The Shadow Man (27 page)

Vincente felt good at killing the gringo who had abused Petra. The deed seemed to lift part of the overwhelming shame that had burned his soul ever since the Mexicans had retreated from Apache Canyon. To run from the enemy before you can see him and test his strength—how cowardly that was. Vincente should have fought them even if that meant fighting alone against the whole American army. Even to his death.

“Petra, are you all right?” Vincente asked.

“Yes. Just scared. But,
Madre de Dios,
we have killed one of the Americans. They will hang us.”

“No, they won't. I'll take his stinking carcass into the forest and hide it. I'm glad I got here in time to help you.”

“Listen!” said Petra. “Someone is coming now.”

“Probably our vaqueros. It is time for them.” Vincente held his pistol ready in his hand.

Nineteen men warily filed into the patio. Every man had a pistol on his belt. Their eyes sharply examined the body on the ground.

Gomez pointed at Unger's body. “Who is that?”

“A gringo that thought to harm Petra. He is nothing now.” Vincente turned to Petra. “We have chosen the best horsemen and marksmen in all the Rio Grande Valley. They know only that we have a very difficult job for them to do and that we leave tonight.”

“And that we will be paid in gold,” added Gomez.

“Yes, in gold, Gomez,” agreed Vincente. “Petra will tell you the rest of what must be done.”

Gomez took off his hat. “Señorita Solis, it is an honor to help you. I knew your father and brother.”

The other men doffed their big hats and nodded in agreement with Gomez's words.

“My name is Señora Petra Solis Tamarron,” Petra said, correcting Gomez. She was pleased to see the pistols on the men's belts. That showed their bravery and daring and a willingness to fight the Americans. She went directly to her plan.

“Two weeks ago, Rancho el Vado was raided by gringo bandits. They killed my family and drove away our sheep and cattle. With your help I mean to trail them into Texas and take back what belongs to me. We will kill as many of the bandits as we can.” She did not mention that she hoped to find Jacob. A horrible fear cramped her heart that he might think her dead and never return. However, he would be in pursuit of the Texans, so she had a chance to encounter him if she hurried.

“It will be very difficult to trail the bandits after half a month has passed and rains have fallen,” said a heavily bearded man standing near Gomez.

“Not too hard for a good tracker,” responded Petra. “Vincente is the very best.”

Vincente spoke. “We know the direction they must take, and it isn't south to Mexico where most bandits take their stolen animals. There is not one man there that would buy livestock with a Mexican brand from an American now that the two countries are at war. The gringos will go east to Austin. They must cross the Llano Estacado to do that. Water is very scarce. So the animals will be driven on a route that will strike the headwaters of the Colorado River and then follow that live stream to Austin. I know that country, for I traveled it ten years ago when I fought with Santa Anna against the Texans.”

“They could go to Missouri,” said Gomez. “That isn't much farther than Austin.”

“I've thought of that. We will track the herd. These
banditos
stole perhaps eighty thousand sheep. Many will die. We'll see the white fleeces of the dead ones marking the way for us.”

“We must not waste more time talking,” Petra said. “The Texans can drive the sheep twelve, maybe fifteen miles each day. Already they could be two hundred miles from Rancho el Vado. On our horses we can travel fifty miles a day or more. If we push hard, we should catch them in six or seven days.”

“What is to be our pay, Señora?” asked Gomez.

“Each man shall receive three hundred pesos in gold, even if we can't find the
banditos
. If we are lucky and get my livestock back, the pay shall be one thousand pesos in gold.”

Petra saw the pleased expressions of the vaqueros. “I am glad you ride with me,” she said. “Now go get your horses and rifles. Watch carefully and don't get caught by the American patrols. Meet Vincente and me in half an hour at the edge of the woods just south of the road to Las Vegas.”

The men left the patio, the big rowels of their spurs jingling. After the last vaquero had passed from sight, Petra spoke to Vincente. “Do you have the extra horses?”

“As you directed, I have two riding horses to replace any that become lame. Also, I have three packhorses carrying provisions. They, too, can be used as mounts if we need them.”

