‘Why not?’
‘Any day now, I think the Apache are gonna reduce it to ashes and rubble.’
When Dan entered Mandy’s room he felt swept back years to when a girl rode the southwest and Dakota trails with him.
Mandy Lee stood in front of the mirror with her hair tied at her neck and a Plains Stetson on her head. She wore tight buckskin and a linen shirt. The Colt Navy .36 was strapped to her slim hip.
For an instant, he had a memory flash – of the Republican River in Kansas.
She turned to Dan. ‘Draw on me.’
‘No.’
‘Where is Roger?’
‘Pondering a few things.’
‘You didn’t do anything?’
‘No, we talked.’
‘Thank you for not shooting him.’
‘That still might be dangling out there.’
‘Don’t say that, Dan.’
‘Or, he might buy your silver claim.’
She worked her lips to a whimsical smile. ‘I see a look in your eye.’
‘It ain’t got nothing to do with drawing guns or Roger Farnsworth.’
‘You like the fit of the buckskin, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, if you’re not going to draw, why don’t you come over here and kiss me?’
‘Why don’t I?’
‘You see, I didn’t make up the bed.’
‘No need to.’
‘Aren’t we on our way to Darion today?’
‘First thing in the morning.’ He took a step toward her.
She hooked her thumbs over her gun belt and pushed her shoulders back. ‘Maybe you’d better do something about me.’
‘Maybe I’d better,’ he said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
Her lips melted into his kiss.
Chapter Thirty
The last day of November, 1880, during an icy sunrise, the small parade rolled out of Yuma along the trail Dan had taken to bring Sarah and the girls from the ranch to the train station. Dan rode Mesa, Mandy, Rowdy, both wearing heavy buffalo coats. The gelding and gray pulled the buckboard with a bundled Sleepy Sue holding reins and Jenny Troup on the splintered seat, and everybody’s worldly possessions canvas-wrapped in back. Roger Farnsworth brought up the rear in his fresh-bought two-seat buggy. He had exchanged his stovepipe hat for a beaver cap – saying that was as frontier as he intended to get.
Walking the horses, Mandy said, ‘What if Steep ain’t at the ranch?’
‘We’ll go where he is.’
She held the saddle-horn tight with both gloved hands. ‘I dreamed of my folks last night.’
Dan looked at her. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’
‘Anticipation,’ she said, ‘more than waiting for you to make me a woman. We’ve been after him a long time, Dan.’
‘A long time,’ Dan said. ‘Do you still pine for him dead?’
‘Yes, as much as before. I had a period when I was caught up in the social part of school. I thought it might be too late. No, he dies. You and me kill him, Dan. That’s the way of it.’
‘Roger wants him punished. He should be in Yuma Territorial.’
‘I still picture our little wagon and what he and his gang did. And I keep thinking of my ma, and then I think of Sarah and her little girls. She had to do what she did.’
‘I was glad to help.’
‘She was a brave woman. You and I know what the animal is capable of.’
Dan sighed. ‘Not much longer.’
‘No, not much longer.’
When they reached the ranch, Dan saw no riders. Cattle bawled beyond the out buildings, some in the yard.
Still on the trail outside the gate, Dan said to Sleepy Sue at the reins of the buckboard, ‘You wait out here. Me and Mandy will have a look-see.’
While Mandy tied Rowdy’s reins to the post, Dan walked around the main building, peering in windows. Mandy knocked on the door, her hand on the grip of the Navy .36. Dan saw no movement. He came around to the front and waited just long enough for her to move aside before he kicked in the door. The splintered wood noise cracked across the backs of grazing cattle. He waved his arm to the buckboard and buggy and went inside. Mandy followed across the foyer to the den. Through the doorway, Dan led her to the desk.
‘There it is,’ he said pointing to the little, tin box.
Mandy picked it up and opened the copper top. She held it to her breast and stared into it. ‘Oh, Dan,’ she said with a catch in her throat. Her tears dropped to the little box while she stared. She sniffled. Her wet, green eyes looked up at Dan. ‘We’re wasting time.’
Before they left the buckboard and buggy there in the yard, Dan opened all the ranch yard gates to let the cattle wander free.
