Leaving Yuma

by Michael Zimmer

  “What if it won’t start again?” Del asked worriedly.

  “Then ye can shoot the damned thing and put it out of its misery.” He lolled his head toward me. “That trail from Tucson to Sentinel was open all the way, but this bugger has nearly wrung me dry, lad.”

  “Got any water?”

  “Aye, five gallons in the trunk for the radiator and a canteen for me own use, but there’s a beer or two back there yet, and I’d prefer that, if ye’re doin’ the fetchin’.”

  “I’m fetching,” I said, and jumped out.

  “You stay where I can see you!” Del shouted after me.

  I’d already lifted the lid on the trunk by then, shutting off his view to the rear, and I won’t deny that, brief as it might have been, the idea of slipping Selma’s pistol from my boot, then stepping around the side of the car and pulling the trigger, flashed through my mind. They wouldn’t have been the first men I killed, either, but the fact is, although I’d already shot a number of men at that point in my life, I wasn’t a killer. Or rather, I wasn’t a murderer, and there’s a difference. You may think me brash to admit that on a machine that’s recording my every word, but I’ll be confessing to a lot worse before we’re through. Of my many adventures, that final trip into Mexico to rescue Abby Davenport and her children was the bloodiest.

  Rummaging through the trunk, I located a couple of bottles of Dos Equis, wrapped inside a dripping wad of burlap. Seeing the familiar double Xs brought a smile to my face. Dos Equis was illegal in the United States and its territories, and wouldn’t have been available if not for the smuggling that went on along the border. Taking the bottles around front, I opened one for Spence and the second for myself, and laughed at Del’s scowl.

  “Get your ass back there and fetch me a bottle, Latham.”

  “This is all there was,” I replied, tipping my head and taking a healthy swallow.

  Spence backed me up. “Just the two left, Delmar. Sorry.”

  “Besides, you being an acting sheriff for Pima County, you wouldn’t want to drink anything brought into the country illegally,” I told him.

  Del grumbled but didn’t push it. Spence was drinking leisurely, savoring his beer, although I noticed his hand still trembled every time he raised the bottle to his lips. After several minutes, he belched contentedly and said, “Boys, I be fair bushed. I’ll get ye to Moralos, don’t fret yeself on that, but I’m going to have to sit here a spell to catch me wind.”

  “It doesn’t look like it’s your wind that’s bothering you,” Del observed.

  “Aye, ’tis the truth, and then some.” He set his bottle aside and raised both hands to tentatively flex his fingers. They moved slowly, quivering from the strain, and I could see the pain in his eyes as he forced them closed.

  Del was less sympathetic. “We ain’t got that kind of time, McKenzie.” He glanced at the sun, nearly straight overhead. “It’s still twenty miles or more to Moralos, and I told Davenport we’d be there by noon today at the latest.”

  “What ye told the old bugger isn’t me concern, Delmar. It’ll be a couple of hours, at least, before I can drive again. Unless ye want to wrestle this beastie yeself.”

  Del glared but didn’t say anything. Then, out of the blue and surprising all three of us, I said, “I’ll drive.”

  “Shut up, Latham,” Del growled.

  “Hold on, now, Delmar,” Spence said, squirming around for a better look, as if sizing me up. “Do ye think ye can, lad?”

  “Sure.”

  “My ass,” was Del’s opinion, but Spence chuckled.

  “Ye may be right, Delmar, but better to give the lad a chance than while away the day waitin’ for the trembles to drain from me arms.”

  “He’ll wreck it.”

  “I can handle it.”

  Turning to Del, Spence said, “I say we give the lad a try.”

  Del was eyeing me suspiciously. I knew he was remembering the derringer I’d tried to smuggle out of Selma’s room. He didn’t trust me, and I guess I couldn’t really blame him. But he also wanted to get to Moralos as soon as possible, and sitting around in the middle of a dry wash twenty miles short of his goal wasn’t going to get him there.

