by Jake Logan
Estrella rushed from the kitchen and hugged him. The ample-busted woman smelled of cinnamon and sweets. “So good to have you back. I have a fat lamb in the oven.”
“Yes, she said we’ll need it today.” The doña shook her head. “I said no one was coming. We’d have to eat lamb till we bleated. I should never doubt a bruja.”
“Not a good one.” Slocum squeezed Estrella’s shoulder and they exchanged a private look. He never doubted the witches of Mexico. Estrella was a good one.
“Are there men looking for you?” she asked under her breath as if she had discovered something about him.
“You saw them?” he asked.
She nodded. “I will look for their faces and names.”
“Do that.”
She nodded and then shook hands with Theresa.
“Now, let us freshen, then gather and eat,” the doña said, taking charge of the affair.
Slocum went with Chako to wash his hands and face on the back porch. Under the grapevines trellised overhead, Estrella’s words came to him. Was Diaz sending more men up his back trail? He hoped not—only time would tell. But he worried more about the other people in that path than himself. Maybe Estrella knew about Caliche too. He’d ask her after the meal.
“I heard her,” Chako said, drying his hands and cocking his head to the side in a question for him to answer.
“That some men are looking for me.”
The scout looked around to be certain they were alone. “She is a witch. You think she knows?”
“She knew we were coming and cooked a lamb.”
The Apache barely nodded his head. He knew all about witches. He agreed.
“Let’s eat and then we can visit the cantinas. I need to find out about Caliche and what he will do next.”
“If the broncos are close by, I bet I can catch a squaw from his camp coming down here to trade. They can’t resist doing that.”
“I won’t argue with you. You know them.”
“I’ll find one.”
Slocum clapped him on the shoulder as they started inside. “Just be careful that she ain’t got a buck shadowing her ass.”
“Be careful.”
The aroma of the mesquite wood smoke and the richer scent of roasted lamb filled the dining room. Doña DeLong sat at the head and asked Slocum to cut the browned carcass and serve the rest. He set in to cut out the ribeye portions for the two women, then a rack of ribs for his scout and his own plate. Along with steaming rice, frijoles, and sweet peas fresh picked were Estrella’s flour tortillas to mop up the rest. Everyone served, he tasted the mild wine, a blush, sipping it for the moisture on his tongue; then he savored a bite of the tender rib meat.
The rich flavor flooded salvia in his mouth. Maybe the doña’s house was a fairy tale—he damn sure enjoyed it.
After his hot bath and shave, he sat on the porch wrapped in a robe that one of Estrella’s helpers had brought him when she came to gather up his clothing in her arms.
“Mañana,” she said.
“Sí, mañana. Gracias,” he said after her, knowing he wouldn’t see his clothing until the next day, when she finished with them.
The night sky was sprinkled in stars, and bats swooped around after nocturnal insects. From somewhere nearby, crickets joined the chorus of a million other fiddlers and the soft rush of the stream.
“Where did Chako go?” Theresa asked in a soft voice, coming onto the porch and taking a chair beside him to sit on.
“To look for a squaw. He says they’ll come down and trade for things in the village.”
“You learn anything in town tonight?”
“Not much. People don’t want to talk about trading with the hostiles.”
“I bet not. How rich is she?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“This place. All these people that work here.”
“Her husband had some gold mines and I think made lots of money in those days before he was killed.”
“You went after his killers for her?”
“Yes.”
“I understand why she likes you.”
“She paid me.”
“I don’t doubt it. But you are very special to her.”
He reached over and clapped his hand on top of hers. “Her husband was a good friend of mine. She didn’t have to pay me.”
“No one has to pay you. You give money away like water. To—” She lowered her voice. “To whores and beggars and God knows who else.”
“Must be why he gives it to me.” He leaned over in her face. She met his mouth and kissed him. With a smothered “yes” she turned and put her arms around his neck.
7
Mid-morning the next day, Chako brought back a hellion, gagged, tied, wrapped in a blanket and bound over the back of the mule. The ride back had not taken much of the fight out of her by Slocum’s consideration. She twisted and squirmed under the shroud like a muffled wildcat when Chako packed her from the mule to the shed. Amused, Slocum made certain they were alone when he barred the door shut. Now you’ve caught her—what the hell are you going to do with her? This was his man’s show, and he was anxious to see what happened next.
“What’s her name?”
“Kee.” The scout sat astraddle her as he untied the binds that held the blanket around her. Soon two diamond eyes glowered at them like a rattlesnake’s as she squirmed and fought against her binds with all her night.
Squatted on his boot heels, Slocum chuckled at Chako’s prize. “Be sure she don’t bite you when you undo that gag.”
Amused, Chako nodded and took off the blanket. Then he jerked her up by the arm, to a sitting position on the dirt. With his finger waving in her face as a warning, he spoke in Apache to her. She made a stone-faced scowl at him, but settled some. Lull before the storm, Slocum considered it. One thing she did not do was agree to Chako’s terms.
