The riders came to a milling halt at the head of the meadow. Mossgrove’s voice penetrated the dark in a smooth, soft flow of words: ‘Spread out in a ring. Keep hidden back in the trees. Don’t do anything when Six’s crew shows up—just get ready when you hear me sing out at them. If they run or shoot, let them have it. That’s all.’
‘On the run, now,’ McCracken drawled.
The crowd dispersed with efficient haste, men trotting away like the spokes of a wheel. McCracken saw the sheriff turning into the trees and he picked his own spot a hundred yards to the sheriff’s left, riding into the forest density between two massive pines and backing into shelter in a spot near enough to the rim of trees to afford him a good command of the entire meadow.
He sat back in the saddle, hooking a knee over the saddle horn and tilting his hat back, resting one straight arm against the horse’s back and wondering if it would be safe to light a cigarette. Deciding against it, he put his eyes on the notch a quarter-way around the circle where Six would most likely enter the meadow.
The moon, a crescent tipped up on its point, climbed laboriously above the treetops to the east, spreading a thin pebbled paleness across the gently waving grass of the breeze-swept meadow. There was a threatening loneliness about the land. Not a single sound broke the stillness. McCracken found it hard to keep his sleepy attention on the notch in the hills, and he had the feeling that something had broken—perhaps a mainspring in the master clock of time—so that the run of seconds and minutes had come to a halt. The moon hung suspended, motionless above the treetops. The wind had died and the grass was still. The grazing cattle on the surface of the meadow seemed painted shapes.
Up high to the right and over his shoulder were the dark ragged edges of the serrated mountains. A cloud drifted by, momentarily obscuring the moon and darkening the air, and went on. The shallow trickle of a nearby spring talked gently, bubbling. A cloudy mist of stars, like chipped whitewash, coated the dome of the sky.
Sheriff Mossgrove’s tone startled him: ‘Easy, Ben.’ And having announced himself, the sheriff drifted closer through the trees until he had ridden up beside McCracken. ‘Likely to be a long night,’ Mossgrove said. ‘He may wait and pick the morning hours.’ He reached into a vest pocket and took out a pair of spectacles, metal-framed with octagonal small lenses. These he set carefully on his nose; then he took out a chained watch, popped its lid open and raised it close to his face, squinting. ‘Light’s bad,’ he grunted, and handed the watch to McCracken. ‘You make out the time?’
‘Ten-thirty,’ McCracken said, and gave the timepiece back.
Mossgrove pocketed spectacles and watch and sat twirling his mustache-points. Presently he rolled his shoulders forward and braced himself that way, hands folded over the saddle horn and arms stiffened. His voice came soft and even: ‘It’s not my business, Ben, but was I you I wouldn’t let it sour me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s Stewart’s girl, isn’t it?’
‘You’ve got a good nose, Tom.’
‘Part of my trade,’ Mossgrove murmured.
McCracken observed himself growing tense and forced himself to relax his muscles. He looked up at Mossgrove. The sheriff had a long blade of a nose and a gravely wooden expression; he was a man to whom silence was important, and he evidently felt that he had said enough—that if McCracken wished to keep the subject open, he would do so himself.
Mossgrove drifted back to his own post after a while and the moon continued its slow ascent. Several times he put down the desire for a cigarette. Then he stirred and his head tipped up abruptly: he heard the sound of a horse galloping through the night at a dead run and coming straight toward the meadow. His hand closed over the gun butt.
Ten
Elena stood on the front porch with one booted, spurred foot cocked up on the rail and her back against a post. She was rolling a cigarette, and when she had it manufactured, she scratched a match alight against her boot sole and lit the smoke. San Saba came out of the cook shack wiping his hands on the front of his overalls. Seeing the glowing red button of her cigarette, he hobbled across the yard and stopped at the foot of the porch, lifting his petulant glance toward the sky. ‘A thin moon,’ he said. ‘That’s a bad sign.’
‘You’re always predicting doom, San Saba.’
