Deuces Wild

by Dusty Richards

  Obviously, John Slaughter’s men had saved this bad one especially for Horn. The ranch hands all squatted in the dust, unable to hide their smug grins. These vaqueros worked for the short man, Slaughter, who owned all the Peraltas’ Spanish land grant holdings up and down the San Pedro Valley on both sides of the border. They were muy tough hombres who rode wild horses themselves and loved to see them buck. This time, Slaughter’s men had chosen the worst loco mustang they could find for Horn to ride. No way could he win their money in this contest the way he usually did.

  Horn, with a bottle of cheap mescal in his right fist, climbed onto the corral to survey their outlaw. Deuces joined him, using his elbows on the top rail to maintain his balance. The Roman-nosed stud looked tall and powerful. Its double mane full of burrs concealed a muscular neck that Deuces knew it could snake far out, then bury its face between its feathered legs to give its rider a pitch toward the stars. No ordinary mustang, this one carried the frame and blood of great draft horses. Its blue roan hide bore the dark scars of previous combat with other stallions for possession of mares.

  “By gawd, Deuces, what do you think?” Horn asked, before taking another swig from the brown bottle.

  “He looks bad,” Deuces said in Spanish, impressed with the stout animal.

  Horn finished swallowing his mescal and began to laugh. At last, he shook his head with a twinkle in his eyes “By gawd, here, Deuces, have a snort of this piss. Why, he’s just an old pony needs some dusting off.”

  The vaqueros might feed Horn whiskey, but Deuces knew they could as well save their liquor. They’d need a barrel of the stuff to get him too drunk to ride. Deuces tried a swallow of the fire water from Horn’s bottle. It burned his tongue, then his throat, and the rest of the way down. When they were standing on the ground again, he quickly shoved the mescal back to Horn.

  “Bad stuff.” Deuces frowned in disapproval.

  Horn laughed aloud. “Hell, son, they weren’t going to feed me the good stuff. You have any money?”

  “How much?”

  “All you’ve got. I aim to ride that blue devil to hell and gone and win you a shitpot full of money.” Smiling, laughing, Horn obviously intended to make the most of their one-night layover at the Slaughter ranch.

  So the bets were placed, and Horn saddled the snorty roan with his double-rigged California saddle. The word had gone out up and down the valley about the competition. People hurried to see it. Deuces watched several attractive young olive-skinned women carrying their skirts so they could half run to get a place close enough around the pen for the viewing. Men, women, and children were all peering through the corral rails or seated on the rooftops of nearby sheds for a better view.

  Every cent of his money was bet on Horn’s ride; Deuces finally managed to get inside the large pen and squatted on the ground to see everything. Horn teased the assistants helping him. No fear in this man’s veins. He would have made a great Apache brave.

  The head-shaking roan snorted and strained at the rope snubbing it to the hitching post. Its great pie-shaped feet churned up dust as it stomped and kicked both heels at its unseen adversaries. A large, leather blind was fixed over its head so all it could do was squeal and grunt, plus strike with a forehoof at any unseen humans trying to touch it.

  Horn wore a pair of tough bullhide batwing chaps, his special spurs with sharpened rowels to dig in and punish the outlaw, and a lightly loaded quirt with small birdshot sewed in the ends to bring pain for any resistance.

  “Deuces, you want to ride this pup?” Horn shouted at him.

  A quick shake of his head drew a nervous ripple of laughter from the assembled ranch people. No way Deuces wanted anything to do with this roaring, stomping, tonto loco horse. Then he noticed the animal had become so worked up its male organ stuck out.

  Someone in the crowd shouted obscenely about what that horse would do to Horn after it threw him on the ground. Horn ducked down, saw the stud’s projection, and laughed until his eyes were wet.Wiping them on his kerchief, he shook his head at the notion.

  “Not to me, amigos!” he shouted, and bounded in the saddle.

  They jerked off the blinds, let the tie rope loose—it was Horn and the roan. Roaring like a lion, the stud began to dive and pitch, its great hooves striking the ground and churning up the loose dirt into blinding clouds.With each explosive leap, it kicked its heels high over its back, its grunts louder than any wild boar as more dust boiled up in the pen. There, high on its back, sat the laughing Horn, shouting and whipping the big horse over the head with his quirt on every jump.

