We stayed with a fragment of the herd for close to a mile before it also became too scattered to afford us further protection. Reining free of its embrace, we slowed to a canter. Luis glanced to our rear, then whooped loudly. I couldn’t help a smile of my own when I spotted what was left of Alvarez’s troop, spread out across the plain far to the south and still moving in a westerly direction. I didn’t see the lieutenant anywhere, and thought that was to our advantage, as well.
After a few more miles, we slowed to a walk. The three of us were riding alone by then, the handful of remounts that had followed us for a ways having finally dropped out and turned back. None of us believed Alvarez would quit, but, by spooking the remuda, then stampeding it over such a wide range of country, I figured we’d bought ourselves a little time. And it was right in there that I began to realize that if we were going to make it out of Mexico alive, it would have to be just that way—no big cessation of hostilities, no breaking off of pursuit. We’d just always have to stay out front, one step ahead of the nearest bullet.
We continued on at a walk, Susan struggling in my arms until I handed her over to her mother. Luis teased her about being afraid of the hairy gringo. It hadn’t occurred to me that the grooming I’d enjoyed my last night in Yuma might have worn off by then, although I suppose it should have, if for no other reason than Luis’ shaggy, unkempt appearance.
Spying a low hill a couple of miles away, we turned our horses toward it. Although I kept glancing over my shoulder for signs of pursuit, none materialized, and I began to think maybe our efforts at scattering the remounts had done more good than I’d hoped.
That hill was probably no more than twenty feet above the valley floor, but it offered us a good view in every direction. While Abby took Susan off in search of some privacy and I made myself comfortable in the shelter of a tall yucca to watch our back trail, Luis loosened the cinches on the two saddled horses, then began going through their bags. I wasn’t overly optimistic about him finding anything useful, but dang if he didn’t soon let go of a triumphant yell.
“Food!” he exclaimed, holding up a loaf of bread and a brick of orange cheese. There was also coffee, a wedge of hard chocolate, a bundle of jerky, and a couple of cloth bags, one containing raisins, the other filled with parched corn. It was all good trail food, and, along with a pair of nearly full gourd canteens strapped to our saddles, it made me think the two bandits must have been on their way out when we showed up.
Luis brought one of the canteens and the bread and cheese over and flopped down at my side. Taking a folding knife from his pocket, he carved off several fist-size chunks of cheese, then quartered the bread and set it aside.
“There is enough food to last us for several days,” he said, “but we will have to find more water soon.” He shook the canteen, listening to its slosh. “Two days, with our horses, then we will be in trouble.”
Abby and Susan returned, the girl racing toward Luis when she saw the bread and cheese. Even Abby’s face brightened as she took in the feast sitting in the dirt between Luis and me.
“Heavens, it looks delicious,” she declared, settling down nearby.
Luis doled out equal portions of food, while I twisted the wooden stopper from the canteen and handed it to Abby.
“Just a sip,” she told her daughter, although I noticed she didn’t say anything when Susan snuck in several swallows, rather than just one.
Although we took it easy on the water, we still managed to drain about three-quarters of the gourd by the time we were finished. It was to be expected, I suppose, as it had been a while since our last drink, but it was still worrisome.
Pushing to his feet, Luis mumbled, “I’ll go see what else I can find,” and headed for the horses. Susan went with him, the two of them sitting in the dirt between the animals’ legs, discussing the items they pulled from the saddlebags.
After a short silence, Abby said, “I hope you aren’t regretting your decision to return for Susan and me.”
“No, not at all.”
Her smile was grateful but strained. “Thank you for saying so.”
I didn’t reply, wasn’t even sure if I was going to for a while, but then decided I didn’t want to leave it hanging in the air like that.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
Outwardly her expression never changed, but I thought she seemed more relaxed after my reply, and maybe sort of relieved, too. After a moment’s reflection, she said, “Were you telling me the truth when you said Charles was safe?”
