Scorpion (4 page)

Raúl smiled and ran a finger along the pencil-thin moustache he wore as an affectation, hoping it made him appear older. His brown eyes took on a dreamy look as he played out his course of action. He intended to ride past the thicket under cover of darkness, and range a couple of miles ahead of Zion’s wagon. The next time they met, Raúl vowed the blood spilled would not be his own.

The man called Alacron nodded, caught himself, but his eyelids were so damn heavy. His head drooped forward until it rested on his forearm. He caught himself again and abruptly straightened, embarrassed and hoping no one had noticed him. He glanced around and found Zion standing a few feet away, framed by moonlight. In his fatigue, Ben had not heard the telltale crackle of the dry grass and creosote bush at Zion’s approach.

“Reckon you’re about played out,” Zion said. “Señora Quintero spread a blanket for you over by the campfire. And there’s some beans and side meat left.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ben replied sheepishly. He didn’t like being caught unaware. He doubted it was even midnight yet, but he knew he’d reached his limit. Ben shoved clear of the makeshift barricade of fallen timber he’d been crouching behind and crossed to the segundo. Zion’s arm extended, and Ben caught the gleam of a metal flask gleaming silver as the moonbeams played across its shiny surface. Ben voiced his thanks, tilted the flask to his lips, swallowed twice, and returned the flask to its owner.

Tequila is a hard-bracing drink taken straight, but it cuts the dust and can warm a body against the cool arid nights of the Sierra Oriental.

“I apologize for the lack of salt or lemon,” Zion said in a voice that seemed to have its origins somewhere in the man’s barrel chest.

“Fine the way it is,” Ben gasped, starting past him. Zion caught him by the arm and gently restrained him.

“Hold a second, Alacron. I’ve got a proposition to set out for you.” Zion glanced over his shoulder to the campfire, where Josefina Quintero continued to rock Isabella in her arms and sing a soft lullaby, her bleak stare fixed on the leaping flames. Zion cleared his throat.

“Now, the way I see it, you don’t know who you are or where you ought to be heading. You might stay a blank all your days. As for me, I’ve got a ten-year-old girl that I’ve got to keep a constant rein on, and a woman so torn up by grief that half the time she doesn’t even make sense.” Zion tilted the flask to his lips and poured a shot of liquid courage down his gullet. He wiped his forearm across his mouth. “You’ve already shown me you’re a man to stand alongside of in a fight. Come on with us to the Señora’s ranch outside Saltillo. I’ve got another four days ahead of me, and on my own, well, let’s say I’d rest a mite easier with another gun.” Zion hooked a thumb in the pocket of the fringed wool vest he wore to ward off the chill. “You’d be welcome to stay on the ranch and make a place for yourself.”

Ben studied the camp. He doubted that they were in danger. Two of the robbers had already been killed. And the third had run off like a frightened rabbit. Still, he might have accepted Zion’s offer but for the nagging feeling the answers he sought lay to the north. And he was desperate for answers. Having not only his name, but his entire life become some immense void, was quickly becoming unbearable.

“I can’t.” Ben looked away. He couldn’t find the words to articulate his feelings, the horror of not knowing, of being … empty. Who was he? What was he doing there? What had happened to him? “I’m sorry … but I can’t.”

Zion did not reply. He hid his displeasure behind a curtain of silence, nodded and took up the position at the barricade that Ben had abandoned. “Suit yourself,” the segundo finally replied without emotion, and turned his attention to the wheel-rutted path that cut through the heart of the thicket. The scrub oaks, like scrawny sentries, guarded the trail, spindly branches extended to form a canopy above the path, which seemed for all the world like some night-darkened hall. Fireflies winked aglow then vanished in its depths. “Suit yourself,” he softly repeated beneath his breath.

By the time Ben returned to the campsite and the warmth of the fire, Isabella was asleep upon a pad of thick blankets, and Josefina was standing alongside the wagon, her eyes on the coffin and her hand resting upon one of the brass handles on the side. She glanced in Ben’s direction, and he half bowed in greeting, but she seemed to stare right through him. He might as well have been a vapor or a mist. His skin crawled and goose bumps rose on the back of his neck. In her own way, Josefina appeared as lost as he.

