So he touched a match to the cigarette and waited.
***
In the ranch house in the valley, Martha Anne Somers sliced hunks of meat into the big black pot that was already simmering over the flames of the old stove. Beneath the frame of her black hair, her eyes glittered and her mouth formed a grim smile. She enjoyed slicing the meat into chunks and she did it slowly, deliberately, wringing every trace of pleasure from the act as her imagination transformed the meat into Jack Kilhern’s heart.
She hated him with every tissue and fiber in her bruised body. The evil son of a bitch. My God, how she despised him. She spent every long minute of every long day cursing him for what he had done to her.
Five months and five days she had been here now with him. Five months and five days of sheer hell. Him and his son both; evil, foul-mouthed and crude. A fine pair. Both nothing more than animals.
They had ridden in one afternoon and shot her mother and father down where they stood. All her family wiped out in two minutes flat. The boy would have killed her too, but the father had laughed and said he was saving her for something special. From that day they had taken over the ranch as though it had always been their own.
But worst of all had been the abuse they had subjected her to.
Kilhern had dragged her round the room by her hair, then ripped the fragile cotton dress from her body, his eyes wide with lust and his foul breath washing over her. She had fought and bit and screamed and scratched, but all to no avail. He had thrust his filthy, sweaty body onto hers, his thick, hairy thighs slamming against hers. The rest she remembered in a nightmare of hysteria. Her vision had mercifully blurred in a sea of hot, salty tears, her ears closed to his animal grunts and his son’s coarse laughter as she tried to disassociate herself from what was taking place on the rough hewn planking of the floor.
She, a full-grown woman who had never seen a man naked, or allowed one to view her. Her mind was a screaming turmoil of blood-red patches and searing pains. Her insides so torn, so raw for days she had to be careful when she walked.
Now, as she remembered, the tears squeezed between her eyelids and tumbled down her cheeks. She stifled a sob then wiped her eyes with the back of a hand and resumed slicing meat into the pot.
The humiliation. Each night subjected to his needs and demands. Five times she had escaped when he slept, or when he rode the range, and each time he had caught her and beaten her mercilessly. The last time she had been unable to sit down for a week without suffering the most excruciating pains. Her arms, legs and buttocks had been black and blue, the skin of her back ridged and broken from the whipping he had given her with a rope.
The only reason she was not chained up today was that all the horses were out to pasture and Kilhern knew she could not get far on foot. Not when it was almost ten miles to the nearest neighbors, and even then she hardly knew them.
The last of the meat was in the bubbling pot when she wiped her hands and walked to the window. She had learnt from her father to scan the horizon that surrounded the ranch each morning. Earlier, when she had fed the chickens, she had done this, her head still but her eyes roving the hills. She had seen the stranger, sitting his horse under the shade of the big pine tree. But for a flash of sunlight on the horse’s harness she would have missed him.
She parted the curtain from the frame.
He was still there. She could make out the big buckskin grazing restlessly, so his master must be nearby. Her spirits rose, and she realized that her breath was running fast and shallow. The rider out there on the hillside could only be waiting for Jack Kilhern. He could be her salvation. Unless? Unless he was one of Kilhern’s friends, but then wouldn’t he have ridden in and waited at the ranch?
No. He could only be Kilhern’s enemy.
For the first time in five months she allowed herself the luxury of hope. The longing for freedom.
As she studied the hillside the pot began to boil over and she turned to tend it.
***
Now he was here and the hunt had drawn to a close, there was only the aiming and the squeezing of the trigger, and the kill. The final kill. Quantro felt he had been lucky so far, and somehow he felt luck was a token of something he didn’t quite understand, something that said he should have luck riding with him because he was doing what needed to be done. Serving justice. These men should die. God knows, the West was a cruel place, a place where a ranch could prosper one minute and be a smoldering, charred ruin the next, but these men, these four, they were something else again, they deserved to die. To be treated as they had treated others. What did the good book say–an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Well now it was a life for a life. But what was Kilhern’s life worth? His years could hold a multitude of sins. How many times had he lied and cheated and stole and murdered? Of one thing Quantro was sure. Kilhern’s life would never be a fair trade for his father’s. Not ten Kilherns. But Kilhern’s worthless life was the best deal on offer.
