The young vaquero’s face was earnest. “I am yours to command. I love you, more than life itself.” He suddenly looked almost shy. “You promised me . . .”
“But only if you succeeded.”
“I tried. I really did try. It was the weather that spoiled my aim.”
Aracela smiled. “Otilio, I can deny you nothing. But tonight, only a taste. When the handsome one is dead, and you perform my other tasks, you will have more.” She smiled. When the time came, Otilio would be easy to kill.
The Black Madonna held her baby son close, and looked down with painted eyes at Donna Aracela.
She was restless, unable to sleep. She rose, stepped to the bedroom window, and drew back the curtain. The village slept under a mantle of snow, blue smoke from the wood fires hazing the air.
She needed Jacob O’Brien in her bed, to breed with her and satisfy her lust.
Through a break in the clouds Donna Aracela caught a brief glimpse of a haloed moon. She lifted her head and stared at it, trying to draw from its power, but the clouds drew together and the moon was gone.
She knew she’d need all of her strength for what was to come. The killings she planned were necessary, and they’d be lost in the greater killing of the coming range war. Well, all but one, but even then, no suspicion would fall on her.
Donna Aracela ran her hands over her breasts, enjoying the way the firm globes filled her palms. They were breasts made for the pleasure of a man and to suckle a boy child. In the fullness of time, they would be used for both.
Down in the village, a dog sniffed around a dung heap, then walked, head hanging, into darkness, its slatted ribs visible even in the night gloom.
“Poor thing,” Donna Aracela whispered aloud.
She wondered where Jacob was right then, at that very minute. Asleep probably, perhaps dreaming of her.
“Poor thing,” Aracela said again. She smiled, showing her teeth.
Chapter Thirty
Shawn O’Brien stepped in front of Jacob and, as Clay Stanley had done earlier, defused a possibly explosive situation. “When we leave, we’d like to think it was our idea. In the meantime, Whitney, we need to talk.”
The Texas gunmen had found chairs or were sitting against the parlor walls. All of them looked tough and capable, and at least three seemed like they’d been through hell and back. They had careful eyes and an air of quiet confidence combined with an implied threat of sudden violence—the unmistakable hallmarks of a named gunfighter.
Whitney sat in a chair by the fire. He glanced at Shawn irritably. “Mister, right now all I want is a drink and a soft bed. Talk to me in the morning.”
“We need to talk right now,” Shawn said.
Whitney turned his head and stared a question at Clay Stanley, who sat opposite him.
“What he has to say won’t take long, boss,” he said.
The desk clerk hustled in with bottles and glasses, and the Texans cheered, then clustered around him. One of the gunmen handed Whitney a full glass and the little man held it to the firelight, as though enjoying the whiskey’s amber glow. Without looking at Shawn, he said, “Speak.”
Nettled, Shawn said, “I’ll make it short and to the point, Whitney. I don’t want to see any sheep north of Lobo Hill.”
The little man’s eyes moved in Shawn’s direction. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“When you move the Mexican herders off the Estancia they’ll look for new grass,” Shawn said. “And the only place they’ll find it is north, onto Dromore range. I won’t let that happen.”
Clay Stanley leaned forward in his chair. “O’Brien’s father owns Dromore, a ranch up on the Glorieta Mesa high country.”
Whitney sipped his whiskey, then his nostrils thinned, as though the air had suddenly gone bad. “How is it the farther west of the Mississippi I go, the stupider the people become?” He stared at Shawn. “Answer me that, huh.”
It didn’t take much to push Jacob too far, and he angrily took a step forward, his fingers spread as though he wanted to throttle the little man. Shawn’s restraining arm stopped him, but even so, some of the Texans moved whiskey glasses to their left hand.
As though he’d noticed nothing, Whitney said, “I have six supply wagons outside, and, starting tomorrow my men will be out in the field with orders to shoot trespassers wherever and whenever they find them. And they’ll remain out until every last greaser is accounted for, and that includes Don Manuel Ortero. I want him out of the valley.” He stared hard at Shawn. “Don’t you realize that sheep need herders? Without them, they’ll stay where they are and later I’ll round them up at my leisure.” He shrugged and his smile was thin as a razor. “Or kill them if I can’t find a market for mutton.”
