The Baron Brand Read online

  “Damn,” Anson said.

  Jorge made a gurgling sound in his throat as the rope tightened.

  “Hold on, Jorge,” Anson said. “I’ve got to dig under this damned mesquite branch. That damned Injun pinned you down good.”

  “He’s turnin’ purple,” Peebo said.

  “Shit,” Anson said, and dug his fingers down in between the forked limb.

  The forks were long and Anson tugged and twisted until the wooden clasp began to loosen. He jerked the Y upward and when it came loose, he almost tumbled over backwards. He grunted and pulled the rope until there was slack in it. The rope kept getting caught in the spines of the cactus and he cursed as he gained inches at a time. Then, he unwrapped it from Jorge’s throat. Finally, he heard Jorge take in a deep breath and then the Mexican was free.

  “Can you get up, Jorge?” Anson asked.

  “You help me, Anson.”

  Anson scooted backwards and got into a squat. He grabbed Jorge’s left hand and pulled. Jorge managed to get his legs under him and popped out of the prickly pear bed. He winced and tears streamed down his face as he stepped away, Anson helping him gain his footing on bare ground.

  “Jesus,” Peebo said. “Lookit his back.”

  Anson stepped around and saw the spines jutting from Jorge’s back and arms like little straw-colored and darker brown needles. Jorge stood there as if he were in a state of shock, unmoving, his flesh quivering with the pain.

  “It’ll take hours to pull all those spines, Jorge,” Anson said.

  “I am going to die,” Jorge said.

  “You ain’t gonna die,” Anson told him. “You’re just going to have a lot of bruises and sore spots.”

  “I no can walk.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here and do it,” Anson said. “You have to walk, or ride.”

  Jorge swore a sacrilegious oath in Spanish.

  “That ain’t goin’ to help none, Jorge.”

  “I hurtin’.”

  “Well, hell, how come that bastard jump you?”

  “I don’ see him,” Jorge said. “I feel the rope around my damn back and I am on the ground and the horse she is gone.”

  Peebo cleared his throat. Anson looked over at him with a querulous look.

  “I think that Culebra’s still somewheres around,” Peebo said. “If you two want to just stand there jawin’, I reckon I’ll hightail it somewheres else.”

  Anson turned back to Jorge. “You’re just goin’ to have to bite the bullet, Jorge,” Anson told him. “You want to ride behind me or walk to the line shack?”

  Jorge said nothing for several seconds. “I will ride wit’ you, Anson. Jesus, it hurts.”

  Anson turned away angrily and caught up his horse. He pulled himself into the saddle and rode over to where the immobile Jorge stood. “Give me your hand and stick your boot in that damned stirrup, Jorge.”

  Jorge’s face contorted in pain as he raised his arm. Anson took his hand as Jorge lifted a leg and poked the toe of his boot into the stirrup. With a heave, Anson lifted Jorge up. Jorge swung his leg over the back of the horse and sat gingerly behind the cantle. Tears flowed from his eyes and streaked his face. He started to blubber.

  “Shut up, Jorge,” Anson said curtly. “It’s gonna hurt like hell and not a damned thing I can do about it. It’s your own damned fool fault anyways.”

  “Please do not ride fast, Anson.”

  Perversely, Anson kicked his spurs into his horse’s flanks. The horse bucked and leaped ahead as if shot through with an electric current. Jorge screamed and squeezed Anson around the waist as he held on fast. The horse broke into a fast gallop until Anson reined him up. The sudden stop caused Jorge to scream out again.

  “Sorry about that, Jorge,” Anson said, but there was a bitterness to his tone that was not lost on Jorge.

  Jorge moaned, which only served to make Anson angrier than he was before.

  “Stupid,” Anson said in Spanish.

  “Yes,” Jorge replied.

  Peebo caught up to Anson. He was still holding his rifle. “Look back there,” he said softly.

  Anson turned around. There, on the slight ridge, sat an Apache. He was grinning and he held up his bow and shook it.

  “Shoot him,” Anson said to Peebo.

