The Baron Range

by Jory Sherman

  “Finally Deathless One came to Wind’s lodge, which was made from the snowy wool of the cottonwood tree, and he looked inside and saw his wife there with Wind. ‘Ho there, young man,’ Wind called. ‘Will you play pole and ring with me?’

  “And Deathless One said that he would, for that was why he had come.

  “And Deathless One looked at Wind’s pole and saw that it was made from the thighbone of a man’s skeleton. He did not want to play pole and ring with that dead man’s thighbone. So he said to Wind, ‘Let me see your ring,’ and Wind gave his ring to Deathless One, who saw that the ring was made of a living rattlesnake. He could see the gleam in the snake’s eyes. Deathless One used the small thorns in his hand to pierce the snake’s eyes and make it blind. Then he gave the ring back to Wind.

  “When Wind tried to throw the ring, it fell to the ground dead. He tried again and again to throw the ring, but it just dropped to the ground because it was a dead snake. Wind saw that the snake was dead and asked Deathless One, ‘How did you do this?’

  “Deathless One said: ‘I do not like your ring and I do not like your pole. I have a good ring to play with and two strong poles.’ The Son of God threw away Wind’s snake-ring and his pole and offered Wind a new pole.

  “Then Wind said, ‘Where did you get these poles and the ring? They are very good poles and that is a good ring. I will play with you.’

  “And Deathless One said: ‘What will you wager?’

  “And Wind said: ‘I will wager half these people here with me.’

  “They played the game and the ring bounced off Wind’s pole and ringed Deathless One’s pole and so Deathless One won the game and half the stolen people. They played another game and Deathless One won the other half of the people.

  “Wind was angry that he had been beaten, so he challenged Deathless One to a race. ‘I will race you,’ Deathless One said.

  “So Wind said, ‘Let us start at the south of the earth and race all around it back to the starting point. If I win, I will kill you. If you win, you may kill me.’

  “So the two went to the south of the earth and raced around the earth. Deathless One reached the starting point first and waited for Wind to come. When Wind ran up he said to Deathless One: ‘You have won the race. Now you may kill me.’

  “The Deathless One picked up a stick and struck at Wind, but every time he struck, Wind ducked and dodged and Deathless One could not strike him. Wind laughed at Deathless One and a little fly heard Wind laughing and flew up to Deathless One and hid inside his ear.

  “The little fly said to Deathless One: ‘Aim for Wind’s head, but strike his shadow on the ground.’

  “So Deathless One aimed at Wind’s head and Wind sprang to the side, but Deathless One struck Wind’s shadow and killed him. Wind fell dead and Deathless One looked at him and said: ‘I have never seen a man as strong and wily as this one. So I will take away his manliness and make him wind, only wind.’

  “So Deathless One took out his knife and cut Wind into four quarters and threw the parts to the east, west, north and south, to the four quarters of the earth. That is why the wind blows from four directions, but no longer lives on earth as a man.

  “After he had done this, Deathless One went back to Wind’s home and rescued his wife. He destroyed the snowy house and hung the cotton in trees to remind people that Wind had once lived on earth as a man, but now lived as wind in the four corners of the earth and had no special home. Then Deathless One returned with his wife to the place where they lived. You can still hear Wind howl and cry out to be a man again, but he will always be only wind.”

  “That is a good story, Dream Speaker,” Bone said. “I will remember it.”

  “Good,” Dream Speaker said. “Whenever you hear the wind whispering to you, do not answer him, for he might come inside you and live in your body and be a man again.”

  “Why do you tell me this story?” Bone asked.

  Dream Speaker puffed on the pipe again and handed it to Bone. “Because I think you are going to go after the wind and follow him to the four corners of the earth and you will never find him, for he is no longer a man.”

  “I am not going to chase the wind,” Bone said. And he let out the smoke in his lungs and watched it float away and disappear on the wind that came up suddenly. He handed the pipe back to Dream Speaker.

