Leaving Yuma

by Michael Zimmer

  I kept telling myself it was probably nothing, but, when I stepped into the claybank’s saddle, I eased the Winchester from its scabbard, lowered the lever enough to reassure myself that there was still a live round chambered, then placed the gun across the pommel in front of me—just in case.

  Session Seventeen

  Although only a few miles away, the light was fading by the time we neared the low range of hills that had caught my attention earlier. Not wanting to unduly frighten the women, Luis and I tried to keep our manner casual, but I suspect Abby knew something was amiss as soon as we pulled our rifles.

  We were still a couple of hundred yards away when I noticed a clump of greenery at the mouth of an arroyo near the center of the ridge, barely discernible in the weakening light. The patchy verdure and the horses’ increasing restlessness raised my hopes for a spring or small tank, although not enough to lower my guard. Not even when an errant breeze brought us the scent of moist earth and new foliage.

  Hauling up several hundred feet away, I motioned for Luis and the women to stay back, while I made a final reconnoiter of the area surrounding the arroyo. Butting the Winchester to my thigh, I tapped the sides of my heavy wooden stirrups against the claybank’s ribs and reined south, away from the spot of green. I couldn’t explain my edginess, but I trusted it, and was ready to either kick the claybank into a run or make a dive for the scrub at the first hint of trouble.

  I rode into the hills probably a quarter of a mile south of the arroyo, then turned north. The range of hills wasn’t large, and paled in comparison to the Sierra Verdes, or even the highlands we’d crossed that morning in the Watson Masner. I’m guessing no more than a couple of miles long and half a mile across, the tallest peak barely a hundred feet above the surrounding desert.

  Even in the thickening gloom I could see the tracks of antelope, mustangs, quail, javelinas, and coyotes that had come there for water, but it wasn’t until I reached the mouth of the arroyo, where a watery seep had turned the ground soft, that I saw my first sign of human occupation. Dismounting, I pushed into the thorny fortress, using the Winchester’s muzzle to part the branches before me. The moccasin tracks were easily spotted in the moist soil—pale blades of grass flattened in the muck, limbs snapped or bent out of the way. There were dozens of prints in a variety of shapes and sizes—feet, knees, hands, knuckles, even the bottom of some kind of kettle—scattered up and down the arroyo, but they were thickest at the pool’s black edge, a kind of primitive art stamped into the mud.

  My pulse surged rhythmically as I traced a number of the shallow impressions with my fingers. They were several days’ old, at least, and there was no proof that they had been left behind by Yaquis, although I found it disquieting that none of the tracks seemed to have been made by women or children. Nor was there any evidence of horses or dogs among the wayfarers. A war party might travel that way, I knew; without livestock, they could be nearly as soundless as the stars.

  A shiver racked my spine as I knelt there staring at the tracks. Darkness closed in around me like stalking goblins, and the moon hung overhead with a lop-sided smirk. I probably crouched there for ten minutes before the claybank poked its nose through the arrow weeds to sniff out the shallow pool. Smiling tepidly, I creaked to my feet and loosened the reins from around the saddle horn so that the horse could drink. When it was finished, I led it out of the scrub and stepped into the saddle. It was too dark to see very far, but I took off my hat and waved it above my head, figuring Luis would spot the movement. Seconds later the delicate call of a nighthawk broke the stillness, and I called back to let them know that it was safe to come in.

  We made a cold camp at the mouth of the arroyo, and while Abby whipped up an inelegant meal of parched corn and cheese, I took my rifle and the telescope and made my way into the hills. The tallest peak in the range was a knob of volcanic rock, protruding from the top of the ridge like a broken thumb. I didn’t try to climb it, but found a surprisingly cool slab of stone at its base and settled down with the Winchester at my side, the telescope across my lap. It was probably an hour later when I heard Luis coming up through the scrub. I guided him over with a low whistle, and he sank down on the other side of my rifle.

