Leaving Yuma

by Michael Zimmer

  We didn’t talk, but it wasn’t quiet. The night is never quiet if you know how to listen. Besides the murmur of the breeze in the scrub, the far-off howl of a Mexican wolf, and the steady clop of hoof beats, there was the sandy scurry of lizards, the pad of rabbits darting out of our path, and the flutter of bat wings overhead. Twice we heard the tiny screech of an owl from the chaparral behind us, like a bow drawn shrilly across an out-of-tune fiddle.

  It wasn’t quite midnight when we reached the foothills below the Devil’s Crown and dismounted to give our mounts a break. Stepping out of the wind, we rolled and smoked a couple of cigarettes for our meal, then pushed on into the night. The moon was sailing toward the earth’s rim but the sky was clear and filled with stars. Luis, who had ridden beside me all day, had to drop back on the narrowing trail to bring up the rear.

  Our path grew more treacherous the closer we got to the top, a time or two squeezing in so tight that the ammunition pouch on the pack mule’s left side would scrape the stone wall, while the right-hand pouch hung out over a thousand foot drop. I could hear Luis muttering soft curses to himself. He didn’t know this trail like I did, and it was making him nervous, especially in such poor light, but I’d hauled as many as eight burros up this path on darker nights and never lost a load or an animal.

  The wind sharpened noticeably when we finally reached the broad, grassy swale that separated the curved protrusions that gave the peak its name. The pass was dotted with lichen-covered boulders and scrawny, wind-twisted junipers, none of which were more than a few feet tall. Kicking his saddle mule alongside my mare, Luis gave me a baleful look. “I think you are trying to scare me away from this trail, hombre.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “There’s an easier one if you want to use it, but you’d never slip into Sabana that way without being seen.”

  “Hijo de puto,” he exclaimed softly. “Maybe I should get another job. I think this one took about six months off of my life tonight.”

  “It ain’t so bad after you’ve been over it a time or two.” I jutted my chin toward the valley floor, where a few faint lights were still visible, even at this late hour.

  “Sabana?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the trail going down this side of the mountain?”

  “Not nearly as bad,” I assured him. “A little rough coming off the rim, but then we’ll drop into a cañon and start making good time again.”

  “No more sheer cliffs?”

  “Not after we get into the cañon.”

  He was staring grimly down the trail when a strong gust of wind slammed into us, pushing the brim of his sombrero back against the hat’s tall crown. Ducking his shoulder to the icy currents, he waited until it had swept on by, then made the sign of the cross. “Vámonos, J. T. Let’s get off of this mountain before the wind blows us back to Moralos.”

  The moon was down but dawn had yet to arrive when we came out of the cañon and reined up on a bench above the Sabana Valley. In Spanish, Sabana translates loosely to savanna, and you could tell right away that there was water here. A soothing moistness permeated the air, assuaging the lungs after so many days traipsing across the harsh northern desert.

  Sabana’s waters issued from a trio of unbelievably productive springs, roaring out of a cañon a half mile west of the one Luis and I had used coming down off the Crown. I’d been there a few times early on, and had stared in awe at a hundred-foot waterfall at the upper end of the cañon, spilling over the lip of the cliff in a rainbow of sun-glistening spray. A cool mist floated above the glade below the falls, so that, when you left, it was with droplets of moisture clinging to your cheeks like a watery beard. No doubt the place had once been sacred to the Indians who used to live there, just as the Cañon Where the Small Lizards Run had been to the Yaquis, but the Spaniards had taken over the valley who knew how many centuries before and driven out the indigenous population through disease, slavery, and outright slaughter.

  The crop lands below the cañon’s mouth were intersected by numerous branches of the same stream, pulling apart, then coming back together a dozen times as it made its way through the broad savanna, the rich black soil yielding a steady bounty of fruit, cotton, tobacco, and grains.

  It was the grains, the barley and wheat, that provided the basis for Sabana’s three major breweries, as it was the beer and tobacco that had brought me here that first time so many years before.

