River to Cross, A (21 page)

Jake turned his head slowly from side to side. “This whole setup is strange. It doesn’t fit. Most gangs are obvious in how they advertise themselves. But this I don’t understand. Looks like a child’s scribbling.”

Three doors down, on the other side of the street, someone shifted deeper into a darkened doorway, a flow of black in black. Jose shot his hand out and snapped a downward gesture. Jake repeated the signal for the men behind.

“Jose doesn’t like it, either,” he said.

“Neither do I,” said Gus.

Fred looked over from the other side. “We all picked it up.”

Down the street, five dark figures slipped out of doorways, speaking Spanish. Chains wrapped their fists.

“Uh-oh,” Jake said. He led Elizabeth across in front of him and tucked her close against his left side.

Wide-eyed, Elizabeth looked at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Freeing my right hand in case I need it.”

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder. “Gus didn’t move Suzanne.”

“Because he’s left-handed.”

Behind her, she heard Gus quietly telling Suzanne the same. Suzanne looked surprised when he put his arm around her and pulled her close against his right side.

“Suzanne . . .” he started.

“Now what?”

His mouth tightened. “Nothing. Just stay close to me.”

He closed the distance between the two of them and Jake and Elizabeth ahead. Though nothing had been said, Fred Barkley and Bronco Butler, originally from Montana, moved forward, staggering themselves, one on Elizabeth’s exposed left, the other on Suzanne’s right. Each woman was now flanked by two Rangers.

Jose Martinez shoved their driver behind him and stepped out in front of the Ranger group.

“
Hola, amigos.
Qué pasa?
” Jose called to the group of toughs.

A long burst of Spanish came back, accompanied by fist shaking by the older boys blocking the sidewalk. All wore the uniform of baggy pants and floppy shirts with green bandannas. Their leader, a man in his mid-twenties, had a chain tattooed around his neck. He pointed at Elizabeth and shouted.

Never taking his eyes off Chain Man, Jose said to the others, “They say they’re
Arroyos
. If they are, that’s bad news. Arroyos are junior partners of a big Indian street gang in Mexico City.”

“When they get older, they move up with the big boys,” Gus said. “Guns and street crime. Despite who they say they are, most of these so-called kids are grown men in pretty good condition. They don’t fit the picture.”

“Watch how they move,” Jake said. “They’re erect and straight-backed. It almost looks as if they’re military.”

“What do they want from us?” Gus asked Jose.

“I don’t know yet. I understand their dialect. They’ve pointed back and forth to the girls, but don’t know their names. They’re confused about who’s who.”

“Think they’re after Elizabeth again?” Jake asked, his voice cold.

Jose studied the gang in front of them and shrugged. “Makes as much sense as anything else. Two of the boys have Kali sticks—Filipino fighting sticks—behind them. They may be young, but they’re mean. They say we’re part of the Victors, a rival gang in Juarez. Seems that orange scarf on Elizabeth’s head is the Victors’ color. I don’t believe that. They’re not very convincing. I think it’s just an excuse to attack us.”

Elizabeth snatched the scarf from her head, stuffed it into her skirt pocket.

“Let’s try to talk our way out first,” Jake said to Jose. “Tell them we’re soldiers on our way back to Fort Bliss, that we don’t want trouble from them or anyone else. Tell them also we can hurt them.”

Jose translated, using their Mexican dialect. One shirtless youngster of fourteen or so wore a green necktie flapping down his bony bare chest.

Jake took over. “Fred, Bronco—look after the women and our driver. Gus, Jose, and I will take care of this gang, if it comes to that. We’re not out to prove anything, so hold back. Fists only. No weapons if we can get away with it. Try not to kill anyone. If we do, it’ll make the papers. A few of them are kids; most of them aren’t. They’re all vicious, but to Americans the sixteen-year-olds are still kids.”

“Because they’ve never been shot by a twelve-year-old with a Winchester,” Bronco snapped.

“And we hope to God they never will be,” Gus cut in, “which is why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

Jake’s eyes skipped to Gus and Jose, then back to Bronco. “And the kid who shot you went down almost before you did. Three other Rangers shot him.”

Though he didn’t name names, Elizabeth guessed who two of them were and suspected Jake himself was the third.

His face was tight, expressionless. “Then, it was survival. But not now. The last thing we want is to read in tomorrow’s papers that five Frontier Battalion Rangers killed several Mexican kids at a band concert. We’ll look bad. Fort Bliss is too important to this country to risk it. None of us wants that.”

“The one with the chain tattooed around his neck is no kid,” Bronco shot back, his face set and hard. The easygoing Montana cowboy look had vanished.

“I just caught a glint of steel in the streetlight. At least one of these so-called kids has a knife,” Gus said. “Curious that only the obvious two kids have Kali sticks. Looks like the older ones won’t touch them. If they’re soldiers, they know how to use other weapons.”

The six Arroyos blended with the others. Now ten hostile men blocked the sidewalk. One made a taunting
come on
gesture with his hands.

Jose took a step forward and spoke quickly in their Mexican Spanish.

He was greeted with hoots and hollers and shouted obscenities in a mixture of Spanish and English.

The kid in the green necktie grabbed the Kali sticks from another boy and moved toward Jose in short little hops. He swung out what looked like shortened broomsticks and started whipping them at Jose.

