by Ralph Cotton
“I don’t know, Clyde,” said Sam, already nudging his dun forward, pulling the white barb beside him. He gestured a nod back toward the fierce fighting. “You want to wait here, I’ll write you a letter first chance I get.”
“You can write it,” Burke said, swinging up into his saddle, falling in behind him. “But you won’t like where I’ll tell you to send it.”
Chapter 12
On a stone cliff near the top of the steep hill, Sam, Stanley Black and Clyde Burke stood in the cover of a low stone ledge and looked down on the fighting below. The rest of the rebels had gone farther down the hillside to join the fighting. Marcos Renaldo, the scar-faced leader of the rebels, stood with the three gunmen, seeing his men taking over the hillside and water hole below.
“That went right well, ol’ hoss,” Burke said to Marcos, assuming a familiarity, as if having known him his whole life.
Marcos let it go. He held up one of the French rifles he’d purchased from Sam a month earlier.
“I have your amigo and mine to thank for it,” he said, hefting the rifle admiringly. “It is he and the woman who delivered these fine arms to my men and me when we were struggling to just stay alive out here—now look at us, eh?” He gestured a hand toward the dead soldiers lying strewn on the hillside and down the trail, the sight of them obscured by the thick drift of burnt powder.
“My, my, but ain’t you just the huckleberry?” Burke said with a chuckle to Sam. “You’ve had your thumb in lots of pies.”
“He does get around,” said Black through the sagging hat brim, the smell of burnt felt.
“When we saw you and your compañeros walking across the sand with your hands bound, I said to my men, ‘This will not do.’ We waited and looked for our chance. When we saw the sergeant and his men ride back out, we decided to strike hard.”
“We are obliged, Marcos,” Sam said, not wanting to get too deep into the rifles and how he had come to be the one delivering them to the rebels.
Below, two of the rebels found time in the waning battle to pull a body from the water hole and drop it on the gravel bank. On rocks nearby, the buzzards had taken time from picking at the dead bear the Montana Kid had killed, as well as the guts and scraps left over from the one the soldiers had butchered for meat. The big birds watched the carnage with particular interest, flapping their shiny wings as if applauding the arrival of such a deadly species as man.
“Ah, and now it draws to a close,” Marcos said, listening to a few sporadic shots pop here and there among the wounded soldiers. “I have heard nothing as sweet as the sound of silent peace.” He smiled and looked back at Sam. “Come, let us get you armed and send you on your way. The sergeant has listened to the resounding gunfire below. His patrol will be arriving back at any time. We will wait here and ambush him,” he said.
Burke and Black looked back and forth between Sam and the rebel leader.
“Shouldn’t we stay and help out here?” Burke put in.
“Yeah,” said Black. “To show our appreciation for all you’ve done for us?”
“No,” said Marcos. “This is all a part of my gift. You must do nothing here, only continue on your journey, and go with God.”
Burke chuckled darkly.
“So far God ain’t been all too keen on keeping our company, ol’ hoss,” he said to Marcos. “But we’re obliged, him sending you when he did.”
Marcos nodded and swept a hand toward the lower hillside.
“Come, then, let us lead our horses down.” He looked at Black’s burnt and battered hat. “Perhaps among the dead you will find for yourself a better piece of headwear.”
“See, Stanley?” Burke said to Black, picking right up on the rebel leader’s words. “Nobody likes looking at that mess you’re wearing.”
“Nobody likes looking at you, Clyde!” Black said heatedly. “I’m not giving up a four-dollar hat until I’ve gotten my money’s worth from it.”
Sam nudged Marcos. The two of them turned away and led their horses ahead of the arguing gunmen and down the steep path toward the water hole.
At the path leading out to the edge of the water hole, Burke and Black caught up to them. Together the four walked into the smoke-covered campsite as the rebels lined up the soldiers who had thrown up their hands in surrender. They disarmed the frightened men and threw them to the ground, prodding them with rifle barrels until the soldiers sat trembling in fear, their hands clasped behind their heads.
