The Ysabel Kid (8 page)

Chavez watched the Ysabel Kid and one of his half-Indian men head out fast to scout the area ahead, then he turned to Dusty and asked who the small Texan rode for, thinking him to be a member of the United States Army.

“Texas Light Cavalry. I retired at the end of the War.”

They rode side-by-side, Alden staying back with Conway and the muleskinners. For a time Chavez was silent as they followed the scouts, keeping under cover as well as they could all the time, and avoiding skylines.

“The Texas Light Cavalry were Confederate Army?” There was suspicion in the soft spoken inquiry.

“Sure.”

“There are many Confederate men riding for Maximillian.”

“I’m not gainsaying it,” Dusty could almost read the Mexican’s thoughts. “That is why I am helping take these rifles to Juarez.”

“That is strange, very strange. I would have thought you would be taking these weapons to your friends.”

“Nope. To Juarez. You know that the United States Government is willing to help your people against the French?”

“There was some rumour.”

“No rumour, Colonel. It’s the living truth. Do you think Washington would’ve allowed us to leave the country with these rifles if they were aiming to help the French?”

“It doesn’t appear likely,” Chavez agreed. “Why then are you coming?”

“I want to ask Juarez to give the Confederate soldiers free and unrestricted passage back to the United States. Then I aim to go down and talk with General Sheldon, their leader, and get him to come home with me. That way our country will be free to help you without causing international trouble.”

“I see.”

The Kid and Jose were at the top of a rim, just below the skyline. The Kid turned in his saddle and removed his hat to wave it round his head. Dusty twisted in his saddle and brought the line of mules to a halt. Then he rode up the hill with Conway, Chavez and Alden following him.

The Kid and the Mexican were down from their horses and laying just under the rim looking over. Dusty swung down from his paint and left it standing with the reins hanging loose. He drew the carbine and went up the slope to drop by the Kid.

On the other side of the slope, riding in a course which would traverse their own came horsemen. Dusty did not need the tricolour flag carried by one of the men to know that here were French cavalry. A strong company by American standards, over sixty men, with scouts ahead, on the flanks behind them.

Chavez joined Dusty, he also watched the Frenchmen, noting their scouts rode across the trail at the bottom of the slope that started the long climb up this side.

“They will see us, there is no chance of hiding so many mules,” he said softly. “We must make a fight.”

“Against a force that strong?” Dusty objected. “We wouldn’t have a chance.”

“With the repeating rifles we would.”

“Sure and the second volley would warn the French that we were armed with repeaters.” Dusty shook his head. “It’s no good that way, Colonel. The French know about these rifles but they don’t know for certain they are in Mexico. Half a minute after we open fire they will know and they’ll know how we’re moving them. Then they’ll light out of here faster’n a Neuces steer and tell the main force what’s happened to the rifles.”

“Dusty’s right,” the Kid agreed. “The French allow we’re trying to bring the rifles by wagon, not by mule. We want to keep them thinking that way as long as we can. We won’t do it by fighting them bunch with the repeaters. They’ll surely come over here and some of them will see the mules.”

“You’re right. But they will see us when they reach the top of the slope and no officer would ride by such a sight.”

Chavez moved back down the slope, signalling to his men to come up and join him. “We go over that slope and fight the French. Move the mules and tell Juarez I die for my country.”

Before Dusty or the others could say a word Chavez and his men were riding up the slope. The Colonel turned and raised a hand in a salute then riding as if on a routine patrol led his men over and down the other side.

“Move them out, fast!” Dusty ordered.

“I’m going back to see what happens,” the Kid growled. Dusty caught the black sleeve and gripped it hard, meeting his friend’s eyes. “Chavez knew what he was doing. Don’t try and help him with that repeater.”