  Easing his saddle mule alongside my mare, Luis murmured, “What a beautiful valley. I could see myself settling down in a place like this someday.”

  “I could, too,” I said, feeling a tightening in my chest to realize how much I meant it.

  Then, as if to bring us back to the reality of our situation, a light came on in a flat-roofed adobe structure below us, and Luis sighed.

  “Let’s move out,” I said, reluctant to break the valley’s spell.

  We took our time, keeping to back streets and alleys. Instinct urged me to hurry, and I’m sure it was eating at Luis’ nerves just as voraciously, but logic told me to take my time, to feel our way along cautiously, and not draw unnecessary attention to our little convoy. Sabana wasn’t a large town, but it was big enough to hide in if we were careful, and that’s what I wanted to do.

  We rode east along the foothills of the Sierra Verdes until we came to La Avenida de la Iglesia, one of the major arteries connecting what the locals called Little Sabana with the larger community south of the river.

  The Río Sabana is wide but shallow, splitting into a dozen different channels before it reaches the mouth of the valley nearly ten miles below the town. We crossed at Dos Puentes—Twin Bridges in English—a pair of arched stone structures that had probably been built during the reign of the conquistadors, their sharp edges long since rounded off by use and weather.

  The main village sat on a series of benches above the flood plain south of the river, and I felt a lot better when we got back among the squat adobe homes and outbuildings of the town. The central plaza and main business district were located higher up the slope, but I turned off well before that, winding through narrow streets that didn’t seem to have any noticeable pattern until we came to a place set back amid a stand of cottonwoods, a small, flat-roofed house and a stable with a dilapidated corral out back.

  Dismounting, I handed my reins to Luis, then nodded toward the stables. “Wait for me in there. If it’s safe, we’ll hole up here until we can figure out what’s going on.”

  Luis nodded and led the stock away. Shifting the Savage to my left hand, I cautiously approached the house. There was a single window in the near wall, like a black, staring eye, and a chill scampered up my spine. Stepping to one side of the door, I knocked firmly—three quick raps, a pause, then a single knock, another pause, then three more.

  The silence from inside seemed huge, and I wondered how much had changed since I’d last been here. I didn’t even know if Ramón Gutiérrez was still alive. He’d been well into his sixties the last time I’d seen him, his narrow shoulders stooped from a lifetime of labor, his eyes red-rimmed from the dust of the brewery where he toiled. Then I heard a faint stirring at the window, and, taking a chance, I stepped back to place myself in full view of whoever was inside. A few seconds later a startled exclamation brought a quick smile to my face.

  “Old friend, is that you?” a voice quavered from the small opening.

  “Sí, amigo, it is me, come back after all these years.”

  Session Ten

  Soft, cackling laughter erupted from within. “Hombre, you escaped that hellhole called Yuma?”

  “No, I was released, but let’s talk inside. I feel like an empty whiskey bottle sitting on some target-shooter’s fence out here.”

  “Sí, of course, come in, before those nosy dogs who live across the road see you, and take word to that demon who calls himself a major in Castillo’s army of thieves.”


  I glanced across the road. Years back an elderly couple named Rameriz had lived there, he a potter at the factory in town that supplied bottles and jugs to the breweries, she a doting grandmother with a large garden and a reputation for fine jams and jellies. Before I could wonder any further, the door flew open and a time-honed face was thrust into the dim light spilling over the eastern rim of the horizon. It looked much as I remembered it, seamed and weathered, its sparse white hair in disarray atop a mostly bald pate. A claw-like hand motioned me inside. I ducked through the low door, and the old man reached up to clamp a papery hand atop my shoulder.

  “I had thought I would never see you again, amigo,” he declared with more emotion than I had a right to expect. “Twelve years they said you were to serve, but it has not been that long, has it?” A baffled expression pinched his already narrow face as he calculated the seasons. “No, surely not twelve.”

  “Only four,” I told him. “I was released to deliver a ransom.”

  Ramón’s dark eyes widened. “Ah, the gringa?”

  “Yes, do you know of her?”

