Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) (11 page)

Chapter 16

Colter kicked more dirt on the fire, covering all the logs and dousing the smoke. Holstering the Remy, he bolted on out of the cave and dashed up the arroyo, scrambling down the bank to where Northwest stood in the tawny, fetlock-high grass, switching his tail and staring up the canyon.

Colter couldn't see anything in that direction, but the horse must have smelled or heard something. The redhead quickly unhobbled the mount and led him up the bank and back to the cave and deep inside. The horse flicked its ears once more at the dead conquistador but otherwise paid the skeleton little heed.

Northwest had grown as accustomed to their dead companion as Colter had.

Colter forced the horse to lie down—not a difficult maneuver since it was one that Colter had trained the horse on, and one they practiced frequently. It was all part and parcel of trying to stay ahead of the bounty hunters.

When he had the horse lying flat on his left side, Colter grabbed his Henry from the cave wall and crabbed up toward the front, stopping about six feet from the mouth. He lifted his head just high enough that he could see the wet arroyo and its following of willows and dun-brown brush and rocks that stretched toward a bench at the base of the opposite ridge.

Staying low, he caressed the Henry's hammer with his thumb and watched and waited. After a few minutes, he heard the slow clomps of shod horses moving toward him. Voices rose, then, too—men conversing in Spanish, the voices growing louder, as did the thuds of the hooves. Colter kept his head lifted just far enough above the cave floor to see the arroyo.

A horse appeared—a rangy steeldust—on his left, following the trail that wound along the arroyo bottom. Two more horses followed, and then two more, with two more appearing several seconds later—all bearing Mexicans clad in dove-gray uniforms and shabby straw sombreros with what appeared eagle insignias stitched into the brims. The men were either mustached or bearded; they were all well armed with pistols and Springfield carbines. The lead rider—a tall man with a gray mustache and goatee setting off the copper red of his angular face—wore brass captain's bars on the shoulders of his gray jacket.

Colter felt his jaws ache from tension. These men were members of the Mexican Rural Police Force. He'd never seen them but he'd heard of them from the men back at Camp Grant. They always had to deal with the
rurales
whenever American soldiers rode into Mexico on the trail of Apaches or cattle rustlers, and from what Colter had heard, they were a surly lot—at least when dealing with gringos. Many were also no more law-abiding than the outlaws they hunted on their own side of the border.

Colter kept his body pressed flat against the ground, his chin raised about eight inches. The gray-mustached captain rode on past the cave, looking around at both canyon walls. The others followed, talking conversationally amongst themselves. An eighth rider came into view, riding alone. He had an arm thrown back behind him, and as he continued riding toward the cave, Colter saw that he was holding a lead line. The other end of the line rope was connected to the bridle of a brown-and-white pinto on which a young girl rode. A young blond in a dark gray dress and shabby wool coat, with a bullet-crowned hat pulled low on her freckled forehead.

Colter stared, the corners of his eyes creasing with interest, his thumb no longer caressing the Henry's hammer.

He slowly turned his head from left to right, his eyes on the girl astride the slow-moving pinto. He knew right away he was looking at the strange blonde he'd seen before, in the company of Wade and Harlan, because, especially in Mexico, she was a distinctive-looking little gal. Her expression beneath the narrow brim of her hat was grave, glum. And she had every right to be, as her hands were cuffed before her and tied to her saddle horn. Colter also saw that her right ankle was tied to its stirrup.

The blond was a prisoner of the
rurales
.

Colter thought that maybe Wade and Harlan would also ride into view, but so far he saw no sign of the two men. Riding at the head of the pack, the captain stopped his steeldust gelding about forty yards up the canyon, to Colter's right. The tall man hipped around in his saddle, tossing his head around and speaking loudly as he surveyed the ancient Indian ruins closing around him.

