The Baron Brand Page 7

  “Hot,” Peebo said, flicking his scorched fingers. He danced around, stamping his feet to put out the sparks that had attached to his boots and the bottom of his trousers.

  “I’m damned,” Anson said. “You found it.”

  “I’ll spit on it to cool it down and it’ll be good as new.”

  “You are crazy,” Anson said, dipping his head. He could not stand to look at that grin he knew was on Peebo’s face. But, he could still see it in his mind.

  “Scared?” Peebo asked.

  Anson did not feel compelled to answer.

  “I didn’t think so,” Peebo said. “Come on. Let’s see if I can tote this canteen to the creek. We’ll fill our bellies and the canteen.”

  “What we ought to do is look for Burrito,” Anson said.

  “Burrito?”

  “Jorge’s horse. If the Apaches didn’t get him, Burrito’s still around somewhere.”

  “Anson, we could track the rest of the day and not find that horse in this brush.”

  “Well, let’s keep our eyes open, in case we run across his tracks.”

  Peebo picked up the canteen, juggled it between his hands, spit on it, blew on it, until finally it was cool enough to carry. The two men started walking toward the creek, both checking their rifles and pistols as they went.

  Anson walked with difficulty, his feet wobbling on heels built high to keep his feet from going clear through the stirrups. Peebo was wearing a different kind of boot, more like a moccasin.

  “You might want to cut some off them heels,” Peebo said. “Be easier walkin’.”

  “Yeah, I just might,” Anson said, trying to walk without toppling to one side or the other.

  They reached the creek, finally, both sweating salt and liquid out of their pores in profusion. Peebo emptied the hot water out of the canteen, filled it with the cool stream waters, drank a third of it and filled it again.

  “Here, you drink all you can swaller,” Peebo said, handing the wooden canteen to Anson. The wood was charred on the edges, but the hot water had swelled the wood tight so that the vessel didn’t leak.

  Anson took the canteen and drank thirstily, gulping down the sweet water until he could hold no more. He handed the canteen back to Peebo, who filled it again and drank some more.

  “Can you swaller any more, Anson?”

  “I reckon not.”

  “This’ll be all we have until we find another creek or water hole.”

  “I don’t want to get any sicker than I already am, Peebo.”

  “Let’s go back, then, and pick up them Apache tracks.”

  “We ought to look for Jorge’s horse.”

  “We oughter be at siesta right about now, too, but we ain’t got time to dawdle. Them was prime steeds those red rascals took offen us.”

  Anson looked up at the sky, shading his eyes from the sun. It was still blazing high in the sky and they had a lot of daylight left to burn. He didn’t relish walking in high-heeled boots through some of the roughest country on the Box B just to wind up empty-handed.

  “I don’t think we stand a chance in hell of catching up to those Apaches today or tomorrow or the next day,” Anson said.

  “You say it’s thirty mile or more to the ranch house, what’d you call it, La Loma somethin’, well, we ain’t goin’ to make that today, neither, Anson me bucko, so might as well walk toward somethin’ we can catch. That ranch house ain’t goin’ to come lookin’ for us.”

  “Nor your damned horses, either, Peebo.”

  Peebo grinned wide and it was hard to argue with someone like that, Anson decided.

  “Let’s cut them heels down to size,” Peebo said, “and see where those boots can take you.”

  “Shit on you, Peebo. Those Apaches are five or ten miles away by now.”

  “Well, we can do that in a couple of hours, don’t you think?”

  Anson looked up at the sun again, felt its heat on his face. He sat down and shucked off his boots in the shade of a mesquite tree. Peebo drew his knife and sat down across from Anson.

  “You keep grinnin’ like that, Peebo,” Anson said, “and your face is goin’ to freeze that way permanent.”

  “Why, it already has, son, don’t you know?”

  Anson shook his head, trying not to smile.

  “I grin even in my sleep,” Peebo said.

  Ten minutes later, Anson was walking on short heels, following Peebo, who was stepping out as if going on a short stroll down to the well in the cool of an evening.

  Anson was too worn out to curse his friend. His eyes stung from dripping sweat and his clothes were plastered to his body like sodden wallpaper.

