Lando (1962)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 08

  It was the Tinker.

  Without turning my head, I picked up my bottle of beer and emptied the rest of it into my glass. “Another,” I said, gesturing.

  “I saw them,” I added, “at the rail. They are fit for buzzards.”

  “They are good horses,” The Tinker protested. “I had not considered selling them until you spoke. The buckskin … there is a horse!”

  “I’ll give you eight dollars for him,” I said, and tasted my beer.

  For half an hour we argued and debated back and forth. Finally I said, “All right, twelve dollars for the buckskin, fifteen for the bay—the paint I do not want.”

  The Tinker and his silent companion, at whom I had not dared to look for fear of drawing attention to him, seemed to be growing drunk. The Tinker clapped me on the shoulder. “You are a good man,” he said drunkenly, “a very good man! You need the horses—all right, I shall sell you the horses. You may have all three for forty dollars and a good meal … it is my last price.”

  I shrugged. “All right—but if you want the meal, come to camp. Forty dollars is all the money I have.”

  There on the bar I paid it to him in pesos, and we walked outside, the Tinker talking drunkenly. The Herrara man’s eyes were drilling into my back.

  “He’s watching us,” the Tinker said as I stopped to look over the horses.

  Straightening up, I looked into the eyes of the other man—Jonas Locklear.

  “Cortina had me turned loose,” he said, “on condition I get out of the country. He didn’t want Herrara to know for the present.”

  Mounting up, we rode swiftly from the town.

  By the time we reached camp it was near to sunset.

  Pa was up, had a gun strapped on that Miguel had taken from our gear, and he was watching the sun.

  “The only place they can watch us from,” he said, “is that dune. It looks over the whole country around here. It’s over seventy feet high, and in this country that’s a mountain—along the coast, that is. If we wait about ten or fifteen minutes, the sun will be shining right in the eyes of anybody watching from that dune. That’s when we’ll go for the gold.”

  We now mustered six rifles, a good force by anybody’s count, for Gin could shoot—or said she could, and I believed her.

  We made beds ready, built up the fire, and put coffee on, and grub. Miguel was cooking.

  When the sun got low enough, Pa, the Tinker and me took a few canvas bags we’d brought along a-purpose, andwith two steers we headed off into the brush. One of the steers showed old marks that looked like he’d been used as a draft animal sometime in the past. Both were easily handled.

  As we walked, pa said, “I dove for this gold, got it out of the sand on the bottom. Most of the hull is still intact, and most of the gold will be inside, but I brought up enough to make it pay.

  We’ll take this and run; then we’ll wait for things to simmer down, and come back.”

  Then pa told us some about how things were in Mexico. Right about this time Cortina had gathered a lot of power to him, but he was dependent on some of the lieutenants he had, of whom Herrara was one. The situation was changing rapidly, and it had changed several times over in the period of the last thirty years. Even in the last six or seven years there had been power shifts and changes, and changing relationships with the United States.

  Not many years before, a Mexican cavalry detachment had crossed the border to protect Brownsville from a Mexican bandit, a fact known to few Americans except those in the immediate vicinity.

  In the northern provinces of Mexico there was much division of feeling as to the United States, and the northern country had many friends south of the border. North of the border many citizens of Mexican extraction had fought against Mexico for Texas. It was difficult to draw a line, and there was a constant struggle in process for power below the border.

  Pa told me some of this, and some I’d had from Jonas while riding south when there had been time to talk.

  Pa led us in such a way as to keep bushes between us and the dune he thought was the lookout post, until we arrived right down on the shore of the inlet. There on the point, right where I’d planned to look, there was where pa stopped.

  “The ship,” he said to me, “lies off there, in no more than five fathoms of water.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the sun, then stooped and took hold of a tuft of grass and pulled on it; he caught hold of another bunch with the other hand. A big chunk of sod lifted out like a trap door, and in a hollowed-out place underneath was a tin pail and several cans, loaded with gold.

