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  “The army needs beef, and we’ve sold some in New Orleans. Charlie Goodnight thinks that one day soon the market will open up back east.”

  “How would you get beef back east?”

  “Goodnight says there’ll be shippers in Kansas right soon.”

  Peebo continued to jerk the barbed spines from Jorge’s legs and arms. He followed no particular pattern, but just grabbed from an arm or a leg or on Jorge’s back. Jorge hung his head down over his chest as if he was some condemned prisoner about to be hanged.

  “People back east don’t have no taste for beef,” Peebo said.

  “Not yet. But, they will.” Anson moved suddenly, bringing his rifle halfway up to his shoulder. Peebo stopped plucking spines and Jorge lifted his head.

  “What do you see?” Peebo asked.

  “I saw something move,” Anson said.

  “Apache?”

  “I don’t know.” Anson scanned the land beyond the window. “I’m wonderin’ just what it was I saw. Something moving.”

  “A jackrabbit?” Peebo ventured.

  “No. More like a coyote,” Anson said. “Or a small deer.”

  “Maybe we better take a look,” Peebo said.

  Jorge turned to Anson. “Culebra.”

  “What makes you say that, Jorge?” Anson asked.

  “He say he will be back. He say he will be like your shadow, Anson.”

  “What else did he say?” Anson asked.

  “He say he is like the snake. You do not see him until he strikes. He say you might step on him he will be so close.”

  “Shit,” Peebo said. “He’s just tryin’ to throw a scare into you, Anson.”

  Anson continued to peer intently out the door. Now, however, he was not sure he had seen anything. But, the hairs on his neck stiffened and prickled his skin. He cleared his throat of the lump that had gathered there. “Well, he’s doin’ a pretty good job of it.”

  “Hell, ain’t one lone Apache a-goin’ to jump three men,” Peebo said.

  “Two,” Jorge said, without humor.

  “You ain’t got far to go,” Peebo said. “Couple more pricklers, that’s all.”

  With that, Peebo jerked another five spines from Jorge’s back and grabbed up his rifle. He joined Anson near the doorway. Jorge started scratching the undersides of both arms and found two more spines near his armpit. He pulled these and began to get dressed.

  “See anything?” Anson asked Peebo.

  “I see a lot, boyo, but that’s not what bothers me.”

  “What, then?”

  “Is what I see out there what’s supposed to be there, for one thing. And, for another, what am I not seeing that is there?”

  “I don’t understand,” Anson said.

  “See that clump of tumbleweed yonder?” Peebo pointed to a dried weed some sixty yards away.

  “I see it.”

  “Was it there when we rode up here?”

  “I don’t know,” Anson said.

  The two men stared at the tumbleweed. It did not move. Peebo licked his right index finger and stuck it outside the doorway. He held it there for several seconds. Then, he brought his hand back inside.

  “Breeze blowin’ from left to right,” Peebo said. “Stiff enough to move that tumbleweed, maybe.”

  Anson stared at the brushy clump. Another, a smaller weed, bounced past it on some aimless course. The small one kept moving.

  “I see what you mean,” Anson said. “That big one’s stuck.”

  “Stuck, or somethin’s holdin’ it.”

  “What something?” Anson asked.

  “Let’s go inside,” Peebo replied. “Don’t look at it for a couple of minutes.”

  Anson nodded and turned his back on the door. Jorge had just finished tying the rope around his waist that served as a belt. He continued to scratch himself, dipping down to get to the backs of his legs.

  “You’ll claw yourself raw, you keep that up,” Peebo said to the Mexican.

  “It is the itching,” Jorge said, wriggling inside his clothes.

  “Better not scratch it, Jorge,” Anson told him. “You might get infected.”

  “Ay de mí,” Jorge said.

  Peebo rolled a smoke. He walked to the back window and stuck his head out, held a glass just above the tip of the cigarette. A thin spiral of smoke lazed up from the tobacco and Peebo drew air through it with a loud sucking sound. He filled his lungs with smoke, then blew a plume of blue-gray smoke from his mouth. He saw more tumbleweeds out back, some motionless, one or two more rolling slowly under the push of the slight breeze. A large clump of weeds that had clustered together sat near the corral.

