Wes Crowley, page 12
Undaunted, Miguel and Consuela moved to a simpler, quieter life in Palomas. A year later, Enrique was born and two years after that Mateo was born. As they grew older and learned of their extended family, of course they believed their parents were fools.
Finally, with all the wisdom of youth, they decided they would leave this town, along with their young friend Billy Pike from Columbus up in the New Mexico Territory. The three of them would travel west-southwest first to work with their paternal grandfather on his ranch at Nogales. It was closer. If that didn’t work out, they would travel east to join their maternal grandparents on one of their cattle or horse ranches along the Texas border. What they would not do is remain in this do-nothing, go-nowhere town.
Unfortunately, with the bad timing that is all too often a hallmark of youth, the three heard rumors of a shooting at La Cantina de las Palomas and decided to check it out. While they were there, they would have a few drinks. After all, it would be bad luck to begin a journey across the desert without first having something to drink and without making one good memory to ground them in their former home.
Also unfortunately, Simon and Race Whatley, of whom the brothers and Billy Pike knew nothing, were still in the saloon. But Billy thought those men at the front of the saloon looked the type to be gunslingers, and so the discussion with his friends unfolded, during which, occasionally, one of the boys pointed toward one of the Whatleys. And so, unbeknown to Billy and his friends, the situation rapidly deteriorated.
As a result, once señor Herrerra arrived to take care of his friends, Billy departed the cantina. As the bartender recommended, he mounted his horse and went to deliver the sad news to his friends’ parents.
At the Gabaldon’s, a modest but pristine adobe with a low wall around the front yard on the west end of town, Billy dismounted. Out front there was a hitching post, probably eight or ten inches in diameter, with three heavy eyebolts protruding from it, front and both sides. On the house side of the post were three more eyebolts set a few inches lower than the first set. Hence, six horses could be hitched to the post at one time should the need arise.
The most he’d ever seen there at one time were three horses, and those were his mare and the two geldings of the Gabaldon brother. Their horses had become almost as good friends as he and the brothers had become, and all because of that hitching post.
He slipped his horse’s reins through the top front eyebolt and eyed the other two on that side. The brothers’ horses were still on the west side of the cantina. He should have brought them with him, but he wasn’t thinking of such things at that moment. He just wanted to deliver the bad news—the most horrible news possible—and then be on his way.
Perhaps he would round up those two horses later. And if he did, to make up for not bringing them now, he would take them to the barn and remove their saddles and fit each of them with a face bag of oats and curry them. That would make up to the Gabaldons for not bringing their sons back and—no, it would make up for not bringing their sons’ horses back. Nothing—the loneliest, emptiest word in the universe—nothing, nothing, nothing could make up for not bringing their sons back.
He couldn’t even try. It was all he could do to deliver the message and share his grief. Merge his grief with theirs.
Now the young gringo stepped tentatively up on the porch of the home of Miguel and Consuela Gabaldon. He stopped and looked for a moment at the door. He had never noticed the rich brown color of the wood or the small window, maybe six inches tall by 4 inches wide, in the top panel. Had that always been there?
He took two quick steps forward, aware for the first time of the heavy sound of his boots on the wooden porch. It must be hollow underneath, and of course it was hollow. It was wood and it was a porch and it was elevated three steps up from the ground, and none of that made the slightest difference in the fact that two particular pairs of boots would never make even a quiet, whispered sound on it again.
He shook his head and nervously knocked on the door.
Now the door opened. Miguel Gabaldon, his friends’ father, raised his head and looked first at Billy’s eyes—he seemed to recognize Billy, and he smiled—and then his gaze flicked up at Billy’s hat. Consuela, his friends’ mother, stood just behind her husband and slightly to one side. She too seemed to recognize Billy and she too looked at his eyes but she recognized something different. She clasped her hands, moved them up to her mouth, and frowned.
