by Lou Cameron
When he heard a tiny bell clanking even nearer, he rose to his feet and eased thoughtfully back to the main trail, his six-gun still holstered but his gun hand resting on the grips just in case. He muttered, “Aw, shit!” when he saw what was coming down the trail at him. If the surrounding range was already overgrazed by cows, he didn’t see how a couple of dozen Nubian goats were going to help. The dog he’d heard was black as the hardy half-wild goats. As it smelled or spotted Stringer it went bushybacked without barking. The bigger bellwether nanny, out front making all that jingle jangle, lowered her head at the sight of Stringer but kept coming. He stood his ground, not only because he was armed and the Nubian breed had pitiful horns, but because like anyone raised country, he knew the best way to get a critter to chase you was by crawfishing. Both the goats and the dog herding them could see he’d been there first, and anything on any number of legs that backed off its own ground was considered a big sissy by most anything pushing its own luck in that direction.
The bellwether stopped as he’d hoped she might to paw at the dust and shake her stunted horns at him. The dog slunk forward to take a stand between the strange human and its bleating charges. Stringer softly called, “Good for you, Blackie. Only where in thunder might your human sidekicks be?”
Since nobody on four legs saw fit to answer, Stringer dropped to his knees in the chaparral without warning, drawing his six-gun on the way down, to play lizard up the brush-covered slope in line with the trail. His movements or, rather, his sudden fading out of sight to do most anything, had, of course, been noted by other human eyes. He hadn’t crawled far before he heard someone else softly hissing, “Ay, Negro, a donde es?” Which gave him the general location and probable nationality of the goatherd that had to go with all these fool goats. The fact that the dog was called Blackie in Spanish as well was less important than the fact its owner had directed it to sniff him out and doubtless bite him on the ass. Before that could happen, Stringer busted through the brush to loom over the young Mex, growling, “Congelar!” before he’d gotten a really good look at her. Congelar, of course, meant “freeze,” but the sixteen-or seventeen-year-old mestiza didn’t freeze.
She was already on the ground in her Navajo blouse and pleated skirts, so she showed how much Indian blood she had by hoisting the skirts to expose her private parts to him as she sobbed, “Por favor, Guillermo Rizado, I am only a harmless woman!”
Stringer couldn’t help laughing. But he politely looked away from all she had to show him as he told her, “I can see that, señorita, only I’m not Curly Bill, so pull down your fool skirts and let’s sort things out more sensible, here.”
She rolled up to sit on her knees, smoothing her maroon duds more primly and blushing a becoming shade of dusty rose as she murmured, “Oh, whatever must you think of me? Now that I see you are simpatico I also see that you are far too young and rubio, I mean blonde, for to be that terrible old bandito.”
Stringer hadn’t heard they’d ever proven a charge of banditry on William Brocius, aka Graham, even in his wilder youth. However, he let that go for now as he helped the pretty little thing to her feet. Negro, her herd dog, joined them about then to growl at Stringer’s spurs just outside kicking distance. The pretty goat herder told her proddy protector to go guard the goats and Negro proved Stringer’s theory about ugly mutts. It wagged its tail and went woofing off to keep the goats bunched in the now mighty tricky light, Stringer said, “You have a good workdog, Señorita. I reckon you already know about snakes at sunset in brush country?”
She nodded and said she’d been scouting for a place to make camp when she’d spotted his gringo hat looming so ominously above the chaparral ahead. He introduced himself, learned she was called Ynez, and told her he not only had a clearing but plenty of firewood to work with. She hesitated, then she nodded in a rather sad, fatalistic way and whistled. Stringer almost drew again as something came busting through the chaparral at them. Then he saw it was an undersized gray burro, packing more trail gear than he’d loaded aboard that hired packsaddle. As the burro came to Ynez like an oversized pup, he asked her where she’d been headed with all that stuff and livestock. She explained, “Sierra Blanca, where I have people on my mother’s side. Until recently those of my raza were welcome enough in Comanche Woe. Pero now, with so much trouble brewing up between hombres of your own ferocious kind… Well, as my late husband was wont to say, the arena is no place for the ants to nest when the bulls are running, eh?”
