by Steve Hayes
As he smoked, to keep his mind off Ellie he idly toyed with his Peacemaker, spinning the cylinder and twirling the heavy single-action Colt around on his forefinger. The .45 had fancy ebony grips which were worn smooth from constant use, so smooth he could barely make out the initials M. J. engraved on them.
Mesquite Jennings, he thought wryly. How the hell did he ever come up with a dime-novel name like that? He chuckled, more from disgust than amusement, and tucked the gun back in its holster. After crossing the border and isolating himself in the cabin, he’d never expected to use it again. He’d also felt that by burying the gun he was burying his past. But, as he had learned so often over the years, gunmen with a price on their head seldom got to bury their past or choose their own future.
Resting his head on his saddle, he gazed up at the dark clouds that were gathering overhead. Luck was with him, he realized. Without a moon, anyone passing would not see him hidden among the rocks.
Somewhere, far off, a mountain lion screamed.
It was the last thing he remembered before falling asleep.
He woke up before dawn broke. A dense white mist had descended from the mountains, shrouding everything. Its cold dampness made him shiver. Still huddled under his blanket he listened for a moment, trying to pick up any threatening sound. All he heard was silence. He pulled on his boots, stamped a few times to get his blood going, then relieved himself behind a rock before saddling the stallion.
Oh, Lord, what he wouldn’t do for a cup of hot coffee!
He tied his bedroll behind the saddle and went to put his boot in the stirrup. But the horse suddenly shied away and Gabriel went sprawling. Cursing, he slapped the stallion on the rump until it backed up in between two rocks. Then he tried again. The Morgan twitched a few times and cow-kicked, but made no attempt to buck him off.
‘I’m probably givin’ you too much credit,’ Gabriel told it, ‘but if that was payback for me whackin’ you with the rifle, we’re even now. So don’t give me any more crap.’
Pissed off because of the way the day had begun, he cut his last cigar in half, lit it and tried to enjoy it as he rode up into the mountains.
Usually, the higher the elevation the thicker the mist. Today the world was upside down and after a few hours he broke through the mist and found himself following a narrow trail that curved sharply up between dense patches of green shrubs and bushes. Ahead, much higher, dense oak and pine forests clung precariously to the increasingly steep rocky slopes.
He craned his neck and looked up at the rugged peaks that surrounded him on all sides. Silhouetted against the pale blue sky they looked so wild and majestic that normally they would have taken his breath away. But today his mind was on Ellie, and how he must find her quickly, and the scenery had no effect on him.
The trail climbed ever upward. As if to match it the brilliant sun climbed higher in the sky. Gabriel felt its heat through his hat. He closed his eyes and dozed, trusting the stallion to find the easiest way through the mountains.
He must have fallen asleep in the saddle because the next thing he knew the Morgan stopped so suddenly that he was thrown against its muscular arched neck.
Jolted awake, Gabriel looked over the stallion’s head – in time to see a green rat-snake slither across the trail.
‘Calm down, you big baby,’ he told the jittery horse. ‘It ain’t gonna bite you.’
The non-venomous constrictor disappeared into the bushes. Gabriel nudged the stallion forward and tried to go back to sleep. It was impossible. The trail had become so steep he had to cling onto the horn just to prevent himself from sliding backward out of the saddle.
They were high up now, and even the invincible Morgan began to labor in the thin air. Gabriel hated to push it beyond its limits, but every second was precious and he spurred the stallion onward.
Shortly after, they rounded a corner and Gabriel saw a large boulder blocking the trail. He grinned as if seeing an old friend. How about that, he thought. After all these years, and he’d found it like it was marked on a map.
He dismounted, and led the horse around the boulder. The trail was covered in loose shale, making it treacherous under foot. Several times the ground suddenly crumbled away causing Gabriel to stumble and almost lose his balance. Ahead, the trail became dangerously narrow in places and the outer edge of the cliff dropped straight down for 1,000 feet.
Gabriel kept his eyes fixed in front of him, leading the nervous stallion along a winding dirt path that cut through giant slab-sided rocks before disappearing into a wooded barranca.
