by Tim Champlin
“How long do we wait?” Nellie asked. “What are they doing out there?”
“I wish I knew,” Thorne said. “But we can’t risk spying on them in daylight. Who owns the land beyond the morada?”
“Railroad property right of way.”
“Railroad?” Rasmussen was all ears.
“The Denver and Río Grande runs north to Alamosa from Santa Fé.”
“That explains how they got here so quickly with wagons and teams,” Thorne said.
“The quarry and Tres Lobos Cañon and all land west, including the mountain range, is under control of the territorial government,” Ortiz said.
“What quarry? I didn’t see a quarry.”
“It was dark. The abandoned quarry is a mile or more beyond their camp, inside the mouth of Tres Lobos. In Eighteen Forty, before I came, the stone to build our morada was cut there. Nobody has used the quarry for many years. The workers struck water and had to abandon it.” He smiled. “The children say it is bottomless. The rain and snow keep it filled with more than eighty feet of water. It’s dangerous. Every summer, one or two drown while swimming there. Usually they’re drunk.”
“Are there any caves in that area?” Thorne asked.
Ortiz looked thoughtful. “A few, but small ones only, in the rock walls of the cañon.”
“Nothing near ground level, big enough to hold a wagon?” Thorne persisted.
“No.”
“To hide a large treasure they’d need a large, wellhidden hole,” Rasmussen said. “And, I’m thinking, it would also have to be accessible to a man on horseback.”
“Which means it couldn’t be high up on some cliff wall.”
“Not likely.”
Rasmussen instinctively trusted Ortiz, or he would not have been openly discussing possible treasure locations. The fact is they needed his help and his knowledge.
The men were silent for a minute, then Rasmussen said: “I’m betting it won’t be longer than another day…two at the most…before Walter Clayton brings his men here. We need to make a move before they show up.” He paced to the front display window and looked out at the street.
“Can’t do a thing until they have that treasure in hand,” Thorne said.
Rasmussen nodded, his mind distracted with thoughts of forces that were about to collide in the mountains of northern New Mexico. He could sense it coming. There had to be some way to prevent an all-out battle. But how? He turned back to the others. “Look, those men out there think I’m dead. Nellie’s cousin, Darrel, has never seen me. Neither have Silas’s two sons, or the other Golden Circle knight. So Silas Newburn is the only one who knows what I look like. When that shepherd, Santiago, comes into the village today, I’m going back there with him, disguised as a sheepherder.” He looked at Ortiz. “Your cousin may be good and reliable, but we need a trained lawman to keep an eye on the Newburns. Besides, Santiago has a flock to tend. I don’t, but I could pretend to.”
“I have more practice at changing identities,” Thorne said. “I’ll go.”
“He’s right,” Ortiz put in. “You’re too big and too blond to pass for a Mexican shepherd.”
“Why do either of you have to go?” Nellie asked.
“Because they could snatch the treasure and slip away without us ever knowing in time. Remember how we thought we’d have no trouble picking up their trail at Santa Fé…but we couldn’t? We were just lucky to find them here.”
Rasmussen noticed Ortiz frowning at Nellie. Then he realized the Mexican wasn’t used to women in his culture voicing opinions when men were discussing business. Perhaps the wife railing at him the night before was an exception. Rasmussen had to turn away to keep his smile from showing.
Ortiz turned to Thorne. “If you must accompany Santiago, I can transform you into a Mexican shepherd. You have gray hair and a smaller body. It will take only a poncho and a staff and an old hat.”
“Good.”
“Señor Rasmussen, I have a bushel of walnuts in the back room. I can use the hulls to stain your face and hands dark enough to be one of our heritage, so you can pass for one of Los Hermanos. You and I can go to the morada and keep watch from there.”
Thorne raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t outsiders strictly forbidden to enter a morada?”
“Yes. But this is a special situation that involves the reputation of the brothers. I am respected and can get permission to take one man inside.”
“What about you?” Rasmussen asked Nellie.