Stanley rose and faced Shawn. “See, O’Brien, your worries are all over. Listen to Mr. Whitney. There’ll be no woolies on Dromore range.”
“How many Mexicans will die to make that a reality?” Shawn said.
“Hell, O’Brien,” Stanley said. “I thought you were worried about sheep. Now you’re all a-fluster about Mexicans.” To general laughter, he added, “Well, greasers or woolies? What’s it to be?”
“The law . . .” Shawn began, and then let the words die in his mouth, knowing how lame he’d sound. Joel Whitney was the law in the Estancia, just as Shawn’s father was the law in Dromore. Unbidden, a question forced itself, fully formed, into his mind. Would the colonel kill the Mexican herders to save his ranch? The answer to that was obvious: He would, and without a moment’s hesitation.
Whitney, with the instincts of a predator, sensed Shawn’s confusion. He jumped, rather than rose, to his feet. “This grows tiresome.” He looked at his men. “Clear the bottles off the table, gentlemen. I have a map of the valley and we’ll discuss our strategy, including the destruction of Manuel Ortero’s hacienda.”
Clay Stanley and the rest of the Texans crowded around the table. Shawn and the others were left to stand around.
But Jacob was still on the prod. He leaned over and whispered into Shawn’s ear, “I can drop Whitney, Clay, The Memphis Kid, and two others. I’d say that would just about end it.”
Shawn was tempted. He looked around him. Perez was always ready, and so was Ironside. Patrick would draw when the firing started and he could be depended on to get his work in.
But he saw that Clay Stanley wasn’t paying attention to Whitney. As Whitney made circles on the map with the flat of his hand, the Texan’s eyes were on Jacob, knowing he’d be the fastest with the iron.
The risk was too great and Shawn dismissed the idea. “Let’s call it a night. We’ll talk about things at breakfast.”
“You go on ahead,” Jacob said. “I think I’ll sit by the fire and have a nightcap.”
“Don’t try to take ’em on by yourself,” Shawn said.
Jacob gave him a look. “I’m not that crazy. But by settin’ here and minding my own business, I can irritate the hell out of Whitney.”
The morning dawned cold, but the snow had stopped and the sky was clear. To the west of Estancia, the Manzano Mountains stood lilac against a blue backdrop, their peaks sharply etched as cut steel. Despite the brightness of the morning, winter still held the land in its grip. The trees were encased in crystal, the hard ground glittered white as far as the eye could see, and Jack Frost busily painted every window with his icy palette and brush.
Dressed in coats, scarves, and chaps, Jacob and Shawn sat in rockers on the hotel porch, cups of smoking coffee in their hands.
“I asked Whitney a question last night.” Jacob laid his cup by his right boot and carefully built a cigarette. “I surely did.”
Shawn stared at him, his irritation flaring. “Damn it, Jacob, you don’t say that! You don’t say, ‘I asked Whitney a question last night,’ then leave it hanging.”
Unfazed, Jacob took time to light his cigarette. “Says I, ‘Whitney, why did you give the order to kill them Meskins down by Rattlesnake Hill? Jumpin’ the gun, weren’t you?’
Says he, ‘What Meskins?’ Says I, ‘Well, we was riding—’”
“For God’s sake, Jacob, spit it out and I’ll read it,” Shawn said.
“Why is it so all-fired important?” Jacob said. “I wish I’d never mentioned the damned thing.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he never ordered Ted White an’ them to kill any Mexicans. He said he wanted his campaign to come as a surprise, but now the greasers will be watching for him. That’s what he said, and he seemed mad enough to kick a hog barefoot.”
“You believed him?” Shawn said.
“Yeah, I did. Whitney doesn’t come across to me as a lying man, at least when he talks about killing.”
Shawn was quiet for a long time, so long that Jacob leaned over and said, “Hey, your coffee’s getting cold.”