He said he’d heard there was trouble brewing in Comanche Woe, albeit not that much trouble, and as he led her and her burro back to his clearing he got most of her simple story out of her.
Despite her widowhood, he’d been on the money with seventeen. Ynez had moved up into the higher and greener range around Comanche Woe with her somewhat older husband, the original owner of this modest herd of goats. He’d died just after her sixteenth birthday, of nothing more noteworthy than the cholera poor folk in these parts were still subject to. Her English wasn’t bad and, of course, she’d heard plenty of gossip in both English and Spanish. She couldn’t really tell him all that much about the troubled trail town up ahead, save that he still had a mountain pass to get over and that they’d named it after the misfortunes of a Comanche war party that had run up an arroyo from the Texas Rangers only to bump smack into a big party of prospectors, forted up and heavily armed. When he followed up on why prospectors would be anywhere near the present trail town Ynez shook her head and said the earlier explorers had been on a wild-goose chase when the Rangers had chased all those Comanche into their field of fire. She added, “Was not even fool’s gold for to pan in the sandy arroyo. My own people love gold as much as your own do, and over the years since then many men of both razas have searched for it. The water oozing from the rocks all year, even in the dry heat of high summer, is the true treasure of the Comanche Woe Range. Is good country for grazing any creature that can live on grass. You will see more grass on that side of the pass than you see around here. I wish the hombres up that way were half as nice as the country they are fighting over!”
By this time they were back where he’d piled the firewood. It was getting pretty dark and there was already a nip in the air. As she tethered her burro and unloaded her own bedding and provisions for the night, Stringer got a fire going for them both. He noticed with some wistfulness that Ynez spread her own thinner bedding on the far side of the fire. Now that he’d gotten used to her pretty face and apparently harmless nature he found himself thinking back to the way she’d convinced him she was female. While southwestern maidens of Indian or part-Indian blood were brought up different than little white gals when it came to at least living through forcible rape, they could act just as damned coy once they knew they were in the company of a proper gent who wouldn’t really kill ’em if they said no.
She hunkered, however, on his side of the fire as if to be polite or use him as a wind break whilst she greased a skillet and refried some frijoles for the both of them. He busted open a can of bully beef lest they fart themselves to death after supping on beans and nothing else. She observed he had to have a good job if he could afford such fancy grub. He told her a little about himself and his reasons for going up to Comanche Woe before he asked her how she felt about Buckskin Jack Blair, and how come she’d been expecting to meet the one and original Curly Bill on the trail.
As she stirred the beef in with the refritos, she allowed the town-taming Buckskin Jack had never been mean to her or anyone else who didn’t seem to be looking for trouble. It seemed, however, as if trouble found its way to an out-of-the-way Texas town with neither a Ranger station, nor county sheriff’s office within a hard day’s ride. She recalled the shooting of Mysterious Dave the other night, though she’d only had secondhand information. She said she just didn’t know why so many well-known gunfighters had homed in on the almost unknown trail town in the past few weeks. She knew Buckskin Jack had announced there’d be no more such goings on in any town he was
marshal of. Stringer had figured when first they’d met that she couldn’t know Curly Bill on sight. She verified that, but said her people and those Anglo residents of Comanche Woe not prone to swagger about with guns on had been holding their collective breath since they’d heard Curly Bill had been ordered out of town by Buckskin Jack. She explained, “It was said that when he got word from our marshal he sent back word that he would leave Comanche Woe when he got good and ready, and meanwhile, he was at the cabrone’s service.”