  “Now, let’s take another look-see out yonder,” he said softly. “Don’t make much of it. Just amble over to the door with me.”

  Jorge stood watching the two men as they sneaked up to straddle the doorway.

  “What you see?” Jorge asked.

  “Some of those weeds bunched up since we last saw ’em,” Peebo said.

  “Maybe,” Anson said. “That one hasn’t moved, though.”

  “No, I reckon not.”

  “Looks natural to me,” Anson said, after a moment. Jorge walked over and stood behind Anson. He stuck his head past the door frame and looked out.

  “Just tumbleweeds,” Jorge said.

  “Don’t see no coyote, neither,” Peebo said.

  The three men continued to look out the door. Small weeds moved slowly, stopping and turning with every whiff of air.

  Peebo stepped back, rubbed his eyes. He looked out the doorway again. Anson cleared his throat. Jorge scratched his left underarm. A tumbleweed broke loose from the large cluster and rolled erratically toward the line shack. It stopped when it struck a clump of dirt upturned by a horse’s hoof.

  “Shit,” Anson said. He closed his eyes and turned around, walked away from the doorway. “I guess I really didn’t see anything move but a dadgummed tumbleweed.”

  Jorge shrugged and scratched another spot on his spine-riddled body.

  Peebo sighed and left the doorway. “Spooky, ain’t it?” He grinned. “We could shoot tumbleweeds until we ran out of powder and lead.”

  Jorge and Anson both laughed.

  “Funny how one Apache can get on your nerves,” Anson said.

  “Verdad,” Jorge said.

  “I reckon that Culebra done lit a shuck,” Peebo said.

  “It looks that way,” Anson said. “Maybe we ought to get after them strays and put some iron to ’em while we got daylight.”

  “How many you figure?” Peebo asked.

  Anson looked at Jorge. Jorge shrugged. “Maybe twenty,” he said, “twenty-five.”

  “Hell, we ought to finish up in an hour or two,” Peebo said.

  “Make that more like three days,” Anson said. “Those wild cattle are scattered from hell to breakfast.”

  “I got a suggestion,” Peebo said.

  “What’s that?” Anson asked.

  “Put them all in the corral as we make the gather, then do the branding.”

  Anson’s face ashed over with a sheepish look. “I figured to do that,” he said. “I was just goin’ to brand that one cow to get him out of my hair. He was ornery all the way.”

  “I know,” Peebo said.

  “First, we must find my horse, no?” Jorge asked.

  “Shit,” Anson said. “I forgot about your horse.”

  “We ought to track him pretty easy,” Peebo said. “Can’t be far.”

  Jorge smiled with relief. “He will come when I call him, I think.”

  “What do you call him?” Peebo asked.

  “I call him Burrito.”

  Anson laughed. “Jorge says he works like a burro.”

  “Hell of a name for a horse,” Peebo said.

  “He does not care what his name is,” Jorge said.

  “Okay, let’s go look for him,” Peebo said, and started for the door.

  Something caught the corner of Anson’s eye as he
was about to follow Peebo outside. He looked out the back window and saw a raft of tumbleweeds scooting toward the corral and the line shack.

  “Hold on,” Anson said. He walked to the window and looked out.

  Peebo stopped just outside the front door, then he slowly started backing toward the house. He fingered the trigger of his rifle. Jorge looked from Anson to Peebo, a look of confusion on his face.

  “Qué pasa?” he asked.

  Peebo stepped back inside, let out a breath. “Those tumbleweeds out front have bunched up and moved right close.”

  Anson, in a very soft voice, said, “Peebo, come here. Quick.”

  Peebo dashed to the window. Anson pointed outside. Peebo’s lips pursed in stern reaction to what he saw. Tumbleweeds lay pushed up against the corral and close to the shack, so thick and high that the slight breeze could not account for the arrangement.

  “Boyo, we got seven kinds of shit pilin’ up on us,” Peebo said.