  “If you wreck this thing, Latham, I’ll rip that pardon of yours to shreds and toss it to the winds.”

  “You just hang onto that pardon if you want to reach Sabana without losing your hide to bandits or Indians,” I replied, my temper finally beginning to stir.

  Starting an automobile in 1907 was a lot more complicated than it is today, but thankfully Spence was there to walk me through it, adjusting the choke and spark and fuel mixture, then having me crank the engine like I was whipping up a batch of homemade ice cream while he coaxed the slumbering creature to life. It didn’t hurt, Spence told me later, that the engine was still warm. The Berkshire sputtered to life on the third spin, and Spence quickly adjusted the controls until the motor was once again purring smoothly. I’ve got to admit I found myself liking the sound.

  I tossed the crank under the seat and told Spence to shove over, then held my wrists up where Del could see them. “I can’t drive with these on.”

  Del started sputtering in a fair imitation of the Berkshire engine on the crank’s second spin, but Spence cut him off.

  “The lad’s right, Delmar. Either remove his cuffs or wait until I’m fit enough to drive again.”

  Del partially conceded by freeing my right wrist. I could drive, but I’d have a heck of a time explaining myself if I escaped, then showed up in a town with manacles dangling from my left arm.

  Spence turned out to be a pretty decent instructor, and it wasn’t long before we were hopping down the middle of that wash like a cottontail. Del was cussing up a blue streak at my neck-snapping jerks, but Spence only laughed and increased the throttle. After a bit he closed the choke, then retarded the spark, and we were soon chugging along at a good clip, although still in first gear. After about a hundred yards in low, with me primarily getting the hang of steering, Spence explained the art of shifting gears, and it wasn’t long before we were fairly flying along.

  We reached the main road between Moralos and Nogales around midafternoon, and Spence reluctantly reclaimed the driver’s seat. I don’t think he wanted to show up in Moralos sprawled across the passenger side of the car like a hitchhiker, not with Ed Davenport paying his wages. Del, the bastard, snapped that left cuff back on my wrist as soon as I slid out from behind the wheel. Thirty minutes later, the little village rose into view as if sprouted amidst a forest of cholla.

  For its size, I think Moralos had changed even more than Yuma in the years since I’d been away. Jorge Archuleta had enlarged his cantina, there was an adobe wall surrounding the well in the center of the plaza to keep the goats and hogs and such out of the drinking water, and the livery on the north side of the plaza had added more corrals behind its stables. But what really caught my eye was a new, two-story structure with the word hotel painted in bright red letters above the entrance.

  Moralos had grown up with its new hotel and developing businesses, but as we entered the town in a cloud of dust, rapidly scattering chickens, barking dogs, and yelling, laughing children out of our way, I noticed that it hadn’t grown out. There were still only thirty or forty small adobe homes surrounding the central plaza, making me wonder where all the extra commerce was coming from to justify the village’s expansion.

  At the hitch rails in front of Archuleta’s cantina was a burro loaded with dried cholla for firewood, a couple of nondescript horses swatting lazily at the few flies out and about in that kind of heat, and a two-wheeled contraption the likes of which I’d never seen before. As soon as Spence brought the Berkshire to a halt in front of the hotel, I walked over for a closer look. Del yelled for me to get my hind end back where he could keep an eye on me muy pronto, but I was growing weary of Del’s barking, and ignored h
im.

  The machine looked like one of those safety bicycles I’d seen in Yuma, right down to the pedals. But it also had an engine mounted inside its V-shaped frame, and a blue, flat-paneled gas tank under the top rail between the seat and handlebars. The word Wagner was scripted across the tank. (Editor’s note: A safety bicycle is an obsolete term for a bicycle with equal-sized wheels, versus the earlier penny-farthing models with their overly large front wheel and tiny rear wheel; the Wagner Motorcycle Company (1901–1914) was founded by George Wagner, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.)

