He spent many idle hours nervously wondering why he was uneasy.
“Where have you gone, my beautiful Fuega?” he said now aloud, dropping his stockinged feet to the car’s slatted wooden roof, near his polished black boots, and sweeping the area around the train with his gaze.
There was only sagebrush and pinyons and low, flat-topped escarpments in three directions, under a dry, cobalt sky. Straight ahead of the train, a half mile away across a dry creekbed, Montana del Loco Oso rose like a massive, variegated, sandstone lizard’s head lifted in stoic defiance of Cuesta’s rails. At least, it looked like a lizard’s head from Cuesta’s vantage, though from a distance he had to agree it looked like a grizzly standing on its hind legs, jaws wide, on the verge of a deadly attack.
The mine was just on the other side, a half a lousy mile through the mountain—so close and yet so far. Probably a year’s worth of tedious, hard, dangerous labor while Cuesta’s soldiers held off the Yaqui led by the lovely, savage queen known even to her own people as Ojos del Fuega.
Again, raw desire chewed at Cuesta’s gut. The girl had ravaged his nerves and harassed his men, killing several dozen in her early morning or late night raids. And yet, the image of her dusky, comely figure sitting that cream stallion just out of rifle range, armed with a Winchester as well as a bow and arrow, haunted his waking reveries…
“Incoming riders, General!”
Cuesta glanced at one of the lookouts standing atop the railcar to his right and followed the man’s pointing arm to the east. Three riders, little more than moving smudges from this distance, were jouncing down from a low, dun ridge. Cuesta reached for his field glasses on the small table beside the settee and lifted the glasses to his eyes.
Three riders, two holding rifles straight up from their right thighs. White flags tied around the ends of the barrels blew in the dry wind. The rider in the middle sat his mount oddly, slouched forward slightly, both hands held close to the cream’s saddle horn, as though tied to it.
Cuesta lowered the glasses slowly and frowned at the three riders as he watched with his naked eyes, his heart quickening faintly.
A cream?
No, it couldn’t be.
Again, he lifted the glasses until the riders were bouncing around in both spheres of magnified vision. He gripped the glasses with both hands to steady them and swore under his breath as he made out the long hair, slender shoulders, and the deerskin vest that the beautiful Yaqui queen wore so beguilingly, showing just enough of herself to make a lonely man howl like a gut-shot coyote.
Could it really be her, or was the jouncing, black-haired image in his field glasses merely the lusty conjuring of his earlier reverie, the product of an overheated imagination?
Cuesta held the glasses firmly, staring, his heart beating faster, his lips parting as he drew more air. Now he could hear the rataplan of the horses as the three riders galloped to within sixty yards, dropped down into a wash, disappearing for a few seconds before reappearing again, galloping up and over the near bank.
“General?” The guard on the opposite car inquired testily. There was a guard on most of the rail cars, most holding rifles, some armed with Gatling guns, a few with cigarettes dangling from their lips, and they all had their heads turned toward Cuesta, awaiting his order.
The general lowered the field glasses in his left hand, raising his right to the guard. “Hold your fire, Sergeant. We will see what they want.”
“Are my eyes paying tricks on me, General, or is that… ?” The sergeant crouching over the Gatling gun that was mounted like a giant mosquito on the opposite car, turned his mustached, sunburned face toward the approaching riders and drew two fingers over his eyes as if to clear them.
“I don’t know,” the general muttered, an unseen fist squeezing his heart.
As the three riders slowed their horses and swung their heads around warily at the guards holding rifles on them and at the sergeant crouched over his Gatling gun, Cuesta became conscious of his state of half dress. He set the glasses on the table and dropped down onto the settee, quickly stuffing his feet into his boots, then standing and fumbling nervously with his gold tunic buttons until he had the tunic properly closed. He brushed away tortilla crumbs, then reached for his leather-billed hat, inspecting it quickly before running a hand through his close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, setting it carefully on his head and tugging the bill down slightly over his eyes, giving him what he hoped was a slightly mysterious, commanding look.