  “I think you will chase the wind, Counts His Bones, or the wind will chase you and blow you to places that will be very dangerous.”

  At that, Dream Speaker put away his pipe and got up and leaned on his stick-cane and started back down the mountain. Bone stayed where he was for several moments and then started to follow Dream Speaker. The wind blew very strong into Bone’s face, making a sound like water rushing over rocks, and he could not move until it died down.

  Dream Speaker looked back up the trail at Bone and smiled.

  50

  THEY RODE OUT of the dawn mist, through a path beaten through the brasada, the scent of sweetbrier strong in their nostrils. They made little noise at their slow, purposeful pace. Though in no hurry, they seemed to know where they were going. The horses did not snort or whinny, but plodded forward through the curly mesquite, munching on grass and leaves as they went.

  Matteo Miguelito Aguilar rode up to El Llano, the main section of the Aguilar rancho, where Benito and Pilar lived, wearing two pistols on his hips and packing two rifles in his saddle scabbards. He carried a sheaf of documents in his saddlebags. Behind him in a covered wagon rode his wife, Luz, and his son Delberto. Four men rode alongside the wagon, rifles jutting from their hands, their large sombreros shadowing their faces. They were ugly men, with scars on their faces and chests, large mustaches and long sideburns. They all carried large knives and wore big pistols tucked in their waistbands.

  At the rear of the small caravan, there was another wagon, this one open. Sitting on the seat were a woman and a young boy, and riding alongside, dressed more like an Apache than a Mexican, was a dark-eyed man, his face hairless, his black hair long and straight. He too was heavily armed.

  Matteo waved his arms and the four men rode to the front of the big house and stationed themselves at intervals along a half circle facing the porch. They drew their rifles but did not cock them. Then Aguilar turned in the saddle and motioned to the man in back of the caravan. He drew his rifle from its scabbard and checked the pan, adjusted the flint.

  “Benito,” Matteo called, “come outside. I want to talk to you.” As he spoke, he rode to the far end of the porch so that he was positioned between two of the riflemen and at an angle to the others, so that he was not in the line of fire from the house.

  “Quién me llama?” yelled a man from inside the hacienda.

  “Yo, Matteo Miguelito.”

  “Ah, Matteo. You have come back home. What do you want?”

  “Come outside. I will talk with you, Benito.”

  A curtain moved at a window and a man’s face peered out. Then the curtain closed quickly and shook for a moment or two.

  “So many men, Matteo. So many rifles. Do you want to talk or to shoot?”

  “We will talk, Benito.”

  “Tell your men to put down their rifles and I will come out. Or you can come inside the house. It is so early. Are you not hungry? Are you not tired from the long ride?”

  “I will stay out here, Benito. You come out.” Matteo nodded at the men with the rifles. They put them down across their pommels, their fingers inside the trigger guards.

  There was a long silence. Matteo waited. He drew a cigarro from his shirt, struck a fósforo on his pommel, lit the cigarro. He puffed and let out a plume of smoke. A rooster crowed from somewhere in back of the house. A horse in the stables whickered.

  “I do not see the men with the rifles go away, Matteo. Until they do, I will not come out.”

  “I just want to talk to you, Benito. I have some papers I want to show you.”

  “Papers? What papers?”

  “They are Spanish lan
d grants and official documents. Deeds to my property.”

  The front door opened slightly, but no one came out. The men with the rifles shifted uneasily in their saddles. Matteo Aguilar continued to smoke the cigarro.

  “Why would I want to see the deeds to your property?” Benito said after a time.

  “Because you are living on it,” Matteo said.

  “I do not think so, Matteo.”

  “That is why I want you to see the papers. I want you to leave this place. Inmediatamente.”

  There was another long silence.

  “You leave this place, Matteo. It is not yours.”

  “Benito, do not fight with me. Come outside and we will talk.”

  The door moved slightly, and Matteo turned in his saddle. He nodded to the man who had been waiting well behind the others. The man slipped out of the saddle, hunched down and began to move toward the side of the house. When he reached it, he stayed low so that he could not be seen from the house or porch. He went to the right side of the porch, where he had an angle on the partially opened door.

