by Jake Logan
“When will Diego be back?” Willa stood close by.
“Whenever he’s found the location or knows it is impossible for us to try.”
“Is that word in your vocabulary?”
“Which one?”
“Impossible.”
“Yes.” He took and hugged her head to his body. “I use that word.”
“Not very often.”
He turned his ear to listen. “He may be coming back.”
“So soon?”
“No one else would ride that hard up this canyon at night.”
She snuggled her face and body up against him. Then they hurried on under the stars down to the ramada. The others were already there.
Diego leaped off his horse and gulped for breath coming up the sandy bank. “I found it. It is parked in a livery stable as he said. The guards are drunk and were passed out when I found it. There are some fancy horses and harness in those stables too.”
“Did you see Lopez and his blasting powder?”
“No sign of him.”
“Damn,” Slocum swore. “Sounds like tonight is the night to take it. Get your horses, maybe he will show up.”
“What if he doesn’t?” she asked.
Slocum shook his head. For the moment, he had no good answer. “Then we can wreck it somehow so he can’t use it.”
In minutes. their horses were saddled and he paid Chico, who told them to come back. They headed across the moonlit desert in a hard drive. At the edge of town, they dismounted and Willa gathered their reins. Diego in the lead, they went on foot by the back alleys and dark side streets, crossing apart from each other through the sections lighted by cantinas and walking slow in case they were noticed.
At last they were in the livery. Quickly they bound and gagged the unconscious guards. Diego remained the lookout at the front door while they harnessed the three teams of horses.
“You and I can ride them,” Slocum said to Cordova as they hitched the impatient ones to the caisson.
“Sí. It looks like fun.”
“I’ve done it. They steer good.” Slocum straightened from hitching a singletree.
“How do you figure they got this gun?”
“It was stolen somewhere from the U.S. Army. I can see the marks and insignias on it. This was never sold to anyone.”
“Should we take it back?” Cordova asked with a grin that made his teeth shine even in the half-light.
“How far is the border?”
“Where we can cross? Oh, forty miles.”
“Hell, yes, let’s try.”
“Someone is coming,” Jimenez whispered.
“Don’t shoot.” It was Lopez. “I have the blasting powder. I didn’t think you would get here so soon.”
“Get it in here. Start arming sticks of it and tie two of them together.” Slocum waved him to go after them.
“My horses are down the street,” Lopez said.
“Go. Go.”
“Should we wait for him?” Trevino asked.
“Yes,” Slocum said. “We can turn back any pursuit throwing dynamite at them or setting it off in their path.”
The older man agreed. “Besides, we have several hours till daylight.”
Out of breath, Lopez ducked his head to ride his horse and the pack horse on the lead inside the stable’s open front doors. Caisson teams hitched, they began to arm the blasting sticks. The older ones showed the younger ones.
Soon they had sacks filled with armed ammunition. One hung on Lopez’s saddle horn and Cordova issued him two large boxes of matches. Trevino, Jimenez, with Diego all bore a sack on their back with boxes of matches to go join Willa and their horses a few blocks away.
Slocum gave them some time before he and Cordova each rode opposite horses out of the livery and down the street in a jog, with the three teams hauling the cannon behind. Late as it was in the night, few people acted interested. Drunks waved at them, and they soon were beyond all the jacales and barking dogs.
“Where are we taking it?” Willa rode in close to him, looking over the operation as they went along.
“To the border.”
“Can we make it there?”
“Hell, yes.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a wild man, Slocum.”
“Maybe that’s why you like me.”
“What if he sends an army after us?”
Slocum winked and nodded at Cordova. “We may have to stop and use the cannon on them.”
Willa shook her head at him, spurring her horse in closer to him. “How much ammo do you have?”
“Three or four rounds, I’d say, in the box back there.”
“When will he find out about his loss of the gun?”
“Not for hours, I hope. Tell Trevino I want him to fall back when it gets light and use my glasses. He can tell if and when they’re coming.”
“Can you really use this cannon?” She shook her head as if still in disbelief.
“Yes.” He’d shot such weapons hundreds of times in the war. How accurate he’d be with this one he wasn’t certain, but he could use it, and any shot near the pursuers would be sufficient to change their hearts about chasing them, but they’d save it for last.
“Cordova, come dawn you’ll be the driver and one of the boys can ride in your place. I’ll set the charges.”
“Sí, this is much fun. To steal a gun like this so easy is beyond my dreams, hombre.”
“Don’t count chickens too soon, they ain’t hatched yet.”
“Eeha!” his man shouted, and they hurried off in the night.
Dawn, and they were less than four hours from the border by Cordova’s calculations. Slocum’s belly had begun to complain. There was some old adage about a soldier with an empty belly fought twice as hard as a well-fed one. In another half hour, there would be light leaking over the eastern crown of the small saw-edged mountains.
Lopez dropped back and rode beside Slocum. “Do you plan to give this gun back to the army?”
“Someone stole it from them.”
“You think Garcia did that?” Lopez asked over the sounds of the caisson rims rolling along and the harness chains jangling over the hoofbeats.
