The Mule Tamer
John C. Horst
For Peggy and Kate
COPYRIGHT © 2011 by John Horst
Table of Contents
I Jezebel 6
II The Proposition. 20
III Chica. 27
IV Alliance. 32
V Col. Charles Gibbs, Esq. 38
VI The Limping Deputy 49
VII Rangering. 56
VIII Anarchy. 69
IX Ashtoreth. 72
X Alejandro Del Toro 83
XI A Deal With the Devil 104
XII Waiting. 107
XIII Muses. 111
XIV Joaquin. 119
XV Indios. 129
XVI Subterfuge. 134
XVII Interloper. 142
XVIII Portent 146
XIX Blind Charity. 149
XX Artemis. 155
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle
I Jezebel
Arvel Walsh had gone down to meet the posse. He could not sleep, and decided to head to town instead of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. The story told to him by the chattering young hand about the slaughter kept him awake. By midnight he was dozing in a small room at the end of town. He leaned against some rope hanging on the wall of the cramped quarters, the air dense and still, rank with the odor of horsehair and rawhide and hemp.
He regretted his decision now, as he remembered that old Will Panks had removed the bed just recently so Arvel had to try to get a little rest lying on the dirty floor. Will was a good man and a good friend whom Arvel had discovered living under the floorboards of the porch of the dry goods store in the middle of town, an utter wreck when Arvel first came upon him. Most of the folks who’d come upon him were afraid of him and thought him either an old drunk or addle-brained. Arvel learned that he was neither and had a mind sharper than most. He was a prospector trained in geology and civil engineering. One day, due to a slight error in calculation he made a misstep and ended his career by breaking his back in the desert. He crawled miles and ended up, penniless and without means in Arvel’s little town. Arvel set him up in the little shack which was not, at the time, more than a lean-to at the very edge of town. Will was a proud man and would accept little help from Arvel and no financial help whatsoever. Slowly, with constant hard work, Will was able to regain control of his legs and walked stooped over in a permanent crouch. He made his living making rope. As he got money he’d add a wall here and a window there. At some point he’d found an old rolltop desk in the desert, the discarded flotsam from a prairie schooner, let go by an overzealous traveler. He found a chair on a burning heap and rescued it, and until recently had an old featherbed in the cramped quarters. It eventually became quite homey and kept Will out of the elements. As his health improved, his fortunes had as well and he now was able to live rather comfortably in the only boarding house in town.
Arvel was just drifting off when the barrage of gunfire jolted him to his senses. He peered through the cracks in the door. A rider, Mexican judging from the saddle and sombrero, was racing up the street, firing in every direction. The miscreant stopped to reload, just feet from the shack’s porch. Arvel grabbed one of the ropes hanging on the wall, slowly opened the door. When the rider holstered the first gun, Arvel stepped out onto the porch, threw the loop and pulled. The rider jerked free and landed neck first. The horse galloped off. Arvel walked up on his prisoner.
The bandit was a woman. Arvel threw her over his shoulder, grabbed her hat and rushed her inside. A Mexican would not be popular now. He eased her down onto the floor of the shed, tossed her hat aside, and began looking her over to see what damage he had done. She did not appear more than twenty. Her loose fitting outfit, despite its manly style could not betray a well-proportioned frame. She wore a print cotton shirt, bright red scarf and striped brown vaquero pants. Her black boots were stitched ornately. Her gun belt carried a pair of silver-colored Schofields with fancy ivory handles. A matching vaquero dagger hung in a sheath in front of the holster on the right. The rig bore an abundance of polished conchos. Her tanned skin contrasted with the many bangles running up each arm. Arvel smiled at the memory of his wife teasing him when they made their forays into Mexico. The dark beauties never failed to turn his head. He suddenly regretted harming the girl. She was lovely and reeked of tobacco and spirits and human and horse sweat and earth. Like the whores in Tombstone, she was alluring and off-putting at the same time. He nearly forgot her transgressions as he watched her sleep. He was right to stop her from shooting up the town. At least he did not put a ball in her.
Her face bore a peaceful expression as she lay there on the dusty floorboards among the bits of hair and hemp. It was a face formed by the centuries mingling of Spanish and Indian blood. A small scar under her bottom lip added to her beauty and imparted a not insignificant suggestion of danger. She sighed as he removed her gun belt. The little viper would be more difficult to defang after she had awakened. He removed her scarf, wetted it from his canteen and began cleaning the dust from her face and arms and thought better to leave the rest. He turned his attention to her rig. He fumbled with the latch on one of the six shooters; they were a type he had seen only a few times. He never had much use for six shooters. The gun sprang open, ejecting cartridge cases into the air, clattering on the floor. The girl awoke at the commotion.
“Ay, chingao!” She felt her head and sat up slowly. She looked around the room, and then at her captive. “Pendejo, what are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to wake up.” He placed the gun back in its holster, and set the rig down, out of her reach.
“Ay, look at my clothes.” She took the damp scarf and began brushing herself off. “Did you wipe me down, Pendejo?” She looked at him suspiciously.
