by Jake Logan
May it rain shit on Diaz.
13
“Slocum!” He jerked from half-asleep. Sounds of the instruments and the fandango going on down at the headquarters carried on the night. Laughter and screams rang out. Then some shots cut the night as the celebration continued.
“Yes?” he said with caution beside the window.
“I have the key to the padlock, but I must return it. He is passed out.”
“I’ll move to the door.” A thousand questions flooded his brain. A horse? A gun? How far could he get? If they’d managed to kill Chako, he’d need all his wits about him to ever out-maneuver them.
He slipped out the door, looking at all the lighted Chinese candles strung up for the celebration down at the headquarters. Then he turned to her as she relocked the door. Lock closed and a smile at him in the starlight, she pointed toward the west.
“There is a caballo there in the arroyo.”
He swept her up and kissed her hard. When their mouths parted, she sighed. “You must hurry. But I never forget you.” With a rue-filled headshake, she pushed him toward the horse.
With a tug at his hat brim, he blessed her and ran for his goal. With no gun to adjust on his right hip, he wanted to put lots of space between him and Diaz. While they celebrated was the time. Muchas gracias, Gloretta—he still did not recall her, even after kissing her sweet mouth. Where had their paths crossed? Going down the slope on his run-over boot heels, he spotted the saddled pony through the mesquite.
He tightened the girth, speaking softly to the mustang, and with the reins gathered, he stepped into the unfamiliar stirrup and took a seat in the Mexican saddle. Turning the horse to the north, he left in a long walk until over the next rise; then he put his mount into a hard trot.
Looking to the distant, sleeping mountains that meant the United States, he decided to call the horse Charro. He hit a set of wagon tracks and short-loped him. With a jaw-dislocating yawn, he stood in the stirrups and shouted at the stars. “Diaz, your days are short.”
His eyes squirted water and he wiped them on his sleeve. Damn, he’d miss that boy.
With the sun rising in the east, he sent Charro up the steep canyon trail through the junipers. A figure holding a rifle stepped out from behind one of the large, bushy evergreens and blocked the trail.
“Chewy?” he shouted and the scout’s nod told him enough.
He dismounted the hard-breathing bay and led him the rest of the way up the cow-faced steep pathway. “Did they get Bee Tree too?”
Chewy nodded.
“Son of a bitch. I thought we got them.”
“Nothing I could do. They jumped us in camp. I got away.” He dropped his head and shook it in defeat. “But there were too many.”
“How come you were waiting here?” Slocum looked around the mountainside and saw no signs of anyone.
Chewy gave a head toss and Slocum followed him around a big juniper. Two naked Mexicans lay staked on the ground—spread eagle.
“Señor,” one cried out with great tears. “Save us.”
“These men kill Chako?” he asked Chewy.
The bob of his head was enough. “They were there.”
“No! No! We are poor peons.”
“You wish to ride back to Bowie with me?” Slocum asked Chewy, ignoring the pair on the ground.
“Yes. But first I must fix them. I went and bought this sorghum,” Chewy said and began to drizzle it from the crock jug on the screaming one, making small strips on his chest, back and forth, then on his dusty, shriveled privates and legs. Ignoring the man’s vehement protests, Chewy finished by striping the Mexican’s shaking face with the black sugar liquid. Then without any emotion, the scout stepped over to similarly dress his partner in syrup.
“Señor,” the second one asked. “Shoot us. The ants are too slow a way to die. Do the Christian thing.”
“Chako was my amigo. May the ants be swift,” Slocum said and put a boot toe in the stirrup. “I’m ready to leave.”
“Go,” Chewy said. “I will be there in a short while.”
Slocum accepted the Apache’s words, reined Charro around and headed up the towering mountain. He could hear the hysterical one’s screams until he went over the next ridge. The thought of the red ants forming lines to secure the sweetness, then start on the flesh. It would be a slow way to die.
The turkey buzzards would find them. They’d light in tree-tops and grow braver by the hour, until they finally floated down and hopped around on the ground. The great black birds would dance around them until they wearied of the two screaming at them, then hop in close and pluck out their eyeballs. Magpies would pierce them with their sharp probes, time and time again, taking beaks full of flesh each time. The soldiers would die in darkness, slow and torturous like they had savored killing Chako. He booted the mustang to go faster uphill.
Chewy would squat for a long time there without any expression on his solemn face—to be sure they were punished for his fellow Apache’s death.
The sun was dying in a bath of blood when Slocum finally dropped out of the saddle beside Birch Turner’s corral.
The big man’s bass chuckling carried on the quiet night. “That you, Slocum?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s your scout?”
Slocum shook his head, waiting for the sorrow cutting his throat shut to pass. Then he managed to speak. “Diaz’s men killed him.”
“That sumbitch—”
“Who came?” she shouted from the house.
“Slocum. Cook some more; he looks starved to me.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah, alone. He lost his good man.”
“Oh, my—” Then she went back inside the house.
“You trying to stop a damn general with a few army scouts is serious business.” Birch leaned his shoulder on the corral gatepost and rolled a cigarette.