  Jorge, looking out the front door, cried out. “Apache,” he shouted.

  Anson looked toward the door. A raft of tumbleweeds moved swiftly toward the shack, pushed there by something or someone he could not see.

  “Christ,” Anson swore.

  The horses in the corral began to mill and whinny in low notes that suddenly turned shrill.

  Anson heard an odd sound, a hissing that was like a loud whisper. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an orange light. His stomach knotted and he felt a cold finger brush down the back of his neck. Then, he heard the same sound again and saw the arcing arrow glide slowly toward the pile of tumbleweeds now bunched up around the front of the line shack.

  “Get the hell out,” Anson shouted.

  Peebo hesitated for a moment as he, too, saw a flaming arrow arch toward the corral. Then, two Apaches appeared out of nowhere, from behind the mass of tumbleweeds, running, not toward the shack, but toward the corral gate.

  “Sons of bitches,” Peebo cursed, and headed for the door.

  Jorge jumped outside, right behind Anson. Around them, the dry tumbleweeds crackled as flames licked at their branches from deep inside the pile. Three Apaches leaped up just beyond and ran to the left, toward the corral.

  Peebo cleared the doorway and started to follow Jorge and Anson who were tossing tumbleweeds aside as smoke billowed out of the cluster of weeds and the fire, quickened by a wind of its own making, sped through the brush with a snapping and crackling sound that was like far-off rifle fire.

  The horses screamed and the Apaches yipped. As Anson fought his way from the house, he saw a stream of Peebo’s horses running from the corral, Apaches flanking them on foot.

  Jorge cried out and Anson turned to see him clutching his throat.

  An Apache arrow jutted from Jorge’s neck and blood streamed from the wound even as he stumbled into a mound of blazing tumbleweeds that erupted all around him.

  Anson choked on the smoke and began swinging his rifle to clear a path into the open. Behind him, Peebo gasped as smoke filled his lungs and he staggered like a man become drunken on strong spirits.

  And the high-pitched barks and yips of the Apaches could be heard above the roar of the wind-fanned flames.

  7

  DAVE WILHOIT SHOULDERED his transit and started walking toward the Killian house. He waved to the Mexicans whom he had ordered to quit for the day and return to camp. He knew that Ursula’s son, Roy, was not at home, and that she had not gone with him. The buckboard was still out back, its tongue lolling in the dirt, giving it the appearance of a tired skeleton of some boxy beast.

  There were few single women in Baronsville and those who were not married were well sparked by the local swains. Baronsville wasn’t much of a town yet, but it was getting a newspaper and there was talk of a bank coming in. Now it consisted of one mercantile store, a homely tavern, a hotel, a livery stable and a feed and implement store that also sold hardware and tack. Not much there for a single man unless he wanted to gamble at cards or visit the Mexican boarding house that fooled no one.

  Dave didn’t have to knock on the door. It opened as he approached from the front. Ursula Killian stood there, her figure partially revealed, a close-fitting gingham dress of magenta and blue clinging to her leg and thigh. There was enough of her leg showing to send a rush of blood through Dave’s veins as his heart pumped fast enough so that he could feel his right temple throb.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Killian,” he said, a slow lazy smile breaking on his face.

  “Mr. Wilhoit,” she said, not without a slight blush and a wispy trace of coyness in her soft voice. “Whatever brings you over here at this time of day?”

  “I come calling,” Dave said, “if I’m not presuming too much, ma’am.” He took off his hat, held it in front of him with steady sun-browned hands. A lock of his hair slid down his forehead, arched in a slight wave.

  “Why no, sir, I’m flattered, I really am, and I hope you’ll call me Ursula now that we’re better acquainted.”

  “If you’ll call me Dave,” he said, the smile breaking into a wide grin.

  “Dave, won’t you come in? Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, that sounds good.”

  Dave stepped toward the door as Ursula opened it wide. She held the door for him as he entered, then closed it gently, leaving the latchkey inside. Dave glanced at the room quickly, then turned back to gaze at Ursula. Her light hair was neatly coifed with a single graceful curl falling to her cheek like a wavelet of meringue. Her merry blue eyes danced with light.

