Spirit Valley (Ben Blue Book 7)

by Lou Bradshaw

  “Dang it, Ben. You shouldn’t have gone off like that by yourself. What if you’d met up with a whole gang up there… you could’ve got yourself killed. I could’ve sent a deputy with you… that’s their job…. I’m surprised that Patty Anne let you go off the way.”

  “If it hadn’t been for leavin’ the kids, she’d a probably strapped on a gun and gone with me. I couldn’t ask Delgado or Rafe or Gracy to go. They’re paid to do ranch work, and I don’t feel right puttin’ them in harm’s way. Gracy volunteered, but they were my horses and my problem.”

  He fussed at me some more and then went back to town with a sense of accomplishment and a full belly. I knew he was right, but I would have a hard time living with the knowledge that someone was bad hurt or killed protecting my property. Most ranch hands ride for the brand, and will take risks for the cattle they’re watching over. That’s part of their thirty a month and found. I’d expect them to stand and be counted if they caught someone running off horses or cattle. But somehow, this was different.

  I hadn’t mentioned anything to Nelson about the Indian at my campfire, mainly because he would start looking at me funny. Like I said earlier, I’m still not sure he was there or if he was part of a dream I was having. But I planned to talk to Rubio about it… he would understand.

  Them that don’t know Rubio are just a little leery of him, mostly because they know of his reputation of being a famous warrior in the old days. And the fact that he let it be known, he is still taking scalps whenever the opportunity presents itself. I’ve found Rubio to be someone I could talk to and never be judged as a numbskull… And contrary to popular beliefs, he has a good sense of humor… as long as I’m the butt of his jokes.

  The morning after the Sheriff’s visit found me on Dusty, my favorite trail horse. I bought that horse from Sam Stellars, my Grandpa in Law, for fifteen dollars. I can’t imagine ever getting that far ahead on any horse deal with old Sam.

  The sun was high and it would be a scorcher before mid morning, so I figured Rubio and his robust young wife would be at their early summer pasture with their flock. That’s where I found them. Rubio had three levels of pasture on the western slope of the big white mountain. He works his way up to the highest pasture by August. And then he will work his way down until he reaches the floor of the valley. They’ll spend the winter in some protected canyons at the southern end of my valley.

  It’s really not my valley, but the only way to get cattle in or out is through my gate at the gap. Horses and sheep can come and go through a number of trails, but they would be too steep and rugged for a herd of cattle. I didn’t realize when I bought those three connecting homesteads that I was getting a deed to the valley. Folks have started calling it Blue Valley… I guess that makes it official.

  As Dusty came over the top of the last incline on the trail, I was immediately greeted by one of the two or more big mongrel dogs. When he saw me and got my scent, his hackles laid back down and his tail started wagging. I was given the go ahead by the tail, otherwise I’d have to wait for Rubio to come get me or shoot the dog. I wasn’t sure I had enough ammunition to put that fella down, so I was happy to see the tail wag.

  Riding on through the pasture to where I knew there jacal had always been, I was pleased to see the condition the sheep were in, and to see the number of lambs. The numbers told a story of not only good conditions for the sheep, but it also told me that predators were not a problem. And that was good for my cattle in the south end of the valley.

  It looked like a good year for Rubio and the family. Of course, there were only two in the family. Rubio’s grandson, Antonio, was at school in Santa Fe learning to be a teacher and would soon be assigned to a Navajo reservation school. We were all proud of Antonio.

  I found Rubio sitting on a boulder smoking his pipe and looking out over his flock. Another mongrel dog lay at the base boulder. It reminded me of the first time I met the old pirate. Only that time he had a bead on me with an old single shot carbine.

  “Aye, Benblue. You no come visit me long time. I think you maybe dead… thinkin’ about go down there an see if you wife need new husband.” Then he nearly fell of the rock laughing.

