Sundance 20

by Peter McCurtin

  ‘I’d say so,’ Sundance said. ‘Bannerman has a bunch of white men and Indians—their job is to start Indian trouble. If the people and the army get worked up enough, nobody’s going to give a damn about Indian slaves. Fact is, they’ll say the Indians ought to be slaves. I hate to say it, but your case won’t be worth a damn if they succeed.’

  Jorge unstoppered one of his canteens and drank from it. His dark eyes were worried. ‘But who’d believe such a thing? You just said it didn’t make sense.’

  ‘People won’t be worrying about sense if enough killing gets done. No wonder Bannerman looked so pleased with himself yesterday. First off, he has this new tame judge jumping when he snaps his fingers. That takes care of the law in Sonora, least for now. Then he has this bunch of renegades out stirring up trouble. I’ll bet the Apaches are real Apaches, stragglers from Geronimo’s old band in the Manzana Mountains. The so-called Comanches and Comancheros would be Bannerman’s whites painted up and dressed up.’

  ‘But why Comanches?’

  ‘It figures. A lot of Texas people in Chihuahua and Sonora. They may not know much about Apaches—they do remember the Comanches. The Comancheros too. Anything to stir them up, is what Bannerman has in mind. It doesn’t look so good.’

  While they were talking black clouds drifted across the sky and thunder rolled in the distance. A storm was blowing in from the east, coming over the Sierra, shrouding the highest peaks in darkness. They were in the hills now, still climbing up from the flats. After they crossed the highest point in the scrub-covered hills, they would begin the long descent to the plains again. Meseta was about thirty miles from where they were.

  This was country where storms rolled in without warning. The thunder split the sky and for a short while everything—plain and gully and hills—were inundated. The ground underneath turned to mud. The rain was cold and the wind that blew was cold too. Then as swiftly as it came the storm would be gone and so would the water when the sun blazed down again.

  Lightning flickered across the sky and the thunder roared like massed artillery. With his hat jammed down hard and his body braced against the pelting rain, Jorge yelled above the sound of the thunder, ‘There’s a ranch down from the slope on the far side. If this keeps up maybe we’ll stop for shelter.’

  Sundance remembered the place. He had passed it when he came south to Las Piedras. Black clouds like stained cotton were still coming from the far side of the Sierra. The cold rain came down in great sheets as the storm moved out toward the desert. Then the furnace would steam for only minutes and everything would be dry and hot again.

  Drenched and cold they crossed the hills and then far below them, not far from the road, they saw the ranch, now almost invisible in the rain. Up on the Sierra it was getting light but where they were was still dark, as the storm passed over. The oily black clouds were moving fast and soon the storm would be spent.

  Soon they reached the bottom of the long descent from the crest of the low range of hills. Their horses’ hoofs splashed through the churned-up mud of the road. Far away to the west, a rainbow lit up the countryside. The rain began to ease up, and before they got all the way down to the ranch, the sun came out.

  ‘Looks like we won’t bother with shelter after all,’ Jorge said. ‘We’ll be dry as bone in fifteen minutes. No need to stop. Mother of God! What’s that lying over there by the corral?’

  Sundance had seen it moments before Jorge—a man with arrows sticking out of his back. There were two or three arrows. Now the sun was full up again and he saw the young woman sprawled not far from the front door of the low-slung adobe house. They rode in close and Jorge’s face was white. The girl by the door wasn’t more than fifteen and she was naked except for shreds of a bright-colored shirtwaist that remained about her neck. Blood thinned by the rain showed between her spread-apart legs, and she had been shot several times in the stomach. No blood came from the bullet holes in her stomach. Her face was a grimace of horror and her light brown hair, darkened by the rain, clung to her shoulders. Her eyes were open and her hands were clenched. Behind a water trough another girl, a few years older, maybe eighteen, lay sprawled in death. She lay face down in the mud, an arrow sticking out of her back. She had been raped too.

  Sundance got down and snapped off the arrow shaft in the second girl’s body. Jicarilla Apache. The door of the house was studded with arrows, Apache and South Texas Comanche. When Sundance went in, he found another dead girl of about twelve. Her head had been split and a tomahawk lay beside the body. He picked it up and inspected it.