The others slowed their own mounts and looked around nervously, as well. Colter thought that someone had smelled his fire smoke, but then the
rurale
captain rammed the spurs strapped to his high-topped, mule-eared boots against his steeldust's flanks, and the horse lurched ahead as though shot out of a cannon. The others followed suit, the last man pulling the blonde's pinto along behind, the blonde's head jerking back as the horse broke into a gallop.

Colter lifted his head farther above the cave floor, following the
rurales
with his eyes, his brows ridged in befuddlement. When they were almost out of sight, the blond girl bringing up the rear, he climbed to his feet and pressed his shoulder against the right cave wall at the opening, edging his gaze around to follow the group as they galloped on out of sight down-canyon.

A trap? Had they known he was here—maybe smelled the smoke or seen his and Northwest's tracks that were plainly etched at the arroyo's bottom and all over this side of the canyon? Maybe they'd only slipped away, fearful of a bushwhack, to swing back later and take him by surprise.

He waited. The breeze ruffled the grass along the arroyo, and shadows slid around rocks and shrubs.

Finally, he had a feeling the
rurales
had left for good. Being that they were a superstitious lot, maybe the ruins had spooked them. Concern for his own welfare edged toward the strange blond girl. He'd heard the
rurales
often imprisoned
norteamericanos
on some trumped-up charge, and the taken gringos were never heard from again. Rumor had it that the
rurales
took part in cross-border slave trading, a booming business in southern Sonora and Chihuahua, with all the silver and gold mines studding the mountains.

Colter doubted the little blonde would make a good rock breaker. And he also doubted she was so hardened a criminal that she deserved incarceration in Mexico. Abruptly, he dropped a brake on such concerns. She was none of his business. He was having enough trouble keeping his own ass out of jail. . . .

Quickly, knowing he couldn't comfortably spend another night here in the canyon, he gathered his gear and the
javelina
meat and saddled Northwest. He slid his rifle into the saddle boot, then led the horse out of the cave and mounted up. He had no idea where he was. All he knew was that banditos had occupied a canyon to the northeast, somewhere back the way he'd come before the flood had swept him away, and that the
rurales
had drifted southwest.

After a quick pondering of the situation, he decided he'd follow the
rurales
' tracks for a time, then swing off their trail and head wherever the four winds blew him. Doubtless, he'd never find his way to Dominguez's brother's silver mine now, even if he got his bearings back.

He nudged Northwest ahead, following the edge of the arroyo for a hundred yards before dropping into the wash via a game path, and then followed the
rurales
' tracks for one slow, guarded mile. Checking Northwest down, he stared off in the direction the gang had drifted, and, relatively certain they were gone, with no intention of circling back, he reined Northwest sharply south, through a break in the canyon wall, and heeled the horse into a spanking trot. As he rode, and though he tried hard to close it out of his mind, the remembered image of the blond girl's depressed, fearful face hovered behind his retinas.

He knew it wasn't like her to look so glum. He'd seen her taking the proverbial stick to her two male companions. For her to look so beaten down and fearful now meant she was up to her freckles in Mexican muck.

And likely a long ways from home.

Goddamn it, Colter, get your mind off the girl's problems. You're swimming in a whole barnyard of horse shit yourself!

He continued riding, eyes aimed straight out over Northwest's head, but a half hour later, he was swinging back out of the break between canyons and booting Northwest back onto the
rurales
' trail, cursing all the while.

Five hours later, hot and tired and his ribs squealing under his shirt, he put Northwest up to a towering ponderosa pine and heaved himself, groaning like an old man, out of the saddle. He stood with his back against his saddle fender, drawing deep breaths to ease the fatigue as well as all the aches and pains in his body. A cool breeze smelling of pine resin slid against him, drying the front of his sweaty wool shirt. It lifted an end of his red neckerchief, tickling his ear and making him remember that blessed night he'd spent with Alegria, which seemed a hundred years ago now.

