The Bounty Hunters

7

A dozen horsemen swung onto the square from the street siding Duro's headquarters and crossed the open area, separating at the four-sided stone shaft, bunching again to enter the narrow street with a cloud of dust billowing after them.

They swung down, all of them except Sergeant Santana, and spaced out in a ragged line along the front of the house, eager for something to happen. Just the two Americans could not offer much resistance.

From the saddle, Santana glared at the rurale who had been on guard. "Pick up your rifle!"

"I was overpowered…"

"Pick up your rifle!"

Flynn felt the anger return, thinking of Hilario, and now these grinning animals to make a difficult situation worse. And even though he knew they couldn't be aware of Hilario's sorrow, still their presence grated against his nerves and polite explanation wouldn't do. The rifle was in the road a few feet from the door stoop. Flynn moved to it now and placed his boot on the barrel before the rurale could reach it.

"You can order your man wherever you like," he said to Santana, "but if he stays here he doesn't need the rifle."

"Your position is not the best for suggesting orders," Santana said, half-smiling. "What is this supposed to be, an exhibition of Senor Lazair's influence? If it is, go and tell him that I am not the teniente. I order my men with my own mind."

Flynn looked at him curiously. "I don't know this Lazair," he said.

"Come now, why else would you be here? The teniente proves to the alcalde that he is governing body of Soyopa, then the hunter of Indians must prove that his power overbears the office of the teniente."

"Your words are nothing."

"Tell your leader," Santana said, "and he will explain it to you."

"Soldier, I'm not going to stand here and argue with you. If you want to order your men, order them some place else."

Santana moved his sombrero back from his forehead and looked at Flynn with amazement. "God in Heaven-how this one talks!"

From the doorway where he had been standing, Hilario moved to Flynn's side. "Senor Santana, these men do not belong to Lazair. This one I have known before, and the other is his good friend. They have come to see me."

"Many days on horseback just to see the poor alcalde of Soyopa?"

"They have come to tell me of the death of my family," Hilario said quietly.

Santana hesitated. "Your family?"

"They were killed by the Apaches as they returned home." Hilario's lips moved stiffly as he spoke the words and tried to picture what had taken place. He added, "These friends have brought them home to be buried."

"Your entire family-brothers, sisters, children?"

"I have not yet made a count."

Santana was silent for a long moment. Finally he shrugged-what can one do?-and said wearily, "Tend to your dead, old man."

He guided his horse to a turn and his rurales swung into their saddles on the signal. Let the old man alone, he thought. Along with his dead. They will guard him for the time. He pressed his heels into the horse's sides and looked up toward the square, then reined in abruptly. Lieutenant Duro was entering the street.

He approached slowly, holding his mount to a walk, and passed through the rurales, making them pull their horses out of the way. He dismounted with the same slow deliberateness.

"Leaving?" he said to Santana.

"There is nothing to be done here."

"Am I the last to know when my orders are disobeyed?"

Santana dismounted reluctantly. "I did not wish to disturb you."

"From what!"

"Your own affairs."

"Perhaps I should judge that." He looked at Flynn and then to Bowers. "What do you want here!"

"We've already done all the explaining we're going to do," Flynn said shortly.

"Hilario Esteban's family has been killed by the Apaches," Santana said bluntly. "These came to tell him of it."

"Oh…" Duro's expression eased. Instinctively he said, "May I express my deep sympathy." To Flynn he said, "Did it occur near here?"

"Yesterday afternoon. About ten hours ride in the wagon."

"Oh… You were on your way to Soyopa?" And when Flynn nodded, Duro said, "Perhaps on business?"

Flynn said, "You might say that." The lieutenant irritated him strangely. All of a sudden he was too friendly.

"We hope your stay in Soyopa will be a pleasant one," Lieutenant Duro said. He had already forgotten about the alcalde's family. Here was something to wonder about. Two more bounty hunters? Perhaps. And perhaps not. "We are at your service, senor…?"

"Flynn. My friend's name is Bowers."

"It is a pleasure," Duro said, bowing slightly. "Perhaps you would find the time to dine with me later in the day."

Flynn glanced at Hilario. "Perhaps another time."

"Certainly…another time. And Hilario, if there is anything my men can do to assist you…"

The old man looked at the lieutenant with disbelief.