As Sam and Marcos walked past the captured soldiers, they stopped and looked back when behind them Burke spoke up.
“Wait a minute. Look who this is,” he said, staring down at a young soldier with blood trickling down the corner of his lips.
“Por favor, señor,” the soldier begged, staring up at Burke, tears running down his cheeks.
“Por favor, your ass,” said Burke.
“It’s No Talk,” Black said with a surprised chuckle, gazing down at the trembling soldier.
“Imagine finding you here, No Talk,” said Burke. He reached down and loosely backhanded the sobbing man across the top of his bare head.
“This man has personally wronged you?” Marcos asked Sam.
“Every time one of us tried to speak, he told us to shut up,” Sam said. “But there was no real harm—”
“The son of a bitch like to have drove me loco,” Burke cut in. “I was hoping I could get my hands on him.” He backhanded No Talk’s head again, not too hard, but hard enough to keep him frightened.
“How would you like him to pay for wronging you?” Marcos asked Burke. “Whatever you decide, so will it be.”
“What about this, No Talk?” Burke said to the sobbing man. “Look who’s rolling all the marbles now.”
“Let’s go, Clyde,” Sam said, seeing Burke getting more and more worked up.
“Not yet,” said Burke. “I’m going to cut No Talk’s tongue out and stick it in his shirt pocket for him.”
The young soldier’s eyes went wild with terror. The other soldiers drew away from him, as if his grim fate might be catching.
Marcos produced a knife and handed it handle first to Burke. “Here, do what you must do.”
Burke took the knife with a cruel grin and looked down at the trembling bowed head.
“Huh-uh, Clyde,” Sam said strongly. “Let this go. We don’t have time for it.”
“How long can it take?” said Burke. He grabbed the soldier by his hair and jerked his head back. Gripping the knife tightly, he readied himself to pry the man’s tightly shut mouth open with the blade and do his worst. But he stopped short, the tip of the blade ready to plunge between the soldier’s tightened lips, and glanced at Sam.
“Let it go,” Sam said in a low firm voice. He shook his head slowly. “This is no good.”
Burke waited, his hand tight on the knife handle, his other hand entwined in the soldier’s hair. Finally he let out a tight breath, turned loose of the soldier’s hair, actually smoothed it down with his palm.
“Well, No Talk,” he said, drawing the knife blade back from the soldier’s lips, “looks like this is your lucky—”
Burke’s words stopped beneath the blast of a pistol in Marcos’ hand. The soldier pitched backward with a bullet hole in his forehead. A red mist blossomed in the air and melted away as the soldier hit the ground, his dead eyes staring skyward.
Sam, Burke and Black turned wide-eyed in surprise.
Marcos shrugged and lowered the smoking pistol.
“He was going to die anyway,” he said. “His tongue would not matter.” He turned the pistol to the next soldier sitting in the row and shot him, then the next, and the next.
Sam winced as the soldiers struggled to rise but were pushed back down by rifle butts. Glancing toward Captain Flores’ felled tent, Sam saw Flores thrown to the ground by three riflemen. The captain was only half-dre
ssed, a nightshirt hanging down over his uniform trousers. Having been awakened by the melee, he had been sleeping off a night of smoking fresh tar opium. He had staggered out waving his saber wildly, but to no purpose. Now that he was down, his saber gone, the men laughed and poked at him with their French-made rifles Sam had helped deliver to them.
“Shoot the rest of these poltroons,” Marcos ordered his rebels, lowering his smoking pistol. “I must go say hola to the captain, and shoot him too. Leave no prisoners alive here,” he demanded. He looked all around and smiled widely. “Viva revolución!”
• • •
Before an hour had passed, Sam sat atop his dun riding along the edge of the desert at the foot of the hill line. He led the white barb beside him, having found the supply pack and strapped it to the animal’s back. Clyde Burke and Stanley Black rode on either side of him, the three keeping their horses at an easy gallop ahead of the day’s oncoming heat. Vision across the desert floor was still clear, but with so much fighting and gunfire in the hill line, the day had started out with no secrets, Sam reminded himself, riding on. Anyone on the desert floor or surrounding hills knew there had been fighting throughout the night.