Half consciously, he kept muttering silently, “Fuega, Fuega… ?”
He jerked his tunic down at the bottom, smoothing it over his flat belly—flatter than the bellies of most men in their fifties, he proudly noted—and watched the three riders approach a car near the rear of the train. Cuesta walked to the end of the roof, descended the metal rungs to the platform, and was turning just as the three riders rode up along the cinder bed, their horses’ hooves clomping and crunching gravel.
Cuesta pursed his lips and clasped his hands behind his back, composing himself despite seeing that the girl riding with the old gringo and the young gringo was indeed Fire Eyes. Cuesta’s mind hadn’t been playing tricks on him. His breath caught in his chest, and his heart skipped a couple of beats as the Yaqui’s dark eyes—he could imagine how they blazed when she was riled—met his, regarding him coolly, almost disdainfully. Her wrists were cuffed together and the chain between the two cuffs was tied to the woman’s saddle horn.
The older man canted his head to one side, narrowing one eye at the sergeant crouched over the Gatling gun atop the railroad car to Cuesta’s right, only about six feet away. He slid his gaze to the general. “General Cuesta?”
“Si, I am Cuesta. Who are you, and how… did you manage to trap this wildcat?” The general slid his eyes around the trio, but he wanted nothing more than to feast the eyes on the savage, beautiful Yaqui before him, sitting the cream barb that was almost as legendary as the girl herself. From the very first time that he’d seen her, over a year ago and during a raid on the train on which he’d been traveling just west of here, she’d captured his imagination as well as every fiber of his male desire.
How he feared her and loved her!
He was a married man—he would even say a happily married man—but he wanted nothing more than to touch this Yaqui girl before him, to sniff her. To possess her body as well as her soul! He’d fantasized often of keeping her, as so many of his cohorts kept their own mistresses, in the apartment he kept in Monterrey. It would be like taking a mountain lion to the opera, of course, but where this Yaqui queen was concerned, Cuesta knew he was out of his mind.
“I’m Spurr Morgan,” the older man said. “The younker’s Cuno Massey. Yeah, we’re gringos, but we understand you’re offering a bounty worth two thousand of our American dollars for dear little Miss Fire Eyes here. Well, here she is. Alive, just like you wanted.”
“Where… how did you come to capture this beastly creature?”
“We’re bounty hunters,” said the younger man, sitting his saddle casually, both gloved hands draped over his saddle horn. “And right good at it. Never mind the where and the how, General. If you fork over that two thousand dollars, we’ll turn the Yaqui maiden over to you—to do with as you please.”
The young man shaped a knowing grin, slitting his blue eyes.
Cuesta indulged in a close study of the Yaqui queen, who did not return his gaze but kept her eyes on the platform steps beneath his polished boots. She almost appeared to be in a trance—not defeated but merely subdued for the moment. The breeze tossed her hair lightly.
How smooth her cherry skin—how desirable even with its coating of desert dust! The gamey smell of the Yaqui queen drew his pants taut across his crotch.
Suddenly self-conscious, somehow feeling his thoughts might be plain on his features or elsewhere, Cuesta felt an angry burn and said crisply, “You will be paid when I am able to pay you, young gringo. You are the interlopers here. The gold will need to
be weighed, and the officer in charge of gold payments is occupied with other work.”
Despite his tone and demeanor, Cuesta was overjoyed, and he felt genuinely grateful to the bounty hunters for bringing Fire Eyes to him alive. He’d doubted that that could ever happen, even with the high price he’d placed on her head, but here she was…
“If you think we’re just gonna turn this golden goose loose without so much as an IOU,” said the hunter called Spurr, “you got another think coming, General.”
“Does he?” said the sergeant crouched over the Gatling gun, one hand on the contraption’s wooden handle. The deadly maw was aimed at the old man’s face. The sergeant grinned, showed his large, tobacco-stained teeth beneath his black handlebar mustache.
