Bullet Creek (6 page)

“Holy baloney,” Lee Luther said, his eyes widening in awe. “You're a gunslinger!”

Navarro had heeled the clay ahead, but the horse had taken only two steps when the foreman stopped it again and swung an angry look at the kid behind him. “Gunslingers, boy, go out of their way to look for trouble. I go out of my way to avoid it. Now let's cut the palaver and go eat.” He booted his claybank into a trot.

Behind him, Lee Luther turned to Karla. “He's a rather proddy individual, ain't he?”

Karla stared up the trail as Navarro crested the ridge and disappeared down the other side, salmon dust sifting behind his silhouette.

“Tom Navarro is many things,” the girl said thoughtfully. Three years ago, she'd come to her grandfather's Bar-V ranch from Philadelphia, when her parents had been killed in a train collision. Since then, Tommy Navarro had been many things to her, indeed—having taught her how to ride, track, avoid Apaches, and survive in the desert . . . not to mention his rescuing her from slave traders in Mexico. Yet, despite their age differences, she yearned for so much more.

“And, yeah”—Karla smiled as she glanced at the boy beside her—“I guess you could say proddy is one of them.”

She and Lee Luther booted their mounts into Navarro's still-swirling dust.

Guadalupe Sanchez, segundo of Rancho de Cava, had just lain down to read when he heard the distant rifle crack. The old vaquero's ears were not as good as they once were, but he could still recognize the report of an old-model saddle gun from two hundred yards away.

Sanchez lowered the heavy Bible to his lap, removed his round-rimmed spectacles, and canted his head toward the outside wall of his room. He listened for nearly a minute, hearing nothing but the boisterous din of the vaqueros playing blackjack beyond his closed door and ribbing José Rincon about his affections for Don de Cava's daughter, Lupita.

“You should ask her out to a dance sometime, José,” said the don's oldest son, Real, who often slept in the bunkhouse when, addled by drink, he imagined the hacienda was haunted by the ghosts of long-dead ancestors. “A man with guevas like yours might just melt the old zunga's heart.”

Chuckles and laughter sounded amid the jingle of coins and the light thumps of cards tossed down on the table. One of the charros was softly strumming a guitar.

Sanchez sighed and threw back his blankets. He set the Bible on his night table, beside the three candles flanking the framed picture of his mother and a small wooden crucifix. Standing, he pulled his work jeans over his wash-worn underwear and stomped into his boots. He wrapped his cartridge belt and .44 Russian around his bony hips, then opened his door and moved through the smoky main room, between the bunks where a dozen vaqueros and pistoleros lounged, past the table where five more smoked, drank, and gambled beneath a chuffing lantern.

“Hey, Guadalupe,” Real de Cava called, kicked back in his chair, a fat stogie stuck between his teeth, “where you going so late, uh? You got a bigtitted, old puta hidden out in the wood pile?” The mean-eyed, prematurely balding lad, with a giant mustache and two big pistols on his hips, made a lewd gesture with both hands.

Guadalupe, was it? Not el segundo or jefe or even Senor Sanchez anymore. Sanchez should do the lobo's father a favor and drill a .44 ball through his belligerent sons's heart.

Not wasting a glance on the young coyote, Guadalupe moved to the door and stepped outside. He drew the door closed behind him, stepped away from the lamp-lit windows, and peered toward the star-capped western ridge, from where the shot had sounded.

Probably only one of the nighthawks pot-shooting a coyote or a mountain lion, but as long as Don de Cava lived, Guadalupe Sanchez was still segundo of this brand. When a shot was fired, it was his job to learn the cause.

“If the old cayuse's going out to take a piss,” a vaquero intoned in a voice slurred from drink, “he won't be back till dawn.”

Inside the bunkhouse, more drunken laughter rang out.

Hardening his jaw, Sanchez walked westward across the yard. Listening intently, hearing only distant cattle, coyotes, nightbirds, and the faint breeze rustling the grass, he strolled through the main gate and west along a secondary trail.

When he'd walked a hundred yards, two more shots rose in quick succession—one after another, as if a signal.

A man shouted, “Trouble! Come quick!”

