Brothers in Blood (25 page)

“Fine. Let's go.” Chet saw no threat, but the brothers knew the border better than he did. They rode a long way but saw ranch lights at last. They rode by the main adobe buildings and corrals.

Ortega spoke to a rifle-armed guard. “These are my kinfolks,” he told the man, and they went on to a small spring-fed lake under some cottonwoods.

Chet's pleased crew got up from around the campfire to shake his hand.

“Good to have you back,” Roamer said. “There must be thirty dead mules about ten miles or so north of here. Unburied corpses laying around. The canyon is run over in buzzards and anything that eats the dead. None of us can figure out what really happened, except the pack train ran into a large band of heavily armed gunmen and were shot to pieces. Every pannier is gone. Most of the packsaddles are gone, and the bodies were stripped of clothing and any identity. Must have happened some time back. Ortega talked to some people who said it was a major operation, and they felt the men rode for Old Man Clanton. But there's no way to prove it, so we have little to go on.”

“How's everything at home?” Cole asked.

“No problems I could learn about.”

“That's good. All of us over here, and we're not learning a thing.”

Chet agreed. They might just as well go home. He bet Sheriff Behan never sent anyone over to even look at the site. Win some and lose some.

“Jose, tell them what she told you over in Muleshoe Canyon last night.”

Jose told them about their overnight stop and what the widow told him about the warlords in Mexico putting a price of five hundred dollars on Chet for his death.

“We had not heard that over here,” Ortega said. “But chances are they'd never pay it.”

“And if I was dead, who would complain?” Chet teased.

“Your wife would,” Cole said. “We ain't letting them do that.”

“Hell, no,” JD said. “Who are these guys offering this reward? I'd like to go find them and end their misery for them.”

“They will show up,” Ortega told him.

“Let's go home tomorrow. You've run out of leads. Even if Clanton did it, we can't touch him in Mexico without an army.”

They all nodded in agreement.

Chet laid in his bedroll a long time before he went to sleep. He never took defeat well, but this horrendous crime would have to go unanswered. A well-planned robbery. No witnesses. Someone must have seen those outlaws ride in and ride out, but no one was talking.

The trip back to headquarters took two long days of hard riding. But when he dropped heavy from the saddle in the starlight and heard the brothers' women's voices welcoming their husbands home, he felt good.

“
Señor
Chet, are you hungry?” Maria asked, sounding concerned.

“No. I'll be fine. Too tired to eat anyway.”

“Ortega said you rode a long ways.”

“Miles and miles.”

Jesus took his horse and led him off with his own.

“Thanks, see you in the morning,” he said to his now solemn man.

“There were no telegrams,” said Maria.

“That's good news.”

“Good night.” Then she rushed off to her
jacal.
Her husband was home.

He wished he was—but sleep came easy. Waking up was hard. He dressed and went to the tent where Maria was busy feeding the crew pancakes and oatmeal. About half of the crew were up. He didn't blame the others for sleeping in. Hey, they had no work pressing them.

She poured him some coffee. “Pancakes or oatmeal, or both?”

“Pancakes will be fine. Send someone to town today and buy some good beef and some onions and sweet peppers, and some red wine, huh?”

Her sweet face perked up. “We will have a
fandango
tonight?”

“Yes, we need one.”

“I am glad you are back. We need to liven up, don't we?”

“You know how. If you need more money, let me know.”

“I can use my bill and you can pay it later.”

“You have a deal.”

When it warmed up, he took a bath and shaved. Poor folks in Preskitt were shivering and he was lying in a hammock perfectly warm. The men busied themselves with resetting shoes on the horses and repairing tack.

Jesus came over with a crate to sit on. Chet swung his legs over the side of the hammock. It looked to him like his man wanted to talk and he was ready. He couldn't suppress a large yawn.

“Hard ride back here yesterday,” Jesus said.

“Yeah, but I'm glad we're here.”

“Oh, yes. I came to talk to you. My life, you know, has changed. I had such plans, but they were all around her coming to be with me. My life is like a derailed engine I saw one time, that banditos had blown from a train. It simply laid there. A little steam escaped from it and some smoke from the furnace—but it just laid there and no one could put it back on those tracks.”

