned hens and knelt among the stonepit to strike a flame to the arranged sticks. Milton looked around, turning in place. The rock formation and trees made a natural cove with two entrances hidden from view from the outside. The Comanche pony nipped at his collar and he jerked his shoulder and pulled away, stepping to take his place at the firepit, a hand whirling.
“Tell me about this hideout. When did you come here?”
“A while ago.”
“It used to be that bounty hunters searched for you in the canyons of El Camino Real. Did they chase you out?”
That was part of it. It was hard to remain hidden when everyone knew where to look. But there was little water to find on the canyontops. There were natural pools in the rocks, but when it rained there was also lightning. Blue wires bounced between the rocks like dueling wizards. There was also the howling winds. After a night in the canyons a grown man would believe in ghosts. The winds blew the water from the pools and blew the canyontop clean of everything, be it firewood or rodents rolling off the high walls. A man had to walk on his hands and knees to relieve himself in the night, sending a mist downwind. The winds created a dry electricity. There did not have to be stormclouds to see lightning. They picked up camp one night when Salomon tossed a humming machete from their fireside to have it struck out of the air by a jagged bolt just yards away.
They abandoned the canyons to the creekcut rolling valley and stumbled upon the hideout when chasing a fleeing deer. The stone entrance was twisted in such a way that disguised it as a mere crack in the rocks. Several times the bandits themselves had spent the day searching for it.
“Were the fires built to warn away travelers?”
“The fires?”
“They say they could see your fires on the canyontop clear across the Salinas Valley you built them so big.”
Arturo looked to Salomon and Salomon grinned to himself. Milton slapped a bug at his neck. He looked at the hand and spoke on. “There have been a reduced number of incidents on El Camino Real. I can see now, it is because you came here. You do not see the travelers here.”
“We see some,” Salomon said. “We hear more than we see. Sound seems to travel on this valley quicker than sight. There have been times we have sat right here in this spot while as many as twenty or thirty horses walked by outside these walls.”
“You seem to have become less of a trail bandit and more a gun for hire these past years. Is this true?”
Salomon’s eyes went to their corners, looking at the newspaper writer. “No.”
“But you are wanted for the attempted assassination of Judge Benjamin Ignatius Hayes.”
“That wa
s a mistake.”
“Judge Hayes believes you were hired for the job. According to him the attempt on his life was meant for J.S. Mallard, Justice of the Peace. They shared the same office. It was a mistake in that it was not the correct Judge?”
Salomon shifted and crossed his feet. “It was not me.”
A search had been made in the San Bernadino Valley for the Lugo brothers and their partner Mariano Elisalde, Mexican bandits wanted for the murder of a traveling band of American families at Cajon Pass. Told of the blood-dewed grass where men and women alike lay slumped where they had been dropped in death or sprawled on their backs, and children facedown where they’d been shot running between the spattered rock walls at the pass, US Justice of the Peace, J.S. Mallard, issued a reward for the Lugo brothers and Mariano Elisalde, dead or alive, who were then chased from the valley and fled to the Santa Maria Hills, where Judge Hayes believed they met and paid Salomon Pico for the botched job of eliminating Mallard and the reward. In his office after hours, hiding under his desk as his windows shattered and moontouched glass rained over him again and again, Judge Hayes called out from under his arms until the firing stopped and hoofclatter faded.
“You don’t look like the sort of man who would make such a mistake.”
“Do I look like a man who would murder for money?”
Charlie Milton folded one hand over the other. He sat still. “You do not look like a man who would murder for anything. But you have. Men who had no business of gold whatsoever. There is the incident of the mail rider, Jim Caldwell of Monterey. Was that a mistake?”
“The mail rider?”
“Shot twenty-three times, he and his horse, seemingly without aim.”
“We were aiming,” a voice called out.
The three men by the fire turned in unison. Marquez was walking back toward them, tucking his shirt into his open pants. He said, “That is precisely what we were doing, was aiming.”
Jim Caldwell was a mail rider between Monterey and Los Angeles, and he was shot numerous times by the Salomon Pico gang. But not as an act of brutality. Bellied on a knoll, Marquez had sighted him from afar and mistook him for a cavalry scout. He fired across the distance as a warning shot, not expecting his rifleshot would curve that way. But when Caldwell reeled and fell from the saddle, limping to a spot where he could return fire, Marquez panicked and an exchange of bullets commenced.
Salomon and Arturo crawled up behind Marquez at the rifleshots. “I think I have hit him three times now. The man will not stop firing back.”
Salomon put his rifle forward and sighted in, taking deep breaths. His rifle boomed and the first shot knocked the mail rider from his hiding spot and sent him running for his horse. All three bandits stood and opened fire, raising the ground in small bursts at the rider’s feet, taking turns between loading and trying to drop the rider before he could saddle.
Caldwell did manage to ride, swaying in the saddle like a drunk, but not before he was out of range and his horse staggered and gave way beneath him. The bandits fired for several more minutes as the mail rider intermittently stuck a pistol over and fired from the other side of the dead horse, which lurched each time a bullet bore into it, tearing outward like tiny volcanic activity below the skin.
“You are considered highly dangerous with that rifle of yours.” Charlie Milton held up his hat by his finger in the bullethole. “A sharpshooter even. I would think a man like you couldn’t miss a target if he tried.”
Salomon waved a hand. “At that distance a man has to account for many things. A breeze between you and your target can throw your bullet a full yard and a half.”