Pausing at the mouth of the deep canyon, he stripped off his shirt and swapped it for one he took from the sack. This shirt was white and loose-fitting, like a poncho, and hung below his belt. He removed his hat, took out a red cloth and wrapped it around his head. Then he remounted, spurred the stallion forward and rode into the woods.
Soon he smelled burning pine needles. He slowed the horse to a walk. They passed under a large rocky overhang. Ahead, the tree-studded cliffs on either side of him were dotted with caves. Smoke curled out from some of them. And as Gabriel rode closer he glimpsed a white-clad figure holding a bow and a fistful of arrows, watching him from behind a rock.
Making sure his hands were not near his rifle or six-gun, he rode further into the canyon. Eyes watched him from various caves and rocks. Gabriel ignored them. Shortly, he reached a clear, shallow stream. He dismounted, knelt and drank from it. The stallion waded in and drank greedily. When Gabriel had quenched his thirst he sat hunkered on his heels and smoked the second half of his cigar.
Nothing stirred. High overhead two hawks circled, drifting effortlessly on thermals.
Gabriel waited patiently, slowly smoking the cigar down to the ash. Then he heard a faint movement behind him. He made no move to see who it was. A shadow passed across his face as a Tarahumara Indian shyly joined him. About Gabriel’s age but much smaller, he wore a poncho shirt hanging over his loose white pants, a red headband and huarache sandals. He sat cross-legged beside Gabriel but never once looked at him.
Moments later, two more similarly dressed Raramúri – The Runners as they call themselves – arrived. They didn’t look at him either. He ignored them and chewed on his cigar butt.
After a long wait their chief, Victoriano Guitierez, joined them. He was dressed like the others, except he wore a wraparound loin-cloth instead of pants and a colorful beaded belt around his waist. Under a red headband his long black hair was streaked with silver and his brown face was badly crinkled. But his eyes were still beaver-bright and his smile ageless. A lifetime of running up and down mountainsides had kept him lithe and graceful and he walked silently or, as their cousins the Pimas say ‘with air under his feet’.
Sitting opposite Gabriel, he said. ‘Welcome. It is good to see my White Brother again.’
‘You too, Victoriano….’ It had been ages since Gabriel had spoken Tarahumara, one of the many dialects of the Uto-Aztecan language, and he hoped he was pronouncing the words correctly.
‘We’ – Victoriano gestured toward the three-man council – ‘have long wondered what it was we said that offended you so badly you stayed away all these years.’
Remembering it was considered impolite to speak too quickly after another had spoken, Gabriel waited a moment before explaining that no one had offended him. On the contrary, he said, the Raramúri had sheltered him when he needed shelter, befriended him when he needed friends, and, above all, treated him with kindness and respect, making him feel like a man again. Pausing to let his words sink in, he then added that the reason he had not returned to see them until now was because for most of those years he had either been in prison or hiding from the law.
Victoriano and the council absorbed Gabriel’s words in solemn silence. Presently they nodded to each other as if agreeing to accept his explanation for his long absence.
‘We are pleased to hear you say this,’ Victoriano said to Gabriel. ‘Because to insult a guest, even unintentionall
y, brings great shame and dishonor to our people.’
Now that the ice had been broken Gabriel and the soft-spoken, reclusive Indians talked about everything from his previous stay with them to how poorly their crops had grown this year. Hunting too had been bad. Their finest trackers and distance runners had only run down six deer since the season of the hot sun began.
When Gabriel enquired whether there was any reason for the lack of game during summer, the council exchanged troubled looks, as if uneasy about answering his question.
‘Has my absence been so long,’ Gabriel asked them, ‘that my brothers can no longer tell me the truth?’
Victoriano spoke for the council. Ever since the Spanish arrived many centuries ago and tried to conquer them, he said, the Raramúri had been driven higher and higher into the Barranca del Cobre. But they had always remained free and supported themselves by hunting, farming and cattle rearing. Now, he added angrily, rumors of silver mines had lured hordes of whites and mestizos into the mountains, their need for fresh meat threatening to exterminate all the deer and other wild game.
