Lando (1962) (13 page)

"He used your money for his own self. I've been caring for myself at your old cabin since I was twelve." Looking up at him, I grinned.

"With some help now and again from the Cherokees."

"I worried about Caffrey," pa said, "but I was in a hurry to get off. And that reminds me.

We'd best get out of here. If they find me with you, you'll all be shot."

"Not without that gold," I said. "We came this far for it."

"There's some all ready to go," pa said.

"I've taken it out myself. The rest--most of it--w take time."

Gin looked over at me. "Orlando, I think he's right. He's a sick man. The way his breathing sounds, he may be getting pneumonia."

The ^w had a dread sound, and it shook me.

Miguel was sleeping, but it came on me then that we'd best move the cattle a little way, like to new bedding grounds, but hold them ready for a fast move when darkness came.

"Is that gold where it can be laid hands on?"

I asked.

"It is."

"We'll move the cattle on to the end of the inlet and bed down there, like for night. Short of midnight we'll make our run."

My mind was thinking ahead. Gin probably was making the right guess, for pa looked bad. He had been lying out in the brush without so much as a coat, just shirt and pants. Even his boots were worn through and soaked.

Leisurely, we rounded up the cattle, with pa keeping from sight in the brush, and we walked them on not more than a mile. Then, late afternoon, we built ourselves a new fire and settled down as if for the night.

Rounding up those placid steers I'd been keeping my eyes on, we brought them up to camp.

Then, with pa resting, we waited the coming of night.

Miguel was restless. He never was far from his horse, and he worried himself until he was taut as a drumhead, watching the brush, listening, afraid something would go wrong before we could get away.

"I'm going into Guadalupe," I said to him.

"We need a couple of horses."

There was no way he could deny that, although he wished to. We had no mount for pa, and if we made a run for it, we'd be riding from here clean to the border.

Miguel shrugged. "I think it is safe enough," he admitted reluctantly, "and we have reason to get horses."

Gin had money. She had more than I did, which wasn't much, so she turned over a hundred dollars to me and I saddled up the dun. Just before I left, I walked over to where pa was lying, with Gin setting beside him. No question but he looked bad.

"You take it easy," I said. "I'll get two, three horses and come back."

"What about pack horses? For the gold?"

"Packs would make the Mexicans mighty curious, so I figured on steers. Nobody will pay any attention to the herd."

"They'll be seen."

"Maybe ... but with horns moving, and the dust, the shifting around of the animals ... I think we've got a chance."

It was a mite over four miles to Guadalupe, and not even a dozen buildings when I got there, most of them adobe. There was a cantina, a closed-up store, and the office of the alcalde, with a jail behind it. The rest were scattered houses and one warehouse.

In a corral were several rough-looking horses, but nobody was around. The air was chill, offering rain. At the hitch-rail of the cantina stood more horses, three of them led stock. I tied up the dun and went inside.

It was a low, dark room with a bar and several tables. Three men were at the bar, two of them standing together, their backs to me. A broad-shouldered Mexican with a sombrero hanging down his back by the chin-strap, and crossed cartridge belts on his chest, stood at the end of the bar, a bottle before him. He looked like a Herrara man to me. The other two were lounging with a bottle between them. The Herrara man was obviously interested in them.

Walking up to the bar, I put my elbows on it and ordered a beer.

The operator of the cantina accepted my money and flashed a brief smile at me, but in his eyes I thought there was a warning, an almost imperceptible gesture toward the Herrara man, if such he was.

"Holding cattle outside of town," I said suddenly. "We've played out our horses. Know where I can buy a couple, cheap?"

For maybe a minute nobody made any sign they'd heard me, and then the man next to me said, "I have three horses, and I will sell--but not cheap."

It was the Tinker.

Without turning my head, I picked up my bottle of beer and emptied the rest of it into my glass. "Another," I said, gesturing.

"I saw them," I added, "at the rail. They are fit for buzzards."

"They are good horses," The Tinker protested. "I had not considered selling them until you spoke. The buckskin ... there is a horse!"

"I'll give you eight dollars for him," I said, and tasted my beer.

For half an hour we argued and debated back and forth. Finally I said, "All right, twelve dollars for the buckskin, fifteen for the bay--the paint I do not want."

The Tinker and his silent companion, at whom I had not dared to look for fear of drawing attention to him, seemed to be growing drunk. The Tinker clapped me on the shoulder. "You are a good man," he said drunkenly, "a very good man! You need the horses--all right, I shall sell you the horses. You may have all three for forty dollars and a good meal ... it is my last price."

I shrugged. "All right--but if you want the meal, come to camp. Forty dollars is all the money I have."

There on the bar I paid it to him in pesos, and we walked outside, the Tinker talking drunkenly. The Herrara man's eyes were drilling into my back.

"He's watching us," the Tinker said as I stopped to look over the horses.

Straightening up, I looked into the eyes of the other man--Jonas Locklear.

"Cortina had me turned loose," he said, "on condition I get out of the country. He didn't want Herrara to know for the present."

Mounting up, we rode swiftly from the town.

By the time we reached camp it was near to sunset.

Pa was up, had a gun strapped on that Miguel had taken from our gear, and he was watching the sun.

"The only place they can watch us from," he said, "is that dune. It looks over the whole country around here. It's over seventy feet high, and in this country that's a mountain--along the coast, that is. If we wait about ten or fifteen minutes, the sun will be shining right in the eyes of anybody watching from that dune. That's when we'll go for the gold."