Instead of moving away, Jose charged, shot his fists between the whizzing bamboo sticks and yanked them away. In close, he spun and threw his elbow into the kid’s face. The young stick fighter squealed and went down, his nose streaming blood over his necktie. Holding his face and whimpering, he crawled away.

“Give me those sticks,” Jake demanded, shoving his hand out to the remaining stick fighter.

Big-eyed, the kid dropped the Kali sticks and backed away.

Jake picked them up and turned to Jose. “Let’s show them what we do with Kali sticks. You game for a little demonstration?”

Rangers were excellent shots—they all were. Galloping across a field, aiming a Winchester and half standing in the stirrups, they simply didn’t miss. Part of their success was familiarity. They knew each other’s minds and reactions and what to expect in a crisis. No surprises.

But things were changing. Many times with outlaws and bank robbers, Rangers found themselves fighting in the streets. And when pistols ran out of ammo or a rifle jammed, they had no choice but to defend themselves with their hands. He’d read about different kinds of one-on-one fighting. Such techniques were used to trip or throw the opponent.

Like Filipino stick fighting.

Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her face. “Please, Jake, don’t!”

“It’s all right. We practice with these. We never know what we’ll run into,” he said, then looked at the kids, his lip curled in disgust. Sticks up, he advanced toward Jose, who jumped into a fighting stance, one stick across his chest, the other raised.

Jake circled, thrust for Jose’s throat.

Crack
. Stick collided with stick. Jose blocked it.

Jake struck up with the lower end, aiming for Jose’s ribs.

Crack
. Blocked again.

The street fell strangely silent. In the greenish glow of the streetlight, bamboo Kali sticks whined in the air. Jose let out a high, warbling Navajo scream and lunged at Jake. He swung one of the sticks, whistling down for Jake’s head.

Crack
.

Another bloodcurdling shriek and a slanting blow aimed at Jake’s waist.

Crack
.

Every time Jose screamed, Elizabeth flinched. With a sense of dread, she watched, fearing the injury one blow from those sticks could cause. For several minutes, Jake and Jose lashed and struck, almost too fast for the eye to follow.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The Arroyos cast furtive glances at each other.

At some unspoken signal, Jake and Jose tossed the sticks to Bronco and Fred. Both men snatched them out of the air. From their expressions and how they held the sticks, clearly they also knew how to use them.

Jake spoke, his voice calm. “Jose, tell them to get out of our way.”

Suzanne screamed and stumbled.

Chain Man, knife in hand, darted in behind Gus and jerked Suzanne away. Holding the knife at her throat, he yanked her against him. Gus spun around, grabbed for her, and got a fistful of empty air. He caught the tail of her pink sweater instead and whipped it off.

Suzanne fought the man, grabbing at the metal chain around his neck.

Winding the sweater around his forearm, Gus leaped forward and slammed a shoulder into Chain Man, who was trying to escape with Suzanne. Chain Man stumbled, giving Gus a brief opening to snatch away the knife. Gus shot a hand in front of Suzanne’s neck and grabbed the man’s wrist. Shoving the knife hand high in the air, he shouted at Suzanne to run.

Suzanne twisted and broke away.

As she did, Elizabeth was rushed by two older gang members. Jake had been waiting for them. The first one he stopped cold with a punch to the face and a kick to the ribs; the second one he threw against a building. They both backed away.

Chain Man slashed at Gus repeatedly, but was blocked by the sweater-padded arm. Seizing the man’s wrist in a crushing grip, Gus forced him to the ground. The man went down kicking and punching and trying to squirm away. Gus stomped his outstretched leg. With a hoarse scream, the man dropped the knife and collapsed on the sidewalk.

Gus picked up the knife and stared at the rest of the gang.

They also were backing away.

Elizabeth threw her arms around Suzanne and hugged her. Over her shoulder she saw Chain Man writhing on the sidewalk.

Gus turned and put his arms around both women. A moment later he tipped Suzanne’s head up. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

He glanced back at Chain Man, who was moaning and holding his leg. “We’ll find a doctor after we’re out of here,” Gus said.

Neither Gus nor Jake was winded. Each man on the team was calm and controlled, as if nothing had happened.

Elizabeth stared at Jake, seeing him in a different light. He’d tried to negotiate around a confrontation, using violence only when forced to. An echo from the past stirred in the back of her mind. Much as she’d loved him, Carl was the opposite. At the first sign of trouble, he would have waded in, fists up.

“Let’s finish up here,” Jake said. At that moment, his face could have been carved from stone.

Hands flexing, shoulders loose, Jake, Jose, and Gus walked slowly toward the rest of the Arroyos
.

The gang members looked at the grim faces of the men approaching them and scattered, yelling, bumping into each other, tripping in their haste to get away. Across the street and down the sidewalk, they ran hard in all directions.

It was over.

Ten minutes later in front of the livery, where Tunnel Street had proper sidewalks, Gus bent down and broke the knife blade in a sidewalk joint. He threw the handle into a trash container and the blade pieces down a sewer.

In the wagon on their way back to Fort Bliss, Suzanne glanced up when Gus slid in beside her. Her palms were damp, and she still felt shaky and scared inside. Not trusting her voice, she turned away and stared off into the distance, her hands clenched together in her lap. Tears were a blink away. Nurses were strong for other people, she told herself. They did not fall apart. She pressed her lips tightly together.

“Hold my hand,” Gus whispered. Strong fingers closed around hers.