It drew exactly the response Gil had expected. They were now within pistol range, and the three rustlers concentrated their fire on the scant cover that concealed Gil. There had been no more firing from beyond the outlaws’ position, and Gil thought he knew why. Mariposa and Estanzio were using each burst of gunfire as a means of creeping closer. Suddenly there was a screech of mortal agony, two frantic shots, and after sounds of a struggle, silence. The next sound they heard was Mariposa speaking.
“Ambush is finish.”
“Bueno, hombres,” said Gil. “Now let’s go after our horses.”
Within an hour the six of them were within sight of their horses and the six Mexican horse thieves. One of the rustlers looked back and saw the hard-riding cowboys in pursuit. Gil heard his shout of alarm, saw the other five riders turn in their saddles. They had lost two men when they had stampeded the horses, their ambush had been wiped out, and they now had a decision to make. Were they to live or to die? They abandoned the stolen horses and rode for their lives.
“Lookit ’em run!” shouted Long John. “The yellow coyotes.”
“We got five of them,” said Gil, “and recovered the horses. The rest of them ought to have their necks stretched, but they’ll scatter like quail, and we have a trail drive waitin’ for us. Let’s turn this bunch of cayuses around and take ’em home.”
* Trail Drive Series #4, The Bandera Trail
11
Even with the time it took to chase the border outlaws and recover the horses, Gil and his riders were back with the outfit by mid-morning.
“You’ve done well,” Van said, “but we’re more than three hours into the day, with a twenty-mile drive to water. Do we risk it?”
“We do,” said Gil. “The longhorns have had a day of rest. We’ll delay just long enough for these twenty-one cayuses we just drove in to catch their wind. Then we’ll water them and move out.”
When the sun was noon high, they topped a ridge and beheld a scene of broken, desolate beauty. On the downward slope ahead, and on the rising slope beyond, there wasn’t a single tree or bush. Instead, there was an army of giant saguaros, in some strange formation of their own choosing, their arms raised heavenward as though in surrender. Not to be outdone, yucca shot spires a dozen feet high, each topped with a cluster of white blooms, like tall old men with silvery hair.
Rosa sighed. “Never have I seen anything so beautiful.”
Even Long John, not given to sentiment, was impressed.
“It do kind of git a man down wher’ he lives,” said the Cajun.
“No got water,” said Mariposa, less impressed. “Desierto.”
“All the more reason we can’t travel at night,” said Gil. “Imagine ridin’ headlong into a cactus as big as a tree trunk.”
“They grow so big,” said Ramon. “How can there be no water below?”
“It’s far below,” said Gil, “if at all. From what I know, there’s just one tree that’s a sure sign of water, and that’s the Joshua.”
“I want the cactus with two arms,” said Rosa. “I wish to take one back to Texas with me.”
“A leetle one,” teased Long John, “er one that’s full-growed, an’ tall as a house?”
“A full-growed one,” Rosa replied, imitating him, “and when you’re digging it up, just be careful that you do not harm any of the roots.”
“You start now, Long John,” said Juan Padillo, “and you be just about done when we ride back from California.”
Gil pushed the longhorns hard, and despite their late start, he believed they would yet reach the water Mariposa and Estanzio had found, before darkness forced them into dry camp. Gil rode well ahead of the horse remuda, concerned with the rough terrain over which they would travel. Some of the slopes had thin ledges of rock, and a sudden crumbling of slate or sandstone might cripple a horse or cow. The trouble with broken country, Gil quickly learned, was that in avoiding one trail that appeared treacherous, you often were faced with another just as dangerous, if not more so. Time after time he found himself choosing a way not because it suited him, but because it was the best of a poor lot.
