28
VIRGIL WAS FEEDING SHELLS into his Winchester when Pike came into the sheriff’s office with a dark, lean, hard-looking man.
“Virgil,” Pike said. “Everett.”
We both nodded.
“This here’s Pony Flores,” Pike said. “One of my employees.”
“From the old days?” I said.
Pike nodded.
“Old days,” he said.
Virgil and I both nodded at Flores. He nodded back.
“Understand some Indians killed Tom Ostermueller, and took his wife and daughter.”
“Something like that,” Virgil said.
“You going after them?”
“Yep.”
“Posse?”
“Nope.”
“Posse’d just get in the way,” Pike said.
“It would,” Virgil said.
“Bunch of townspeople with guns,” Pike said.
“Probably shoot their own horse, they ever have to clear a weapon,” Virgil said.
“Lend you some of mine,” Pike said.
Virgil shook his head.
“Me ’n Everett will do,” he said.
“Got a tracker?” Pike said.
“Everett can track some,” Virgil said.
“Pony can track a butterfly two days after,” Pike said.
Virgil looked at me.
“Where’d you learn to track?” I said.
“Apache,” Flores said.
“Pony’s mother is Apache,” Pike said.
“Chiricahua,” Flores said.
“That your real name?” Virgil said.
Pony shook his head and said something in Apache. “Means what?” Virgil said.
There was a brief expression on Pony’s face that might have been amusement.
“Pony Running,” I said.
“Okay if we stick with Pony?” Virgil said to Flores.
“Okay.”
“Father’s Mexican,” Pike said.
“Can he talk for himself?” Virgil said.
Pike smiled.
“Try him,” Pike said.
“Live with your mother’s people?” I said.
“Some.”
“Track as good as Pike says?”
“Yes.”
“Speak English okay?” I said.
“Speak it good,” Pony said.
“Just not often,” Virgil said.
Pony looked like he might have smiled for a moment, but he didn’t say anything.
“Speak Spanish?”
“Si.”
“Any Comanche?”
“A little bit,” Pony said.
“Shoot?” Virgil said.
“I can shoot,” Pony said.
“Will you?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you want to track for us?” I said.
“Two women,” Pony said.
“You know them?”
“No.”
“But you want to help us save them,” I said.
“Yes.”
Virgil and I looked at each other.
“He’s good,” Pike said. “Been with me a long time.”
“Good how?” Virgil said.
“Colt, Winchester, knife,” Pike said. “Best tracker I ever saw.”
“Keep his word?” Virgil said.
“I do,” Pony said.
Virgil looked at me.
“Everett?” he said.
“He can probably track better than I can,” I said. “What I learned I learned from Apache scouts.”
Virgil nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I can pay you half a dollar a day. You supply your own horse and saddle, your own weapons and ammunition.”
“Yes,” Pony said.
29
WE SAID GOOD-BYE TO ALLIE on the front porch of the house we were renting. It was just after sunrise, and she was barefoot and in her nightgown. She and Virgil put their arms around each other. But they didn’t kiss, and when he stepped back and swung up onto his horse, she smiled at me and patted my cheek.
“Take care of each other,” she said.
I got up on my horse.
“Have somebody milk that cow every day,” Virgil said.
“I will,” she said.
None of us moved. Virgil looked down from the saddle at Allie.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
Then he wheeled the horse and I followed with the pack mule on a lead, and we rode up Third Street toward Arrow. Pony was mounted and waiting outside Pike’s Palace, and he swung in beside us as we rode south out of town. We stopped at the Ostermueller farm shack. Pony got down and spent maybe ten minutes looking at the ground, then mounted his horse and led us out toward the river where the tracks led.
Once we were into the open, I took the mule off the lead. He’d follow the horses, and if he didn’t, one of us could haze him back.
“You see more than one Indian?” I said.
“No,” Pony said.
“And two shod,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Tell if anyone’s riding the shod horses?”
“Need to see tracks when no one rides them, and tracks when someone does,” Pony said.
We rode south along the river most of the day. Pony rode quietly, looking at the tracks. Occasionally he would lean out of the saddle and study them, then he would resume.
“Don’t seem worried ’bout covering his tracks,” Virgil said.
“No,” Pony said. “But he don’t know I the one following.”
Virgil grinned.
“Figures we can’t track?” he said.
“Yes,” Pony said.
We came to a ford at the end of the day, and the tracks led into it. The sun was down, and it was hard to see the bank on the other side of the river.
“Might want to camp this side,” Virgil said. “Kinda hate to get caught in the middle of the river in the near dark by a man with a rifle.”
“We can cross in the morning,” Pony said.
We made a fire and cooked some bacon and beans. I took a jug from the pack, and we passed it around while the supper cooked.
“How long you work for Pike?” I said to Pony.