  “Everyone in Sabana knows of her. We thought the United States might send its army to free her, and there has been much debate as to whether that would be a good thing. Personally I do not want to see the norteamericanos in my country, but there are others who say it would be worth it to pry that fat thief, Chito Soto, out of our valley.”

  “Is the woman safe?”

  “Sí, I think so, and her children, too, although I do not know how long their safety can be assured. Already the major grows impatient, and threatens our people if the ransom is not soon paid.”

  “Your people? The villagers?”

  The old man nodded soberly. “At first it was the woman and her children Soto promised to harm, but lately it has been the people of Sabana, as if he blames us for the long silence from the north.”

  “Señor Davenport sent a man to Tres Pinos a couple of weeks ago to negotiate a ransom. That man’s head was sent back to Tucson without its body.”

  “But with an extra hole in its skull?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “This Da—Davort.” He spoke slowly, mangling the unfamiliar word with its strange, harsh accent. “He is the woman’s husband?”

  “Yes. He’s waiting in the hills for me to bring her back.”

  Ramón was quiet for a moment, then said, “You risk much, my friend.”

  “A woman’s life is at stake, and her children’s. Would you do any less?”

  He sighed heavily. “Today, I don’t know, but when I was younger.” Then he grinned, his eyes sparkling in the dim light. “When I was younger, I would have gone up to that fat bandido and cut his ugly throat.”

  I laughed, and I believed him, too.

  “Is it safe here, and can we stay?”

  He shrugged. “It is as safe here as anywhere in the Sabana Valley, and for maybe five days’ ride in any direction from it. Of course you may stay. Did you bring the ransom for the woman?”

  “Part of it. Enough for one of the children.”

  “A wise decision, I think. This Major Chito Soto is not a man I would trust. Not if my life depended upon it, and believe me, amigo, yours does.”

  I nodded. I’d known Ramón Gutiérrez for a good many years by then, and trusted him when he said my life was at stake. But I wasn’t surprised. I’d known the odds when I’d accepted the job.

  “I have a horse and two mules in your stables, and another man who I trust.”

  “Your animals will be safe if your man can keep them quiet.”

  “They’ve come a long way and are very tired. They won’t make any noise if they aren’t disturbed.”

  “Bueno.” He moved to the table in a shuffling gait and struck a spark into a piece of black char cloth with his flint and steel. He used the char to light a piece of tinder, the tinder to light a candle sitting in a base of its own wax in the middle of the table. Pinching out the char’s spark with a thumb and forefinger, he returned the fire-making kit to a brass container and set it out of the way. “You are hungry?”

  “Not if it’s jerky or hard crackers.”

  Ramón smiled and went to kneel before the corner fireplace. While he fixed breakfast, I went outside to help Luis unsaddle the animals and remove the machine gun and ammunition from the pack mule.

  “You trust this old man?” Luis asked as we loosened the ropes holding the machine gun in place.

  “I’ve known him a long time. I trust him like a father.”

  Luis studied me for a minute, then said, “My father cut my mother’s throat when he caught her with another man, then kicked me out of the house when I was fourteen.”

  “I left home early, too, but it wasn’t because of my father. It was because of what he did for a living.”

  “Bad?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  After a moment’s reflection, Luis said, “A politician?”

  “A grocer.”

  The slim Mexican shrugged. “That does not sound so bad.”

  “He wanted me to become one, too,” I replied, and Luis shuddered.

  “You made the right decision,” he assured me as we lowered the machine gun’s crate to the ground.

  “Even with four years in Yuma?”

  “Sí, even with four years. That kind of life might be pleasing for some, but for men like you and me, it would be even worse than Yuma.”

  I didn’t argue, having come to more or less the same conclusion years earlier. We set the heavy container on the ground in a shadowy corner of the stable and stepped back.

  “I think maybe we should hide it,” Luis said.

  I shrugged. It seemed like a wasted effort to me, and likely only to draw attention to the crate if anyone saw it. I glanced around curiously. When I’d known Ramón before Yuma, he’d kept his goats and chickens penned up in here, but, from the look of the dung littering the dirt floor, it didn’t appear that any livestock had been in the stable for at least a year. Still, there was dried manure and old straw, and I told Luis to shovel some over the top of the crate.