  When the animal’s hooves touched the ground, Horn jerked himself back in place, no daylight under his butt, the spur rowels ringing like church bells during each furious buck.

  The ride went on forever, until, in final defeat, the roan stopped with a shudder, its shoulders lathered in a muddy foam that dripped on the ground. With a darker-colored body, it looked gutted. From its flared nostrils ran trickles of scarlet, its eyes were sunken in its head, the glare of anger was erased. Only the loud rasping of its hard breathing sounded as the shocked crowd realized the lanky rider, who kicked his leg over the saddle horn and jumped down, had ridden all the fire out of their roan tornado. Tom Horn had subdued their devil horse.

  Quietly, they began to disperse, saying little, looking much like their done-in bucker—defeated. Their long-laid plans to have this laughing gringo mopped up in the dirt were over. They’d lost.

  Deuces went over and took the saddle Tom had stripped off the horse. He could smell the roan’s powerful male sweat coming from the wet pads.

  “By damn, boy, we done good here,” Horn said, brushing the flour like dust off his shirt sleeves and vest.

  Deuces nodded. The people who lived beside the San Bernardino Springs may have learned a lesson. They’d lost plenty of money. His own share of the winnings was forty dollars in gold. This laughing cowboy was the best rider he ever knew. So Deuces was equally proud that hot afternoon when he walked up the street of the dusty Mexican village of Narcozi, and Tom Horn told him after all their hard work to bring the captain’s remains there—they were entitled to a party, a fandango.

  Horses and mule boarded in the stable, they headed for the cantina across the street, where guitar and trumpet music rang out.When Deuces followed Horn inside the place, the dim light blinded him for a moment. But the smoky interior of the cantina felt much cooler than outside. Soon his eyes became adjusted, and he saw several vaqueros at the bar who turned to look hard at them.

  “Amigos!” Horn shouted. Then he moved into the bar among them as if he knew them and bought two bottles of rotgut.

  “You brought the gringo officer’s body here?” one of them asked.

  Horn nodded solemnly. He stood there like a man who had lost his best friend. “We’ve had three days of hell to get here.”

  With a nod, he indicated Deuces. “Me and my com-padre here need us a little Messikin whiskey now.” He held up the bottles, and they nodded in their approval. Sour looks turned to smiles, and they clapped him on the back, making dust rise.

  “Ah, amigos, you have a good time here,” one of them said, and the others agreed.

  “Gracias,” Horn told them, and came over to the booth he had indicated.

  Deuces slid into the seat. This man Horn could tame jaguars, the great spotted cats that sometimes stole their way this far north. Apaches never killed them, for they were sacred—el tigre. Besides, a bullet would not kill such an animal; only in hand-to-hand combat with a knife could one take such a legendary cat’s life.

  “Good guys,” Horn said with a head toss.

  The ones at the bar shared a friendly nod with him and went back to their drinking. Horn wiped his mustache with his palm before he took a large jolt from his bottle.

  “That’s yours,” he said, shoving the other bottle over and laughing aloud as two teenage girls appeared as if by magic at the end of the table. “Deuces,” Horn said aloud, “why, look who’s do
ne found us.”

  Horn removed his sombrero, and one of the girls took it. The other held her hand out for Deuces’s straw hat, which he wore at Horn’s insistence so someone wouldn’t pot-shoot him for a renegade.

  The string under his chin caught when he tried to remove it. He felt clumsy, but at last it came free, and she put it on the hook. Then she smiled at him. Thin and round-faced, she had little shape under her low-cut, wash-worn dress. She appeared uncomfortable but took a place on the bench seat when Deuces nodded his approval, and he moved over to make room for her to join him.

  Then an older woman came and took the two girls’ drink orders. Horn approved of their requests; the woman nodded and left. He spoke in English to Deuces. “They will charge us for good liquor but bring them tea. Don’t complain. It is how they play their game here, savvy?”

