Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) (17 page)

“Go easy on that stuff,” Bethel warned. “That one sip's got you grinnin' like a schoolboy after his first poke.”

“Dang.” Colter stared into his glass. “I didn't even realize I was grinnin'.”

The woman hauled several sizzling plates over to the bone-throwing banditos. A few minutes later, she carried half a dozen sizzling, steaming plates and bowls over to Colter and Bethel's table and plopped them all down in the middle. The one-eyed man outfitted them with plates, crude wooden forks, and a bowl of corn tortillas.

Colter and Bethel stared down at the food.

The man started to turn away and follow the woman back behind the bar, but he stopped and regarded the two
norteamericanos
skeptically. “
Como esto
,” he said, and ripped one of the steaming tortillas in half.

He took a spoon and smeared some goopy green sauce onto the tortilla, following it up with a plop of peppers, onions, and tomatoes from another bowl. To that he added what smelled and appeared like small chunks of goat meat. Onto the goat meat he smeared a goodly portion of what could only have been—try as Colter might to convince himself otherwise—fried insects.

Beetles, to be more precise.

Fried in bits of green leaves and red chili peppers.

The man dropped the pie-shaped tortilla onto Bethel's plate. “
Entienda?
” he said, slapping his hands to his thighs, then turning and walking away.

Bethel stared down at her plate for a long time, then glanced up at Colter, showing her little white teeth through a grimace. “Them what I think they are?”

“I can make out their little heads and their little feet, so I reckon they are. Nothin' goes to waste in Mexico. Go ahead and give 'em a try. I'll wait a couple minutes, and if you don't start floppin' around on the floor, I'll throw in, too.”

“Very funny.” She glanced over at the one-eyed man and then at the woman, both of whom had retaken their respective positions, the man watching her and Colter expectantly. Not wanting to offend the man, she reluctantly picked up the tortilla with both her hands and held it in front of her mouth, eyeing it distastefully. “That rattlesnake's beginning to look a whole lot more appetizing 'bout now. Well, here goes.”

She bit into the tortilla and chewed, her eyes gradually brightening. She swallowed the morsel, hiked a shoulder, and shoved the rest into her mouth. “It ain't a bloody T-bone, but I reckon it'll do.”

Colter ripped a tortilla apart and fixed his the way the one-eyed man had shown him and, seeing that Bethel appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her own meal now, quickly bit into it. He'd expected the fried beetles to crunch more than they did. They did not taste bad at all—in fact, they tasted spicy-hot and salty and they went well with the goat meat and the green goop. Colter ate his first bit quickly and then made another, larger burrito, washing every other spicy bite down with the soothing pulque.

As hungry as they were, it still took Colter and Bethel nearly twenty minutes to finish the hearty meal and to swab out the remains at the bottom of the empty bowls with the last bits of tortilla. Colter swallowed the last bite and sank back in his chair, stuffed, his head light from the drink.

He looked across the table at Bethel. He didn't like the look on her face as she stared beyond him, toward where the four cutthroats had been eating loudly and hungrily but from where now only silence issued.

Silence except for the creak of leather and the squawk of a chair as though a man were rising from it. Colter saw something arc toward him from his left, and he gave an instinctive start, reaching for his Remington, as a rawhide pouch landed on his empty plate with a jingling thud. He kept the pistol in its holster, squeezing the worn walnut handle, as he stared down at the lumpy pouch on his plate.

Bethel frowned down at the pouch, then slid her cautious gaze to the men to Colter's left. Colter looked that way, too.

One of the men grunted, sated by food, and a spur
chinged
as he moved away from his chair and ambled leisurely toward Colter and Bethel's table, the flared bottoms of his scratched leather charro slacks buffeting around his high-heeled, black boots.

The cutthroat stopped across from Colter. A very tall man, only about a head shorter than Santiago Machado had been, he had broad jaws covered in a two-day growth of spiked black stubble, and two chins though he was not otherwise fat. His mustaches were long and silky. His dark eyes were dull beneath the brim of his gray sombrero, red-stitched with the outlines of naked senoritas.

Colter lowered his eyes and squeezed his hand harder around his pistol's grips as he saw two pistols—an impressive Colt Peacemaker and an older-model Schofield—wedged behind the man's wide brown belt, and the bowielike knife with a wooden handle curved in the shape of a curvaceous naked woman sheathed under his left arm. He kept the gun where it was, as the big cutthroat didn't seem to be in a hurry to go for his own.