‘Usually comes to pass, too,’ he said. His voice sounded rheumy. His face was lined like a terrain map, creased and ridged and underhung by flaps of loose, dry flesh. He said, ‘I mind one time in Kansas there was a moon like that—the night Bloody Bill Anderson raided our town. Burned it to the ground. I was on my way home from Saint Jo at the time and I could see the flames from thirty mile away.’
San Saba spat. ‘Sure was a hot night,’ he said; he squinted at the moon once more and shuffled off toward the bunkhouse.
A little distance down the porch, a stripe of yellow light marked the bottom of the front door. That door opened and her father came out onto the porch. The six-gun was still belted about his hips. Outlined in the lamplight that spilled out through the door, he was a smaller figure than she remembered; age, she observed, had shrunken him, drawn his cheeks in hollow, bent his shoulders. Poor old Felix, she thought sadly.
He saw her at the corner of the porch, and he turned that way, coming close and seating himself on the rail, letting one foot hang free. He said, ‘Tonight at last I had to think of myself as an old man. It is a hard thing.’ Soft liquid Spanish intonations colored his accents. Elena watched the tip of her cigarette turn to ash; she tapped it and drew in a lungful of smoke and saw the cigarette turn to an angry red. The wind played a quiet song through the rustling treetops and her father’s nostalgic voice reached her:
‘I was never able to think of myself as an old gray-beard sitting in a rocker, watching the days follow each other and waiting for God to pinch out my flame and take me to his country. But tonight I feel myself becoming that kind of man. Age is frightening, Elena. It is good you are still so young.’
‘Is it?’ she said and the bitterness that was in her must have reached out to touch him, for he came close enough to put a hand on her arm. ‘Youth is impatient. It sees something it desires and nothing will bring joy to it until the desire is fulfilled. But some desires were not meant to be fulfilled, my daughter.’
‘No?’
‘Some lines are not to be crossed,’ he said softly.
Her head jerked up; her eyes flashed. ‘What you mean is, I’m a Mexican. Is that it, Papa?’
‘Not entirely. Have patience.’
‘What for? What will patience get me?’
‘Perhaps the wisdom to find life better than you expect it now to be.’
‘Aah,’ she said. ‘You’re wrong, Papa. Mexican or Anglo, it doesn’t make any difference. That’s not it. He’s not that kind of a man.’
‘Then perhaps you know him better than I do. If it is not this then why has he waited so long in asking for your hand?’
Elena frowned. ‘Wait a minute. Who are we talking about?’
‘Why, Kramer, of course. He is the cause of your sadness, is he not?’
It made her laugh; she couldn’t help it. So close they were, she and her father, and yet he proved so blind. She tossed the cigarette over the rail. When it hit the ground, sparks flew in little arcs and slowly died. She brooded down at the dimming crimson.
Her father said, ‘What brings this laughter, Elena?’
‘I don’t care about Kramer,’ she said. ‘I never did. It’s all something he cooked up in his head. He thinks I’m in love with him—because it suits his pride to think so. He never bothered to ask me what I thought about it.’
Her father was frowning. ‘What is it, then, that makes you so silent these past weeks?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Nothing at all, Papa.’
‘I may be a foolish old man, but not so foolish that I cannot see when you are troubled.’
‘Never mind,’ she said softly, putting he
r foot down on the porch and turning toward the door. ‘It’s nothing, Papa.’ She went inside and, in her room, lay down on the bed without lighting her lamp. A hard object prodded her midriff and she reached down, and found it to be the belt gun she had discarded when McCracken had refused to allow her to ride with the men. She rolled over and picked up the gun. Her hands toyed with it while her blank gaze went out through the window and her eyes moistened; she clenched her fists and pounded the mattress and spoke a quiet oath.
She heard her father’s slow pacing back and forth along the porch. Out in the parlor a lamp flickered on low oil, growing more dim. She should fill it, she knew, but just now she didn’t care; she let it wink out. The house lay in still darkness, and then, faint with distance, she caught the sound of many hoofs pounding through the night.
Her father’s feet stopped—he, too, had heard that signal of advancing riders. Elena envisioned McCracken and the crew returning from Box B, but a number of things served to make her uncertain. For one thing, the volume of hoof beats seemed to indicate a larger body of men than McCracken had led from here. For another, it seemed too soon for them to be returning.