  What had caught me off guard wasn’t so much that I was looking at what was essentially a motorized bicycle, or motorcycle, but that I’d come across it way out there. Two five-gallon gas cans were strapped like saddlebags on either side of the rear wheel, with a bedroll and flat-bottomed portmanteau fastened crosswise behind the seat. A dented coffee pot was tied to the bedroll, and an empty rifle scabbard with elaborate floral carvings, dyed in shades of red, green, and gold, was slanted to the rear on the bike’s right side. A dripping two-gallon water bag was hung off the left to counterbalance the weight of the rifle.

  I stood there for several minutes just staring at the thing, and it was about then, even more than seeing all those automobiles in Yuma, that I began to comprehend the changes that were about to overwhelm the world. Staring at the motorcycle, I recalled Spence’s comment from the night before: ’Tis the future ye’re lookin’ at here.

  It was indeed.

  When I finally returned to the Berkshire, Del and Spencer had already disappeared into the hotel, and I wandered in after them. The place was still fairly new and in good repair, the lobby pleasantly cool after the blazing desert sun. A middle-aged Mexican in a white linen suit manned the register. Spotting my cuffs, he motioned toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

  “Señor Buchman says you are to go upstairs immediately.”

  “Which room?”

  Solemnly the clerk informed me that Davenport had rented the entire north side of the upper floor for his private quarters.

  I whistled. “Hombre rico, eh?” I queried, grinning.

  “Sí, very much.” And still not a trace of a smile.

  We were speaking Spanish, and I ought to explain that a lot of the conversations that took place after we reached Moralos were in Spanish. Having spent a good many years trading south of the border, I was fairly fluent in the language, although lacking the formality of a scholar. Mine was more a polyglot of the border Spanish that dominated that region, a mongrel collection of Mexican, American, and Indian dialects. Del and Spence could get along in Spanish, but Davenport didn’t speak it at all, despite numerous business dealings in Mexico and, I’d find out later, an office in Hermosillo. It was Spence who confided in me that Davenport considered the language beneath him, and that he considered it a strength when dealing with Mexican officials to have them bring along their own interpreter.

  But I’m not going to try to keep all that straight—what was spoken in Spanish and what wasn’t. It would bog down the story, and probably confuse me as much as it would you. Just know that after we left Moralos, most of what was spoken to anyone other than Davenport, Del, or Spence was probably in the language of the land.

  There were eight rooms on the hotel’s second floor, four on the north side of a long hallway, and four on the south. Hearing the low rumble of masculine voices from one of the middle rooms, I went there first. Halting in the doorway, I found Del and Spence standing stiffly before a middle-aged man perched on the edge of a cushioned chair, pulling on a pair of expensive, lace-up riding boots. He was of average height and thick through the middle, the way some men get at that age—although he didn’t look soft, at all. His hair, what was left of it, was gray and curly, with a few strays on top that caught the light from the open window. His face was square and craggy, like a sculpture inlaid with a pair of cold blue stones for eyes. Other than sideburns extending just below his lobes on either side, he was clean-shaven.

  Davenport saw me as soon as I walked into the room, and his first words were, “So this is the infamous J. T. Latham, whose skills we couldn’t survive without?”

  I didn’t like the guy from that moment on.

  “That’s him,” Del confirmed, minus the bluster I’d endured ever since he’d sprung me from Yuma. “Although you recall I never said we couldn’t do it without him. Just that our odds of getting there undetected were gonna be better if we had him to guide us.”

  Davenport glanced at my wrists. “Why is he still handcuffed? Don’t you trust him?”

  “I’d trust him as far as I would any con, and more than most, but that doesn’t mean I’d turn my back on him. He tried to slip a whore’s pistol past me in Yuma, so I figured another day or two in cuffs might convince him that …”

  “A whore’s pistol?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “From a whorehouse?”

  Del shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell me, Buchman,” Davenport said softly, “what were you doing in a whorehouse?”

  Clearing his throat, Del said, “We was waiting for the train and had a few hours to kill before …”

  “Are you also responsible for those bruises on his face?”

  “No, sir, that was done before I got him released.”

