The Alamosa Trail

Chapter 15

Shardeen climbed up onto a rock from which he could see for nearly two miles back across the Sonoran Desert. A small rise hid everything beyond that point.

“See anything?” Whitey asked.

“No,” Shardeen answered. Shardeen took the last swallow from a whiskey bottle, then tossed it against a nearby rock. The bottle shattered into several pieces.

“Dammit, Shardeen, what the hell did you go and break that bottle for?” Whitey complained. “We coulda sold that bottle for three or four centavos.”

“Three or four centavos?” Shardeen snorted. “If I wanted to sell something that cheap, I’d sell that gold tooth of your’n.”

“You ain’t never goin’ to get your hands on my tooth,” Whitey said.

“It’s prob’ly not even real gold,” Shardeen answered. “But it don’t matter none, ’cause once we get them womenfolk back, we’ll sell ’em to the Mexican bandidos, just like we started out to.”

“Yeah, well, we ain’t got ’em yet,” Whitey said.

“We’ll get ’em. They can’t get far, not on their own, anyhow.”

“I don’t know ’bout that. They’ve done pretty good on their own so far. They got away from us and they spooked our horses so that it took us half a day to get ’em back. Besides which, they also kilt Red.”

“Red getting kilt ain’t no big loss, believe me,” Shardeen said. “If they hadn’t kilt him, I most likely would done it myself. That boy was just too damn stupid to live.”

“Hey, Shardeen, lookie there,” Whitey said, pointing off in the distance. “I think they’re a-comin’.”

“No, it couldn’t be,” Shardeen said. “There’s too many of ’em.”

Whitey shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted off into the distance.

“The hell it ain’t them,” Whitey said. “Take a good look.”

Studying the distant party of riders, Shardeen saw that it was, indeed, the three women who had made good their escape. He saw, too, that they weren’t alone, for they were in the company of four men.

“What the hell?” Shardeen said aloud.

“Who do you reckon them men are?” Whitey asked.

“Like as not, someone who’s wantin’ to do what we was goin’ to do,” Shardeen said.

“What? You mean someone who’s plannin’ to sell the women?”

“Yes,” Shardeen said. “Our women.”

Whitey studied the approaching riders for a moment longer. “I don’t know,” he said. “You ask me, them women don’t look captured. Looks to me like they’re ridin’ with ’em by choice.”

Shardeen spit out a stream of tobacco juice. “Yeah, well, it don’t matter none whether they stole ’em or the women went to ’em. All that matters is, they got the women and we don’t.”

“Sons of bitches,” Whitey said. “And they’s four of them to only two of us.”

“Yeah, well, get your rifle,” Shardeen ordered. “We’ll take ’em out ’fore they even know we’re here.”

“Two of us against four of them? That don’t make too much sense if you ask me.”

“Just don’t miss with your first shot,” Shardeen said as he moved into position with his rifle.

Jim heard the angry buzz of a bullet sizzling past his ear even before he heard the sound of the shot. He knew instantly what it was, and he shouted at the others as he spurred his horse to get off the trail.

“What’s up?” Barry asked.

“Someone’s shootin’ at us!”

The other men reacted instantly to the warning, for they were trail-wary and knew the danger of hesitation. But the women were less responsive and they paused for a moment, unsure of what was going on or what to do. They were spared only because Shardeen didn’t want them hit. The women would be worthless to him dead.

When a second bullet kicked up dirt nearby, then whined on beyond them, Katie jumped into action. “Follow the men!” she shouted, kicking her own horse. Her two daughters followed suit.

A short, quick gallop brought them to a ridgeline that was extended by an outcropping of rocks. All seven of them dashed behind the cover, putting the ridge between them and the shooters.

Jim swung down from his horse, his rifle in hand. Frank, Barry, and Gene joined him. The girls dismounted and also sought safety behind the rocks. Katie grabbed the reins of all seven horses.

“What are you doing? Get down!” Jim shouted when he saw her.

“You want these horses to bolt?” Katie asked. “I have no intention of being left afoot.”

With a nod of assent, Jim waved her on up the ridgeline, even as bullets were whistling overhead. Jim crawled up to the top of the ridge and looked across the draw to the rocks on the other side. As he was looking, he saw two flashes as their assailants snapped off another couple of shots at them.

“Shoot at them!” Jim shouted. “Keep their heads down!”