‘Let the Apache have them,’ he said.
Dan heard gunshots and war-whoops a quarter mile before he and Mandy reached Darion. The trail entered from the southeast. Apaches attacked from west and north, more than thirty braves, faces painted for war. Wagon and furniture barriers stretched across the main road with men hunched behind them, guns drawn. Town-skirting tents already burned. Cavalry soldiers mounted and rode back and forth, firing at random. Dan stayed away from the main road. He led Mandy along the back of the office building. The saloon was the first of the structures across the road to burst into flames. Apaches rode, firing as they went, naked from the waist up, dropping blue bellies, lighting buildings off.
Dan dismounted behind the office building. Mandy followed him to the door. More structures ignited. A staccato of shots repeated up and down the main road. Men behind barriers shot Apaches down from their mounts. With his shoulder, Dan busted in the door. The rib shot his side with pain. The tents had now burned to ashes. Smoke waved with the wind across the roofs of the few structures standing. A gang of ten Apaches rode the main road killing and scalping anyone in front of them. The screams of victims joined the battle-whoops. Five to seven white men were left, fighting and dying under orders from mine owners and without spirit.
Up stairs, Dan led Mandy along the office door’s hallway. They jerked as a window shattered at the end of the hall with a shot. A torch crashed through and ignited the unpainted wall.
When Dan reached the lawyer’s office he tried the door knob. It was locked. ‘I got a key,’ he said. He stood back and shot his boot heel against the knob. Wood splintered with a crack as the door burst open.
Mandy went in first. ‘Everybody from the ranch must be in town,’ she said.
‘Won’t do no good.’
The room was dark, only wavy scarlet firelight from down the hall showed objects. Dan went around the desk to the polished wood filing cabinet. A brass padlock hung on the front latch. He pulled his Peacemaker and swung the grip to break open the lock. Mandy slid out the drawer and began rifling files.
She pulled a file labeled, Sarah D, and opened it. ‘The claim and deed are here. There’s a ledger.’
‘Take the whole thing.’
Flames began eating through the wall. Mandy started for the splintered door, shoving the folder down the front of her gun belt. ‘Where is he? You think he’s outside fighting?’
‘Not likely,’ Dan said. ‘He’s got an office next door.’
Flames crept along the opposite hall wall.
Dan started around the desk. Rapid fire and whoops came from just outside, visible through a burned-out wall. The main road showed only smoke and flame now with riding, painted, shirtless men firing at anything that moved. Cavalry came in from the west, about five left, shooting and getting shot. Most men behind the wagons were dead. All buildings burned. Choking smoke curled inside the office, hugging the ceiling. Dan coughed.
In front of the wall of flame outside the door, Monte Steep’s chunky suit filled the office doorway. He had a file under his arm. His pudgy face widened in surprise. The file fell as he reached for his gun. ‘Jordan!’ he shouted.
Dan started to draw. His forearm tingled and lost feeling
– down to his thumb. His hand went numb. The Colt dropped to the floor as Steep fired. Dan felt a hammer-blow to his chest. He twisted and went down to one knee. He felt a blade twisting inside his rib cage, pain driving him farther down. More smoke curled in to blur his vision.
Steep fired again but missed. He swung his gun around as Mandy shot him in the chest then quickly again through the neck. Steep jerked back through the open door and fell to the floor of the hall, the timber already beginning to burn.
Another shot was fired from out of sight, the bullet hit the doorjamb. Slipper Hawthorne knelt at the door, both hands filled with guns. He fired at Mandy. She jumped back. By then Dan had feeling back in his hand. His chest pain spread to his back. He felt fear, not for himself but for Mandy. More pain squeezed through his chest. He gritted his teeth and grimaced against it. The pain through his chest drove clear thinking from his head. His legs started to go numb. The Colt came off the floor, the hammer cocked. Slipper was set upon by a coughing spell and fired wild. Dan shot Slipper in the left knee, then the stomach, then the chest. Dan forced himself to his feet as Hawthorne fell forward, his hat gone, short muddy hair smeared with blood. Dan shot him again through the back of the head.