Apprehensive, she fingered the gun a moment and then, getting up with a firm pinch of her lips, she belted on the holster and went through the house to the front door, on the way taking down her father’s rifle. When she reached the porch, she found her father standing still, staring out into the night. The drum of running horses was louder, growing steadily closer. Her father took the rifle from her and laid it carefully across the crook of his elbow; and across the yard, in the shadow of the bunkhouse, old San Saba appeared silently with a shotgun in his hands.
Something prompted Elena to move down to the end of the porch and stand there, concealed by the deep shadows. There she waited, hand on gun, while horses rushed forward through the dark.
They thundered into the yard, wheeled and milled, calming their horses; and when they stopped, her father’s voice shot forward, demanding: ‘What’s the meaning of this?’
‘Just payin’ a call, old-timer,’ said a man who seemed to be the leader. Small, thin, with a gun across his pommel, he showed an evil smile that uncovered jagged teeth. Channing Pierce, Chet Six’s right-hand man. Elena did not see the mammoth Six himself anywhere in the party. There were perhaps a dozen mounted men. Three or four of them had swung their horses to face the bunkhouse, where San Saba stood steadfastly with his shotgun. The others breasted the porch, facing her father. She did not know whether any of them had seen her back in the corner’s shadows; a thick tree grew beside the end of the porch, adding its thickness to the other darknesses that hid her.
Channing Pierce said, ‘Where’s your crew, old-timer?’ After a moment he laughed. In a lower tone he said, ‘They wouldn’t just happen to be all the way over at Box B on a wild-goose chase, would they, now?’ He leaned back and his laughter rocked the night; other deep-throated voices joined his, and laughter spilled out upon the yard. Elena’s fist tightened on her gun butt.
‘What do you intend to do?’ her father said, his voice level and calm.
‘Why,’ Pierce said, ‘I intend to borrow a few beeves, old man. And I intend to give you all a lesson in how to keep your mouths shut.’ He turned his head over his shoulder. ‘Waco—Billy. Bring the old cook over here.’
Two men dismounted and Elena saw old San Saba’s arms rise, lifting the shotgun threateningly. One of the dismounted men said softly, ‘That wouldn’t be a smart thing to do, old fella,’ and walked slowly forward, hands empty. ‘You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, now, would you?’ The man walked right up to the muzzle of San Saba’s gun and pushed it away. San Saba glared balefully at him. The tough took the shotgun gently and put it aside, leaning it muzzle-up against the bunkhouse wall, and then turned, grasping the old man’s arm and talking soothingly: ‘Come on, old fella. Over this way, hey?’ And he thrust San Saba forward through the crowd to the foot of the porch steps.
Elena saw her father’s thumb slowly rise and cock the rifle’s hammer. Channing Pierce chuckled and said, ‘That won’t do, Ochoa. Not a bit of it. Toss the rifle down. I don’t want to have to shoot the old cook.’
Her father met Pierce’s eyes evenly. Beaten and recognizing his loss, her father slowly put the rifle down and stood straight-backed, facing the toughs.
Pierce said, ‘Where’s the girl?’
Her father’s face did not move. ‘Not here,’ he said.
‘Well, now, that’s too bad. I was lookin’ forward to a little chat with her.’ Pierce’s grin once again revealed his bad teeth. He made a gesture with his rifle. ‘Ochoa, I figure to give you a little lesson. You take a good look at what happens and whenever you get the itch to identify anybody that was here tonight, you start to think about what we’re fixing to do here. You talk to the sheriff or anybody else and the same thing will happen again—only worse. I wouldn’t want to bet much on your daughter’s chances for a long life. Understand me?’
Her father faced him levelly, saying nothing. Pierce’s head turned. ‘Calabasas.’
The man nearest to Elena jerked his head up, dismounted, and walked over to Pierce. He was a huge man, bull-throated, with arms that seemed longer than his bowed legs. His riderless horse turned and drifted slowly toward the corner of the porch. For a moment Elena watched the horse coming forward, gauging its distance, forming rash plans in the back of her mind.
