The Bandera Trail

by Ralph Compton

  Ramon shook his head, and so did some of the other riders. They had just finished eating, when Victoria Mendoza headed for their supper fire. They’d already seen her among the horses, so she knew. She didn’t waste any words.

  “Some of my horses are still missing.”

  “Fourteen,” said Gil. “We’re takin’ the trail at first light.”

  “Do as you wish with your miserable cows,” she snapped, “but I will remain here, with my vaqueros, until my horses are found.”

  “Victoria Mendoza,” said Gil, exasperated, “don’t be a damn fool. We’ve ridden for miles in every direction. You purely don’t move stock through open country without losing some. That’s the way it is on a trail drive. Now pull in your horns and be thankful you’ve only lost fourteen.”

  Furious, she said nothing more to Gil. Instead she turned to her riders, but found much of their humility had departed. Their eyes met hers, and she was shocked at what she saw.

  “Ramon?” she said, pleading.

  “No, senora,” said Ramon. “No more caballo. Is finish.”

  Gil found himself feeling sorry for Victoria Mendoza. The fire had gone out of her, and she turned away quickly. She was hell on men, but Gil suspected there would be tears for the lost horses.

  Gil was up before first light. The night had passed uneventfully. He was tempted to invite Victoria Mendoza to eat with them, but thought better of it. He’d only get another tongue-lashing for his sympathy. Anyway, she ate only once a day, after they’d bedded down the herd for the night. Gil often wondered what Senor Mendoza had been like, how he had handled the fiery Victoria. She was beautiful in her own way, but so was the tawny cougar that had almost taken Mariposa’s life.

  “I don’t see her makin’ any moves to go with us,” said Van.

  “She’ll go,” said Gil. “All she has to do is harness the teams.”

  Gil hoped he was right. Suppose she took the bit in her teeth and defied him? Until they reached Texas soil, all the Mendoza horses were hers, even those the outfit rode. And he wanted some of those fine horses as much as he wanted the herd of longhorns. To his relief, Victoria harnessed the teams and led out ahead of the horse herd. Mariposa was again in the saddle, apparently healed. Since applying the sulfur salve, Gil hadn’t seen the Indian’s wounds. Estanzio had applied whatever medication he had concocted from the maguey plant. Mariposa was the most standoffish of the Indian trio. Estanzio had begun to communicate in English, but he had a ways to go. Solano had been the least distant of the three, and Gil wondered what had become of him and the enigmatic Angelina Ruiz.

  Their first day’s drive following the gather, they reached the clear, deep creek two or three miles north of the place Gil had been pinned down by the Velasco gang.

  “Ramon,” said Gil, “let’s get back to our habit of scoutin’ ahead for the next day’s water.”

  “Mariposa go,” said Ramon. “Him need ride.”

  Ramon had taken to speaking in English as best he could, and Gil noted with approval that some of the other riders had followed Ramon’s lead. He couldn’t help wondering if it was a further rebellion against the high-handed domination of Victoria Mendoza. These were proud men, and the Texans had treated them with respect. It was the stark contrast that was breaking Victoria Mendoza’s hold on them. It was dark when Mariposa returned, an almost sure indication that tomorrow’s drive would be a long one. Mariposa had some information, and it was going to be interesting to see how well the Indian could communicate. He’d been speaking through Ramon, and Gil suspected this was Ramon’s way of breaking Mariposa’s silence. He must learn to speak for himself.

  Mariposa knelt and drew a line in the soft earth, and pointed to the nearby creek. Beyond that, parallel to it, he drew a second line. This time, instead of his finger, he used a stick, making a deep impression.

  “Arroyo,” he said.

  “Water?” Gil asked, pointing to the creek.

  Mariposa shook his head, scooped up some dust and let it dribble out of his hand. If the arroyo was dry, why had he made mention of it at all? But Mariposa had a reason. He stood up, raising his hands as high as he could.

  “Arroyo deep,” said Gil.

  “Much deep,” said Mariposa. He pointed to a tall, slender pine, then slowly raised his hands as high as he could.

  “My God,” said Van, “he’s sayin’ it’s deeper than the height of that pine.”.

  Mariposa nodded. He then knelt and drew a line from their present camp almost to the line representing the deep arroyo. But before the line that would be their trail reached the arroyo line, Mariposa made a sharp turn, paralleling the arroyo. After a distance, he drew their line of travel across that of the arroyo, turning them north again. Once he had crossed the line that was the deep arroyo, he drew a third line farther north. He pointed to it and then to the nearby creek.

  “Bueno, Mariposa,” said Gil. “Bueno.”