  “I am not coming outside,” Benito called. “Leave the papers on the porch and I will look at them later. You go away. All of you.”

  Matteo smiled. He got down from his horse and reached into a saddlebag. He withdrew a small sheaf of papers wrapped in oilcloth. He walked to the edge of the porch and set the papers down on the top step.

  “Here are the papers, Benito.”

  “I will get them after you leave.”

  Matteo turned his back to the house and walked back to his horse. He climbed back in the saddle and nodded to the man at the side of the house. A rifle barrel appeared on the edge of the porch. It moved so slowly, it might have been a snail.

  Matteo turned his horse. The other riders did the same. The wagons turned as well. But they did not go far. As Matteo and his companions appeared to leave, Benito stepped out of the doorway. He held a rifle in his hands. He was looking at Matteo’s back and did not see the rifle rise up from the porch and come to bear on his chest.

  Mickey Bone dropped the barrel of the rifle slightly. He took aim on Benito’s abdomen. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger. Benito took the ball in his lower abdomen. He doubled over and fell to his knees. Blood squirted from the wound and pooled up on the boards of the porch.

  A half second later, Pilar stepped out and knelt over her husband.

  Matteo and his men turned their horses. One of the riders shot Pilar in the hip and she cried out as she spun sideways. Matteo galloped to the porch, jerking his rifle free of its scabbard. He hit the ground on the run as Mickey Bone calmly reloaded his own rifle and walked around the side of the porch.

  “Benito, you son of a whore,” screamed Matteo. “Do you see your blood on the porch? Pilar, you bitch, can you see the blood? Just like the blood you spilled when you killed my mother.”

  Pilar moaned and tried to stop the bleeding in her hip. A white shard of bone jutted from the wound where the bone had shattered. “Ay de mí,” she wailed.

  Matteo stood over Benito. Benito rolled over and looked up at him. The wounded man clasped his abdomen with both hands. Tears streamed from his narrowed, pain-filled eyes.

  “You would do this, Matteo? You have shot your own mother.”

  “That bitch is not my mother.”

  “Your mother was barren. Jaime put his seed in my wife’s womb. Pilar is your mother.”

  Matteo’s face contorted with a deep hatred he had carried in his heart for many years. He stepped away from Benito, put the muzzle of his rifle an inch away from Pilar’s temple. “I will show you what I think of this bitch,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.

  Benito winced as he saw Pilar’s head explode, jerk away from the muzzle blast. A rosy spray from the other side of her head spattered against the wall of the house and chunks of skull and wads of brain matter flew in all directions.

  “You killed my mother, Benito. Now I have killed your wife.”

  “You bastard,” Benito said. “Pilar was your mother, estúpido.”

  Matteo drew one of his pistols and knelt down beside his uncle. His lips curled back against his teeth as he rammed the pistol barrel under Benito’s chin.

  “I have waited a long time to see you squirm, Benito,” Matteo hissed. “You spineless son of a whore. You murdered your own brother, and now I murder you.”

  “Do what you would do, Matteo. But Victoria was not your mother. Pilar was.”

  “What difference does it make? Victoria was a lady. Pilar was a whore. You killed the only mother I had. Well, I have the papers now to prove I own the Aguilar rancho and you have nothing.”

  “You are a stupid man, Matteo.”

  “I would like to see you die slow, Benito, but I want to clean up the mess and move my family into the house. Where is the little blind one? Lázaro?”

  “He died of the yellow fever,” Benito lied.

  “That is good. I was going to kill him, too. I want nothing here that reminds me of you and your whore wife.”

  “Besides being stupid, Matteo, you are cruel. I never hurt you.”

  “You killed my mother. I carry that wound in my heart.”

  “I did not want to kill her. She and my brother were—”

  “I do not want to hear any more words from your filthy mouth, Benito,” Matteo said, interrupting his uncle. “I am going to blow you to hell, damn you.”

