Paxton Pride (50 page)

Several hundred miles to the west and a little south, across the Rio Grande in the little village of Rio Lobos, Jaco watched the night accept the surrender of the sun. He pulled his
serape
about him, wincing only slightly as the heavy cloth tugged at the newly-healed wound. From the doorway of his
jacalito
he could see the entire village. The two main buildings, a
cantina
with three rooms out back for the
putas
, when Rio Lobos was lucky enough to have them around, and a general store, the
tienda
with bare walls where, in better times, goods were stacked, faced each other across the tiny plaza. Three other sod huts and a common corral made up the remainder of the town. Rio Lobos was ideally situated in the hills, close to the Rio Grande and the rich prizes to be taken in the United States from the
gringos
. Only once had the
federales
moved against the bandit village, and then only because they had been pressured into the attack by their Anglo neighbors to the north. The bandits, led by Jaco, easily trapped the soldiers in a nearby canyon. Jaco was not so unwise as to kill the soldiers, for then the generals would have sent more. Instead, he trapped them and stripped them of horses and guns and food, leaving them afoot to wander back as best they could, giving them plenty of time to make up a good story about how hard the bandits had fought before they were wiped out to the last man. At the same time the young lieutenant was explaining to the
capitán
, the renegade citizens of Rio Lobos were hard at work celebrating the wisdom of their leader, their great victory and the acquisition of much booty.

The night in question was little different from any other night in any other bandit or outlaw town scattered across thousands of miles of mostly empty territory. The
cantina
was the center of activity. Lights streaming through the shuttered windows formed a pattern of vivid welts on the dark earth. Around the tiny speck of life the hills were dark and quiet, a bastion against the outside world. Few cared about the beauty of the sky overhead. Jaco stood motionless, his mind seething with the shifting image of a beautiful
gringa.
In the darkness behind him Marcelina came through the open door to stand at his side. She wore a man's shirt and nothing else, pressed her naked lower torso against his unresponsive frame. His hips tightened beneath the pressure of her thighs. “Your wound still pains you?”

“No.”

“It is cold.”

“It is night, it is cold. Why do you bother me with this?”

Marcelina pouted, hurt by his indifference. She did not know how he had received his wound, knew only the attack had failed and, fearing the wrath of her mother and the others, had fled with the bandit leader. “I love you.”

Jaco gripped her hair and brought his mouth savagely down on hers, the strange laugh welling in his throat. She reached for his belt but he pushed her hands away. “Wait for me,
chica.
” And he was gone into the night. The wind sprang up and Marcelina shivered, hurried back to their bed and what warmth was left there.

Jaco strolled across the plaza. He had suffered more than a wound. The failure of the attack weakened his position as a leader and his own estimation of himself, for the failure was his first. No one openly questioned him or flouted his word, but he had seen the hesitation in their eyes, had heard wisps of conversations when none thought he was around to hear. The blame lay with the Paxtons, the cursed Paxtons, the old man and his son, with their wealth, their fine
hacienda
, cattle. And a beautiful
señora
who troubled his dreams, he reminded himself. He relished the memory of her face and pictured her on the ground underneath him, her legs spread and her eyes wide as he entered her and brought her much pleasure. Such a woman would be a pleasure to take—many times. His eyes hardened. She was a
gringa
. Paxton's woman. Such a one deserved no pleasure. He would take
his
pleasure, and roughly, then turn her over to the men to do with as they pleased. But perhaps she would love him, prefer him and his strength, for would he not be a grand general? A woman of her beauty would bring him much luck, bring him many.…

“Jaco.”

The bandit dropped his hand to the butt of his revolver as Arcadio, the knob-eared one, approached. “What is it,
amigo?
”

“I have said nothing, but you must know. The men talk.”

“As men of little courage will. What do these
gallinas
talk of when
el gallo
is not in front of them?”

“Marquez.”

