Dorothy Garlock (5 page)

She sang the ballad in English, then repeated it in Spanish. Her voice had a kind of sweet, husky throb that drifted gently on the cool night breeze. She sang song after song, and never had a more attentive audience. She let her eyes roam over the faces of the men. Most of them were of Mexican descent, as was the tall, handsome man with the silver pistols. He had moved back in the shadows and was sitting very still. The brim of his sombrero was pulled down over his eyes, but he was facing toward her, and Johanna could almost feel the impact of his sharp, blue eyes. Something about his manner gave her a moment of uneasiness, but she pushed the thought away and gave her attention to entertaining the men who had made her and Jacy feel so welcome among them.

That night, for the first time in her life, Johanna slept in a covered wagon. Although tired, she felt strangely more contented than she had since her parents’ death.

*   *   *

“H’yaw! Hee-yaw!” Mooney shouted at his team and cracked the bullwhip over their backs. The yell was echoed down the line as the drivers started their teams and the cumbersome wagons began to move. The camp had been stirring since an hour before daylight, when Codger had banged on the iron pot. “Come ’n’ git it before I throw it away!” he’d yelled.

This was their fifth day on the trail. About them lay vast, immeasurable distances, broken by a purple tinge, the hint of the mountains ahead. The sun sent its heat waves shimmering down on the train as it moved sluggishly across the desert of sparse prairie grass and baked earth.

Johanna fastened her eyes on the notch in the mountains toward which they were heading. Mooney had pointed out that they would have to cross the river before they reached the mountain pass. All travel on the plains was governed by the need for water. When they reached the river they would fill their barrels, and the water would have to last until they reached the mountain pass, where there was a water hole. Between the river and the mountain pass was the meanest stretch of country God’s sun ever shone on.

“Land out here ain’t fit fer nothin’ but tarantulas, centipedes, and rattlesnakes,” Mooney had told her.

Later in the afternoon, they encountered one of the latter.

They were rolling along at a steady pace, Johanna drowsing on the seat beside Mooney, Jacy in her hammock. Suddenly the two lead mules whirled off the trail, bringing the wagon to an abrupt stop.

“Right there’s gotta be the granddaddy of all rattlers.”

Johanna’s eyes followed Mooney’s pointing finger. In the middle of the trail was a large snake, coiled in striking position. Its head was up and swaying, its beady eyes looking directly at them. The rattles on the end of its body were in constant motion. Johanna shuddered but couldn’t take her eyes off the snake. Jacy, standing behind her, clutched her shoulders and stared with horror at the squirming monster whose rattles could be heard by the teams pulling up behind.

Mooney was having difficulty holding the badly frightened mules. Johanna turned her eyes to them for only an instant, then heard the shot. She looked back to see the snake, now minus its head, uncoiling in its death throes. A rider astride a horse as black as midnight was shoving his silver pistol back into its holster. He turned in his saddle, and his somber blue eyes slanted across Johanna to rest on Jacy’s pale face and shiny brown hair.

“Thanky, Luis.” Mooney leaned over the side of the wagon and spat in the dust. The mules ceased their restless movements and stood trembling in their harnesses. Mooney wound the reins about the brake lever and jumped down from the wagon.

The body of the snake was as thick as a man’s leg, and stretched out it was well over six feet long. Mooney grabbed it by the tail and pulled it off the trail.

“It’ll make good eatin’, Luis, if Codger’ll pick it up.”

“
Sí
—I will tell him.” He turned the black horse and looked at the girls once again before he headed back down the line.

It was the first time Johanna had seen the slim, goodlooking cowboy in daylight. He always came into camp after dark and was gone when the wagons rolled out in the morning. She had wanted to ask Mooney about him, waiting until the time was right. She turned to him now.

“That was real shooting, Mooney.”

“Yup. But that warn’t no chore atall fer Luis. I seen him shoot the eye outta a jackrabbit at full gallop.”

Johanna expected him to turn and grin at her as he did sometimes when he was exaggerating, but his face remained serious.

“Is he a gunman?” She didn’t know why she asked the question and wished she could rephrase it when she saw the look on Mooney’s face.

He let loose another stream of tobacco juice. “’Pends on what ya call a gunman.”

“You know what I mean. Is he hired by Mr. Macklin because he’s good with a gun?”

“Ain’t hired,” was Mooney’s clipped reply.