  “Not much,” I cautioned. “Just enough to make it look like it’s been sitting there a while. Same with the cartridge pouches. When you’re done, come on in. Ramón is fixing breakfast.”

  The sky was noticeably lighter when I returned to the old Mexican’s small house. Cocks were crowing all over town, and the morning air was pleasantly cool, although I held no illusions about what the day would bring. The good waters of the Río Sabana kept the valley air moist, but it didn’t filter out the heat worth a damn. By midday the sun would be blazing down, the village all the more miserable for the humidity.

  Ramón had bacon sizzling in a cast-iron spider, and a dozen eggs laid out for frying. Coffee brewed in a white enamel pot on the opposite side of the flame, its red trim chipped and nearly worn away with age, its bottom blackened beyond recovery. The old man motioned toward a trio of pewter mugs sitting on the table.

  “The coffee is hot, and the meat will soon be ready.”

  “Smells good,” I said, hunkering down at the old man’s side to pour myself a mug. Replacing the pot at the edge of the flames, I wandered over to a stout, hand-carved bench I remembered from my very first visit there. Studying the elderly man’s features in the light of the fire, I reflected on how much he’d changed over the years, and especially how much he’d changed since his wife’s death, a few months before my last trip to Sabana. She’d been a vibrant woman, I recalled, bringing color and vitality to the small house, making it more of a home than merely the place to eat and sleep that it had become.

  “How are your daughters?” I asked after a bit, just to make conversation.

  “They exist, but barely, since the bandidos came. Gracias a Dios they were born ugly, like their father. Too many young women have been taken
into Soto’s stronghold to satisfy the lusts of those brutes he calls soldiers.”

  “Can’t the Federales do anything?”

  Ramón sadly shook his head. “There was a small garrison here when Soto arrived, but they were no match for the bandits. The local comandante negotiated a surrender, but Soto broke its terms as soon as the garrison was disarmed.” He shifted around to stare at me with brooding eyes. “Soto gave the Federales a choice. Join his forces, purportedly under the banner of General Castillo’s Army of Liberation, or face a firing squad. To be certain that the men of the garrison understood the consequences of their decision, he had the comandante and a young captain placed against the side of the garrison’s wall, then shot like rabid wolves.” He shook his head in disgust, then spat into the flame.

  I stared at the hard-packed dirt floor between my boots. Jorge Archuleta had told me basically the same story in Moralos, only with a couple of lieutenants instead of a captain.

  Back in those days, I still figured Porfirio Díaz had a firm hold on the country, and that it was only a matter of time before he got around to eradicating troublemakers like Chito Soto and Adolpho Castillo. But I guess there were too many smaller revolutions going on for him to get a rope around all of them, and it wouldn’t be very many more years before men like Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata finished what the smaller fry like Soto and Castillo started.

  “What became of the rest of the garrison?” I asked quietly.

  “As you would expect. They are all now good soldiers under the major’s command. After the garrison was disarmed, Soto ordered his soldiers to go through the village and confiscate the arms of the people. I’ll tell you, hombre, they caught us by surprise with that one. The alcalde and some of his minions went to Soto to protest. They told him we still needed our guns as protection against Indians and thieves, but Soto just laughed at them. He promised that he would provide all the protection we needed.” Ramón snorted contemptuously. “It is true that he has made good on his vow to protect us from the Yaquis and Pimas, but he has left us defenseless against his own men. (Editor’s note: Gutiérrez is probably referring to the Lower Pimas, or Pima Bajos here.)Women have been raped, and others, men and women alike, have disappeared entirely. Cattle, goats, and hogs have gone to feed the major’s growing army, while the wheat fields that once supplied the breweries have been turned over to other crops to feed Soto’s men and horses.” He chuckled ruefully. “You should have heard the major’s outrage when he learned there was no more beer for him and his men, that they would be forced to drink the mescal of the common man. They say his wailing could be heard from the horns of Diablo’s Crown.”