Rose Padilla: Chapters 5 – 7
First, Happy 248th birthday to any Marines out there. Semper fi.
My apologies for the few typos and spelling errors in Chapters 1 – 4. I forgot to spell check it before I uploaded it yesterday. That probably won’t happen again. (grin)
Here are Chapters 5 – 7. Enjoy!
Chapter 5
As José and his horse drew nearer, the lawman raised one hand to hail him. “Hey, José.”
Stirred from his thoughts, Rinconado looked up.
The Ranger was smiling. “Would you happen to know, is there a telegraph office in this little town?”
Rinconado shook his head as he carefully watched the lawman’s gun hand. His right hand. He fired with either hand, but he seemed to prefer the right. He had peeked between his fingers as he lay on the floor of the cantina. “I cannot say for sure. I don’t remember if I ever heard of one.” He shrugged. “But we were here for only a short while. The citizens mostly took a wide path around us.”
The Ranger nodded. His hands remained where they were, his right dangling at his side, his left holding the reins of his horse. “All right.” He nodded. “I understand.”
He seemed to hesitate, then mounted his horse and grinned at Rinconado again. “Well, are you ready? Now, I suspect we can probably make the Texas border before nightfall or thereabouts. And if we don’t run into any trouble, we’ll eat supper in Amarillo tomorrow night. A friend of mine in the Amarillo Inn makes the best steaks east of the Pecos River.” He laughed lightly.
As he stopped his horse in front of the Ranger, José said, “Yes sir.” He looked at the ground. “I mean, I think so.” His horse shuffled beneath him, then tossed his head against the bit and sniggered quietly.
The Ranger frowned. “Is there a problem?”
Rinconado kept his hands well away from the revolver on his right hip. “No sir, not really.” He hesitated again, then draw a long breath. “What I mean, sir, I don’t really want to go to Amarillo.” He forced himself to stop. No reason to reveal his reasons.
But the Ranger canted his head a bit and looked at him. “No?”
“Well, no sir. The thing is, I don’t want to be involved anymore with guns or shooting or anything like that.” He hesitated. “I mean at all. On either side.”
The Ranger leaned forward slightly, rested his left forearm on the pommel. “And you were thinkin’ I was gonna drag you back to Amarillo and talk you into hirin’ on as a Ranger, is that it?”
“Maybe.”
The Ranger nodded, his gaze still locked on Rinconado. “I see. Well, I wasn’t. But at least you’re honest.”
“Oh. I am sorry. It’s just that—”
The Ranger raised one hand. “No, no. You’re fine. And that part about not using a gun anymore, now that’s an admirable aspiration. Can I ask where you’re thinkin’ about goin’?”
“Yes sir. Mi papá y mi hermano—my father and my brother, they have a farm. It is in Mexico. South of El Paso del Norte. I think I will go there.”
The Ranger nodded again and straightened in the saddle. “Whereabouts south of El Paso?”
Rinconado shrugged. “Maybe 50 miles. Maybe 60.”
“I know the area. Ahumada, around there?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, if you’re lookin’ for suggestions, I’d tell you to ride due south from here, down to Pecos, Texas. From there, you can follow the heavy trail that runs to the southwest. Goes from Abilene down through Pecos and on to points west. But where it turns back due west, you’ll want to keep goin’ southwest. Do that and you’ll just about step in your papa’s farm.”
“I did not know. Gracias.”
“Por nada.” The Ranger eyed him. “You have provisions? Food and such?”
“Yes sir. I mean, I will.”
His horse, Charley, tossed his head and neighed quietly.
The lawman said, “Well now, I can’t argue with a man who knows what he wants.” He touched Charley with his heels, and Charley walked forward a few paces. The Ranger leaned forward and offered his hand.
As the two men shook hands, the Ranger looked steadily at him. “Just please don’t be lyin’ to me, son. If I see you down the trail somewhere and you pull that gun on me, I’ll kill you.”
José nodded. “Yes sir. You will not see me again, or even hear of me. When I get to the farm, the pistola will go on the wall. I don’t want any of it anymore.”
The Ranger nodded, then gestured. “Well, go on now, and good luck to you.” The Ranger pointed past him. “You want that direction yonder. When you’ve cleared out, I’ll be goin’ the other way.”
“Adios, señor Ranger.”
“Adios, José.”