For a time, until the mule train was nearly out of sight, the Kid stayed and watched the gallant but hopeless fight. He longed to go down and help but knew that to do so would cause the very thing Chavez led his men to prevent.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THEY pushed the mules hard, keeping the loping animals moving at a fair speed and putting distance between them and Chavez’s fighting men. For a time Dusty rode at the point of the line then he let Conway go ahead as scout and cut back for the rear. They were travelling through the rolling Mexican hill country and from the top of a rim Dusty sat his paint watching the big white stallion bringing the Ysabel Kid towards him. Faintly in the distance he could still hear shooting and knew that Chavez still fought the French, holding them from finding the tracks of the mules and giving Conway’s train a chance to get well clear.

The Ysabel Kid looked Indian-savage as he came up, bringing the big white stallion to a rump-sliding halt and scowling at Dusty.

“We could have helped them,” he said.

“Sure, and the French would have known about these rifles. Do you reckon I liked leaving them to fight?”

“Nope, don’t reckon you did. It galls a man to miss a fight though.”

Dusty gripped his friend’s arm again. The grip was firm and his eyes were friendly as he said, “Sure I know how you feel. Come on, we’d best catch up with the others.”

The mule train was kept moving all that day and the next. It was only a three-day drive from Monterrey to Texas, going by the most direct route but they did not travel direct. Once they spent three hours hid in a
bosque
while a French patrol cooked a meal less than half a mile from them. The French were not alert or even expecting trouble for they ignored the sudden bray of one of the mules. Another time they were forced to make a long detour through the safe cover at the bottom of a dried-up river-bed to avoid the eyes of another patrol.

On the third day the Ysabel Kid announced to Dusty that he would head for a small town called San Juanita and see a few friends, who would know if the French were about. Dusty wasn’t too happy about letting the Kid ride alone but knew that he himself could not leave the train and that the Kid would prefer to go unescorted.

So the Kid rode ahead of the others, travelling at a better speed than they could make with the loaded-down animals. He rode with the caution of a Comanche on a scouting mission, sticking to cover, surveying the ground ahead and never moving over a rim without first making a careful approach and study from under it. He halted the horse on the rim above San Juanita, which was more of a village, and a small village at that. It consisted of some thirty mud and adobe built houses, none of them large, a slightly larger abode built of cantina and a small stone church. The town was surrounded on three sides by well-wooded land, but on this side from where the Kid was approaching it was all fairly open country. Halfway along was a tall, flat-topped rock which overlooked the surrounding countryside and in the days when contraband was being run into San Juanita provided a very handy place for a man to sit and watch the surrounding district. From the top of the rock a man could see every inch of the land from it down to the town and well over the thick wooded country with the only two paths through the woods in plain view. Another thing about that rock was that it was unclimbable except from the side nearest the town, where someone had taken time and cut steps into the steep face allowing a man to get up in a hurry, or down again.

The Kid rode by Lookout Rock as it was called and down towards the town. He frowned as he studied the deserted streets. San Juanita was never a busy place, that is, not in the day time, though it could get very busy after dark, but there were usually a few people in sight. It was not yet the hour of siesta either and the very stillness would have warned the Kid if it had been any other place. But San Juanita, tucked away in the hills as it was, never attracted any attention to it and there were men who’d ridden past it on the other side of the slope who would have sworn no village existed there.

The street was empty and deserted, and the Kid wondered where his friends were as he rode in along it. Even if the men were asleep in the houses and the women not talking to each other they should have kept someone watching the trail.

Halting his stallion the Kid looked round then called, “Hey Ruis, Pablo. Come on out here!”

“Raise your hands and drop your guns!”

The voice was speaking Spanish, not pure Spanish but with the same accent the men in Brownsville had used. The Kid sat his horse and lifted his hands to shoulder height seeing three rifles lined on him from different hiding places. To move would be death for the men were resting their weapons and not all of them would miss.

A big heavily built man with a hard, coarse face and wearing the uniform of the French Blue Hussars stepped from a hut. In his hand he held a Lefauchex pistol and on his sleeve the three bars of a sergeant.

“Get down and remove that gunbelt,” he ordered.