He jerked his chin toward the hide sack he'd tossed onto Colter's plate. “For the girl. Mexican gold. A hundred of your American dollars' worth.”

He slid his dark eyes toward Bethel, who looked as though she'd swallowed an entire lemon and shrank back in her chair.

Chapter 23

Colter kept his hand on his Remington but tried to smile, trying to pass off the offer as a joke, as he said, “Oh, the girl ain't for sale. Wouldn't be worth that much even if she was.”

He chuckled.

Bethel hardened her jaws at him.

The big man stared mutely down at Colter and the girl. An eerie silence had fallen over the place. Colter could hear the big man breathing raspily through his nose, his broad shoulders rising and falling behind his red-and-black calico shirt and leather jacket adorned with tooled silver ornaments.

Colter stared up at him, feeling an ache growing in the back of his neck. Bethel stared fearfully up at the cutthroat, as well. Finally, the man's face broke into a broad smile, and he showed nearly an entire set of crooked, broken teeth as he laughed, jerking his shoulders. He slid his gaze toward his friends, who also broke into laughter.

They all laughed hard, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Tears dribbled down the big cutthroat's cheek, and he placed his big hands on the edge of the table, leaning forward and shaking his head as he laughed.

Colter laughed, then, too, hoping that he and Bethel were only being the target of some odd Mexican joke, and that the big man wasn't really trying to buy her for a hundred dollars in Mexican gold.

“Amigo,” he said finally, still laughing, tears dampening his beard stubble, “we offer you a hundred dollars.” He flung a hand toward Bethel. “That is better than one dollar a pound!”

He and the others laughed even harder.

“You can forget it, amigo,” Bethel snapped at him loudly, her face reddening with rage. “I ain't Colter's to sell, and even if I was . . .” Bethel let her voice trail off as her gaze dropped to the big cutthroat's belt and the two bristling pistols. She frowned. “Hey, where'd you get that hog leg?”

For an instant, he appeared befuddled. Then he followed her gaze down to the Peacemaker wedged behind his belt. “Huh? This?”

Bethel said louder, “Where'd you get it?”

He slipped the gun from behind his belt, twirled the fancy, silver-chased, factory-scrolled, pearl-handled piece on his finger, grinning.

Bethel slid her chair back and stood tensely, her wide eyes riveted on the pistol in the bandito's hand. Her face had paled, and now she swallowed, lips trembling. “That's my father's gun, you son of a bitch!”

“
Que?
” the cutthroat said, still twirling the gun, showing off.

Bethel grabbed her own Colt Army from behind the cartridge belt encircling her slender waist and extended it in both hands toward the cutthroat's belly.

“Bethel,” Colter said, sliding his own chair back from the table and slipping his Remy from its holster, shuttling his frantic gaze between the big cutthroat before him and the three others, who'd just now started reaching for their own weapons. They froze, one half out of his chair, as Colter aimed the Remy at them, loudly clicking the hammer back.

The big cutthroat did not look worried. He stopped twirling the impressive Peacemaker, but he grinned jeeringly at Bethel, who was aiming her Colt at him, her hands shaking visibly.

“That's my father's gun!” she fairly screamed, narrowing her eyes. “What'd you do to my father, you big bastard?”

The cutthroat held the Colt against his chest. He leaned mockingly, defiantly toward Bethel and suddenly shaped a slack expression, sticking out his tongue, and swiped the index finger of his left hand across his throat. Straightening, he guffawed and glanced over at his cutthroat pards. The others laughed tensely, sliding their eyes between the big bandito and Colter's cocked Remington.

Bethel screamed and squeezed her eyes closed. The Colt in her hands thundered and bounced. The loud report caused the woman behind the counter to shout and drop a pan. Dust sifted from the rafters over Colter's head.

The big bandito took two stumbling steps backward, his laughter instantly dying, as did his mocking, toothy grin. He stared at Bethel as though she'd said something he hadn't been able to understand. And then his eyes lowered to the smoking Colt in her trembling hands. His expression became one of disbelieving exasperation as he continued to drop his gaze to the blood leaking out of the ragged, round hole in his calico shirt, two inches below the hide tobacco pouch hanging by a rawhide thong.

