Bullet Creek (21 page)

“Come in, come in,” she urged, beckoning.

“Oh . . . no, ma'am . . . I couldn't. . . .”

“Will you get in here?”

She saw movement on the other side of the living room. It was the short, blocky figure of Vannorsdell moving toward her, a half-eaten cookie in one hand, his leather hat in the other. “What's all the yelling about?” the old man gruffed.

“I've been looking for you,” Karla said, seeing that Lee Luther was moving slowly toward her on her left. He walked as though afraid he were going to slip and fall. “It's Lee Luther—he thinks he's well enough to ride, and—”

“I am well enough to ride, sir,” the boy said as he took just one step into the living room, one step short of the rug.

“He's not well enough at all, Grandfather. Three Feathers said those stitches could pop open anytime, and he could bleed to death.”

“But it's just a flesh wound,” Lee Luther complained to the rancher, who'd stopped before him and the girl. “The bullet went all the way through, only nicked the bone. I'm tired of playin' checkers, sir. I wanna ride out with the others and look for them cattle the vaqueros got their long loops around.”

Chewing his cookie bemusedly, Vannorsdell studied the boy and his granddaughter, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at him beseechingly. The old man had a sudden nostalgia for a time, long ago, when another boy had romped about the grounds: Karla's father, whom, for reasons obscured by time, Vannorsdell had found himself at odds with about the time the young man had turned Lee Luther's age.

“Son,” the rancher said, setting his hat on his head, “let's walk back to the bunkhouse and talk about it.” Placing a hand on the boy's shoulder, he turned him around. Side by side, they walked through the foyer to the front door.

Karla wheeled to follow. “I'm going with you. Lee Luther can be very persuasive.”

Outside, the three stepped off the porch, crossed the patio, and began angling across the sloping yard toward the bunkhouse. “The way I see it,” the rancher said, his right arm draped across Lee Luther's shoulders, “I
could
let you ride out there after those missing beeves. I do need them back, and I need all capable hands on the job.”

The boy glanced at Karla, a subtle jeer in his eyes.

“But,” Vannorsdell added, “I like to treat my men at least as well as I treat my cattle. And when they're sick or wounded, I keep 'em close to the yard until they're well enough to do the work they've been hired for. Saves me time and money in the long run. Now suppose we go back to the bunkhouse, and I challenge you to a game of checkers before I ride out and see how those boys are doin'?”

Before Lee Luther could respond, the old man ran his hand across his right hip and stopped suddenly. “Oh, hell, I forgot my gun.” Wheeling and starting back toward the house, he said, “You two go ahead—”

A loud thunder clap cut him off. Facing the house, Vannorsdell jerked his head up with a start. Karla screamed. “Lee!”

Confused, Vannorsdell turned sharply left. Karla had dropped to a knee. Her face and blouse were spattered with bright red blood. Lee Luther lay back in her arms, sagging groundward, blinking, his eyes rolling under his eyelids. Blood and brain matter spurted from a gaping hole in the boy's right temple.

“Lee!” Karla screamed.

Vannorsdell wheeled again, facing northeast, the direction from which the shot had come. Gray powdersmoke hovered over the old melon patch. The maw of a big-caliber rifle appeared below the smoke, glinting darkly in the midday sun.

“Karla, get down!” the old man shouted, throwing himself over the girl just as the gun boomed again, echoing like falling boulders around the ranch yard.

As Vannorsdell and Karla hit the ground together, the rancher heard the whine of the heavy slug cutting the air a foot above and behind him. It careened into the ground with a loud thud, spraying dirt and stones.

Voices rose and hands came running. One triggered shots toward the melon patch, his slugs spanging off the rock wall. Beyond, two figures ran into the scrub bordering the yard's north side, heading for the old creekbed and the chalky buttes beyond.

“Get after 'em!” Vannorsdell yelled hoarsely, rising up on an elbow.

Sobs sounded on his right. He turned. Karla lay propped on her elbows near Lee Luther, her left hand squeezing the boy's bloody left shoulder, her head and shoulders quivering as she cried.

The boy lay before her, faceup, arms out, blood pooling thickly under his head.