  There was no time to lose. Working as swiftly as we could, we sacked it up, for the sun was going down and in a few minutes we’d stand out like sore thumbs out there on that point. Tying the sacks two and two, we hung them over the backs of the steers, and then replaced the sod. We started back as if driving two straying steers.

  As darkness came we clustered around the fire, eating. Miguel and Jonas finished first and, mounting up, went out to circle the cattle. The rest of us went through the motions of going to bed. One by one the others moved off into the darkness, but Gin and me, we still sat by the fire and I stoked the flames a mite higher.

  “He’s quite a man,” she said suddenly.

  “Pa?”

  “Yes. I’ve never known anyone quite like him.”

  Me, I hadn’t anything to say. I didn’t know enough about my own father, and there’d been little time for talking. Also, as the time drew near we were getting worrisome about what we had to do.

  You bed down a bunch of steers and they’ll finally settle down to dozing and chewing their cuds; but after a while, close to midnight or about there, they’ll all stand up and stretch, crop grass a bit, and then lie down again. That was the time we picked to move them—catch them on their feet so there’d be less disturbance.

  Finally we left the fire, adding some more fuel.

  I rigged some branches nearby so they’d sort of fall into the fire as others burned, giving anybody watching an idea the fire was being fed, time to time.

  Away from the firelight, I moved up to my dun in the darkness and tightened the cinch. “You got it in you to run,” I said, “you better have at it tonight.”

  We waited … and we waited. And those fool steers, they just lay there chewing and sleeping. Then, of a sudden, an old range cow stood up. In a minute or two there were a dozen on their feet, and then more.

  Moving mighty easy, we started to push them.

  Miguel was off to one side to get them started north, and Jonas had gone up the other side.

  We pushed them, and a few of them began, reluctantly, to move out. It took us a while to get them started and lined out, and we did it without any shouting or hollering.

  We walked them easy for about a mile, then we began to move them a little faster. Not until we had about three miles behind us did we give it to them.

  It was a wild ride. I’ll say this for Gin, she was right in there with us, riding side-saddle as always, but riding like any puncher and doing her job.

  Only I noticed she was keeping an eye on pa, too.

  It made me sore, only I didn’t want to admit it. I told myself somebody had to keep an eye on him, the shape he was in. Nevertheless, I was a mite jealous, too. I reckon it’s the male in a man … he sees a pretty woman like that and wants to latch onto her. She was a good bit older than me, of course, though a whole sight younger than pa.

  We had those cattle lined out and we kept them going. After a ways we’d slow down to give them a breather, but not so slow that they could get to thinking what was happening to them. Then we’d speed them up a little. After six miles or so, the Tinker, he swung in beside me. “We’d best hang back, you and me,” he said, “sort of a rear guard.”

  The night wore on.

  Once when we came up to water we let them line out along the creek bank and drink. We had ten miles behind us then, but by daybreak we hoped to have a few more, because it wouldn�
��t take free-riding horsemen long to catch up, and when they did there’d be hell to pay.

  We had managed to keep in sight those steers carrying the gold. We’d lashed that gold in place, throwing a good packing hitch over it, and there was small danger of it falling off—nevertheless, somebody always had an eye on that gold.

  The dark skies began to gray. We were more than half way there, but we still had miles to go. The cattle had slowed to a walk. They’d have been plenty angry if they hadn’t been so tired.

  Pa looked awful. His face was drawn and pale, but he was riding as well as any of us. His eyes were sunk into his skull, and they looked bigger than anybody’s eyes should.

  We pushed on, walking them now, trying to create no more dust than we had to.

  There was a place east of Matamoras where it looked like the border swung further south, and so would be nearer to us. We turned the herd that way, skirting a sort of lake or tidewater pool.

  It was just shy of noon and we were within five or six miles of the border when they came at us.