Ah, but the cool air felt good after chasing the
rurales
and the strange blond girl across a hot, dry, rocky waste, then up into the low reaches of a high mountain range that had stood like a giant anvil against the southeastern horizon. As he'd climbed, remaining about a quarter mile behind the men he was shadowing, in case the captain had sent an outrider to check their back trail, he was glad to see shimmering streams and pines and fir forests, and slopes stippled with mule deer.

All his troubles had seemed to come on the hot desert. Maybe up here in the cool, fragrant air, his luck would change and he'd be able to rescue the blonde from her captors without getting both himself and the girl killed.

Now he tied Northwest's reins to a branch of the pine tree and slid his Henry from the saddle boot. Slowly, quietly, he levered a fresh cartridge into the chamber and started up the steep slope to his right, his boots slipping in the slide rock and gravel. He gained the dome of cracked granite that crested the slope, then crawled the last few feet to the top. He crawled between two ancient stone bubbles, one with a spindly cedar twisting up from a crack, and peered into the canyon on the other side.

The sun had gone down several minutes ago, so the opposite, pine-clad slope was cloaked in gray-purple shadows. He could still make out the dove-gray uniforms of the
rurales
milling about in the trees near the base of the slope, where two men were securing horses to a long picket rope strung between several trees. Through the pines, Colter could see a broad dome of rock much like the one he was hunkered on, capping the opposite slope. At the base of the dome, there appeared several narrow caves, and around these caves, the orange flames of a fire danced.

Occasionally, the silhouette of a
rurale
passed before the fire. He could glimpse other shadows arranging gear around the flames, likely breaking out coffeepots and other cooking utensils and grub. As Colter remained low, studying the
rurales
' camp and pondering how he was going to get the girl out of there, he saw her moving down the slope amongst the columnar pines, stooping to gather fallen branches. It wasn't an easy maneuver for the girl, as the
rurales
had looped a rope around her neck. The opposite end of the rope was tied around a large pine knot with several short branches jutting off it.

Obviously, the stump was their backwoods version of a ball and chain. He could hear a few of them chuckling from up around the fire, while the two men picketing the horses were calling to the others from the base of the slope, laughing, enjoying themselves.

The girl did not react to the jeers of her abusers. She merely continued to scour the slope for firewood, crouching, building up the load in her arms. When she had several good-sized logs and a few smaller ones tucked under her chin, she turned and began walking toward the fire, slouching beneath the weight of her load and having to stop and jerk the stump free when it got caught up behind another log or a tree.

She made it back to the fire and dropped the wood beside the dancing flames. The captain was sitting by the fire, his knees drawn up. It was hard for Colter to tell from this distance and in the dimming light, but the man appeared to be washing from a bowl in his lap, a towel draped over his shoulder. The air was still enough that Colter could hear the girl speaking as she faced the captain. She jerked around quickly, angrily, and then she fell hard with a little shriek and rolled a few feet down the slope.

At first, Colter couldn't make out what had happened. But then he saw that the captain had extended his left leg to trip the girl. Now he raised his knee again and, laughing loudly, continued to splash water on his face. The girl lay on the slope for a time, shoulders slumped in defeat. Finally, she got up and, pulling the stump along behind her, headed back down the slope in her search of more firewood.

Despite his having tracked her with her
rurale
captors, Colter had reserved the right to turn away if he saw that rescuing her would be too risky. There was no point in getting himself killed for a strange little girl he didn't even know. Now, however, he pursed his lips and nodded as he stared across the narrow canyon at the captain.

“All right, little miss,” he said. “All right.”

He glanced at the sky, judging there was about forty-five minutes of daylight left. Then he crawled back down the slope to wait for good dark. And for hell to pop.

Chapter 17

Colter fed and watered Northwest, hobbling him near the pine tree so the horse could freely graze. He removed his spurs from his boots and draped them over his saddle horn. Making sure that both his Remington and Henry were loaded, drawing the loading tube out from under the rifle's barrel, then shoving it back in and locking it, the redhead gave the coyote dun a parting pat on the neck and stole off down the canyon, making his way through the darkness relieved only by starlight.