  “Do you realize it’s been over twelve hours since anyone has taken a shot at us?” he asked, switching to Spanish as if needing a break from the English language. I knew the feeling well; it was one of the reasons I’d always looked forward to returning to Arizona after a trip to Sabana, where I had to rely on my border Spanish.

  “If it would make you feel any better, you could go stand out there a ways and I could pop off a few rounds.”

  Luis chuckled and pulled the makings from his pocket. “No, I believe I will decline your gracious offer,” he replied as he started a cigarette. “I would hate to put you to so much trouble when others are begging for the opportunity.”

  I laughed softly, tipping my head back against the stone monolith and listening to the crinkle of squared-off cornhusk Luis preferred to store-bought paper. He finished his own, then offered me the makings, which I accepted. He didn’t light his smoke right away. Even in 1907, matches were rare enough that we didn’t waste them if we didn’t have to; I’d light both cigarettes from the same stick, and maybe not be left wanting somewhere down the trail.

  “How are the horses?” I asked, fashioning a trough in the husk with a finger.

  “They are still strong. If we can continue to find water …” His words trailed off. “Do you see that?”

  “I see it.”

  “How long has it been there?”

  He was referring to a faint yellow glow far to the east, like a bowl turned bottom side up. I’d been keeping an eye on it ever since I’d gotten there, and it hadn’t come any closer or grown any larger. By that time I didn’t expect it to. Although I thought I knew what it was, there was no way of being certain. Not without riding back to investigate, and I had no intention of doing that.

  “It looks kind of like the lights of a town.”

  “It does, but it isn’t.”

  He gave me a curious look. “An Indian village?”

  “I thought about that, too, but I don’t think so. It’s too big for a village.”

  His voice softened. “Alvarez?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. Of course, I could be wrong.” I returned the tobacco pouch, then drew a match from my vest pocket and leaned close. Striking a flame, I lit both our cigarettes, then drew in a lungful of smoke. It was my first cigarette in nearly twenty-four hours, and that inaugural inhalation sliced through the tension constricting my muscles like wind through a whistle.

  Bent forward with his elbows on his knees, his sombrero pushed back to reveal a thick mop of black hair falling over his forehead, Luis said, “That fat bastard of a major must have sent an entire regiment.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it.”

  He turned to study me in the thin moonlight. “You think he has lost interest in the woman and niña?”

  “No, I think he still wants them, but I reckon by now he’s realized the old man has double-crossed him. I doubt if he suspects us, because he knows we don’t have those other two machine guns. But he knows the guns exist because of his spies in Nogales and Tucson, and maybe even in Moralos. He’ll figure Davenport has them, and that he must have gotten a better offer from someone else.”

  Luis spat in disgust. “A week ago I would have pointed out a very obvious flaw in your thinking, my friend, which is that no man would abandon his family for money. I wish I was still that naive.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” I was silent a moment, thinking back to Abby Davenport’s partial explanation that morning of why her husband had turned his back on her. She hadn’t offered much in the way of clarification, and I hadn’t pushed for more. I think mostly I didn’t want to know what the old man’s reasoning might be. I didn’t want to believe there might be a legitim
ate argument for turning your back on someone you’d promised your life to.

  “What about that?” Luis asked, nodding toward the distant cap of light.

  “That’s got to be twenty miles away.”

  “Sí.” He was silent, waiting for me to go on.

  “One of the things I’ve been wondering about is why would Soto send so many men after us when he knows we don’t have the guns, and I can’t think of a solitary reason. How many men did you count at Vaquero Springs this morning?”

  “Not many. A dozen, perhaps fourteen.”

  “That’s about what I counted. So where were the rest of them … if they were even there?”

  “Ah,” Luis breathed, finally seeing where my own thoughts had so slowly taken me. “You believe this fire belongs to Alvarez and his men, and is a ruse?”