Fumbling with the sweat-soaked latigos, Slocum nodded and unthreaded them. The girths undone, he swung saddle, pads and all off Charro’s back. Loose at last inside the pen, the bay, with his feet set apart, shook all over in relief to escape the saddle, then rolled on his back in the dust.
Ready to light his smoke, Birch gave a head toss at the pony. “Guess he’s the general’s horse?”
“Long story,” Slocum said. “I’ll tell you all I know.”
“I’ve got some whiskey at the house. You need a good stiff one, and you can take all night to tell me.”
“Good,” Slocum said and looked around. “My last scout’s coming. He’s having an ant banquet with two of Chako’s killers.”
“Oh,” Birch said as if he understood the deal, and led the way.
After eating several heaping plates of her good food and having a few drinks with his stories thrown in, Slocum relaxed for the first time in days and found himself getting drowsy. Birch loaned him some blankets, and he went to a jacal nearby the house and to go to sleep. When he pulled the cover over his shoulder and rolled over to sleep, there was still no sign of Chewy.
Dawn, he found the Apache squatted beside his hipshot pony at the corral.
“She’ll have some food ready for us,” Slocum said, with a head toss toward the house. “You ready to ride to Bowie today?”
Chewy nodded.
“We should be there by dark.”
“Good.”
“Let’s go eat,” Slocum said and started for the house.
“Saw some tracks of mules.”
He stopped. “Mules? Think it’s the gunrunners?”
“Sí.”
“Where?”
“South of the Muleshoes.”
“Yesterday?”
Chewy nodded.
Slocum would have to send the colonel word on the Diaz deal. They had to stop Slade and Thorpe from delivering those guns. They must be headed for the San Bernadino Springs or they’d have taken the trail down south into Mexico already.
Slocum drew in a deep breath. “We better go find them.”
Chewy bobbed his head in Apache fashion. “Maybe they go to Clanton’s?”
“They were supposed to do that, but it’s been several days. Maybe they had to raise the money somewhere—who knows?”
“You two coming to eat?” Birch shouted at them from the doorway. “Its going to turn cold.”
“We’re on our way.” Slocum nodded to his scout. “We better eat while we can.”
Chewy grinned big. “Be long time, I figure, before we do it again.”
They both chuckled and headed for the house. Might be a real long time.
Past noontime, they reached the San Bernadino Springs and watered their horses. A few Mexican families who worked for the Peralta family lived there in an adobe compound. The success of the Peraltas with their extensive land grant had led to disaster. The large spring was in the direct route of Apaches from the Chiricahuas-Dragoons Mountains en route to the Sierra Madres. So life and ranching on this vast spread had been tenuous, to say the least, for the Peraltas. They maintained some presence there with a small cattle herding crew, but as in all the rest of northern Chihuahua and Sonora, thousands of deserted rancherias marked the landscape, some intact even and the cattle and horses turned out to fend for themselves. Between old man Clanton and his “cowboys” plus the Diné, there wasn’t much value in a life in any part of this region.
“Hello, mi amigo. Señor Slocum,” the broad-faced one said, carrying a repeating Spencer rifle in his arms and greeting them at the compound’s adobe-wall gate.
“Ah, Tomas,” Slocum shouted, and threw his right leg over the horn to slide off the saddle. Hand extended, he clasped the man’s tough, callused one. “We look for two men come through here with mules.”
“Mules, huh? Tough hombres.”
“Tough enough.” Slocum waited for his reply.
“Ah, sí, they were here yesterday and went south.”
“What did they say they carried?” Slocum asked, loosening his latigos.
Tomas shrugged. “Never said.”
“They’re taking guns to the broncos. We need to buy some food and sleep a few hours.”
“So they can kill more of us.” Tomas shook his head in disgust. “I’d known that, I’d never let them water here. Come, we will find you food and a place to sleep. Bring the horses.”
Slocum looked around as the sunset bled on the tall cottonwoods and large tank of water. “Gracias. Come on, Chewy, we’re going to eat.”
The woman was short that hustled around making them fresh-flour saddle-blanket-sized tortillas between her palms. Then she draped them over her hot metal grill and smiled at them. “My name is Alma.”
“Slocum and he’s Chewy.”
She nodded, on her knees busy tending to getting their food ready like a whirlwind. In a short while she had some meat and bean burritos all rolled up and on a tray for them. Next she poured them cups of wine.
“How was your day?” Slocum asked before taking a bite.
“Oh, grandchildren kept waking me up all night. So it has been a long day.”
“You look too young to be a grandmama.”
At his comment, she shook her head as if haughty. “You are some gringo.”
“I am sure you must have had the first one very young.”
Then gathering her skirts, she stood up and nodded. “You will sleep in my casa, no?”
“Ah, I’m pleased you asked me.”
“Sí.” She took a tray of her burritos with her to serve to someone. In a swish of the dress she hurried away.
Chewy looked around then grinned. “We go at dawn?”
“We better. I’ll have her fix us some food and some to take.”
The scout nodded. “I will bring the horses at dawn.”
“Good,” he said, seeing her return.