Now Billy remembered his manners especially at times like this and whipped off his hat. He held it to his chest, his right hand trembling, and listened as if from around the corner of the stoop as señora Gabaldon screamed “No!” and then as he himself stepped over her No and conveyed the news of what had transpired in the cantina.
While Billy wished he really was listening from around the corner of the stoop, señor Gabaldon somehow looked away in time to keep his wife from collapsing to the floor. Just as quickly, maybe without moving at all, he turned back to slash Billy with a look at once disbelieving and accusatory. His brow was a dark, terrible series of furrows, molten iron bubbling in his eyes. Still he hugged his wife close with his left arm to comfort her, so tightly that his body trembled with her agony. Even then, his gaze remained locked on Billy Pike and every fiber of his being yelled, “If my boys are dead and you were their friend, why are you still here?”
And Billy Pike reckoned the man was right. He nodded, muttered, “Sorry,” then took a step back. It seemed the respectful thing to do. Then he turned, quickly stepped off the porch, and all but ran to his mare, filled with an angry new resolve.
Five minutes later, he tied up to the hitching rail on the west side of the cantina in the position closest to the street. He looked around, then strode through the front door of the cantina.
The place was far from full, but there were five or six men at two tables in the back, though none at the table he and his friends had occupied. The chair in which Mateo had died was picked up and placed under the table again. There was a darker brown spot on the wood where Mateo’s blood had been washed up and the wood hadn’t dried yet, and some of the fancy silver-flowered wallpaper had been peeled away from the wall behind where Enrique had died. You could still see the bullet holes if you knew what you were looking for.
To his right, there were two men at the table previously occupied by the Whatleys, even sitting in the same two chairs.
Billy brushed his right hand over his revolver and looked hard at them on the way by.
One never noticed him or looked up. The other looked up, then raised one hand in a false greeting as if he was nervous.
Billy spotted the bartender about halfway along the bar and stopped across from him.
The bartender looked up. His right hand continued to move in small circles as he polished the bar with his bar towel. He tried a smile. “Oh, hey there. Did you—”
Billy tried to keep his voice quiet. “Where do they live?”
The bartender stopped wiping the bar and frowned. “What? Who?”
Billy put his palms on the bar and leaned forward slightly, trying to keep the conversation between them. “Them! The ones who killed my friends!”
“It’s Billy, is that right? Billy, come on now. Think about what you’re doing. If you go up against those two—”
And Billy exploded. He slapped the bar with both hands. “Where?”
He turned and stalked toward the door.
At the front table, both men were watching him.
As he drew nearer, he glared at the closest one. “What?”
The man only shook his head. “Nothing.” He turned back to his friend as Billy passed the back of his chair. As Billy clomped out onto the boardwalk and turned left, the man shook his head again. “Dead and don’t even know it yet.”
The other man frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He was in here earlier with a couple of friends. What I heard, the Whatleys killed ‘em.”
The man’s eyebrows arched. “The Whatleys? That’s who he’s looking for?” He shook his head too and issued a quiet whistle.
*
As Billy mounted his horse and turned her away from the hitching rail, he was determined to think his way through this problem. There was a way to put the Whatleys in the ground and keep breathing himself. He just had to figure it out.
He remembered one of them had said he wanted to leave town, so that was the first thing to deal with. If they’d already left, then he’d need to start asking around about which way they went. Then he could get ahead of them and set up an ambush.
But first he need to know they’d left, and for that he’d need to ride out to their house.
He did.
From a low mud hill above a huge mesquite tree, he watched as the one called Simon came out of the house and led the horses to the barn.
Good. So they weren’t leaving today, and surely they wouldn’t leave in the dead of night. That would give people the wrong impression, and the Whatleys were all about impressions. They would leave in the morning. Probably an hour or two after sunup. No rush. They’d want people to notice they were leaving with their heads held high.
But they wouldn’t.
Their little dry canyon pinched almost shut here at the east end.