Vincente studied Petra. “What we plan to do is very dangerous. Not only will the
banditos
fight us for the livestock, but every Texan we meet will try to kill us. We are only twenty-one against many thousands.”

“They have robbed us and killed our people. So do we have any choice except to pursue them?”

“No.” Vincente was pleased at Petra's answer. He wanted to kill more Americans. Killing Texans would be best of all.

“Then let's ride. I will get my rifle and blanket from the hacienda and meet you at the stables.”

Five minutes later, astride a long-legged gelding, Petra rode beside Vincente toward the forest covering the flank of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She glanced back at Unger's body, tied across one of the spare mounts. He was but the first American to die by the hands of her and the vaqueros.

Far to the rear, Santa Fe was only a scattering of pale points of light. Then that vanished as she and Vincente entered the dark wall of the forest. The other vaqueros had been waiting, and now, touching their steeds with spurs, they fell into position to follow.

The cold wind that came down from the high, stony crown of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains washed over Petra. She shivered. She knew the shiver was not all from the wind. Vincente was correct. Texas was a hazardous land. The men who lived there even more dangerous. How many of these fine vaqueros was she leading to their deaths?

* * *

The winds hurtled themselves at Jacob with the noise of a maniacal flute, then raced onward past him toward the curve of the horizon, as if trying to blow themselves off the earth. He yanked his hat down more tightly and pulled his head into his collar. This was the evening of the second day of the storm wind. Now he smelled the moisture of impending rain. Damn his bad luck.

High Walking rode on Jacob's left. The Comanche was starving, his body shrunken and his ribs sticking out like ripples in brown sand. His long hair had escaped from his headband and flicked and danced in the wind like a hundred young blacksnakes.

On all sides, the Staked Plains was a flat expanse of tall grass, whipping and bowing and springing erect, only to be knocked down again. The storm clouds, their dark bottoms boiling and churning, streamed by so close overhead that they seemed to touch the men and horses driving forward into the invisible force of the wind.

Jacob saw the streaked, grayish wall of falling rain speeding in on the back of the wind. “High Walking,” Jacob called out above the tumult, “rain's coming.”

The Indian raised his face and looked ahead. He halted his horse and sat without moving.

Jacob jumped down and hastily hobbled his mount and the pack horse. The pack was dumped to the ground, and a section of tarpaulin was extracted from it. He laid the pack on one edge of the canvas to anchor it. The rain hit as he dropped down on the tarpaulin beside the pile of provisions and pulled the covering up over his head. The raindrops, slanting down at a tremendous speed, rattled like rocks on top of the tarpaulin.

Jacob squirmed around until he was somewhat comfortable sitting with his back leaning against the pack. He rested, listening to the storm tearing and clawing its way over the plains.

After a time Jacob parted the canvas and looked for the Comanche. The man crouched beneath the front legs of his horse. His shoulders were humped, as if the shape of his body would ward off the rain. Jacob shook his head in disgust. The stubborn Indian should have brought himself one of the white men's waxed canvases, for there was no protection on the open plain. Jacob's cover would shelter only one person. The Indian would just have to hunker down and suffer.

Jacob went to sleep, listening to the fury of wind and rain. Now and then, when the cold wetness found a way in, he would awaken and rearrange his cover. He tried to see the Indian once again, but night had fallen on the plains like a big black dog, hiding everything.

* * *

Jacob awoke in the drippy, misty, no-man's-hour of dawn. The storm was gone, and utter stillness lay everywhere. He looked at High Walking, sitting wet and hunched in the wan light. The Comanche's lips were moving, and his brow furrowed, as he argued with a crazy creature in his dreams.

Jacob studied the sad and tormented face. He understood, for he, like the Indian, felt the full depth of man's loneliness in the universe.

High Walking shook his head like shaking off a bothersome fly, and his black eyes opened. He stood up slowly, his cold, stiff muscles stretching reluctantly. The reins of the horse fell from his claw-like hand.

Jacob evaluated High Walking's emaciated body. He was dying. His deep sorrow was destroying his will to live.

“You must eat,” Jacob called to the Indian. “I'll fix some food.”

