by Jake Logan
“No. He’s making himself a name as sort of a Robin Hood too with giving out some things to the peons.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Probably stuff he stole in his raids. Always easy to give away something that cheap. So far he’s eluded the patrols we have on the border in his coming and goings.” Woolard shook his head. “You figure out a good plan to get him, let me know. I’m just dreading Crook coming here and heading this invasionary force.”
“Why is that?” Slocum sat back and tented his fingers to touch his nose.
“Nothing anyone does will please him. We are short way too many cav horses. A dismounted cavalry is like a sore-toed bear—mad all the time. There are not enough conveyances to get them down there—so we are not highly mobile.” Woolard made a wry scowl of distaste. “And those damn vast Sierra Madres are over a hundred miles away. More like one fifty.”
“Good luck. Chako and I’ll go back and see what we can learn.”
“Oh, Ike had a big horse sale at Charleston—those horses you sent him sold well.”
“I bet they did.”
“My quartermaster went, but said they exceeded the price that he could pay.”
“I never figured that they’d make the old man rich, but he’s made lots of money off the U.S. Army and the Indian agencies.”
“Thousands of dollars.” Woolard rose and paced the floor. “Crook will sure be upset. But that’s not your worry. I need some remounts.”
“The only horses I could find you are Texas mustangs, and I know the quartermaster doesn’t buy them.”
Woolard stopped and looked hard at him. “How far away and how long to get them here?”
“Telegraph John Doyle in Fort Worth. He can get them if anyone can, and have him ship them on the Southern Pacific. They should arrive at Deming in a week or ten days.”
“Is this Doyle honest?”
“He’ll do what he says he’ll do.”
Woolard stopped and squeezed his chin. “What will they cost?”
“Forty bucks a head, freight and all.”
“At Clanton’s sale, those sold for over two hundred dollars a head.”
“You can get five for one at that price.”
“Crook won’t like them, but they’ll damn sure beat walking.”
“They’re going to be tough as shoe leather.”
“Nothing else I can do. See you—and, Slocum, be careful. I’ll need you.”
“I will be, Colonel. Careful as I can be. Chako and I will be at the border tomorrow night.”
“Good—and thanks for this Doyle’s name. I’m ordering them.”
Back at the springs, Slocum met Chako. “We need to go back and learn all we can about Diaz and the broncos.”
Chako nodded. “We ride at first light?”
“Yes, and try not to make Chewy mad.”
With a bob of his head, the Apache sprung on his horse. “See you before daylight.”
Slocum dropped his gaze to the sandy wash at his feet and shook his head in defeat. “Your neck.” And his scout was gone.
“Time to ride,” Chako said, squatted near him in the predawn gray light the next morning.
Slocum sat up in his bedroll and yawned. “Damn short night, huh?”
In the shadowy light he could see the grin on the scout’s face. “You got to sleep.”
Slocum cocked a questioning eyebrow at him. “Well, I sure hope you don’t fall out of the saddle today.”
“I have the horses.”
“Good. Got any hot coffee?”
“She has.” Chako gave head toward the small fire and the small figure squatted close by tending the coffeepot and some pans.
“What’s her name?” Slocum asked, pulling on his boots after emptying them of any vermin that might have crawled into them overnight.
“Not important—she will have coffee ready in a little while.”
“That’s a damn strange name for an Apache—Not Important.” He busied himself rolling up his blankets and then shaking out the canvas ground cloth.
Chako never smiled or frowned. He also, Slocum figured, had no intention of telling him her name. Soon she brought him coffee in a tin cup, and she didn’t look familiar. She wasn’t Chewy’s wife anyhow. In a short while she delivered some flour tortillas wrapped around some beans and meat, with plenty of hot peppers, on a tray. Then she squatted close to them and waited until Chako told her in Apache that they were good. She nodded and smiled.
“Gawdamn good?” She looked at Slocum.
“Sí, muy bueno.”
She giggled, and then after a string of words for him that Slocum could not translate, she rose and left them. In a run, she hurried off out of sight in the shadowy brush, as if late for another mission.
“She have to cook another breakfast?” Slocum asked.
Chako barely bobbed his head, and held up his burrito to speak with his mouth full. “She’s a better cook than Chewy’s woman.”
Oh, well—they were off to Mexico. Or they would be in a few minutes, he and his no-sleep scout, headed for the line. He’d missed another chance to stop off and see Mary Harbor—that left a taste in his mouth the hot peppers couldn’t erase. So many wonderful women in this land and he was all the time thinking about a willowy schoolmarm—some memories just were more indelible.
Three days later, they were in Arido, enjoying some mescal in a cantina. An attractive young olive-skinned woman was dancing to fast guitar music, and the assembled vaqueros and riffraff were clapping to encourage her. Slocum could tell she was enjoying the attention, when a man slid into the booth.
“They tell me you are looking for Diaz.”
Slocum turned and said to him, “Not me, amigo.”
“I do not work for him. But I can tell you where he is at.”
“At his hacienda?”
“No, he’s gone to rob a stage across the border.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“Between the border and Benson.”