The Kid swung down from his saddle, knowing that he would never escape by a fast dash for he’d looked round and there were many rifles lined on him now. Then even as his foot touched the floor he realised he must not let them get his horse for in the saddleboot was a rifle of a kind the French would never have seen before. Any doubt they had as to his identity would be settled when they examined the rifle as they were sure to. Mere curiosity would call for a closer look and no soldier could resist examining so novel a weapon closer. Along the top of the barrel was printed the words, “Winchester Repeating Firearms Company, New Haven, Conn.” He guessed the French would know which company were selling the arms to Juarez and would have warned their men to be on the lookout for such weapons.

Slowly he lowered his hands to unbuckle the heavy gun-belt. He swung it from his wrist and lowered it to the ground. Then he hissed a command. The big white stallion rocketed forward, leaping into a racing stride which took every man by surprise. The men were concentrating on the Ysabel Kid and when the horse went off like that they were confused, not knowing if they should still cover the man or shoot the horse.

The sergeant was in no doubt. His Lefauchex gun came up and crashed but it would have taken a better pistol shot than he to hit that racing white stallion. “Stop it!” he bellowed. “Don’t let it—!”

It was too late. The big white was running fast and even as the men poured out of the houses they were too late for the horse was out of town and streaking back the way it came.

The sergeant watched the horse go, then turned and looked at the tall, dark and innocent looking young man who stood watching him with mocking eyes. “Pig!” he snarled and lashed the back of his hand across the Kid’s face.

The young man staggered back; a soldier smashed the butt of his carbine into the base of his spine sending him forward again into another crashing blow which sent him to the ground. The sergeant snarled out strange and savage curses as he came in drawing his foot back for a kick.

A tall man had come from a house at the shot. He came forward now, thrusting through the crowd as if it wasn’t there. His left hand shot out, gripped the big sergeant by the arm, turned him and then the right fist drove out to crash on to the jaw of the Frenchman hard enough to stretch him flat on his back.

The Kid looked up at his rescuer, a handsome young, blond giant. Three or more inches over six foot he stood, with great wide shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist and powerful straight legs. On his head was an expensive Confederate campaign hat, shoved back from his curly, golden blond hair. The face was very handsome, classic in its shape and form. He wore the single gold braid from the cuff of his sleeve to the bend of the elbow and the half-inch wide, three-inch long gold bar at his collar that denoted he was a first Lieutenant but the uniform was not as laid down by Confederate Army Dress Regulations. His double breasted grey tunic did not have the required shirt extending to between hip and knee, but was cut off at the waist. It did have the collar and cuffs of cavalry yellow, but the stand-up collar was open and instead of the required black cravat he wore a tight rolled bandana of scarlet silk, the ends hanging loose almost to his waistband. His trousers were regulation, tight legged and obviously tailored for him, and the shining Jefferson boots were well fitting. Instead of the issue sword belt he wore a buscadero gunbelt with a matched brace of ivory butted Colt 1860 Army revolvers in the low-tied holsters.

All-in-all he looked like a very rich young man who entered the Confederate Army with a commission ready made for him. He also brought with him his own idea of what military uniform should be and wore this variation of it because he preferred it.

The young man might be big but he was neither slow nor clumsy. Behind him one of the men started to raise his rifle, the hammer clicking back under his thumb. The young man came round in a smooth turn, hand dropping and the long-barrelled Colt leaping from his right holster in a fast, proficient draw. The Kid was something of a connoisseur when it came to studying fast draws and this was as fast almost as the draw of his able young friend, Dusty Fog.

“Attention!” a voice snapped.

A tall, dandified young French officer came from the hut where the Confederate made his appearance. He crossed the street with lazy strides, tapping the side of his trousers with his cane. He looked elegant and handsome but there was a hint of cruelty in his face and eyes. He looked round at the men who stood at rigid attention, then at the tall young Confederate lieutenant who was not.

“What is the trouble, Lieutenant Counter?”

“The same as before,” the voice was an easy, cultured Texas drawl. “I’m sick of your men ill-treating every living soul that they lay their hands on. This boy hadn’t but rode in here when Lefarge jumped him, knocked him down and started to kick him.”

“I see,” the French officer examined the Ysabel Kid with his cold and cruel eyes. “This one answers to the description of a man with that firearms seller we heard of.”