Before she realized it, Johanna let out a sigh of exasperation.

Mooney grinned.

“If’n you’re a-wantin’ t’know ’bout Luis, why don’t ya just come right on out and say so ’stead a beatin’ ’round the bush?”

“Mooney, you are the beatinest man!” Johanna said heatedly and then laughed. “All right, I’ll stop beating about the bush. Tell us about Luis.”

“Luis is a breed of his own. He ain’t like nobody else I ever knowed.”

“Why is he with the train if he isn’t working for Mr. Macklin?”

“He makes the trip once in a while. Likes to look over the horseflesh in town. He’s got know-how ’bout horses. Hates cows.”

“Does he live in the valley?”

“Yup. He lives there.” Mooney waited, but Johanna decided to ask no more questions. He would tell her as much as he wanted her to know, in his own good time. After a lengthy pause he said, “Built a nice little hacienda down the valley a ways. Got a string of horses, all good stock. Right steady feller, Luis, and in a fight he ain’t got no quit atall.”

Now that Mooney had started talking, Johanna held her breath for fear he would stop, but he continued on.

“I recollect a time when Jesus Montez—he was a powerful mean Mexican—come a-raidin’ up and ’cross Texas and got into New Mexico territory. He raided and burned out Mex and gringo alike. Then he come to Macklin Valley. Hit the Mex village when most of the men was out gettin’ strays fer roundup. Men what was left turned tail and run for it. All but Luis. He stood alone till Burr got there and the two of them cleaned out the whole kit and caboodle of the varmints. I’m thinkin’ them two birds together could lick their weight in wildcats.”

He glanced at the women to see if they were impressed. They were.

“I didn’t realize there was a village in the valley,” Johanna said thoughtfully.

“Ain’t exactly a village. All the Mex what work fer Burr kind of live together like. Burr’s got it fixed up real nice. Women got a place to wash, even. Them Mex women are the washingest women you ever did see. Always got clothes a-dryin’ on the bushes. Good folks, I’d say, even if ol’ Mack do hate ’em like poison.”

“But . . . why?” Johanna asked the question immediately.

“It’s a long story and an ol’ one. I ain’t even sure if it’s the real one, but it’s the only one I know of. Ol’ Mack wrestled this range out of Indian country. He talked peace when he could, fought when he had to. Twice all the Mex deserted him and all he had left was Calloway, and him green as grass ’bout fightin’, fer all his book learnin’. Ol’ Mack, he say he ain’t got no use for a goddamn Mex. Allus worked the hell outta ’em, give ’em a little corn for tortillas and a lot of cussin’. Burr sees it different. Treat ’em decent, he says, and they’ll more than likely stand by you when the hair gets in the butter.”

He pulled down the brim of his hat, and the way he settled back told Johanna he wanted to drop the subject.

“Thank you for telling us about Luis and about Mr. Macklin. I’m relieved to know he’s got a kind and thoughtful foreman. Burr sounds like a very nice man.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Mooney swore, and for once he didn’t spit beforehand. “I ain’t never said nothin’ ’bout Burr bein’ kind and thoughtful. He ain’t got hardly a kind bone inside his ornery hide. Get right down to it, he’s ’bout as loco mean as ol’ Mack, but different somehow. He’d just as soon knock ya down as look at ya if’n ya cross him. Do yore job, shut yore mouth, and stay outta his way is the way t’get along with Burr. Any
kind
thing Burr does is fer the good of the valley, and that’s ’bout the size of it.”

Johanna looked at him sharply, measuring his sincerity.

“You . . . don’t like him?”

“Hell, yes, I like him. A man don’t have t’be soft as mush fer me to like him. Burr’s hard as nails and rougher than a cob, and the way things is, there ain’t no reason fer him t’be anything else.” Mooney gave her a disgusted look that shut off any more questions.

Johanna had a lot to think about. For the first time since she had accepted Cash’s offer, she felt a nagging little cloud of apprehension in her mind. She pushed it to the farthest corner and covered it with the thought that no matter how disagreeable Mr. Macklin was, she would be able to handle it. Jacy would have her baby in Macklin Valley, and when they left the valley it would be with most of the wages she’d earned. This job was going to give them the time they needed to work things out.

