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.
There was a place east of Matamoras where it looked like the border swung
further south, and so would be nearer to us. We turned the herd that way,
skirting a sort of lake or tidewater pool.
It was just shy of noon and we were within five or six miles of the border when
they came at us. It was about that time, just before they hit us, that I had my
brainstorm. It came to me of a sudden and, saying nothing to anyone but the
Tinker, I rode up to Gin.
“Look, you and Pa take those two steers and you move out ahead. If we have to
make a fight of it, we’ll do it better without having to think of you.”
“I can fight,” Pa said.
His looks shocked me, and he was coughing a lot and his forehead was wet with
sweat. His cheeks were a sickly white, but I was sure he was carrying a lot of
fever in him.
“Do like I say,” I insisted. “You two light out and head for the border. If we
have to, we’ll make a fight of it and cover for you. With that money, you can
help us out if we should get caught.”
“If you aren’t killed,” Pa said.
“I’m too durned ornery to die,” I said. “Anyway, we got to go back to Tennessee
and talk to Caffrey, you and me together.”
Gin convinced him, and they taken those two steers and drove them off ahead of
the herd. They hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when we saw that dust
cloud come a-helling up the road after us. The Tinker and me, we just looked at
each other, and then the lead began to come our way. I was sort of glad, for I’d
not wish to start shooting at folks when I ain’t sure of their plans.
That old Henry came up to my shoulder sweet and pretty, and my first shot taken
a man right out of the saddle. At least, I think it was my shot.
We both fired, and then we turned tail and got away from there, racing past the
herd like Jonas and Miguel were doing. We started to swing the herd and in no
time at all had them turned between us and those men after us. We tried to
stampede them back into those fellows, but only a few of them started—the rest
were too almighty confused.
All of us were shooting, riding and shooting, and then they cut around both
sides of the herd at us and our horses were too blown to run. We made our fight
right there. Dropping off my horse, I swung him around and shot across the
saddle. There were guns going off all around me, and I’d no time to be scared.
“Lando!” the Tinker shouted, and grabbed at me. “Ride and run!”
Both of us jumped for the saddle, and as we did so I saw a man wearing a black
suit come out of that bunch. He had a shotgun in his hands, and as Jonas turned
toward his horse he let him have both barrels.
Miguel was down, and now Jonas, and it needed no sawbones to tell me Jonas was
dead. Before I could more than try a shot at that rider in the black suit, he
was gone.
But not until I’d seen him. It was Franklyn Deckrow. The Tinker had seen him,
too.
We got out. We were running all out when I felt my horse bunch up under me, and
then he went head over heels into the sand, pitching me wide over his head.
Last I saw was the Tinker giving one wild glance my way, and then he was racing
away. From that look on his face, I was sure he figured me for a dead man.
Reaching out, I grabbed for my Henry, which had fallen from my hand. A boot came
down hard on my knuckles, and when I looked up Antonio Herrara was looking down
at me. And from the expression of those flat black eyes, I knew I’d bought
myself some trouble.
It was going to be a long time before I saw Texas again … if ever.
Chapter Eight
The bitter days edged slowly by, and weeks passed into years, and then the years
were gone, and still I remained a prisoner. By day I worked like the slave I’d
become, and was fed like an animal, and by night I slept on a bed of filthy
straw and dreamed of a day when I would be free.
Always I was alone, alone within the hollow shell of my mind, for outside the
small world in which I lived with labor, sweat, and frightful heat, no one knew
that I lived, nor was there anyone about me to whom I could talk.
The others with whom I worked were Indians—Yaquis brought to this place from
Sonora, men self-contained and bitter as I, yet knowing nothing of me, nor
trusting anyone beyond their own small group.
A thousand times I planned escape, a thousand times the plans crumbled. Doors
that seemed about to open for me remained closed, guards who showed weakness
were replaced. My hands became curved to grip the handles of pick, shovel, or
mattock. My shoulders bulged with muscle put there by swinging a heavy sledge.
Naturally of great strength, each day of work made it greater, building roads,
working in the mines, clearing mesquite-covered ground.
Sometimes alone in my rock-walled cell I thought back to that first day when, in
a square adobe room, I was questioned by Herrara. My wrists bound cruelly tight,
I stood before him.
He stood with his feet apart, his sombrero tipped back, and those flat black
eyes looked into mine. He smiled then, showing even white teeth; he was a
handsome man in a savage way. “You put a gun upon me,” he said, and struck me
across the face with his quirt.
It was the beginning of pain.
“There is gold. Tell me where it is, and you may yet go free.”
He lied … he had no thought to let me go, only to see me suffer and die.
“The gold is gone. They took it with them.”
“I think you lie,” he said and, almost negligently, he lashed me again across
the face with the quirt, and the lash cut deep. I tasted my blood upon my cut
lips, and I knew the beginning of hatred.
That was the beginning of questioning, but only the beginning. There was gold.
He knew it and was hungry for it, as the others had been before him. The
original commandant, whose name I never knew, had been his uncle. In the
telling, the amount of gold supposedly hidden on the shore had grown to a vast
amount.
To tell him was to die, and I lived to kill him, so I told him nothing. After
each questioning I was taken to a cell and left there, and each time I feared I
would die; but deep within me the days tempered a land of steel I had not known