He undid the gag, but not the ropes. When it was released, she threw her head back and the messed-up long hair flowed back from her face. Slocum guessed her to be in her teens. And definitely an Apache—the centuries of mingling, kidnapping and intermarriage with the Mexican people had brought some beauty to their women in more refined looks.
“Where is Caliche?”
She didn’t answer.
“We need to talk to him.”
No answer.
“Maybe a couple days tied up in this shed and you will talk to us.”
She looked at Slocum and then at Chako. Her words in Apache came hard. Her back stiffened and she sat up straighter.
“She says we should kill her because she will tell us nothing and we should get it over with.”
“Tell her that’s dumb. Her dead, we’d learn nothing.”
“Where is Caliche?”
She shook he head and sulked.
“Get that bottle of whiskey out of my saddlebags.” Slocum shifted his weight to his other boot. “We need a party to loosen her up.”
Chako grinned and went for it, opening the door and letting sunlight in the shed.
“You are married?” Slocum asked her in Spanish.
“Soldiers killed him.”
“Your man is dead?”
She didn’t answer. Apaches hated to talk about the dead—considered it caused bad luck.
“You drink whiskey?” he asked her.
“Sometimes.”
“Good. We’ll get drunk and have a party.”
He saw a glint in her eyes that made him think this might suit her—of course, she might also think it was a way to outmaneuver them. Drunk enough, though, she might tell them all they needed to know about the broncos. Chako was back and looking at the label on the bottle of brown liquor in his hand.
“We need some cups.”
He handed Slocum the bottle and grinned big. “I go get them.”
Slocum cut the seal with his jackknife and looked at her. Then he uncorked the bottle and started to take a sip out of the neck—but paused and met her gaze.
“Y
ou want some?” He held the bottle up for her to see it.
Her eyes darted as if to be sure they were alone and then she nodded. He reached over and put the bottle to her lips. Gently he raised it and she took a deep drink. Looking at her closely, he drew the bottle back and watched her swallow. Her eyes watered a little, and a slow smile spread over her coffee-colored face. She nodded for another. He obliged her.
By the time Chako returned with cups, she had taken three big gulps of the whiskey. Her facial expression changed. She looked more interested in the liquor than in “eating them up.” Slocum reached behind her and cut her hands free with his jackknife. Rather than rub her red wrists, she reached for the bottle on the ground beside her with both hands and drank a deep one.
“She likes whiskey,” Slocum said to Chako, and cut her feet free.
“She really does.”
From her throat came a loud “ah” and she smiled foolishly. “Gawdamn good whiskey, you betchem.”
She rose and began to hum. Bottle in one hand, she began to stomp her moccasins and chant, “Ho-oh. Hi-oh,” going in a circle around the shed’s dirt floor. Throwing her head back, she laughed and waved the bottle at them as she went whirling around.
“Didn’t need the cups,” Chako said and shared a private smile with Slocum.
“I don’t think so.”
“She really must have drank a lot.”
“On an empty stomach it works faster.” Slocum watched her stomp around in a big circle.
“Oh, yes.”
When she came by, Slocum snatched the whiskey bottle from her. “You good woman.” He winked at her and took a small sip, making a big deal of it.
“Gawd—damn—right—goo-woman.” She slapped him on the chest with an open hand and weaved. She fought with the ties on her skirt. Then she had them loose and stepped out of it. Her brown legs flashed in the shed’s light shafts.
“You like pussy?” she slurred.
“Bet you have a good one.”
She nodded and reached for the bottle, but he held it far enough back that she couldn’t reach it. “Where’s Caliche?”
Like she’d never heard that before, she blinked at him. “In the mountains—jacking off, huh?”
“He going to raid San Carlos?”
“No guns. No ammo.” She pulled on his arm for the bottle. “Sumbitch—no bullets him says.”
“He going to buy some?”
She stopped reaching for the bottle, pressed one hard breast into him and ran her right hand over the mound in his pants. “I give you big fuck for bottle.”
He ignored her approach. “Is someone bringing him guns and ammo?”
Looking groggily up at him, she mumbled, “Slade bring guns.”
“This side or that of the border?”
She shook her head. “Him . . . maybe . . . send . . . word.”
“That son of a bitch—”
“You got more gawdamn whiskey?” she asked.
“Bottles of it.”
“Good. I need lots and lots.”
“I’ll give you a mule to ride back. Don’t tell anyone about this.”
She ran her hands down the tops of her legs, then looked up at him through the tangled hair in her face. “For a mule I won’t tell anyone.”
He looked over at Chako squatted by the door. “Slade is supposed to be getting guns for them.”
“What we do?”
“For my money, you can go find that other bottle of whiskey and have a stomp with her.”
Chako grinned.
“Give her that third mule too.”
“Okay. Maybe I can learn more from her.”
“Do it.” Slocum laughed and headed for the main house. Needed to get the colonel word to be on the lookout for those two. Of course, they’d broken out of the jail in Tucson and sure needed to make some money to escape the territory. Those women and the wagons might be the key. Perhaps in the morning he’d send Chako back to Bowie.