“That so?” Lieutenant Mark Counter looked down without too much interest at the Ysabel Kid. “He looks some too young for a thing like that. We’d best hang on to him until we get back to Saltillo, but don’t ill-treat him any.”

“I’ll do what I—”

The French officer’s voice died away as the young Texan’s hands lifted to hover over the butts of his guns. “No, you won’t, Bardot. Nobody mishandles a prisoner when I’m around.”

“All right.” Apparently Bardot had quite a fair-sized respect for the Texan’s gun skill. He looked back over his shoulder and snapped. “Take him and tie him up. Throw him in that hut there.”

“No,” Mark snapped back, looking down at the Kid, “Here I’ll take care of him myself.”

The Kid was no weakling. There was a whipcord strength in his lean frame that was out of keeping with one his size but he was like a baby in the powerful hands of Mark Counter. He was helped to his feet and his gunbelt slung over the big Texan’s shoulder. Then Mark pushed the Kid into the small jacal he’d come from to make his timely rescue.

The building was small and of only one room. It was the house of one of the men who’d given good service to the Ysabel family at different times. The house itself gave no sign that the men had a fair amount of money hidden away. It held only a rough table, a couple of chairs and an untidy and dirty looking bed.

Shoving the Kid into one of the chairs Mark fastened him securely and in a way which gave little or no chance of escaping. The Ysabel Kid looked Mark over with fresh respect. The big man might talk like a gentleman and dress like a New Orleans dandy but he knew how to handle rope.

“Sorry I’ve got to hawgtie you like this, but I’ve got to make it look real good for when Bardot comes. He’s a real mean
hombre
and if he gets his way neither you or I will make Saltillo alive.”

“Sure,” the Kid watched the handsome face, knowing that he was still alive because of Mark Counter. “What happened to the folks of the town?” he asked.

“There wasn’t one of them in sight when we came.”

Mark handrolled two smokes, passing one to the Kid and lighting it. He was looking at the Indian dark face and at last asked, “Are you taking rifles to Juarez?”

“Sure.”

“You know a lot of Confederate boys are fighting for the French?”—there was a hard note in Mark’s voice.

“Sure.”

“And you’re still taking them?”

“Yep. Cap’n Dusty Fog of the Texas Light Cavalry is with me.”

Mark’s face showed its disbelief. He knew the reputation of Dusty Fog and could not see that loyal son of Dixie doing any such thing. Mark pulled out the second chair and sat down facing the Kid, his face showing nothing of his feelings. “I can’t help you get loose now, boy. Not with you bringing those guns. They’re better than anything we’ve got. I’ll see the French don’t mistreat you but I’ll take you to Saltillo.”

For a time the two men stayed silent, each occupied with his thoughts. The door opened and Bardot came in followed by the sergeant. The French officer came over and examined the Kid’s bonds carefully, then sniffed and straightened up. He jerked his head and the sergeant left the room.

“Monsieur, Counter, I will leave you to guard the prisoner and to make sure he does not escape. I will give instructions to fire upon anyone who comes out.”

“Thanks, and when do we eat?”

“I will send
soupe
and coffee across when we make it. Until then you will confine yourself to this hut. I have given orders for a double guard on the horse lines and they have orders to shoot anyone who moves in the street after dark.”

“Sounds like you don’t trust somebody,” the Kid remarked.

Bardot’s hand drew back but Mark came to his feet in a lithe move, facing the other man. “If you want to hit somebody try me. I’m not tied.”

The Frenchman turned on his heel and left the jacal, slamming the door after him. The Ysabel Kid grinned at Mark. “Looks like we’re both prisoners.”

“Man’d say you were right,” Mark agreed. “General Bushrod won’t be any too pleased when he hears.”

The Kid relapsed into silence for a time, still watching Mark. Then he got more comfortable in the chair and remarked, “You look a lonely man.”

“Feel it. I never knew just how lonseome until I saw you ride in there on that old range saddle.”