Stringer started to reach for his makings without thinking, saw she had the grub about ready to serve, and thought he’d best not. As she dished their aromatic repast out on two tin plates from her pack, he asked if it was safe to assume Curly Bill had left without a fight, after all. She nodded, handed him his plate and a rolled tortilla to spoon with, and said, “Si, some Anglo hands were more surprised than me and mine when the sun went down as it was supposed to and the marshal started down the main street with two pistols and a shotgun, as he’d promised he would. It is said Guillermo Rizado once shot another town marshal in the heart, under most similar circumstances. Pero Joaquin Cuero, as my own people call him, had the street all to himself by the time he had walked the length of it. Despite his boasts, the older killer from Arizona had run away.”
Stringer thoughtfully chewed and swallowed the wad of tortilla, refritos and beef he’d bit into before he decided, “This’d be a dumb time to drink coffee but this grub’s a mite dry and salty, no offense, and I do have some medicinal liquid I carry along in case of snake bite.”
As he put his plate aside and rolled over to dig the bottle of liquor out of his gladstone he added, “The last time he was charged with gunning a lawman, Curly Bill managed to get off. He must have figured history might not repeat itself. That grandstand play of Buckskin Jack’s was still sort of stupid, though, unless he was mighty sure the old tough had already lit out.”
She asked how come as he poured them both tin cups of the creature and canteen water. She and all the others up around Comanche Woe had been more impressed than Stringer by their town tamer’s bullfighter strut through town. As he handed her a cup and picked up his plate again he explained, “Such events take place more often in a novel by Owen Wister than in real life.”
She asked who Owen Wister was. Then she gasped and asked what on earth he’d just given her for to drink without agua, por favor!
He said, “It’s got more water in it already than my Uncle Don would allow and, hell, it’s not that much stronger than tequila. As to Owen Wister, he’s a Philadelphia lawyer who spent some time out in Wyoming for his health and naturally met up with some cowfolk. So this inspired him to write a book called The Virginian a couple of years back and it’s been selling well ever since, even though old Owen must have hung out with some mighty odd hands whilst touring the western cattle country. He got the lingo good and seems to know which side of a pony you get off and on, but he invented a style of showdown more exciting than sensible. I don’t think anyone ever tried that tall walk down the center of the street before old Owen had the Virginian do it, and live through it.”
He sipped some malt liquor and water, decided their supper was grand, after all, and added in a more generous mood, “Wait, I do think John Wesley Hardin did it one time in Dodge, drunk as a skunk on laudanum. You can’t expect a gent filled with opium and alcohol to make much sense, and Hardin was a homicidal maniac when he was sober.”
He took another sip and added, “Lucky, too. James Butler Hickok could be pretty wild when he had a skinful, too. Only, the time he heard old John Wesley was wandering up and down the main street drunk as a skunk and spoiling for a fight, he thought it made more sense to just stay forted up with his back to a saloon wall until the loco cuss either came to his senses or staggered into point blank range via the only doorway. Your Buckskin Jack must have known nobody was laying for him as he played Virginian for the bleachers. Let’s get back to why in thunder all these dangerous sounding gents keep giving him such fine opportunities to look dangerous. Nothing I’ve heard so far makes a lick of sense.”
She sipped some more of the creature, as if deciding it wasn’t so bad after all, and confided, “I agree both sides are acting muy loco in that little gringo town. That is for why my goats and me are on our way down to Sierra Blanca, where more Spanish is spoken and even your own people act more sensible. Would you like some more carne?”
He said he’d eaten a mite before they’d even met and poured more malt liquor for both of them, omitting the water this time, since it didn’t sting as hard once you’d lined your throat with Mex grub. He asked her if she knew what the war betwixt two Anglo factions in Comanche Woe seemed to be about, since they surely had one going, it would seem.
She said as far as she knew, and the tale sounded familiar, the feud was between the interbred and perhaps inbred cattle clans up in the headwaters of Cottonwood Draw and the more sissy, or maybe progressive newcomers in and about the town itself.