  It was about that time, just before they hit us, that I had my brain-storm. It came to me of a sudden and, saying nothing to anyone but the Tinker, I rode up to Gin.

  “Look, you and pa take those two steers and you move out ahead. If we have to make a fight of it, we’ll do it better without having to think of you.”

  “I can fight,” pa said.

  His looks shocked me, and he was coughing a lot and his forehead was wet with sweat. His cheeks were a sickly white, but I was sure he was carrying a lot of fever in him.

  “Do like I say,” I insisted. “You two light out and head for the border. If we have to, we’ll make a fight of it and cover for you. With that money, you can help us out if we should get caught.”

  “If you aren’t killed,” pa said.

  “I’m too durned ornery to die,” I said.

  “Anyway, we got to go back to Tennessee and talk to Caffrey, you and me together.”

  Gin convinced him, and they taken those two steers and drove them off ahead of the herd.

  They hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when we saw that dust cloud come a-helling up the road after us. The Tinker and me, we just looked at each other, and then the lead began to come our way. I was sort of glad, for I’d not wish to start shooting at folks when I ain’t sure of their plans.

  That old Henry came up to my shoulder sweet and pretty, and my first shot taken a man right out of the saddle. At least, I think it was my shot.

  We both fired, and then we turned tail and got away from there, racing past the herd like Jonas and Miguel were doing.

  We started to swing the herd and in no time at all had them turned between us and those men after us. We tried to stampede them back into those fellows, but only a few of them started—the rest were too almighty confused.

  All of us were shooting, riding and shooting, and then they cut around both sides of the herd at us and our horses were too blown to run. We made our fight right there.

  Dropping off my horse, I swung him around and shot across the saddle. There were guns going off all around me, and I’d no time to be scared. his’Lando!” the Tinker shouted, and grabbed at me. “Ride and run!”

  Both of us jumped for the saddle, and as we did so I saw a man wearing a black suit come out of that bunch. He had a shotgun in his hands, and as Jonas turned toward his horse he let him have both barrels.

  Miguel was down, and now Jonas, and it needed no sawbones to tell me Jonas was dead. Before I could more than try a shot at that rider in the black suit, he was gone.

  But not until I’d seen him.

  It was Franklyn Deckrow. The Tinker had seen him, too.

  We lit out. We were running all out when I felt my horse bunch up under me, and then he went head over heels into the sand, pitching me wide over his head.

  Last I saw was the Tinker giving one wild glance my way, and then he was racing away.

  From that look on his face, I was sure he figured me for a dead man.

  Reaching out, I grabbed for my Henry, which had fallen from my hand. A boot came down hard on my knuckles, and when I looked up Antonio Herrara was looking down at me. And from the expression of those flat black eyes, I knew I’d bought myself some trouble.

  It was going to be a long time before I saw Texas again … if ever.

  Chapter Eight.

  The bitter days edged slowly by, and weeks passed into years, and then the years were gone, and still I remained a prisoner.

  By day I worked like the slave I’d become, and was fed like an animal, and by night I slept on a bed of filthy straw and dreamed of a day when I would be free.

  Always I was alone, alone within the hollow shell of my mind, for outside the small world in which I lived with labor, sweat, and frightful heat, no one knew that I lived, nor was there anyone about me to whom I could talk.

  The others with whom I worked were Indians–

  Yaquis brought to this place from Sonora, men self-contained and bitter as I, yet knowing nothing of me, nor trusting anyone beyond their own small group.

  A thousand times I planned escape, a thousand times the plans crumbled. Doors that seemed about to open for me remained closed, guards who showed weakness were replaced. My hands became curved to grip the handles of pick, shovel, or mattock. My shoulders bulged with muscle put there by swinging a heavy sledge. Naturally of great strength, each day of work made it greater, building roads, working in the mines, clearing mesquite-covered ground.

  Sometimes alone in my rock-walled cell I thought back to that first day when, in a square adobe room, I was questioned by Herrara. My wrists bound cruelly tight, I stood before him.