  With that, Matteo Miguelito Aguilar squeezed the trigger. The top of Benito’s head came apart like a cracked melon as the ball shot through his skull. His eyes glazed over with the frost of death as his head jerked backward with the force of the blast. Blood spewed onto Matteo’s face, freckling him with crimson spots.

  Matteo stood up as Bone climbed the steps to stand beside the new owner of the Aguilar ranch. They both looked down at the lifeless body of Benito. “Peste. Mentiroso. I hated him.” Matteo said.

  Bone said nothing, but he was thinking that he had always liked Benito. The Mexican was a fair and honest man. He wondered if Matteo would be as wise as his uncle. He would not tell Matteo that he had seen a boy run around the house in back and cross his line of sight as he dashed for cover. The boy had seemed to be blind the way he stumbled and held out his hands to keep from running into a tree or structure. Perhaps, he thought, the blind boy had some purpose as yet unfulfilled and was meant to escape death at Matteo’s hands.

  “Where do you want us to bury them?” Bone asked.

  “I want no graves of these dogs here,” Matteo said. “Burn them. Burn them until there is nothing left but ashes and then scatter their ashes to the wind.”

  “I will do this,” Bone said.

  “You will always have a place here, Mickey. You and your family and your grandchildren to come. This will be your home.”

  Bone said nothing. He had not worked off his debt to Matteo yet. He still had part of a year to pay him for the horse he had used to buy his wife, Dawn. For he knew he was still an outcast, not only from his own tribe, but from all others, Mexicans and whites. He had married a Yaqui woman, a slave who had been rescued from Mexican bandits, and she too was an outcast from her own tribe.

  And so was Matteo, for he had no family, except the one he brought with him from Mexico. All of his ancestors were dead. All of his roots had withered up and he stood alone on trembling, blood-soaked ground.

  51

  MARTIN BARON TIED the dinghy to the wharf and stepped ashore, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. The western sky stood like some burning canvas frozen in mid-flame, the clouds etched in fire and gold like ingots snatched from a furnace.

  The Mary E lay at anchor in the harbor with other boats that had been blown there by the previous night’s storm. Some had not fared well in the blow. The wreckage of sail and spar and mast lay atop their decks like broken matchsticks and shredded paper. There were boats in the harbor and along the coast he had never seen before, and several had been smashed against the shore and lay battered and
so broken up they would never sail again. One, a single-masted forty-foot double-ender bearing the name Whippoorwill, lay in four or five pieces, its cargo innards spilling out into the water and waders scrambling to salvage what foodstuffs and gear that they could. He felt sorry for the owner, for what had obviously once been a fine sailing ship was now only detritus, sea debris that would be better off six fathoms under, out of sight.

  A terrible storm, he thought, to cause so much damage. But he had weathered it well, considering. He was tired, though, as tired as he had ever been, and he wondered if he would ever be able to weather such a storm again.

  He approached some small boys playing near the docks. He spoke to them in Spanish. “Watch my little boat and I’ll pay you five pesos,” he told, the oldest Mexican boy.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will pay you when I return.”

  “Pay now,” said one of the other boys.

  “Later,” Martin said and he gave the older boy a peso. “More later.”

  “I will watch your little boat,” the boy said.

  Matamoros was a dirty little border town, full of carretas and burros and stray dogs, thieves and bandits and American outlaws. Martin had been there before and didn’t like the town much, but he knew where to go to get a drink and where he could buy supplies: cheap rum and cheaper tequila and mescal, beans, rice, bread, perhaps some coffee.

  He passed the little shanties and aged adobes with their lanterns still dark and the smells of fish and clams and lobster permeating the air, the flies boiling about the open stalls, the burros switching their tails and flicking their ears. People strolled the streets, the women with woven baskets bulging with vegetables and fish, the men wary-eyed and sullen, the white cloth of their trousers and shirts oddly incongruous with the mud of adobes, the gray of wind-blasted stalls and sheds.