The man at the corner flicked his cigarette into the street and turned away, walking back down the row of adobe building fronts to the mescal shop. It was in the middle of the block on this, the west side of the square. A sign above the door said, Las Quince Letras-red lettering crudely done and fading as the adobe sand wore away. The man opened the screen door and put his head inside.

"Warren!"

He heard the horses behind him then and let the door swing closed and turned to see the rurales crossing the square at a trot. He watched Duro dismount in front of his headquarters and climb the stairs as his rurales passed down the side street. They would be returning to their garrison of tents on the south side of the village. Duro kept only two men with him on guard duty.

The one called Warren came out of the mescal shop adjusting his hat, squinting in the direction the rurales had gone. "They going home?"

The two men were the Americans who had witnessed the execution that morning. Now the one who had been on the corner, whose name was Lew Embree, said, "They let them go. They're not even guarding the old man any more."

"Who do you suppose they are?"

"I don't know," Lew said.

"Maybe we ought to tell Lazair," Warren said.

They looked up as Flynn and Bowers and Hilario Esteban came out of the street and crossed to the church, following the church yard back to the house in which the priest lived. The cemetery was just beyond. The two men watched them pass out of sight.

Warren said, "All of a sudden the old man can go where he wants." He tried to understand this. "Maybe Duro feels sorry for him."

"Or else he's tiptoeing till he finds out what's going on," Lew Embree said. "That younger one's got army written all over him, but that doesn't mean anything. He might of just gotten out." He shrugged. "We'll let Lazair figure it out."

They rode out of Soyopa by the south road, passing the rurales' camp area, and went on in the same direction for almost three miles before beginning a gradual swing to the east. Hours later, toward evening, they were traveling northeast and now began a winding, gradual climb into timber, scrub oak at first then cedar and sycamores and finally, when they were up high, pines. They crossed a meadow of coarse sabaneta grass and as they approached the heights on the west side, the sun barely showed over the rim-rock.

The base of the slanting rock wall was in deep shadow, and passing into the dimness, Warren said, looking up overhead, "Somebody must be asleep."

They heard the click close above them, sharp in the stillness-the lever action of a carbine. "Stand there!"

Lew looked up, but could not see the guard. "Who's that, Wesley?" He called out, "Wes, it's me and Warren!"

The voice answered, "What're you sneaking up for?-sing out, or you're liable to get shot!"

"Go to hell…"

They passed on, entering a defile that climbed narrowly before opening again on a pocket in the rocks, walled on all sides. Four tents formed a semicircle behind a cook fire. Off to the left another fire glowed in the dusk, a smaller one, in front of a tarpaulin rigged over the entrance to a cave. The cave was Curt Lazair's. His fourteen men shared the tents.

Lew Embree handed his reins to Warren who led their horses off to where the others were picketed along the far right wall. He nodded to the men sitting around the cook fire. They looked up from tin plates, some mumbling hello, and watched him make his way over to the cave, wondering what had brought him from the pueblo, and as he reached the tarpaulin awning, Curt Lazair appeared in the entrance.

"What are you doing back?"

"Somebody hauled in a load of dead Mexicans right after you left," Lew said.

"I didn't think they'd find 'em so quick." Lazair eased into a camp chair, sucking his teeth, and propped his feet on a saddle in front of the chair. "You eaten yet?"

"No."

Lazair nodded back toward the cave entrance. "That girl ain't a bad cook…At least she's good for something."

"The people who found 'em weren't from Soyopa."

Lazair looked up. "Who were they?"

"A couple of Americans."

"Prospectors?"

Lew shrugged. "That's the question nobody knows."

"Well, why didn't you stay to find out?"

"I figured you'd want to know right away."

"You could've left Warren there."

"Between the mescal and that saloon whore he'd find out a hell of a lot."

"What'd they look like?"

"Like anybody else." Lew shrugged. "They weren't carrying signs."

"What!"

Lew reconsidered. "One of them looked army."

"A lot of people were in the army. What does that look like?"

"He had an army pistol holster on him…"

"You're about as much good as Warren."

"What did you want me to do, go up and ask 'em for their cards?"

"There're enough rum-bum rurales you could have asked!"

"How would they know?"

"Because they live in Soyopa and talk to people…those two aren't bringing the bodies into Soyopa 'cause they don't know anybody here! Why didn't they haul them to Rueda or Alaejos? They're just as close."

