by Unknown
The Mexican, his gratitude writ in a wide grin across his face, extended his hand to La Mano Negra.
"Gracias," the Mexican effused. "Gracias. You have saved my life."
"Don't need to thank me," La Mano Negra answered, taking his hand. "Anyone would have done the same."
"No señor, they would not. Only the great La Mano Negra, and his faithful Chinee aid." The Mexican next took Jin Ti's hand, and pumped it with a hearty shake. "I am Alberto Cuellar," he announced, "and I would be honored if you would take your dinner with my family tonight."
"Well…" La Mano Negra answered, seeming unsure.
"And you are welcome to stay the night," Cuellar added. "As long as you like."
"I don't know, Señor Cuellar," La Mano Negra replied. "We usually don't stay too long." "I don't know, Heishou," Jin Ti commented. "It would be nice to eat indoors for a change, and to sleep between sheets instead of rattlesnakes and scorpions."
"Well, Jin Ti," La Mano Negra joked, "why don't you just put on a dress while you're at it?"
"Please, Señor Negra," Cuellar pleaded. "I insist."
La Mano glanced from the entreating Mexican, to his weary companion, and then back again. "Oh, alright," La Mano Negra relented. "But just for tonight."
Within the hour they had reached Cuellar's home, not five miles from the Rio Grande, and were now seated around a wide table. Cuellar himself was at the head, La Mano and Jin Ti at either elbow, and Cuellar's young children, two daughters and a son, seated beside them. Cuellar's wife, a plump and happy young woman, was at the stove, completing preparations for their meal.
La Mano, settling back in his straight backed chair, noted to himself that Cuellar's home was much more inviting inside than it had appeared outside. A rough structure, more stone and earth than wood, was held together more by good wishes than by design, but inside before a blazing fire it was as comfortable as any home the vigilante had seen on the range in many a year.
Jin Ti, sitting across from him, was quietly sipping water from a battered metal cup Cuellar's wife had produced from some unknown corner, but his quiet air told La Mano that his Chinaman friend was at ease.
Finally, Cuellar's wife ferried the food to the table: tamales, barbacoa, rice and beans, and flour tortillas. She set a plate before each of the guests, and invited them to tuck in.
With a glance to Jin Ti, who caught his eye, La Mano casually reached up and, with an easy ges ture, removed the mask covering his face. He let it fall, revealing the features hidden behind its rough cloth. All motion ceased around the table, and all eyes turned to him, all except Jin Ti, who looked on with a quiet smile.
"Can't eat with the damned thing on," La Mano answered to their questioning stares, and then turned to Cuellar's wife. "Excuse my French, ma'am."
"De nada," Cuellar's wife answered quietly.
Without another word, La Mano forked a pile of rice and beans onto a tortilla, and fell to eating. Cuellar made a noticeable effort to relax, and motioned his family to eat.
Cuellar's oldest daughter, all of eight, kept staring at La Mano, her fork held motionless in the air above her plate.
"Señor," she finally said in a small voice, "if you are La Mano Negra with the mask on, who are you with the mask off?"
"Terese!" Cuellar barked. "Do not bother our guest!"
"Ain't no bother, amigo," La Mano calmly answered. "See, little lady, in my line of work it don't pay for everybody to know who you are, cause they might just come gunnin' for your family, or else catch you unawares in your sleep or just walkin' down the street. But when I'm with good folks like y'all, it don't really matter any more. You understand?"
"Sí," the little girl answered, and then after a moment added, "So who are you without the mask?"
"My name's Taylor, little lady. John Bunyan Taylor." He grinned at her, putting her at ease. "But you can call me Jack."
"Alright," she replied. "Jack. I'm Terese."
"Pleased to know you Terese."
After everyone had relaxed noticeably, they proceeded to clean the table of food. When the meal was done, La Mano and Jin Ti complimented Cuellar's wife on her cooking, and then as she and the children began to clean up the two of them joined Cuellar in the main room to share a pouch of tobacco.
Sitting in rude but comfortable chairs, the three passed the pouch around until each had rolled a butt of his own, and then lit them with kindling from the fire. They eased back in their chairs then, La Mano and Jin Ti just enjoying the temporary respite from their travels, Cuellar beaming at having two such notable men in his home.
