Waltzing With Tumbleweeds (16 page)

“I gave corn to your wife,” he said. His host nodded in gratitude and motioned for him to be seated. Both men took seats on the frayed Navajo blanket spread on the ground. There was no food in sight.

She ducked in with the pouch of flat corn. Without any reaction, she poured it onto her grinding stone and began to crush it as the two men made small talk about old times.

“I came here on a mission,” Cal finally said.

Billy nodded. He understood such things.

“Some broncos took a boy in a raid. A white boy—” He fished out Teddy’s picture.

Billy studied the picture and then he showed it to the woman who nodded, she had seen it too. No clue, Cal knew he was playing poker with tough players—not an eyebrow twitched, not a mouth broke a straight line.

“His mother—she wants her son back. I have come to find him.”

“What could you trade for such a boy?” Billy finally asked.

“Whiskey.”

Billy nodded his head, “What else?”

“One new Winchester and ammunition,” Cal finally said with gut wrenching reluctance. It didn’t matter, whiskey or guns, both were illegal as hell to trade to known hostiles. If the Army ever learned of such a transaction, he’d be in deep trouble—but the Army had never got Teddy Swain back either. He looked at the stone face in front of him.

“Whiskey, cartridges, rifle. That’s all I’ve got. Can I make a trade with them?”

Billy shrugged. “Most of the
broncos
are in Mexico.”

“Is the boy down there?” Cal demanded.

“Maybe, maybe not. You got whiskey and rifle, we go see.”

A week later, Cal arrived in Tucson, dismounted heavily. Forced to grasp the saddle horn for several minutes to let his aching legs become sea worthy. Bone weary, he swayed as he crossed her porch to knock on the door. When she opened the door, her eyes flew open in shock. Her face paled when she looked beyond him at the other horse and rider. Finally she managed a shriek at her discovery.

“You found my boy! Teddy!” She rushed past Cal to hug the quiet boy who slipped from his horse.

“Teddy! Teddy! Are you all right?” she asked, her hands touching his dust-streaked face, searching him for wounds and imperfections.

“I’m fine, mother,” he said, sounding embarrassed by her attention.

The boy would be better in time. The shock would wear off, Cal felt certain. Teddy Swain had been through a lot and he’d seen more than most grownups would in a lifetime.

She turned with her eyes filled with tears that she couldn’t control. “How can I ever repay you, Mr. Jones?”

“Well, ma’am, I reckon fifty bucks would be enough. But I have to warn you that I lost your rifle.” He shook his head to silence the boy’s protest.

“A rifle? Who cares about a rifle?” She almost laughed aloud at his concern as she wiped at the tears on her cheeks.

“Well ma’am, lets not talk about it ever again then?”

“Certainly, Mr. Jones. I shall consider the matter settled.”

Fine, he didn’t figure the boy would mention it either and perhaps the Army would never learn he had traded a new .44/40 and whiskey to some hostile Apaches for the ransom payment. It would just as well be left unsaid.

She paused in the doorway on her way to get his pay and looked back in disbelief at Cal and her son..

“Won’t you consider moving in with Teddy and me? We have this large house—”

Cal shook his head. “I learned a lot of things out there.” He motioned to the distant mountains. “Lately, I’ve wondered why I drank so much. Now I know, my scouting days are over. Ain’t nothing left for me to do, but three things.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Get drunk, being drunk and getting that way again.” He waved off her protest. “Don’t worry about me, ma’am. You’ve got a fine boy here to raise. He’s plenty tough and he’ll make a good man. The Apaches thought so too.” If they hadn’t, the boy would not be alive.

Cal and Teddy shook hands while she went indoors. Neither spoke but their nods were enough. Then the boy went inside the house.

“Mr. Jones,” Colleen said rushing out side, “Here is a hundred dollars and it is not enough for all you have done. Take that horse too.”

“No ma’am, I have no place to keep him. Besides I’ve got no reason to own one.”