"Oh…"

"Oh," Lazair mimicked him. He rolled a cigarette then, idly, considering what this could mean.

Lew said, "Maybe we shouldn't of hit that wagon string. There were too many of 'em…all from Soyopa."

Lazair said nothing.

"Now," Lew went on, "people right in the village have got kin and close friends to pray over and wonder about…and maybe they'll wonder so long they'll figure something out."

"How much they hate the Apaches," Lazair said. "That's all the figuring they'll do."

"I don't like it."

"I didn't ask you to like it! You don't get paid for your smiles!"

"Maybe those two Americans'll figure out something…"

"Goddamn it shut up, will you! I can't think with you crying in my ear!"

Two Americans suddenly appear with the bodies. They must have had a reason for coming down here. They stumble onto the ambush and know exactly where to cart the bodies; they knew they were from Soyopa, Lazair thought. Hell, if they knew where they were from, then they knew who they were! Why? Maybe one of the Mexicans had something on him that told what his village was. What are you getting so excited about? Probably a couple of saddle tramps looking for greener grass. Just mustered out of the Army. Maybe they heard about the scalp bounty and thought it was worth a try. You son of a bitch, you've got fourteen men with you and you worry about two. But all of a sudden people were starting to pop out of nowhere. Like the man they ran into just before the ambush who wanted to join the band. Well, the ambush was his test. He came out all right. If he had backed down, he'd have been left with the dead. Sure, he turned out all right. He thought now: And maybe he saw them. He must have come down the same way.

He called over to the cook fire, "Frank!"

The man was a shadowy figure crossing the camp area, taking his time until finally he appeared out of the dimness in front of the fire at the edge of the tarp awning. Frank Rellis had changed little. Dirtier, that was all.

"What?"

"When you were coming down from Contention, did you see anybody?"

"Did I see anybody?"

"Two Americans."

"What the hell kind of a question is that?" Rellis said.

Lazair swung on Lew irritably. "What did they look like!"

"One was a little taller than medium size, thin in the hips and put his boots down hard like a horse soldier. A young fella with red hair. The other one had a mustache, light-colored. He was stringier than the other fella and seemed taller. He looked peaceful enough, but his coat bulged a little like he had a six-gun under it."

Rellis said instantly, "A soldier mustache?"

Lew said, "Yeah, and the other one had an army holster on his side."

"Where are they?"

Lazair looked at Rellis curiously. "You know them?"

"Where are they?"

"Soyopa. They found those dead Mexicans and brought 'em in," Lazair said watching him closely. "I asked you if you knew them."

"I don't know. Maybe I do. One of them sounds like an old friend. Maybe I ought to go to Soyopa and find out for sure." He walked away before Lazair could ask him anything else.

Lazair watched him go back to the cook fire. The hell with it, he thought. Getting anything out of that son of a bitch is like pulling teeth. If it was something to worry about he would have said something. He looked at Lew Embree. "You want a drink?"

"Fine."

Lazair half turned and called behind him, "Honey!" There was no answer and he winked at Lew. "She's bashful."

Lew grinned, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. "How is she?"

"I can't even get her to smile."

"They don't have to smile."

"Honey!" Lazair called again. "Bring us out a bottle of something!"

Nita Esteban appeared in the cave opening, in half-shadow, the light of the fire barely reaching her. She held the ends of a red scarf that was about her shoulders tightly in front of her. Her features were small, delicate against the soft blackness of her hair. Her skin was pale in the light of the fire and her eyes were in shadow.

Lazair glanced at her and grinned. "A bottle of mescal, honey."

She disappeared and returned in a moment with the bottle in her hand. She approached Lazair reluctantly, handed the bottle to him and turned quickly, but as she did this he reached for her. She felt his hand on her back and dodged out of reach, twisting her body away from him. But his fingers tightened on the scarf and pulled it from her shoulders as she slipped away.

Lew grinned at his chief. "That's a step toward it."

"She likes to play." Lazair felt the material between his fingers and then tore it down the middle.

Lew said, "Maybe she's upset after seeing what you did to her kin."

Lazair folded a part of the scarf lengthwise, then tied it around his neck, sticking the ends into his shirt. "Some girls are funny that way," he said.