He made a gurgling sound. He appeared to try to lift his head, but his strength was gone. His knees buckled. Blue-black blood welled from the hole in his shirt, thick as tar. As he dropped straight down to the floor, his head banged against the end of Colter and Bethel's table, bouncing, his hair flying wildly, before he sagged sideways onto the hardpacked earthen floor.

One of the other three banditos bolted out of his chair, reaching for the Smith & Wesson jutting from his shoulder holster and shouting, “
Mate a esa pequeña puta!”

Colter shot the man in the chest.

As the other swung toward him, also reaching for iron and shouting loudly in Spanish, Colter flung himself across the table and into Bethel, still standing there, staring down in shock at the dead bandito. She hit the floor beneath Colter, groaning, and Colter used his right boot to haul the table down in front of them for a shield as two bullets plowed through it and bored into the floor dangerously close to both him and the girl.

“Stay down!” Colter shouted at Bethel, ratcheting the Remy's hammer back.

He placed one hand on the floor to brace himself as he lifted his head and snaked his Colt over the top of the table, wincing as bullets ripped slivers from the edge of the table and sprayed them into his face. He picked out one man just as the man's pistol blossomed smoke and flames, and fired the Remy. The man screamed. The others were stumbling around, half drunk and shooting wildly, and in a matter of seconds, Colter had emptied his pistol.

Silence.

All three of the other cutthroats were down. Two were groaning. Powder smoke hung in thick clouds over the dingy room.

Colter looked at Bethel, who lay on her side and was just now lowering her arms from her head, her cheeks pale, eyes haunted by the prospect of her father's demise at the savage hands of these four killers. Quickly, Colter flicked open his Remy's loading gate and shook out the spent brass, replacing them with new from his cartridge belt. He thumbed the gate closed and heaved himself to his feet, clicking the pistol's hammer back and aiming in the general direction of the three banditos piled up around their overturned table.

One of the men sighed and fell still as Colter approached. Another heaved himself onto hands and knees and reached for his pistol lying on the floor a few feet away. Colter put a bullet through the back of the man's shaggy head, then turned to inspect the third man, who lay on his back beneath an overturned chair, blood bubbling up from his chest as well as his mouth, matting his long beard, his eyes staring sightlessly up at the low ceiling.

Colter spied movement through the smoke and swung around to see the portly woman and the one-eyed man rising from behind the bar, both scowling warily, angrily. The woman bunched her face in anger and cut into a Spanish tirade directed at Colter, waving her arms at the mess and pointing and making
bang-bang
sounds.

Colter looked around, saw a sack spilling gold coins on the floor beneath the banditos' table. He scooped the coins back into it, drew the drawstring closed, and tossed it to the woman, who caught it in both hands against her ample bosom with a grunt.

“There you go,” Colter said, walking toward Bethel. “That oughta cover the damage.”

The woman fell silent as she set the pouch on the bar, and she and the old man began counting the coins. Bethel was on her hands and knees beside the bandito she'd drilled. She held the fancy, pearl-gripped Peacemaker in both her hands in front of her face. As Colter approached, she lifted her face to his. Her eyes were brightly tear-glazed.

“This is my father's gun,” she said softly, showing Colter the big popper. “They took it from him.”

“How do you know it's his? Colt probably made a hundred guns in that style.”

She turned the gun around and showed him the brass plate at the bottom of the pearl grips. Into the brass had been etched the initials JS.

Colter said gently, “That don't mean he's dead, Bethel.”

“They couldn't have gotten this gun off old Jed Strange unless they killed him,” she said, looking down at the gun once more, as though it were her father's spirit she held in her hands.

Sandals scuffed and Colter turned to see the one-eyed man walking toward them. His one eye owned a grave cast as he stopped before Colter and Bethel. In English so broken that Colter just barely made it out, the man said, “The man who owned this gun—he is your
papa, chiquita
?”

Bethel sniffed and straightened, still holding the pistol in both her small hands.
“Sí.”