The shots had flashed on the flank of the hill ahead and right of Sanchez. Grabbing his pistol from his holster, the old segundo left the trail and ran up the hill, breathing hard, stumbling over sage and galetta grass clumps. Forty yards ahead, a shadow moved. Sanchez stopped and extended his pistol, breathing so hard that he doubted he'd be able to hit anything, if it came to shooting.

“Name yourself!”

“It is me, jefe! Rodriguez!”

Sanchez lowered the pistol and continued trudging up the hill, pushing off his knees. He stopped where Rodriguez crouched over a figure sprawled in the grass and sage.

“What the hell happened?” the segundo said, wheezing.

Rodriguez's broad sombrero lifted, revealing the old rider's gaunt face. Starlight glittered in the vaquero's eyes. “I heard a rifle and rode over, jefe. I found him here, just like he is.”

Sanchez hunkered down on his haunches, placed a hand on the dead man's skinny shoulder. The body faced away from him, but Sanchez saw the dark mustache mantling the upper lip, the impossibly black hair shining faintly in the starlight. The weeds around the old don's head glistened with fresh blood and brain matter. When the segundo rolled de Cava onto a shoulder, half-open eyes stared up at him glassily, rotten teeth showing faintly between his lips.

The segundo's heart leapt. The night spun around him. He looked up at Rodriguez kneeling across from him, reached over, and grabbed the man's shirt in his fist. “Who did this, Enrique?”

“I saw no one, jefe. I only heard the shot. A half hour ago, I saw the hacendado ride over the ridge with Don Vannorsdell.”

“Vannorsdell,” Sanchez repeated thoughtfully. The Yankee wanted Rancho de Cava, true enough, but Paul Vannorsdell was not a killer. Sanchez released Rodriguez's shirt and glanced around. “Take a look up the ridge. Perhaps the assassin is still around.”

“
Sí, jefe!
”

When Rodriguez had mounted his horse and galloped over the rise, Sanchez peered down at the old don. Tears dribbled down his cheeks and his breath fluttered in his throat. “Rest easy, amigo,” he whispered thickly, running his thumb and index finger over the dead eyes, gently closing the lids. “You are home now.”

From behind Sanchez, hoof thuds sounded and tack squeaked, growing in volume as a horse and rider moved toward him. It was too soon to be Rodriguez. Turning, Sanchez grabbed the butt of his Russian.

“Who comes?”

“It is Lupita. What is all the shooting about?”

Sanchez removed his hand from his gun as the woman rode over the brow of a cedar-stippled hill on a long-legged Thoroughbred. Her long coal black hair spilled down from the low-crowned hat thonged beneath her chin, bouncing on her tasseled black cape.

“What the hell is going on?” the woman demanded, slipping a boot from the stirrup and swinging her right leg over the horse's rear. “Who's been shot?”

As she came around the horse, Sanchez stepped into her path, blocking her view of the body. “Senora, Don de Cava is dead.”

Her full-lipped mouth opened and her eyes widened, regarding Sanchez gravely. She brushed past him and, shoulders taut, walked to her father lying sprawled in the sage. She stood over the don and raised her hands to her face. Slowly, she dropped to her knees, placed one hand on the old man's chest.

After a long time, she looked up at Sanchez. Her voice cracked, brittle with outrage. “Who did this?”

Before the segundo could respond, yells and hooffalls sounded on the trail below the hill. He turned to see the silhouettes of six riders, riding both single file and abreast, curving around the butte's base.

“Up there!” one of them yelled.

As one, they reined their horses off the trail and ascended the hill, stirrup to stirrup, the horses cat hopping around shrubs and boulders. Starlight winked off rifles and revolvers gripped in the riders' hands.

Fifty yards from where Sanchez stood with Lupita, Real de Cava yelled, “Who's there?” The ratcheting click of a hammer being drawn back sounded faintly amid the thudding hooves and squeaking tack.

“Put up your guns,” Sanchez ordered.

Real rode toward him, pistols flapping on his thighs in their tied-down buscadero holsters. The other riders, having dressed quickly, were missing shirts or hats, but they were all armed. They whipped nervous gazes about, no doubt expecting rustling trouble or maybe an Indian raid, though Don de Cava had made peace with the Apaches several years ago.

Real de Cava scowled down at the segundo. “Who the hell was shooting up here, Sanchez?”