  And every time Peebo looked back at him, Anson groaned inwardly to see that Peebo’s infernal grin was still intact.

  9

  MARTIN BARON HAD a deep sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched the three vaqueros trying to drive the small bunch of unbanded strays toward the corrals they had finished building the week before. Tito Lucero was chasing two of the unbranded longhorn yearlings that had broken away from the bunch with pathetic futility.

  Chamaco, Tito’s awkward son, had lost four more at the rear and was yelling at them while his ungainly horse balked at every head that strayed across his path. Chamaco had no control over his mount and the cattle were running back toward cover like pups chasing a ball.

  The other vaquero, Pedro Amador, was trying to keep what was left of the gather together, but it was clear to Martin that he neither knew what he was doing nor had the ability to manage his horse.

  There was nothing wrong with the horses, Martin knew, they were all good mounts, had been trained to work cattle, were responsive, quick, agile, good in brush. But, the Mexican vaqueros were just too inexperienced, too unwilling to take command. They had drifted onto the Box B a month ago, on foot, and begged for work, saying that they were truly vaqueros from Sonora and swore they knew cattle and horses as well as they knew their mothers’ sacred names.

  Martin glanced toward a distant speck on the horizon, a rider, slowly making his way across the open plain. Puzzled, Martin unconsciously touched his pistol butt, the .44 caliber Navy Colt six-shot cap and ball pistol he carried with him at all times when he was away from La Loma de Sombra, along with his .50 caliber caplock rifle jutting from a scabbard attached to his saddle.

  “Pedro,” Martin called. “Hurry up,” he said in Spanish. “Drive those cattle into the corral.”

  Pedro did not reply as he tried to turn the strays back into the herd. A swirl of dust arose from the flashing hooves of those longhorns trying to escape and run back into the brush. For a moment, Martin could no longer see either Pedro or the strays he was trying to recapture.

  The speck on the horizon grew larger and Martin kept one eye fixed on the rider while he tried to monitor the progress of the three inept vaqueros.

  Tito chased a lone bull into a clump of thick mesquite brush higher than a man’s head. The Mexican yelled out a sacrilegious stream of curses. Martin turned just as the rump of the bull disappeared into the thicket. Tito jerked the reins of his horse hard and the animal skidded to a stop. Martin devoted his full attention to the scene, forgetting, momentarily, about the rider heading his way.

  To Martin’s horror, Tito lifted his right leg to swing it over the high cantle of the Mexican saddle and dismount.

  “Tito, no,” Martin yelled, but he was too late.

  Tito jumped down from the horse, snatching the lariat coiled around the large saddle horn as he hit the ground.

  “Don’t go in there,” Martin hollered out in English, before realizing that Tito spoke no more than eight or ten words in that language. “No vaya adentro,” Martin cried.

  But, either Tito hadn’t heard him, hadn’t understood him, or was just disobeying, because the Mexican ran into the thicket. Pedro and Chamaco stopped trying to round up the wild strays and watched their companion disappear into the brush.

  Martin saw Tito’s horse prick its ea
rs and start to back away.

  “God damn!” Martin yelled.

  He had warned all of his Mexican wranglers not to get off their horses when they were rounding up wild longhorns. It was very dangerous, for many reasons.

  “Tito, cuidado,” Pedro called out.

  Chamaco’s face blanched and he turned his horse to ride over to the mesquite clump.

  “Stay away, Chamaco,” Martin warned.

  “Mi padre, muy peligroso,” Chamaco muttered, and kept on riding toward the spot where his father had vanished.

  “Chamaco,” Martin warned as he turned his horse in a tight circle. But he knew the boy wasn’t listening and was probably going to do something foolish, as his father had just done.

  Pedro sat his motionless horse as if stupefied while Chamaco whipped his own mount toward the balking horse Tito had left behind. Tito’s horse was backing away from the brush, his ears tipped toward the dark thicket, the hairs bristling as if electrified.

  “Goddamm it, Chamaco, get the hell away from there,” Martin said in English as he rode toward the boy.