Like a man surfacing from a snooze, Shawn said, “I was thinking.”
“About what?”
Shawn turned his head and looked at his brother. “Do you know what evil is?”
“I’ve heard of it. Remember Rusty, the sodbuster’s dog that used to chase us when we were kids? Now, he was evil.”
“I’m talking a greater evil than that, Jacob.”
“Shawn, I’m not catching your drift.”
“Maybe I’m just imagining things.”
“Imagining what?”
“That somebody is trying to destroy us. Don Manuel, Whitney, me, you, all of us.”
“Give me a name and I’ll gun down the son of a bitch,” Jacob said.
“It may come to that, Jacob, but later, when I think this thing through.”
“Well, don’t study on it too long, or we could all wind up dead.”
The morning did not live up to its bright promise. By noon, the dove-gray sky was overlaid with black clouds looking like gigantic Pacific rollers, threatening to crash onto land and send up cascades of foam that would fall back to earth as snow. The air snapped with cold and in Estancia raw-cheeked people hurried on errands, their muffled mouths fuming like steam engines.
Joel Whitney and his men pulled out of town at one in the afternoon. All five Dromore riders stood on the hotel porch watching them go.
Whitney had made no secret of the fact that he was anxious to get the job done and open the valley for settlement. He needed to recoup his investment, satisfy his investors, and, above all, return to Boston and civilization.
According to what Jacob had heard, the little man was splitting his Texans into three columns, each with two supply wagons. They’d drive from west to east across the Estancia and dispose of any herders they encountered. After that, they would mount an attack on the Hacienda Ortero and tie up that piece of unfinished business. Whitney believed the entire campaign would take no more than two weeks, maybe less. He didn’t want to draw it out, not when he was paying gun wages to Texans who didn’t come cheap.
As Shawn watched the Whitney riders leave, he said to Ironside, “Luther, would my father kill the herders?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Ironside said, “The colonel is a hard, unforgiving man.”
“Would he kill the herders?” Shawn asked again.
This time Ironside didn’t hesitate. “If they drove sheep onto Dromore range, yes he would.”
Shawn dropped his head. “Well, I’ve studied on it, and I can’t step aside and see men killed for no other reason than that they stand on another man’s ground.” He looked at Patrick, then Jacob. “I want to help them, but I need you to tell me if I’d be doing right or wrong.”
“A man has to do what he feels is right,” Jacob said. “Clear his conscience that way.”
“Hell, any man with a clear conscience has a bad memory,” Ironside said. “Shawn, do what you think is best. Don’t do something that goes against your grain because you think that’s the way the colonel would play it.”
“And the rest of you?” Shawn said.
“I ride with you, patron,” Perez said.
“I’ve made the colonel mad enough as it is,” Ironside said. “But I’ll go for broke and stick with you, Shawn.”
“Patrick?” Shawn said.
“There’s been enough killing already,” Patrick said. “I’ll stick.”
“And what do you think, Jacob,” Shawn said.
“I think I want to know how you’ll play it,” Jacob said.
“I’ll warn the herders, get them to hide in the hills. Maybe they can arm and give a good account of themselves.”
“Mexican peons won’t give a good account of themselves against Texas gunfighters,” Jacob said. “That just isn’t going to happen.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Shawn said.
“Leave here, head north, and stop the woolies drifting onto Dromore range, like the colonel wanted.”
“We’d have to kill sheepherders, Jacob. You know that.”
“Damn it, Shawn, what I know is that we’ll have thousands of woolies poisoning our grass if we don’t.”
Ironside took off his hat and busied himself with the beaded band, as though it had suddenly become of greatest interest to him. “Jacob,” he said, without looking up, “I don’t hold with gunning sheepherders.”
“You have to choose your own trail, Luther,” Jacob said.
“I told Shawn I’d stick with him,” Patrick said. “I’m not going back on my word.”
Jacob’s eyes read Perez’s face. The young vaquero was tormented by split loyalty and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Shawn, you, Patrick, and Luther go warn the herders. Andre can ride with me,” Jacob said.