* * *
A long moment after José disappeared to the south, Wes said quietly, “Now you just keep goin’ that direction and you’ll be all right.” He sensed the young man had told him the truth. If he hadn’t, and if he saw José again, the man would not survive the encounter.
He thought about poking around Kiker for awhile to see whether he could locate a telegraph office, but the town was small and he hadn’t seen many wires stretched between tall poles. And none to the west that he could remember.
He finally reined Charley around and rode east-northeast out of town. It was still early in the morning, only an hour or two later than he normally would have ridden out. As he had told José, if he rode steadily and didn’t encounter any problems, he could be in Amarillo as early as tomorrow afternoon. That would be plenty soon enough to send his telegram. And with any luck at all the governor would verify fairly quickly that he had accepted Wes’ resignation as a deputy US marshal.
He frowned. Will I have to swear-in again in Amarillo to rejoin Company D?
But probably not. It wasn’t like he’d stopped being a Ranger. He’d only switched one badge for another, but he hadn’t stopped doing anything he normally did.
He laughed. He patted Charley’s neck and said quietly, “Doesn’t matter anyway, does it Charley?”
The day after tomorrow, he’d be enjoying breakfast with his friends at the Rangers’ table in the Amarillo Inn. His mouth watered at the thought of Manuel Ortega’s coffee. That coffee made everything better.
And an hour or two after that, he’d be seated at the long table in the Ranger headquarters, listening to the plan for the day from the captain or one of the corporals.
At long last, he would be home.
Part Three: Kiker, New Mexico Territory
Chapter 6
Paco Messina and Jorge Rivas slowed their horses to a walk but continued north.
Far behind them—so far they had not heard the report of the guns—gun smoke settled like dust over the eerie silence that filled Las Tapias Cantina in Kiker, New Mexico Territory.
They were both tired and slumped in the saddle. Because of Messina’s paranoia, neither had slept much last night. At Messina’s insistence, they were up late talking. And at his further insistence, they had risen and left in darkness very early this morning.
* * *
Messina had appeared at the door of Rivas’ room and tapped lightly on it.
When Rivas opened the door, Messina was fully dressed. His eyes had a wild look about them. In his right hand, he gripped his Winchester carbine. His saddle bags dangled from his left. Quietly, he said, “Come, Jorge. It is time to go.”
Especially in light of their tense discussion only a couple of hours earlier, Messina’s appearance at Rivas’ door was expected, and it did not bode well. Fear filled the man’s eyes.
Rivas tried to talk sense to him. “But the men, Paco. If we wait only a few hours, we can take the men with us. And we will both be more rested. Like you said to them earlier, we can return to the badlands and rebuild our—”
But Messina had scowled and gestured with the hand holding the carbine. “No, Jorge! And ‘our’ what? It is my band, not ours.” He splayed his right hand on his chest. “They are my men. Mine to do with as I please. They will take care of themselves, and we must do the same. We must leave now, this minute!” He paused, then said more quietly, “Jorge, Crowley is close. I know he is. I can feel it in my blood.”
Rivas had spread his hands. “But he is only one man, Paco. You need to rest, jefe. Go back to bed, por favor. I will sit on the stairs con mi pistola. And the very moment the devil steps into the cantina, I will kill him.”
But Messina only looked at him patiently, his head at an angle, as if he were correcting a wayward child who had proposed something ridiculous. Quietly, he said, “You have been a good friend, Jorge. I am going to the livery stable. I am going now. When my horse is saddled, I will ride north. If you are with me, as I hope you will be, I will be grateful. If not, then I will pray for your miraculous escape.” Then he turned and walked away.
Rivas poked his head out past the door jamb and watched.
Messina passed the closed door of his own room and went on down the hallway.
Rivas ducked back into his room. He knew Messina well. He too had packed his saddlebags against exactly this sort of eventuality.
As he pulled on his clothing, the sound of the front door of the hotel closing echoed along the hallway. He shook his head and muttered, “El burro sabe más que tú. The donkey has more sense than you.”
He strapped on his gun belt, clapped his sombrero on his head, and snatched his saddlebags from the floor. He caught up with Messina just before he reached the livery stable.
Even then, Messina urged him to hurry in saddling his horse.
Then they rode out together.
* * *
Roughly an hour north of Kiker, Rivas reined-in his horse. “Ayi, Paco! We forgot! We have to go to the farmhouse!”
Messina reined in too. He frowned. “The farmhouse? What farmhouse?”