  “Why would a dozen men need that much fire if they aren’t burning down a town?”

  Luis shook his head in growing exasperation. “My friend, your thoughts wander worse than my grandmother’s. Don’t ask me any more questions, tell me what you think.”

  I laughed. “All right. I could be wrong, and I probably am, but what if Alvarez kept a few men back to create a diversion, try to make us think he was farther away than he really is?”

  “Another question?” He shrugged. “All right, then he might expect us to lower our guard?”

  “It’s possible. I think Soto still wants us, especially the woman and child. I think Alvarez wants us, too, although maybe for different reasons. We made him look like a fool this morning, and he’ll take that personally.”

  “And our plans? Do they change?”

  “Maybe.” I scratched absently at the dark stubble along my jaw. “Alvarez could be pretty close, waiting for us to make a mistake, give ourselves away.”

  “Like starting a fire or shooting something for our supper? They might even know about this water, and be sitting out there now.”

  “That’s a point,” I agreed, then came to a decision. “Let’s not wait until morning. We’ll give the horses a few hours to rest, then push on. I’d like to have another twelve or fifteen miles between us and here when the sun comes up.”

  Luis nodded and ground out his cigarette. “I will tell the woman and the niña of our plans,” he said, pushing to his feet. He paused before moving off, staring back at me. “You will be all right here?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Then perhaps I will try to catch a few hours’ sleep. I will wake you around midnight.”

  I watched him go, marveling at how silently he could move in the darkness, how quickly he vanished. I leaned back to make myself as comfortable as the rocky terrain would allow, but I knew better than to become too complacent. Sleep was an ally of Alvarez, not mine; it was a stalker who lurked on the sidelines, waiting for me to lower my guard.

  Judging from the slant of the moon and the stars, I figured we left that low ridge around 3:00 a.m. As worn out as we all were, I was pretty pleased with our start. I’d even managed a couple of hours of sleep myself, thanks to Luis, and felt more refreshed than I had a right to expect.

  Our horses, being in better shape than we were, moved out smartly in the cool morning air, as frisky as colts after just a few hours’ rest and a final trip inside the brush-lined arroyo for a last drink. Another day or two of pushing across the hot desert would take some of the starch out of them, but I was hoping by then we’d no longer have Alvarez or his men to contend with.

  The fact is, I was feeling pretty confident about our situation, and was even visualizing a possible route back to Arizona, when my expectations started to unravel. What happened was, we were riding single file in a northwesterly direction with dawn still a couple of hours away, when I heard a voice not too far away. Luis, riding up front, jerked his horse to a stop, and Abby’s gray bumped into it in the dark. My hand flashed back to cover the Smith’s grips, but I didn’t pull it. Reining off the trail, Luis waited for me to come up.

  “You heard that?” he whispered.

  “I heard it, but I couldn’t make out where it came from.”

  “It came from behind us,” Abby said, pulling her horse around to stare back the way we’d come. Sitting behind her, Susan’s eyes were large in the starlight. “I couldn’t make out the words, though.”

  “It was Spanish,” Luis explained. “He said … They’re gone! ”

  My scalp was crawling as I twisted around in my saddle to study the low ridge of hills, no more than a mile away. I couldn’t see anyone—the light was too weak, the scrub too thick—but I knew they were there. I was guessing probably a dozen of them.

  “What do we do, J. T.?”

  “We keep riding,” I replied. “We stay off the ridges and the high spots, and we don’t make any more noise than we have to.” I gave him a look and a nod. “You’re leading, let’s get going.”

  We kept our horses to a walk, albeit a fast one after that, and, by the time the darkness began to dissolve, we’d probably covered another ten miles. As the light strengthened, I was relieved to note that we were still gently climbing, and I figured that escarpment I mentioned in our last recording session couldn’t be too far ahead.

  We stopped just short of sunup and I hauled out my telescope for a quick look to the rear, but the land seemed empty as far as I could see. Not even a wisp of dust marked the possible location of Alvarez’s soldiers.