When Gabriel asked Victoriano what the council planned to do about the invaders, the chief shrugged and replied, what could they do? Unlike the whites, who were more numerous than raindrops, the Raramúri could not afford to start an all-out war. For, regardless of the final outcome, the great loss of young men would make them losers.
‘No,’ he concluded bitterly, ‘war is not the answer for my people. We must avoid conflict at all costs.’
‘We shall move our families higher into the mountains,’ Luna Chacarito, the youngest council member, put in angrily, ‘as high as the Cloud Forests if necessary. For only that way will our women and children be safe from the guns of the whites and mestizos.’
There was a long silence. Gabriel hoped he wasn’t looking at a people facing extinction. He also hoped he could find a way to mention why he was there without offending them or making it seem like he was only there for his own benefit. The Raramúri were a generous, sensitive, giving people and expected little in return. But they were not stupid and knew when they were being used.
As if reading his mind, Victoriano said: ‘Enough about our pain. Why has my White Brother chosen this day to return to us?’
‘I need your help,’ Gabriel replied. He then explained about Ellen being kidnapped by bandits, adding that eventually he could track them down and perhaps find a way to rescue her. But this would take time, lots of time, and by then the woman might be dead or worse. But if he could use one of their expert trackers, he’d find her quickly and maybe still save her life.
Victoriano and the council nodded to show they understood his urgency, but no one spoke. Sensing they wanted to discuss the matter alone, Gabriel excused himself and sat on a rock while the Indians talked.
Above him, now that he’d been accepted, women in bright-colored sacklike tunics and long woolen skirts emerged from the caves with their children in tow. Gabriel recognized some of them and waved. They shyly acknowledged him and went about their daily chores.
Time dragged by. The Raramúri were a deliberate people and Gabriel knew better than to try to rush them.
At last the council discussion ended and Victoriano joined him. It was decided, he said. Their best tracker, Cerrildo, would go with Gabriel to help him find his woman. But before this could happen everyone had to participate in a special tesguinada. At the religious ceremony the men would consume large quantities of an extra-strong sugiki, allowing their spirits to roam free so they could persuade their God to look favorably upon Gabriel’s search.
Gabriel, who’d often gotten cockeyed drunk on maize beer when he’d stayed here before, wished he could start searching for Ellen at once. But there was no chance of that, not if he wanted Cerrildo to track for him. Tesguino, he knew, was as important to the Raramúri culture as astronomy was to the Mayans. So he unsaddled the stallion, left it loose, and accompanied Victoriano and the council up the steep rocky slope to the main cave.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The ceremonial drinking and dancing lasted until darkness. By then Victoriano’s wish had become true: most of the adults were falling-down drunk.
Gabriel wasn’t in much better shape. Bleary-eyed, he sat sprawled against a rock, numbly trying to focus on the shadowy figures stumbling around the blazing fire.
Presently one approached him. As the man’s round brown face swam into view, Gabriel realized it was the young tracker, Cerrildo.
‘Can you walk?’ he asked, prodding Gabriel with his bow.
Gabriel nodded and staggered to his feet. It was a struggle to pick up his saddle, but he eventually managed it and followed Cerrildo down the treacherously steep path that led to the base of the cliff.
He could have used a helping hand, but knew Cerrildo would consider it an insult to help him; so, slipping and stumbling, he kept going and somehow made it safely to the bottom. Here, he suffered a dizzy spell, preventing him from walking, and eventually had to throw up in the bushes before he could continue.
Cerrildo watched him in stoic amusement, waiting patiently while Gabriel groggily saddled up and got mounted. Then, at a dog-trot, the Indian led the way out of the canyon.
Except for two occasions when Gabriel had to stop to vomit, the threesome descended at the same effortless pace for about four hours. They were now on the lower slopes of the mountain and could see the shadowy peaks of the foothills below them in the distance.
During a pause Cerrildo told Gabriel that bandits rarely camped at the higher altitudes, but from here on they might run into them. He then asked Gabriel to wait while he checked the trail ahead, then vanished into the darkness.
