Bullet Creek (5 page)

“You boys head on back to your ranch and explain those smashed mouths to Grant Sully.”

Hought stood with his hat hanging down his back, his bullet-shaped head slick with sweat, his cinnamon-beard glistening crimson. “You had no call, Navarro.”

“Shut up and fog it out of here!”

Not looking at his partner, Hought walked west along the wagon trail, no doubt toward his and Emory's horses. Spitting blood and teeth, Emory slowly, heavily gained his feet. He stared hard at Navarro. “Think you're real funny.” He turned, spat more blood, black as a tobacco quid, and followed his partner down the trail.

When Hought and Emory had mounted their horses and headed northeast through the chaparral, Navarro helped Hattie Winters onto the wagon. She took the reins from her brother, Richard, and berated both him and her husband for their cowardice, then turned to Navarro.

“Be careful, Tom. Those two are mean enough to have a reserved seat in hell. I've seen 'em in this country before. If they know who you are, you got double trouble.”

“I know where they ride.”

Hattie released the wagon's brake and slapped the ribbons against the mule's backs. “Thanks again, Tom . . . and Lee Luther!” she called behind her. The iron-shod wheels sent little ribbons of red dust to the gravelly trail. “I'll be sendin' these two over to the Bar-V for man lessons.”

She turned back around and dusted the team over a rise.

“Ah, it weren't nothin',” Lee Luther called.

Navarro looked at him and cocked a brow. The boy flushed, turned, and began walking back for their horses.

At the Rancho de Cava, full dark had fallen over the patio, with several stars kindling brightly in the dry velvet sky.

Vannorsdell and the old don had taken their chili con carne in the house's main dining hall, where they were served by Doña Isabelle and her mother, the taciturn Doña Henriqua. The ranchers returned to the patio for queso de tuna, a traditional Mexican dessert made from the prickly pear cactus, more brandy, and one last cigar. They'd smoked only half their cigars when Don Francisco sagged back in his chair, his heavy eyelids fluttering shut.

Vannorsdell set his half-empty glass of sangria on the table, stood, and placed his right hand on de Cava's left. “You are tired my old friend, and so am I,” the rancher said quietly.

De Cava's eyes opened. He jerked forward.

“I'll vamoose,” Vannorsdell said. “Shall I call Doña Isabelle to take you inside?”

The don's eyes slowly focused. He looked up at his neighbor. “Madre Maria. I have fallen asleep on you.”

“It's getting late.”

“It can't be ten o'clock. We used to stay up later than this in Tuscon—and ride back to our ranchos in time for morning coffee!”

“That was a few years ago, amigo.” Vannorsdell patted the old Mexican's long, rope-scarred hand. “Muchas gracias for your hospitality. I'll see you next month at the Bar-V.”

“Con gusto, but wait.” The old don leaned back in his chair and clapped his hands. “Isabelle!”

Sandals clapped on the tiles, and the girl appeared in the arched doorway. In Spanish, de Cava told her that he wanted his black stallion, El Morzillo, saddled and ready to ride in ten minutes. When the girl quietly protested, he assured her that he was still man enough to ride his horse after dark and that he wished only to accompany his dear friend to the top of Bala Caballete, or Bullet Ridge.

With another helpless shrug, the girl padded away.

“Francisco, don't you think you're a might fagged for a ride this late?”

Shaking his head, the don took his unlit cigar in his left hand and held out his right. “We must talk . . . away from here.”

Vannorsdell took the man's hand and gently helped him out of his chair. Together, they strolled through the dark house, hearing pans clattering in the distant kitchen, glimpsing distant lamps flickering down darkened halls. At the front door, Don de Cava grabbed his high-peaked black sombrero off a wall hook near a shimmering silver sconce and donned it with a caballero's tilt.

They waited five minutes, finishing their cigars, before Vannorsdell's Appaloosa and the old don's black Thoroughbred were led up to the house by two hatless charros in ratty ponchos and dirty white pantaloons. The drovers' eyes were rheumy in the light from the entrance tapers, and Vannorsdell smelled the chicha, corn alcohol, on their breath.