“Come, my cooking is over for now.” Her arm wrapped familiarly around Slocum’s waist, she directed him up the narrow dark street, drawing some stares from the lighted doorways.
“I have some hot water, if you would like to bathe,” she said, once she had drawn the curtain and closed the front door’s drape. With a few flickering candles lighting the small shrine, he noticed she had a table to work on, along with a few personal things and a pallet on the floor in the corner. She filled the basin with steaming water as he toed off his boots.
“Sounds fine.”
“Where did Chewy go?”
“Where do Apaches sleep?”
With a visible shudder of her shoulders under her blouse, she looked up and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“He’ll be ready to ride at dawn.”
“I will have you some food ready too,” she said, swinging the skirt free of her tawny, shapely legs. A smile spread over his mouth at the sight of her naked. . . .
He awoke once in the night and then, satisfied there was not any threat, went back to sleep cuddled around her firm ass. In sleep’s arms he savored the experience again and floated away.
With the coolness of the predawn creeping through his blankets, he realized she was no longer under his wing, and he sat up to dress. He recognized Charro’s cough outside in the darkness. Chewy was there, ready to ride. Maybe they’d catch the gunrunners before sundown.
Be damn nice to have that settled.
14
To leave Alma was not easy, but after breakfast she sent them away with a poke full of food. Slocum paid her five pesos and she hugged him tight for it. They were off before the sun rose over in New Mexico, he and Chewy riding in a long trot south-eastward across the shadowy greasewood-bunch grass flats that stretched for miles. His belly full, a fine piece of ass behind him along with a good night’s sleep, Slocum felt rested enough to push on after the gunrunners.
“Where will they stop?” he asked his scout.
“Maybe Arido. Or at the Mormon settlement.”
“Corrales,” Slocum said, familiar with the polygamist colony at the base of the Madres. “I’d bet that pair goes there since they had some support among the ones in Saint Davis.”
“Maybe,” Chewy agreed and bent over in the growing light to look at the tracks. “We can follow them.”
Slocum agreed, and they rode on as the sun rose and the heat did too.
Midday, Chewy took him to a small spring, where they drank and watered the horses. Only an Apache would have known about the small water source in the vast desert. No vegetative signs gave it away, not even much sign of wildlife using it. But it was sweet, and they refilled their canteens. Squatted and eating burritos, they let their mounts rest for a short while, before hitching up their girths and riding on.
Late afternoon they descended into the valley of the Mormon colony, spread along the small water source flowing out of the Madres which watered their fields of grain and alfalfa and orchards of citrus.
Slocum rode to the home of a woman he knew. The adobe-walled house had a thatched grass roof and a dirt porch that extended around the four sides. A black dog barked, and someone came to the doorway using her hand to shield the sunset’s glare off the ash-colored ground.
“Slocum?” the woman in her early thirties asked, sounding uncertain. She swept the honey brown hair back from her face, then put her hands on her shapely hips to study him.
He reined up and nodded. “That’s me. His name’s Chewy. How you been, Leagh?”
“Fine. What brings you to Corrales?”
“Looking for two men who rode in here today. One’s named Thorpe and the other is Slade. They have pack mules.”
“Some men with a train came and saw the bishop earlier.”
“They ride on?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe a few hours ago. I saw the loaded pack mules hitched at his house when I went to get some supplies. The bishop was talking to them on his porch. Then when I came back they were gone. What about them?”
“They’re greedy crooks taking rifles to the broncos in the Madres.”
“You sure? The bishop would never—”
“I believe that some saints at Saint David gave them the money to make the deal.”
“But Bishop Robinson would never help them if he knew their business. We all live here in fear of those broncos striking us.”
“Maybe I better go ask him.”
“First you must eat. When did you two eat last?”
“San Bernadino Springs,” he lied to her.
“Goodness, I’ll fix you two some food. Put your horses in the corral, there’s water and hay for them in there.”
He looked hard at her. “We won’t ruin your reputation—I mean us stopping here?”
She laughed. “No, I am free. Clarence Wallace divorced me in Arizona. You couldn’t be any worse in the eyes of the faithful.” She wrinkled her nose to dismiss his concern and waved them to the washbasin on the porch.
“We will,” he said. “After we water the horses.”
“I do that,” Chewy said and took the reins from him.
When the scout and the animals went around the building, she frowned at Slocum. “That’s not the same one—”
“No.” He shook his head warily. “Diaz killed Chako.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, and when I finish this rifle business, I intend to even the score.”
“Who are these two men running the guns?”
“Couple of jack Mormons. They’re nothing but outlaws. Slade threatened to assault a young schoolmarm he was hauling in a buckboard for the stage line out of Lordsburg. She fought and threw him off the rig and he busted his head on a rock. Thought she’d killed him.”
“She must have been strong.”
Slocum shook his head. “Just scared. Only thing bad was she didn’t kill him.”
“You can do many things when you’re upset.”
“You sure can. Well, do you own this place now that you’re divorced?”
“The church owns it, I think. Anyway this is a co-op and no one owns it. I can stay here.”