  Deuces nodded that he understood. The girl who called herself Quana put her hand familiarly on his leg under the table. His heart stopped. He knew about women. Apache widows were generous with their bodies among the tribe’s young men. With so many single females in camp after the tribe’s warpath death losses, he found himself the object of attention from several such women at stomps. Always the ugly ones were the boldest at these events, and those were the ones he drew.

  The mescal made Deuces laugh, and impulsively he hugged her shoulder. She scooted her hip against his and acted pleased. Horn nodded his approval.

  “We’re going to have a good time tonight.” He reached across the table and slapped Deuces’s arm to reinforce his words.

  “Damn right,” Deuces said, and looked into the starry eyes of the puta. Out of sight, her fingers nimbly tested his manhood through the material of his pants.

  “You like big ones?” he whispered in Spanish to her.

  “Sí.” She grinned foolish-like up at him.

  “Good,” he said. “Mine is grande.”

  “Oh, good,” she said, and, being sure no one was looking, she took a swig from his bottle. Then she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and looked hard at him. “I like muy grande hombres.”

  The four of them laughed.

  Then Deuces looked up in time to see a big man with a red beard start toward them from the bar. He had the small eyes of a javelina and looked angry about something.

  “Gawdamn red sucker!” he shouted at Deuces, and his hand closed on the gun butt in the cross-draw holster. “You ain’t breeding no more of them.”

  How Horn ever got his girl out of the way and managed to escape the booth that fast, Deuces never knew. Except María was on her butt on the floor, and Horn’s right hand held the point of an Arkansas toothpick under the man’s chin, forcing him to stand on his toes.

  “You’re mistaken, sir,” Horn said through his clenched teeth. His other hand tore away the man’s revolver and sent it skating across the floor.

  “My friend Deuces is part of the U.S. Army forces cleaning up the last renegades in this land. Apologize, please.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry—mister,” the man said in a high-pitched voice of urgency.

  “I don’t know where you belong, but obviously not in our company. Oh, you caused this little girl to get hurt. Give her a dollar.” He motioned to María.

  “Why, for that you could—”

  Horn gave a small push on the knife, and a tiny trickle of blood ran down the polished blade. “For a man so close to his maker, it would pay to be more generous. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yes.” The man fished out two coins and held them out. His wide-eyed stare still focused on Horn’s face.

  “María, for your discomfort,” Horn said, and she quickly stuck out her palm to accept them.

  “Now, for all my amigos at the bar. You better buy them a drink. You have disturbed them.” Horn looked at the lot of them, and they nodded with new-found smiles.

  “Bartender, my friend is buying each of those good customers a glass of the best.” He glared hard at his captive. “Right?”

  “Oh, sí.”

  “Now, go pay your bar bill, and get out of here.We’re having us a wake for Captain Crawford, and the next sumbitch disturbs us is going to hell on a one-way fare!”

  He gave the man a hard shove toward the bar. Half staggering, the red-bearded one caught himself before he collided with it. He drew the others’ nervous laughter as they showed him the glasses of liquor he’d bought for them. Several took off their sombreros and bowed to Horn.

  As untouched by the event as he looked after the hard bronc ride, Horn wiped the blade on the side of his pants, slid the knife into the sheath behind his back, politely showed María the way to the seat, then laughed aloud.

  “Damn, Deuces, I thought our gooses were cooked that time,” Horn said, looking impressed by the whole situation.

  Staring now at the few stars that Deuces could see from his El Paso cell window, he wondered what Horn was doing in the Sierra Madres.With most of the Chiricahuas sent to Florida, Horn’s work for the army must be about over. Worse yet, Dueces worried he might never see his laughing friend again.

  In the morning, Egan came for him, and they left on the train again. Their first train had, of course, gone on. Something that troubled Deuces the most as he climbed the iron steps to the car—was that trains never slept. He had slept little himself, but still, never before had he considered how trains had no patterns like living things. They were like rocks and mountains, despite the smoke from the top that they belched like real breath and their driver wheels churning up the iron rails.

  “My ex-wife,” Egan said, “lives here. Went and saw her last night.”