Stringer was surprised by her answer when he wagered Buckskin Jack would be backing the rougher rustic interests, and said as much to the girl who’d just left there. She shook her head and replied, “Pero no! As I told you, Joaquin Cuero has been muy simpatico to the decent ones attracted to the good location and reliable water.”
He started to ask what was so good about a wide spot in a road hardly anyone ever used these days. Then he reflected on progress in more progressive parts and decided, “All right, I can see how a homesteader with reliable irrigation and mayhaps one of those new motor trucks could hope to get in early as they keep building more state roads. Some of the old stage stops out where I grew up have turned out to be swell spots to build a stop for motor fuel and Coca Cola, weak as it’s gotten since President Teddy made ’em take the cocaine out. But I’m still missing something. If the town law is new, and backing the progressives who’ve moved in since the town’s glory days in the cattle boom of the ’80s, why would he be having so much trouble with even newer newcomers?”
She set her empty plate aside and held out her empty cup for more malt liquor as she replied, “Quien sabe? Is it not true that the old grandees of the cattle trade hire more such hombres than, say, a merchant or truck farmer?”
As he poured for her he mused half to himself, “Mysterious Dave was a merchant, sort of, and Curly Bill was more a wild cowhand than a hired gun, about twenty years ago. I doubt he had the self-discipline to work steady for anyone else in his Tombstone days, but, of course, he’d likely be a mite calmer, now. Henry Starr has the qualifications, Lord knows, but again we’re talking about a sort of impulsive young cuss better known as a bank robber. What can you tell me about his run in with Buckskin Jack, querida?”
She yawned and said, “Nada. This Enrique Asterico you keep mentioning is unknown to me. Why do you keep calling me querida? Are you planning for to do vile things to me?”
He said, “Slip of the tongue. We call gals sweetheart without much vile intent. If you can’t recall Henry Starr passing through the town I’m headed for, what about a couple of hardcases answering to Grits Palmer and Lobo Lawrence?”
Their fire was dying down to ruby embers by now. He could still see she was staring owlishly at him as she assured him she’d never heard of those two cusses, either. Then she spoiled it some by adding, “Not even Anglo girls of any self-respect would know the names of half the hard drinkers in Comanche Woe, and as for saddle tramps just passing through …”
“It works either way,” he cut in. “Such matters would be reported to the sheriff’s office in Pecos Junction, right?”
He’d been half agreeing with himself. So, she jarred him some when she asked, innocently, “Why would anyone down along the Pecos keep records of events in Comanche Woe? Is in Culberson County, not Reeves or Loving. The county seat anyone in Comanche Woe would report anything to would be, let’s see, Van Horn. Did you not know this, ah, querido?”
He swore softly under his breath and said, “I do now! A ce
rtain research assistant I relied on seems to know more about spaghetti sauce than West Texas geography!”
He started to pour himself another drink, decided it was safer to smoke, and began to roll one as he grumbled, “I almost got off at Van Horn, too, cuss her hide.” Then, as he reflected on the mental map he’d drawn in his head of late he relented and decided, “It was a natural mistake, I reckon. Comanche Woe’s spring water drains east to the Pecos and anyone can see it would make more sense to draw the county line where yonder trail cuts through that pass to another watershed entirely.” He sealed his smoke and added, “I’m commencing to see why the tamer of such a remote town gets to hold his showdowns so private! Comanche Woe is clean out of the jurisdiction of the nearest sheriff, whilst the sheriff of its official county would have to tear a good thirty or forty miles, most of it uphill, just to ask what was going on. I know there are no telegraph lines down this slope. You’d know if one could telephone or wire the outside world some other way out of Comanche Woe, right?”
She yawned and said she’d never heard of anyone communicating from Comanche Woe by any means more advanced than the dusty old cattle trail. Then she added that she was sleepy and, suiting her actions to her words, climbed into the nearest bedroll, which was his, not hers.