And Billy Pike would be waiting.
Chapter 24
After about 6 hours of sleep, Wes and Tom rode out at 2 a.m. Using the same canter/walk strategy they’d used from Las Cruces to Akela Flats and then from the Flats to Deming, they covered the distance to Columbus in slightly under four hours.
A half-hour later they were walking their horses south from Palomas. Wes grinned. “Notice the name of this road?”
“No, why?”
“It’s Avenida 5 de Mayo. Celebrating one of their independence days. When they chucked out the French. That was just a couple decades ago, back in 1862. Still fresh for them. And good for them. I’ve only known five or six Frenchmen, and there wasn’t a good one in the bunch.”
Tom grinned. “That’s kind of a small sampling to condemn a whole nation full of people.”
“Maybe, but you take five or six right in a row like that you’d think at least one of ‘em would have one redeeming quality.”
Tom laughed. “I guess.”
Wes said, “You ever even met a Frenchman?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Well then see, there you go. You have no basis for an opinion pro or con. Me, I’m con all the way. Life’s easier if you decide early-on what you can and can’t put up with and then stick to it.”
Tom finally pointed toward a particularly large mesquite tree. “We’re almost there. See that huge shagbark at the base of those mud hills?”
Wes nodded, then looked around. “How’d that’n get so big when everything else in this country is stunted to scrub?”
Tom shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s growing over an old well or something. Anyway, just the other side of that shagbark to the south, there’s a narrow arroyo. It runs right up through that little dry canyon. Nearly all the way in on the right is a hacienda, small but well put together. Two or three bedrooms, running water in the house, everything. Last I heard, that’s where the Whatleys were living.”
“They own it?”
Tom shook his head. “Nah, far as I know they don’t own anything but their clothes and their horses. They wanted the place, so they ran off the owner and took it.”
Wes waited, then said, “Anything else?”
“I don’t think so. But we can get a good look at it from the side of the hill up behind that shagbark. I’ve been up there before. There’s a good layin’ place carved into the hill about even with the top of the tree.”
“All right. Well, that’s all good to know, I guess.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Any outbuildings that you know of?”
“Oh, yes, a small barn and probably an outhouse. I don’t think there are any others. Maybe a tool shed on the side of the barn, like a lean-to.”
“All right. Well, we’ll take a peek from that shagbark and then I guess we’ll figure what to do from there.”
“Like I said, I’ve been up there before. Want me to go?”
“Nah, I’ll go. I reckon you wouldn’t see anything new.” Wes dismounted and handed Charley’s reins to Tom. He pointed to the north side of the tree. “I can get there up this side?”
“Yes sir.”
Wes nodded, then scrambled up the hill slightly to the north of the mesquite. Most of the space between the tree and the slope of the hillside was covered with creosote and some other scrub brush, but it angled uphill and to the south. He followed the north side of the brush directly to the place Tom had talked about.
He started to settle into the laying spot, but stopped and crouched instead to look it over.
The site had been disturbed, and the signs of that disturbance were hours old, not days old. Toward the back of the space, boot soles had pushed up ridges of dirt and small stones, and the wind hadn’t had time to clear the loose dirt from the stones. Toward the front of the area, elbows had left light impressions in the dirt. One small stone, dislodged from the earth next to an elbow depression, still lay next to the hole it had left. The edge of the hole was still sharp.
Wes shook his head. “Well I’ll be.” He swiveled around on the balls of his boots and looked back through the mesquite. Slowly, he scanned from the southeast at about a 45 degree angle from the mouth of the dry canyon through due east and on to the northeast to about the same angle.
He spotted two or three places of interest, but made a mental marker and continued scanning, not wanting to break his concentration. Finally he started back, scanning just as slowly from the northeast back to the southeast. And just after he passed the approximate 15 degree angle to the north from the mouth of the dry canyon, he caught a glint of sunlight on steel. Quietly, he said, “I’ve got you, sir.” He nodded. “I’ve got you.”