Mark wasn’t looking at the Kid. His eyes were on the wall but he was seeing the great rolling Big Bend range country and his father Rance Counter’s great R over C ranch. To his ears came the sound of the range, the creaking of saddle leather, the grunting of cowhorses as they worked and the beat of the feet of cattle interspersed with the wild yell of the cowhand. He was tired of this vagrant army life, homesick and wanted to be done with the sort of warfare the French engaged in as they tried to bring the Mexicans to their knees. What he wanted was to head back north, cross the Rio Grande into Texas and feel a comfortable old kak saddle between his knees as he rode the range.

“How’d you like working for the French?” the Kid asked after a time.

“I don’t. I’m surely sick of them and the way they fight. Man, you’ve never seen such cruel hawgs as they get when they catch a Mexican.”

“You all set to quit them?”

Mark looked at the dark young man for a long time. He rose and went to the door, opening it slightly. The French guard turned, hefting his carbine and nervously easing back the hammer. Shutting the door again Mark returned to the table and sat down again.

“Them, not General Bush.”

The Kid was about to speak when the door was opened and two men came in carrying a bowl and a cup each. They put the utensils on the table and turned to go out. Mark looked in at the greyish looking
soupe
, a kind of stew which the French army served at each of its two daily meals. It was nourishing all right but a deadly tedious diet to a man who was as fond of his creature comforts as Mark Counter. He eyed the food with some distaste and went to the door to bellow out for the officer.

Bardot entered. He scowled at Mark and then at the Ysabel Kid. “What now?”

“What am I supposed to do, eat it with my fingers?” Mark replied. “My mess gear is in my saddlebag.”

“I will send for it,” Bardot watched Mark all the time. There was hatred in his eyes now. Calling to the man outside Bardot gave orders for a couple of spoons to be brought then he stated flatly he would wait until the Kid was tied once more before leaving.

Mark held down his temper, knowing that he could not handle all the patrol at one go even with the aid of the young man they’d captured. He drew the Kid’s bowie knife and cut the thongs holding the dark wrists then set to and ate his food. The Kid was hungry now and the soup went down well for he was used to taking what he could get.

With the food done Mark rose and went to the door, pushed by Bardot and stepped outside. The sentry stared at him but made no attempt to raise his carbine for he’d seen just how fast this Texan could draw and with what accuracy he shot even without lifting the guns and looking along their sights. Mark stood there with the Kid’s gunbelt hanging over his shoulder still, then he ordered the soldier to fetch his bedroll and turned to go back into the hut.

“Fasten your prisoner again,
Monsieur
,” Bardot ordered. “Then I will leave you to guard him. Remember my orders.”

Mark lashed the Kid’s arms again, making a thorough job of it. He went to the dirty window, rubbed it clear and looked out. The town was as deserted in appearance again as if it were a dead town, for Bardot was holding all his men under cover. The horses were picketed out of sight in the woods and under guard so to all signs the village of San Juanita was deserted.

“You said Dusty Fog was riding with you,” Mark asked as he returned to the table.

“Why sure.”

“What would a reb like him be doing, bringing repeating rifles down here when some of his friends are on the other side?”

“He’s come to ask Bushrod Sheldon to come home again,” the Kid decided to lay his cards on the table. “Folks up north of the border want him back real bad.”

“You reckon he’ll go?”

“I reckon he will.” The Kid told Mark of the letter Dusty was carrying and the rest of what Dusty told him. “I’ve seen the letter, and it’ll make him go back.”

At the end of the narrative Mark rose and paced the room whistling softly an old cattlesong. He knew of both Dusty Fog and Ole Devil Hardin and knew that the latter was probably the only man Bushrod Sheldon would trust. The letter from President Grant might be full of concessions and flowery phrases, but it would have no effect on Bushrod Sheldon unless it was endorsed by a man who he trusted. Mark knew better than the Ysabel Kid the way the battle-weary ex-Confederate veterans who rode for Sheldon felt. Every one of them was tired of this life they led, far from home and family. With anything like a reasonable assurance from the Union Government all would wish to ride north again.

“How about the rifles?” That was the one part of the matter Mark did not like. “Why’d you bring them?”