by T. T. Flynn
"Where are you from?"
"T'other side of Pike's Peak, fur as you keer to trap beaver or take chances with your hair."
Captain Blandon's tired eyes lighted with quick interest. He straightened in the chair and put the pen down. "Which way did you come?"
"Down acrost the Llano Estacado an' the buff'ler an' Injun country."
"Why that way?"
"Quickest."
The ghost of a smile warmed Captain Blandon's face at the laconic answer. "Have any trouble along the way?"
"Plenty."
"Kill many Indians?"
"They knowed we passed through."
"Kill anyone else?"
Tucker's mouth was open for reply. He thought better of it, and scowled at the captain and combed the fingers of one hand slowly through his wild black beard. "Who else'd we kill?" Tucker growled after a moment.
"United States Army equipment was found in your packs at the Brazos corral," Captain Blandon said evenly. "Did you bring uniforms from Pike's Peak to wear when you enlisted?"
Tucker opened his mouth again, and again closed it silently. He looked at Brent, who had been watching attentively.
"I think Captain Blandon had better understand fully what happened," Brent said. "As a matter of fact, Captain, it was our intention to inform the proper authorities this morning. Yesterday we'd come a long way without seeing many people. Perhaps you'll understand why we delayed other matters to look around Matamoras."
"I've made a trip or two myself, Mister Brent. But under the circumstances ... whatever they were ... we're at war, you know. Recent issue Army uniforms require explaining." The captain cleared his throat. "You're a mountain man, too?"
"In a manner of speaking. I've been told a few more years might make me a fair fur man."
This time the captain's smile was more evident on his tired face. "Explain, Mister Brent, if you please, the uniforms which one of my men found when we examined your packs. We keep an eye on strangers, you see." Captain Blandon leaned back. His fingers touched the ends of his dusty brown mustache; his manner was noncommittal.
Brent explained in detail, to the flight of the girl. He added the discovery of Rosita at the cantina, and the way she had vanished again after the fight. "I don't know who the men were we shot. Obviously they meant no good to us. We were justified in shooting, considering other experiences on the trip with Indians. These men made no attempt to break off the trouble. Is it possible, Captain Blandon, that General Taylor's men are out in the brush masquerading as Indians?"
"Injuns or not, they gits shot when they skulk up on me with war paint!" Tucker Mossby growled. "I ain't never had time to ask no Army gin'ral if his men is out havin' a playful time."
"There is something more," said Brent. He repeated the words of the man he had shot: Polly dancing Matamoras. Watch rooster.
"You kept dern' quiet about that!" Tucker exclaimed. "Bet you was lookin' for that Polly in all them cantinas last night."
Captain Blandon was leaning forward. "Was that all the man said?"
"Yes. It meant nothing to me. I was hardly able to understand him. But I think that's what he said."
The captain drummed fingertips lightly on the table.
"The Texas men are doing fine work as scouts," he said. "They know the country. The Mexicans are afraid of them. I know many of them. Fine men, blooded on the frontier for years. But there's other work to be done more softly, quietly than the Rangers like to work. And by its nature more dangerous at times. I'm detached from my regiment by personal order of General Taylor to command irregulars. I choose who I need." Blandon's smile was almost apologetic in its lack of boast. "You might say my orders are the general's personal orders."
"Christmas," Tucker said softly. Then the glint of interest in Tucker's eyes became stricken. Tucker swallowed. "You didn't send some of your men scoutin' north of the Rio in Injun war paint, did you, Cap'n?"
"As a matter of fact I did," Captain Blandon said. He tapped softly with his fingers. "I sent a man named Murphy north of the river. He's lived for years around Saltillo and Monterey. He admitted joining the San Patricio battalion and then deserting."
"Sounds like a Mex outfit," Shorty observed.
Captain Blandon nodded. "Many of the San Patricios are Irish deserters from our forces. There are other nationalities, too. They're a fine lot of rascals, and Murphy would have been at home with them. He was often called Red Murphy. I'm told the Mexicans called him the Red Rooster."
Tucker slapped his leg. "That big buck who got away had red hair? I'll swear to it. Was this here Rooster a big 'un?"