“No, I think he bought it from a thief.”
“I do too. My captain has wondered since you told him about it. He even had spies go see if it was for real. There is word Garcia had hired a gringo to come down there and show his men how to fire it.”
“Had he come?”
Lopez shook his head. “Not yet that I know about.”
“Good. This gun is of no use unless you know how to charge and fire it.”
Lopez agreed and turned off his horse.
Diego soon reined his horse around and came in close to the teams and the rolling caisson. “Señor, there is dust back there. I think they are coming.”
Slocum nodded that he heard the young man. “Tell Willa to bring my horse. You can ride with Cordova.”
“Ah, sí, señor. I would like that.”
Slocum nodded, and the boy rode off to catch her, leading the extra horses at the head of the line.
“Are there solders at the big spring?” Cordova shouted.
“Yes, black ones from Fort Huachuca. They’ll damn sure fight if Garcia wants one.”
Cordova looked back and then shook his head. “It’ll be close.”
“Ah, we’ll get there.” Slocum saw her coming back and reined in the teams. The hard-breathing animals were ready for a break.
Diego rushed in and dismounted. He pulled two boxes of matches out of his shirt and handed them over. Slocum took them and then boosted the boy up. He quickly transferred the sack of explosives from Diego’s horse to his own.
“Cordova, short of the border, wheel that cannon around, unhitch it, and I’ll be there to load and fire it. If Garcia won’t quit before he gets there he will under cannon fire.”
His man nodded that he understood, and they were off again. Willa smiled at him, her face under a
veil of dust. Then she hurried to the front of the line with her wards.
Trevino joined him. “Where will we set the first explosives?”
“In that sandy wash about ten feet apart.”
“That will be easy enough.”
“That’s why I chose it. We can plant them easy in the sand.”
They rode over, and the charges were all set in the path of the Garcia’s men. They’d be forced to come off the high bank at this break in the wall. The men coming couldn’t avoid it. But the timing of the charges worried Slocum. His experience with these detonating cords’ burning time was nil.
He and Trevino set them, and then he sent his man up on the rise to see how close they were. Slocum could hear the drum of their hooves. Soon, the older man and his horse bailed off the top and he shouted, “They’re coming.”
Slocum set the fuses, mounted his horse, and they both fled the wash.
The shouts of the men when they reached the tall brink of the wash was loud and then the explosion went off. A great plume of dust billowed high in the sky. Horses screamed and men cursed. Slocum nodded. He and Trevino fled on their mounts across the desert to catch his crew, who were a small speck north of them.
Short of the tall familiar cottonwoods of the Bernallio Springs that surrounded the small lake on the American side, his cannon was set up ready for him to load.
Slocum slid his horse to a stop and looked back. There were still riders coming, but not nearly as many. He winked at Cordova. “Get that ram.”
The tied-on ram’s end was covered with sheep wool. Slocum lugged the powder charge to the muzzle and slipped it in the barrel. “Now easy, tamp it down.”
He went back for a cannonball. Actually an explosive grenade in that form. The company of black soldiers were armed and all lined up on the American side to watch the show. Slocum could hear them making bets on how close he could get to them.
“Will this hit them?” Cordova asked, tamping in the ball.
“I’m not certain.” He fused and lit it. The cannon bucked and discharged its load. The shot whined through the air, fell to the right of the on-coming riders, and exploded, but the explosion spooked their horses wildly sideways and jarred men out of their saddles.
“Here,” a white officer said, and strode over the unmarked line of the border. “I can sight that weapon.”
“Good,” Slocum said. “That all right, Sergeant Lopez?”
“Sí, señor. They aren’t getting this gun back. That’s my job.”
They reloaded and the officer made adjustments. He straightened and nodded to Slocum, who set off the fuse. The cannonball went screaming out through the air, and must have landed to explode in the center or close to the area of Garcia’s still-hard-riding men. The buffalo soldiers cheered. When the dust cleared, it was obvious that Garcia’s army had given up.
“My name’s Josh Silverton,” the officer offered him a handshake.
“I was sure glad to see you. Thanks,” Slocum said. “You’ve had more experience than I did with a cannon. Now, since it was stolen from some army outpost, it is yours to take back to the fort.”
His arms folded over his chest, Silverton shook his head. “How in the hell did you ever get it back?”
“By raw nerve, I guess. Captain, allow me to introduce Mrs. Malloy.”
The six-foot-tall officer with a hint of gray at the temples swept off his hat in a most gentlemanly way. “I’ve heard about you too, ma’am. You have the freight contract for the fort, right?”
“Yes, you must be new there?”
“I am, four weeks is all, Mrs.—”
“My name is Willa.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Slocum wanted to laugh. The captain looked absolutely enthralled by her even under two coats of road dust. Wait till he saw her cleaned up.
“I don’t think Garcia wants that gun back. Meet Sergeant Lopez of the federales. These others too.”