  Peebo turned in the saddle and brought his rifle to his shoulder. Before he could take aim, the Apache wheeled his pony and dropped from the ridge, out of sight.

  “That there would have been Culebra, I reckon,” Peebo said drily.

  Jorge nodded numbly, tears welling up in his eyes, tracking down his face in streams that left watery scars.

  4

  CAROLINE BARON TREMBLED every time she entered the barn and she didn’t know why. She dreaded going in there after feed for the livestock, or to curry her horse, the bay mare, Rose, whom she loved dearly. Lately, she knew, it had gotten worse, this feeling of despair, of something akin to terror. She had gotten so fearful of entering the barn alone that she had begun to open the front and rear doors wide before she would venture inside.

  But now, even the creaking of the doors bothered her so much that she could hardly bear to open them. And each time she did so, she was afraid of what might be in there, in the darkness, what might come out once she had swung the first door wide to let in the sunlight.

  She waited this day a long time before even touching the back door and, to her surprise, found that she was listening intently for any sound issuing from the depths of the cavernous barn. She stood there, her legs quivering with a nameless fear, unable to bring herself to lift the latch.

  As she stood there, unable to move, she heard a horse inside one of the stalls whicker softly.

  “Rose,” she said so soft only she could hear the word, and then, with no explanation she could give then or later, she began to weep. She collapsed against the barn door, sobbing out of control, unable to stem the tide of sadness that welled up in her all of a sudden, a sadness she could not define nor name.

  Each day seemed worse than the last. Each time she had to come out to the barn, she approached it with a ball of fear in her stomach, a ball that writhed and grew tentacles and these strangled her thoughts and electrified every nerve in her body.

  She could not bring her hand up to lift the latch and swing the door open. Not today, she thought. I can’t bear to see the darkness, to think about what might be inside, waiting for me, waiting to pounce on me. She felt herself strangling on her fear, felt a shadow hover in her mind like some large dark bird and there was a weakness in her legs, a jelliness in her knees. She felt as if she might swoon at any moment, might fall to the ground and into that pit of black in her mind that seemed to be opening like some chasm of night.

  She tried to lift her hand to the latch, but it would not move. She collapsed against the wooden door. Again, she heard her horse nicker and the sound, for some unknown reason, terrified her.

  “Oh, Rose,” she sobbed and the words so soft and faraway, she thought someone else must have uttered them. Again, she tried to raise her hand to open the door, but her arm was stiff and frozen. It was as if she had no will of her own anymore. The pressure against her forehead was beginning to hurt, but she could not pull herself away, could not stand on her own feet without support.

  “No,” Caroline shrieked, “I can’t.”

  Several yards away, Lucinda Madera stopped hoeing in the garden to gaze at her mistress. Quickly, she threw the hoe down on the ground and started trotting toward the barn, hiking her skirts up out of the way of her sandals.

  “Señora,” Lucinda called, “qué pasa?”

  Caroline seemed not to hear her. Lucinda rushed up and put an arm around the weeping woman’s shoulder. “Why do you cry?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said. “I—I’m afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Lucinda asked.

  “The—the barn. Something in it. Something not there. Something there. Lucinda, I—I just don’t know.”

&n
bsp; Lucinda pulled Caroline away from the door and turned her around to face the fields and the garden.

  “I will open the door,” Lucinda said.

  “N-no, not yet. I mean, I’ll open it. Just give me a minute.”

  “Por seguro, señora.”

  Caroline opened her eyes wider and stared out at the countryside. The tears blurred her vision and made the land swim and sway. She gulped in a breath of air and dabbed at her eyes. Lucinda unwrapped the bandanna from around her neck and handed it to Caroline.

  “Thank you,” Caroline said and began to wipe the moisture from her face.

  “You have the sickness?” Lucinda asked.

  “No, I—I’m fine, it’s just that …” But Caroline could not put her feelings into words. She had tried to talk to Martin about what happened to her each time she went out to the barn in the morning, but each time she started to say something, the words sounded silly in her head. Martin might think her mad if she told him these things. He might think she was a crazy woman. So, too, would Lucinda, she thought.

