El Paso Way

Praise for

Yuma Gold

“The unlikely search for a buried Spanish galleon in the Yuma desert propels the action in Steven Law's
Yuma Gold
. The possibility of buried treasure brings forth plot twists, action, and a cast of characters you won't soon forget.”

—Thomas Cobb, author of
Crazy Heart

“Start reading at your own risk. You won't want to put it down. Memorable characters, a captivating setting, and exciting plot twists will keep you turning the pages.”

—Cotton Smith, author of
Ride for Rule Cordell

SALVATION

“What the hell!” Mulcov shouted.

The Russian just stood there glaring, his oily body glistening under the lamplight. He held out his arms as if protecting the women.

“I am here to free them,” Enrique said. “
Mujeres
, you are free to go as you please.”

“Like hell,” Mulcov said. “Who the hell do you think you are?” By this time he was growling, arms arched at his sides like a hairless grizzly bear. He charged Enrique and tackled him to the ground. The weight of the man on top of him made it difficult for him to breathe, and Enrique could not move him. It got worse when Mulcov brought a forearm up and laid it over his throat and pushed down with all his weight. Enrique could feel the blood compressing his skull, and his very life vanishing before him.

Pang jumped in on top of Mulcov, but not even the swift moves of martial arts could penetrate the stout layers of this bear of a man. A sudden noise made everything stop. Mulcov stopped growling and his arm slowly lifted off Enrique's neck. Enrique gasped and choked. Pang backed away. Mulcov rose slowly with a barrel of a gun pressed firmly against his head . . .

Berkley titles by Steven Law

EL PASO WAY

YUMA GOLD

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA)

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

EL PASO WAY

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Steven A. Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

El Paso Way
is based on a short story of the same title, which was originally published by Amazon Shorts.

Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

BERKLEY
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA),

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-59709-5

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley mass-market edition / October 2013

Cover illustration by Dennis Lyall.

Cover design by Diana Kolsky.

Interior text design by Kelly Lipovich.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Dedicated to, and in memory of
,
mis abuelos:

Virgil Andrew Anderson and Victor Neal Crawford

Sí
. El Paso was the answer—not a good one, but the best under the circumstances; perhaps the only one.

—Norman Zollinger,
Not of War Only

Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings.

—Cormac McCarthy,
Blood Meridian

Enrique Osorio

SPRING 1876

North of Tumacacori Mission, Arizona Territory

Enrique Osorio lay on his stomach, gripping with an eager hand the end of a willow blade snare. If not for the patience encouraged by his grandfather, he would likely have pulled too quickly, missing the jackrabbit's hind leg and sending it scurrying off into the Sonora wild. But Enrique was a good student, and he'd learned that the rewards of the hunter were the motivation needed to succeed. Like how pleased his mother would be when he returned with the meat for supper. The pride his father would have noticing his own eleven-year-old son approaching manhood and being able help provide for his family. His sister Amelia's love of taking the stew meat and wrapping it in a tortilla with squash and
frijoles
. They were fine rewards, but premature thoughts that went against the wise teachings of his grandfather. “Hunt first, rejoice later,” the old man would have said.

The jackrabbit foraged on the tufts of grasses sprouting through the sand, but Enrique set his snare loop near a cluster of barrel cactus, thinking that the hare might be thirsty and, like other rodents of the desert, draw water from the plants' flesh. The animal made a few short hops toward the cactus, and the boy was feeling more confident in his decision, but a nearby scream made the jackrabbit stop and rise up on its hind legs. The cry came again, an eerie echo that caused the rabbit to run for safety.

Disappointed, Enrique rose to his bare feet, coiled the snare, and tucked it under the plaited leather belt that fit tight around his white pima shirt and trousers. He found the direction of the sound, which had worn to intermittent moans and grunts. His first thought was a coydog fight. Then he visualized a mountain lion down from the Sierrita Mountains ambushing a pronghorn in the arroyo. No, he decided it was neither. It was like no animal he had ever heard before, but whatever it was, the predator had most certainly won over its prey.

He walked closer to the strange noises, hoping to catch a glimpse of something new. They came from an area beyond a stand of saguaros and ocotillos and down in an arroyo where he couldn't see the cause. He treaded slow and leery down a deer trail toward the crying and grunting, and stepped quickly backward when he caught an odd motion out of the corner of his eye. The feeling was queer and foreign, as if this place that had been his lifelong home was suddenly trying to fool him. Scared, he hunched to his knees, leaned down on his hands, and peered back to see what this strange moment would reveal.

Indeed it was an odd sight, and not crazed animals as he had thought, but a big, hairy man pulling up his trousers. His hair was long like the Apache but this man was not Apache. Though tanned, his flesh was thick and his hair curly like that of a gringo and not likely a Mexican. Enrique could not comprehend where such a man would have come from or, more interesting, what he was doing.

The boy backed around and off the trail and walked through the saguaros until he could peek through and see the face of the man, and now he saw more than one person; he also saw a much smaller person, a teenage girl. The man led her by a rope tied around her neck, and her hands were tied together, her dress was badly soiled and torn, and her long brown hair was in disarray. When she turned sideways, Enrique could see that there was a strip of red cloth tied between her lips and around to the back of her head. Her face was youthful and somewhat familiar, as was her dress. She cried and moaned, and the man jerked the rope harder.

Enrique understood none of this.