Mandy fell to her hands and knees beside the desk and vomited. Smoke crawling into her lungs made her cough. She rolled away with a short gagging fit and sat with her legs out, leaning against the file cabinet, shaking her head.
Out in the hall with the floor fire creeping toward Monte Steep, he moved his leg. The dark eyes in his flabby face blinked.
Mandy grabbed the desk top and pushed to her feet. The upper left arm of the buffalo coat was bleeding. ‘Dan?’ she said.
‘He’s still breathing,’ Dan said. He sat on the corner of the desk holding his chest, the Colt aimed at Steep.
Mandy came around the desk to the doorway, her Navy .36 aimed at Steep’s bleeding head.
Steep frowned at her. ‘Who. . . ?’
Mandy said, ‘You don’t remember. A smoldering wagon in the rain, southwest of here. The Lee family – my pa Will Lee, my ma Elizabeth, my little brother Willy, me a twelve-year-old girl hidden under the wagon. You killed them and used my ma for fun. Dan rode in before you found me. You stole my pa’s silver claim from Jeremiah Dickers – the tin box with the copper top.’ She raised her Colt. ‘Yes, you remember now, don’t you?’
Steep’s eyes opened wide as he stared at Dan. ‘Quint! Quint!’
He said nothing more because Mandy shot him through the bridge of his nose. Mandy turned against the doorway and gagged but nothing was left to flow out.
Dan holstered the Peacemaker. He slid down off the desk to his knees. The fire had started to eat up Steep’s foot with a flesh-burning smell. Dan’s right arm went numb with lost feeling. He bent low and coughed from smoke. A playing-card sized pool of blood dropped to the floor under his lips.
Mandy holstered her gun and knelt to him. ‘Dan, let’s go.’
‘Your arm,’ Dan said. He wheezed out a breath that didn’t come easy. More blood flowed from his lips.
She got her good arm around his back. ‘Get your feet under you. Come on.’
From outside, the rapid shooting had stopped. There were no more war-whoops. The Apaches, must have gone, or been killed. Dan could not hear clearly. He felt no more pain through his chest. His vision formed a black wreath around it, like a circled frame around a picture. The wall of the wreath started to thicken, making the picture smaller.
Mandy urged him. ‘Dan, come on. We have to go.’
The black wreath closed tighter. ‘Ah, Mandy, I’m too tired, girl. Too many times . . . I think it all wore out.’
She pulled at him. ‘Come on. I won’t listen to that. Don’t give up. You made promises you got to keep. You got to marry me. You promised – Washington Territory.’ Tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Don’t do this to me. Not after all the time I waited. You belong to me and you got to stay.’
‘I don’t think – so. . . .’ The wreath thickened once more, dwindling his vision. He felt liquid inside, as though life had started to flow out of him through the bullet hole in his lung.
She pushed her shoulder under his arm and straightened her legs. ‘Help me. Help me. The fire is getting to the door.’
The black wreath stopped closing. Dan raised his elbow to the desk. He helped push to his feet, leaning heavily on her. He felt tired – old and tired, his body twisted and torn and scarred. He just wanted to sleep. She was so slim he knew she would tumble with his weight. And her arm was shot. They got out the door and leaned against the unburned section of wall to make the back stairs.
The town of Darion was two lined walls of flame. No structure stood. A soldier rode past them when they reached the horses. Dan held the saddle horn on Mesa for quite a while before he garnered the strength to lift his boot into the stirrup. Gritting his teeth against pain that stabbed his chest and ribs, he pushed up into the saddle, bent against the horn, unable to sit tall.
Mandy held Mesa’s reins as they rode on out. ‘At the ranch, we’ll get you in the buckboard. We’ll have to go back to Yuma, get some patching done.’
He had no awareness of how they made it. He held the saddle horn bent over, leaking blood on Mesa’s neck. Occasionally he jerked with a bleeding cough. Another kind of black eased thick and syrupy through his thinking. He went off into a riverside camp along a mountain trail, a small fire cracking and snapping, his favorite buckskin tied to a nearby pine, Mandy holding tight against him under a wool blanket. He became vaguely aware of getting pulled into the back of the buckboard then the rough bounce of the trail as they moved away from the ranch. He went back to his mountain river camp with Mandy and slept.