  The sun came up and the chill from the night before quickly became just a pleasant memory. I thought the grade was steepening, and the sweat showing up along the claybank’s cinch seemed to bear that out, although the horse didn’t seem to be hurting. We continued to stop every hour or so to scope the surrounding countryside, but I never saw a thing. To tell you the truth, the lack of pursuit was starting to bother me. There should have been something out there—a flash of color, a haze of dust, movement—something.

  Late that morning we came to a rocky glade surrounded by catclaw and decided to stop. The horses needed a break, and so did we. Although we didn’t pull our saddles, we did slip the bits, then hobbled all three horses and turned them loose to graze.

  While the horses picked listlessly at the sparse grass, the rest of us crawled under the thorny branches of a catclaw, more out of habit than logic, I think, since there wasn’t enough shade to cover a mouse. We took our canteens and some cheese and jerky, and engaged in what was probably the most pathetic excuse for a picnic that part of Sonora has ever seen. Afterward Luis and Susan stretched out for a nap, but I knew I wouldn’t be able sleep. Taking my rifle and the telescope, I crawled back through the catclaw until I could see a large segment of the country to the east and north. It wasn’t long before I heard Abby following me through the scrub. She sank down at my side with a muffled umphf, kicking up a spurt of dust we might have chuckled about had we known one another better.

  After an awkward pause, she said, “I thought you might like some company.”

  “I would,” I said, but didn’t know where to go from there.

  Staring out across the land, she said, “I once thought this country was beautiful in a primitive sort of way. It’s amazing how one’s attitude can be so radically changed by simply stepping out from behind the glass of a railroad coach window.”

  “It’s got its own beauty,” I argued mildly. “Your introduction to it has been a little rough, is all.”

  “I shan’t quibble such a trifling point with someone who has risked his life to save my own, but you’ll have to offer proof of your point of view to change my opinion. You haven’t so far.”

  I chuckled but didn’t push it. An awkward silence settled between us. I could tell something was eating at her, but didn’t know what to say to draw it out. It took several minutes before she screwed up enough courage to ask her question.

  “Be honest, Mister Latham. What are our chances?”

  Talk ab
out getting banged on the blind side. I drew in a deep breath, staring at the stony soil in front of my boots and wishing I could drill a hole in the dirt with my eyes, then crawl into it. Abby was peering intently into my face, waiting for my answer, only gradually realizing that silence was my reply.

  “Oh,” she said quietly. Then, after another stretch of quiet, she added, “Please accept my apology. I’ve put you in a horribly untenable position, and I had no right to do that.”

  “There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “We’re all here together, and doing our best to go home. The odds are long, but that’s just the way the river runs sometimes. It doesn’t mean we won’t make it.”

  She smiled, and the transformation was immediate; fear and uncertainty were bulldozed into rubble, hope soared like bottle rockets. It made me feel about fifty pounds lighter to see her that way again, and it would be another dozen years before it dawned on me that she’d done it on purpose, burying her own doubts in an effort to ease mine. Man, I adored that woman. I did then, and I still do today.

  I heard movement behind us. Luis making his way smoothly through the catclaw, avoiding its grabbing thorns like a kid playing tag.

  Abby sat up with a look of alarm. “Where’s Susan?”

  “Don’t worry, madrecita,” he replied with a reassuring smile. “She is safe. I left her with the horses.”

  Jumping to her feet, Abby hurried back through the catclaw with considerably less dexterity than Luis had displayed coming in. Dropping to one knee, he glanced toward the cactus-studded plain to the east.

  “Anything?”

  “Not even a speck of dust.”

  His brows furrowed. “Then soon, I think.”

  I gave him a curious look. “Why?”

  “Because I feel it, amigo, like a worm twisting in my gut. They are out there, creeping toward us as the fox stalks a dozing chicken.”