  “Not yet,” I told him, “but you’d have to quit smokin’ if you’re planning to keep up with them two little ones.” We both had a chuckle over that because we both knew what energy youngsters had.

  “Rosita…” he called. “We have visitor,” Each time I came up here, he called her by a different name. To date he’s called her Conchita, Maria, Floria, Bluebird, Angela, and others. But since there are only the two of them living here, I’m sure she knows who he is calling.

  We walked on over to the jacal, where Rosita Conchita was setting out dishes of food, as was their Navajo custom. I had eaten at Rubio’s fire many times before, but I felt a little less hesitant with her doing the cooking. Usually, Rubio had some kind of game in the pot, but snakes or lizards were likely to be in there too.

  After our meal, I began telling them of my meeting with the strange Indian in the strange valley. Rubio questioned me about the cliff houses. I told him all I could about the way they were built, the size, and how some were stacked on top of others. I told him how the man acted like he’d not seen a horse before. I told him that he spoke to me in a tongue that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before.

  Then I pulled out my tally book with the mysterious word written in it and told him, “The Indian spoke to me, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying… He spoke this next word like it was important and I wrote it down, so I could ask you about it… He looked at me and waved at the houses then said, ‘Ráwt-hawné.”

  Rubio looked up when I said the word. It wasn’t like he knew the word. It was more like the word had triggered a memory that he couldn’t get a loop over. He stood up and walked away from the fire. Standing straight and still with his back to us, he waited for more than a couple of minutes. Neither of us said anything to him. He was following a trail in his mind and probably wouldn’t have heard us if we had.

  After a time, he turned and walked back to where we waited. “It is verr old word… more than word… not Navajo or Apache word… older. Maybe Pueblo people word, but old Pueblo people… no longer here. Long long long time.”

  “I hear my father’s father say it many times. It was to scold niños when niños run wild. But the trails are old, and the signs are poor.” He continued pacing back and forth in front of the jacal for a few more minutes.

  Then he looked up and said, “When we were boys running and tumbling through the hogans, my grandfather would roar at us and say something like, ‘Ráwt-hawné.’…. I think it is the same.”

  “I will try to say in English, ‘Protect your hogan.’ or ‘Save your hogan.”

  He walked around a bit more and then said, “Respect your hogan.’ But it mean more…” His eyes lit up and he said, “Respect our home.’ But more… he was telling to respect our village and not run through it breaking things.”

  That made sense to me. The man had seen the others come in and leave trash and probably breaking taboo in any number of ways. He was asking me to respect his… their home, and I had every intention of doing that. So I went on a little farther and told them about the force that kept me from entering the cliff house. Rubio listened with great interest, and for the first time, I saw what might be a look of something akin to fear cross his face.

  I tried to give no notice of seeing it, but he reached down and picked up a handful of dust and scattered it to the four winds. He showed no embarrassment for his action… it would be like a Catholic crossing himself, and I accepted it as such.

  “What about the man? Do you think he might be of the Pueblo people?” I asked.

  “No… no Pueblo people. Maybe of same family, but verr long time before…. Him not alive…him ghost… spirit.”

  I felt a chill run up my spine and spread throughout my whole body. I didn’t even know if I believed in ghosts. I’d purposely avoided thi
nking about ghosts and spooks ever since I could remember. I’d no sooner go into a graveyard at night than kiss a rattlesnake on the lips. I just didn’t like thinking about them. Now Rubio is telling me that I’d had a conversation with one. Now it was my turn to do some pacing.

  I was having trouble finding a place in my mind that would accept what I’d just heard, without trying to kick it out and ridicule it. Such things just weren’t real, or were they? The trouble I was having was I just didn’t know what to think.

  “If the strange Indian is a ghost, why can’t he rest, why is he walking around telling people to respect his home? Wouldn’t he be about ready to settle down by now?”