  Deuces nodded and took the seat he indicated for him.

  “Don’t know what the hell for.” Egan locked the chain on the seat rail and took his place across from Deuces. “She’s the same old bitch I left three years ago. Asked me for five dollars to sleep with her. Said I owed her that much. Hell, she’s got a job as a waitress.”

  “You pay her?”

  “Yeah, I paid her. Hell, I was already there.Why not?”

  Deuces shook his head as if it didn’t matter.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know I could have gone over to Juárez, and got some for fifty cents. Probably been better, too.” He gave the newspaper he brought on board a big shake to get it open and immersed himself in reading it as the train rolled out of El Paso.

  A different-looking desert to Deuces sped by the smudged glass. Tall mountains in the south, irrigated farmland up the valley. He looked for the tell-tale century plant but saw few of them. This plant grew all over the land where his people roamed, but now they were being forced by the whites into a smaller and smaller area. Old ones had explained to him that these great stalks with their once-in-a-lifetime blooming flowers were the symbol of his people. Not seeing any for several miles, he decided he must be past Apacheria borders at this point. But later in the day, he spotted some of the spiked plants on a desert hillside and smiled.

  That evening, at a depot stop in West Texas, a woman sold Egan a cut-up fried chicken wrapped in newspaper. Back in the car, he acted pleased with his purchase, filling his mouth with the greasy, crusty parts and tossing the bones out the open window while the train sped onward.

  “Better eat some more,” he indicated to Deuces with a chicken leg like a wand in his hand.

  “Belly hurt,” Deuces said, acting as sick to his stomach as he dared.

  “Motion sickness,” Egan said, leaning back with a shake of his head. He devoured the leg and, with a mouthful, went on talking about his life. Deuces answered him with nods or, if asked a pointed question, simply agreed with him.

  Deuces decided that in all his talking, this man complained a lot about everything and never took any blame.

  “I was the law once in Kimball, Kansas. Chief marshal there. You ever been to Kansas?”

  Swaying with the train’s motion, Deuces shook his head, watching the lawman suck on the snowy bone. Then, satisfied it was bare, he sailed it out the open window at the passing dese
rt brush.

  “As I was saying, I was head dog in that town. Damn, it’s flat up there and hot as hell. See, I got to playing around a little with the mayor’s daughter. You know,” he said, searching in the grease-stained newspaper for another piece. “She was cute, kinda fat, and she was no—” he dropped his voice—” virgin, either. No, sirree. Hmm, another wing. You want some more, Buck?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll eat it, then. See, this gal and I were fooling around some.Well, the mayor, her daddy, caught us and had a fit. Made the city council fire me. That wasn’t fair, was it?”

  “No.”

  “I thought the same thing. I mean, it looked awfully bad, what with her bloomers around her ankles and her dress hiked up, sitting on top of my desk.”

  Deuces nodded.

  “Narrow-minded old goat. I told you she wasn’t untouched before I got mine in her, didn’t I?”

  At last, Egan balled the rest up in the dark, grease-saturated newspaper and threw it all out the window. Close to the time that the sun began to set over Apacheria behind the last car on the rocking train, Egan wiped his hands on his white kerchief to clean them.

  Night would soon engulf the car’s interior as their train sped away from the red-orange sunset. The clack of the wheels on the rail seams and the side-to-side rock of the coach made Deuces want to shut his eyes. No sleep for him this night; he was as far from his homeland as he intended to be—he must escape and somehow find his way back. He could hide in the mountains until they gave up on him. Perhaps he would go live in Mexico. Perhaps even find that skinny puta Quana in Narcozi and take her to the mother mountains as his mate. Maybe even get a prettier one than her to go up there with him. Slumped down in the train bench seat, he worried. What would he need to do first if he could manage somehow to get away from Egan?

  The train rushed on, stopping at small depots with yellow lamps in the windows. Then the chugging engine would regain speed, puff lots of bitter coal smoke into the cars as it rushed across the moonlit ground.

  “Next stop in forty-five minutes, Uvalde, Texas,” the conductor announced, coming through the aisle.