He squatted on his heels and made his way down the slope.
As Wes approached from the base of the hill, Tom handed him Charley’s reins. “Did you see what you needed to see?”
As Wes mounted, he grinned. “Yes. I saw exactly what I needed to see.” He paused. “Now then, I don’t want you to look around but there’s a guy watching us.”
Tom only nodded. “All right. Where?”
“Well, let’s you and me ride south a little ways.”
“South?”
“Just trust me, Tom. We’ll take a slow canter ‘til we’re past that curve down there, and then we’ll rein-in and talk, all right?”
Tom nodded. “Yes sir.”
“All right. Good. Now then.” Wes paused, then shook his head hard. He pointed south and said, “No sir, I’m sure. It’s farther south.”
Tom said, “Well, all right, if you’re sure.” In seeming frustration, he gestured for Wes to lead the way south. “You go on ahead and lead us then.”
Wes reined Charley around to the south and moved into an easy canter.
Tom and Charlene fell in behind him.
*
Billy Pike lay on his belly between two scrub creosote bushes at the edge of the major arroyo across the road from the turn-off to the Whatleys’ place. His Winchester carbine lay next to him, its butt stock resting on a fallen mesquite branch and a thick caliche rock beneath the barrel and magazine tube just ahead of the fore stock.
He grinned and watched as the two would-be intruders mounted up and rode off to the south. And they were riding at a canter. They’d be at least a few miles away in only another ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe still close enough to hear the reports of his carbine, but too far away to get back and do anything about it. And that was only if they thought it was any of their business in the first place, which they probably wouldn’t.
He’d been nervous when he saw them stop and one of them scrabble up the hill behind that old mesquite. Were they after the Whatleys too? That wouldn’t surprise him, but it didn’t matter either. He had first dibs, period. They could have what was left after he killed those bastards for having goaded his friends into drawing on them. At least that’s how he remembered it.
Anyway, he was considerably relieved. For a long moment there when those two meddlers were messing around across the road, he thought he might have to deal with four guns instead of two. But with those two riding south, he was back to his main plan, and it was a good one.
When the Whatleys finally came out of their hidey hole and turned north, they’d have time to just about feel safe before he’d open up on them. He was a good 70 yards from the mouth of the dry canyon. But he was less than 50 feet from where the unsuspecting brothers would pass by in front of him.
Chapter 25
From his position on the hill, Wes had noticed that Avenida 5 de Mayo crossed the arroyo some distance to the south. As it turned out, that distance wasn’t quite a half-mile. Where the road dipped into the arroyo, Wes reined Charley around to the left, angled him onto a broad patch of soft sand and stopped.
Tom stopped next to him and grinned. “All right, what did you see up there?”
“Well, from here, both the road and the arroyo run due north. The arroyo runs along the east side of the road for maybe a quarter-mile. In town it fizzles out and eventually disappears in rock, cactus, and scrub-mesquite flatland. And along this arroyo, maybe a couple hundred yards north, maybe a little farther, there’s a man waiting.”
Tom whistled.
“Yes sir. ‘Course, I don’t know who it is or even much about him—he was a good seventy to eighty yards away—but I saw sunlight glinting off something, and I’m betting it was a carbine. I think he’s layin’ there in ambush, waitin’ for the Whatleys.”
Wes dismounted and looked up at Tom. “Also, somebody else had been up there on your layin’ spot, and recently. Probably that same man. If we’d been a half-hour earlier, we might’ve caught him coming down off the hill.”
As he walked around Charley’s rump, he said, “So anyway, I only got a quick glance at the house. Nothing was moving around up there, but I think we can be sure our guys are still there.” He opened his right saddlebag and reached inside. “Otherwise, why would someone else have been up there spyin’ on them? And if they’d’a left, our man wouldn’t still be layin’ over there beside the arroyo.”