Before the segundo could respond, Lupita said, her angry voice quaking, “Your father's been murdered, Real. You should be very happy!”

The young de Cava booted his mount forward, until he was sitting directly above his sister and his father 's body. He stared down for several seconds, his shoulders rising and falling slowly as he breathed. It was too dark for Sanchez to see the expression on his face.

Real looked from Sanchez to Lupita and back again. “Who did this?”

Lupita snapped her eyes at him, and in the nebulous light, her face was streaked with tears. “As if you didn't know!”

“Shut up, hag. If I was going to murder my father, he'd have been dead long before now.” He glared at Sanchez. “Answer me—who killed my father?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” the segundo snarled, the firebrand's haughty tone chafing him worse than ever. Like Lupita, Sanchez suspected Real, the older of de Cava's two sons. But Real had been in the bunkhouse when Sanchez had heard the shot.

What about Alejandro, Real's younger brother? Was he down at the roadhouse, like he normally was this time of the night, or hiding somewhere in the hills, with a smoking long gun?

“He left with Vannorsdell,” Lupita said sharply, glaring at her brother. “Not an hour ago.” She jerked her head at the ridge. “Be a man for a change and catch your father 's killer.”

Sanchez swung toward her. “Senora, Don Vannorsdell would not have killed your father. They were friends.”

“Bullshit,” she spat. “He wanted the ranch.”

“How could killing Don de Cava possibly—”

“You're right for a change, you old hag,” Real said through gritted teeth, reining his horse in a broad circle around the other riders. “Sure enough, it had to be Vannorsdell. That bastard!”

Sanchez followed the man with his gaze, balling his hands into tight fists. All they needed on top of the don's murder was a war with the Bar-V. “Real, it was someone else.”

“Who?”

When Sanchez didn't answer, Real turned to the other men sitting their saddles grimly around him. “Paco, gather the other vaqueros. Summon Alejandro from the Wells. Meet us at the fork of Bullet Creek before dawn.”

“
Sí, jefe!
”

When Paco had galloped off toward the ranch, Real turned his impassioned gaze to Sanchez. “Are you riding with us, old man?”

“You're a fool, Real. You'll only get yourself killed, and you'll ruin Rancho de Cava!”

Real booted his horse toward Sanchez, halted it only a foot away from the older man, and stared down. His hand slid toward the pistol on his hip.

“Real!” Lupita admonished.

The hardcase's hand stopped, slid back down his thigh. Filling his lungs with a deep breath, he said to Sanchez, “I'll deal with you when I get back.”

He reined the steeldust around and galloped up the ridge, urging his horse with shouted commands. The other riders cast fleeting glances at Sanchez—a few sympathetic or neutral but most defiant—and, holding their rifles across their saddle bows, booted their mounts after de Cava.

Sanchez wheeled to Lupita standing over her dead father. “You are making a big mistake, senora. Stop them!”

She glanced at the old segundo, then stepped away from her father, grabbed her reins, toed a stirrup, and swung onto the Thoroughbred. She rode up beside Sanchez, canted her gaze downward. “Get a wagon and haul the don down to the hacienda for burial preparations. Since you've chosen to stay home while the real men go after my father 's killer, you can get started on a coffin.”

She swung the horse around and booted it down the hill. For a moment, starlight glittered on the stock of the old Springfield snugged down in her saddle scabbard. Sanchez stared after the young woman. He'd known her all her twenty-six years, but how well did he really know her?

Was she so eager to accuse Vannorsdell of killing her father only to detract attention from herself?

Sanchez had started down the hill when Rodriguez rode up on his right and reported he'd seen no sign of the killer. “What has happened, jefe?”

“Trouble,” said Sanchez.

 

Tom Navarro's private dwelling, the Bar-V's original brick adobe with a brush roof and sagging front porch built of stone and rotting planks, sat off in the chaparral, a good fifty yards from the other buildings. A dry wash fronted the place, sheathed in desert willows and palo verdes.

A rocky canyon lay behind, filled with greasewood, yucca, boulders, ancient Indian ruins, and Mojave green rattlesnakes. Tom liked being out here with just the brush and the ghosts and the snakes, where, on nights like these, he could sit under the stars and imagine he was the last man on earth.