He wished he could have made a more thorough reconnaissance of the
rurales
' camp before dark. As it was, he pretty much had to hope that the luck of the Mexican gods was with him, and that he could make his way around behind the
rurale
camp without being shot by a picket. And that there was a way up and over that caprock from the backside. His intension was to sneak up on the camp from that direction, find out where the girl was, and free her in whatever way he could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Dangerous. But he'd been in dangerous places before. Danger had become such a way of life, he wondered if he'd ever be able to enjoy a settled life if he found one.

The farther he tramped away from his horse, the quieter and more slowly he walked. He followed the canyon around to what he figured was the backside of the one the
rurales
were camped on, and started to climb. Here, he moved even more carefully, more slowly, setting his boots down softly. The crunch of gravel might give him away to any pickets about, and surely the
rurale
captain had posted a guard or two.

Keeping his eyes and ears skinned, Colter continued to climb the steep ridge, hunkered low, holding his rifle in his right hand, using his left to push off rock and boulders, and for balance. He knew now why the old deputy U.S. marshal he'd gotten to know in Wyoming—Spurr Morgan—had preferred moccasins over cowhide boots. They were a hell of a lot quieter. Try as Colter might, he could not keep his boots from grinding gravel ever so faintly.

It was the boot-grind of another, though, that stopped him in his tracks.

The sound had come from above a rock ledge on his right. He dropped instantly to a knee. A stone rolled off the ledge and onto the ground about six feet in front of Colter. The starlight shone on it faintly. Colter pricked his ears, squeezing the rifle in his hands.

He did not hear another footfall. But as he knelt there, as patient as an Apache, he caught a whiff of tobacco smoke. He lifted his chin, sniffing the still air. The smoke was drifting down from nearly straight above him and, judging by how the smoke peppered his nostrils, not more than a few yards away.

Colter crept slowly forward, crouched beneath the ledge. He leaned his hatless head out away from the ledge and peered up over the mantel-like slab of rounded rock. A man's silhouette stood above him, tall against the starlit sky. The man, his back facing Colter and dressed in a dove gray uniform, held a carbine with a lanyard in his left hand. His right arm was bent forward, and a gauzy stream of smoke slithered into the air around his head.

Colter caught another whiff of the eye-stinging tobacco smoke.

Colter leaned his rifle against a boulder, lifted his denim pant leg above his right boot, and slipped his wooden-handled skinning knife out of the sheath he'd sewn into the well. He'd just drawn his pant leg down over his boot and tightened his hand around the knife when he heard a boot crunch gravel behind him.

A warning bell tolled loudly in his ears.

He started to swing his head around but stopped when he heard the gut-wrenching click of a gun hammer, felt something cold, hard, and round pressed against the back of his neck. He suppressed a shudder.

A soft, deep Spanish voice said something behind him. The Mexicans down here spoke much faster than Cimarron and his Hunkpapa daughter, Rose, had spoken Spanish to him up in Wyoming, and all he could only make out were the words “move” and “little bastard.”

Colter's mouth went dry. His heart fluttered. He gripped the knife in his right hand, mind racing, knowing he had to make a fast move or he'd die. Just then the man behind him spoke more loudly, directing his harsh words upslope.

Ah, shit
, Colter thought. Too late. He heard the man who'd been smoking above the ledge walk toward him, and in the corner of his right eye, he saw the man's gray silhouette on the ledge above him, staring down at him, holding his rifle across his chest, the cigarette smoldering between his lips. The two
rurales
spoke for a time, arguing, the one with his pistol pressed to the back of Colter's neck berating the other one for letting a “muchacho” sneak up on him.

Then the one behind Colter jerked the Remy from Colter's holster and spoke loudly in Colter's ear, “Drop that knife, or I carve you up with it!” Or something close.