Slocum moved his chair around to look the man in the eye. The room was fogged in smoke, and he wanted to look close at this man and test him. “Why tell me?”
“I figure you want him.”
“And if I do?”
“Then you will pay me a reward.”
“Telling on Diaz can get you killed.”
“Many things in Mexico can get you killed. What is my reward?”
“Ten pesos now. Ten when I learn the truth.”
The man smiled. “You are a tough man to help.”
“If this is a trap and I survive, then you will get a ten-cent bullet in your gut. You savvy that?” Slocum counted the money out on the table.
“Sí. He will rob the stage, mañana.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rapheal Tellas.”
“All right, Señor Tellas, I will see you in a few days with ten more pesos.”
“Good.” He stood up. “I am going to spend one of them on a puta now.” He grinned big and headed for the bar. The teenage girl looked up at him when he touched her on the shoulder, and Slocum could read her lips: “No dinero, no pussy.” But when he showed her a peso, she hugged him like a long lost lover and they hurried out the back door.
“What do you think?” Slocum asked his stone-faced scout.
“He could be a liar. He could be a Diaz man. And he could just want pussy.” He shrugged and tossed down some mescal.
They both chuckled.
“We better get our horses and saddle up. I’m going to wire Woolard and hope he can send some troops in time. Maybe get the message.”
The music started again, and the men clapped for the dancer as she returned. The loud, hard strum struck a chord and she was off again. Slocum took a last look and smiled. Pretty enough girl—he wouldn’t mind taking some dance lessons from her.
The message in a code was left in the local telegraph office and Slocum paid the man.
Colonel Woolar
d, Fort Bowie,
Same general workers stage strike again. Tomorrow below Benson.
Slocum
He felt certain that Woolard could read it and figure it out. But it had to get to him first on a very undependable service, which was what he wondered about as they cinched their horses and prepared to ride out.
“What can we do against so many?” his scout asked.
“Be damn careful.”
“Damn careful,” Chako said and reined his horse around. They left Arido in a long trot headed north and with a good twelve-hour ride ahead of them or more. Slocum worried about their horses. They’d pushed those coming out of Mexico the last time too hard and ended up afoot. With good mounts so short in supply, he had that on his mind all night under the stars as they hurried north across the flat greasewood-clad desert.
They crossed a small range of hills and Chako picked up tracks. They stopped under the starlight for him to examine them closer.
“How many of them?” Slocum clutched the saddle horn in his hand and rocked back and forth in the saddle to awaken himself.
“Maybe fifteen, twenty horses.”
“Could some be pack animals?”
Chako nodded. “They might need some to carry it out, huh?”
“I am thinking that.”
“Most of his men are outcasts, but there will be some that could be tough fighters. Some Yaquis.”
“Routing them is what we need to do. Let’s go.” Slocum reached in the saddlebags and began to arm a couple of sticks of blasting power with caps and cords as they rode through the silent, deep canyon and then up the steep trail over the pass. A fresh, cool wind swept his face. He had six sticks ready as they both searched the pearl-lighted desert beneath them.
“There, see the fire.” Chako pointed out the red dot across the flats.
Slocum nodded. “Okay, lets give them a wake-up, then we can fall back to here and keep them from using this shortcut to the border. Maybe by then there will be troops.”
“What if they don’t come—the soldiers?”
“We’ll be on our own.”
Chako laughed. “Hope there ain’t many Yaquis with them.”
“You sound like those Chiricahuas. We use rocks on the Mexicans, and bullets we save for the American soldiers.”
“What do we do?”
“You take some blasting sticks and scatter their horses. I’ll toss some in their camp.” He booted the bay in close and handed him the sticks.
Chako nodded and headed his pony to the west. “Have big bang, huh?”
“I hope so.”
In the predawn, Slocum rode through the stirrup-high greasewood. He doubted Diaz had any sentries out, but he kept an eye out for any sign of one. Chako had dropped off into a wash to make his approach on the horse herd from that side. Slocum hoped his plan worked, and unless some straggler was up taking a piss and noticed him, he should reach throwing range. Obviously some camp followers were up preparing food; those women were at the fire and occupied, he hoped, enough not to notice his horse’s soft snorts.
At last he could see the scattered bedrolls. He hoped Chako was in place. He used a thumbnail to strike a match from his vest and touched off the primer cord that spewed sparks as it consumed paper rope. He drew back and tossed the stick, then set heels to the bay and charged on into camp. The explosion behind them sent the gelding’s tail clamped to his ass in a new burst of speed. Slocum lit and pitched aside another stick. Explosions were going off on the other side as well. He could hear the excited horses scream in panic and the thunder of hooves. Diaz’s army would be afoot. He aimed the last lighted stick at the tent setup and wondered if it was the general’s quarters. Then he reined the bay aside two screaming women running for cover, only inches from being run over by his horse. Pushing the bay hard, he headed for the pass in the dark outline of the low, jagged peaks.
Sounds of the angry soldiers and others shouting profanities behind him, he smiled catching up with Chako and the well-organized herd of animals headed for the hills. Who gave a damn what they were mad over—walking back across the desert would teach them respect and also brew more talk of revenge. Diaz, he thought, your days as the great leader may be numbered—if the troops arrive before you can cross the border. Slocum pushed the bay to the left to direct the herd more right.