  “I—I’ll be all right,” Caroline said, taking in another deep breath. Gradually the fields steadied and came into alignment. “I—I’m going to walk around the barn and open the front doors.”

  “Why do you not just walk through the barn?” Lucinda asked.

  Caroline frowned, deepening the lines in her forehead, rumpling the flesh beneath her eyes. “Because,” was all that she said.

  “I will go with you,” Lucinda said.

  “If you wish,” Caroline replied, without intonation. She drew in a deep breath and started walking to the side of the barn, not looking at it, stepping gingerly as if not wanting to make any noise that might arouse the nameless presence inside the building.

  Lucinda trailed after her mistress with short, choppy steps, hiking her skirt once again, which she had vowed to hem if she ever had a free moment.

  Caroline turned the corner at the front of the barn, her heart hammering in her chest, her ears pulsing like a blacksmith’s bellows. Summoning up her courage, she strode to the latch and lifted it with both hands, let the two-by-six fall to the ground on the loose end. She jumped when the board struck and listened with a growing panic as the door squeaked open slightly.

  Lucinda stopped, stared at Caroline. “Do you wish me to open the door?” she asked.

  Caroline turned and looked at the woman, a veiled look of bewilderment shadowing her eyes. “What?” she asked.

  “The barn door, it is not yet open.”

  Caroline grabbed the door and swung it wide defiantly. “There,” she said. “It’s open.”

  “Do you go inside?” Lucinda asked.

  Caroline stared into the dark bowels of the barn. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the cracks in the walls and a massive cube lighted the back doorway, glistened in the straw on the floor. Rose whickered softly and stirred in her stall.

  A beam of sunlight struck another object off to the left side and Caroline shuddered as if ice water had been poured down her back.

  “I thought I had covered it,” Caroline said.

  “What do you say?” Lucinda asked in Spanish.

  Caroline did not answer. Instead, she walked into the cool barn, through columns of sunlight, stirring up dancing motes of dust that swirled in the light like tiny fireflies. She strode to the object against the wall and grabbed a corner of the tarp and jerked it smartly over the exposed part.

  “The cannon?” Lucinda asked. She had followed Caroline into the barn like a shadow. “It was covered. I saw you do it last week.”

  “Someone’s always uncovering it,” Caroline said, her voice sounding to her as if it were coming from a hollow place. “Anson, maybe. Martin? But, why?”

  “I do not know,” Lucinda said before she realized that Caroline was not speaking to her, but to herself.

  “It—it should not even be here,” Caroline said softly. “Damn it, damn it to hell.” Her voice rose in pitch and she closed her eyes as if to shut it out, to shut everything out. “Damn him. Damn Martin.”

  “Eh?” Lucinda asked.

  “Why does he keep it?” Caroline asked of no one. And then, the images began to surface in her mind, unbidden. She saw it all again, heard the shrieking, yipping Apaches charging down toward the barn from the ridge above La Loma de Sombra, the little hill where the house sat. She heard the deep throaty boom of the cannon, felt the concussive explosion, heard the terrible whistle of the nails and chunks of iron hurtling through the air. She saw the Apache braves sliced and stabbed and shredded to pieces by the whistling metal, saw them fall and writhe and convulse like hideous painted dolls. She heard their screams of agony and saw the blood gush from necks and heads and torsos. She saw herself lighting the candle and holding the flame to the touch hole of the four pounder and then heard it roar again with the thunder of death. And Martin yelling in her ears and Anson loading more shot, and felt the sweat running down her legs and her chest and between her breasts and heard again the crackle of rifle fire, the whispering hiss of arrows in flight and the screams rising in a crescendo as more Apaches fell and writhed in the blood-soaked dirt and the horses screaming too, the ponies staggering away with broken knees and ankles and falling down, spurting blood, gushing it from gaping wounds in their chests and necks, and always the snapping crackle of the Mexican rifles and Anson shooting, too, and Roy Killian, and Martin, his face a raging mask of fury, blackened by smoke and blown back powder and death spewing from that gleaming brass muzzle every time she shot flame into its small hole and the stench of black powder still strong in her nostrils after all this time, the acrid sting and stink of it clogging her nose and throat and the white smoke billowing from the cannon’s maw and filling the barn until she could no longer see the carnage outside, could no longer see her husband and son and the looks on their murderous faces, and the rifle fire dying away until it sounded like air pockets popping in a fireplace log.