  “Mañana,” said Ramon, “go, see.”

  “I reckon I’d better,” said Gil. “This arroyo sounds like a dry canyon, two or three hundred feet deep. He’s sayin’ we’ll have to drive around it, and that somewhere beyond is the next water. Long as it took him to ride there and back, we may have a twenty-mile drive ahead of us. The creek he’s drawn may be ten miles the other side of this big ditch.”

  “I hope it is,” said Van. “I’d not want to bed down these herds anywhere within runnin’ distance of that canyon. Let a cougar scream a time or two, and every horse and cow we got would stampede. South, with our luck. Hell for leather, right over the edge of that canyon.”

  “That’s something to think about and avoid,” said Gil, “but Mariposa’s found a way around it, so there’s only a part of it deep enough to be a danger.”

  Gil rode out at first light. He wanted not only to see this hazard, but to determine how far away it was. If the terrain was rough, then the miserable wagon might slow them to the extent that they’d be unable to reach water before dark. That would trap them in a dry camp somewhere between the deep canyon and the water Mariposa had found. If that stampede Van had spoken of took place—for any reason—the herds just might run south. A thirsty herd, if the water ahead wasn’t close enough for them to smell it, would stampede toward that behind them, which they remembered. Gil set his horse in a lope which he estimated would take him ten miles within an hour. Beyond that they’d be pushing their luck, with an average day’s drive being only ten to twelve miles.

  The “arroyo” Mariposa had reported turned out to be a canyon. A deep canyon, six or seven miles north of their last night’s camp. That meant they must drive around this deep part, and then on to the next creek. Considering the time Mariposa had been gone, that could be another ten miles, or more. They would lose the time it took to drive around the deep part of the canyon, and more time as they veered west to take up their original route. He rode up to the canyon rim, and was astounded to find that it was four or five hundred feet deep! Not for just a short distance, but as far as he could see in either direction. The Indian hadn’t exaggerated. In fact, with his limited speech and signs, he had understated the danger.

  Gil turned his horse and started back, keeping an eye on the terrain as he went. He must decide where they would leave their original line of travel and turn to the east, paralleling the canyon. Having seen the obstacle, Van’s fear of a southbound stampede didn’t seem a bit out of reason. Two or three miles south of the canyon, he found some open country to the east, perhaps what Mariposa had in mind. He rode on, expecting to meet the wagon at any moment. When he did, it was jolting along on its own, the horse herd, the longhorns, and the riders nowhere in sight.

  “Rein up,” he told Victoria. “Something’s wrong. There’s no horses, no cows, and no riders in sight.”

  He rode on, kicking his horse into a run. He had ridden only a mile or two when he saw the riders. Van was in the lead, and behind him rode Esteban Valverde, his rifle virtually at Van’s back. Behind Valverde rode the rest of t
he Mendoza outfit, including Estanzio and Mariposa. Following his eleven men, Gil counted fifteen riders, every man carrying a rifle. Gil reined up, waiting. A few yards from Gil, Van halted. Upon orders from Valverde, he spoke.

  “They came from behind, Gil,” he said bitterly. “They had our drag riders under the gun, threatening to shoot them if the rest of us didn’t surrender.”

  “Crude, but effective,” said Valverde smugly. “Drop your pistol, Austin, and then your rifle.”

  Reluctantly, Gil did so.

  “Now,” said Valverde, “I will set your mind at ease. I have come for Senora Mendoza and the wagon. I want nothing more. My reasons are none of your affair. Suffice to say the senora owes me. I will not bore you with the sordid details. You will remain here, all of you, while I ride ahead. Any man attempting to follow will be shot out of the saddle, upon my orders. Once the senora and I have departed, my riders will detain all of you here for a time. Then you will be free to continue on your way, as long as it is north. Any man riding south, in pursuit, will be shot on sight.”

  With that, he rode around Gil, and was soon lost to distance.

  “I feel like a damn fool,” said Van, “but I wouldn’t sacrifice even one of our riders for that wagon, and whatever’s in it.”

  “Nor would I,” said Gil.

  Esteban Valverde reached the wagon and rode around it. He carried the rifle across his saddle, its muzzle pointed toward Victoria Mendoza.

  “I have come to take you home, my dear. You and the wagon. There I will dismantle it at my leisure, and if what I am seeking is not somewhere within it, then I will have you to direct me to it.”

  “I will go nowhere with you!” Victoria shouted.

  “Ah, but you will,” he said, cocking the rifle. “You think I will not shoot? It is true, there was a time when I would have sooner shot myself, but that time—with many other things—is gone.”