Unable to contain herself, she took him in a surprise hug and kissed him several times on the cheek. Wet kisses, for she had let the tears run down unheeded since he had arrived with the boy. “You ever need something, anything, money—for your whiskey, whatever, you come see me?”

His face afire with embarrassment, he could only mumble thanks and close his fist on the money she gave him. He stepped back. Then he remembered Gladys. She’d like all the whiskey he could afford to buy with this money. Of course, when the word got out he’d brought the boy back, they’d buy him several rounds of drinks in all the bars. But after the notoriety wore off, he’d have to go back to swamping out saloons again.

He looked forward to the whiskey that he intended to drink, it would make him forget, forget growing old and the sad state of his blood brothers, the wild Apache. His tongue was so thick for need of a drink, he doubted he could even talk as he hurried to find Gladys and share the good news.

Her cuss words in Spanish exploded in the empty bar room. He raised up in the side booth from his mescal induced siesta. What had
her majesty
so
upset this time?

He scrubbed his beard stubbled mouth on his calloused palm. By then, she came whirling up beside him. Her red skirt twisting from side to side, she halted like a trained horse on her heels before him. The fury written on her honey colored face forced him to sit up, lest in her impatience she struck him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Stupid donkey!” Hands planted on her shapely hips, her dark eyes shot darts of anger like a stone grind wheel making a shower of sparks sharpening a steel blade. Her exposed cleavage that showed in the open necked blouse quaked with her upset. Even wound up in her anger, her beauty made him feel strongly attached to her.

“Who?” His eyes narrowed in serious consideration.

“Don Pentales.”

“What the hell did he do to put you in such a vise?” Damn. Enough was enough. Whatever had her so on fire needed to be brought out in the open.

“You know he was supposed to bring a beef for me to butcher.”

“He said he had a fat three-year-old steer for your barbecue—” He stopped.

Someone parted the bat wing doors and pushed his way inside the dimly lit cantina. She turned and looked hard at the great Chihuahua peaked sombrero. Under his tailored short waist coat, he had on a snowy, ruffled front shirt, This fancy hombre wore fine chaps, two six-guns on his narrow hips and the great silver rowels strapped on his boot heels rang like bells. He cast a look sideways at her, then at him.

“You are open?” he asked in Castilian Spanish.

“
Si, s
eñor
,” she said and wadded her skirt in her hand and hurried to get behind the bar to serve him. While she went, the stranger keep a cold gaze on him for longer than would be considered friendly. An appraising stare by one who obviously knew no fear. Her latest customer might be a
bustamente
, a
pistolero
or even some apparition that came out of the Sierra Madras like smoke on the wind.

“Could I buy you a drink?” the man asked and nodded cordially with his invitation.

“Yes. I would drink with you.” His tongue thick enough by this time from the nap, something needed to cut through the depth.

“Good. To drink alone is like playing with yourself. There are better ways.” A smile parted his thin lips and even in the dark room, his straight teeth shown like polished pearls.

“What brings a man like you to Azipe?” he asked.

“Me?” The look of innocence on his handsome face meant nothing. “

This town has few things a man of your obvious means would need.”

“Ah, there you are wrong, my
amigo
.”

Regardless of what the stranger said to deny it, if he came to find either fame or fortune in this dingy place of cockroaches and ugly putas, he would be disappointed. Even the chickens about this village laid runny eggs. The skinny cows gave blue john from their cheesy bags and the burros birthed crook legged offspring.

“Have you heard of a man called Clanton?”

“Who has not heard of that butcher.” He took the glass of brown mescal and toasted the buyer.

With his thumb, the stranger raised the great sombrero and nodded. “Then you know where he lives?”

“Not many miles from here.”

“
Bueno, señor
.”

“What plans have you for Old Man Clanton? Sell him cattle? They say he has all the business with the Indian agencies, the U.S. Army. You want to sell beef to any of them you must first pay the old man.”

“Him and those
bastardos
in Tucson.” The voice sounded harsher. His words this time snapped like the braided cotton popper on the end of a six-foot bullwhip.