“He was the last time I saw him.”
“And his … health?”
Recalling the vacant look in the boy’s eyes and his apathetic manner, I knew she wasn’t talking about his physical strength. Trying to be gentle, I said, “Probably a few days rest and he’ll be as good as new. Your husband seemed concerned.”
“Yes, he would be.” She scooped up a handful of pebbles that she arranged in her palm so that she could toss them, one at a time, into the dry flora below us. “Charles fulfills Edward’s need to leave behind a legacy, you see? An heir not just to his wealth, but to his name. That’s important to Edward, that sense of immortality. I’ve never really understood it myself, but I suppose I have my own share of quirks that Edward has never quite comprehended.”
“Seems like quirks go with being part of a family,” I said.
“That’s true, but I think some couples, just by virtue of their contrasting personalities, generate more of these than can be considered normal. Edward and I have always been that way. At one point our differences were what attracted me to him, and I’d thought perhaps it was what attracted him to me, but I’ve come to the sad realization that Edward’s goals for our marriage have always been contrary to my own.” She stopped then, looking at me with something akin to horror, and quickly added, “I apologize, Mister Latham. I didn’t mean to burden you with my issues. I suppose I felt I should … warn you, perhaps, of Edward’s peculiarities. For instance, that I was aware he intended to abandon Susan and myself down here.”
I gave a start at that. “Did Luis say something?” I asked, not knowing how else she could have found out.
“Oh, heavens no. Mister Vega is far too much of a gentleman to reveal such an ugly truth, not that any of us have had a free moment to even consider sharing our personal fears. No, I suspected as much when Charles was taken from my room … how many days ago was that?” She laughed, the genuineness of the sound bringing a hesitant smile to my face. “I’m afraid my time in Mexico, at least since our removal from the Ferrocarril del Pacifico, has become rather a blur,” she confessed.
“It’s been that way for me, too,” I admitted, thinking that the clanging of the sally port gate as it closed behind me at Yuma seemed a decade in the past now.
There was another pause between us, although more comfortable this time. Wanting to keep it that way, I said, “You’ve got to tell me how you learned to call horses.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Rather an unusual talent for a girl born and bred in a fashionable neighborhood like Harlem, wouldn’t you say?”
“I couldn’t, but it sure pulled our fat out of the fire. I’m glad you knew how to do it.”
“It was Randolph who taught me.”
“Randolph? Your chauffeur?”
“Yes. He’d escorted me to a riding stable in Central Park where my father kept several horses. I was being taught the art of the side-saddle, but one day when we arrived, we discovered that the horses had gotten loose and were scattered throughout the park. The men were all afoot, and chasing horses, as I’m sure you are aware, is a tedious project, nearly impossible to accomplish when the animals are frightened.” She looked at me with a smile. “The men in Central Park were having a rather difficult time of it. That’s when Randolph went off some little distance away and actually called the horses in. I suppose you al
ready know his secret?”
“Mimicking a young colt in trouble?”
“Yes, although I would find out it is a trick of limited allocation. A case of the adage … Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Apparently the employees at the stables were so overjoyed by Randolph’s trick that they assumed they could turn their horses out at any time, and simply call them back when they were needed, but it didn’t work that way.”
“A feed bucket works best for that,” I said, smiling.
She nodded. “An appropriate reward has its advantages.”
The scuff of boots on the flinty soil interrupted our conversation. Luis and Susan were returning, the girl carrying a leather tube that she solemnly handed to me.
“Tell him,” Luis urged.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Luis had picked up on the girl’s reticence toward me, and was trying to break down that barrier of shyness.
“Telescope,” she said, the word so softly spoken I barely heard it.
“Gracias,” I replied solemnly, and she hurried to her mother’s side as if I’d hollered “Shoo!”
Luis laughed and called her a silly pickle, which brought smiles to all of our faces; the girl was bringing out a side of Vega I’d never seen before.
