Sidewinder

by Jory Sherman

  The water hissed and went out, having no effect on the flames. Carlos backed off the porch and ran back to the well. By then, both bunkhouses were smoking, and fire was crawling through cracks and climbing the outside walls. The roofs caught on fire. He threw the bucket down beside the well, knowing it was hopeless. All he could do was watch the houses burn.

  He did not know whether the fire generated the wind or if the wind came out of the high peaks and fanned the flames, but the fires whipped and lashed the houses, and Carlos watched them crumble one by one, until only the brick chimneys were standing. Smoke filled the air and rose up high in the sky in black and white columns. Then the wind died down and the smoky spires seemed to hang in the air as if they were made of granite. It was a horrible sight to see, and Carlos almost broke into tears.

  He stood there, covered with soot and ashes, his face smeared with dirt, his skin pocked with ant bites, and looked down at his boots and his trousers.

  This was all he had in the world now, just the clothes on his back.

  Then, he remembered his hat, up in the timber, in that miserable hole where the ants swarmed.

  He walked slowly up the slope and into the timber.

  His hat was covered with red ants. He reached down and gingerly picked up the crushed remains of his hat. He shook all the ants off, slapped the felt against his trouser legs. When he was satisfied that he had gotten all the ants off, he tried to get the crown back in shape. When he smoothed it, he put his hat on, squared it up, and walked back down to the smoldering buildings.

  It was then that Carlos wept.

  TWENTY

  Brad and Julio broke camp at dawn, when the sky was a pale wash of blue and all the stars were gone. The moon was a skeletal ghost hanging desolate in the far reaches of the horizon like some remnant of a distant world.

  “You are pushing it, Brad,” Julio said, rising from his bedroll. “The horses are tired. I am tired. Do we break our fast this morning?”

  Brad knew he was pushing it. They hadn’t had breakfast since they left the Arapaho village, and they had chewed on hardtack and stale jerky the past two days. The horses were tired, and so was he. But he missed Felicity and wanted to get back home. There was that matter of horse tracks down by the creek. And just Pilar, Felicity, and Carlos to keep an eye on things.

  “No, Julio. We can be home by noon if we don’t dawdle.”

  “It will be there a half hour after the noon.”

  “Shake a leg. Ginger’s already under saddle.”

  Julio stood up and stretched. Brad was standing next to his horse, feeding the gelding grain out of his hand. Every bone in Julio’s body ached after sleeping on the hard ground two nights in a row, and his stomach was pressing against his backbone. He rolled up his blanket after shaking it out, tied it to the back of his saddle. He picked up the saddle blanket and lay it on Chato’s back. He swung the saddle up and bent over to grab a cinch strap. He squared the saddle atop the blanket and began hitching up, trying to ignore the gnawing in his stomach, the desire for coffee strong enough to open his eyes and keep them open.

  Brad climbed aboard Ginger and waited for Julio to finish cinching up, slide his rifle back in its boot. Brad flexed his arms and pumped his legs up and down in the stirrups. He, too, was stiff and sore, and wanted coffee, eggs, bacon, anything that Felicity might cook. But they did not have far to go, and he could wait for a hot, sit-down meal with the woman he loved. And missed dearly.

  He touched the bulge in his belt. The gold. At least he could make her eyes light up with the dust. That was the only reason he had gone and left her.

  But he vowed he would never leave her again for so long a ride.

  They rode into the dawn with its peach and salmon sky, gilded clouds, and fresh snowy air blown down from the high ermine-capped peaks. Brad found renewed energy in the morning and zest for the coming day. Ginger’s every stride was bringing him closer to home.

  “What do you think that old Arapaho brave meant when he said to you that you had ‘shoot in your eyes,’ Brad?” Julio said.

  “I don’t know,” Brad said.

  “I do.”

  “Yeah? What was that?”

  “I have seen that look before. When you drew your pistol and cocked it, you were ready to kill that brave.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ah, no maybe about it,” Julio said. “That man was a centimeter from death.”