“The one east of Kiker. Near the Texas border.” He twisted in the saddle and pointed southeast. “Perhaps a half-day’s ride.”
Messina shook his head.
“Paco, you must remember. We had men there! And the money! The money will help us rebuild the—”
Messina frowned. Yes. He seemed to remember leaving men there, but when he had arrived in Kiker, the call had gone out. Probably they were with the others in the cantina back in Kiker. It didn’t matter. He could always get more men. But money? “What money?”
“Remember? We put money there. Some in the back of a chest upstairs. Remember? In the bottom drawer where nobody would look?”
Messina nodded and grinned. “I remember that the men there were too lazy to bend that low to look. Or do much of anything else.”
“The money is there. You and I put it there when the men were out. And we put more in a bag under a large rock near the windmill. Between the windmill and the corral. Remember?”
But Messina only shook his head. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. Would I ask you—us—to ride miles out of the way for no reason? I am not stupid, jefe. We might even get fresh mounts there.”
Messina only looked at him for a moment. “Okay, Jorge. I trust you. We will go there. A half-day’s ride, you say?”
Rivas scowled. “You trust me? Have I ever given you any reason not to trust me? All of these years, I have been right alongside you, Paco. If the money is not there, it will have gone to the ghosts. It will not have been my doing. Besides, why would I have even mentioned it if—”
Messina wearily put up one hand. “All right, Jorge.” He paused. More quietly, he said, “All right, my friend. You are right. You have been a loyal and faithful friend. Let’s go get this money. The farmhouse is still in the Territory, verdad? And then we will ride north as we planned.” He paused again. “I am just very tired. And very tired of Rangers, and especially Crowley. He is like the spine of a grass bur I cannot dig out. But if we ride north and stay out of Texas until we have reached a place east of Mosquero or farther north, we will avoid the Rangers. All of them.”
Jorge only nodded, but he thought Messina was probably playing the burro again. He was probably right about the Rangers who were still in Texas. But if Crowley had ridden all the way to Kiker as Messina seemed to think, he wouldn’t simply turn around and leave when he discovered that Messina’s body was not among the others. He would keep coming. It was what he did.
It would have been better if I had insisted on waiting on the stairs con mi pistola. Even if Messina had to ride out alone, I would have killed the Ranger as he walked through the door. And that would have been the end of it. I could have told the men we were all leaving and brought them with me to catch up with Messina.
But he had not insisted. Now, in the open, he wasn’t sure what might happen.
Chapter 7
As the eastern horizon began to grow lighter, Messina looked at Rivas. “How much farther do you think?”
“Not much. Another few miles. I said it would be about a half-day’s ride. We are nearing that now, I think.”
“Perhaps when we arrive, after we have found the money you speak of, we can rest in the farmhouse for a few hours.”
But Rivas’ mind was still on Crowley. The Ranger might not even have come to Kiker, but he had never known Messina to be wrong about such things. “Perhaps. But it might be better to take the money and continue north. If the Ranger is as close as you say—”
“Crowley will know only that we are not among the dead he leaves in the cantina in Kiker.”
Rivas raised one hand. “Or perhaps he will be killed himself.”
Messina shook his head. “He will not be killed. He has magic or—something. From the Comanche, maybe. Something he learned while chasing Four Crows all those years.”
Rivas looked sidelong at him. “Magic? He is only a man.”
“Perhaps, but magic transfers like that you know.” He adjusted the bandana, red with white spots, hanging from his neck and rubbed where it had chafed his skin. “But I think he will be more tired than we are. He will take his rest in Kiker, and then he will return to Santa Fe.” He paused. “Or he will ride north and east to Amarillo. Either way, he will not be behind us.” He shook his head again. “Or perhaps to Hell to get further instructions.”
Jorge said nothing. If the Ranger was in Kiker at all, he would follow their hoof prints to the north. It would not be difficult to see them in the ground, softened as it was by the rains. And it also would not be difficult to see where they had turned back to the southeast.
Because they had fled, they couldn’t even be certain of when he had arrived in Kiker.
If he had arrived.
* * *
As the sun finally peeked over the horizon, the two men slowed their horses to a walk. The plain was dotted with prairie dog holes, and more than once they had encountered much larger holes, probably coyote dens. A horse could go lame from stepping in either one. And doubling up on one already weary horse was not an option either man wanted to consider.