Knowing that the Raramúri hunted deer by running them into exhaustion then slitting their throats, Gabriel crooked one leg over the saddle horn and prepared for a long wait.
The Morgan stirred restlessly under him and Gabriel sensed the horse was getting ready to buck him off.
‘You do,’ he warned, as if the stallion could understand him, ‘an’ so help me Hannah I’ll shoot you right between the ears.’
A half-hour passed. Then Cerrildo suddenly reappeared out of the brush. He could see a campfire in the hills several miles ahead, he said. Bandits? Gabriel asked him. Cerrildo shrugged and said it could be bandits, whites or mestizos. The only way to be sure was to get closer. Was his White Brother well enough to continue? Gabriel, who felt he had nothing left to throw up, nodded grimly and kicked the stallion into a nice easy lope.
The camp belonged to a party of white prospectors, veterans who had dug for gold and silver from Colorado to California to Mexico. Most of them were asleep in their tents, but a few sat passing a jug around the fire.
There was no sign of women, but Gabriel insisted on making sure Ellen wasn’t tied up in one of the tents before leaving. Sober now, though still queasy, he followed Cerrildo quietly through the brush to the edge of the camp. Then, unseen, they crept from tent to tent, peering under each flap until Gabriel was satisfied Ellen wasn’t a prisoner.
As they withdrew he felt a sense of moral obligation to his Indian friends. Once he and Cerrildo were safely out of the camp he suggested they try to drive the usurpers from the mountains.
Cerrildo beamed. He’d seen the carcasses of two deer hanging in the camp and at once thought of the hunger his people were enduring because of the prospectors. So, after wrapping grass around the shafts of two of his arrows, he set fire to them and shot them into the nearest tents.
The fire quickly spread to the other tents, driving out the men sleeping inside. In moments the camp was in an uproar. Gabriel helped increase the panic by firing shots above the prospectors’ heads.
There were only a dozen men, he thought, as he and Cerrildo watched the prospectors fleeing. But what the hell, it was a start.
Disappointed that he hadn’t found Ellen, Gabriel rode through the night behind the tireless Indian.
By dawn they had cleared the mountains and from a hill
top trail could see the desert sprawled out below them. It changed colors as the rising sun slowly traveled across the sky, turning into a vast pastel emptiness that stretched to the distant horizon.
When the sun was directly overhead, signaling noon, they found shade under a rocky overhang. Sweating, Gabriel poured water from his canteen into the crown of his campaign hat and let the stallion drink. Then, while it fed on nearby shrubs, he and Cerrildo quenched their thirst and ate a handful of dried maize. When they were finished they moved on, deeper into the hills.
The day passed without any sign of bandits. The sun slid below the rugged skyline. Dusk arrived and with it swarms of mosquitoes. Gabriel’s frustration mounted. If they didn’t find Ellen soon, the bandits might tire of her and….
Ahead, Cerrildo motioned for Gabriel to stop, and knelt down to examine the trail.
Gabriel’s pulse quickened. No slouch as a tracker himself, he saw nothing in the sandy dirt and dismounted to get a closer look. But Cerrildo waved him back and held up both hands followed by one finger. Gabriel nodded to show he understood that eleven riders had passed this way.
‘Bandits?’ he mouthed. Cerrildo nodded. Gabriel then mimed: ‘which way?’ and the tracker pointed down the hill to his left, indicating a wooded canyon below them.
Even as Gabriel looked smoke spiraled up from the treetops. At the same time he heard raucous laughter.
‘The woman,’ he whispered, ‘is she with them?’
The Indian shrugged. Waving Gabriel closer, he pointed at one set of tracks. Hunkering down, Gabriel noticed the imprints were slightly deeper than the others and nodded to show he understood: this horse carried extra weight, possibly two riders – one of which might be Ellen.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They followed the winding trail down through the dense brush into the canyon. Luck seemed to be with them. The bandits apparently felt safe enough not to post sentries and Gabriel and Cerrildo got within thirty yards of the camp without being detected. The Indian then indicated that they should go the rest of the way on foot.