"Yes." Blandon hunched his tired shoulders. "I seem to have made a mistake. Murphy should have been back days ago. We'll not see him again, I'm afraid."
"What was he doing when we met him?" Brent questioned.
"Some rascality outside of his orders." Blandon drew a breath, dropped his clenched fist softly on the table. "I'm responsible, I suppose, for trusting him. He knows some of my men now, which makes him dangerous. My men don't go in large groups. Murphy can do harm, if he's so minded."
"Perhaps." Brent suggested, "you know something about this dancer. Polly?"
"No. If she's in Matamoras, I'll have her found. Probably she's a sweetheart of Murphy's. He was a great one with the ladies, I've also been told."
"He had a gal with him," Shorty reminded.
"A gal we caught a-dancin' here in Matamoras," Tucker growled.
Brent felt color in his cheeks as they looked at him. "She was no sweetheart of a man like this Murphy," Brent said positively.
"Since you're so sure of it, we'll wait and see," Captain Blandon said, smiling. "Rosita, eh? Did you say she was pretty, Mister Brent?"
"I didn't say," Brent answered. "Tucker's probably a better judge than I am."
"Jes' looked like a woman t' me," said Tucker. "Seen a thousand in my day, all jes' women."
Captain Blandon chuckled. "We'll probably find this Polly, whoever she is, spying for the Mexicans. They're all aound us. Hating us for the most part. Can't say I blame them. After all, it's their county. But General Taylor's on his way to take Monterey and get on south into the valley of Mexico and end the war. Are you men still agreeable to enlisting?"
"We came a long way to git us a fight," Tucker said readily.
"Know any Spanish?"
"We all speak it," Brent said. "Santa Fe and the upper Rio Grande settlements were in our backyard, you might say. A man had to talk the lingo to get along."
"You're new in these parts. So much the better. Your faces aren't known," Brandon said, as if arguing with himself. He stood up. He was tall and wiry. "I can use men like you. Need you in fact. It's a long way to the valley of Mexico."
"I've been wonderin' who was gonna say it fust," Tucker said, standing up, also. "Cap'n, you got us. What do we do?"
"Find Murphy and bring him in or kill him," said Captain Blandon, gathering up papers. "I don't know what he's up to, and I want him stopped. You'll ride upriver to Camargo, and wait for orders at Rancho Perez, south of the town." Brandon smiled grimly. "After you take the oath, your orders will be military commands, to be obeyed unquestioningly. I'm a regular Army man. I'll have none of this sloppiness you may have observed among the volunteers. The fact that you'll be out of uniform and on regular duty will make no difference, in your strict obedience to orders. Do you understand?"
"I think, sir," said Brent, "we like to hear that kind of talk."
"I ain't tried takin' orders fer a long time," Tucker said. "I reckon I can swaller it."
"Me, too," Shorty assented.
"Then I'll swear you in," said Captain Blandon.
Camargo was a flood-ruined and all but deserted town that throbbed with new and alien life as Taylor's army and supplies poured in by land and river. Through chaparral, swampy lowlands, open Ilanos, Brent, Tucker, Shorty made the 100-mile trip in four days, and now and then they sighted the graceful, heavily loaded riverboats pushing against the mudd
y Rio Grande current on the longer water trip.
They passed dragoons and marching infantry and once a battery of field guns trundling heavily on massive, spoked wheels. At Camargo they found vast stacks of supplies along the high riverbanks, and the great plaza of the ruined town seething with soldiers and wagons, pack burros and mules, and the cotton tents of the regiments ranked far outside the town.
Young officers galloped about their business, muleteers cursed luridly, soldiers strolled about or marched past in brisk files, and over all hung dust and heat and the heady feel of action and coming danger. Monterey and the Mexican forces under General Don Pedro Ampudia were ahead. Old Zack Taylor knew where he was going and he was on his way.
"This is more like it," Trucker said as they rode out of town in search of Rancho Perez. "Wisht I knowed what we was gonna do."
"Kill us a red-headed rooster," said Shorty cheerfully.
"He didn't say where we'd git the rascal," Tucker grumbled. "Whyn't he let us backtrack to that cabin? Should 'a' stayed home if we couldn't cold track that renegade to where he went."
"Captain Blandon had other ideas. You're under orders now," Brent reminded.