“Well, now that you mention it,” the old bounty hunter said, “I guess you done got us beat in firepower.” He chuckled self-effacingly, and Cuesta was pleased. He hated the arrogance of all gringos, even those in Mexico, and he’d never known one who had not displayed such bad manners. Spurr reached into his vest pocket and produced a small pocketknife. As he reached over toward Fire Eyes, he said, “I reckon we’ll turn her over to you, General, and rely on your honor to see that we’re paid.”
“You will be paid,” Cuesta said, meaning it. However much he hated gringos, he felt truly grateful to these two, and it could never get out that he did not pay his bounties. He studied Fire Eyes as the man sawed through the rope binding her cuffs to her saddle horn and hoped the fervent beating of his heart did not show on his face.
Several other men had come up along the train from their quarters in the other cars, studying the Yaqui queen in utter disbelief, muttering amongst themselves. Cuesta knew what they expected—that he’d turn the girl over to them with orders that the last one to take her must cut her throat.
It wouldn’t be like that, he thought. No, it wouldn’t be like that at all. This was a wildcat he had to try taming himself. If she turned out to be untameable, which might very well be the case, he’d have her shot. But there was something in him that would not allow her to be corrupted by his men. It had something to do with his fantasies. She belonged to him and only him. To throw her to his men would be to cuckold him.
“What do you say, chiquita?” Cuesta said, trying not to sound nervous as he addressed the legend herself. “Are you going to make me throw you in a cage like a wild puma, or are you going to try and act civil?”
Slowly, she shook her head, and he was surprised to see no fiery flash of anger in her eyes. “I am done. When I can be caught so easily by two gringo cowboys, it is time to put down my weapons. I am a disgrace to the Yaqui.” She lifted her gaze to the general’s and curled her rich upper lip. “I will cause you no trouble if you shoot me right away!”
Cuesta rubbed his goatee as he studied the proud, sullen creature before him. He’d be damned if she didn’t sound like she meant what she’d said.
His heart skipped a couple more beats.
He looked at the two gringos sitting their tired horses on the other side of the queen and canted his head to indicate the rear of the train. “You may stable your horses in the stable car. As a supply train recently arrived, there is plenty of hay and oats. We have a cantina car well stocked with beer and tequila.” He gave a derisive smile. “It is also supplied with two senoritas I’m sure the two of you will find to your liking. They’re cheap enough. In the morning, I will see that you are paid, and you will be free to leave.”
The old man and the young one shared a doleful glance. Then the old one sighed. “This is how it always plays out in Mexico, kid. Best get used to it.” He reined his horse away, and he and the young man trotted their horses down toward the stable car positioned in front of the caboose.
Cuesta turned to the small crowd of low-ranking Federales standing around in awe of the trophy that had just been handed over to the general. “Corporal Martinez,” he ordered, “I want this woman placed in leg irons and brought to me in my quarters on the double!”
“Si, si, General. I and Lopez will stand guard on her ourselves!”
“Are you telling me I’m incapable of safely debriefing a female captive in leg irons?”
Martinez gulped.
He told another man to fetch a copper tub and hot bathwater. They all stood staring at him again, shrewd smiles beginning to brighten their tired eyes.
“Pronto!” the general ordered, then turned and pushed through the door of his quarters.
25
“DAMN RISKY,” SPURR said as he and Cuno led their horses up the ramp and through the open doors of one of the train’s four stable cars. Hooves clomped woodenly, and beasts and men made the rotten ramp boards sag ominously. “Cuesta could just as easily have her hauled off to the creek and shot against the bank… and us along with her.”
Cuno glanced up and down the train, making sure no Federales were near, before continuing on up the ramp and into the stock car. “A girl who looks like her?” He chuckled as he and Spurr led their mounts toward a gap amongst the tied horses at the rear of the car. “Ain’t likely any man with red blood in his veins could do that. Besides, she’s convinced he’s gone for her.”
“I’ll admit, ole Cuesta looked like he was about to fall on his ass when he saw her, but how in the hell did she know?”
“I reckon the ‘wanted alive’ bounty tipped her off.”