Calabasas, the big brutish man, stood on the ground looking obediently up at Channing Pierce. ‘Show him, Calabasas,’ Pierce said, seeming to take a fierce delight in his orders. ‘Ochoa, you watch this, and remember it.’
Pierce backed his horse up a pace; the other riders followed suit. Calabasas turned toward the porch where San Saba stood in the dust. San Saba’s eyes narrowed knowingly and his old, brittle body dropped into a fighting crouch. Calabasas uttered a foolish laugh and moved ponderously forward.
San Saba, looking quickly around, picked up a fist-sized stone and balanced it in his knobby fist. ‘You come any closer, you big sidewinder, and I’ll bust your head open with this.’
Calabasas laughed again. It was the laugh of an idiot, the cavernous laugh of a sadistic fool. He lumbered ahead. San Saba’s fist lifted with the stone, and Calabasas whipped out one surprisingly swift paw, batting the stone out of the old man’s hand. San Saba back-pedaled until the steps tripped him up; he sat down hard, grunting.
Calabasas leaned forward and grabbed a fistful of the old man’s shirt, bunching it and hauling San Saba to his feet. San Saba brought his thin old arms up to guard himself, but it was patently no use. Calabasas delivered a vicious backhand slap that rocked the old man’s head sickeningly. Elena watched and knew with seething rage that there was not a thing she could do to stop it; shooting Calabasas would bring the wrath of the others on her and her father, and nothing would stop them then from killing all three.
San Saba stood rocking on his feet, dazed. Calabasas drew back his arm heavily and smashed it forward into the old man’s gut. San Saba lurched over with bulging eyes and tongue hanging out, clutching his belly. Calabasas slammed an uppercut into his face, driving his head back, and then stood with a terrifying grin pasted on his massive face, pummeling the old man until San Saba collapsed. The two dismounted men who had brought San Saba over came forward. They lifted San Saba to his feet and held him by the shoulders while Calabasas stood back, spit on his hands and rubbed them together, uttered an animal growl and plowed ahead.
That was when Elena caught motion in the corner of her vision and turned her head in time to see her father, his face purple with rage, reaching back for the rifle he had set down. Elena’s breath hung up in her throat. Someone shouted and one of the men supporting San Saba wheeled away from the old man, hand going to his holster. When his hand lifted there was a gun in it. Her father was raising the rifle and then the tough pulled trigger; flame spewed from the muzzle and the roar of the shot crashed against Elena’s ears. Frozen by horror, she saw her father
crumple silently to the porch. The rifle clattered from his grip.
Pierce was shouting, ‘Waco, you damned fool!’ The abrupt gunshot had startled some of the horses and there was a milling spray of riders and horses. Jostled out of her daze, enraged beyond sense or thought, Elena whipped the gun from her holster and trained it on the man who stood in the yard with his gun smoking in his fist; she pulled the trigger and knew her shot went wide by the way the man wheeled, bringing his gun up.
An uproar of shouting began. Men, startled by the gunshot from the shadows, ran in all directions and an impulse from nowhere sent Elena leaping out over the porch, firing savagely into that whirling mass of horses and men. Her hammer clicked on an empty chamber then, and with bullets beginning to whip the air around her, she snatched up the reins of Calabasas’ horse and vaulted into the saddle, lying low by instinct and sinking her heels into the horse’s flanks.
The horse almost unseated her, wheeling away, breaking from a standing start into an immediate gallop. She swept away from the yard, an empty gun clenched in her fist, and thundered down the road at a dead run. A single image loomed before her tear filled eyes: her father, sprawled across the porch. The horse leaped under her and the wind whipped her face, and she did not look back for sign of pursuit.
Eleven
The old man’s sprawled, unnatural position was enough to tell McCracken he was dead. Just the same, with Mossgrove at his shoulder, he leaned over Ochoa and felt for a pulse. There was none.
San Saba had been dragged by one of Bannerman’s men to a sitting position against the front of the porch. McCracken turned toward him, but old San Saba was unconscious and likely to remain that way for some time.
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