“I did. But not where I shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“Not on your private parts.” He smiled at her. She amused him. “Are you trying to be hanged, or are you just stupid?”
She rubbed a knot on her head with her scarf, then looked at it for blood. “Ay, my head is sore.” She looked at him again. “What are you talking about, gringo?”
“Do you not know of the troubles?”
“No.” She was trying to focus. “Are you some kind of law, mister?”
“No.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, offered her one. She refused it and pulled out a cigar, leaning forward so that he could light it. “So you don’t know about the murder of the family outside of town?” He had not given it thought, but was now wondering if she might have been part of it. She was unfazed.
“No, I know nothing of any murder. Ay, you really hurt me, Pendejo.” Rubbing the back of her neck, she looked around the room. “So, I am not arrested?”
“No.”
“Where is my horse?’
“Beats me. Tombstone by now, shot dead, not certain. It ran off like its hind parts were on fire, heading south. Heard lots of shooting, so the towns’ folk were probably shooting at it. What kind of stupid stunt was that anyway, shooting up the town?”
She rubbed her head then picked up her hat. “I don’ know, Pendejo, when I drink some mescal, I do some things.” She stood up and stretched her back, blew smoke at the ceiling of the shack. “I really gotta go, Pendejo, will you let me go?”
“Not without a horse.” He looked at his watch. The posse would be meeting up just before sunrise. “I tell you what, let me go find your horse, and you stay here. Don’t leave, understand?”
“Si, I understand.” She reached for her gun belt and looked for his reaction. He let her.
He walked out of the shed, onto the porch, and looked around for activity. Further down the street people were milling about. He untied Sally and mounted up, he rode south in the directi
on the horse had galloped. He passed several townspeople and no one seemed to pay him any mind. They had been through a lot, with the murder of the family nearby and now some crazy pistolero galloping up and down the street, shooting up the place. They were all on edge, and most were armed. Many had been drinking all day and into the evening, and Arvel was certain if they found the young woman, they’d all be regretting their actions in the morning. He rode a quarter mile out of town and soon spotted the fancy saddle reflecting moon light. The girl’s pony was an equine version of her mistress, beautiful and dangerous. She looked up from browsing as Arvel approached. He spoke to her calmly and she went back to feeding. He grabbed the reigns and the filly followed. Sally had a maternal influence on horses, they liked to follow the mule.
Back at the shed, the outlaw girl was prying on a locked drawer of Will Panks’ rolltop with her big knife. Others were upended, papers scattered on the floor and desktop.
“Hey, stop that!” He pushed her away and began straightening up. “So, you’re a thief, as well as a drunkard?”
“I need money, Pendejo.”
“Has working or getting married, or doing something honest ever crossed your mind?” Arvel continued to put the place back in order.
She spit on the floor. “I don’ need to work and I don’ need a man. I take what I want, Pendejo, like you gringo s, take and take from the people who have been here for hundreds of years. You are just as much as thief as me.”
He laughed. “Well, you have a point there.”
She looked him up and down. “You are a strange gringo, Pendejo. You don’ look very much like, like…”
“Not very tough?” He smiled. “I know, I know. I’ve heard that before.”
“Why are you not so mean to me, Pendejo? Most gringo white men don’ want nothin’ to do with me. They avoid even to look at me.”
“I think you’re funny.” He smiled. He looked at his watch again. “You’d better beat it out of here.”
“Why so secret, Pendejo?”
“What’s this Pendejo?”
“Oh, I don’ know, it just seem to fit.”
“It wouldn’t be good if the people around here caught you. They’d likely string you up, just for good measure. A bandit gang of Mexicans and Indians killed a whole family just outside of town. It was pretty bad. The leader wears a gold sombrero. Maybe you know him?”
“Ay, chingao, si, I know him, Pendejo. He is mal puro. One day, I will meet up with him and kill him, but he is like smoke, he is hard to catch.”
We’re meeting in a couple of hours to go after them.”
“You, Pendejo?” She chuckled. “You better not go after bandits, or they will be digging a grave for you, especially Sombrero Del Oro.”
He was growing tired of her impudence and took her by the arm. “I appreciate your concern, Chiquita, but I’ll be just fine. How old are you, anyway?”
“Guess, Pendejo.” She eyed him devilishly. She liked the attention he was giving her.
“Sixteen?”
“Hah! I have twenty-six years, Pendejo.”
“Well, you won’t have twenty-seven years if you keep this up. Now, get on your horse and ride. Don’t stop.” He tossed a half-eagle at her. He didn’t know why. “And I don’t want to hear from or see you in these parts again.”
She turned to leave, then grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth. She thought for a moment, and kissed him again, harder this time. It was the first good kiss he’d had in five years. “You kiss good, Pendejo.” She was gone.