We now mustered six rifles, a good force by anybody's count, for Gin could shoot--or said she could, and I believed her.

We made beds ready, built up the fire, and put coffee on, and grub. Miguel was cooking.

When the sun got low enough, Pa, the Tinker and me took a few canvas bags we'd brought along a-purpose, andwith two steers we headed off into the brush. One of the steers showed old marks that looked like he'd been used as a draft animal sometime in the past. Both were easily handled.

As we walked, pa said, "I dove for this gold, got it out of the sand on the bottom. Most of the hull is still intact, and most of the gold will be inside, but I brought up enough to make it pay.

We'll take this and run; then we'll wait for things to simmer down, and come back."

Then pa told us some about how things were in Mexico. Right about this time Cortina had gathered a lot of power to him, but he was dependent on some of the lieutenants he had, of whom Herrara was one. The situation was changing rapidly, and it had changed several times over in the period of the last thirty years. Even in the last six or seven years there had been power shifts and changes, and changing relationships with the United States.

Not many years before, a Mexican cavalry detachment had crossed the border to protect Brownsville from a Mexican bandit, a fact known to few Americans except those in the immediate vicinity.

In the northern provinces of Mexico there was much division of feeling as to the United States, and the northern country had many friends south of the border. North of the border many citizens of Mexican extraction had fought against Mexico for Texas. It was difficult to draw a line, and there was a constant struggle in process for power below the border.

Pa told me some of this, and some I'd had from Jonas while riding south when there had been time to talk.

Pa led us in such a way as to keep bushes between us and the dune he thought was the lookout post, until we arrived right down on the shore of the inlet. There on the point, right where I'd planned to look, there was where pa stopped.

"The ship," he said to me, "lies off there, in no more than five fathoms of water."

He glanced over his shoulder at the sun, then stooped and took hold of a tuft of grass and pulled on it; he caught hold of another bunch with the other hand. A big chunk of sod lifted out like a trap door, and in a hollowed-out place underneath was a tin pail and several cans, loaded with gold.

There was no time to lose. Working as swiftly as we could, we sacked it up, for the sun was going down and in a few minutes we'd stand out like sore thumbs out there on that point. Tying the sacks two and two, we hung them over the backs of the steers, and then replaced the sod. We started back as if driving two straying steers.

As darkness came we clustered around the fire, eating. Miguel and Jonas finished first and, mounting up, went out to circle the cattle. The rest of us went through the motions of going to bed. One by one the others moved off into the darkness, but Gin and me, we still sat by the fire and I stoked the flames a mite higher.

"He's quite a man," she said suddenly.

"Pa?"

"Yes. I've never known anyone quite like him."

Me, I hadn't anything to say. I didn't know enough about my own father, and there'd been little time for talking. Also, as the time drew near we were getting worrisome about what we had to do.

You bed down a bunch of steers and they'll finally settle down to dozing and chewing their cuds; but after a while, close to midnight or about there, they'll all stand up and stretch, crop grass a bit, and then lie down again. That was the time we picked to move them--catch them on their feet so there'd be less disturbance.

Finally we left the fire, adding some more fuel.

I rigged some branches nearby so they'd sort of fall into the fire as others burned, giving anybody watching an idea the fire was being fed, time to time.

Away from the firelight, I moved up to my dun in the darkness and tightened the cinch. "You got it in you to run," I said, "you better have at it tonight."

We waited ... and we waited. And those fool steers, they just lay there chewing and sleeping. Then, of a sudden, an old range cow stood up. In a minute or two there were a dozen on their feet, and then more.

Moving mighty easy, we started to push them.

Miguel was off to one side to get them started north, and Jonas had gone up the other side.

We pushed them, and a few of them began, reluctantly, to move out. It took us a while to get them started and lined out, and we did it without any shouting or hollering.

We walked them easy for about a mile, then we began to move them a little faster. Not until we had about three miles behind us did we give it to them.

It was a wild ride. I'll say this for Gin, she was right in there with us, riding side-saddle as always, but riding like any puncher and doing her job.

Only I noticed she was keeping an eye on pa, too.

It made me sore, only I didn't want to admit it. I told myself somebody had to keep an eye on him, the shape he was in. Nevertheless, I was a mite jealous, too. I reckon it's the male in a man ... he sees a pretty woman like that and wants to latch onto her. She was a good bit older than me, of course, though a whole sight younger than pa.

We had those cattle lined out and we kept them going. After a ways we'd slow down to give them a breather, but not so slow that they could get to thinking what was happening to them. Then we'd speed them up a little. After six miles or so, the Tinker, he swung in beside me. "We'd best hang back, you and me," he said, "sort of a rear guard."

The night wore on.

Once when we came up to water we let them line out along the creek bank and drink. We had ten miles behind us then, but by daybreak we hoped to have a few more, because it wouldn't take free-riding horsemen long to catch up, and when they did there'd be hell to pay.

We had managed to keep in sight those steers carrying the gold. We'd lashed that gold in place, throwing a good packing hitch over it, and there was small danger of it falling off--nevertheless, somebody always had an eye on that gold.

The dark skies began to gray. We were more than half way there, but we still had miles to go. The cattle had slowed to a walk. They'd have been plenty angry if they hadn't been so tired.

Pa looked awful. His face was drawn and pale, but he was riding as well as any of us. His eyes were sunk into his skull, and they looked bigger than anybody's eyes should.

We pushed on, walking them now, trying to create no more dust than we had to.