Finally, Gil reached a barren stretch that, with a little improvement, could have become a desert. It was a barren valley several miles wide, and except for an occasional saguaro, nothing grew there. The land was littered with rock in varying sizes, up to and including huge boulders higher than a man’s head. In ages past, Gil thought, it looked as though God had flung them in this valley and forgotten them. Ahead, among the gray of the stones and seeming out of place, was something white. Gil dismounted, and leading his horse, discovered he was looking at the smooth top of a human skull. The rest of the skeleton was there too, but the bones had become scattered by coyotes and buzzards. While the arm and leg bones had been separated, the bony hands and feet were still in a position that no frontiersman could overlook. The man had been spread-eagled, maybe over an anthill. Or he might have had a fire built in his crotch. When it came to inflicting pain, Indians were creative. While the eye sockets of the skull were empty, the bleached jaws were sprung in a silent scream of agony that time and the elements could not quell. The shafts of nine Indian arrows, feathers long gone, bristled out of the skeleton’s rib cage and pelvic area. His captors had stood over this poor bastard and had shot arrows through his dead or dying body, literally spiking him to the ground. There was no way of knowing who he was, or how many months and years he had been claimed by this lonely, desolate land. The handiwork of Apaches? Probably, and if you accepted Long John’s good Apache and bad Apache thinking, then this unknown pilgrim had had the misfortune to run into a bunch of “bad’uns.”
Gil was about to turn back, to check on the herd, when a breath of west wind brought a stench that almost gagged him. Something was dead enough to stink, yet there wasn’t a sign of a buzzard. It was a mystery that bore some looking into. Gil went on, determined to at least reach the farthest side of this desolate valley before he returned to the drive. Suddenly his horse shied and reared, and Gil drew his Colt. But the horse balked, unwilling to go a step farther. However dead the smell, whatever evil that was ahead was very much alive. Concluding that the horse was the more intelligent of the two of them, Gil looped the reins around a stone as big as a Dutch oven and went ahead alone. He cocked the Colt, trying to see into the jumble of rock ahead. In less than a heartbeat the hidden enemy struck. The ugly brown head was larger than Gil’s own, the lethal fangs like curved sabers. The snake’s strike fell short, but Gil backed away a dozen paces before he felt safe. It was the biggest rattler he’d ever seen, big enough that Long John could have described it truthfully. Why had the snake struck at him without sounding a warning? They did that at shedding time, of course, but this was much too early. In Texas, “dog days” came in August. Gil backtracked, then advanced ahead about as far as he had when the snake had struck. He must reach a point where he could see this monster without it being able to get at him. For sure, he had to kill it or drive it away. Otherwise, no horse or cow would ever set foot in this bleak valley. This damn snake, he thought grimly, had managed to obstruct the only decent trail. If they were unable to cross here, they might be forced to travel many extra miles, and that meant a dry camp for tonight. If it was snake or dry camp, he decided, the snake had to go.
Gil found a series of boulders that stair-stepped him high enough to see over the jumble of stones behind which the rattler was concealed. He caught his breath when he saw the size of the reptile. If Bo’s estimate of twenty feet was accurate, his and Long John’s snake would have to grow some to match this one! This rattler was writhing constantly, but going nowhere. Something or somebody had dealt the snake a fearful body blow, and its spine was broken. There had been no warning rattle because the rattler had lost control of the tail. Its strikes were clumsy, and it struck at everything in mad fury, even the nearby boulders. Finally it twisted around until Gil had a better look at the body wound. Where the spine was broken, the flesh had begun to rot away to
ward head and tail, and that accounted for the dead smell. The snake was dying, but for now the coyotes and buzzards seemed to have business elsewhere. Gil made his way back to his horse and got his rifle from the saddle boot. Climbing back up his rocky stairs, he returned to his previous position. His rifle was a .50 caliber Sharps, heavy but accurate, given a decent target. He had shot snakes before, but never from so great a distance that he needed a rifle. And never at a crazy-mad target that was not still for a second. Gil followed the snake’s erratic movements until the big Sharps had his arms numb with strain and his patience had hit bottom. He fired, watching in disgust as the lead struck a rock and whanged off in ricochet. But that gave him an idea. If he couldn’t draw a bead on the big bastard, maybe he could ricochet lead off the rocks like shrapnel, killing him a little at a time. Even if he dared get close enough, he wasn’t sure he could hit this plunging, writhing target with his Colt. His first two shots with the Sharps didn’t seem to accomplish anything, but when he was reloaded and ready for a third shot, he could tell the big rattler was slowing down. On the rusty hide there were patches of blood. His lead was taking its toll. He was frozen in the very act of firing when a voice behind him spoke.