Quantro looked out over the trees and the rich grass that rippled slightly in the breeze. This was a beautiful country. Without men like Kilhern there was a great future here for any man who was not afraid of hard work. There were ample rewards to be reaped. What was it his mother had read to him from the Bible? Sow and ye shall reap? Well, it was all here, waiting for the hands that would work tirelessly for that reaping.
Quantro could only hope Lady Luck would continue to guide him. Anyhow, luck or not, he would give Kilhern as much of a chance as Kilhern had given his parents that day many long trails ago.
No chance at all.
***
His vigilance was rewarded late in the afternoon. A rider cantered into the yard and reined in outside the ranch house, then swung down, pulling his rifle from the saddle boot. The swarthy, stocky man had swapped his greasy buckskins for grey, baggy pants and a shirt, but he was the same man. He hawked then spat into the dust as he stepped up onto the porch, offering his profile to the hillside before disappearing into the house.
Jack Kilhern, the last of the four. Quantro knew there was no mistaking him. Still standing in the shade of the cottonwood, he patted the buckskin’s neck as it lifted its head, still chewing on a mouthful of grass. Quantro gathered the reins, then swung up into the saddle and touched his heels to the horse’s flanks. As the stallion began to pick its way down the trail, Quantro pulled his Winchester from its scabbard and levered a shell into the breech. They came out of the trees, man and horse, then came to a halt at the entrance to the yard. Quantro reined in at an angle to the house, his back to the sun, so that Kilhern would not see the rifle hanging casually in his right hand.
“Hello the House!”
The rough wooden door opened a crack and then swung wide as Kilhern stepped out on to the porch to examine the caller, a Colt hanging loosely in his hand. Quantro noticed the flicker of the man’s eyes to the empty saddle boot of his horse tied to the rail. He thought he detected a twinge of regret when Kilhern realized he had left his rifle on the table in the house.
“What do you want?” the straddle-legged man shouted.
“You Jack Kilhern?” As if he didn’t know.
“What do you want?”
“You.” Quantro’s voice was low and filled with purpose.
“Who’re you?”
“My name’s Quantro.” He said it slowly and quietly.
Kilhern’s face was blank for a few seconds, then memory dawned and the muscles in his jawbone tensed.
Quantro saw it.
“From Colorado?”
The swarthy man was already throwing himself sideways, bringing up the Colt to bear an the mounted man.
He was too late.
The Winchester came up smoothly and landed across the saddle horn. The only movement on Quantro’s face was a flicker of lightning in his ice-cold eyes. The rifle barked in unison with the handgun. Kilhern screamed. The Colt spun away across the boards of the porch and the swarthy man’s eyes followed it frantically as he gripped his shatter
ed shoulder with his left hand.
The sound of the Winchester’s lever was loud in the silence as the spent casing was ejected and a fresh bullet was pumped into the chamber.
“Get up, Kilhern.”
The voice was flat, devoid of emotion. Quantro merely sounded tired. When the stocky man reached his feet the Winchester barked again and his good arm was ripped open from wrist to elbow. He screamed again. With blood pumping from both his wounds he staggered back to lean on the log wall, arms useless.
Inside the house, Martha Anne Somers’ heart leapt when she heard the stranger’s rifle shots. She heard the clumsy rattling of boot heels on the porch outside, and when Quantro’s voice reached her, telling Kilhern to get up, she almost cried in joy. This was her chance.
But her smile faded when she remembered Kilhern’s son. He would hear the gunfire and come running. Although she had never ever handled a rifle before, she would now. She had to warn the stranger. Her eyes reached to the table where Kilhern had laid his Winchester when he came in.