  “It was close.”

  “I saw the look. The ‘shoot’ look. You had it when that brown bear mauled one of the newborn calves last spring, remember?”

  “I remember. Close call for the calf.”

  “You tried to chase the bear away.”

  “I tried.”

  “Then the bear came at you. You drew your pistol. Like lightning. And I saw that look. I think the bear saw it, too.”

  “The bear kept coming,” Brad said.

  “And you shot it. Right between the eyes. The bear fell right where you stood.”

  “Lucky shot.”

  “There is luck, yes,” Julio said. “And skill. And that shoot look I saw in your eyes. Gave me the chilblains.”

  “I had to shoot the bear.”

  “You might have had to shoot the Arapaho, too.”

  “More luck for the brave.”

  “And for me. They would have shot arrows into our hearts I think.”

  “Julio, you think too damned much sometimes.”

  “To think is good, is it not?”

  Brad laughed.

  “Sometimes,” he admitted.

  The land looked different now than it had on the drive. Brad saw the same landmarks, but from a different perspective. It seemed he had never ridden this way before, at times, but he was sure of the trail. As he rode, he figured backward, estimating the time it would take to get back home. He chewed on hardtack and stale jerky to stop the rumbling in his stomach. He looked at the fair sky and saw nothing but blue and the white of clouds. Rabbits broke cover and hawks plied the sky looking for small rodents or quail. He heard them cry, their high-pitched whistles piercing the air, and there were quail calling out danger when the hawk’s shadow passed over them.

  Brad smelled woodsmoke a few minutes before he saw it. He and Julio were on the last stages of their return journey when the smell wafted through the trees and assailed his nostrils, stinging the membrane inside his nose, descending into his throat and choking him.

  “Smell that?” Brad said to Julio.

  Julio lifted his drooping head slightly and sniffed, crinkling his nose. He had been dozing, so tired he cared little where they were or how far they had to go.

  “Smells like smoke,” he said.

  “Woodsmoke.”

  “Yes, that is what I smell.”

  Brad and Julio, both, like anyone who had lived in the mountains for a time, were very wary of fire. So many timber fires had been started by a streak of lightning or careless hunters. Brad had seen hundreds of acres of pine and other trees ravaged by forest fires so that he was always on the lookout for the telltale signs. Yet, they had had no rain for a week or so. The sky was clear of rain clouds.

  He looked up at the sky now, though, and saw what looked like a faint wisp of smoke.

  “See that, Julio?” He pointed to the sky.

  “Smoke?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Near the ranch, I think.”

  “Too damned near. Let’s see if these horses have any steam left in their boilers.”

  He tickled Ginger’s flanks with his spurs. Julio did the same. The horses were tired, but they responded to the prodding and broke into a trot. Then, with further tickles from the men’s spurs, the horses began to lope, then broke into a lazy gallop.

  The smell of smoke grew stronger the closer they rode to the ranch. Brad looked up again and saw more smoke, a black scrawl of it just above the pine trees. Then, the closer he got to the valley pasture, the thicker and blacker the smoke.

  He was not prepar
ed for what he saw when he rounded the bend and came upon the valley. There he saw an empty pasture and smoke rising from the two bunkhouses, the barn, and his own home.

  He felt something plummet in his chest. Julio cried out: “Ay de mi,” and his voice was full of anguish and a pain that was not from any wound, but from some deep place in his heart, a place of profound sorrow.

  “What the hell,” Brad said, and rode straight for his burning house.

  Only the chimney was standing when he reined up Ginger, and he felt an unseen hand tighten on his throat. The first thing he thought of was Felicity being in that house, burned to a crisp, and as his throat tightened, tears welled up in his eyes and he crumpled in the saddle, wracked with grief.