Rivas’ head had been on a swivel that entire time. The morning was crisp and clear, and the sun was not yet hot enough to raise mirages from the ground.
Have we missed the farmhouse? Gone too far east or too far south? The trackless plain was not as easy to navigate as it seemed.
But when the ball of the sun was two fingers’ widths above the horizon, the blatant box of the white farmhouse abruptly rose two stories from the flat grasslands to the east.
He reined-in and pointed. “Jefe.”
The house was obvious in the distance. To the right of it, a jagged pile of what appeared to be wood. The barn, maybe, rotted and driven to the earth by the wind. To the left of the house, the brown rails of the corral were stark against the light landscape. Just beyond it, the windmill formed a barely discernable capital A against the cloudless sky.
Slouching in the saddle, Messina continued to walk his horse and only nodded.
* * *
Minutes later, they walked their horses past the remains of the barn, then past the corral and dismounted.
The house, which had appeared white in the distance, bore only chipped and peeling paint. Two of the windows on the north side were broken out, jagged glass protruding here and there from the frames. It was obviously empty.
The corral was empty of horses too, and some of the top rails had rotted and fallen away.
Rivas and then Messina dismounted on the east side of the corral near the part of the low limestone rock stock tank that protruded from the corral. The tank was a low rectangle, two- thirds of it passing under the bottom rail into the corral. At the east end of it, a pipe from the windmill dribbled water into it. Most of the surface was covered with algae.
Jorge scooped a lot of the algae away, slinging it from his hands.
As the horses began to drink, he said, “We should check the house first. By then the horses will have quenched their thirst and we can dig up the other bag.” He gestured toward a large, mostly flat rock beneath the belly of Messina’s horse.
Messina only nodded. He untied his bandana, dipped it in the water, and hung it on a cross-rail of the windmill. He turned to follow Rivas toward the front porch of the house.
Many of the porch boards were warped by the sun. The front door stood ajar, creaking on its hinges in the cool breeze that swept the plains from the east.
They entered.
A layer of dust covered the floor and everything in the house, even in the kitchen beyond the living room.
The stairs rose ahead of them to the left. The lower half of the banister lay alongside them on the floor.
Rivas started up the stairs two at a time and Messina followed. “Money? Are you sure, Jorge?”
“It will be there.”
At the top of the stairs, he paused then turned to the right and went into the second room. “Here. This is where it is.”
He moved past the double bed on his right and the washstand on his left across the room to a five-drawer chest against the far wall. He crouched and pulled open the bottom drawer.
Nothing. He glanced over his left shoulder. Quietly, he said, “They must have found it. Someone—”
“Perhaps it is in another room.”
Rivas straightened. “No. But under the rock outside. They would not have thought to look under the rock.”
Since they were in the house anyway, Messina insisted they check the other two rooms. But neither of those even had a chest of drawers. Both had only washstands and single beds. Rivas opened the drawers on both washstands, then returned to the first room and checked that one too.
Still nothing.
They went down the stairs.
Rivas’ horse had wandered off a few yards to a stand of yellow grass.
As the men started across the intervening space, Messina’s horse finally turned away from the tank.
Rivas ran to the windmill, went to his knees, and dug into the soft earth on the far side of the large limestone rock with his fingers. When he could slip his fingers underneath, he leaned back and pried one side of the rock from the ground. “Here. Look, Paco.”
In a shallow hole, there was a yellowed linen bag. He grasped the top and pulled.
And the top of the bag ripped away.
The money was there, but the paper bills were rotted and in pieces.
Rivas dug his hands into the remains of the bag. He came up with several pieces of silver, none with a higher value than five dollars.
Messina looked over Rivas’ shoulder at his upturned palms and the coins in them, then into the hole. “Is that all?”
Rivas nodded.
“So there was no real money after all.”
“No. No sir. Only something over twenty-five dollars.”
Messina shook his head. As he turned away, he said, “Come. We will ride south to the Red River, then turn back west and follow it back into Kiker.”
Rivas frowned. “But shouldn’t we continue north? Or east and then north?”
Messina stopped and turned back. “Not yet. I am feeling Crowley again. His presence. He might have followed us as I suspect you believe. But if not, I think he will go to Amarillo. Maybe even to Santa Fe, but after what probably happened in Kiker, I think he is through with that. I think he will go home.”
He turned away again and started for his horse. “I think we two alone are not worth his time.”
# # #