  He dismounted, got his left foot on the hub, and climbed over the wide front wheel to the wagon box. In so doing, he allowed the muzzle of the rifle to shift, and Victoria grabbed it. She dragged the muzzle down, and it blasted a hole in the floor of the wagon box. He wrenched the rifle away, and she let go. From her waistband she snatched the Colt revolver. Valverde twisted her arm, and she fired by reflex. The slug tore into the flank of the offside wheel horse. The animal screamed in pain, and its panic quickly swept over the other horses. The teams bolted, the smell of fresh blood driving them on. Again the Colt roared, and the slug struck the second of the wheel-horse team. Valverde suddenly released Victoria’s arm, and with all his strength, drove his right fist into her face. She went limp, slumping back on the seat. Valverde seized the loose reins.

  But the reins might as well not have existed. The horses were beyond any command. Young pines and cedars were flattened as though they were weeds. They jounced over rocks, tore through thickets, and Esteban Valverde became afraid for his life. He fought the reins like a madman, but to no avail. The wagon remained upright only because of its enormous weight. Valverde fought down his fear. The horses couldn’t run forever. Once they ran out their fear, he would be safe. But time had run out. Fate had dealt Esteban Valverde his last card, and it was a loser. Faster they went, thundering toward the canyon rim, and a five-hundred-foot drop to destruction…

  11

  The Valverde men sat their horses in silence. Van’s horse had begun cropping grass, and it had moved closer to Gil’s. Van spoke softly.

  “You reckon Senora Mendoza will just give in and go back with him?”

  “No,” said Gil. “They’re both armed, and I look for hell to bust loose any minute.”

  It was a prophecy quickly fulfilled. The blast from the rifle was like a clap of thunder in the silence. Every man was shocked into immobility, and jolted out of it an instant later by the roar of a pistol and the agonized scream of a horse. The distant rattle of the wagon and a second blast from the pistol confirmed the reality of what had happened. The Valverde riders, fearing their patrono was in trouble, disobeyed the final order Valverde had given them. The riders split around Gil’s outfit, galloping after the sound of the runaway wagon.

  “There’s nothing they can do,” said Gil. “Nothing anybody can do. The wagon’s headed for the canyon rim. All of you ride back and get your guns. No matter what’s happened to Valverde, we still may have to fight this bunch.”

  Valverde’s men rode hard, unsure as to what they could or ought to do, but feeling the need to do something. Three shots had been fired, but only the first from Valverde’s rifle. It was in their best interests to know if their patrono yet lived. They came within sight of the doomed wagon just in time to see it careen over the canyon rim. The horses screamed in mortal terror, the piteous knell trailing away like a dying echo. The Valverde riders gritted their teeth, held their breath, and waited. The sound, when it came, was like the flat of the hand against a drumhead. Then there was nothing, causing the ensuing silence to seem all the more terrible.

  “Por Dios,” said one of the riders, crossing himself. “Por Dios!”

  The Valverde riders turned their horses and rode slowly back the way they had come. One of them caught and led the saddled horse Esteban Valverde had ridden. As one, they reined up. Suddenly they were facing the guns of the men Valverde had left in their charge. Gil had his outfit strung out in a skirmish line, every man with his rifle at the ready. The Valverde riders were practical men. The patrono was gone, and his cause, whatever it had been, had died with him. Carefully they raised their hands, and the lead rider spoke.

  “Paz,” he said. “En paz.”*

  “Paz,” Gil repeated, and then with the muzzle of his rifle, he pointed south. No further order was needed or given. Gil’s eyes met those of every Valverde rider, and each man nodded. Gil’s skirmish line split, and the Valverde men rode through. Gil waited until the riders had ridden a hundred yards, and then he spoke.

  “We’ll follow them until they’re well beyond the herds. I want to be damn sure this bunch don’t try some final mischief, such as stampeding the cows and horses.”

  But the Valverde men rode past the herds and were soon lost among the greasewood and scrub oak thickets.

  “We ought to go into that canyon,” said Van, “and at least be…sure.”

  “I aim to,” said Gil, “but we can’t afford to delay the trail drive. We’ll go on, turning east as planned, and where the canyon shallows down enough for the herds to cross, some of us will ride upcanyon and have a look. It won’t be pleasant. I’ll take two men with me.”

  Surprisingly, it was Mariposa who spoke.

  “Estanzio go,” said the Indian. “Estanzio and Mariposa. Compasivo para caballos.” He held his Bowie in his hand, its blade silver in the morning sun.