“He could’ve intended to torture the hell out of her.” Spurr tied the roan to a metal hook in the stable car wall, then hitched his pants and gun belts up higher on his bony hips, and walked over to a water barrel standing beside the open door. He leaned forward and turned his head to stare up the train toward Cuesta’s private car. “And maybe that’s what he’s doin’. Sure would be nice to have a look-see.”
That didn’t look possible, as from this vantage he could see two rifle-wielding Federales milling around Cuesta’s car, positioned there to make sure Fire Eyes didn’t escape. There was probably another guard on the car’s platform, and then of course there was the sergeant so proudly hunkered over the Gatling gun on the next car back.
“You worry too much,” Cuno said, slipping Renegade’s bit from his mouth, so the horse could drink and feed.
They had no intention of unsaddling the horses. Earlier that morning, a Yaqui scout for Fire Eyes’s brother, Red Water, had reported that the gunrunner’s wagons were headed toward Cuesta’s train, within ten miles and moving at a clip of about three miles an hour. Barring delays, that would bring them on up to the train within two hours. By then, Spurr and Cuno hoped to have Cuesta dead and his men distracted enough so that they, Fire Eyes, and the twenty-three Yaqui hunkered down just over a low rise to the north, awaiting Fire Eyes’s signal, could take over the train.
If all went as planned, it would be the two gringos and the Yaqui, not Cuesta’s men, who would meet Bennett Beers, Dave Sapp, and Flora Hammerlich when they came lifting dust from the east.
Spurr took a wooden bucket off a nail above the water barrel, dipped up some water, and carried it over to Cochise, who gratefully swished his tail then dipped his head to draw the water. “Worryin’ is how I’ve made it this far, kid.”
“What happened to that tumbleweed in a cyclone?”
Ignoring the question, Spurr grabbed a scrap of burlap and began vigorously rubbing Cochise’s rear quarters. “What kind of signal you ’spect she’ll give us?”
“I don’t know. She just said we’ll know it when we hear it.” Cuno watered Renegade and fed him a bucket of parched corn, and then he walked to the car’s open door, staring out.
There were a good dozen Federales milling distractedly about the train, some sitting on rocks along the railroad bed, smoking and playing cards. Some lounged in the scanty shade provided by near pinyons while others gathered in groups to obviously discuss the general’s new conquest, for they spoke in hushed, snickering tones while casting meaningful glances toward Cuesta’s private car.
“Come on, you old codger,” Cuno said, “I’ll
buy you a beer in the saloon car.”
“Can you afford a beer and a shot of tequila?”
“No.”
“All right, then, you cheap bastard,” Spurr said, looking around at the dark blue–uniformed Federales and then casting a quick, furtive glance toward the low ridge behind which Red Water’s Yaqui were hunkered, waiting. “You buy the beer and I’ll buy the tequila.”
Cuno and Spurr walked up toward the front of the train, passing the three other stock cars. The saloon car sat ahead of the third stock car, and it looked like any coach car except its windows were covered with red velvet, gold-tassled curtains, lending a gaudy opulence to the otherwise sun-bleached railcar. The light tinkle of female laughter emanated from one of the windows. Three Federales stood around below the platform, slack-shouldered drunk, and all three sneered as Cuno and Spurr brushed past them and climbed the platform steps.
Cuno paused inside the door, squinting into the car’s deep shadows, as Spurr walked up beside him. To his left there was a short bar comprised of wooden planks propped over two beer kegs. A young, plain-faced woman in a sleeveless blouse and long, pleated green skirt stood behind it, leaning forward on the planks, one bare foot propped atop the other. She’d been looking toward the man and the woman seated at one of the tables near the front door when Cuno and Spurr had walked in, but now she turned to the newcomers, and the jovial smile faded from her lips.
The other woman, also a puta judging by her scanty dress, had been the one laughing as she leaned forward against her table, her forehead nearly touching that of the man with lieutenant’s bars on the shoulders of his tunic. The lieutenant was facing Cuno, and he turned his head now to follow the puta’s inquisitive stare, sort of grimaced distastefully, and turned back to the puta, muttering drunkenly.
.45-Caliber Cross Fire Page 19