Colter opened his hand. The knife clattered to the gravel at his boots—a grating, sickening sound that filled the redhead's gut with sour bile. He was totally unarmed. A boot hammered into his back, and he fell belly-down. The
rurale
held him down with his boot while he leaned down and, pressing the gun against the back of Colter's neck with one hand, patted him down with the other. Finding no other weapons, the
rurale
grabbed his rifle and told him to get up.

Colter climbed to his feet. The
rurale
asked him what he was doing here. Colter started to answer in English that he'd gotten lost in the dark—it was all he could come with on short notice—but the man gave an impatient grunt, cutting him off. Apparently, he didn't understand English. He told the other man to stay where he was, then shoved Colter forward with his own rifle. “
Vamos!
”

Colter started forward.

“
Parada!
”

Colter stopped. The man grabbed his shoulder and swung him around to half face him. The
rurale
was about Colter's height, but broad, with shaggy muttonchops framing his pockmarked face. He stared at the brand on Colter's cheek, then grinned and prodded him again with the Henry.

“
Adelante!
”

Colter walked forward, sweat dribbling down his back. What a fool he was! All he'd gotten for his trouble was most likely a bullet. If he was lucky. If he wasn't so lucky, he'd soon likely be breaking rocks somewhere in southern Sonora and start dying slowly from exhaustion or consumption.

The
rurale
prodded him over the breast of the mountain and then down the other side, a game path twisting amongst the rocks vaguely limned by starlight. Colter glanced behind him. He needed to make a play for the Henry, but the
rurale
was staying too far back. By the time Colter could swing around, the man would punch a .44 slug through his heart with his own rifle.

Defeat and shame burned in Colter's ears. He'd let the son of a bitch walk right up behind him. . . .

He gave up on trying for the rifle when firelight appeared on his right, the throbbing glow silhouetting the still, columnar pines. The small group of
rurales
was lounging around the flames, some leaning back against saddles or sitting on rocks. They were smoking and sipping from tin cups, talking, two playing cards spread out on the ground between them. The captain was facing the fire, his back to Colter, the firelight glistening on the two gold bars on his tunic shoulders.

The blond girl sat a ways from the fire, back to a tree, hands behind her back. She was dirty and sunburned, and her hair was badly mussed, like a tumbleweed around her head. One eye was swollen, and the right corner of her mouth was split. She blinked at Colter, her eyes dull. If she recognized him, her eyes didn't betray it.

The stocky man behind Colter called to the fire. The tall captain turned around, his gray mustache and goatee looking pale against his dark, angular face. A short cigarette jutted from one corner of his mouth. In his left hand he held a steaming tin cup. His other hand dropped automatically to the pistol thonged on his right thigh.

Colter stopped, as did the man behind him, telling the captain about the gringo he'd found sneaking around atop the mountain.

The captain canted his head to one side, squinting, as he strode out away from the fire and stopped in front of Colter. “
Habla español?
”

Colter shook his head.

“What are you doing out here?” the captain asked.

The other men were watching Colter expectantly, some nervously. One sergeant had grabbed his rifle and stood, jerking his head around as though looking for others stalking their camp from the darkness beyond the fire.

Colter had formulated a story—the only one that made any sense at all. “I prospect out here with my pa. I got caught out in the darkness. My horse fell, broke his leg. Had to put him down.”

“What were you doing, lurking around on the back of this mountain?”

“I saw the firelight from the other side, was makin' my way to your camp here.” Colter gave a halfhearted grin as he regarded the big black coffeepot steaming to one side of the fire. “Sure could go for a cup o' that mud.” He wasn't bullshitting about that.

“Or perhaps you intended to steal one of our horses.”

Inwardly, Colter cursed. He hadn't thought of that possible interpretation of his story.

He shook his head and started to speak, but the captain turned to one of the other men around the fire and barked an order in Spanish. When one of the men jumped to his feet, his teeth showing white as he grinned, the captain turned back to Colter and translated: “Take this thief down the mountain a ways, where his screams won't disturb me, and beat him to death.”