When Slocum crossed the fields headed for the big house, he saw no one working in the garden and wondered for a moment where they were. Taking a siesta? He checked the sun time. Not lunchtime yet. Then he saw a hip-shot horse, white with dried salt and trail dust, hitched near the barn. Who owned that pony?
Keeping in the cover of some apple trees, he squatted down to appraise the situation. How many more rode-hard horses were in there? He could hear others coughing and blowing. That answered his question. More than one. Their mounts partially secluded, no doubt they either held the house or had it covered.
He hurried and got Don Torrez and his vaqueros at the corral with a finger to his mouth for silence. “Bandits are around the house. Be careful for the women. They are killers.” He sent them in a circle around the structure.
Then he opened the shed door and disturbed Chako’s seduction of the squaw. “Bandits,” he hissed, “all around the house.”
Disengaging himself, Chako nodded, grabbed up his six-gun with a nod and grinned.
In matter of minutes, with only three shots fired, the invaders were either dead or bound prisoners. The women were fine and Slocum reassured them that the raid had been thwarted.
A half hour later, a council was held by the men at the corrals—the silver-headed Segundo Don Torrez, two of Doña’s vaqueros plus Chako and Slocum.
“The ones we have that are alive will only ride back to this general and bring back more,” Don Torrez said. His vaqueros nodded their sombreros as if in deep concentration over the matter.
“So what do we do?” Slocum asked. “The officials here will do nothing to them in fear the general will take his revenge out on the village.”
The older of the two vaqueros slid his brown hand flat over his throat in a sign. “Then we bury them and take their horses up in the canyon and do the same to them for the buzzards.”
“I hate that they came here after me.”
“No,” the don said. “These hombres came here to hurt our guests. We will handle them. No one will know.”
“I must take word north in the morning.”
“We will be fine,” the don said, and his two men agreed with solemn nods. “Thanks for saving our doña.”
8
Slocum and Chako headed north in the predawn. Theresa agreed to stay with Doña DeLong and look after her—besides, this would be a hard, quick trip back to Bowie. Slocum didn’t trust the telegraph—in the first place the Mexican connection was undependable, and secondly one could never be certain the message would even get through. Letters were sometimes faster.
The open desert country between there and the border was mostly greasewood-clad alkali country—little water and most of it gyp. Before they left that morning, Don Torrez said that the matter of the general’s men and their horses had been handled. Theresa thanked Slocum; she was pleased he had found her such a grand place and he should come back to see her when he could. He agreed and kissed her good-bye.
“We should make the springs at Aqua Fria by late tonight,” Chako said as they hard-trotted their rested mounts.
“Good. We can catch a little sleep there and then push on.” Slocum wanted to be in Bowie in two days’ travel. He didn’t want Slade headed south with any guns and ammo for the broncos—it would only encourage them to raid back across the border. Also, a show of ammo and new guns might encourage more young bucks at San Carlos to join him.
“What’s this Caliche like? I never met him.”
“He is a brujo. If you entered the Madres today, he would have a vision of your coming.”
“How?” Slocum blinked his dry eyes. What was this man?
“How do such things work?” Chako shrugged under the faded army shirt as they rode. “Once he said after a dream, three men would ride up this canyon and have their saddlebags full of gold coins.”
Slocum nodded and looked ahead at the wavering heat rising off the desert and distorting the faraway saw-topped mountains. The bronco leader must have powers that enforced his leadership. Visionaries
always impress Stone Age people, and even some that weren’t from that era.
“Those men came that day up that canyon and his men am-bushed them. They had much new money.”
“Is that why they go to him?”
“What else do they know to do? The army says they can’t raid the Mexicans, Papagos or Pimas anymore. They can’t drink tiswain or beat their wives. What else can an Apache do? Farm? That is women’s work—besides, there is little farmland at San Carlos to plow and water.”
“Wish I had a vision about him.”
“Like what?”
“A vision of when he plans to leave those mountains and go for the guns.”
Chako nodded. “Maybe we should ask a bruja?”
“I asked Estrella and she shook her head.”
“I know an old woman who could tell you, but she is in the White Mountains.”
“Who’s she?”
“My grandmother.”
“Maybe we need to talk to her.”
“Maybe.”
Long past dark they reached the small village of Aqua Fria and watered their horses at the well in the small square. A few tall palms rose into the starry night above them. Lights were still on in the cantina. After washing his hands and face in the tank, Slocum motioned his head in that direction and Chako agreed. They led their mounts over there and hitched them.
The rotund bartender with a rag over his arm came and took their order for some food and a bottle of mescal to wash down the trail dust.
“The goat—he is fresh cooked. A milk-fat one too.”
“Good,” Slocum said and they sipped the sharp mescal out of tin cups until an ample-bodied short woman, with deep cleavage exposed, delivered their food on a large platter. She smiled and laughed freely.
“Ah, such grandes hombres—why you ride so late in the night?”
“To get here and feel you,” Slocum said and reached out to familiarly rub her butt with his palm while she served them on plates. Nothing under the thin skirt except her hard ass. She moved closer to him.
“Your amigo, he is a grande gringo,” she said with a grin to Chako and handed him a plate of the browned goat meat, black beans and corn tortillas.