Ben crawled onto his bedroll and turned his back to the fire. Exhaustion settled on him like stone. Tomorrow he would resume his journey north in search of himself. Tomorrow … He closed his eyes and in a matter of minutes was fast asleep.

C
HAINED!

Ben lifted his wrists and found two feet of black iron chain connecting his arms. Another set of shackles joined his ankles. He was tethered to the wagon by a length of hemp rope that looped through his leg irons.

Ben hauled on the chains, exerting what strength remained in his rested limbs. He tore at the rope and wrenched his shackles, shouted “Zion!” and struggled in vain to free himself.

Isabella and Josefina, fresh from a morning bath in the spring, heard the prisoner’s outcry and came running out of the woods. Woman and child were both frightened, Isabella’s eyes were wide with terror. Josefina looked as if she expected to see a horde of howling blood-crazed Comanches descending on them. However, the man primarily responsible for Ben’s outrage seemed wholly unconcerned and was helping himself to a cup of coffee. Zion turned to face the chained man and held out a blue-enameled tin cup of coffee.

“Just the way I like it … thick as mud, hot as hell, and black as the devil,” Zion said, smacking his lips after taking a swallow.

Ben charged him, erupting from the ground and plowing forward with all the speed his hampered limbs would allow. He reached the end of his rope about a yard short of Zion. The line went taut and jerked Ben off his feet. He landed on his face in the dirt, rose up and looked over his shoulder at the rope. For the first time he realized he was tethered to the wagon, by a length of hemp rope that looped through his leg irons. He faced Zion again, managed to stand, and held up his wrists to the segundo.

“What the hell is this?!” Ben growled, his eyes blazing as he towered over him.

“Insurance,” Zion replied. “I gave you the chance to come along with us of your own will. As for the irons, they once were mine. I keep them as a reminder.”

Josefina cautiously approached the two men. The fury etched upon Ben’s scruffy features was not tempered by the proximity of the woman. He assumed she was in accord with Zion’s conduct, a suspicion she immediately confirmed.

“I am very sorry, Mister, uh … Alacron. Very sorry indeed. But Zion is worried there could be more trouble, and your presence, however unwilling, could prove useful. I must get my husband home. I simply must.”

“Your husband is dead, Señora Quintero,” Ben flatly told her. He was in no mood to be tactful.

“Of course he is. Quite so. But that really doesn’t change anything.” The widow dabbed at the perspiration beading on her upper lip. A single tear spilled from the corner of her left eye. It gleamed like a jewel in the arid sunlight. Ben wondered if anyone would weep for him if he never returned from Mexico.

“Please try to understand, we need you. Someone must handle the wagon in order to leave Zion free to fight.” Josefina offered her explanation in the same amicable tone of voice one might reserve for a friend.

The chained man lowered his right hand to his holster and discovered the Patterson Colt was missing. Zion cleared his throat, and when he had his prisoner’s attention, revealed McQueen’s Patterson tucked in his belt.

“I may have saved your lives yesterday,” Ben reminded him, hoping to awaken in Zion a sense of gratitude.

“For which we are profoundly grateful.” Zion drained the contents of his coffee mug, then refilled the cup with some of the grounds from the bottom of the coffeepot. Using the soggy grounds as a base, he proceeded to add a handful of dried peelings of jicama root, crushed sotol, and water. He mixed his ingredients until he had the right consistency before offering the odd concoction to Ben.

“This stain will darken your skin enough so you’ll pass for Mex,” he explained. “Where we’re going, a gringo like yourself is an open target for every vaquero anxious to settle a grievance with those north of the Río Grande.” Ben’s fist clenched as Zion stepped closer, moving within reach. He was tempted to make another attempt at Zion but held back, suspecting the segundo would not be so foolish as to have the keys to the leg and wrist irons on his person.

Zion was no fool. He knew what was going on in his prisoner’s mind. Escape had always been in his thoughts when he toiled as a slave in East Texas. Don Sebastien had not only saved his life, but had also restored his dignity. This was not a debt the former slave took lightly. “You’re going to help me get the señora and señorita to their home outside Saltillo whether you like it or not.”

He sloshed the contents of the cup and offered the mixture to Ben. “Once I have the women safe, I’ll give you a horse from the ranch stock and send you on your way with enough food and water to keep you supplied for a couple of weeks.” He placed the cup within Ben’s reach. “You want to reach the Río Bravo alive, Alacron? I’ll leave it up to you.”