Her mouth narrowed until her lips pressed together in a thin line. Yes, she would go out there and blow Kilhern’s head right off his damn shoulders. It would be small enough repayment for all the degradation and humiliation. She snatched up the rifle and opened the door.
The flicker in the doorway caught Quantro’s eye. He assured himself Kilhern had no chance of reaching his pistol, but he kept the barrel of the Winchester covering him as he spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
“Bring the rifle out here, woman, and throw it into the yard, or I’ll kill you too, when I’ve finished with him.”
The door opened wide and Martha Anne Somers stepped out cradling the Winchester. Seeing the stranger, his face grim, she became afraid again. Her voice suddenly dried up, and the warning died with it.
“Kill him. Kill him you bitch,” Kilhern whispered harshly, eyes frantic for an escape route.
Martha looked from the stranger to the swarthy man who had walked into her family’s house as if it was his own then murdered her parents without a second thought. And once those invisible barriers had been broken, he had handled her as though she was stock bought at the fair, and whenever the fancy took him he raised her skirts. No matter how hard she fought, biting and scratching, he always overpowered her and planted his seed cruelly into her body.
Now she looked back at the stranger on the huge stallion. She opened her mouth to speak and then changed her mind. The hardness of the stranger’s cold blue eyes declared the need within him to kill Jack Kilhern, and she knew instinctively that nothing she could say would make him deviate from the course he had set. She raised an eyebrow, then a moment later flung the rifle into the dust.
Kilhern grimaced and spat curses as she went back inside and closed the door. She retreated to her rocking chair and rocked back and forth, listening for the gunshot that would end it all.
“What it is to be loved,” Quantro said dryly as the wounded man cowered against the wall.
Kilhern’s mouth opened and closed as the ball of fear knotted inside his stomach. He looked like a fish out of water. His mouth opened again, just as the Winchester’s muzzle tilted a fraction. He did not hear the rifle’s report as the bullet passed clean through his stomach and lodged itself in his spinal column.
He was already dead.
Quantro remained motionless, the gunsmoke drifting from the Winchester’s barrel, as he took a long last look at the fourth pistolero. Two years and it was over. The buckskin shifted slightly beneath him, one hoof pawing gently at the ground as though the animal sensed the easing of tension in its rider.
Quantro smiled at the horse’s perception, then pulled back on the reins and wheeled, his spurs digging in to urge the best from his mount.
Inside the house, the rocking chair creaked back and forth in the ruts it had worn in the floor over many years. Martha Anne Somers’ arms were folded across her breasts, hugging her shoulders.
Her lips shared Quantro’s quiet smile.
PART TWO
THE MOTHER MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER 6
They were well into the high country now, and Pete was almost as familiar with the twisting trails there as his Apache friend. He’d done his own share of prospecting in the high Sierra before banditos robbed him of his few possessions and left him for dead with a mangled skull, unconscious in the faded grass that grew alongside the rushing waters of the Escondidos. He had been insensible during one of the most vicious rainstorms of that year to lash the ground around him, pounding it into clogging mud. Half out of his mind, lost and dying, he had slithered and crawled, working his way north to Ocho Rios, the eight rivers that only became actual rivers when it rained. The dry barrancas were transformed by the rain into raging torrents, the power of the current driving all before it.
Wild-Horse, caught in the storm as he returned from a hunting trip, had found him, face down, drowning in the sea of mud. He recognized the prospector who had traded with him on more than one occasion and took him to a hastily rigged shelter where he cared for him until the storm abated. When the rain ceased and the land was steaming, sucking the water into its dry heart, the Apache had carried him up to the settlement where he had regained his strength slowly. Pete realized that if not for Wild-Horse, then…
He rubbed a hand over his grizzled jaw and looked down at the wounded man in the blanket sling. Maybe the Indian’s kindness had affected him. At one time, if he’d found a good horse like the buckskin wandering free, he would not have thought twice about taking it for himself and to hell with the rider, dead or not. Maybe a man was never too old to learn something new.