“Since wild times,” Pony said.
“Outlaw times,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Always the way he is now?”
“Sure,” Pony said.
“Big, friendly bear,” Virgil said. “Everybody’s friend.”
“Sure.”
“ ’Cept when he ain’t,” Virgil said.
Pony frowned for a moment, translating Virgil’s remark into whatever language he thought in.
“You mean when he kill people,” Pony said.
“Uh-huh.”
“He like to kill people,” Pony said.
“I know,” Virgil said.
Pony took a pull on the bottle.
“You no like that,” he said.
“Don’t mind it,” Virgil said.
Pony handed me the bottle.
“You ever fight with us when you was living Apache?” I said.
Pony smiled.
“Blue Dogs?” he said. “Sure, I fight.”
“I was a Blue Dog,” I said.
Pony nodded.
“Maybe we fought each other,” I said.
“Maybe,” Pony said.
“Does it matter?” I said.
“When I with Apache,” he said, “I tell them I fight for them, and I do. Now I with you. I tell you I fight for you. I will fight.”
“Even against another Indian?” I said.
“I am also Mexican,” Pony said, and almost smiled again. “And this man who has stolen the ladies. He not Chiricahua.”
“How do you know?” I said.
Virgil had the whiskey bottle. He took a drink and passed it on to Pony. Pony drank some and looked at me and might have smiled.
“No Chiricahua around here,” he said.
30
IN THE MORNING WE SAT our horses at the ford, looking across the river. There was nothing to see.
“I go,” Pony said.
“Why you?” I said.
“Tracker,” Pony said.
He turned his horse and went into the river. It was shallow. The horse never had to swim. On the other side, Pony rode up the little rise, bending over to study the tracks. He pulled up at the top of the rise and looked around. Then he gestured for us to come. Virgil went in and then me, hazing the mule ahead of me.
Pony pointed when we reached him.
“Go off there,” he said.
And he headed west. The tracks were still clear enough. I could follow them fine. But a mile or so from the river the land began to rise, and the footing became rockier. It was harder to see the tracks. But Pony stayed with it. He was maybe fifty yards ahead of us, near a cluster of boulders, when he stopped. Virgil pulled his horse to the right. I went left. The mule didn’t know who to follow, so he just stood. I had the eight-gauge across my saddle, with both hammers back. We walked the horses slowly around the boulders until we met on the other side of them and were looking at Pony. The mule saw us together and trotted toward us.
I let the hammers down.
“What?” Virgil said.
“More horses,” Pony said.
He pointed to the ground. There was a mingling of tracks, some of them leading behind the rocks.
“Nobody there,” Virgil said.
Pony nodded and got off his horse. He squatted and looked at the tracks for a while. Then he stood and walked along, looking at the ground, around the boulders, and up the hill behind them. Virgil and I waited.
“Shod horses,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Can’t say for sure how many.”
“Pony will know,” Virgil said.
“Could be white men,” I said.
“Could be white men’s horses that some Indians stole,” Virgil said.
“Could be,” I said.
“Maybe Pony can figure that out,” Virgil said.
“Maybe not,” I said.
We waited for maybe an hour while Pony looked at the ground.
“Five white men,” he said.
Virgil smiled.
“How you know they’re white?” he said.
“Boot prints,” Pony said. “Comanche not wear boots.”
“They have to be Comanche?” I said.
“Comanche land,” Pony said. “They Indians, they Comanche.”
“But they’re not Indians,” Virgil said.
“No,” Pony said. “White. Five of them come from south. Stay here, build a fire, cook something. Like they waiting. Our people come in here.”
He pointed to the tracks we’d been following.
“Get off horses,” Pony said. “Man in moccasins, two women. Small footprints. Shoes not like man.”
We followed. With Pony pointing it out, we could see what he saw. I wasn’t sure I’d have seen it without him.
“Then everybody get on horse. All go south, except Indian. He go up the hill and into a canyon. Very stony. Hard to track.”
“Could you?” Virgil said.
“Yes.”
Virgil nodded.
“Women went south with the white men,” he said.
“They were waiting here for him,” I said.
“He sold them,” Virgil said.
I nodded.
Virgil looked up the hill for a time.
Then he said, “We got to get them women back.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You sure they went with the white men,” Virgil said.
“Sure,” Pony said. “See horse tracks. They horses’ feet, much bigger.”
“Wagon horses,” I said.
Pony got back up on his horse, and we headed south.
31
FOR TWO DAYS WE RODE southwest, away from the river, into much rougher country. It made the tracking harder and slowed us down. But Pony kept the trail and told us it was getting fresher. We stopped at sundown on the third day on some high rocky ground at the edge of an arroyo and started to set up camp.