Chapter Thirty-One
They didn’t start for Santa Fe until March, 1881. Dan’s pierced lung never did heal quite right. Mandy’s arm was good as new. She didn’t care for the scar it left. After seeing the doc in Yuma, the group had headed out to the Sarah D ranch where they lived unmolested by Apaches through the holidays. The Apache gathered all the released cows and continued raids on miners until army soldiers outnumbered them and herded them back to the reservation around Christmas.
No plans were afoot to ever rebuild the town of Darion.
Once the paperwork became legal, Roger Farnsworth paid Mandy twenty-five thousand dollars for the Sarah D mine, plus a contract for ten percent of all money it made. He was not with them on the trip to Santa Fe. He took over at the ranch and stayed behind to run things.
He made it clear he wanted no part of any damned wedding anyway.
Dan carried a hand drawn map of the Arizona and New Mexico territories. From Yuma, they traveled northeast along the Rio Gila through Pima Village and when they approached the Pima Llano Mountains, the trail swung more north on the General Keamnew’s route. The going was slow with the old buckboard and likely older gray. The land climbed, rocky and jagged, weather cooled, always with the threat of rain. They camped along the trail knowing the Apache watched them.
As they continued along the trail, they swung down from mountains to skirt Apache reservations and spotted outlaw bands that refused to be corralled, and so far, continued to outride the army. At Fort Webster, Dan discovered they had crossed into New Mexico. He changed to another route along the Rio Grande.
They were on the Santa Fe Trail.
Fort Webster was crowded. According to a Colonel Stuart, the general was off on an Apache political mission and would not return for a week. With all the humanity flowing along the Trail, there was no room inside the fort. Dan and his ladies might camp along the river outside the walls as the squatters were told to do. That suited Dan. Low-ranked cavalry soldiers inside the fort looked at Jenny and Mandy with the same kind of hungry insolence he had seen in the eyes of Dakota prospectors. Men without women scraped the edges off their civilized thinking. Without women, some men reverted to the savage. They must have conjured up many fantasies about a worn-out gunslinger travelling with two beautiful you
ng women chaperoned by an old walrus with a face capable of stopping a sun-dial. Not just his women, any girl from teens to thirties got the same treatment from them.
Many wagons pushed west, crowding the river banks, the banks bare of much vegetation – cottonwood trees cut down for firewood by destitute hut residents. Dirt, sand, sagebrush and dry prairie grass stretched to jagged hills along the horizon – past sod dugouts built into small rises with Indian and Mexican family lives dominated by laws of opinion laid down by mission priests – and those who heeded the call of the White Man’s Burden to bring hostile savage heathens to Jesus Christ and Christianity. Other clay and sod one-room houses stood alone, most with slanted roofs. Mixed among Mexicans were the deprived, downtrodden Pueblo, Navajo and Apache, preyed upon by many on a personal mission. With so little good in their lives, the poor relied on faith.
On the map, Dan found a well-used trail along the Rio Grande named, Lieutenant Cook’s Wagon Route that headed north beside the Santa Fe Trail. It was smooth enough for the old buckboard. They saw few wagons but as always Navajo and Apache watched them. Hundreds of buffalo clustered along part of the Great Plains to the east.
They were now at the edge of the plains and the land spread flat, puddled in rain with jagged hills beyond. Rain washed down as they kept on the route north along the Trail. After Fort Craig, they passed hut villages with crude signs – Don Pedro, Socorro, and along the Jornado del Muerto until they reached Albuquerque in the Rio Grande Valley.
Dan found Albuquerque downright civilized. With a population of about 2,000, the railroad came alongside the town. Once part of Mexico meant there were plenty of missions and churches – and priests dictating life laws to the locals. Past the plaza, Second Street had one of three Red Light Districts with two-story brick buildings and adobe houses supplying quick or prolonged pleasure. Young girls beginning and worn women ending the trade, slithered along boardwalk shadows when the sun went down. Like most righteous folks, the citizens of Albuquerque looked on prostitution as moral failure, not crime. At the corner of Romero and Rio Grande, the Centennial Hotel welcomed Dan Quint and his ladies with two rooms.
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