  Chamaco rode up to the brush and his horse balked, humping his spine as if to buck the young Mexican off. Martin saw the saddle rise up as if a wave had run under it. Chamaco, confused, strapped the horse’s rump with the trailing end of his reins. That was all it took. The horse twisted to the left and went stiff-legged as it began to buck.

  “Shit,” Martin exclaimed.

  Chamaco had sense enough to grab the apple knob of his saddle horn as his horse bounded away in jolting, stiff-legged hops. The saddle flopped up and down on its back so high Martin could see daylight under it and under Chamaco’s butt when he rose above the cradle, airborne.

  Pedro yelled something Martin could not hear as Chamaco’s horse stopped bucking and ran toward a lone oak to try and brush its rider off its back.

  “Hang on,” Martin said in English, knowing the boy could not understand him. But, he did not know the Spanish for such a situation and used the only words he could think of as the boy’s horse began to buck again, now close to the tree.

  Chamaco screamed as the horse slammed him into the tree and twisted away, still bucking. The boy lost his grip on the saddle horn and left the saddle in wingless flight as the horse kicked out with both hind hooves and sped away, reins trailing, saddle sliding back and forth on its back, the inch loosened a good four inches in girth.

  The horse kept bucking until the saddle swung over its side and hung underneath its belly like a planter box. This only made the horse wilder. It tried to kick the offending baggage away and got its left hind foot caught on the underside of the saddle. It hopped along on three legs as Chamaco arose from the ground, one side of his face scratched and bleeding.

  “Stay there, Chamaco,” Martin said in Spanish as he rode off to rescue Tito. Chamaco leaned against the tree that had scraped the hide off his face, groggy as any drunken cowhand on a three-day bender.

  Martin rode into the brush, digging spurs with short, soft rowels into his horse’s flanks to head him where he didn’t want to go. He rode a sorrel gelding, sixteen hands high, as jittery a horse as he could find to work the brush, a good cutter, but wary of the wide deadly sweep of the long horns of the wild cattle, just as Martin wanted him to be.

  “Cap’n,” Martin said, speaking to the sorrel, “you watch it now, go on in, go on now. That’s the boy.”

  Cap’n’s ears swept back flat on his skull, but the horse went into the brush. Limbs brushed against Martin’s chaparejos, scratching white lines in the leather that protected his legs. The brush opened up, but not much, and Martin saw that he had entered a thicket with a warren of cow and deer trails leading in every direction.

  Cap’n stopped abruptly, and Martin didn’t fight him to keep on going. He, too, heard the noise, the crunch of dry branches, the rustle of leaves, the pounding of heavy hoofbeats.

  He also heard Tito’s yell, a yell full of the kind of mortal fear that Martin dreaded. Seconds later, Tito came running out of one of the dark warren trails, his eyes wide, sweat gleaming on his bronzed face. He saw Martin and screamed a string of Spanish cusswords that blistered the air.

  Cap’n turned just as a maddened longhorn bull boiled out of the thicket, his horns knocking down branches right and left, shredding wood and leaves, leaving a wide swatch of desolation behind him.

  “Run, Tito,” Martin yelled, as if Tito needed any prodding, and Cap’n scrambled out of the bull’s path just in time. The longhorn was bent on destroying Tito and never swerved in its path as it bolted toward the hapless Mexican vaquero.

  Tito made it through the tunnel that he had entered, but the bull smashed a path right behind him. Martin turned Cap’n to try and head off the longhorn, and put the spurs to his flanks.

  Cap’n bolted through the opening in the wake of the rampaging bull and Martin saw Tito running on short bandy legs eight or ten yards ahead of the snorting longhorn. Tito ran a zigzag pattern, which, while slowing him down, also made the bull change its course.

  Out of the corner of his eye Martin saw Pedro shake loose his lariat and begin to build a loop as he kicked his horse in the flanks. Pedro held his reins in his teeth as his horse charged toward the bull and Tito.

  Pedro began to twirl the loop over his head as he drew closer to the bull. His horse lowered its head and followed the path of the longhorn with surprising finesse and agility.