Chet began telling him. “A woman I once loved would not leave her husband who abused her. One day, I went to her ranch and found her murdered by my enemies. It was a bloody crime and she wrote the killer's name on the sheet with her own blood. In that same room, she had left a letter to tell her husband she was leaving him.”

“Oh, I heard you tell this story. She was leaving him for you, huh?”

“Yes, but I never let the husband read the note.”

“I see what all you must have gone through. Yes, like my story, that is a sad one. How did you forget it?”

“Got busy fighting a range war that was piled on me.”

“I see. You say life goes on.”

“It does, Jesus. There are other good women in this world.”

“I will look.”

“Pray, too. It helps. Things won't be quiet for long. We'll get busy again. You won't have time to worry about much else.”

Looking brighter, his man thanked him and went on. He hoped he'd done him some good.

Maria came back from town in the buckboard before time for the lunch that Ricky was preparing. She unloaded her supplies and said she had a letter for him and went to find it.

The letter was from Bo, and brought memories of Bo's recent losses before he even opened it.

“What have you got?” JD asked, dropping by and taking a seat on the bench.

“A map to a ranch we may go look at.”

“Where is it?”

Chet pointed at the map. “This is Tubac. The land is west over those small mountains and lays up and down the basin on the other side.”

“What's wrong with it?”

“Water for cattle, for one. No ranch improvements, but there might be corrals and some
jacals
left.”

“You went over there, didn't you?”

“Yes. Lots of grass, but it's the lack of water that hangs it up.”

“When can we go back and look some more?”

“Any time. Crime has slowed up a lot. I know we don't have all of them rounded up and it's only a lull, but I think a few of us can go look it over.”

“I'm ready.” JD looked pleased.

“I'll talk to Ortega. He knows that country.”

“When you get ready, let me know.”

“I will.”

He caught Ortega later and told him he wanted to take another look at the land to the west.

“Fine, who goes?”

“You, Jesus to cook, and JD who wants to run it, if I think it will work. I have a map of the pattern of the sections the man in California owns. They say he brought cattle from Mexico and fattened them out there. Must not have worked too well.”

“I never knew when he did that. There are remains of corrals, but I never talked to any
vaqueros
who worked there then.”

“My land man had that story. But the remains of corrals say it probably happened.”

“Oh, yes, and these horses are not scrubby mustangs. I would say some good stallions escaped, and those horses over there have more Barb blood.”

“That makes sense.”

“When do we go?” Ortega beamed.

“Day after tomorrow, if we have no problems.”

“I will be ready.”

No telegram came and Chet left the camp in Roamer's hands who Bronco was teaching to braid a riata cut from a whole steer hide. Chet and the others left before dawn with two packhorses. Their horses, fresh from their rest, struck out on the move.

Chet was behind Ortega's horse when he reined up. He followed the man's pointing finger. A large mountain lion loped along the ridgeline. Too far away to shoot. Chet nodded. “That was a big old tom.”

“Yes, he could kill a horse.”

“Or me,” JD shouted at them.

Chet agreed and they moved on.

On the pass, they rested their horses and then settled into the steep decline. On the less steep trail, JD rode up beside Chet.

“You say the route in here from Tucson is flatter?”

“Yes, for all purposes, it's flat and you can see for miles up and down this land.”

“Good. These damn mountains would be tough to get in or out of here.”

“The way down to Mexico is also an open door for rustlers.”

“That makes it interesting, don't it?”

“Could be a tough place to ranch.”

“No tougher than the Verde place was when you bought it.”

“It is still a challenge to make a profit. But we'll have steers to sell this fall.”

“Where could we sell these cattle?” JD asked.

Chet shook his head. JD understood some of the problems they'd face building a ranch out here. He'd not seen a dry cow pie near any waterholes, and that meant there was no maverick population like they found on Reg's operation. But they hadn't seen the entire ranch on that first trip.

Ortega swung them south to a small natural lake fed by a spring where they'd leave their packhorse and gear and set up camp. Jesus remained to set up things for cooking. They rode on, eating some burritos Maria sent with them.