  ‘Junk—they sell these things to passengers at train stations in the Southwest,’ he said, his face tight with anger.

  A long moaning cry came from the bedroom off the kitchen. Quickly Sundance drew his Colt and pushed open the door. A middle-aged man in a red shirt lay crouched against the wall under the window. His eyes were closed and he was trembling with fear.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sundance said quietly. ‘They won’t be back. Open your eyes now and tell us what happened. Stand up.’

  The man opened his eyes, but Sundance had to help him to his feet, then onto a chair. His eyes were glazed with shock. ‘All dead, everybody dead,’ he said in English. He sounded like he came from some part of Texas. ‘My whole family dead in a few minutes. After all the years—dead in a few minutes.’ He broke off and began to shake.

  ‘See if you can find something to drink,’ Sundance told Jorge.

  In the kitchen there was nothing, but Jorge went out to the front yard and found a bottle with a few swallows in it. He brought it back. Sundance uncorked it and held it to the man’s mouth. It was then that he seemed to see Sundance for the first time. His eyes blazed with fury and his strong, freckled hands came up like claws.

  ‘You rotten murdering Comanchero!’ he screamed. He tried to get at Sundance’s eyes with his thick fingernails. Sundance grabbed his wrists and forced them down by his sides. He had to shout to make the crazed man listen. ‘We’re not with the raiders! Listen, do you understand what I’m telling you? We had nothing to do with it!’

  Slowly the rancher relaxed and Sundance made him drink the rest of the whiskey. Now he sat up straighter in the chair, and the shake in his hands had gone. His voice was heavy, without any feeling in it.

  ‘They came riding in from nowhere. No time to do anything. The old man out there dead is my father, the three girls are my daughters. My little girls ...’

  Sundance waited. Jorge’s hands were clenched by his sides. Now and then he muttered something in Spanish.

  ‘Please go on, sir,’ Sundance said.

  ‘My woman is dead, seven years now,’ the rancher said. ‘Janey and me came down here to Sonora twenty years ago. The government deeded us a nice piece of land and we stayed on, built up this place. Good horse country. I tell you they came in so fast wasn’t a thing I could do. Never had any Indian trouble in these parts and the Rurales ran off the bandits pretty good. So no special need for guns. My old man was out by the corral, tried to run for the house, was arrowed down in his tracks. I was running for the house and I could hear my girls screaming. I didn’t get to the house, not then. Something—a rifle butt probably—caught me in the back of the head. Not a real hard blow, more like a stunning blow. I was crawling into the house and I could hear them raping and killing my girls. They were yelling—in Spanish and some other Indian talk. The Apaches were yelling in Spanish, the rest of the savages in I don’t know what. There were halfbreed Comancheros. One of the Comancheros raised his pistol to shoot me in the face, then this other halfbreed in a silver-decorated sombrero knocked the gun to one side. Then as quick as they came they were gone. Oh Jesus! Sweet Jesus Christ! My whole family wiped out!’

  ‘Would you know any of them if you saw them again?’ Jorge asked.

  The rancher shook his head, then his eyes widened, ‘I’d know that silver-decorated sombrero. Silver stitching around the whole brim and crown. Never saw one like it. I never did get a good look
at his face. Everything was going on at the same time.’

  Sundance helped the man to stand up. ‘I’m all right now,’ he said, sounding far from all right. ‘I’ve got to see to my people—what’s there left to do but to bury them alongside Janey? Why didn’t they kill me too? Then the whole family would rest together. What do they call you men, by the way?’

  They all said their names. J. T. Flowers was the rancher’s name, originally from the Big Bend country of Texas. ‘Thank you for the kind offer of your help,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t seem right—no offense—to let strangers see to my people. I’ll bury them and read over them. That done, I can’t say what I’ll do.’

  Sundance said, ‘We’re headed for Meseta. But we can stay awhile if you like.’

  Flowers shook his head. ‘What good would it to? I’m going to be alone anyhow. I guess you better tell the Rurales captain what happened out here. Maybe he can track down these renegades. Doesn’t make much difference—my family’s gone away.’