“You mean—” He looked around to be certain they were alone and no one could hear him. “The Tucson Ring?”

“Exactly.” The intruder looked at the glass, then he took another deep drink. “They sell the Apaches guns and sell the army horses, food, and blankets. They keep the Indian agencies warehouses full of wormy bacon and flour that’s half chaff. And they get paid for it as prime stuff.”

“But that is beyond the border.”

“There is no border for Old Man Clanton. He kills, robs and rustles in Sonora. Then he sells it for American pesos. What does the border mean to such a weasel?”

“A convenience.”

“Ah,
si
. Have some more mescal,
amigo
.” He refilled both their glasses and nodded to affirm his words.

Somehow he began to realize that this stranger represented a profit for him He did not know how, but he became more confident of his discovery by the minute. This fancy dressed rooster could be quite a valuable acquaintance in his circle of friends. It was not the strong drink they bathed their throats with that made his mind wander into rooms where there were gold bars stacked. He had not felt even a small buzz like a fly from the liquor, but the stranger’s words built castles for him in the great clouds that gathered across the skies in July.

“They say you are a powder monkey.”

He nodded. “I can blow a mountain range flat if you have enough or I can crack a seam in a granite mountain so narrow a paper won’t fit between it.”

The man nodded as if he had heard of such deeds and was satisfied. “Now I want you to work for me.”

“You have spoken of two things so far.” At ease with this fine dressed one, he put his elbows on the bar and considered his own grizzled face in the mirror behind the bar. The white sprouts on his face. The frost above his ears in the thin dark hair. No longer a young man who could take on three putas a night and make each one at long last beg for him to quit. Still he was not old, except his left ear had a constant ring in it from a too close blast. That fuse had burned too fast.

The stranger joined him. Shoulder to shoulder, their elbows resting on the edge, drinking her best mescal and making plans. It was like days gone by, when he feasted at great tables with patrons and spoke of opening mines to expose the gold secreted in the mountains’ vaginas. He felt the swell of his youth returning.

He looked over at him. “What rocks do you need split asunder?”

The man put down his glass and leaned on his right elbow. “I want old man Clanton and his gang blown to hell and gone.”

He knew the man’s true purpose at last. To this, he closed his right eye and considered the matter. He had blown up train bridges for various reasons. Once, he failed and that was why he resided in Sonora. But to blow up a person—who was old man Clanton anyway? A killer of innocent woman and children, a rustler who stole the poor rancher’s stock and shot them if they complained. Why would he lose any sleep over such a thing?

Not just anytime,” the stranger said.

“Not just anytime?” He looked pained at the well-dressed man beside him; he even felt a little jealous over his ownership of the snowy, ruffled shirt.

“We must do it when he and all his gang are inside the casa.”

“But how will we do it then?”

“You know Generale Crook?”

“I’ve heard of him. But I never met him.”

“He is a smart man, he hires Apaches to find Apaches.”

“The scouts. Tom Horn rides with them. I know him”

“Yes. An Apache can walk through your room at night and steal you blind and you would never know it.”

“But I’m not an Apache.” He pointed at his chest with his index finger.

“I will get you three of them. They can plant the charges for you. Do you see my plan?”

“I do. But isn’t he well guarded? I mean he has armed men and mean dogs that bark. I heard he was tougher than Fort Bowie to get close to.”

From his jacket pocket, the stranger produced a ring. Gold band with rubies. Even in the dim light it shown.

“What is that for?”

“That ring was on the old man’s night stand beside his bed. It was stolen off
Señora
Antonette Maria Consuela Reales when they raided the Reales hacienda. One of your Apaches went inside the Clanton’s casa four nights ago and took that ring.”

He nodded. Impressed.

“They cut her finger off for this ring.”

A shiver of cold ran up his spine despite the hot bar room.

“Saturday night, the gang will be there. Both his sons. Spawn of the devil and all his banditos.”

“I’ll need supplies.”

“They are waiting on pack mules, not a hundred yards from this cantina.”