Wild-Horse led the way up the sheer canyon wall. The trail was so narrow they’d stopped at the foot of the pass and propped Quantro in the buckskin’s saddle, roping his feet together beneath the horse’s belly so he wouldn’t fall off. If the horse slipped on this trail, then he would be dead for sure.
The pass had earned the name ‘Juh’s Pass’, for it was here Juh, one of the Apache chiefs, had slipped and fallen over the precipice down into the river below. He lived only long enough for one of his sons to reach him.
Pete held the lead-rein of the buckskin and Wild-Horse took charge of the mules. As they climbed, only the creaking of packsaddle leather and a click now and again as a hoof dislodged a loose stone could be heard on the breeze. Pete watched the stiff-legged mules pulling against their harness, shoulders bunched and heads tucked into chests, thrusting their spindly legs up the steep trail. Even as he watched, one mule began to slide, braying loudly, legs churning on the bare rock for lengthy seconds before it found a foothold. Wild-Horse kept them moving, prodding and urging his pony forward to pull against the lead rein. He had no intention of allowing the hard-pressed mules to figure out their perilous situation and become panicky. If only one missed its footing and plunged over the edge into the canyon far below, then the rope that tied each one to the animal behind would pluck them all off the ledge like knots in an anchor rope.
Pete followed a distance behind, his own pony and the strong buckskin making relatively easy work of the climb. He scanned the peaks on the far side of the barranca, searching for anything that might seem out of place, but he saw nothing. The hills were silent.
After a time the trail opened out again and they halted to return Quantro to the sling. The ride up the pass had done the wounded man no good at all. If possible, he seemed even weaker, and the infection in his shoulder had brought on a fever. His clothes were soaked with sweat and his face literally ran with moisture. Yet he shivered.
Pete eased some water into Quantro’s mouth and mopped the wet face with a damp bandana. If he could last this long, Pete thought with admiration, then he might even make it to the settlement.
They moved on, climbing throughout the afternoon until the Apache found what he was looking for. A narrow pass led off the rock ledge to open out into a sheltered hollow. A cool clear stream ran through the centre, and there was a ring of fire-b
lackened stones. A rough-hewn pole was hidden in the brush, cut long ago by an Apache for using as a bar to set across the entrance to prevent their animals from straying. Not that the mules would be interested in straying, for they were too exhausted, and their moans were replaced by the sound of strong teeth grinding as they contented themselves grazing on the rich grass.
They stretched Quantro out under the shelter of an overhang and gave him water. With the fever in him now he had begun to talk. Sometimes his voice was only a low mumble, but at other times he spoke clearly. Pete found himself answering the wounded cowboy’s plaintive voice before he realized it was only a one-way conversation. But he listened, and from the fevered ramblings he began to piece together some background, the first he knew of the man. Most of it was meaningless of course, but the odd sentence struck home.
Wild-Horse reminded Pete it was his turn to hunt, so the white man collected his rifle and left the camp. He ranged among the rock outcrops and circled until he found a ridge that would bring him out at the place where the stream disappeared into the ground above their sheltered hollow. He traced the watercourse up the mountain, inspecting the ground on either side until he found a place where game had been to drink that morning. He settled himself among a cluster of rocks downwind from the game trail and waited.
He did not have to wait long.
As the light began to fail, the animals came in to drink before moving up the mountainside to their night feeding grounds. He watched the procession of wildlife until a small group of deer emerged from the trees, frolicking playfully as they edged towards the water. Pete selected a young buck, smaller than the rest, but more than adequate for their needs. He rested the Winchester carefully in a notch in the rocks and sighted along the sleek gunmetal of the barrel.
The buck moved into his sights and he followed its progress as it crept to the stream, glancing about. When the sleek brown animal was convinced of its safety it stretched down its long delicate neck and began to drink. Pete eased the rifle barrel down and gently squeezed the trigger.
The Quantro Story Page 10