With a glance at Ortiz, she said: “Everyone out there knows me. Besides, any woman would be conspicuous. I’ll stay at the hotel.”
“Then, let’s get to it,” Rasmussen said, anxious to be doing something. “Every hour they’re out of our sight, I’m afraid they’ll vanish and we’ll never find them again.”
“That treasure is somewhere close by. You can depend on it,” Thorne said. “If it’s as big as rumored, it’ll take a least a day for five men to load it, even if they’re sitting right on top of it.”
“Then what are they waiting for?” Nellie wondered aloud. “They’ve been out there a couple of days and nights already.”
No one ventured an answer to this.
“Santiago will report to me this afternoon,” Ortiz said. “Come to the store at four o’clock and I will disguise both of you. Those five hombres will not make a move that you do not know about.”
Chapter Eighteen
A pounding on his hotel room door nudged Rasmussen gradually awake. He sat up, groggy and sweating in the afternoon heat, and swung his legs over the edge of the sagging bed.
Thorne was quicker and more alert. “Who is it?” he snapped, gun in hand.
“Señor Thorne…Señor Rasmoosen,” came a childish voice. “Señor Ortiz wants you. Come quick!”
Thorne yanked open the door. It was the darkskinned boy with the big eyes from the store.
“What’s happened?” Rasmussen asked, grabbing his gun belt from the bedpost and buckling it on.
Thorne was pulling on his boots.
“Men come,” the boy said, not venturing to enter the room.
“The men we want?”
“No. Others.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
“Anglos?”
“Sí.”
“Are they at the store?”
“Sí. Señor Ortiz send me out the back way to find you.”
“What do they want?”
“They ask about the same men you came for.”
Thorne and Rasmussen exchanged quick glances. The Claytons.
“You stay here while we go see,” Thorne told the boy. He pointed at the adjacent room. “Knock and tell the señorita where we are.”
“We need to get a look at them before they see us,” Rasmussen said, following Thorne out the back door of the hotel. They skirted the rear of the buildings to approach the store.
The boy had left the door ajar and both men sidled up to it, hands on their holstered weapons. Rasmussen could hear movements inside, but no voices. They waited a long minute, but heard nothing further.
“Go around front and take a look. I’ll stay here.”
Rasmussen slid along the side of the building and put his eye to the corner of the front display window. Luis Ortiz was alone, in the act of lifting a metal washtub to the counter. Rasmussen stepped to the door and entered. Ortiz jumped and dropped the washtub with a clatter. He put a hand to his chest in relief.
“Ah, Señor Rasmussen!”
“Come on in, Alex!” Rasmussen called through the back room. “Where are they?” he asked Ortiz.
The storekeeper went to the window and pointed. “Down the street at the saloon. See? Their horses are at the hitching rail.”
“Describe these hombres,” Thorne said, moving up to the window.
“Six men. Riding new saddles on strong horses. They have fine guns and carry rifles in their scabbards.”
“Any old men among them?”
“One.
Fatter than me. Only a little white hair on his head.”
“Walter Clayton,” Thorne said.
“Did a small, dark, younger man have his right hand bandaged?”
“Bandaged? No. But such a one wore a large leather glove on one hand.”
“Johnny,” Rasmussen said. “I wouldn’t know any of the rest.”
“The other four are big men, hard-looking. The old man called one of them Rogers.”
“Black Rogers,” Rasmussen muttered, a chill running up his back at the thought of his would-be assassin only a half block away. He could still feel the back wound that had nearly cost him his life.
“They seek the same men you do,” Ortiz went on.
“What did you tell them?”
“For them, I was a dumb Mexican who spoke little English. When I pretended to understand, I told them I knew nothing of such men.”
“Did they believe you?”
“No. They threatened to kill me if I was lying. I did not have to pretend fear.” He wiped a trickle of perspiration from his brow, a pallor showing through the dark skin.