Olaf Knudsen had come to the states twenty-two years ago. He was not married when he arrived and had only the clothes on his back and twenty one dollars. He worked in New York City for five years, seven days a week in a textile factory. After work, he went home and worked another three hours every night assembling ladies garters. His diet was salted fish and cabbage, not because he could not afford anything else, but because, by so eating, he could save more than sixty percent of his wages. He shared a bed with five other men. Two men shared one bed every eight hours. He dreamed of owning a dairy farm, and after five years, had enough money to purchase everything necessary to move west and pursue his dream. He picked up a nice wife along the way, and soon had a burgeoning family. They all had one purpose, and that was to make a successful farm. What took a lifetime of sweat and dreaming and toil was destroyed in less than an hour.
Arvel sat Sally and smoked. In the past twenty four hours his life and the life of everyone else in the region had been turned upside down. They had lived peacefully and uneventfully for years. No Indians, no miners, no gamblers, no Mexican bandits. The community had slipped into a quiet complacency, and that suited Arvel Walsh just fine. He was working on five mules nearly simultaneously when the young man came riding up to his ranch, out of breath, flush with excitement, to tell him the news of the Knudsen family. He was amused by the boy, who was young and hungry for adventure. Arvel thought that he was not unlike himself thirty years ago, but now, well into his forties, hearing of this kind of excitement only made him sad. He was sad for the Knudsens, of course, but he was also sad that his mundane, complacent, normal life had been disrupted. He was getting used to the sameness of the days, and the only excitement that he now experienced was when a hand got kicked by an overexcited donkey, or horse, or mule. Everything was humming along nicely for Arvel Walsh, until now.
Posse Comitatus
The men gathered before sunrise. Since there were no captives during the previous day’s slaughter, it was pointless to give chase after sunset. Twelve men responded to the request by the deputy sheriff. The fellow in charge was a small man, no more than twenty five years old. He had been one of the deputy sheriffs for around six months and had proven himself in words only.
He had a fine Stetson and a fancy gunrig. His six shooter was bright nickel and the grip had a naked woman carved garishly on the outside panel. Many cartridges, more than fifty, were snugly fixed into loops across the front of his belt as he wore his rig with the buckle in the back. He had a giant knife, like an overgrown Bowie with an ornate handle which stuck, menacingly in front of six shooter’s holster. He looked uncomfortable and out of place in these clothes, as if he’d put them on to have his portrait taken. His scarf was a bit puffy and too tightly tied around his neck and tended to creep up, over his chin as he moved, he continuously pulled it back into place.
His past deeds were difficult to verify. He had spent some time, by his own account, as a lawman in Tombstone, and supposedly, working for the Texas Rangers. Judging by his blustery ways and fondness for hearing himself talk, everyone could pretty much agree that he likely hailed from Texas.
Dick Welles was there, and Arvel was glad for it. He had known Dick since he arrived in Arizona. He was a good man, and a fellow veteran of the GAR, a rare thing in this part of the country as the land was populated mostly by former members of the confederacy.
Dick was a severe looking man with sharp features and blue eyes the color of a glacier. He sat, perched on his horse like a predatory bird, a dangerous hawk, ready to swoop down on his prey, looking on at the collection of volunteers. He looked terse, always, never cruel, but never friendly or smiling. He was the kind of man whom other men obeyed always unless they were too stupid to know better.
His hair went white by the time he was forty and once his wife convinced him to dye it. So mortified was he at the outcome that he shaved his head, preferring temporary baldness to the hubris of such self-indulgence. He wore only brown or gray colored clothing of wool, always, as blues would seem too gaudy to him, silk was out of the question. He never wore black as he felt that this was the color reserved for undertakers and the clergy and he fit neither of these criteria. He was never without a cravat and waistcoat. He would wear a sack coat except in the worst heat. Today he was dressed in his hunting clothes, which consisted of his older regular clothes that were deemed worn enough to get dirty. He was not a vain man, but proud enough to always be dressed properly. His
hat was the only exception. He’d gotten it just after arriving in Arizona and it was once the color of honey. Now it was about as dirty as a hat could get and the grosgrain band was colored with a hundred different sweat stains. It was an exceedingly ugly hat and was incongruous with the rest of his outfit, looking as if perhaps he’d mistakenly picked up the property of a proper derelict, leaving a well-cared-for one behind.
“Bad business, Dick.” Arvel extended his hand.
“Indeed. The girl said they tortured Olaf for better than an hour. She just escaped after they walloped her good on the head and left her for dead. They were in a state, whoopin’ and hollarin’, so busy with the blood orgy that she jumped up when they were occupied and ran like hell all the way to town.”
“How many do you recon there are?”
“She thought ten or twelve. Half Indians and half Mexicans, except for one white fellow, looked to be just running with them, and not all that connected with the gang. He didn’t seem to take much part in the really bad business.”
“It is all the same, lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.”
The rest of the posse was made up of young ranch hands from the area, and a fellow from the Tombstone newspaper. Word traveled fast about this incident. Decapitation always makes for exciting news.
The Young deputy was animated. He barked orders, strutted amongst the posse, commenting on what was lacking in each man’s outfit. He was particularly concerned about the two elderly gents joining his expedition. He believed that fear was the best motivator. He eyed Arvel’s kit doubtfully. “Sir, that mule is not going to slow our progress. We will be forced to leave you behind if you will not keep up.”
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