  Once again in the silence of the barn, she saw herself stumbling after Martin to go outside and see the slain and the wounded Apaches lying around like shattered rag dolls, and the Mexicans dispatching them one by one with pistols and rifles until the wounded no longer struggled or kicked or spasmed and the quietness of death descended upon her and she stood there numb, trying to understand it all, trying to understand those moments between life and death when all reason was suspended, all thoughts frozen like insects caught in amber and the horror of it was too monstrous to comprehend at that moment and so she had closed her eyes and gone deep inside herself where it was safe and calm and the screams faded into a solemn silence and the dead disappeared like the smoke blowing from the barn and shredding to tatters in the breeze.

  But the dead had not gone away and she had watched as the Mexican hands dragged them away, one by one, to a burial place beyond sight of the house and she had whimpered at the sight and turned away so that she could forget what those brave men had looked like in death and the Mexican dogs eating the pieces of bodies like savage wolves, gulping down hands and feet and arms, and carrying away bloody bones still covered with flesh and the Mexican women praying for the dead souls even as they swept up the blood and raked the killing place clean and made off with the souvenirs of the battle, the bows and arrows and clothing of the dead Indians.

  Caroline had lived with those memories ever since that terrible time and had never spoken of it to either Martin or Anson, but she now knew why she hated to go into the barn, hated to open the doors of her mind to that terrible day of death.

  “Oh my God,” Caroline said, and Lucinda crossed herself even though her face waxed blank in puzzlement. “I’ve got to get it out of here.”

  “What do you say?” Lucinda asked.

  Caroline turned and stared at the Mexican woman. “Do you hear me? Martin has to take it away.”

  Lucinda nodded dumbly.

  “Feed my horse and take her outside,” Caroline ordered. “I must speak to Martin right away.”

  “Yes
,” Lucinda said in Spanish as Caroline stumbled away, heading for the front of the barn like a woman swimming through drowning waters. Lucinda crossed herself again and mumbled a prayer for Caroline’s soul. She saw the Baron woman disappear and turned toward the stall when Rose nickered.

  “That poor woman,” Lucinda said. “Pobrecita.”

  She walked to the stall, shaking her head in bewilderment. “Loca,” she whispered, as if that word explained everything.

  Rose, a large bay mare, snorted and poked her head over the stall gate. She bobbed her head up and down, shaking her mane. Lucinda froze and blessed herself once again.

  She was terrified of horses.

  5

  MICKEY BONE, A Lipan Apache, rode slowly up to the Rocking A ranch house, which seemed deserted. None had challenged him on his long ride over the ranch; he had not seen a vaquero in ten miles, even though he had seen many cattle, all bearing the Rocking A brand of Matteo Miguelito Aguilar. He had thought it strange and he could summon no explanation from his mind. He knew that Matteo was a very suspicious man. It was not like him to let anyone ride up unchallenged like this. Yet he had ridden in from the south without seeing a soul once he passed through the main gate.

  It was as if the ranch was deserted and Mickey knew that could not be so.

  “Hola, la casa,” he called out as he rode up to the hitchrail.

  There was no answer.

  Mickey touched his right hand to the butt of his pistol. He rode around to the back of the house, his senses at full alert. He loosened the pistol in its holster, kept his thumb on the hammer.

  Bone edged his horse toward the side of the house. Some faint sound caught his ears as he rounded the building, but he would take no chances. When he cleared the rear corner, he slid his pistol halfway out of its holster.

  Matteo’s woman did not look up from her washing as Bone rode toward her. She stood over a large washtub sitting on a two-by-eight board straddling two small barrels. An even larger iron tub sat in a ring of stones where a fire was blazing. Hot steam rose in the air from the fired tub, swirling in the air like some specter of a dancing dervish. Bone smelled the acrid aroma of lye soap and the pungent odor of wet dirty clothes.