  Tito looked back over his shoulder, eyes wide in fear, his face a daub of bloodless flesh. At that moment, the bull lowered its head in preparation for a full-blown butt just as Pedro closed the distance and threw his loop just in front of the charging animal. The loop was wide enough to clear the horns and fell gracefully over the longhorn’s neck.

  Pedro pulled the reins from his teeth and hauled in on them. His horse dug in its rear hooves and skidded to a stop as Pedro took up slack in the rope.

  The rope tightened around the bull’s neck. Pedro put his mount into a twisting turn, putting more pressure on the lariat. The bull’s head jerked sideways as its neck bowed upward in the grip of the noose.

  Pedro kept the rope taut as he spoke to his horse. The horse backed away expertly, keeping the tension on the lariat. Martin could see the strain in the animal’s muscles as it fought to bring the huge longhorn down, halt its forward motion.

  Martin jerked his own lariat from his saddle and built a loop as he rode up to the struggling bull. The longhorn pawed the ground and shook its head trying to break away from the rope. Martin threw his own loop over the cow’s horns and started jerking when it dropped parallel to the boss. He halted his horse and it began to hunch down and back away as it had been trained to do.

  Tito was still running, his legs pumping even faster than before, even though he was yards away from danger. Chamaco staggered away from the tree, still dazed, and headed toward the bull. The longhorn bawled loudly and flung snot from its nostrils as it shook its head trying to escape the pair of lariats.

  Martin spurred his horse away from the bull at an angle, pulling in the opposite direction of Pedro’s rope. The longhorn, exhausted from its struggle, dropped to its knees, slobbering foam and gobbets of spittle from its mouth, its long tongue lolling over its teeth like a slab of raw liver.

  “Ho,” Martin yelled. “We got him, Pedro.”

  Pedro, who understood some English and could speak several words, said, “Jess, Jess, we got him, big sonofabitch bull.”

  Martin spoke to Cap’n and swung his leg over the cantle, stepped down from the saddle. He grabbed the tail end of his lariat and ran to the bull, taking up slack as he shortened the rope. He knelt down and quickly looped the end around the bull’s hind legs, jerked it tight, then grabbed a front leg and tied a loop around the ankle, pulled the rope tight so that he had three legs bound together. He knotted it with a bowline on a bight and stood up, breathing fast and shallow. Sweat dripped down his forehead, sheened his stubbled cheeks and jaw.

  Pedro sat his horse. Martin
turned to him, saw that he was shaking from shoulder to hip, including his hands.

  “What passes, Pedro?” Martin asked in Spanish.

  “That is a very big bull.”

  “Where did you learn to throw a rope like that?” Martin asked.

  “When I was a boy, I watched the vaqueros from a nearby village. I practiced the roping.”

  “Too bad that is all you learned from the vaqueros.”

  “That is all that I saw them do.”

  “You and Tito never worked the cattle before?”

  Pedro shook his head. “No, we did not have cattle where I lived.”

  “But, you saw vaqueros who knew how to work cattle?”

  “Oh, yes, the vaqueros I saw were very good with the cattle. But I just learned how to throw the lariat.”

  Martin pulled a bandanna from his pocket, dabbed at his forehead.

  “I would like to hire those vaqueros, Pedro. Can you show me where they can be found?”

  “They live south of the Río Bravo. There are many of them.”

  Tito walked over to the bull, but kept his distance. He seemed dumbstruck by the size of the animal. The longhorn had tired of kicking and lay there, panting, his tongue touching the dirt.

  “He is very big,” Tito said.

  “Better see to Chamaco, Tito,” Martin said. “He used his head to mash a tree.”

  “Someone is coming, I think,” Tito said.

  Martin remembered the lone rider. He looked in the direction Tito was facing and saw the boy.

  “That is the son of Lucinda Madera,” Pedro said.

  “I see,” Martin said in English, more to himself than to Pedro. “What does he call himself?”

  “He calls himself Julio.”

  “Tito,” Martin said, turning his attention to the man who had nearly been killed by the bull, “if you ever get off your horse again when you’re rounding up strays in the brush I will shoot you myself.”

  “Yes, patrón.”

  “Now, see what passes with Chamaco and leave that bull alone.”

  “I will shoot the bull,” Pedro said.