About a mile from the de Cava headquarters, Navarro acquired an entourage of sorts—two vaqueros armed with rifles appearing out of nowhere and keeping about fifty yards away on both sides of him and his caravan. One of the men glassed him, then whipped his horse eastward toward the headquarters.

A few minutes later, four more vaqueros appeared, riding straight at him. Thirty yards away, they cut off suddenly, two drifting to his right, two to his left, then, keeping a cautious distance, followed him under the brick arch into the de Cava headquarters, past the corrals and outbuildings and through the courtyard's gate.

On the wall over the gate, two guards scowled down at him, fingering their Winchesters. Like the other de Cava riders he'd seen over the past year or so, they looked more like bandits than vaqueros, with their multiple guns and knives and criss-crossed cartridge bandoliers.

Outside the sprawling hacienda, which the falling sun washed with salmon light and purple shadows, Real stood, grinning, arms crossed on his chest. He wore a second skin of dust, as though he'd just ridden into the place himself. Behind him, Lupita was on a low balcony, staring down at him, expressionless. She wore an elaborately stitched black-and-purple dress trimmed with gold lace, her raven hair combed to shining and flowing over her shoulders. Her eyes were as black as her hair, set deep in an ebony face that could have been the model for any Spanish cameo.

Navarro halted the claybank before Real, who stepped forward, throwing his right arm out. “Senor Navarro, how nice it is to see you again, amigo! Muchas gracias for bringing my brother home.” He ran his eyes from Alejandro to the vaqueros tied belly down across their saddles, adding, “I think.” He chuckled with more apprehension and anger than humor.

Navarro tossed the lead rope to Real. “I ran into these boys out on the playa. They were herding the wrong beef.”

“Ah, yes.” Real shook his head sadly. “It is a tough habit to break.”

In Spanish, Alejandro told his brother to cut him free of his horse, in a tone that betrayed both his indignation and pain. He'd been riding with his chin dipped toward his chest for the past few miles.

“Brother, if you were stupid enough to get yourself shot, you can sit there another minute,” Real said, smiling again at Navarro.

He'd barely finished the sentence when Lupita and a small, stern-faced Mexican woman in a simple black dress emerged from the hacienda's main door and descended the stone steps. They brushed past Real, heading for Alejandro. Lupita had a pearl-handled knife in her hand. She went to work cutting Alejandro free. Then she and the other woman helped him down from the saddle and, each draping an arm over their shoulders, half carried, half led him toward the house.

Passing between Real and Navarro, Lupita gave Tom an enigmatic glance. Tom pinched his hatbrim.

When the women and Alejandro had ascended the steps and disappeared inside the hacienda, Real cocked his head at the vaqueros who'd followed Navarro into the yard. The men drew their horses up to within ten feet of Tom's claybank, rifles held high and threatening.

“In spite of the fact you returned my brother, Navarro, we are enemies. Tell me why I shouldn't kill you.”

Navarro glanced slowly over each shoulder. His chances for surviving a lead swap were nil, but he kept his right hand near his pistol. If he went down, he'd take Real to the dance, as well. “We have no reason to be enemies. My boss didn't kill your father.”

“Why should I take the word of Taos Tommy Navarro?”

“My word was always bond with your father. If you inherited his savvy, you'll play it smart and get off this vengeance bronc you been ridin'.”

Real lifted his shoulders and opened his hands. “If not?”

Navarro leaned forward on his saddle horn. “If not, I'll guarantee you, there's gonna be trouble like you've never known.”

Real's lips closed over his teeth, and his round face colored up. “Are you threatening me, Navarro?”

“I'm telling you the way it is. You been barkin' up the wrong tree. It's time to look elsewhere for your father's killer.”

“How do you know Vannorsdell did not kill my father?”

“ 'Cause he told me and 'cause he ain't a killer. Why do I get the feeling you know that?”

A muscle twitched high in Real's right cheek and he seemed to stop breathing for a bit. Tom inched his hand up his thigh to the butt of his Colt. He could hear the men behind him breathing. He stared at Real. Gradually, the man's eyes softened and a slow grin took shape on his face, the curled ends of his mustache rising.