Jacy climbed onto the seat. Johanna put her arm around her sister and gave her a little hug. Jacy smiled at her. The change in Jacy during the past week was almost a miracle. She was eating better than she had for several months and was taking an interest in things around her. Johanna no longer had to coax her to wash or to comb her hair. The doctor had said to treat her normally, not to urge her to talk but to give her time to get used to the changes in her body. Johanna had obeyed the doctor’s instructions and added an abundance of love and devotion.

Suddenly she was almost happy. The sky was bluer, the breeze cooler, the landscape more beautiful. Things would work out. They were just bound to.

T
hree

T
he “settlement,” as Mooney referred to it, was a couple of adobe houses and a lean-to shed, set in the lowland near the river. Farther out were several abandoned dugouts. There they would cross a swiftly moving stream. Mooney explained that the riverbed at this point was solid rock and one of the few places within a hundred miles where the heavily loaded wagons could cross. There was a plume of smoke coming from the chimney of one of the houses and Johanna was disappointed when Red circled the wagons some distance from the settlement.

“Who lives here, Mooney? Who would want to live so far from everyone else?”

“That’s a mean outfit, Johanner. Small-caliber, but mean. We don’t usually have no truck with ’em.”

It had been a long day, and evening began to settle its purple darkness about them when the cookfire was built and the large pot containing beef and potatoes was swung over it, as well as the ever-present black coffeepot. Johanna and Jacy sniffed appreciatively.

When the stew was ready and the plates were filled and passed around, Red brought his dinner to where Johanna and Jacy sat on a wooden box.

“We’ll ford the river come mornin’. Luis was across and back. He says the rains up north has raised it a mite, but still ain’t nothin’ to worry ’bout.”

Across the campfire from them Luis sat back in the shadows, as he did each night, silently watching, his face expressionless. Tonight his face was turned away from them as he visited with his companions, and they could see his profile clearly in the flickering firelight. Jacy’s eyes dwelled on the man often, and Johanna wondered if she was attracted to him or just curious about him, as she herself was.

Red adjusted the dusty hat on his head nervously. “Ma’am, I been a-wantin’ to tell you this, and I guess now’s as good a time as any. If’n you get to the valley and it ain’t what y’all thought it would be and if’n you want t’leave and go back t’town, all y’all got to do is say the word. There ain’t a man jack here what wouldn’t sign on to take you and the young miss back, and that means Luis, too.”

While his craggy face showed no emotion, the sincerity of his words conjured images of doubt within Johanna.

She turned the full force of her troubled eyes on him. “What makes you think we’ll want to leave?”

“Well . . . I just thought you might. These lawyer fellers can paint a pretty picture with their smooth words, and I . . . just thought . . . well . . .” his voice trailed off, then he added, “you might not want to stay.”

Johanna laughed with relief. “I’m used to hard work, Red. I know it won’t be easy to get along with Mr. Macklin, but I can do it. Surely he can’t be so mean as not to want me to have my sister with me. Don’t worry about us.” She put her hand on his arm. “But . . . thank you.” Their eyes met and he looked away, embarrassed.

Red was taking their empty plates back to the cookwagon when the horsemen approached the camp. They stopped outside the circle of light and called out, “Hello the camp!”

“It’s Burris and a couple of Mex, Red.” The soft, slurry voice of the night guard came out of the darkness.

“Come on in, Burris.” Red’s voice held a touch of annoyance.

The men came forward slowly, dismounted, and tied their horses to the wheel of a wagon. One of them came to the campfire and shook hands with a reluctant Redford.

“Jist thought I’d ride over and say my howdy and see if’n there’s anythin’ I can do fer y’all. Anythin’ atall.”

“Thanky,” Red said curtly. “We’re a-makin’ out just fine. You’re welcome to some coffee before ya ride out.” Red turned his back and walked away.

Codger brought three tin cups from the chuckwagon and set them on the ground near the coffeepot. He motioned the Mexicans toward the fire. None of the men sitting around the campfire made any attempt to get up or to greet the visitors. It was obvious that they were not welcome, but the unwritten law of the prairie demanded that they offer the minimum of hospitality.

The man called Burris was bearded, heavyset, and grayhaired. It was difficult to tell where his hair left off and his beard began. His clothes were typical range clothes, dirty and ragged. The two Mexicans looked much like hundreds of men Johanna had seen lazing around the saloons in San Angelo, unkempt and shifty-eyed. These two had guns strapped about their hip with the holsters tied down.