Rasmussen could feel his anger rising at the treatment of this inoffensive Mexican. He glanced out the window again. “Maybe they’re just having a few drinks before they move on,” he mused. “It’s too early in the day to make camp or get hotel rooms.”
“No.” Ortiz shook his head. “They spoke in front of me because they didn’t think I understood. They believe the men they seek are close by. They will threaten anyone at the saloon to get information.”
“And everyone in the village knows there are men camped at Tres Lobos Cañon,” Thorne finished.
“So we can assume they’ll head that way as quick as they find out,” Rasmussen said.
“And they’ll start shooting right off,” Nellie said, entering the room from the back storeroom, the Mexican boy trailing behind. “They didn’t come all this way just to negotiate. This has been building for a long time, and we’re about to see the showdown.” Her tone was firm and certain, as if she were relieved that all the uncertainty would finally be resolved. “The sniping is over,” she continued. “The big prize is at stake here. However it turns out, I’ll be glad to see the end of it…even if one side wipes out the other. At least it will be done.”
“Is there a telegraph in Río Colorado?” Thorne asked Ortiz.
“No, señor. The nearest is in Santa Fé.”
Thorne chewed on the corner of his mustache. “Give me a pad and pencil.”
The storekeeper obliged, and Thorne leaned over the countertop and wrote out a message. He folded and handed it to Ortiz. “Is there someone trustworthy who can ride a fast horse to Santa Fé and get this to the Western Union operator at the depot there?”
“Blanco can do it,” he said without hesitation.
“Blanco?”
Ortiz reached behind him and pulled the boy forward. “Blanco, saddle my best mare, and ride her slowly out of the village. Then ride like the wind to Santa Fé and take this paper to the telegraph man at the train depot.” Ortiz pressed the message into the boy’s hand. “You know where it is?”
The boy nodded, bright eyes even wider than before when Thorne added a small gold coin.
“Have the telegraph man send this. Wait for an answer. Then return here as quickly as you can, even if you have to trade my horse for another. Here, I’ll give you a note to say that you have this horse with my permission and can do whatever you please with her.”
The boy tucked both folded papers and the coin into a tight pocket of his jeans.
“Go now!”
Blanco vanished out the back door.
“Can the boy be trusted with such an important job?” Thorne asked.
“He is only twelve years old, but I would trust him over anyone else in the village,” Ortiz said. “The boy has learned to survive many hardships. Two years ago he strayed into my care like a homeless, hungry Mexican puppy, and I named him Blanco after the Sierra Blanca.”
“An odd name,” Nellie said.
“The Yaqui Indians captured him in Mexico, then traded him to the Sierra Blanca…the White Mountain Apaches in Arizona. The boy told me a missionary gave the tribe several horses to release him to an orphanage. Blanco hated the strict white Christians as bad as he hated the Indians, so he ran away and hopped a freight train to Santa Fé, where I found him. I have tried to raise him as the son I did not have.” He smiled. “He will do anything for me. He is a natural horseman, and weighs very little. The perfect one to take your message.”
“They’re coming out now,” Rasmussen said, still watching through the window.
The others crowded up to see the horsemen mounting up in front of the saloon.
“They haven’t been there long enough to get real drunk,” Rasmussen said.
“You can bet old man Clayton wouldn’t allow that. No more than two or three drinks to work up their courage.”
“Looks like they got the information they were after,” Thorne said as the six riders turned their mounts down between the buildings and headed west toward Tres Lobos.
“By the time we grab our horses and saddle up, they’ll have a good head start on us,” Rasmussen said, yanking open the front door.
A quarter hour later, Thorne, Rasmussen, and Nellie were ready to ride out after the six men. Ortiz put a Closed sign on his store, and, since Blanco had taken the only saddle horse, Ortiz slipped a hackamore on one of his two mules, threw a blanket on him, and vaulted aboard.
The four rode easily, not hurrying. The open country afforded a long view to the gap between the mountains that marked the mouth of Tres Lobos Cañon, several miles distant. Roiling dust showed the position of the Clayton party two miles ahead.