After a time, Cuellar rose from his chair, and brought from the corner of the room a wooden chest, which he placed before the two men. He then knelt down beside it, his hand resting reverently on its top.
"This, señors," he began, "is the treasure of my family. Within are the things handed down by my grandfathers, and their grandfathers before them. We are a poor people, though we work hard, but to us this chest is worth all the cattle and gold in the world."
Cuellar then slowly lifted the lid of the chest, and began pulling out items for the two men to inspect. First came a muzzle-loading flintlock, a hundred years old if it was a day. It was rusted almost beyond recognition, long past an age when it was of any use, but the two men could see that it was a prized heirloom to Cuellar's family. Cuellar handed it over, and they respectfully passed it back and forth between themselves, commenting on its fine shape and obvious age. Jin Ti handed the thing back to Cuellar, who carefully returned it to the trunk.
Next came a metal helmet, shaped like a cone, with a metal fin running along the top. The metal was dented and scratched, corroded to an even green shade. Cuellar explained that his manytimes great-grandfather had worn that helmet, when first he came to the New World, and that his sons and their sons after him had kept it to remind them of their origins. Again, La Mano and Jin Ti feigned interest in the relic, and then passed it back to Cuellar.
Next came a book, of indeterminate age, bound in leather with a round metal shield on the front. Cuellar explained that this had belonged to his forefather who had worn the helmet, and though he couldn't read a word, of Spanish or English, he knew that it must contain some great wisdom. La Mano took it in his hands, and gave it the same cursory inspection as the previous two items. The shield on the front of the book was of a silvery metal, which for the book's obvious age seemed hardly weathered at all. At Cuellar's prompting, he flipped through the first few pages. La Mano took it for a bible, though the pages he skimmed through weren't written in any language he could read. It looked something like the Hebrew he'd seen in New York [During the events recounted in "La Mano Negra in the Big City"—ED.], but it could have been hen scratching for all he knew. He handed the book back to Jin Ti, who then passed it back to Cuellar.
Cuellar went through a few other odds and ends, a few Indian arrowheads, a silver necklace, a few scraps of clothing, and when he was assured his guests were suitably impressed closed up the chest and put it away.
La Mano then motioned to Jin Ti, and the two men rose.
"We sure do appreciate your hospitality, amigo," he told Cuellar, "but we've been ridin' a long few weeks here, and we sure could use some rest. If you just point us out to your barn…"
At that Cuellar interrupted, cutting him off with a wave of his hand.
"No, you will sleep in our bed, my wife and mine," he demanded.
"Now, wait a minute," La Mano answered. "We appreciate your feedin' us and all, but we can't just kick you out of your own…"
Cuellar, his face set, refused to hear anymore. They had saved his life from Pierce's men, and he would consider it an insult if the two heroes would not allow him to show his gratitude. Not brooking any dissent, Cuellar led the two men to the bedroom, and practically ordered the two men to climb in under the quilts.
"My wife and I will sleep with the children," Cuellar concluded. "And I will not argue it."
With that he turned, and stomped bac
k into the main room.
La Mano turned to Jin Ti, who shrugged.
"Well, Heishou," Jin Ti offered. "You heard the man. We are to be forced to sleep on a comfortable mattress, under fine sheets."
"Yep," La Mano answered.
"The next time we are to be tortured by some bandit villain, could you arrange it so that this man Cuellar is in control of the proceedings?" "Jin," La Mano replied, "I'll see what I can do."
Late that night, as they lay sleeping side by side on the wide bed, La Mano and Jin Ti were startled awake by the sharp crack of gun fire. They leapt to their feet, stepping into their boots before even coming fully awake. They listened, tensed, and when the sound came again risked the time it took to shoot a look between them.
"Outside," La Mano barked, pulling his twin Colts from the holster lying draped over a chair back and checking the chambers.
Jin Ti snatched up his Winchester, and without another word the two bolted from the room and through the small house, coming at last to the front door. Cuellar and his family, huddled in the corner of the room, looked on them with wide eyes from the darkness. Only the youngest child, the boy, made any noise, whimpering slightly as his mother held him close to her breast.