“I want nothing of the white man's.” High Walking's voice was slow, like a glacier moving.

“You have to eat something so you'll be strong enough to fight the scalpers.”

The Indian showed his teeth in a ghastly caricature of a smile. “I shall be strong enough. Even if they should shoot me in the heart, I would still kill them.”

They left without eating, riding through the fog that rose like slender ghosts awakening in the grass. Then, as the sun crested the curve of the earth, the gray fog-forms unraveled away to nothing.

Jacob and High Walking rode hard beneath the sun that climbed the blue wall of the sky and blasted the plains. The miles slid past under the hurrying feet of the horses. By mid-morning the sky was bleached to a shimmering gray by the intensity of the sun's rays. The two horsemen did not stop to rest but drooped lower in the saddle, their bodies sweating in the scorching heat.

The buffalo and the antelope and all living things seemed to have vanished from the land. The only thing that moved was a flight of crows driving its dark gang south. They became a single black smear on the sky, and then even that disappeared.

In late afternoon the riders came upon the headwaters of the Colorado River. On the south side of the stream they found the tracks of the four bandits. As they hounded the trail, the evening waned, the sun sank, and the day became night.

* * *

The days seemed to blend together for Jacob. Always there was the river running to the southeast, and the plains stretching endlessly north and south. With the sameness of the terrain, time could have been flowing backward and he would not have known it.

They traveled swiftly, riding the sunlight of every day into the gloom of night. They halted where the darkness overtook them. But their enemies also rode fast, and Jacob and High Walking gained only a little on them.

The land along the river was full of game. Buffalo were always in sight. Flocks of turkeys could often be seen, and beneath their roosting trees, the ground was carpeted with their droppings.

* * *

Jacob watched the night fall like blue-gray mist on the far, flat horizon and come hurrying upon them. He signaled to the Comanche, and they halted and began to make camp. High Walking had not spoken for four days, refusing even to reply to direct questions, and Jacob was worried.

The Indian finished his few chores and walked toward the river. Soon he was digging among a patch of cattails at the edge of the water. At last he was going to eat.

Jacob spread his blanket and lay down. Overhead, the big desert stars came out bright and hard and close to the earth. In the nearby brush there was the brief chatter of sundown birds settling in for the night. Crickets began to click their incessant tune.

The moon broke free of the horizon and swam into the star-studded sky. The mighty yellow globe of the moon conquered the stars, dimming them to mere pricks of light.

Jacob saw movement against the sky, and a giant owl swooped in low, its underfeathers glowing silver in the moonlight. The bird saw Jacob, and it screeched menacingly and snapped its bill, the sharp sound echoing through the quiet night like small bones breaking. It darted away into the gloom and did not return.

Jacob heard a sound on a distant breeze that reminded him of Petra's bedtime whisper. He couldn't stop his mind from filling with the memory of the woman. God! How he would miss her infinite tenderness for all the remaining years of his life. Every man lived on the edge of the great deep of death. But that was not so bad if your woman stood near you. His woman never would again.

Jacob went to sleep cursing the darkness that slowed his pursuit and delayed his revenge.

* * *

Jacob awoke to High Walking singing in a low, quavering voice full of pain and yearning. After a bit the song ceased, but immediately the Indian's voice rose in a woeful wail that held and held at an unbelievable peak of sorrow. The wail stopped, and the voice descended in a series of weakening moans to silence.

Jacob knew that High Walking's sorrow and the peyote he ate were doing something to his mind. He was deeply concerned that his companion would become completely demented.

Jacob lay watching the cold, uncaring moon for a long time before he could once again find sleep.

Jacob and High Walking ran their mustangs in the light of the orange sun inexorably mounting the eastern horizon. Their foes were only a few hours ahead of them and the battle was near.

The Colorado River had eroded the plains into rolling hills covered with oak trees. The valley bottom was crowded with large pecan, sycamore, walnut, and cotton-wood trees. However, the running horses weren't slowed by the change in terrain, for they followed the ancient, deeply worn buffalo trails that cut through the woods and held to the more gentle contours of the land.