"Wonder if he's got that gal locked up by now. That Rosita," Shorty said gravely, "she'd hang purtier'n a strung yucca flower, wouldn't she? A-kickin' her purty little heels an' her neck a-stretchin' out at the end of the rope."
"No doubt," Brent agreed. Blood crept to his face under Shorty's sly glance.
"Keepiri her to hang'll be the hard thing," Tucker said dryly. "Johnny, you reckon a husband'd have ary chance keepin' her long?" Tucker coughed. "Or mebbe you ain't thought along them lines."
"How could I think of anything with you two fools chattering like pinon jays?" Brent snapped.
Shorty snorted with laughter. Tucker's black beard gave out a dry rumble of humor; even Brent had to grin sheepishly. So they came an hour later, and after one false turn off the rutted dusty road, to Rancho Perez.
Melons, maize, a little wheat were growing on a scant plot of cleared land. A low adobe house had a solid and prosperous look in contrast to the muddaubed jacales of the peons across the clearing.
Horses were in two corrals, Army wagons were standing about, cotton tents were pitched in two rows off to one side, with soldiers loitering among them and muskets stacked in the open. An armed guard was pacing in front of the ranch house.
Brent asked for Lieutenant Fox, as he'd been directed. The man who came out had a young, brisk, cold-eyed look. He read the sealed orders Brent had brought and stared at them curiously.
"You'll find tents over there," he said. "Rations will be issued. The dragoons on duty are a guard and won't pry into your business. If your horses aren't up to hard riding, you can have your pick of better ones."
"That all, sir?" Brent asked.
"Rest while you can. Stay within call. Be ready to leave at any time." The lieutenant regarded their faces. His smile was friendly. "Captain Blandon's men don't put on fat," he answered unspoken questions.
The dragoons looked like a picked lot. They regarded the newcomers without much curiosity, as if used to such visitors, and they asked no questions. They kept to themselves.
Skirmishing parties passed on the road, laughing, singing. Foraging wagons under armed guard creaked by from Camargo and returned. That night Brent was aware of arrivals and departures from the ranch house. A man or two at a time usually. Never large numbers. Two days passed and nothing happened. Tucker began to chafe.
"Reckon we're (ergot?"
"Ask the lieutenant," Brent suggested.
Tucker did. He returned to the tents and shrugged. "The lieutenant says Cap'n, Blandon ain't fergetful."
At dusk the captain himself rode in on a lathered, dead-beat horse. He sent for Brent, and talked to him before Lieutenant Fox in the low-roofed front room of the ranch house where oil lamps had already been lighted.
Captain Blandon was dust-covered again. The tired look was heavier on him. He paced slowly about the room, eating cold meat and bread, sipping a glass of wine as he talked.
"You men will leave at dark. Full dark. Three days' rations. Extra rounds for your revolvers and rifles." The captain took another bite of bread and meat and washed it down with a gulp of wine. "I'm glad to see you're all armed with the new Texas revolvers. Wonderful guns. Sam Walker did more than he knew when he went East and got Colt to design that gun."
Brent nodded. "The traders brought a few of them into the mountains. We paid high, and found them worth it."
"You can depend on your horses?"
"We picked new ones, sir."
"Including that black stallion you fancied, Captain," said Lieutenant Fox humorously. "I'll swear I thought three Yankee traders had been turned loose on us, the way they culled the corral and took out the three best."
Captain Blandon chuckled. "Some Mexican don is gnashing his teeth over losing that black. No rancheria in the chaparral ever had a horse like that black."
"If the captain would rather have him ... ," Brent suggested.
"No, no. I'm pleased to see such a good eye for horseflesh. Now, then, Brent, you men will ride quietly after full dark, and at the Well of the Ten Crosses and Jesus, halfway between here and Camargo, a rider will be waiting for you, or will be along shortly. You know the place?"
"We spoke of it as we passed this way, sir."
"Good. The password will be canales. The answer muerte. After that you men will follow orders." The captain cleared his throat. His smile had a certain grim humor. "You will not question the orders. Do you want to ask anything now?"
"Well, no, sir."
"Good luck then, Brent. To all of you."