“Ease that cannon down, an’ turn around.”
Gil didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He had to restrain himself from the overwhelming temptation to just turn and shoot Long John through the head. A man needed a sense of humor, but by God, this Cajun fool made a joke of everything, up to and including death. Taking the Sharps by its muzzle, he rested it butt down on the rock on which he stood. Controlling himself, he turned to face the grinning Long John. Bo was with him.
“T’was yer brother what sent us to see ’bout ye,” said Long John. “Ye startin’ whangin’ away wi’ yer rifle ’bout the time we foun’ yer hoss. Is they somethin’ er somebody out ther’, er ye jus’ feel the need fer practice?”
“Long John,” said Gil as calmly as he could, “don’t you ever again come on me from behind. If I hadn’t recognized your voice, I might have dropped the Sharps, drawn my Colt and killed you.”
“Ye might of tried.” Long John chuckled, his good humor not diminished in the slightest. “I’ve seen ye draw, an’ yer fast. Keep at it, son, an’ in a few years ye may be nearly as good as me. What’n hell ye shootin’ at that ye plugged twice an’ still ain’t kilt?”
“Walk back there a ways,” said Gil, “and climb up that chain of rocks. I’ll let you have that third shot, mister dead eye, and see if you can do any better.”
When Bo and Long John reached the point from which Gil had been firing, Gil said nothing, allowing them to see for themselves.
“It is much larger than the snake we saw,” said Bo. “Can we not take another way and avoid it?”
“We could,” said Gil, “but there’ll be more miles, and a dry camp tonight.”
“Wal, hell,” growled Long John, “we ain’t goin’ t’ lose a day over some damn snake hoggin’ the trail, even if the varmint’s sixty times bigger’n any son o’ Satan’s got any right t’ be. Gimme that Sharps an’ stand back.”
“That snake’s had its spine busted,” said Gil, “and the wound’s started to putrefy. I’d say he’s been hit by a rock slide.”
“We smelt that,” said Long John, “an’ reckoned maybe ye an’ yer hoss had come down wi’ loose bowels, all at oncet. Then ye started shootin’, an’ we figgered things had done got all complicated.”
Long John raised the Sharps, not allowing it to waver in the slightest, and fired. To Gil’s amazement, and probably Long John’s, he scored a direct hit. The thrashing reptile’s movements slowed markedly.
“One more shot,” said Long John, “onless ye want t’ wait an’ let him cash in on his own.”
“If we were goin’ to do that,” said Gil, “we might as well have found another way across this valley and left him where he is. Let’s reload and finish the job. This part of it, anyway. We’ll have to drag the carcass a ways off, or the herds still won’t cross.”
Gil reloaded the Sharps, offered it to Long John, but the Cajun shook his head. Raising the big rifle, Gil fired, and the slug caught the snake just below its head. Long John had the grace not to mention that the big rattler’s movements had been slowed drastically or that Gil’s marksmanship had improved. It had been a well-placed shot. The trio climbed down from the rocky abutment, making their way back to Gil’s horse, where Long John and Bo had also left their mounts.
“Some curious,” said Long John, “as t’ how that snake got its backbone busted. Was I able t’ git to the bastard, I’d fight the devil hisself, wi’ guns, knives, er pitchforks. But whatever er whoever it was that was big enough and mean enough t’ bust that rattler’s back an’ git away alive, I’d be scairt t’ face that varmint.”
“Snakes may be the least of our problems,” said Gil. “I reckon you saw the bones of the gent the Apaches used to entertain themselves.”
“Yeah,” said Long John, “but like I tol’ you, they’s good Apaches an’ they’s bad Apaches. He jus’ fell in with a bad lot.”
“And you,” said Gil dryly, “know the difference between good and bad Apaches. Is it an old Cajun family secret, or will you share it?”
“Nothin’ to it,” said Long John, with his usual laconic grin. “Anytime ye come away from Apaches forked end down, an’ wi’ yer hair in place, now them’s good Apaches. But when they treats ye like they done this unfortunate bastard here in the valley, now that’s a bad lot.”