  He stood with his feet apart, his sombrero tipped back, and those flat black eyes looked into mine. He smiled then, showing even white teeth; he was a handsome man in a savage way.

  “You put a gun upon me,” he said, and struck me across the face with his quirt.

  It was the beginning of pain.

  “There is gold. Tell me where it is, and you may yet go free.”

  He lied … he had no thought to let me go, only to see me suffer and die.

  “The gold is gone. They took it with them.”

  “I think you lie,” he said and, almost negligently, he lashed me again across the face with the quirt, and the lash cut deep. I tasted my blood upon my cut lips, and I knew the beginning of hatred.

  That was the beginning of questioning, but only the beginning.

  There was gold. He knew it and was hungry for it, as the others had been before him. The original commandant, whose name I never knew, had been his uncle. In the telling, the amount of gold supposedly hidden on the shore had grown to a vast amount.

  To tell him was to die, and I lived to kill him, so I told him nothing. After each questioning I was taken to a cell and left there, and each time I feared I would die; but deep within me the days tempered a kind of steel I had not known was there.

  Herrara I would remember, and another man, too. I would remember Franklyn Deckrow, who had betrayed us to them, and who had killed Jonas, his brother-in-law. It was something to live for.

  And I would live. No matter what, I would survive so that these men might die.

  No help could come to me, for they believed me dead. Jonas had fallen, and Miguel too, although he might have somehow gotten away. They had forced me to bury Jonas, but Miguel’s body was nowhere around. I hoped for him. But the Tinker had looked back and seen me lying there, and I knew he believed me dead.

  Suddenly, one night, I was moved. Out of a sound sleep I was shaken awake, jerked to my feet and led away. Herrara rode beside me.

  “Your friends do not give up,” he said, “and they have powerful friends in Mexico, so we must take you where you will never be found.”

  The place to which they took me was a ranch owned by an outlaw named Flores, an outlaw who raided Texas ranches for their stock and so was ignored by the law of the province.

 
Duty called Herrara away to the south, so the beatings ended, but I was put to work among the Yaqui slaves. Most of the Yaqui prisoners had been sent away to work in the humid south where they soon died. Only a few were kept in the north.

  The work was preferable to the cell, and I gloried in my growing strength. We were fed corn and frijoles and good beef, all of which was cheap enough, and they wanted my strength for the work I could do.

  A dozen times I tried to smuggle messages across the border. Twice they were found and I was beaten brutally.

  “Tell me,” Herrara said to me on one of his sudden visits, “tell me where is the gold and you shall have a horse and your freedom.” But I did not tell.

  Herrara had become powerful. The outlaws supported him and he protected them and derived income from their raids into Texas. Night after night men rode away from the Flores ranch and raided over the border, returning with cattle, horses, and women.

  No other Mexican came to the ranch to visit, and I gathered the outlaws were hated by those who lived nearby, but they were people cut off from authority who could do nothing.

  When I looked down at my hands, I saw them calloused and scarred, but powerful. My shoulders and arms were heavy with muscle, and my mind sharpened by endless observation and planning, was cunning as an animal’s is cunning.

  No day passed without its plan for escape, no possible opportunity went unnoticed by me.

  Always my senses were alert for the moment.

  Then came another Herrara visit. The heavy oaken door grated against the stone, and he stepped inside. He held a pistol and a heavy whip, the cat-o’-nine-tails which is used aboard ship.

  Behind him in the doorway were two men with guns.

  “It is the end,” he said. “I shall wait no longer. Tonight you will tell me, for if you do not, these”

  —he held up the whip—?w take out your eyes.”

  The cat hung from his hand by its stubby wooden handle, and from its end dangled nine strips of rawhide, each with a tip wrapped in wire. It was a whip that could cut a man to ribbons, or bite at his eyes, cutting them from his head in a bloody mess.