The captain still had the grim smile of humor as Brent walked out. Tucker and Shorty were elated. Darkness without moon was around them as they rode out quietly in the flourlike road dust, and headed to the well of Las Cruces Diez y Jesus.
The well was there beside the road, with the ten unpainted wooden crosses at one side, and looming behind them under a canopy of plaited branches was the rude, weather-beaten wooden statue of the Christo. Ten men had died here beside the lonely road where water offered life to those coming out of the desert. A cross for each life, and the Christo watched silently over the spot, mysterious, brooding in the faint starlight.
No one else was there. A coyote howled mournfully in the distance. Leather creaked softly as they waited, each man used to the lonely trails and not needing speech.
The first hoof beats they heard were coming from Camargo, soft, muffled in the road dust.
"Uno," Tucker muttered.
"Si," Brent said softly. They were in Mexico and the habits of the country were falling about them as naturally as if they were at the Valle de Taos, by the upper waters of the Rio Grande.
The solitary rider reined to a walk, and then to a stop where their forms were visible in the faint starlight.
"Canales," Brent said, and he heard a quiet "Muerto."
He rode forward to talk. The rider beckoned and turned back along the road, and in no more than 100 yards wheeled to the left and rode into the chaparral on a narrow trail Brent would hardly have noticed in daylight, and passed in the dark. The other two followed.
It was a rough trail, little traveled. No wagon had ever come this way. Miles were behind them, two full hours had passed before the steadily riding figure pulled into a walk.
"Where do we go?" Brent asked in Spanish, peering at the slender young man who rode silently with hat brim pulled down.
"Ask the devil, senor," was the careless answer he got back in Spanish. "He made the trail."
Brent stiffened. He could feel the cold and then the hot crawl of certainty that the voice brought. He rode closer, looking hard at the slender figure riding beside him. His exclamation reached to Tucker and Shorty.
"What the devil is this? Rosita!"
The figure pulled up and swung the dark horse to face the three of them. "Why not?" asked Rosita calmly. She spoke good
English and Brent fancied she was amused.
"That gal again?" Tucker blurted.
"We been tricked," Shorty Quade jerked out. "Grab her, Johnny!" Shorty circled out to ride behind her.
"Captain Blandon will not like this," Rosita said, unruffled. "My orders were to be followed."
Now Brent knew why the captain's grim amusement had persisted. He had an angry, and then a helpless feeling, as if the flood current of war had caught them all up, swirling them on helplessly. The anger he realized was at Captain Blandon for letting this come to pass, for letting this girl ride into the dangerous night, with all decisions in her hand.
"Shorty!" Brent warned. He added: "Blandon evidently knew what he was doing."
"Couldn't have," Tucker Mossby growled.
"Senor Blackwhiskers," said Rosita coolly, "be quiet."
Tucker sounded like something was softly strangling down in his wild black beard. It might have been anger or amusement. Tucker fell silent.
"Captain Blandon is not a fool," Rosita said. "There was no other way. Please, if you don't believe that, perhaps we won't come back."
"Blandon shouldn't have let a woman do anything like this," Brent snapped.
"Woman, man, what does it matter?" Rosita said carelessly. "I have the head. You have the guns."
"It's a purty head, to Johnny Brent's way of thinkin'," Shorty observed gravely. "He's been mighty sure you wasn't up to anythin' wrong. How about it, Johnny?"
"Keep quiet."
"A little more talk like that and we return to see what Captain Blandon thinks about it," Rosita said coldly. "He is not a fool. He promised not to send fools with me."
"You win, ma'am," said Shorty with grudging admiration, "We're friends anyway, ain't we? We saved your hair, an' then you saved our hair back there in Matamoras. A man hisself couldn't have done better. Trot out your orders. We're with you."
"Then listen to me," said Rosita slowly. "We are riding all night to the Plaza Ladrones. I know this country better than you know your mountains in the north. My father was a Monterey and Chihuahua trader. His men and his wagons went everywhere, and his pack trains, too, from Chihuahua to Matamoras and San Antonio, in Texas, and as far south as Mexico City. After my mother died, I went with Father everywhere. I know the people, the trails, the ranchos, as my father knew them from the time he was a young man. I have friends and enemies. Not everyone liked my father. He was a man. He could take care of himself, and did."