When Caldwell had not fired back for over an hour, they rode up to the shredded horse carcass and redpainted grass but the horse lay alone. Caldwell had dragged himself through weed and sparse grass to a shallow dip in the fields where he cut crossways to the creek. A trail of blood led the way. They made a search for him but never found him.
“He made it back to Monterey with the story,” Milton said.
“Obviously.”
“He rode in on some nag he borrowed along the way, and died on the doctor’s table three days later.”
“Three days?”
“Three days. Yes sir, that is what I read.”
“That man did not want to die,” Marquez said.
“Jesus.” Salomon crossed himself. “Did he have a family? A wife?”
“No, he did not. He had a sister, but she drowned herself.”
“Drowned herself because her brother died?”
“No, she ran into the Pacific the year earlier. It was unrelated.” Charlie Milton leaned over the paper, his pencil scratching. Marquez stretched his neck but could not read the writing. Milton looked up. “Tell me about yours.”
“My what?”
“Tell me about your wife and child.”
Salomon squinted and winced. He swallowed. Arturo turned with his knife hand on his knee to glance at Salomon, then the writer, then went back to stirring the fire. Milton cleared his throat.
“It is my understanding that their passing led you to this life of revenge. That you killed two American miners in retaliation.”
“They stole a hen from my yard.”
Charlie Milton paused for a moment. “But I understand your anger. When your hacienda was torched by justice seeking Americans, it only served to drive you further to vengeance.”
“No,” Salomon said. “I did that.”
“You torched your house?” Milton looked to the other men. Arturo cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, still stirring the fire.
“But your wife and child did die. They became sick with whatever the miners brought with them.”
Salomon put his head back. His eyes closed as he held his face to the sunlight and let each breath come to him in deep waves. Milton glanced at the sky and scribbled again upon the paper, pausing to look at Salomon before finishing what note he began.
“It has been many years since…” Milton waved a hand, the pencil wedged in the fingers. “Does their memory still fuel your intentions?”
Arturo coughed and Charlie Milton looked at him. The writer fell silent and waited. When Salomon did not speak, Milton continued.
“There is rumor of another romance. A señorita in Santa Maria.”
The Angel Bandit lowered his face and blinked about. The señorita Marisela Valderez. He had come to her often through the years, always knocking at the corner of the window after the last candleflame in Santa Maria went out. They would lay in the dark and speak to each other the way lovers do.
“You always come to see us,” she told him once. “When will you come to take us?”
However, he would not answer, and she understood to expect nothing from him, his heart was well in the past, buried with his wife and son. Yet she had grown to love this dangerous bandit, and she walked with a faraway smile at the thought of him picking the flowers he surprised her with at each unexpected visit. It was this smile that added to the whispers that trailed her. Rumors of Salomon’s visits were soon no longer rumors among the villagers, and some would watch from their windows to try and catch a glimpse of the people’s bandit. At night Marisela slept with the dragoon pistola Salomon had given her years before clenched in her hand.
The boy Vicente was now a young man, well into his teenage years. Salomon had taught Vicente to fire a rifle to fall a running coyote. He taught him how to wield a knife, where to stick a man if the need came about, and how to throw a man’s weight in a grapple. He showed him how to track both animal and man, and how to survive upon what the land had to offer, how a man could grow fat in the California wilderness if he opened his eyes.
They spent days the three of them playing in the glittering creekwaters. With his back to the Vicente, Salomon knelt and scooped at the water and held some imaginary swimmer in secret delight. When Vicente came stooping near to see, Salomon squeezed his cupped hands toward the boy’s face. They sat on the stones with their feet in the cur
rent and watched the sun sink away, and Salomon crouched in the water and held Marisela’s feet in his lap with her skirts pulled clear and he poured handfuls of water upon her ankles and shins as she hummed a gentle tune.
“The señorita is older than you.”
Salomon gave a start, but did not turn his head. His eyes slowly opened. “Not by a lot.”
“Do you seek in her an experienced mind? Perhaps one that can provide you with guidance?”
“My mother is still alive.”
Charlie Milton tapped his pencil. “And the boy? Don’t you think your lifestyle may influence him the wrong way?”
In fact the opposite had occurred. Vicente had told Salomon his interest in becoming a law officer, to rid the world of lawlessness, to protect people and keep order. He would stand outside the offices and watch the policia drag shuffling criminals in chains to snarl behind bars. He would point his finger as a pistola and silently shoot each one with one eye shut as they smirked past him.
“And what of me?” Salomon had asked Vicente. “Reward posters with my face are in every law office in California.”
“You?” Vicente told him. “You are not a bandit like the others. You help my mother and me. I would hunt only the bad men.”
They were words Salomon would remember.
“They are a family to you.”
Salomon cast a glance to Milton. “They might be better off without me.”
The fire hissed and all the heads turned. Arturo stood and ran the boiling pot from flame to flatstone, then shushed aloud and pressed his hands to his shirt as the audience watched on.
Marquez looked at Charlie Milton. “He thinks if he moves fast enough he will not get burned.”
Arturo looked down at Marquez. He raised a fist and Marquez flinched.
“Your cousin is well-known throughout California.”
Salomon nodded. “He is.”
“The last governor of Alta California before it became United States territory. He owned most of California for quite some time.”
“He has done well.”
“Is it because of your cousin’s status that you have remained out of trouble?”