“Long John,” said Bo, “when you can tell me how to know these savages are evil without having them first shoot me full of arrows, I will listen to you more closely.”
“Amen to that,” said Gil. He took the lariat from his saddle.
By the time they reached the snake, it was dead, or seemed so. Up close, the odor was really bad. Nose and mouth covered with their bandannas, they got on with the grisly task. The snake had died with its head flung over a boulder, so Gil was able to stay a few feet away, catching it with an underhand throw. None of them relished getting close to the monster, even after it apparently was dead. They got their shoulders under the rope and started dragging.
“By the Almighty,” groaned Long John, “this thing mus’ weigh a good three hunnert pounds. Ever’ man wi’ a good, strong hoss, an’ we ends up draggin’ this over-growed bastard by hand.”
Gil said nothing, nor did Bo. None of them, Long John included, could have gotten a horse anywhere within sight of the giant rattler. They began dragging the carcass up the valley, over broken rock that made passage more and more difficult. Finally they reached what Gil judged was three hundred yards north of where they would cross the valley.
“This is as far as he goes,” said Gil. “He still may have left enough stink, blood, and hide to make it tough on us.”
“Yeah,” said Long John. “Fust hoss er cow that gits a whiff o’ that, they gon’ light out, hell-fer-election, t’other way.”
“Once they go so far,” said Gil, “that jumbled rock becomes walls. They can’t go anywhere but straight ahead. It’ll be our job to get ’em to the point they can’t break and run, where there’s rock on both sides, and other horns digging into their backsides. They’ll be well-committed before they reach the place we had to kill the snake. We’ll push hard from behind, and if they get spooked, the only way they can run is straight ahead.”
They started back to meet the trail drive, aware of the sun moving ever toward the western horizon. On rare occasions, even Long John became serious, and this was one of the times.
“Makes ye wonder,” said the Cajun, “what the rest o’ the world mus’ be like, them parts we ain’t been to. Me, I’d purely hate t’ go back t’ the bayou country an’ try t’ convince anybody I’d seen a rattler big enough t’ swallow a man.”
“On the Amazon, in South America,” said Bo, “there are reptiles capable of doing just that. Of course, this is wild country where man has never lived, and perhaps never will. Repti
les grow large, because they have gone undisturbed for centuries, and I believe that is the case on your western frontier. In the old days, when much of this territory was claimed by the Spanish, it remained unsettled. The Spanish—and they are not alone, of course—acquired vast holdings wherever they could, with the intention of taking silver and gold from the new territory.”
“And they learned damned pronto,” said Gil, “that most of the territory they’d grabbed on the western frontier didn’t have enough gold or silver for a good poker stake.”
“An excellent summation,” said Bo. “It is ironic that kings from the old world, in their haste to seize the wealth of other lands, got so little for their efforts. In less than thirty years, the Spanish lost their frontier holdings to Mexico, and Mexico, through a foolish war, was forced to cede these same territories to the United States.”
Long John chuckled. “Jus’ nine days ’fore Sutter made the big strike in Californy.”
“Exactly,” said Bo. “They could not see, or chose not to see the real potential. Here, they saw only the sagebrush and rattlesnakes.”
“I won’t fault ’em none fer that,” said Long John. “I still ain’t seein’ nothin’ but sagebrush an’ rattlesnakes.”
They rode on in silence. In Gil Austin’s eyes, Bo had become more of an enigma than ever, speaking casually of kings and of foreign lands. Yet he seemed content, with only his horse and saddle, on a trail drive across a mostly uncharted western frontier. Comparing himself to Bo, Gil felt woefully inadequate. There was guilt too, as he recalled his uncle Stephen’s library, long unused. Gil had many questions about Bo, and he strove to put them out of his mind. The questions to which he most needed answers had to do with himself, and he suspected that when he came face-to-face with those answers, he wasn’t going to like them.
“Well, thank God,” said Van when the trio met the trail drive. “I was already three riders short, or I’d have sent somebody to look for the three of you.”
The California Trail Page 15