Not until she fell down, and the man jerked her up to where Enrique could see her in full frontal view, did he recognize his elder and only sibling, Amelia. Fear swept through Enrique like a blast from a furnace, and he knew that she was in dire trouble. He wished he could help her but was also certain that there was nothing an eleven-year-old boy and a willow snare could do to stop such a big man. He would have to go get his father. Though his father was a quiet man, he was stern and stout, and definitely one who could set this man straight.

* * *

Enrique ran the trail back to his home with a different kind of anticipation than he had hoped, but he no longer cared about the rewards of a hunter. The look on Amelia's face was all he could see, and it generated a higher energy to get to his father before his sister was hurt any more. He wondered if the man would kill her, but he quickly realized that such thoughts wouldn't get him home any faster.

The only thing that slowed him was the sudden sight of black smoke billowing near their adobe. When he arrived, he saw that it was the adobe itself that made the smoke. Thick, curling columns rolled out the doorway and from under the lean-to where his mother cooked their meals. Their goats lay scattered and slaughtered in their own blood and excrement. Chickens lay dead; others ran about, and their detached feathers whipped in the breeze and through the black plumes. He heard the brays of the burros then saw a strange man gathering them and pulling them with leather leads. Unlike the man he'd seen with Amelia, this man was definitely Apache, with long, straight black hair, a deerskin cap, a loincloth, and leggings. He didn't wear a shirt, and the bronze tone of his lean, muscular chest and stomach stood out against the tawny desert backdrop.

Enrique crept around to the back of the adobe, where his father and grandfather had built a corral for their stock. Several of the fence rails were loose and had been knocked down, and the goats and burros were all gone. Someone lay facedown inside the corral, and as he ran to that person, Enrique recognized the homespun clothes of his father, now all soiled and soaked with blood. He knelt beside the body and turned it over to find a bloody, gaping wound on his father's forehead and his eyes open but lifeless, peering off into nothing.

Enrique's eyes welled with tears.
“Papá?”

The Apache called out loudly, and a frightened Enrique ran toward the smoldering adobe and fell to his hands and knees. Heat radiated through the wall and he was afraid to touch it, but it was the only thing protecting him from the sight of the Apache, so he remained behind it. He peeked around the corner and now saw two men, and though the second man also looked Apache, he was dressed in a gringo's hat and long blue coat. The tips of his shoes were strange, in that they shined and reflected the sunlight as if they were polished like a wide knife blade. He carried two dead chickens by their feet, and a basket of dried fruits that his mother had made for his father for a hunting trip into the mountains. The boy could not understand who these men were and why they were doing this to his family and home.

Afraid that the men might see him, he crawled to the lean-to and came upon his mother drooped over the furnace where she cooked their meals. He turned her and became overwhelmed by a choking stench of burned flesh. He called out to her then laid his head on her chest, embraced her, and wept. Both his parents dead. It couldn't be.

The Apache tongue of the two men grew louder, and the boy raised his head as they walked toward the lean-to. The one carrying the chickens saw him and shouted, and the other ran toward him. Never had he been so fearful for his own life, and though he had been feeling the desire to be dead like his parents, his instincts told him he should run.

He grabbed a machete that lay near his mother's hand and ran toward the burro stable that stood on the far side of the battered corral, opposite the adobe, and was the only structure that was not burning or beat down. When inside, he ducked down and tried to hide in the darkness of a corner. Save for the braying of the burros outside and the crackling of the adobe fire, he heard nothing but his own deep breaths and rapid heartbeat.

He sat there for only a short moment before footsteps outside the stable assured him that he would be found. He remembered a day when he was looking for a lost milk goat and found a doe in the stable. His coming upon her frightened her, and though his eyes would usually adjust to the darkness, she milled and stirred to where the dust inside the stable was so thick he couldn't see anything, and the goat ran right by him.

Enrique dragged the machete sporadically across the floor of dry soil and muck until a dusty haze formed over the light that came in from the doorway. He tried not to cough and held his arm over his nose and mouth so he wouldn't inhale the mess into his lungs. He squinted over his arm and backed next to the doorway, and when the man leaned inside, Enrique slung the machete into him. The boy dropped the weapon and ran out, and looked back only for a moment, to see the Apache lying on the ground, wide-eyed and screaming, with blood spurting from his neck and onto his face and chest. Though Enrique knew he had needed to kill the man, it stunned and horrified him to see what he had done.

The other man dropped the chickens and basket, drew a knife, and came running. Enrique ran behind the stable and into the wilderness. Whether the man was close behind him or not, he couldn't tell, but for all he knew he could feel the Apache's hot breath on his back, so he just kept running. He came upon a cliff and hid behind the largest of the rocks in the talus. Gasping, he curled up with his knees against his chest. He tried to muffle the sounds of his breathing in the bend of his arm. Then he heard the man, whose feet beat the ground in a running stride, which slowed as he came near. Enrique could not plan a way out of this one. He thought of picking up a rock and hitting the man in the head, but before the decision had been made, the man turned and ran down a trail into the desert.

The boy could not believe the man had missed him, as the Apache were excellent trackers and more savvy in the wilderness than any
Criollo
. But this
was
no ordinary Apache. He wore gringo's clothes and strange shoes. Maybe he was an outcast from his clan, left to fend for himself in his own ways. The boy could not be sure, but he was grateful for his luck and for the chance for his heart to calm.

He remained hid in the rocks for several hours. The entire episode kept replaying in his mind—the strangeness of the men, their voices, their clothes, the looks on his parents' faces, Amelia's eyes when they opened, the sweat, the smoke, the blood. It was all too overwhelming for the young hunter, and since he was not sure it was good to be alive, all he could do was weep.