“How much farther?” Black asked above the soft plop of hooves in sand as he sidled up close on Sam’s free side.
Sam looked sidelong at him, seeing his face beneath a straw sombrero given to him by one of the rebels before they’d left the water hole.
“Tomorrow,” said Sam, and he turned forward and rode on.
The three had taken on enough firearms and ammunition from the dead soldiers to get them out of any scrape, if their odds were anywhere near defendable.
Sam had found a large bandana and tied himself a head cloth. Over the head cloth, he placed a black sombrero he’d found among the captain’s belongings. The sombrero’s crown stood so tall that the top four inches of it folded over and flapped a little with the gallop of the dun. The initials LF were thinly embroidered in dark gold thread on the front of the tall crown.
He’d replaced his shredded shirt with a dark loose-sleeved shirt and a black embroidered vest. Under the shirt he wore a bandage on his healing wounds. Across his chest he wore a single bandolier of ammunition; on his hip he wore the captain’s gun belt with an Army Colt riding in a black slim-jim holster, the holster flap cut off for quicker handling. On the dun’s saddle horn hung four canteens of water. A French repeating rifle swung on a saddle ring. A knife with a brass Spanish handle stood in its sheath inside his boot well.
Black and Burke both carried French rifles, as well as battered Colts inside holsters and bandoliers of ammunition across their chests. Additionally, Black carried a short double-barreled shotgun of a kind once carried aboard Mexican traveler coaches. Black had stuffed his burnt and battered hat down into a pair of saddlebags he carried behind his horse’s saddle. Burke ate from an open tin of blanched peaches as he rode, spearing the peaches on the tip of a big knife he’d acquired. A bottle of rye whiskey and a bottle of tequila stood peeping from under the edge of his saddlebags.
They only stopped for a moment at midday and looked back in the direction of the water hole, hearing the new outbursts of gunfire from the hillside. As they sat half-turned in their saddles, they saw black burnt powder rise and drift along the hillside rocks and boulders.
Burke speared another peach half and raised it to his lips. He held it there for a moment as if in contemplation.
“Mexicans love to fight, don’t they?” he finally said, grinning back and forth.
“You’d think so, as much as they do it,” Black replied. Sam just looked at them.
Burke stabbed another dripping peach half and held it out to Sam on the knife blade.
“Eat a peach?” he said, juice running down his beard stubble, dangling from his chin. He belched long and loud.
“Obliged, but no,” Sam said, turning forward in his saddle as the new battle raged. Burke turned the knife blade to Black with the same offer. Black grabbed the slippery peach half and downed it in a gulp, then looked expectantly at Burke.
“I didn’t take you to raise,” Burke said.
They rode on.
A full hour had passed when the shooting behind them waned, then trickled to a stop altogether. Without slowing or looking back, they continued forward until the desert to their right became obscured by the day’s wavering heat. When they realized that riders could come as close as a thousand yards or less without being seen by them, they reined their horses a sharp turn and rode onto the sloping hillsides. Once in the labyrinth of boulder and stone, scrub pine and stands of flowering ironwood, they sheltered themselves on walled paths and trails as old as the conquistadors and native peoples who’d formed them.
In the heat of the afternoon, they lay in rock shade and watered their horses from their hats and canteens.
“I could eat a snake while it’s still crawling,” Burke revealed, rubbing a brittle pine branch in the rocky dirt. “Peaches are monkey food. They go down good, but they’re too soft to fill the gullet. . . .” He let his words trail as he watched Black curiously.
Without a word of response, Black had stood and dusted the seat of his trousers and walked to the white barb. He fumbled with something in a canvas bag down among the supplies.
Burke cocked his head, even more curious.
“He comes back and throws me a snake, he’s a dead man,” he said to Sam in earnest.