Ben stared at the cup, then lowered his gaze to his forearm. He was damn near as dark as a local. But a little more brown wouldn’t hurt, and his red hair certainly had to go. Even if he managed to escape, a disguise could help him safely reach the Río Grande. As his wrist shackles allowed some freedom of movement, Ben picked up the cup and began to apply the stain to his face and neck. He worked it into his arms, massaging his flesh until the skin turned a nut-brown. Then he started on his hair. Soon his head was topped by a shaggy rust-colored mane that hung to his shoulders.

“Why is Señor Alacron all chained up? Did he do something bad?” Isabella asked. Her stepmother told her to hush and ordered her charge to return her carpet bag to the wagon. Isabella shrugged and did as she was told. However, she did not consider such a demand an answer to her question.

“Best you stay clear of Alacron,” Zion cautioned the girl. He returned to the campfire and proceeded to finish his breakfast.

Ben watched him eat, and silently cursed his own carelessness. If he hadn’t been so blasted exhausted and dizzy from his head wound, he might have heard Zion bring the leg irons, or at least been roused awake when he fastened the black iron bracelets around his wrists. He sensed Isabella starting toward him, but when he looked in her direction, the girl reconsidered. She backed off and rejoined Josefina over by the wagon.

Within an hour the wagon was loaded and the horses harnessed. Ben took the reins while Zion sat beside him, a rifled musket cradled in his arms. Josefina and the girl sat on folded blankets alongside the coffin. They rode out of the glade in silence, the only sounds being the jangle of harness rings, the noise of iron-shod wheels glancing off stone, and the rattle of a prisoner’s chains as they headed south to Saltillo.

T
WO DAYS’ RIDE FROM
the site of his earlier, disastrous ambush, Raúl Salcedo crouched beneath a limestone ledge that overlooked a narrow ravine through which the Saltillo road cut a winding path just wide enough to permit a freight wagon. A large, freshly cut post oak had been dragged across the road and left with its branches touching one hillside and the base resting on the loose gravel of the opposite wall. Any wagon entering the ravine would have to stop and wait for someone to lift the log aside. No more than a minute’s effort, but long enough to put a bullet through Zion’s head. Raúl gnawed the last of his jerky, followed it with a few stale tortillas he’d baked over hot coals the night before, and washed his meager meal down with a couple of swallows of tepid water collected from a nearby
tinaja,
a depression in the barren stone where rainwater from five days ago had collected. General Najera’s gunman was cramped and tired and disgusted with the way things were working out. This ploy was his last chance at accomplishing the task the general had set for him.

Zion was too clever to be allowed to live. Sooner or later he would discover the reason why Don Sebastien had been murdered. Of course, it would be so much the better if Josefina and Isabella were also eliminated, fallen prey to “Comanches” in a terrible massacre. That would greatly simplify matters. And Raúl Salcedo was the kind of man who liked to keep things simple.

The seventeen-year-old killer stood and stepped out beneath the ledge, and watched the Quinteros progress as the driver of the wagon guided the freight box down a steep grade, the wheels sliding in the washed-out rubble, the unevenly matched team of horses fighting the loose footing as they descended the wooded slope. A pair of mule deer darted from the underbrush several yards in front of the wagon and bounded to safety before either of the intruders could bring a rifle to bear.

“C’mon,” Raúl muttered. “Come.” He fished in his pocket, removed a spyglass and lifted it to his right eye, adjusting the focus until Zion’s image appeared in the center of the eyepiece. Raúl could almost see the beads of sweat glistening on the man’s ebony features. He shifted his view and studied the driver. Was this the same man who had interfered two days ago? The gunman’s brows furrowed as he tried to make some sense of what he was seeing. Things had happened pretty fast during the brief gunfight, and Raúl Salcedo really couldn’t be certain what the intruder had looked like. He shrugged and shifted again, this time to the widow and the ten-year-old girl. If the notion of murdering a woman and a child bothered him, it did not show. In truth, these two meant nothing to Raúl Salcedo.

Nothing at all.

“Won’t you have one of these biscuits, Señor Alacron?” Isabella asked. “They are very good.” She had made biscuits earlier in the day, using a recipe that Josefina had taught her, and had bound up the leftovers from breakfast in a checkered kerchief that she carried in her lap.