Frank, Barry, and Gene began firing, jacking shells into their rifle chambers, firing, then working the lever again. In this way they kept up a deadly fusillade that kept their assailants at bay. That was exactly what Jim wanted, for it gave him the opportunity to slip, unobserved, to a location about twenty-five yards down the ridge. When he was in position he gave the signal for the other three to stop shooting.

Abrubtly, the gunfire stopped, chased by returning echoes from across the ridge. There was a long period of silence and Jim held his finger to his lips, indicating to Barry and the others that he wanted the cease-fire maintained.

“What happened to ’em?” Jim heard a voice ask. It was the voice of one of the assailants.

“I don’t know,” another voice answered.

“You think they skedaddled?”

“Stick your head up there and have a look.”

That was what Jim was waiting for. Laying his cheek alongside the walnut stock of his Winchester, he peered through the rear sight, centered the front sight, and waited.

He almost pulled the trigger when he saw a hat come up, but he held his fire. He was glad he did when he realized that the hat was on the end of a rifle.

A moment after the hat disappeared behind the rock, it reappeared, this time on someone’s head. Jim squeezed the trigger.

The rifle boomed and kicked back against his shoulder. Through the drifting smoke of the discharge, Jim saw the assailant slump forward, his rifle clattering down the rocks in front of him, finally ending up on the ground below.

“Whitey?” a voice called. “Whitey, you hit?”

Jim jacked another shell into the chamber and waited for another head to appear, but there was none. Instead, he heard the clatter of hoofbeats as a horse galloped away.

“They’re runnin’!” Frank called. He started to climb up for a better look, but Jim held out a cautioning hand.

“Wait,” Jim said. “That was only one horse.”

“You think they’s more of ’em?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know. Hard to figure only two men attacking four.”

“Maybe not,” Frank said. “Bein’ as they were in good position like that, could be they figured on droppin’ two of us with the first two shots. Then the odds would be even and they would still have the position.”

“That’s true,” Jim agreed. He rubbed his cheek for a moment. “All right, I’ll have a look.”

Warily, Jim climbed over the top of the ridgeline he had been using for cover. Then he started across an opening toward the next ridge. He kept his eyes on the crest, waiting for any shape or shadow that might show up against the skyline. But nothing appeared.

Paying no immediate attention to the body, Jim climbed to the top of the ridge from which the assailants had staged their ambush. He looked around. Except for one rider in the distance, he saw no one. Climbing back up to the crest, he waved his hand over his head, signaling that all was clear.

Frank, Barry, and Gene jogged across the opening then. They were followed a moment later by Katie and her daughters. The women had divided up the horses so that she was leading three, while each of her daughters led two.

Jim was looking down at the body when the others arrived. The blood around the bullet hole in the slain man’s temple seemed exceptionally crimson when contrasted with the man’s white hair and nearly white skin.

“Damn,” Gene said. “Look at that. I don’t think I ever seen a body get so pale so fast.”

“He always looked like that,” Kate said, arriving at that moment. “They called him Whitey.”

Jim recalled then that he had heard someone shout that name out during the fight.

“What would make a fella so pasty-faced?” Gene asked.

“I don’t know,” Katie admitted.

“He’s what they call an albino,” Jim explained.

“An albino? I’ll be damned. I’ve heard of them. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one before,” Gene said.

Jim looked at Katie. “Is this one of the men who captured you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Katie replied. “The son of a bitch who got away is called Shardeen.”

“Mama!” Brenda gasped. “I thought you told us never to use words like that.”

“I did,” Katie replied. “But I also told you to always tell the truth. And the only way you can refer to Shardeen truthfully is to call him a son of a bitch.”

Jim and the others laughed at Katie’s declaration, yet they were all respectfully aware of the reason she spoke of him in such vitriolic terms.

Shardeen rode hard, looking over his shoulder often to see if anyone was following him. It hadn’t been a very smart move, firing on four men like that. But he figured if he and Whitey could get one apiece with the opening shots, they could kill the other two before they even realized what was happening to them. Then the women would’ve been easy pickings. It would’ve worked, too, if that damn Whitey hadn’t missed.

Hell, it was all Whitey’s fault. As far as Shardeen was concerned, gettin’ hisself killed was good enough for the son of a bitch.

Shardeen had had enough of Mexico with its rocks, desert, cacti, scorpions, and Mexicans. He didn’t care if he never heard another word of Spanish, and he didn’t care if he never saw those damned women again.