When Ortega found some fresh horse apples, Chet was pleased. In a short while he had his glasses out scoping the herd they'd found. A large blue roan stallion was the monarch of the herd of brood mares with many great looking colts. He passed the glasses around.

Ortega nodded. “They are good horses.”

“How many bands are here?”

“I don't know, but I have seen this stallion, and there are others.”

“It would be interesting to cut off the colts,” JD said.

Ortega agreed. “But there must be a bachelor herd of males he has cut away from these mares.”

“Right. Have you seen them?” JD asked.

“Only their heels.”

“Interesting, huh, Chet?”

“Yes. That's why we came to appraise this place.”

“You have any ideas?” JD asked.

“Water worries me.”

“The stud uses the lake. Where is there more?”

“Maybe south,” Ortega said, and they rode in that direction.

After a few hours in the saddle, Chet saw through his glasses palm trees in the heat waves. Palms had been planted by the Spaniards centuries ago. They showed up in many places in the southwest desert around water sources. That meant water, so they headed that way.

Obvious, too, was the smell of smoke on the wind. When they arrived at the source, they found people who were probably squatters on the property. Dust-floured and hard looking, some pregnant, the women came out of their canvas hovels with small children around their tattered skirts.

Ortega rode in and told them hello. They nodded, but their faces were solemn.

“Where are your men?”

The women's turned-up palms were his answer.

“Are all of you dumb?” he asked in Spanish.

Chet noticed they'd grown some corn and crops in the past summer season.

“Ask if they have food,” Chet told him.

He did and one woman said, “
Poco
.”

Chet gripped his saddle horn and nodded. “I heard her. They don't have much.”

Ortega rode back to them. “What can we do?”

“We'll send some food back to them tomorrow.”

He swung his horse around and told them they would send them some food. The women nodded at his words and crossed themselves.

They rode on and an hour later they shot two buck deer. They loaded them on their horses and rode back. The women came out looking shocked and his men hung the carcasses up on some cross arms for the women to butcher.

“Can you dress them?” Ortega asked them.

“
Oh, si, gracias, gracias.
God bless you all.”

Chet nodded and they headed back for camp. The range had lots of forage, but water was the weakest part. Windmills were expensive to drill and set up. Plus this much land would require hundreds of them. And he'd bet all of this land didn't yield well water. He had lots to think about. How many other squatters were out there, besides those desperate women and children?

“Where were their men?”

“I have no idea. They must be off working in the valley up by Hayden's Ferry.”

“Could they have starved before they got back to them?”

Ortega nodded grimly.

Chet shook his head. The notion made him sick, thinking of those small children starving. It reminded him of the Indians they'd helped at Camp Verde when the Indian agent was starving them. And of the breeds on the Verde they fed until Marge's church took over.

During the ride back to camp, the women's situation rode hard on his thoughts. He couldn't settle all the problems in this world, but he didn't have to stand by and let such things continue, not if he could help it.

Back in camp, Jesus was glad to see them and had plenty of food cooked and a Dutch oven cobbler. He got the acclaim of all the crew when they finished eating.

Chet told him about the squatters, and he agreed to take them half a sack of beans and as much flour as he wouldn't need before they returned to camp. Ortega drew him a map on an envelope.

“I'll get them the food tomorrow.”

“They appreciated the two deer we gave them, so they'll like what you have to give them, too.”

“I'll find out where their men are, too. Maybe a poke in the ass would help them, huh?”

Chet laughed. “It wouldn't hurt them none.”

It had been a long day. Lots of country, but not much water. That was why that German never used it but once. Chet didn't want a one-time experience. He'd had enough of them in his life.

His mind was on his wife, full of a baby or two. Life would be back to normal by summer again. Maybe they could even use the Oak Creek place. He hoped Leroy and Betty Lou worked it out up there. And Reg, he'd go see him on the next trip home. Not that he thought he and Lucie couldn't run the ranch—simply be nice to see them again. He fell asleep wondering about the cattle drive to Gallup.

The next day, they rode three abreast up the valley. Jesus was going to take the supplies to the women, and they were going to look over the north section of range.

By midafternoon they approached some buildings and corral. Smoke came from a rusty stovepipe—probably a cooking fire. There had been cattle signs for over two hours, but they didn't see any.