  “Unless some of you object,” said Gil, “Estanzio and Mariposa will go with me.”

  The other riders shook their heads. It would be a gruesome scene, at best, and no man envied the Indians the task that might await them. If any of the big gray horses still lived, they must be mercifully put out of their misery.

  “Let’s move out,” said Gil. “Once we’re far enough downcanyon to get the herds across, the rest of you will keep the drive going. Mariposa, Estanzio, and me will leave you there, and catch up to you after we’ve had a look at what’s left of the wagon. It’s important that the drive keep moving, because we may still be a dozen miles away from water.”

  They reached the clearing that Gil had spotted earlier, and the horse herd was turned east. The longhorns, now accustomed to the horses ahead of them, followed. They traveled three miles before the terrain began to level, and Gil trotted his horse north, to the canyon. He turned east, following the rim until he could see flat country ahead. He rode back to the horse herd, waving his hat to Estanzio and Mariposa. They turned the lead horses north, toward the crossing that would put them on the other side of the dangerous canyon. When the last longhorn had crossed, and the horse herd was a mile or more beyond the canyon’s north
rim, Gil, Estanzio, and Mariposa turned the lead horses northwest. Gil then rode back to the flank and had a word with Van.

  “I want you and Ramon with the horse herd while Estanzio and Mariposa are with me. Take the herds northwest maybe three miles, and then head them due north. That ought to put us back on our original course.”

  Van rode away to find Ramon, and Gil rode back to the horse herd. When Van and Ramon reached the point position, Gil nodded to Estanzio and Mariposa. They followed him back to the shallow end of the canyon. It was littered with debris, a sure sign of high water during heavy rain. The deeper they rode into the canyon, the higher the walls became, and the more oppressive seemed the silence.

  “Muerte,” said Estanzio.

  Floating against the blue of the western sky were those inevitable black specks. Buzzards circled, waiting. Gil’s horse snorted nervously, and he could feel the animal tremble. The very air held an aura of death. It seemed unnaturally hot, because there was no wind. The sun bore down on them with a vengeance, and Gil felt the sweat soaking the back of his shirt. The floor of the canyon was sandy, and nothing grew there. In places there was a clutter of rock and dunes of sand, evidence that there had been an occasional slide from the canyon rim. But for a few coyote and cougar tracks, there was no evidence that any living creature had ever visited the canyon. Half a mile ahead the canyon took a sharp turn, and somewhere beyond that—less than a mile, Gil believed—they’d find the remains of the wagon, its occupants, and the horses. He found himself hoping there were no survivors, lying there broken and bleeding, beyond help. When they rounded the bend in the canyon, the first thing they saw was a front wheel from the wagon. It had rolled, leaving a snake track in the sand, and come to rest leaning against the steep wall of the canyon. The three riders reined up. Ahead of them was the ominous sound of a falling stone. Dust hung in the still air, additional clouds rising as bits of sand and stone slid down from the canyon rim where the wagon had gone over. The dust settled, and a hundred yards ahead of them was a scene even more grisly than Gil had imagined. The three of them dismounted. They dared not take their horses any closer. The sandy canyon floor wasn’t stable enough to hold a picket pin. Gil took the loose wagon wheel, laid it down flat, and they half-hitched their horses’ reins to the spokes. There wasn’t a blade of grass, not even a weed. Afoot, they started toward the wreckage, as more stones and sand slid from the rim. The wheelless wagon lay on its top, the front of it toward them. The wagon had struck first, and the unfortunate teams had been flung back across the wagon box, until the horses rested behind the smashed wagon. Suddenly, in the dead silence of the canyon, came the most hair-raising sound Gil had ever heard. It began as a nicker, trailing off to an agonized whimper. At least one of the horses still lived. Without a word, Estanzio and Mariposa took the lead, drawing their Bowies. Sick, Gil waited for them to finish what, in the name of mercy, must be done. Their unenviable task completed, the Indians knelt and cleaned the blades of their Bowies in the sand. Nodding to Gil, they returned to where the horses were tied. They wanted nothing more to do with the grisly, unnatural scene, and Gil didn’t blame them. The rest was up to him, and he wanted to be done with it. Swarms of flies had already attacked the bodies of the horses. The wagon was two-thirds buried under the rock and sand it had torn loose from the canyon rim. At first he believed both of the unfortunate occupants of the wagon had been buried under the mass. Only the front of the wagon was visible. Then, from beneath the wagon box, he saw a slender arm and hand. He knelt, taking the hand, and the very feel of it told him what he had to know. He sought a pulse, and found none. Victoria Mendoza was dead.