Twice he’d taken Diaz’s horses; this might be the one where the general exerted his full-force fury against him. Like those men he sent to the Madres foothills to get revenge for him over the first horse theft. Come on, Diaz, I’ll be waiting in the pass.
Slocum closed his eyes—till the military arrives. His greatest fear lay in some Mexican telegraph failure—Damn Woolard, you better come help us fight those hornets we’ve stirred up.
Two hours later, the sun still on a long slant, Slocum scanned the desert with his brass telescope. The unorganized bandits were ambling across. He could see one man with gold epaulets on his shoulder, bareheaded, waving the rest forward with his arm.
Rifles loaded and ammo beside them, he and Chako waited on their bellies for the bandits to get within rifle range. The wind had picked up from the south and dried their sweat-soaked shirts. Blasting sticks were set downhill as the last defense of their position.
Slocum handed the scope to his scout and then wiped under the leather headband of his hat with his kerchief.
“See him?”
“Ah, the general is coming.” Chako laughed. “I can hear him cursing already.”
“You would too if you’d lost two herds of horses to the same guys.”
“You think he thinks Clanton stole them?”
Slocum sucked on his lower lip and shook his head. “No telling. See any dust of an outfit coming to help us?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.” He shook his head—no army in sight.
In half an hour, Diaz and his bandits reached the bottom of the pass. Slocum nodded to his man. “Time to scatter them.”
On his knees, Slocum sent hot lead at the ragtag army. The shots from Chako’s rifle took down a number of the men in sight too. The rest scrambled for cover.
“Damn you bastards!” Diaz swore and shook his fist at them. “I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I had a Sharps .50-caliber, you wouldn’t make that threat again,” Slocum said, with his eye slitted and the iron sight centered on the man’s chest.
“Look to the north,” Chako said, pointing with his rifle. “Dust. The army is coming.”
“Not one moment too soon—” Slocum ducked after a bullet ricocheted off a rock close by him. “Damn, they can shoot.”
“They see the dust too. How we hold them?”
“Make them stay down. We’ll take turns shooting at them.” Despite their efforts, Diaz’s army began to disperse; some ran east, some west, and next thing the general was simply gone. He’d crawled off under the belly of his own army. Slocum couldn’t see any sign of him, and the last holdouts were breaking and running for cover in the nearby wash. That would leave the wounded for the U.S. Army.
“How many horses in the canyon?” he asked Chako.
“Maybe twenty.”
“Good. We’ll send them back to Woolard. He’s short some.”
“What we going to do?”
“We’re going to be waiting for Diaz to return to his hacienda.”
“Then what?”
“We wrap him in a blanket and pack him back up here.”
Chako chuckled. “He will really be mad then.”
“Gather those horses. I’m going down and meet that West Pointer that’s bringing those troops.”
Chako was gone, and Slocum went for his bay. Mounted, he headed off the mountain’s steep side as the troopers drew closer. Two Apache scouts reined up and looked at the scattered wounded and dead.
“Big damn war here,” Chewy said and grinned at him.
Slocum nodded. “You got here too late for the fun. Who’s in charge?”
&
nbsp; “Fairweather, lieutenant.”
“I’ll go meet him. Chako’s got some horses we stole from them. He’s bringing them up. Maybe some more of this bunch left, but they split here.”
“Slocum, you having all the fun?” the bushy-mustached Sergeant Vonders asked, reining up his troop.
“No, they all ran off, both east and west. Diaz is with them.”
“Divide up and go in pairs.” Vonders directed the men to split up and look for the rest. “And don’t wait. If they offer any resistance, shoot them.”
“Lieutenant, my scout’s bringing the horses we took from them. Some should make remounts.”
The shavetail nodded in approval and checked his sweaty, head-bobbing horse. “Colonel Woolard said if you were still alive to give you his regards.”
“Tell him Diaz got away, but we did stop the stage robbery.”
“I am sure of that,” Fairweather said, “and the mounts you confiscated will make him smile.”
“There are five wounded and three dead here, sir,” Vonders reported.
“Good job. We’ll secure an ambulance and take them back to Bowie.” Fairweather turned back to Slocum. “And you, sir?”
“We have business in Mexico. Any word on the gunrunners?”
The lieutenant nodded. “The word we received said they had the guns and were headed to meet the broncos.”
“Where did they cross the border?”
“Scouts think they went through the San Pedro River Valley. Some Mormons at Saint David must have helped them. Reports are they had some stout mules.”
“They wanted to go through there to make the distance to the old man’s shorter.” Slocum looked at the sinking sun. When they left that goat herder shack in the Oracle country north of the Catalinas, they really had more purpose than simply moving. They were headed for the mules, probably financing, and from there to old man Clanton’s for the rifles.
“What are you thinking?” Fairweather asked.
“Old man Clanton’s is not far from here. Loan me your scouts. Maybe I can stop them.”
“Fine, but we aren’t supposed—”
“You can just call us mercenaries.”