I examined the case. It was nearly two inches in diameter and probably fourteen inches long. The latch had been broken off years before, judging from the patina covering the thin metal clasp, but the lid was still in place. Upending the hard leather capsule, an ancient eyepiece slid into my hand. Its body was brass, with a worn leather sheath over the main tube, the entire instrument dented and gouged and tarnished almost black. After extending it as far as it would go—a good thirty-six inches—I eyed the obvious downward sag in the scope’s three sections with skepticism. Abby laughed outright at the cartoonish image, which in turn elicited a giggle from Susan, a happy sound that—along with full bellies and no pursuit in sight—seemed to lighten all of our moods.
“Does it work?” Luis asked.
I put the instrument to my eye, located a tall cholla about a hundred yards out, and slowly compressed the loosely-fitted sections until the furry limbs of the cactus crept into view. I grunted favorably. Compared to the binoculars Del had loaned me in the Cañon Where the Small Lizards Run, the quality was poor, but opposed to the naked eye, it was an improvement. I handed the scope to Luis.
“See what you can find.”
I didn’t have to explain what I was looking for. After readjusting the focus, he began scouring the horizon for Alvarez’s men. I’ll confess I was more than a little apprehensive when he closed it several minutes later without having spotted any sign of the lieutenant’s troops. Shaking his head in a troubled manner, he said, “It is as if they have gone to ground.”
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Abby asked. She seemed puzzled by our reaction.
“It would be a very good thing if it were true,” Luis told her.
“Then you don’t believe Lieutenant Alvarez has ceased pursuit?”
Luis shook his head. “I don’t,” he admitted.
We hunkered on that little knoll for another hour or so, taking turns keeping an eye on our surroundings with the telescope while the horses grazed, then moved on at an easy walk. Susan rode behind her mother astride the gray, clinging sleepily to the woman’s waist. Luis and I had commandeered the saddles. I suppose it wasn’t very gentlemanly of us, but we were carrying most of the guns and the bulk of the ammunition, and needed something solid to hang them from.
Luis had tossed the Remington after firing its single round into the air to stampede Soto’s remounts, but with the two Winchesters, the double-action Colt I’d given to Abby, the Frontier Model Colt Luis had taken off the shorter bandit, and my Smith & Wesson, we were actually pretty well armed for a change. Our horses were tough range stock that had been well-grazed and were rested, and we were carrying enough food to last us for several days if we didn’t get hoggish. Our only real concern—outside of the certain knowledge that Chito Soto’s renegades were still out there somewhere looking for us—was water. Those gourd canteens held a fair amount, but we were four thirsty individuals, plus a trio of hardworking horses, and what we had wasn’t going to take us far in that heat. Unfortunately the only reliable water holes I knew of were those favored by the Yaquis, and, although I wasn’t keen on pushing our luck in that direction, I figured that, sooner or later, we’d have to.
We slogged on through the growing heat. That country between Moralos and Sabana was harsh, but this was like the bottom rung of Hades, a blistering trial of endurance. It brought to mind the stories I’d heard of this land in the cool cantinas of Arizona and Sonora, of eyes boiling in their sockets and tongues swelling up thick enough to choke a person. We wouldn’t find any Federales out here, and damned few bandits. This was Yaqui country for the most part, so designated because it was just about their last place of refuge, a land not even Díaz’s troops would venture into to root out the few remaining broncos. [Editor’s note: Although traditionally used in reference to wild, unbroken horses of the American West, the word “bronco” was sometimes used to denote an American Indian who refused to surrender to military authorities; in its indigenous attribution, it is primarily a Southwestern term.]