“Hold on, now!” Colter said, lurching forward. “I told ya, I was just . . .”

He let his voice trail off. The captain had swung around, giving Colter his broad back, and was casually kneeling for the coffeepot. A brusque hand grabbed Colter's shirt collar from behind, and he was jerked around so suddenly that his boots got tangled, and he rolled several yards down the slope, his battered ribs coming alive again, as did the aches in both tormented shoulders. He rolled off his right shoulder and looked up.

The stocky man who had his Henry was striding toward him, while the
rurale
whom the captain had summoned from the fire was walking toward Colter, as well, looping his suspenders up over his shoulders. Colter noticed the man wasn't wearing a gun. He was hatless. Long hair fell from a nearly bald pate, and he had a small cross tattooed into his chin.

The stocky man, compressing his lips and narrowing his eyes, brought a boot back and was about to swing it forward when Colter scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the wailing of his ribs, and backed away crouching, trying to avoid the kick. The tattooed man chuckled. The stocky man wagged the Henry's barrel at Colter. The redhead turned away and started walking down the slope through the pines, the firelight's reflection dwindling as he moved down the hill.

His blood jetted hot through his veins, and thoughts hammered through his skull. His eyes darted around, looking for an escape route. If he broke into a run, were these men good enough shots to bring him down before he could disappear into the darkness?

“That's far enough,” said the tattooed man in broken English, when Colter gained the bottom of the slope. The horses picketed to his right nickered and thumped the ground softly with their hooves.

The tattooed gent snapped his suspenders with his thumbs and strolled casually toward Colter, a grim smile etched on his broad face shadowed with beard stubble. The other man turned to lean Colter's rifle against a broad fir tree. Colter knew he couldn't run and get away. Neither could he fight these two with any hope of winning.

Power born of raw terror throbbed in him. He looked around, scuttled to one side, and grabbed a brick-sized rock. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was bolting forward, swinging the hand holding the rock back behind his right shoulder. The tattooed man's eyes snapped wide in surprise, and he'd just opened his mouth to yell when Colter hammered the rock soundly across the man's left temple.

The tattooed man twisted around and back and hit the ground hard and lay there, unmoving. Blood dribbled from the gash in his crushed temple.

Colter looked at the other man, who'd just leaned the Henry against the fir and had started toward Colter. Now he stopped and regarded the tattooed gent's still form incredulously. Colter bolted off his heels, intending to catch the stocky man off guard, as well, but then the man swung his head toward him. The man's eyes were bright with anger, and his mustached lips curled in a sneer.

Colter stood a few yards away from him, facing him, crouching, balled fists raised chest-high, hoping against hope that the stocky gent would not call out for the others. So far, so good. He just stood glaring at Colter, incredulous and embarrassed, too proud to ask for help.

Good. Colter probably couldn't take him, as the man outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, but he'd upped his chances considerably. As with the other gent, who looked dead, he'd have to use his lightness and quickness to best advantage.

The man walked casually toward him, lips pursed, chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed through his nose. Colter raised his fists and sidestepped, crouching, weaving—wasn't that what the bare-knuckle fighters did to help avoid blows? He didn't avoid the stocky gent's first punch, however. The next came just as fast, catching Colter off guard, hooking the nub of his scarred cheek.

The pounding impact threw him straight back to land on his butt with a grunt, dust and pine needles blowing up around him. He felt blood trickle down his cheek as he watched the stocky man, who was smiling now, close on him. When the man was four feet away, Colter threw his shoulders back and kicked up with his right boot, driving the pointed toe squarely into the stocky gent's crotch.

The man's face swelled and he growled like an enraged grizzly as he crouched forward and clamped one hand over his burning balls. Colter shook the cobwebs from behind his eyes and heaved himself to his feet. But the man was on him almost instantly, bulling Colter onto his back so hard that he heard his teeth clatter.