“Fuses, detonators, matches, waxed cord,” he reeled off the things he could think of.

“They are all here.”

“The Apaches?”

“They will be there when we need them.”

Trapped. He felt that this man would take nothing from him , but ‘I-will-go-with-you.’

Then from inside his fine coat, he took out two pouches that clunked heavy on the counter.

“Two thousand in gold coins.”

Sparkling new, the yellow buckskin sacks gleamed on the wash worn wood. For a moment, he dared not to touch them. The words, pieces-of-eight crossed
his mind. Then at last, he shoved them toward the back of the bar and his gaze met hers. The paleness in her complexion made the circles under her eyes look like rings of charcoal. For once, this firecracker made no loud explosion. She stood behind the bar and fizzled in some depleting form. He gave a wave of his hand for her to put them away. Then with a dull nod, she took one in each hand and dropped to her knees to place them in the small safe beneath the bar.

“Get me some things,” he said to her and she obediently rushed off. She knew what he meant. A towel, soap, a change of underwear, a shirt. Some tobacco, papers. He’d add a few bottles of the good stuff to his tucker.

Damn, how long since he had had an adventure? The strength began to grown inside him. Only this job he could never brag about. Not like the time he opened the great silver vein in Los Gados Mine. Or when he found the streak of gold they’d lost—she piled his sack on the bar.

“
Dos mescal
,” he said and smiled at her.

She nodded. The ghostly pallor still on her face; he felt a twinge of guilt. The bottles wrapped in cloth stowed in his bag, he picked it up and nodded to his new amigo.

“I’m ready.”

“
V
aya con el dios
,” she whispered and crossed herself.

He reached over the bar, swept her up against it and kissed her hard on the lips. “Sleep well, my love, I will return in a few days. We can do what we want then, no?”

“Yes,” she whispered like the wind in the cottonwoods.

So he rode a fine gray gelding beside the stranger’s dancing horse, the fiery color of polished copper. The steed’s blood boiled with the pedigree of a king’s stable. The purest of lineage, the fleetest of the desert Moor’s great breeding.

They said the Mohammeden conquest gave Spain the spiral turrets on their buildings. But besides the long horned cattle, they left behind strains of their equine stock that knew no equal for endurance and speed. And as he rode beside this knight, he began recalling his own days of youth spent in Madrid at the bullfights. Of women he toasted, loved and the hot winds on the plains. He raised his hat and wiped the gritty sweat on his shirtsleeve. The same flames of hell toasted this land of greasewood as it did the Iberian Peninsula.

The Apaches weren’t there one minute, then like mirages out of the heat waves, they appeared, riding short legged horses, tough as mesquite wood. They came in spotted colors. Those stiff trotting ponies. An affection for such coats afflicted the aborigines across the land. It was not only an Apache trait, but rather all such men of the red race coveted the paints and piebald.

In his mind as he rode, he planned the length of each fuse. The size of the charges. No need to be stingy, the many boxes of explosives aboard the mules could flatten a mountain range if properly planted. His operation would be to send the Apaches inside with enough dynamite, fused and ready for them to light it and still be time for them to get outside before it went off. There could be no mistakes.

If anyone in the house discovered the lighted sticks they could rush outside and perhaps miss being blown up. So care in planting them would be everything.

“Yes, they will put them out of sight,” the one on the copper horse assured him.

The next day was spent in an oven hot canyon, wrapping the sticks in bundles with waxed string. The ends of the dynamite pried open and the blasting caps inserted. Fuse stuck in them after he carefully burned lengths and used his pocket watch to learn the time necessary to consume the footage.

He showed the pan-faced Apaches the consumption of the fuses. They
nodded in approval.

Then came the sunset. A fiery ball that sunk slower than usual. This may have been the longest day in his life. He could recall none this long before. Charges ready.

His messengers of death spent the day, squatted in their loin cloths, smoked cigarettes and were unmoved by either the pesky flies or the oppressive heat. At last, darkness veiled the land.