He glanced at the men behind Navarro, sending a silent command. In the corners of both eyes, Tom saw the riders lower their rifles.

Real extended his arm to the house with a flourish. “Stay for a drink? Your horse is tired, as are you, I would think.”

Before Tom could answer, Guadalupe Sanchez appeared at the top of the steps, looking trim and fit, his wavy gray hair combed to one side, a curl licking over a temple. He stood there, his face grim, saying nothing.

Real followed Navarro's gaze to the old vaquero. “Ah, el segundo, there you are. It is hard to keep track of you now that the women have coaxed you into the house!”

Real chuckled, then quickly sobered. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to show Navarro to a room so that he can wash. Perhaps, then, you will be just as kind to show him to my father 's office. We'll have drinks there—just the two of us. No servants allowed,” Real added, jogging up the steps and giving the old segundo's shoulder a mocking pat. He disappeared into the house, the stony clatter of his boots quickly fading.

Navarro swung down from the claybank as Sanchez descended the steps. Moving up close to Tom and taking the claybank's reins, the segundo said in a hushed tone, “You should not have come. Much trouble about.”

Without waiting for a response, Sanchez ordered one of the vaqueros to stable Tom's horse. The man, freeing one of Tom's victims from his saddle, scowled at Sanchez, a knife in his hand. Finally, grumbling, he walked over, took the claybank's reins, and led the horse toward the stables.

“My rifle gonna be in that boot when I leave?” Tom asked wryly.

“I cannot guarantee it,” Sanchez said, “but in the house it would do you more harm than good.”

He jerked his head to indicate the casa, then started up the steps. Navarro fell in behind him. As they were walking down an arched hall a minute later, their boots clacking on the tiles, Tom said, “You mentioned trouble.”

Sanchez stopped and threw open a heavy door. The room beyond was small and hadn't been dusted in a while, but there was a big four-poster bed to the left, a pine wardrobe, small writing table, and cane-bottom chair to the right. Near the door was a marble-topped washstand with a pitcher, a bowl, and a coal-oil lantern. In the pitcher and the bowl were only dust, dead flies, and cobwebs.

Sanchez peered both ways down the hall, then turned to Navarro, who'd stepped into the room.

“Real has hired Cayetano Fimbres.”

“Ain't that nice—a local boy.”

“Since the don's death,” Sanchez added, “Real has stepped up his night work. A dozen to fifteen men leave at a time. They're gone usually for two, sometimes three, nights.”

“Where do they go?”

“I'm not sure, but I have my ideas.” Sanchez shook his head. “Not now. I have something more important.” He stared gravely up at Navarro. “I found more tracks like those I found near the don's body, and I have an idea who the rider might be.”

“Who?”

The sound of light-soled shoes clicked in the hall, growing in volume. Sanchez winced, then grabbed the pitcher and turned to the door.

“No need, el segundo,” Lupita said, hefting the filled pitcher in her hands. “I have brought water for Senor Navarro. You may leave.”

Sanchez stared at her for a moment, puzzled. As a flush rose in his dark face with its contrasting white mustache, he glanced quickly at Navarro, then turned out of the room, his spurs chinging down the hall.

“You made a nice mess of the boy's arm,” Lupita told Navarro, setting the filled pitcher on the wash stand beside the bowl. “I see it's been tended halfway decently, however. No sign of infection.”

She set the old pitcher on the floor, splashed water into the bowl, swirled it around, then emptied it into a copper chamber pot. “A doctor is now practicing at the Bar-V?”

“An Indian blacksmith,” Navarro said, tossing his hat on a chair and unbuttoning his shirt cuffs.

Her face lit up. “Ah, the Indio who busted up the Catalina in Tucson. You had to rise early and bail him out of jail.” She poured water into the bowl, then cocked an eyebrow at Tom. “At least, that's why you said you had to leave before even a civilized cup of coffee.”

Tom was rolling his right sleeve up above his elbow. “I'm sticking to my story.”

As she stepped aside, he moved up to the bowl and splashed water on his face. He lathered his hands from a small cake in a tin tray, worked the suds into his face and arms and across the back of his neck. Lupita sat on the bed and watched him. By the time he was through, the bowl resembled a well-used stock tank.