"Alright, amigo," La Mano whispered in the dark. "You're with us. Your kin'll be fine if they stay put in here." Cuellar nodded, solemnly, and rose to follow.
"You got a gun?" La Mano asked. Cuellar nodded, and then walked to the far corner of the room, returning with a battered old double-bore shotgun. "Good enough."
La Mano glanced at Jin Ti, and then nodded. Without warning, the Chinaman shot his hand forward, and flung wide the door. With a quick look to Cuellar, the two bolted through the door and into the dark night beyond, their guns spitting fire out into the darkness.
A hasty survey of the grounds told them all they needed to know. The barn was afire, a man standing nearby with a torch in one hand, a revolver in the other. Two other men were horseback, a few yards off, one holding the reins to the torch-bearers mount.
"Cuellar! Fetch the horses from the barn!" La Mano barked, and the Mexican rushed to comply, pausing only momentarily to glance back to his family inside. He held the shotgun before him in one hand, and made a sign of the cross with the other.
La Mano and Jin Ti immediately divided up targets, and commenced to firing. The interlopers, startled at first, soon regrouped and returned fire. They had no doubt expected to catch the Cuellar family abed, and not to find two well-traveled gunmen waiting to repel their attack.
La Mano and his companion split up, running from the door in opposite directions, each sending an unrelenting hail of lead towards the attackers. The dirt at their feet was kicked up in clouds as the shots hit all round them, but not one struck true. La Mano found cover near a roofed well, and emptied his two Colts into the night air, while Jin Ti crouched near a wheel-less wagon, firing and reloading, firing and reloading. One of the attackers, the one afoot, returned fire until he spun on his toes, caught by Jin Ti's shot in his chest. He fell to the ground with a sickening thud, and was still.
Cuellar appeared on the scene, leading both his dun and the two heroes' mounts behind him, guiding them to safety on the far side of the house, away from the blaze.
Seeing their cohort fall, the two men on horseback fired final rounds at the two heroes, half-heartedly, and then turned their steeds around, goading them to a gallop, racing off into the dark night. La Mano raced into the open yard to follow, but it was too late. They had disappeared into the inky darkness.
Relaxing, La Mano and Jin Ti converged in the yard, each confident that the other had escaped harm. They had faced danger together too often for each not to know the others abilities, and this evening's work had been well below either of them. The attackers were well-suited for terrorizing and murdering innocent families, women and children, but were no match for the two heroes of the high plains.
Together, they strode across the open ground to the fallen man, who even now was bleeding his life blood out onto the dry ground. They stood over him, Jin Ti knocking the hat from his head with the tip of his Winchester. They both knew the face they saw there, the eyes staring lifeless up into the night sky. They were neither surprised. It was Shorty, the swarthy ranch hand from whom they had saved Cuellar earlier that day.
With a wordless glance, the two heroes confirmed that they shared the same thought. Buck Pierce had escalated an act of cattle thievery into a full-scale range war, and only blood could follow.
With first light the next morning, La Mano and Jin Ti were high in the saddle, Cuellar riding between, heading from the Mexican's home north to the Pierce Ranch. Cuellar had left his shotgun with his wife, for the protection of her and their children while he was away, but now he cradled a scattergun in his arms, a sawed-off shotgun La Mano had produced from among his tackle.
They rode on through the morning, as the sun climbed up the eastern sky, hardly saying a word. It had been at La Mano's insistence that they rode, but both Jin Ti and Cuellar had quickly agreed. If Cuellar and his family were ever to know any measure of peace, the range war with Pierce would have to be finished, once and for all. They rode to take the war to Buck Pierce himself, and to put an end to it.
At the outskirts of Pierce's claimed property, coming over a slight rise, they happened upon a band of armed men. The rancher, it seemed, had expected some sort of reprisal, and had got his henchmen ready to meet it. Five they were, perched on ragged looking horses, each with a revolver or rifle in hand, each a murderous blood lust glaring in his eye.