  The floor had not yet burned through, but all else was gone. He saw the topsy-turvy shape of the woodstove in what had been the kitchen, the melted and mangled wreckage of pots and pans, the twisted copper of something unrecognizable, the singed and fluttering remnants of papers he had kept in a strongbox. And, beneath the house, something smoking, something he should have recognized but didn’t. It could have been Felicity herself, all charred and smoking. He saw a fluttering of hair, and his insides twisted into a wrenching knotted clump that made him want to vomit.

  Julio rode by, heading for his bunkhouse. Brad looked up and saw Carlos running toward him from the well, an empty wooden bucket in his hand. His face was covered with soot and dirt. He looked as if he had crawled out of a hole in the depths of the earth. His pants were dirty, too, and his hat looked as if it had been crushed by a steam piledriver. All crumpled and misshapen, the hat’s felt crown smashed and smeared with dirt.

  “Carlos,” Brad called out, “what happened here?”

  “They come,” Carlos said, panting as he came to a stop. He dropped the bucket, and it clattered woodenly as it rolled a foot or two. “They steal the cattle. They burn the barn and the houses.”

  “What about Felicity? And Pilar?”

  “They take them. The men take them and all the cattle.”

  Julio turned his horse and rode back to where Carlos and Brad were talking.

  “Where is Pilar?” he asked, his voice squeaking from a tight throat.

  “She is gone, too, Julio,” Carlos said. “The men, they take her and Felicity.”

  “Who were they?” Brad asked.

  “I do not know.”

  “How come you’re still here? Where were you when the men came?”

  Carlos explained that he had been in the barn and ran into the timber.

  “The man who hunts me is called Toad. I think they steal my horse, too. I . . . my guns . . . they are in the bunkhouse. I am looking for them. I could do nothing, Brad.”

  “They rustled my cattle, they stole our women, why in hell did they burn down our houses?”

  He was not expecting an answer. He was just voicing his own puzzlement over such a tragedy. But Carlos answered him anyway.

  “They are very bad men,” he said. “They want to kill, and they want to hurt. Toad hunted me. Only to shoot me. They did not have to burn down our homes. They did not have to do that.”

  Brad looked over at his house. He was relieved that Felicity was alive, but he was sick inside knowing that she was with several men.

  “What is that under my house, Carlos? It has hair and could be human.”

  “Oh, no, it is not human,” Carlos said. “I think it is your dog. I heard a shot before they . . . before . . .”

  “Before they took Felicity and Pilar?” Brad said.

  “Yes. I think they shot Curly. I think that is Curly under your house.”

  Brad was sick again. Over the dog. The dog that loved them. The dog that they loved. He must have been trying to protect Felicity when they shot him. Or Curly was just trying to be friendly, maybe jumping up on one of the men.

  The dog must have been easy to kill. Just one shot.

  “I am sorry, Brad,” Carlos said.

  Julio was crying. He did not try to wipe away his tears; he just sat slumped in his saddle, sobbing. He looked like a beaten man.

  “How many men came here?” Brad asked, swinging down out of the saddle.

  “I do not know. I saw three. But there were more, I know. Some of them were driving the cattle when three others started the fires. The barn burned very fast and so did the houses. The men rode off and all the cattle are gone.”

  “Would you recognize those three men if you saw them again?” Brad asked.

  “I would recognize Toad. The other two were far away. Why?”

  Brad looked around at the ruins of what had once been a ranch. Now, it was only a smoldering ruin. He thought of the Seguin house. His own would look like that, in time. It was such a terrible loss, and the rustlers had two good and innocent women with them. The men had to be caught and punished.

  Julio dismounted. He walked over and hugged Carlos. Then he turned to Brad and stretched out his arms. The two men hugged each other.

  “We’ll get them, Julio,” Brad said. “I promise. We’ll get Pilar and Felicity back.”

  Julio could not stop sobbing.

  “We will get them,” Carlos said. “I want to hang them. I want them to die slow.”

  “I—I want them, too,” Julio said, sniffling and wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. “I want them to die slow, too. For taking Pilar and Felicity. For shooting Curly and for poisoning our dogs.”

  “And the cattle,” Carlos said.