The one-eyed man gestured toward the front of the room, then shuffled out the door and under the ramada. Colter and Bethel followed him out. “The man who owned that gun.” The one-eyed man gestured toward a dark, serrated ridge looming like a distant, massive storm to the southwest, which was the general direction that Colter and Bethel had been traveling. “He is buried there. Two days' ride.” He pointed his right foot. “
Paseo de la Rana
. How do you say?” He paused, thinking hard, and snapped his fingers. “Frog Ridge.”

“At the foot of it?” Colter asked.

“Sí.”
He nodded twice. “Two days' ride.”

“Who buried him there?” Bethel asked.

“I did, little one.” The one-eyed man jabbed his thumb against his chest. “I found him. Dead along the trail, near his wagon. Gringo prospector. He was here two, maybe three days before. I ride down to Soledad for supplies, find him . . . bury him. I mark his grave with a cross.”

The one-eyed man's sole eye sadly, regretfully regarded Bethel. She stared off, dry-eyed now, steeling herself against the pain that threatened to overwhelm her, and nodded. “
Muchas gracias, senor
.
”

The one-eyed man glanced at Colter, shrugged fatefully, then shuffled back inside the roadhouse. Colter looked at Bethel, feeling a large rock growing larger and harder in his gut. He stepped forward, awkwardly set a hand on the girl's shoulder, feeling helpless against her sorrow.

She shrugged it off, ducked beneath the hitch rack, and grabbed her pinto's reins. “I came all this way to find him, so I reckon I'll find him. Follow his last ride. Say a few words over him.”

Colter ducked under the hitch rack and laced his fingers together, making a step for the girl. She stepped into his hands, grabbed the horn, and heaved herself into the saddle. She began neck-reining the horse away from the rack, giving her gaze to the blue ridge in the southwestern distance. “It'll likely just embarrass him, but I don't wanna go home without seein' where he's buried, recitin' the Lord's Prayer over him.”

“I know it don't mean much, but I am sorry, Bethel. I was really hopin' we'd find him alive.”

She turned to him now, and a single tear rolled down from her otherwise dry right eye. “You didn't think we would, though, did you?”

Colter just looked at her.

She sniffed and sleeved the tear away. Her voice pinched into a faint screech as she batted her heels against the pinto's ribs. “Me, neither.”

She galloped off across the yard, toward a trail branching south. Colter mounted Northwest and headed after her, deeper and deeper into the rugged, rocky sierra. When the freight trail dead-ended in a small village built against the side of a mountain wall, they paused only to fill their canteens from the village's single, covered well before continuing along a fainter wagon path that the boy who tended the well assured them would take them to
Paseo de la Rana
. It was the same trail, it seemed, that would lead them eventually to the dragon drawn on Jed Strange's map.

Though now it appeared there was little reason to push that deep into the unforgiving sierra, a maze of dangerously deep canyons and towering gothic cliffs.

That night they made camp in a shallow wash surrounded by steep, boulder-strewn slopes. Colter managed to snare a jackrabbit just before the sun went down—he didn't want to risk attracting attention with a rifle shot—and spitted it over the small fire that Bethel built from the wood she gathered.

While the meat cooked and the stars sharpened in the darkening sky above the jagged, black velvet ridges around them, Bethel laid out the bedroll she'd confiscated from one of the soldiers Colter had shot and lay back against her saddle, hands entwined behind her head, staring at the sky.

“Meat's done,” Colter told her, dragging out a couple of plates from his saddlebags.

“Ain't hungry.”

Colter didn't push her. He didn't blame her for not being hungry. He hadn't eaten for days after his blood father and then his foster father had died. Pulling the hot meat off the rabbit bone with his fingers, he ate and sipped the coffee he'd brewed from the Arbuckles' he'd also confiscated from the dead soldiers.

When he'd finished, he cleaned his hands on his trousers and poured another cup of coffee, hearing the coyotes starting to yammer on the ridges around him. He glanced across the fire. Bethel lay as she had before, both her eyes open and staring into the firmament.

He set the coffee back on a rock near the crackling flames and leaned against his saddle, holding the smoking cup in his hands. He wished he could think of comforting words to share with the girl, but none would come, and he didn't want to pretend he knew anything more about assuaging her pain than he did. Which was nothing. All he knew was that time would dull the ache though it would never obliterate it, but that would be little comfort for her now.

“Colter,” she said after a time, turning to face him from the other side of the fire. “You got anyone back to your home in them Lunatic Mountains?”