Pony had collected some brush for a fire, and as he set it down, he paused and raised his head, like a hunting dog with a scent. Virgil and I were still.
Then Virgil said, “Smoke.”
Pony nodded. I sniffed at the air and didn’t smell it, and didn’t smell it, and then I did.
“Be surprising if it weren’t them,” Virgil said.
There was grass growing on the slope of the arroyo, and the animals were busy with it. They weren’t likely to make any noise. It was dark, but there was moonlight and all the stars. Virgil picked up his Winchester, Pony took his, and I brought the eight-gauge, and we went very quietly along the arroyo to where the land sloped down. At the foot of the slope we could see a campfire and some people around it.
“Dumb place to camp,” I said softly.
“They been riding what, four days?” Virgil said. “Ain’t seen a soul. If they thought we was following, they figure we lost them when we left the river and the tracking got hard.”
“Almost Mexico,” Pony said.
“Probably where they’re headed,” Virgil said. “They think they’re home free.”
“And they ain’t,” I said.
“They’re in range from here, ’cept for the eight-gauge,” Virgil said.
“Can’t make out who’s who,” I said.
“Pony?” Virgil said.
“Too far,” Pony said.
“Be a hell of a thing,” Virgil said. “We come all this way to save them women, and shoot ’em by mistake.”
We were quiet, looking at the layout.
“We’re really careful,” Virgil said, “we can slither on down behind that outcropping and get a better look.”
“Still too long a shot for the eight-gauge,” I said. “Lemme get my rifle.”
“While you’re there,” Virgil said, “make sure them animals is tethered. Don’t want ’em running off soon’s we start shooting.”
I got my Winchester, checked the tethers, and walked softly back to where Virgil and Pony were lying on the ground, looking down at the camp.
“Jack a shell up into the chamber,” Virgil said. “Do it when we get closer and they might hear it.”
We did as he said, and eased the hammers off. Then, on our bellies, trying to be silent, we crawled and slithered our way downhill over the shale-littered ground to the rocks, halfway to the camp. All of us were scraped and bloody by the time we got there.
The five men looked to be Mexican. The two women sat close to each other, away from them to the left.
“Can’t ride in among ’em,” Virgil said. “Or walk in, for that matter. All them rocks underfoot, make too much noise going down the hill.”
Neither Pony nor I said anything. We both knew Virgil wasn’t talking to us. The men were passing a bottle around. The women were still.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “Pony, can you shoot one of those fellas from here without hitting the women?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then we’ll shoot the first three, left to right from the women. I’ll take the closest one, fella in the hat. Everett takes the next one, with the striped shirt. Pony shoots the third one, buckskin shirt.”
Virgil was silent. Neither Pony nor I said anything.
“Then I’ll shoot the fella in the black vest,” Virgil said, “and Everett, you and Pony shoot the other one. Fella with the beard. Recognize each one of them. Even if they get up and move around before we start shooting, you fire at the one I said.”
Pony murmured, “Si, jefe.”
I said, “Yep.”
“We don’t shoot if we lose sight of anybody,” Virgil said.
He cocked the Winchester. Pony and I did the same.
“You’re sure there’s only five,” Virgil said. “I don’t want there to be some fella out taking a leak to get ruckused up and shoot them women, ’fore we kill him.”
“There are five, jefe,” Pony said.
“Okay,” Virgil said. “Pick out your target, get him in your sights.”
All three of us took aim.
“Know who you’re going to shoot, and who you’re gonna shoot next,” Virgil said.
We waited. I had the middle button on the man’s striped shirt sitting on top of my sight.
“Ready?” Virgil whispered.
Pony said, “Ready.”
I took a deep breath and let it out.
I said, “Ready.”
Virgil said, “Fire!” and I squeezed the trigger. It all moved at the stately pace these things always seemed to. I barely heard the shots. I saw my man go down, and as I shifted to the man with the beard, I levered another round up into the chamber and settled on his chest. He was leaning forward, frozen maybe, by the shock of the surprise, looking for a place to hide. There was no place to hide. I shot him in the chest and saw his body jerk as Pony shot him, too. Beside me, Virgil was on his feet and slip-sliding down the slope toward the campsite. Pony and I followed him. The two women were flat on the ground, one on top of the other.
When we reached the campfire, Virgil took out his Colt and put a bullet through the head of the first man he passed.
“They’re dead,” he said, and walked to the women. “But make sure.”
Pony and I shot the other four men once each in the head. The smell of gunfire was strong when we finished.
Virgil was sitting on his heels beside the two women. They were still huddled, one on top of the other.
“We come to rescue you,” he said. “My name is Virgil Cole. I’m a deputy sheriff in Val Verde County, and the big fella is a deputy, too. His name is Everett Hitch. The slim gentleman is Pony Flores. He’s our tracker. He’s the one found you.”