Apparently, the don did, as well. He berated both men, balling his hands into tight fists and puffing out his cheeks. The men grumbled,
“Sí, sí, jefe.”
They muttered Spanish curses, turned, and wandered heavy footed back toward the bunkhouse, from where the soft strains of a guitar rose amid the laughter of reveling vaqueros.

Wrapping his pistol belt around his waist, Vannorsdell stared after the two men disappearing into the shadows, silhoutted against the bunkhouse lights. He set his jaw with anger, but said nothing to Don Francisco. No need to embarrass the old don more than he already was. Before Vannorsdell could walk over and help the man into the silver-trimmed saddle of his big black stallion, Francisco toed a stirrup and hauled himself up with little effort. Angrily, the Mexican reined away from the casa and trotted off into the darkness.

“As you can see, my friend,” he grumbled ten minutes later, as he and Vannorsdell rode stirrup to stirrup along a grassy bench, smelling the sharp pinion and peppery sage, “I command little respect around Rancho de Cava these days.”

Vannorsdell chewed his cold cigar. “What happened?”

“Alejandro and Real. They have taken over the hiring and firing from Guadalupe. Unofficially, of course, but they run off every good vaquero Guadalupe adds to the role, bring in pistoleros they find in Tucson or south of the border. Revolucionarios. Bandeleros.”

Vannorsdell chewed the cigar. So what he'd heard was true—the two de Cava sons had turned to outlawry. There had been a couple stage robberies in the past year: Butterfield coaches run down by masked gunmen, most dressed like charros but sporting weaponry like those of Sonoran bandits.

Da Cava struck a match on his stirrup fender and crouched to light his cigar stub. “The wilder the colt, the better the horse. That is what I always thought. Now I see that my wild colts have become mestenos . . . and I am no longer much of a mestenero.”

“Don, I don't know what to say.”

A few minutes later, when they had climbed into dense pines near the boulder-strewn crest of Bullet Ridge, Don Francisco reined El Morzillo to a halt. When Vannorsdell stopped the Appaloosa, the don turned to him, the short stogie glowing briefly between his lips.

He took the cigar in his black-gloved fingers and exhaled the aromatic smoke. “You have in the past offered to purchase Rancho de Cava.”

Vannorsdell lifted his head and squinted through the shadows.

The don continued. “I refused your offer, and you were noble and polite not to press the matter. I, however, have reconsidered. If I do not sell Rancho de Cava, I am afraid that when I am gone, my house and my range—granted to my grandfather by King Carlos of Spain nearly a hundred years ago—will become nothing but a bastion for bandoleros. They will bring dishonor to the de Cava name.”

“I can help you root those sonso'bitches out, Don.” Vannorsdell lowered his head and spoke sharply. “With the help of my riders, I'll toss a hooley-ann loop over Alejandro and Real and have 'em both shivvied back to the cavvy in no time. Those boys'll be holding their hats when they speak to their father.”

Vannorsdell saw the old don's lip twitch a smile. Francisco took another drag off his cigar and blew the smoke into the pillared black shadows of the pines. “It is too late. I have little time.” He straightened in his saddle, stuck his chest out proudly, and announced, “Rancho de Cava is yours, my good friend, if you still want it for the price you offered me last month.”

Vannorsdell didn't say anything for a minute. He felt heavy and depressed. Welling in him suddenly was a deep sadness for this gallant, good man he'd known through the hardest years of his life. Acquiring the holdings of Rancho de Cava would make him one of the largest landholders in southern Arizona. But the reasons for his acquiring it—the defeat and infirmities of an old friend—made it a bittersweet trophy. He felt as predatorial and seedy as the don's own sons.

“It is how it is,” the don said now, leaning across and giving Vannorsdell's shoulder a reassuring pat. “One must accept things as they are. Knowing that you, mi amigo, will be running Rancho de Cava will ease my passing.”

Vannorsdell sat quietly, listening to an owl hooting behind him. Starlight glistened on the pine needles. “I'll talk to my bank,” he said, turning back to his friend with a nod. “I'll send a rider with word of the loan's approval. If there are papers to sign, we'll sign them at the Bar-V over supper next month.”

The two men shook hands.

“Buen viage!” Don Franciso sat the big black stallion for several minutes as Vannorsdell booted his Appy up and over the ridge.