  “Each people believe different… each people believe right for them. That people maybe believe that spirit no rest if no sent to underworld right…. Maybe him last to die an’ no people fix’im up…. Maybe others run an’ no fix’im up. Many reason for restless spirit. Maybe others there too.

  Again, I felt the tiny little mouse toes were running up my spine. I shivered and saw Rubio’s wife duck inside the jacal. I was beginning to understand why the horse guard had been so skittish. When I came up on him, I doubt if he even heard what I said. He just panicked and bolted.

  If the others had left him there alone, for more than a day, he could have been half crazy from fear of the unknown. I’m not saying I believe in ghosts or spirits, but I’m not going to say they don’t exist either. I asked Rubio what I should do about it.

  He simply said, “No go there.”

  Chapter 4

  He didn’t have to worry about that. I had no intention of ever going back to that creepy canyon. On the way back home, I had an involuntary urge to keep looking over my shoulder. I would tell myself that old Rubio was still about ninety percent heathen. He was just an old Navajo who couldn’t even read or write… what could he know about such things? Each time I would tell myself that he didn’t know what he was talking about, I would tell myself that he knew a lot more about it than I did.

  After all, what did I have to worry about? The man in the canyon hadn’t tried to harm me. He didn’t threaten me in any way. All he did was ask me to respect his home, which I certainly would do. If that horse stealing bunch had spent any time there, I can see how he had expected the same things from me. But that didn’t make him a ghost. It just made him a man who spoke a language that nobody has spoken in a thousand years… a man who had never seen a horse close up before…. Sure, that was logical.