“That set all right with you, Andre?” Shawn said.
“Sí, patron.”
“Then that’s how we’ll play it,” Shawn said. “Jacob, no more killing if you can avoid it, huh?”
“I don’t kill for pleasure,” Jacob said.
“I didn’t mean to imply that,” Shawn said. “I just meant . . . ah, the hell with it. Just be careful, Jacob. And you too, Andre.”
Jacob looked around him and smiled. “All the speechifying done? Good. Now let’s ride.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The Whitney mercenaries were either stupidly overconfident or just stupid. Don Manuel Antonio Ortero could not decide which.
He sat atop a beautiful palomino stud among the foothills of Duran Mesa, a brass ship’s telescope to his eye. Snow was falling, but it was too early to make camp. The Texans had already built a fire in the lee of one of their two wagons, and were passing bottles from hand to hand, slapping each other on the back, roaring with laughter.
About what? Don Manuel wondered.
He spotted one source of their amusement. One of the men lay on top of a bucking woman under a wagon, while another watched and rhythmically slapped his knee, keeping time as he offered words of drunken encouragement.
Don Manuel smiled. So they had brought a whore along. He made his decision. The mercenaries were both overconfident and stupid.
A cheer went up from the camp as a tall, loose-geared man approached the campfire, carrying a heavy burlap sack. He tossed the sack on the ground, then grinned as he grabbed the bottom and tumbled three round cannonballs onto the ground.
Don Manuel leaned forward in the saddle and used two hands to steady the spyglass. Not cannonballs—human heads. Mexican heads.
A Texan grabbed two of the heads by the hair and placed them on the ground, about twenty-five yards from the camp. The third head, he laid between them. Joined by his companions, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. A few men shot revolvers into the air, and one even danced a little jig.
Don Manuel’s smile was grim. Ah, it was such fun. A Festival de los Muertos, to be sure.
He felt no sadness for the peons. There were plenty of them. But they’d been hunted and murdered on his land without his permission, and Don Manuel took that as an affront to his honor.
Before, killing the gringo trespassers in freezing weather shaped up to be a chore. Now it would be a pleasure.
&
nbsp; Don Manuel took the telescope from his eyes and swung his stud back to the men who were waiting behind him. They’d dismounted and stood by their horses, each man with a rifle in his hands.
“Otilio,” he said, “a word.”
The handsome vaquero stepped forward, leading his horse as snow swirled around him. His eyes were black as coals in the glacial gloom.
“Your eyes are young, Otilio,” Don Manuel said. “You see how the interlopers parked their wagons one behind the other to form a barrier against the wind?”
“Sí, patron.”
“You will take half the men and swing wide around the camp. When I start my attack, you will charge the gringos from that direction. They suspect nothing, so stay out of sight by keeping the wagons between you and them for as long as you can. When you are among them, kill without mercy.” Don Manuel reached down from the saddle, placed a hand on the vaquero’s shoulder, and looked into his eyes. “Is all this clear to you, Otilio?”
The man nodded. “Sí, patron.”
“Then get it done.”
After Otilio and ten vaqueros rode out, Don Manuel signaled his remaining vaqueros to mount up. He drew his Colt as his men formed a skirmish line on each side of him. In the distance the Texan’s camp was lost behind the wind-tossed snow, but the fire glowed like a ruby caught in a white curtain.
“Are you ready, my children?” Don Manuel called out.
A chorus of voices answered. “Sí, patron.”
Don Manuel dug the rowels of his Spanish spurs into the palomino’s flanks and led the charge across the hard, winter-browned grassland.
The Texans were taken completely by surprise. When the hard-charging vaqueros rode into the camp, several fell in the first volley.
But the hired guns were first-rate fighting men, and they recovered quickly. Three of them made a stand with the two wagon drivers, their guns hammering steadily as they backed toward the horse line. Half of Don Manuel’s vaqueros sprawled on the ground, and a couple more fought to disentangle themselves from their downed, kicking horses.
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