  “The cattle be damned,” Brad said. “I want those men to dance with lead in their gullets. I want to see their blood wet and red on the ground.”

  Julio looked at him. It was a sharp, perceptive look.

  “There it is,” he said, softly.

  ‘What?” Brad said, doubling up his fist with a repressed anger.

  “You have shoot in your eyes, Brad.”

  Brad heaved a long breath. His nostrils flared.

  “You’re damned right I do,” he said.

  And the smoke stung his eyes, but that is not what made him cry just then.

  He thought of what those men might do to his wife and Julio’s. There was no time to waste. He must track them and find them and get the women away from them.

  And kill them, each man, one by one.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Delbert Coombs knew he might not have much time to drive the herd to its destinations. He had the men drive the cattle back into the creek and wade part of it. He crossed the stream four times before he issued further orders.

  “This is where we split the herd up,” he told Ridley Smoot. “First, we do some horse swapping.” He turned to look at Felicity and Pilar. “We’re goin’ to swap horses with you gals.”

  “What?” Felicity said.

  “You heard me. Ridley, help the little lady off her horse.”

  Ridley dismounted and helped Felicity dismount. He pulled her from the saddle and stood her up straight. She struggled with her bonds, but they didn’t give.

  Pilar did not own a horse and wasn’t comfortable riding. She was on Carlos’s horse, Tico. Toad helped her out of the saddle. She fell into his arms, cried out in pain when her arm twisted as she tried to maintain her balance with her hands tied behind her back.

  “Ridley, you ride that bobtailed Arab. Give your horse to the Mexican gal.”

  “She ain’t no rider, Del.”

  “Well, she ain’t goin’ far,” Del said.

  Tod Sutphen helped Pilar up on Ridley’s horse, which stood nearly fifteen hands high, about the same height as Tico, coal black with one white stocking and a small blaze on its forehead.

  “Horse’s name is Choc,” Ridley said. “Short for chocolate.”

  Pilar said nothing as she sat in the saddle, looking lost and bewildered. Felicity patted her leg to reassure her.

  “Toad, you swap horses with Mrs. Storm here.”

  Toad rode up on his sturdy gelding, a steeldust gray with a good deep chest, fine bone structure, standing better than fifteen hands
high.

  “You take good care of Mouse,” he told Felicity. “I put a lot of store in him.”

  Felicity said nothing. She just glared at Toad, a glare that was mingled with open revulsion. He took her reins and handed her his.

  “Help her up on that horse, Ridley.”

  She glared at him, too.

  “Now, Toad, you and Fred cut out seventy-five head and drive them to the stockyards we set up down toward Granite.”

  “We can make that in no time, boss,” Toad said. “You want us to start butcherin’?”

  “There are at least a half dozen butchers standing by there. Dale Creed’s in charge. You tell him to cut ’em up and pack ’em real quick.”

  “You got it, Del.”

  Toad and Fred Raskin began cutting the herd while Delbert spoke to Ridley and Abner Wicks.

  “You boys cut out another seventy or so head and drive ’em to the stockyards we set up at Rusty’s camp. You know the place.”

  “We know it well, boss,” Ridley said. “Rusty’ll be there?”

  “Yeah, tell him to start butcherin’. You and Abner help him pack the meat and load the wagons. Wait for word on the delivery.”

  “Sure,” Ridley said. “I cut meat for Rusty Crabb when he was legitimate.”

  The men all laughed.

  “Hiram, you and I will take the women and drive the few remaining head down to the yards outside Oro City. That’s a pretty safe place, and we won’t leave a lot of tracks.”

  “Might have fifty head when the boys get through cut-tin’,” Hiram said.

  “I have orders for those fifty head, and I mean to deliver by week’s end.”

  “We can do ’er,” Hiram said.

  Delbert rode away to talk to the others one more time as they were thinning the herd into three columns.

  “Wipe out all your tracks,” he told each man. “Make sure you cut off the marked ears and burn ’em once you get to the yards.”