  I’d go with that for the time being, and try to make myself believe it. I felt better after I came to that decision, even if I was only fifty one percent convinced. I reckoned that bigger brains than mine have been pondering over it for centuries and still have no proof positive either way. So why was I trying so hard to not believe in ghosts?

  ~~~~~ o ~~~~~

  On the third morning after my visit with Rubio, I was saddling up to take a ride up to Rio Quarto. I was hoping to come to an agreement with the few herders up there. I wanted to close the sheep trail used to take the horses out of the valley. It would mean they would have to find another way down into the valley. I was willing to hire some laborers to make a new trail. But I wanted a trail that was too steep to run a bunch of horses up and still usable for sheep.

  My projects aren’t always the easiest, but I try to be fair… as fair as any rancher trying to protect his property. There were four Mexican families who used the valley for their winter sheep graze. They all lived in Rio Quarto, and like Rubio moved their camps higher in the summer and came down to the valley for the winter. The fathers, grandfathers, or older sons would care for the sheep while the rest of the family would put in crops in the village area. It was a hard, simple life, but it worked, and they made a living.

  As I approached the canyon from where the trail led up to the village, I could hear commotion and voices. My first reaction was to loosen my rifle in the boot and take the thong from my Colt’s hammer. Coming around the last turn in the canyon I saw about eight or ten men and boys up on the trail with shovels and poles.

  They were well up the slope, but I recognized Luis Ruiz and his tall son Carlos. So I tied my horse and started climbing up to see what was going on. They watched me as I went up the two hundred feet of trail.

  “Aye, Señor Ruiz.” I hailed him as I got closer. “You seem to be working hard on such a warm day.” I didn’t ask what he was doing. I could tell right away that I had friends on the rim. They were rerouting the trail in several places to make it difficult to bring horses up or down.”

  “Si,” he said, “eet ees hot work, but we hear horses come through again in the night, so we feex eet.”

  “Thank you, Luis; I was coming up to talk to you about the trail. I hoped you would allow me to do something like that.” I told him, trying to be as respectful as possible. These people had pride, and I had no legal right to keep them out of this part of the valley. I doubt that I would if I could… it was a large valley.

  “Por nada, Señor Benito. It is for our own good to have good neighbors.”

  I touched the brim of my hat in acknowledgment of what he said and asked, “There were horses coming through last night… could you tell how many?”

  “No many… dos… tres… maybe leetle more… they go down and come up.”

  My head snapped around and I asked, “Did more come up than went down?”

  “No, the same come up.”

  That was good news, but I had to get back down and see for myself. So I thanked them again and started back down. I had a hunch when the other three horse thieves found the little valley empty they figured the horses had run for home. They probably figured the guard had gone after them. Whatever they thought, I had to make sure everything was alright.

  When I reached the new pasture, I found the gate ajar and a number of tracks coming and going. I opened it and went through. What I found back in the canyon was the last thing I’d expected. The horses were there, and Delgado was trying to get close enough to the young stallion to get a rope on him. The yearling was in a highly aggravated state, and as soon as Delgado would get close enough, the youngster would bolt.

  There was a trailing rope already on the stallion and when he’d reach the end of it, something on the other end would bounce through the tall grass. Delgado saw me coming and pointed to whatever the horse was dragging. So I got between the two ends of the rope, and while Delgado held the stallion’s attention, I cut the rope.

  We still had to get that rope off him, and he was on the edge of panic. We backed off and let him settle a little. Delgado rode over and dismounted.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked.

  “It look like they come back to get ‘em again. But it didn’t work out so good for ‘em… you see what on the other end of the rope?”

  “No, I was to intent on trying to get him free before he got tangled and broke a leg.”

  “You need to take a look, Benito.”

  So I walked back the half dozen yards and found another surprise waiting. There in the tall grass, lay what was once a man. I could see that by the rags of clothing he was wearing. Nothing else gave me any idea that it was a human form. It could have been an antelope dressed in range clothes and dragged over half the canyon. It was nothing but a bloody pile of broken bones and missing skin.

  He must have been on the ground when he dropped that loop over the yearlings head. The other end of the rope was tangled and knotted around his right leg. It had become wedged just above the boot top and tightened. With so much running around, it was hard to work out what had happened, but farther back in the canyon the story was told.

  We found several burnt out torches, which made me believe that two of them drove the stallion into a trap. The problem was the third man didn’t have his rope clear when he tossed the loop. If it had been daylight, they might have been able to head the horse off and saved the man’s life. But in the dark, it would have been quite a chore… hell of a way to die.

  It neve
r made much sense to me why a man would go into a life of crime. The rewards could be great, but the price was usually much greater. Oh, such things happen to honest men all the time, most honest men don’t tempt bad luck by putting themselves in those positions. An honest man wouldn’t be out in someone’s horse pasture in the middle of the night. I guess it just looks like an easy score to take what has already been earned by someone else.

  Using that little mustang that followed the horses home as a calming effect, we were able to get the rope off the yearling. I went through the dead man’s pocket and found little more than the horse guard had on him. But there was a beat up envelope addressed to Clarence Turner of El Paso, Texas. The letter inside was short and left a lot unsaid.

  Turner,

  Come on out as soon as you can get here. Got it all worked out. Need about 3 more men if you can find some eager to make money.

  D.

  That didn’t tell me much of anything, except his name and the name of whoever had sent for him. And I didn’t know anyone named Darrel, whether that be his first name or his last name. Actually, I didn’t even know if Darrel was a man or woman. All I really knew was that Clarence Turner had been in El Paso and had been sent for by someone.

  We buried Clarence Turner in a shallow grave covered with rocks. I’d say there were more than a few men taking their eternal rest in shallow graves covered with rocks throughout the west. But not many of us carried a shovel in our saddlebags on the off chance we’d come upon a body. I’d venture to say, there were more unknown souls that were never even given the luxury of a covering of rocks. Many a man just disappeared in the wilderness, and the animals scattered the bones.

  Right after noontime, I took a ride into town and made a report to the sheriff. When I showed him the letter, he was just as lost as I was as to who this Darrel might be. The one thing we were sure of was there was a plan afoot that required four men… five if you count Darrel. Well, their forces had been thinned down by about half. They’d either have to give up their plans to get rich off other men’s horses or start recruiting more men.