  Davenport stood. “Is what this man says about your skills true, Latham? Do you know that country south of here like the back of your hand?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “He was raised by the Yaquis,” Del interjected.

  “Were you?” Davenport asked, never taking his eyes away from mine.

  “Not exactly raised by them. I spent a few years among them as a captive. Most of the land south and west of here was their home until the Federales chased them deeper into the paramos.”

  The old man—and I call him that only because of his position in the group—scowled at my reply. “Paramos?”

  “The badlands.”

  “Speak English, Latham. We’re not savages.”

  See what I mean?

  “Are there still Yaquis between us and Sabana?” Davenport went on.

  “Probably.”

  “And bandits?”

  “Possibly, although I’d worry more about the Yaquis.”

  “Can you get us around them?”

  “Maybe. The Yaquis are the ones who know that country like the backs of their hands. They’re the ones who showed it to me. It’ll be a hit or miss thing, but if they’re nearby, they’ll probably find us.”

  I could tell my reply bothered the old man. He wanted assurances, not conjecture. “If we are found, can you deal with them?” he asked.

  I thought about that for a moment, remembering Old Toad, who was the war leader of the Dead Horse clan, and the man who had tried to teach me the ways of the People, as the Yaquis referred to themselves, for the three years that I’d lived with them. Deciding there was no point in lying, I said, “If we’re caught, they’ll kill us.” I was looking Davenport straight in the eye when I said it, wanting him to understand the risks we’d all be taking venturing into that country. “Those they don’t kill outright, they’ll torture, and it’ll take us a long time to die.”

  “Us?” He cocked a brow curiously. “All of us … even you?”

  “Especially me,” I replied flatly.

  Davenport was silent as he mulled over my response. After a moment he turned to Spence. “Take the Berkshire to the livery and cover it with a tarp to keep the chickens from crapping all over the seats. Tell Pedro that he’s to watch it like it’s his sister’s virginity, and that, if I find any evidence that it’s been tampered with, I’ll shoot him in the foot. Check the gas and oil, too, and let him know that if I come back and discover even a pint of either is missing, I’ll shoot him in both feet.”

  “Aye, sir,” Spence said, heading for
the door.

  “And McKenzie …”

  Spence stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Sir?”

  “Be sure Pedro understands that I mean exactly what I say, all right?”

  Spence hesitated, then nodded rigidly and ducked into the hall as if eager to escape.

  When he was gone, Davenport returned his full attention to me. “Has Buchman filled you in on what we’re attempting to do?”

  “Not much. He said your wife and kids were taken off a train by a bandit named Chito Soto, and that we’re going to slip into Sabana the back way to deliver the ransom.”

  Davenport graced Del with a questioning glance.

  “I figured it best if he didn’t know too much till I got him down here,” Del explained.

  “For once, I agree with you.” Davenport motioned me to a table set against the wall under the room’s single window. A large map of the Mexican state of Sonora was spread out across it, weighed down by a German Mauser pistol on one side and a bottle of Old Overholt whiskey on the other. A brass compass sat in the middle, directly atop the town of Sabana.

  “Since you know this region so well, tell me how we’re to reach our destination without becoming fodder for bandits or Indians,” Davenport said.

  I studied the map’s crude contours, its squiggly lines that represented the steep-walled barrancas that could take days to find your way through, and the inverted Vs that were supposed to be its mountain ranges. Then I laughed. “You’d need a better map than this for me to trace you a path.”

  The old man’s face reddened. “Nevertheless, this is the only map available to us at the moment. If you’d like to fill in the blanks, feel free to do so.”

  I ran a finger down the map in a serpentine path. “Right through here, more or less. It’s five days in the saddle if we push it, which we’d damned well better if what Buchman said about them threatening to carve up your wife and kids is true.” I glanced at the older man, wondering if he knew how serious his wife’s position was, how much danger his children were in. “Knowing that part of the country, I’d say the odds are good that it is. Do you have a contact yet?”