But when Black returned from the barb, he pitched Burke and Sam each a piece of jerked goat he’d pirated from the soldiers’ supplies. As he sat down, he took a bite from a chunk he’d kept for himself.
“Obliged, Stanley,” Burke said.
“Obliged,” Sam repeated.
As the three sat eating the dried goat meat, the horses turned nervous and whinnied under their breath. They nickered and pulled at their reins that were tied to a pair of scrub pines.
Sam stood, his rifle ready, and looked all around.
Burke stuffed the chunk of meat in his mouth and stood with his pistol up out of his holster.
Beside Burke, Black levered a round into his rifle chamber.
“Another bear, you figure?” he whispered to Sam.
“I don’t know,” Sam whispered in reply. “This place is good for about anything you can think of.”
Burke chewed quickly, looking around, not trying to speak. The horses grew more nervous. Black’s horse tried to rear, but its reins stopped it.
The ground trembled violently, as if a large hand had reached deep into its belly and shaken its guts back and forth.
“There it is,” Sam said, his attention turning quickly from searching for some hill predator to keeping his balance on the tilting, wobbling ground.
“There’s no letup in this godforsaken desert,” Burke said, having managed to swallow the stiff goat meat almost whole.
“Soon as one thing’s over, another thing starts!” Black said, spreading his feet to keep from falling.
“How does a man ever plan his day?” said Burke.
Sam stood waiting, listening, feeling the tremendous rumble underfoot draw closer, closer, then seem to dissipate and move on. Pines towering above them on the hillside swayed and shook like dogs shedding rain. Pine nuts, pine needles and dried bird nests showered down.
“Watch for rocks,” Sam cautioned, hearing heavy stones thump and crash and tumble and bounce down the hillside in the tremor’s wake. As soon as the steep hillside seemed to jar to a halt and settle, Sam said, “All right, get the horses, let’s get out of here.”
As they gathered the animals and pulled them along down the trail toward the desert floor, a boulder the size of a house rumbled down the hillside less than a hundred feet from them. But seeing it tear down the hillside raising a high spray of dust behind it didn’t slow the three of them down. On the contrary, it sped them up.
They
ran down the path pulling their horses by their reins until they thought the land was safe enough for them to risk being on horseback. Then they stopped and mounted and rode the rest of the way down the hill. They did not stop on the bottom slope but rather rode out onto the sand before turning their horses quarterwise to the hill and looking back.
Suddenly, as they sat their horses, staring in amazement, a large portion of the lower sloping hillside, trail and all, crumbled like a stale cake and fell straight down into the lower bowels of the earth. Remnants of rock, trees and boulders toppled over the crumbling upper edge and disappeared, leaving behind a spinning, swirling funnel of dust that was within another instant sucked down out of sight.
“Tell me if I’m mistaken,” Burke said meekly when the roar of the sinking hillside diminished enough for him to be heard. “Did that hillside just fall into the ground?”
Sam and Black both sat in stunned silence. At length, Sam took a deep breath to collect himself.
“It did,” he said quietly.
“All right, I’m gone,” Burke said with finality. He jerked his reins to turn his horse around. But Black grabbed his horse by its bridle, stopping it.
“Wait. You can’t leave,” Black said.
“Try to stop me,” said Burke, throwing his hand to the butt of his pistol.
“What about the gold?” Black asked, turning loose of Burke’s horse. “We’re almost there.”
“What good is getting there if the whole Twisted Hills, the Blood Mountain Range and half the damn Mexican Desert falls out from under us?” Burke shouted.
“What do you say, Jones?” Black asked, weakening a little on the matter himself. “Are you still going on after the gold?”
Sam just looked at the two of them, the whole hill line in front of them covered in a long wall of dust.
“For now, yes,” Sam said. “After all we’ve gone through, I’m not stopping here. We’ll be there tomorrow. If these quakes and slides get worse, we know how to stop and turn around, don’t we?”
Burke calmed down; so did Black.