Fording the shallow Río Grande, the four continued westward at a leisurely walk. Eventually they lost sight of the rising dust ahead of them, and rode cautiously, keeping to the scant cover of the mesquite and desert scrub. Rasmussen strained to hear the sound of gunfire. Unless the Claytons had stopped, they should be at the Newburn camp by now.
The low, stone morada finally came into view, and the four rode to the side of it, keeping the building between them and whatever lay ahead. They dismounted.
“We can go inside the morada,” Ortiz said. “There is a window on the other side where we can watch.…”
A sudden volley of gunfire blasted the afternoon stillness. Rasmussen’s horse jumped, yanking the reins from his hand, and plunged away into the desert brush.
“Damn!”
The crashing fire died as suddenly as it’d begun. Thorne, Ortiz, and Nellie jerked their spooked animals to a hitching rail near the wall of the morada, tying them securely. The horses snorted, tossing their heads and walling their eyes.
“Follow me,” Ortiz said, taking a key from a cord around his neck and unlocking a padlock on the door at the end of the oblong building. As they crowded into the dim interior, Rasmussen glanced in the direction from which the firing had begun again. He saw nothing.
Inside, the closed stone building, with the packed earthen floor, retained the damp chill of a cave. The popping of nearby gunfire was strangely muted. Ortiz slid the bar from the single window in the west wall, and swung open the wooden shutters. They crowded to the low, wide window, but there was little to see, even though the battle raged less than a quarter mile away. Sporadic movements caught their eye as one or another of the combatants shifted position in the desert washes 100 yards distant. Smokeless powder gave no indication of the shooters’ positions, and the midafternoon sun allowed no muzzle flashes to be seen.
“Reckon they saw the attack coming?” Rasmussen muttered.
“Likely had a look-out posted,” Thorne said, “or they’d have been cut down in that first volley.”
The body of a dead horse lay in the open; the rider was nowhere to be seen. Everyone had gone to ground and the shooting settled into sporadic firing.
Rasmussen had a chance to get his first daylight look at the terrain; i
t was much different from the impression he’d gotten earlier.
In an open area, the hastily abandoned campfire still trailed a wisp of white smoke upward, then raveled away on a slight movement of air. The overturned black coffee pot lay on the ground; bedrolls were scattered nearby.
“Thought I saw a head over the edge of one of those freight wagons,” Thorne said.
“One or two more of the Newburns are on the other side of the railroad embankment,” Rasmussen added. “I saw the sun glint on a rifle barrel.” He glanced at the railroad. “How many trains along this spur line?” he asked Ortiz.
“One goes north and one goes south each day.”
“What time?”
Ortiz shrugged. “¿Quién sabe? They do not run on a schedule.”
A rifle cracked from the far side of the embankment. It was answered by three shots from the Claytons—to no ill effect.
Rasmussen saw movement beyond the freight wagons. The backs of several mules were visible, tethered well out of harm’s way.
“Beyond the tracks is Tres Lobos Cañon?” Rasmussen asked, pointing at the deep cleft between two brush-covered mountains.
“Sí.”
“What’s that white spot on the side of the hill?”
“White and gray rock. It is the quarry I told you about.”
Rasmussen was now oriented, and it appeared to his eye that neither of the warring parties had an advantage.
Twenty minutes dragged by with only an occasional shot being fired. Now and then a darting movement marked one of the Clayton party scurrying to a better vantage point. The six men and their mounts were scattered through arroyos carved in the desert floor after years of run-off from the nearby mountains.
“Hell, this could go on for a week,” Rasmussen said, stepping back from the window.
“Maybe until dark,” Thorne said. “Then the best guerilla fighters will win.”
“Or the Newburns could slip out under cover of night.”
“I doubt they’ll do that. They didn’t come all this way to run at the first attack,” Thorne said.
Nellie nodded her agreement. “They’d have to leave the wagons behind, too,” she added, then flinched from the window as a stray bullet struck close, spattering rock chips inside.