Looking back the way we’d come, I realized we’d been climbing steadily for a couple of hours, an almost imperceptible upward tilting of the land that I hadn’t noticed until I saw how the country behind us seemed so open. We were moving mostly west and a little north now, toward a rocky escarpment I recalled from my years with the Yaquis, a geological rift in the desert’s floor maybe eight or ten miles long and no more than a couple of hundred feet at its highest point. Those cliffs were pocked with a series of tanks along its westward-facing rim, natural basins that held anywhere from fifty to several thousand gallons of water well into the summer. I wasn’t exactly sure where we were at that point, but I took the fact that we were moving upward as a good sign.
We were still in our saddles—those of us who had them—when dusk swept across the land like a gust of wind from a slamming door. I looked up in surprise, eyes gritty from the abuse they’d taken all day, my temples throbbing. The relief was small but immediate, and I looked around to see if the others were also feeling it. Susan was asleep in her mother’s arms, her skinny legs hanging down on either side of the gray’s sweating withers like pink and white striped barber poles, but Abby and Luis had taken note of the abrupt change, and were exchanging uncertain glances. I studied the skies to the west in search of an approaching storm, but the horizon was bare, not a cloud in sight.
With the heat lessening, I pulled up and stepped down. My legs teetered briefly when I hit the ground, and Luis gave me a questioning glance, but I shook my head and slid the telescope from the claybank’s saddlebags. Dropping the sorrel’s reins, Luis went to help Abby and Susan dismount.
Stepping away from the horses, I pulled the scope from its case, then spent the next few minutes examining our back trail. It wasn’t the first time that day that I’d stopped to glass the country behind us, but the view was always the same—cactus, rock, and scrub, the white alkali nearly blinding in the waves of heat that shimmered above the desert floor in a mocking dance. No men, no horses. Not even a vulture hanging motionless in the washed-out sky. I closed the telescope and put it away.
“Mister Latham, Mister Vega.” We turned at Abby’s words. She was holding her daughter, whose facial expression conjured up a quick image of Charles’ vacant stare. “Please, could she have some water?”
Luis cursed and yanked the canteen from his saddle. I hovered at his side, strangely angered by the girl’s suffering, brought on by the greed and weaknesses of others. I’d glanced at her only moments before and she’d looked fine, tired but clear-eyed after having been roused from her slumber, but I’d forgotten how quickly that country could get to you if you weren�
�t careful. Or if you’re young and vulnerable.
“How are you, ma’am?” I asked Abby.
“I’m all right,” she tried to assure me, but Luis nodded toward the claybank even as he splashed water over Susan’s face, and I went to fetch the second canteen.
“We’d all better have a couple of swallows,” I said, handing her the leather-cradled gourd.
Her whole carriage seemed to shift almost imperceptibly, like a pin had been pulled loose from inside. “Well, perhaps a drop.”
“Make it four long, slow swallows,” I replied. “Take your time, and let it soothe your throat on the way down.”
She nodded and did as she was told. I was watching the horses, noticing the hungry way they were eyeing the canteens, smelling the water but unable to reach it. I’d thought earlier that we could probably make it as far as the bluffs with what we had. At that moment, I wasn’t as sure.
Susan came around quickly enough, and Abby was also looking vastly improved. Luis and I drank while Abby took Susan into the bushes. When we were alone, Luis said, “I think maybe we need to be a little more careful tomorrow, amigo.”
I nodded distractedly and didn’t reply. My attention had been drawn to a line of hills several miles to the southwest. A frown creased my brow, tightening the sun-parched flesh between my eyes. Sliding the telescope from my saddle, I focused it on the rocky knobs.
“You see something?” Luis asked.
“Maybe.” I handed him the glasses. “Take a look at those hills over there?”
He aimed the scope in the direction I’d indicated. “What about them?” he asked after a minute.
“You notice anything unusual toward their middle, right at the base?”
His eye narrowed on the lens, but after a moment he shook his head. “I don’t see anything.” He looked at me. “What do you see?”
I swore quietly, accepting the scope and returning it to its case. “Nothing, something … I don’t know. Let’s not say anything to Missus Davenport, but I’d like to ride over there and have a look around.”
Leaving Yuma Page 24