Don Francisco finished his cigar, shredded it, and let the breeze take it. He reined the big stallion back down the ridge, toward the lights of Rancho de Cava.

Riding along, feeling relief but also a deep sadness at the passing of his years and his inability to raise sons worthy of his name, the old don threw his head back and sent the first few lines of an old Spanish dirge toward the stars.

He didn't hear the shot that went through his left temple, exploding his brain plate and whisking him out of his saddle.

El Morzillo heard it. With a scream, the big stallion ran, buck kicking, toward the hacienda.

Behind the horse, Don Francisco lay sprawled across a sage shrub, half his head splattered in the rocks and manzanita grass.

 

Earlier, just before the sun sank behind Mount Lemon, Navarro and Lee Luther were following a horse trail up the last ridge to the Bar-V headquarters, when a shrill whistle sounded from the ridge's rocky crest.

“Now what?” the boy said, lifting his weary gaze. He hadn't been reluctant to voice his fear of being late for supper. Being low man on the totem pole, he doubted the contrary German cook would offer him anything but a dipper of water. Navarro usually made his own meals in his own cabin or ate up at the big house with Vannorsdell—“the boss,” as the old Dutchman was called by his men.

Navarro's hand was on his pistol butt as, keeping the claybank moving, he snapped a look up the ridge. Fifty yards or so right of the trail, a cream Arabian stood up on its rear legs, flailing its front hooves skyward, milky mane rippling.

Reins in her right fist, long hair falling from beneath her cream plainsman toward the horse's rump, the female rider threw up her left hand.

Navarro grimaced and slid his hand off his pistol butt. “Shit.”

The girl brought the horse back to all fours. She reined the gelded Arab off the ridge and into a high-stepping gait through the rocks and barrel-cactus partially hidden by early-evening shadows.

“She sure can ride,” Lee Luther said, watching with open admiration as Karla Vannorsdell jogged toward them.

“You've already got a date for Saturday night.”

“Oh, I know. Besides, Miss Vannorsdell ain't said five words to me since I been here. I figure she's set her hat for some other rider on the Bar-V role—just haven't figured out who it is yet.”

“Hello there, gentlemen,” the girl said as she rode past them on the trail's right side.

The horse leapt a sage bush slightly behind them and hit the trail with a snort. Karla turned the mount back north and booted it up on Navarro's left side, her heart-shaped, suntanned face flushed from exertion, hazel eyes bright with excitement. “How was everything at the Butterfield station?”

“You're gonna break your neck comin' off a ridge like that,” Navarro warned.

“Not on Diablo here,” Karla said, leaning down to run a hand down the cream's arched neck. “He's as sure-footed a mount as I've ridden at the Bar-V.”

“You've only been here three years.”

“Don't be cranky,” Karla said. “How was the ride?”

Navarro shrugged. When the foreman offered the girl nothing more, Lee Luther, riding to Navarro's right, told her about the two men who'd jumped the prospectors and tried savaging Hattie Winters.

Karla listened intently across the neck of Navarro's claybank. Her eyes acquired an ironic cast. “Did Taos Tommy add another couple notches to his belt?”

Navarro scowled at her.

“There it is again—Taos Tommy,” Lee Luther said. “How'd ye get that handle, anyway, Mr. Navarro?”

Tom turned to Karla. “You know, we were having a nice, quiet ride.”

“Come on, Mr. Navarro. Everyone knows except me.”

“Yeah, come on, Mr. Navarro,” Karla said. “Everyone knows except him.”

Navarro reined the clay to a halt, leaned his left wrist on his saddle horn, and turned to Lee Luther, his blue eyes slitted with irritation. “When I was a little bit older than you, I cut down on a couple men in Taos. We were spinning the roulette wheel. They were riding me. Real hard. They were gunslicks, but I didn't know it at the time. Well, I'd been practicing with my old Dragoon, and it turned out, when they threw down on me, that I'd been practicing more than they had. Get the picture?”

As the kid stared at Navarro with parted lips, the older man continued. “To my everlasting regret, a newspaperman dubbed me ‘Taos Tommy' Navarro. That old moniker has haunted me ever since, attracting would-be gunslicks no older than you, with the intention of adding a ‘Taos Tommy' notch to their belts.”