Jaco's eyes narrowed and Arcadio stepped back, fearful he might become the object of his leader's wrath. Jaco listened to the raucous clamor, the squeal of feminine laughter bought for a few coins. He heard men boasting and braying of their feats of bravery, found in the vanquished depths of an empty bottle of tequila or rum. The cackling of hens, of
gallinas
. Nothing more.

“Marquez!” Jaco shouted, the word ringing in the clear night air, bounding back to him in multiples from the mountains. The
cantina
grew silent, all the more ominously for its abruptness. Everyone knew what must now happen. A figure stepped from the doorway, a slight, thin whip of a man, but
muy hombre
.

“Si?” he answered laconically, accepting the challenge.

“
Mañana
. We ride together. The two of us. Alone.”

Silence. In the face of the unexpected there was always silence. A different kind of challenge. Marquez and Jaco, alone. They would watch each other very closely. “Where do we ride?”

“Back,
amigo,
” Jaco said, the bold idea gleaming brightly in his brain. “Back.”

CHAPTER III

Karen, Ted, Huller and W. Bell arrived back at the PAX five days later, bringing with them the four mules hauling a new wagon full of lumber, a stove, two dozen blankets, four hundred pounds of flour, two hundred of sugar, fifty of salt, a hundred of Arbuckle's coffee, five of mustard for plasters and four for eating, four kegs of nails of as many sizes, eight bolts of cloth, a box full of harness metal, four brand-new fifteen-shot Winchester '73's and eighteen boxes of assorted cartridges, six dozen eggs and a pair of canaries.

“The hell with all that,” True exploded. “What about the note? Did he extend it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, why didn't you say so first?”

“I didn't think there'd be any doubt in your mind,” Karen answered with a laugh, heading for the kitchen to install the canaries in their new home.

True followed, pleased she was back but still contentious, for he'd been eating his own cooking for the last eight days, which always put him out of sorts. “Hmmmph. Suppose not. Dressed up like a pretty
señorita
, you would turn a banker's head.”

“Where do you think they should go?”

“Who?”

“The canaries.”

“Canaries?”

“Canaries.”

“Why in tarnation did you buy canaries?”

“Where do you think they should go?”

“Outside where they belong. With all the other birds. All this ranch needs is a pair of canaries to help with the cookin'.” Turning on his heel, he stalked from the kitchen, leaving the decision to Karen.

“Don't listen to him,” she told the frightened birds as she hung their cage in the corner near the window looking onto the patio. “Once you get to know him, you'll like him. He's really glad we're back. Just hurts him too much to say so.” She paused, looking at the kitchen and the pile of dishes. “Well, seeing as I'm back, I guess I'd better get to work.”

She settled quickly into the life of the ranch again, happy for the break and the chance to go to San Antonio, happier yet to be back. The ranch was in good shape, the barn almost completed. That night, sitting with True before the fire in the front room, she gave a complete report on the trip, and when she was finished, asked the question most important to her. “Have you heard anything of Vance?”

True shook his head soberly. “Not a word. Nobody seen him, nobody heard of him.”

“True …?”

“Don't even ask it. He'll be back. I didn't bring him up to be a complete fool. He'll be back.”

Karen acquiesced, stared moodily into the fire. A few minutes later, exhausted from the trip, she stumbled upstairs and into bed. She dreamed of a silent, troubled man who somewhere roamed the empty land.

A few nights later, True, checker game in hand, prowled the house searching for his favorite opponent. Unable to locate her indoors, he threw on a light coat and went outside. Karen was on the walkway, silhouetted from the shoulders up as she paused in the middle of the western wall and stared into the hills. Beyond her, the moon, full and bright, threw the cedar-crested ridges into stark relief against the starlit firmament. She wasn't wearing a coat, True noted to himself. “Dang fool girl,” he grumbled. “Catch a sickness if she don't take care of herself. Just 'cause it's spring don't mean the night's gonna be like summer.” A nearby movement drew his attention. A match flared in the dark shadow of the house, briefly illuminated Ted's face. “I must be gettin' old, not to see you when I first come up.” Ted remained silent as the older man joined him, rolled a cigarette of his own and gestured to the wall. “You keepin' an eye on the girl?”