  By the time they rode away J. T. Flowers was already sawing boards to make coffins for his murdered family. Soon the lonesome sound was lost in the vastness of the land and sky. Jorge remained silent for a long time, then he looked at Sundance with questions in his eyes.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ Sundance said. ‘That was no real war party that attacked the ranch. They never would have killed three pretty girls and left the father alive.

  They would have taken the girls and made them squaws. I’ve seen it too often to doubt it. They let the father live because they wanted him to tell his story. They murdered the girls to make it look as bad as it could be. The grandfather didn’t count either way. It’s Bannerman’s men sure enough.’

  Jorge’s voice was calm at last. ‘You know he has to die for this.’

  ‘I think he will at some point, but for now we’ll go ahead and telegraph General Crook. You’ll still travel to Mexico City to see Diaz. But yes, you’re right. In the end, after all the talking is done, I don’t see any other way of ending it except to kill Bannerman. It’s one of those facts that can’t be avoided. Even so, you give your law a fair try.’

  Jorge took off his hat and fanned some of the wetness out of it in the hot sunlight. It began to steam. ‘You think I’m wrong, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t that, old friend,’ Sundance said. ‘Like we talked about back in Las Piedras. How I feel doesn’t count unless the law fails you. Bannerman has caused so much pain to so many poor people.’

  ‘What you’re saying is, even if I win against him, you’re still going to kill him?’

  ‘It’s something I keep thinking about.’

  Another two hours took them into the town of Meseta. The railroad that snaked across Chihuahua from El Paso and then into Sonora ended at Meseta. The town was joined to other towns in Northern Mexico and the Southwest. The town had the important air of a town that was going places. Nearby there were silver mines and big horse ranches. There were as many Americans in town as there were Mexicans. The telegraph office was at the El Paso & North Mexican Railroad depot at the north end of the main street. They could hear the clicking of the telegraph key as they came close to the open window. The air was thick with gray dust kicked up by horses and ore wagons. At the depot, Mexican infantrymen with carelessly slung rifles stood waiting to board a northbound train.

  ‘What about the Rurales?’ Jorge asked.

  ‘You do it while I send the message to Crook. Then we’ll get something to eat and wait for an answer to come in. It’s going to be a long message.’

  Sundance had to use two message blanks to finish all he wanted to write. Then he had to wait behind two drummers for ten minutes. He paid the telegrapher and walked around the depot until Jorge got back.

  ‘What happened?’ Sundance asked.

  ‘The captain of Rurales wrote it all down. He got all worked up when he heard how close it was to Meseta. He was yelling for his aide when I left. It’ll be all over town in fifteen minutes.’

  After they ate two stringy steaks in a place kept by a Chinaman, they idled back to the depot and had to wait nearly two hours for the reply from Crook. It read:

  HAVE ALREADY TELEGRAPHED OLD FRIEND WAR MINISTER FRANCISCO FIMBRES IN MEXICO CITY. WILL USE HIS INFLUENCE WITH PRESIDENT TO OBTAIN INTERVIEW FOR CALDERON SOON AS POSSIBLE. HAVE ALSO TELEGRAPHED FIMBRES ABOUT COLONEL ALMIRANTE AT LAS PIEDRAS. SUGGESTED STRONG REPRIMAND OR DISMISSAL FROM ARMY. HOPE TO BE IN LAS PIEDRAS WITHIN WEEK. TELL CALDERON GOOD LUCK. CROOK.

  While they were reading the message again, Sundance looked up to see a squat man in a silver sombrero watching them from inside the crowded waiting room of the depot. His face was brutal and flat, and he wore crossed gunbelts heavily looped with bullets. Like the hat, the twin gun-rig was decorated with fine silver wire, and his arms hung down straight from sloping shoulders. His arms were short so the crossed gunbelts were hitched up high. Sunlight glinted on the nickeled barrels of twin single-action .45 Colts. Sundance didn’t take time to look at the killer’s boots, but guessed they were as fancy as the rest of him.

  Jorge hadn’t seen him, so Sundance said quietly, smiling while he said it, ‘The man with the silver sombrero is watching us from inside the depot. I don’t see the rest of them, but they’re probably around with the warpaint washed off. I have a hunch we’re going to have company on the way back to Las Piedras.’

  ‘What about the Rurales?’