  “Not very commodious, I’m afraid, but will you take a chair, Dave? I’ll get us both some coffee while you get settled.”

  “Yes’m.” Dave sat in one of the chairs by the window. There was a small table between both chairs with a large muslin doily atop it. Dave set his hat on the floor beneath his chair and watched Ursula as she set out cups and saucers, lifted the coffeepot from the stove and poured the cups nearly full. She set them both on a tray, along with two cloth napkins, and brought them to the table.

  “Thank goodness my things arrived from Fort Worth,” she said. “Roy and I lived quite primitively for a day or so.”

  “You’ve fixed up this place very nicely,” Dave said.

  “Did you see it before I moved in?”

  “No, I just gathered that it was lacking the feminine touch.”

  “How very nice of you to say so, Dave.”

  Ursula sat down primly and handed Dave a cup and saucer. Dave took them and held them chest high. He did not take a sip until Ursula picked up her own cup and saucer and held the cup to her lips, looking at him over the rim with batting eyelashes.

  “Good coffee,” Dave said.

  “Umm, I’m glad you like it. It’s Arbuckle’s.”

  “I can taste the cinnamon a little.”

  “Yes, I like that.”

  There arose one of those silences that come between two people who do not know each other well, a silence between comparative strangers that is like smoke from a smoldering fire that needs more than a single breath to reignite it. There was an invisible, but palpable tug that Dave felt, but for the moment he was tongue-tied. He sipped the coffee, sipped it slow so that it would last a long time, and Ursula mimicked him, it seemed, barely touching her cup to her lips and smiling in between as if to encourage him to speak.

  When the silence was broken, they both spoke at once.

  “Would you—” Dave started to say, while Ursula said, “How long—”

  And they both laughed nervously.

  “You first,” Dave said, glad to know that some of the ice was broken.

  “No, I was just wondering …”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I—I wondered how long you would be surveying our—my son’s—land.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He had finished the survey, but wanted an excuse to come back to see Ursula.

  “And, have you found out that we are trespassers?” She arched her eyebrows as if daring him to a
ccuse her of such a crime.

  Dave laughed softly as if to reassure her and set his cup down on the saucer as if it were fine china and sacred to him. “I don’t really know much at this point. I will take my measurements back to the Aguilar ranch and go over the deeds and plats and let Matteo make any decisions.”

  “What if we are trespassing?”

  Dave shook his head. “Oh, I doubt if it will come to that. Those old Spanish land grant deeds are difficult to interpret. Landmarks change, measurements were not exact nor even very accurate. I generally make a recommendation to the client who pays my salary and they usually go along with me.”

  “But, if Mr. Aguilar does not follow your recommendation?”

  Dave sighed. “I don’t know, Ursula. Sometimes these land disputes are not worth the bother. If a mistake was made in the original deed, or land grant, then sometimes it takes a court, a judge, to decide whose land is whose. I wouldn’t worry about it,” he added lightly.

  “I won’t,” she said. “I just hope there’s no trouble. My son prides himself on owning this piece of land. He wants to build a large ranch.”

  “I’ m sure everything will work out,” Dave said.

  “So, you came to see me,” she said, changing the subject. “Not about the land, I gather.”

  “No’m. I just wanted to get to know you better. I thought you might like to go into town this evening, have some supper with me. I’ve a buggy at the Rocking A and I’d like to call on you if you’ve a mind to get out of the house and see some of Baronsville.”

  “Why, that’s very nice of you, Dave. I believe I would like that. What time would you come for me?”

  “Would eight o’clock be all right? It should be a pleasant evening and my horse is right gentle, the buggy comfortable.”

  “Eight o’clock would be just fine,” she said. “More coffee?”

  “No’m, not just now.”

  She set her own cup down as if in approval and leaned back to regard Dave. He felt as if she was inspecting him, but he didn’t mind.

  “Were you in the army?” she asked suddenly, catching Dave by surprise.

  “Why, no, I wasn’t,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  “The army uses a lot of surveyors. I thought perhaps you might have been a soldier.”