Ted shrugged. “This one … she has her own mind, own ways. Once she needed much help. Now she needs nothing but one man. It is always the way with the Comanche. The women wait for the warriors to return, and count with fearful hearts the riderless horses. It is much the same with her, I think. She has done all a woman can, and shown her strength. Now she waits for the man to show his.”

“Where the hell is he, Ted? You an' him was close as brothers. Where's my son? There's no sign you can't read.”

“I followed him for a time. Heading west. Always west. I was needed here so I came back. It is a time of drifting men, riding the grubline. The man who was at our table last night came through west Texas on his way here. This morning, before he rode off, we traded tales over a coffee pot in Silver Canyon. His name was Clayton. He told me there was some trouble while he was in El Paso. A couple of rough hombres, Jory and Will Tern, jumped a stranger in a saloon. The stranger was a big, wide-shouldered man, full of a meanness waiting to bust out, like he'd been turning on himself for too long and was waiting to let loose on someone. Anyway, he whipped them with his fists. They went for their guns and he put the nails in their coffins without half trying. Clayton figured he'd better do his drinking in a healthier place. Said there was too much lead in the air to suit him. On his way out he paid some attention to the stranger's horse. It was a grulla stallion wearing the PAX brand.”

“Damn!” True muttered. “Crazy fool's gonna get hisself killed.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes a man needs something like that to bring him back.”

“Killin' two men?”

“They threw down on him.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Would you rather.…”

“No,” True interrupted. He took an irritated drag on the cigarette, pinched out the live tip and shredded the remainder. “Reckon there's no point in tellin' her to come in,” he growled. “You keep an eye on her. She may carry on like she can handle herself, but won't hurt nothin' to have somebody around just in case.”

“That's what I was doing.” Ted threw the glowing stub of his cigarette to the earth and crushed it with a boot, stepped back and blended into the shadows again, out of sight.

True returned to the house. The hearth in the front room blazed cheerfully and he was glad for the warmth. Suddenly he felt the age in his bones, experienced the weary penalties of a lifetime of debilitating work. “Get on back here, son. Safe an' whole. There's been too much buryin' this year. I don't want to lay another of my blood into the ground.” He sank back into the chair with a sigh. A buryin' year. “Buried too many, son,” and tiredness overtook him.

Ted Morning Sky guided the Appaloosa beneath an empty, bright blue morning sky, along a winding, treacherously eroded trail laid among the boulders and ravines like a twisted ribbon. The Appaloosa had grown up in the wild, and a more sure-footed steed couldn't be found. Over and over again the gelding avoided patches of loose shale or nimbly picked a way along a slick watercourse without missing a step. Why the Indian was going to the line shack he could not say, for the land there lay on its side, tossed and tumbled by ancient forces. The terrain was much too dangerous for both men and cattle and the PAX had taken to keeping its stock away from the boulder-littered canyon mouth which led to that section of the hills. Consequently, the cabin had been abandoned and the surrounding area left alone except during a major roundup or, when game was scarce, someone rode in to hunt for deer for the table.

Ted was here for neither reason. Rather he was following a thought, a fragile suspicion his Comanche sense told him to pursue. By noon he was far from the ranch. The hills thrust savagely upward all about him and a corridor of wind, already hot and dry though the year was young, whooshed among the ravines with implacable ferocity. The hot air carried a heavy fragrance of sprouting cedar, of fresh water from a mountain spring, of heated granite and more … which his nostrils quickly identified. Woodsmoke. Someone was at the line cabin, and Ted was positive he knew who it was.

The grulla stallion, gaunted from many hard miles, stood with head up and ears pricked, snorting nervously at the intruder. Ted paused, rode into plain sight and stopped again, waiting a prudent moment before riding toward the cabin. Vance, no more than many and much less than most, didn't like being stalked. The Indian rode slowly wanting no chance of misinterpretation on Vance's part. When he was close to the grulla he dismounted, loosed the cinch on his own gelding and tethered the animal. “Hello the cabin,” he called softly.