Slocum and Willa shared a private nod. Silverton bore the appearance of a sharp officer. Doing his duty with a company of buffalo soldiers protecting the springs from any renegade Apaches getting a drink moving from Mexico to Arizona or vice versa. Bernallio Springs had been a way station especially for the Chiricahuas for a long time in their migrations from the Sierra Madres to the Dragoons. The buffalo soldiers prevented that traffic.
“I think Garcia went back,” Trevino said.
“I would too,” Slocum agreed.
“Where do we go next?” Trevino quietly asked Slocum as Silverton stood aside from them and talked to Willa.
“I want Silva.” Slocum watched the black soldiers admiring the caisson at last back on U.S. soil.
“Where do you reckon he went to in Arizona?”
“Somewhere over near Bisbee. I think he might be at Tombstone looking for some toughs to join him.”
“How will we find him?”
“Split up and we’ll meet at Fort Huachuca in five days. They will let me stay there. I’ll check out Tombstone and that area along the San Pedro River. Get any word let me know. I can accept telegrams at the fort too.”
“We will need some money,” Trevino said.
“I have some. Should be enough. Lopez can send me our money and I’ll get it to you.”
“Sí, señor. I will get my captain to send it to you at the fort.”
“No. You can bring it to me at the fort,” Slocum said.
“I will do that. No one else could have stolen that caisson from Garcia like you and these men did.”
“We got lucky,” Slocum said. “Damn lucky, but these are good men who ride with me.”
Lopez agreed.
They parted with Silverton.
18
Tombstone’s palaces of sin, liquor, and around-the-clock gambling roared twenty-four hours. Piano keys tingled; raging drunken whores paraded equally inebriated customers down the boardwalks to their cribs. A few men passed out or sat in a drunken state on the porches. Some leg and arm amputees in threadbare army uniforms, both blue and gray, begged on the corners.
Shysters on every cross street were selling worthless watches and other jewelry as valuable as the timepieces. Businessmen in aprons swept off the boardwalk in front of their businesses and ran off any old alcoholic residing there with the same broom.
Dusty, hipshot horses were at the hitch racks out in front. People passed by on bicycles, in buggies, and others in weathered gray wagons A beer hauling rig was parked at the Palace and in his long-tail, black coat and flat-crowned hat, Marshal Virgil Earp stood against the wall in front of the saloon and hotel.
“Well, Slocum, what brings you to this hellhole?” Virgil said, giving his mustache a twist. “It has to be either money or pussy.”
“I’m looking for a man who’s called Leon Silva in Mexico.”
“No telling what name he’d use here.”
“That’s what I said—in Mexico.”
“Go behind this street”—Virgil motioned some toward the south—“and try that row of cantinas. Them Messicans may know about him.”
“Who do you trust down there?” Slocum narrowed his vision against the glare off the street to study a shapely-looking woman coming out of woman’s dress store. Natalee—Natalee Farley. What was she doing in Tombstone? Interesting enough.
“Adriano, the bartender in the La Paloma. He keeps secrets for a fee.”
“Good, how’s the law doing?”
Virgil smiled. “In this hellhole it never goes well.”
“I’ll see you.”
“Keep your head down.” The lawman smiled again.
“I will.”
Slocum found the La Paloma cantina, and was forced to duck coming in the batwing doors or hit his head. Constructed from twisted mesquite posts, slab lumber, and covered in rusty sheet iron, there was nothing about prosperity in the place. The bar, set on beer kegs, had been sanded smooth and showed the scars of fights and idle sculptures. Artwork on the back-bar wall showed various paintings of naked wo
men and couples having sex. The males were all well endowed, with long scrotums that hung to their knees, which would have made a billy goat proud.
Adriano was polishing glasses and alone in the mid-morning calm.
“They tell me you know everyone in Tombstone with a Mexican name.” Slocum put three silver pesos on the bar.
“Oh, Señor, I know many of them.” The handsome man smiled as if embarrassed.
“Marshal Earp says you can keep a secret too.”
“Sí.”
“Is Leon Silva in town?”
“He was here yesterday.”
“Where is he staying?”
Adriano looked around. “I think on the Santa Cruz over near Tubac.”
“You know of a name over there?”
“Francis, his brother, farms over there I think.”
Slocum dug out two more cartwheels and thanked him. “Gracias.”
He ducked his head going out the doors. On the porch, he let his eyes adjust to the glaring sun beyond the roof’s edge. Searching around, he decided all the Hispanics were at work. On his horse, he headed back for the fort. Tubac was a hundred miles away. But it made sense for Silva to go there, where there would be more employable men in that valley than the silver mines who hired them all, including the Chinese.
His horse put up, he arrived after dark at the fort’s visitors’ residence under the rustling cottonwoods. The creak of the swing told him Willa was still up.
“You have any supper?” she asked when he mounted the porch steps.
“Some jerky.”
“Learn much today?”
“Yes. He’s probably at Tubac.” He bent over and kissed her.
“Why there?”
“He has a brother named Francis who farms there.”
“Lopez is in town. I told him you’d find him in the morning. He has the money. Your crew is there too.”
“Good, I’ll settle with them.”
“They aren’t going with you to Tubac?”
“I can’t pay them much.”
“I think they expect you to ask them to go along.”