Again the lead flew. Having no recourse to taking cover, the trio of La Mano, his Chinaman companion, and the Mexican instead chose to face the fire bravely, letting loose with their own firearms. Jin Ti, a crackshot at twice the distance, took out one of the ranch-hands early, and what La Mano lacked in finesse he easily made up in speed, emptying the chambers of his twin Peacemakers twice over before he was done. Even little Cuellar, ill-used to such action, did his best, though his scatter gun was of little use at so great a distance. Still, though, he fired and fired again, cracked the gun open and reloaded with one hand, fired with the other.
When all was said and done, four of the five ranch hands lay sprawled on the hard dirt, their horses either scattered or dead beside them. The fifth, turning tail and running, tore off into the distance, all thoughts of the fight left behind him. Jin Ti made to follow, but then La Mano motioned him still. Cuellar had been hit.
La Mano dismounted, and in long strides crossed the distance to Cuellar's bay. He helped the Mexican down from the saddle.
"Lemme see," La Mano ordered firmly, placing a gentle hand on the bloody arm Cuellar cradled close to his chest.
"It is nothing, señor," Cuellar insisted. "Let us ride on."
"The hell it is, amigo," La Mano spat, inspecting the wound. "That shot went clear through, blew out a hole on both sides of your shoulder. You try'n keep ridin', you'll pass out in a heartbeat."
"I… will… not," Cuellar replied deliberately, through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to collapse.
"Listen here," La Mano insisted. "Jin Ti here'll patch you up, and then you just head on home. We'll take things from here."
"No," the little man near shouted. "This is my fight, not yours. I appreciate your help, but it is my fight."
La Mano stepped back a bit, and looked the Mexican over from head to foot. In the end, he just shook his head and grinned.
"I'll be damned if you ain't as ornery as they come, Cuellar," he announced. He thought for a minute, tugging at the edge of his black mask with a gloved hand. As Jin Ti could attest, only when presented with a particular thorny problem did La Mano Negra ever display this little twitch.
"Alright, alright," La Mano finally said. "Jin'll patch it up fer ya, and then you'll ride along with us. But if you get yourself kil't, that's your lookout. You understand?"
Cuellar simply nodded solemnly, and then let Jin Ti to his wound.
"Bet
you wish you were back in that bed now, huh Jin?" La Mano asked his Chinaman companion. Jin Ti just shot him a look, and continued work on dressing the wound.
The three reached Pierce's ranch house with out encountering anymore interference, La Mano and Jin Ti with their guns cocked and ready, Cuellar with the loaded scattergun cradled in his good arm. As they approached the long, low ranch house, they found no sentries posted, no hands awaiting them in the yard. Instead, they saw the stout form of Buck Pierce himself, rocking peacefully on the wide porch, smoking a battered brier, a glass of lemonade in his hand. "Howdy, gents," Pierce called out to them as they pulled their mounts to a stop at the hitching post. "I was expectin' you folks to drop by."
Warily, the trio dismounted, and lashed their reins to the post.
"Come on up, boys," Pierce went on. "I got no grudge against you. This has all been a big misunderstandin', y'see. I never meant for things to go like this."
With a wide, soft hand Pierce waved them onto the porch, and as they stepped cautiously up, their arms still in hand, he motioned them inside.
"Come on inside, fellahs," Pierce beckoned. "I'll have the wife set us up some dinner, and we can try to get this worked out. I figure we got no cause for all this scufflin', and we can sure reach some sort of agreement."
Without another word, Pierce turned, and entered the house.
Jin Ti and La Mano exchanged quick glances, and by subtle signs communicated that both thought it a trap, but that they were up to the challenge. With Cuellar between them, then, they followed the large rancher in.
Through the dog-run they followed him, into a well-appointed parlor. La Mano thought it looked like any brothel or whorehouse he might have stepped into over the years, but Pierce seemed to think it showed his civilized nature. Pierce motioned them to take seats on the couches and divans scattered around the floor, and the trio made to sit. He then offered them whisky, which they accepted, though watching for him to drink before they followed suit.
The whisky finished, Pierce began to pace back and forth in front of them, becoming increasingly animated, trying to explain his situation.