  ‘By this time they’re out beating the bushes. We’re going to have to do this by ourselves. Come on now. We’re going to walk away from here and wait till it’s close to dark. Then we’ll move out for Las Piedras. They may try in town here, but I don’t think so. It’ll be on the road home. I don’t think the gent in the silver hat knows I’ve spotted him.’

  Sundance and Jorge walked down to a bar called The Texas House. A smaller sign said: “Welcome to the gentlemen of the Talcott Mining Company.” Jorge had a bottle of cold gaseosa, a purple drink much favored all over Mexico by women and children. ‘This slop is enough to make a man start drinking again,’ Jorge said, sipping at his drink.

  Sundance ordered a bottle of beer, and just sipped at it. Against the back wall of the saloon was a free lunch counter with soggy pickles and hot peppers. While they were talking, an Apache with his hair cut short, in white man’s clothes, came in and stood in front of the lunch counter. He was wearing a loose canvas coat, a miner’s coat, but Sundance spotted the slight bulge of the pistol belted underneath. After a while the civilized Apache came to the bar, bought a mug of beer and took his time about drinking it.

  ‘I think I’ve spotted another of the raiders,’ Sundance said quietly. ‘He’s right behind you, don’t turn around.’

  Not much later the Apache finished his beer and went out. It was eight o’clock now. In another hour it would start to get dark. ‘What’re we going to do?’ Jorge wanted to know. They hadn’t talked about it because the Apache had been there for so long.

  Sundance smiled bitterly. ‘We’re going to trip them up when they start after us like the hammers of hell. But we’ll have to find the right place, and even then it might not work. That hombre with the silver hat looks like he knows a few tricks.’

  ‘What’s the trick?’ Jorge asked, making a sour face as he drank what was left of the gaseosa.

  ‘Just because you paid for it doesn’t mean you have to drink it,’ Sundance said. ‘The trick is we put some distance between the raiders and us. It has to be just a little time into dusk. It can’t be too light or too dark. If it’s too light, they’ll see the rope stretched across the road. If it’s too dark, we won’t be able to see to kill them.’

  Jorge nodded. ‘I am thinking of those lovely young girls they raped and murdered. If I can get close enough to some of them, I will use the knife. It will be a pleasure to emasculate them.’

  ‘Forget that, Jorge. Just do your best to kill them and that will do fine. You don’t want to turn into a savage yourself.’

  He to
ld Jorge how he had castrated and killed the men who had raped and murdered his Cheyenne mother and later his father. ‘I turned into a savage for awhile and I still think about it.’

  ‘I would think about it with much enjoyment. I would see it as a fond memory.’

  They used up the rest of the time talking about Crook’s telegraph and what Jorge would do when he arrived in Mexico to see President Diaz. Jorge did not like Diaz and said so. Sundance had to warn him to be quiet.

  ‘He betrayed the revolution, and the people are as poor as they were under the Spanish and the French.’

  Sundance said, ‘He’s the man with the power—you don’t have to love him. Come on, you patriot, it’s time to leave.’

  Twelve

  On the way out of town Sundance said, after thinking about it, ‘There’s a good place about a mile this side of where the Flowers family was massacred. Plenty of ironwoods on both sides of the road. It all depends on how much we have to get set for them. We don’t need much time, but we need some. What have you got there?’

  Reaching down, Jorge had taken a thin-bladed knife with an ebony handle from his boot. The long blade glittered in the dying light. ‘You don’t remember this knife? The night we went to get the American rifles at Vera Cruz and I had to kill the French sentry?’

  ‘Put it away. I remember that knife. I’m surprised you still have it after all this time.’

  They were getting to the outskirts of the bustling town. Jorge slid the knife into his boot beside his leg. ‘It’s a good knife. All these years it has been used for nothing but peeling apples.’

  ‘Then save it for that. Set your animal to moving a little faster. We have to time this right, or it won’t go so good for us. Flowers said he thought there were at least six of them. That’s enough to have to take on at one time. And there may be more than six.’

  They left the last of the town behind, traveling at a fair clip. It was about fifteen miles out to the Flowers ranch and the light was going fast. A few miles out Sundance looked back when he topped a hill. He saw them coming fast from about a mile back.