Novel 1974 - The Californios (v5.0) (10 page)

“I remember somethin’ about that,” Wooston said. “Killed a couple of them, didn’t he?”

“I cannot afford to have killings at my cantina,” Tomas replied gravely, “so bodies are never found there. However, two bodies were found on the road near the cienaga…and there were two other men who became somehow disabled.”

“And the other?”

“He ran, Señor. He had less courage but greater wisdom. Captain Mulkerin had a few scratches, I think, and skinned knuckles.”

“Knives,” Machado said. “They should have used knives.”

“Two of them tried, Señor Machado. Two of them tried very hard with knives. One died with his own knife in his ribs, the other had a broken arm and collarbone.”

It was a somber day. Low gray clouds lay upon the mountains, shrouding the peaks and the higher ridges. The canyons were silent, awesome, haunted.

When they started out again, Fernandez led off. But he had gone only a short distance when he drew up sharply.

“What is it?” Machado demanded impatiently.

Fernandez pointed.

Two crossed sticks lay in the trail.

“Well? What of it?” Wooston demanded, as they bunched around.

“I do not like it,” Fernandez said. “It is a sign.”

“Bah!” Machado said contemptuously. “We waste time!” He rode over the sticks and on down the trail, and the others followed.

From high in the rocks above them there came a weird, lonely howl, a howl that sent chills up their spines. Once more they drew up, guns in hand. The howl rose, died away, then lifted again.

Their eyes searched the rocks above them, but they saw nothing.

“Coyote,” Russell said.

“That?” Tomas stared at him. “That was no coyote. It was a soul of the dead, a lost soul.”

Wooston laughed. “Well, I ain’t afraid of no ghosts. Let’s go.”

One of Machado’s men was in the lead. Suddenly, they saw his horse rear wildly, and the man drew his pistol and fired.

Rushing up, they saw nothing.

“What’s the matter?” Wooston demanded. “You gone crazy?”

“There was a snake, a big rattler, right in the trail.”

“Well? Where is he now?”

There was no snake, no winding trail in the dust, nothing.

Tomas glanced uneasily at Silva, who shrugged.

“There was a snake!” The man repeated stubbornly. “I saw it. So did my horse.”

“So? Ain’t you never seen a snake before? Let’s go!” Russell was impatient.

With a glance of contempt, Machado rode past into the lead. The trail wound down a long, shallow draw, dusty and dry, with scattered rocks and cacti. Suddenly Machado stopped, waiting for Silva. “The trail is gone,” he said. “Find it.”

Silva rode on past and began casting back and forth for the lost trail.

“Be dark soon,” Russell muttered.

The way grew increasingly rugged. Now the junipers were giving way to scattered pines, and along the streams the sycamores were larger, older, and in greater number.

“Looks like an open place up ahead,” Wooston said. “We’d better camp.”

Silva had picked up the trail, then lost it again. He led them now down into a flat place near a stream where there were several large sycamores. He glanced around uneasily.

“What place is this?” Machado asked.

Silva shrugged. “The stream, I think, is the Sespe. This place, I have heard of it before. It is a bad place.”

“Looks good to me,” Wooston swung down.

“There has been death here,” Silva said. “I was told of this place.”

“Forget it,” Wooston said, “this here’s as good a camp as we’re likely to find.” He turned toward Silva. “They far ahead of us?”

Silva hesitated, thinking. Then he shrugged. “Maybe an hour, two hours. No more.”

“What’s wrong?” Wooston’s eyes searched Silva’s.

“I do not like this place,” Silva said, “and something is wrong.”

“Wrong? How?”

“The Old One leads them. He guides them.”

“So?”

“Something is wrong, Señor. He no longer tries to get away.”

“What’s that mean?” Wooston was frowning and King-Pin Russell had stopped loosening his saddle to listen.

“If he no longer tries to get away it is because he wishes us to catch up, and if he wishes us to catch up, there may be a trap, no?”

“Trap, Hell! Any trap will be for them, not us.”

Russell turned to Silva. “A trap? Now where would they be likely to try that?”

Silva hesitated, looking from one to the other. “This place,” he said, “I think this is the place. This is the trap.”

Chapter 9

S
HORTLY BEFORE NOON the Old One led them to a creek. “We will rest for a few minutes and water our horses.”

Sean glanced up at the mountainous ridge before them.

Judging from the growth they were probably three thousand feet or so above sea level, and at a guess the ridge before them, running roughly east and west, was three to four thousand feet higher.

He crossed to his mother. She was kneeling by the stream, washing the dust from her face with a damp cloth.

“I think we are close,” he said.

“You are right.” He extended a hand and she took it and rose. “I wonder why he stopped?”

“To rest, he said.”

She glanced around. “He is gone. So is Montero.”

Sean turned quickly. The horses were there, but the two old men were gone.

Mariana came to them. “Is this the place?”

“No,” Sean said, “but I am trying to decide where we are.” He nodded ahead. “That could be Pine Mountain…and if it is, this might be the Piedra Blanca.”

“You do not know?” Mariana asked.

He shrugged. “There are no maps of this country. Men give names to places, but who knows which creek is the one named? Who knows which mountain? Sometimes a man would name creeks and mountains and then another would come who did not know about the first one and he would name them all over again.”

They waited beside the creek, resting and talking in a desultory fashion.

Sean was nervous and worried. From time to time he walked back toward the way they had come, but the trail was visible for only a hundred yards or so. He checked his guns again and again.

Suddenly they reappeared, Montero coming down off the rocks into the little hollow. Immediately he went to his horse and tightened the cinch. “We go now,” he said.

Juan appeared a moment later and they rode off up a steep, winding trail that led into a notch in the mountain wall that had once been a stream bed.

The area was thick with forest. Several times they saw Indian writing, faded and old, upon rocks. Twice deer ran away before them. The gorge narrowed until they rode single file, each horse scrambling up the slippery, water-worn rocks in turn.

They topped out suddenly on a long plateau or mesa, scattered with trees, but mostly covered with yellowing grass. They saw deep tracks, and nothing else. Juan led out, riding straight across the mesa toward the northwest. He dipped down through the trees and drew up on a sandy shore beside a running creek. Opposite there was a high, rocky wall, around them a ring of such walls.

“We will stop here,” he said, and got down.

It was a quiet place, haunted yet beautiful. The cottonwood leaves rustled gently and spread wide over the hard-packed earth and sand, offering shade and shelter. There was a spring among some rocks that flowed down toward the creek. On the far side were the fallen walls of a stone cabin of some kind, only a few stones remaining in place.

“We will camp,” Juan said, “and you and you,” he indicated Sean and Mariana, “will stay.”

“And I?” Eileen Mulkerin asked.

“You will come.”

“I don’t like the idea,” Sean protested, “we should stay together.”

“She will be safe.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Until daybreak, perhaps a little longer. I will tell only her…for now. You ride, you shoot, you sail about on the big water…perhaps tomorrow you die. I will tell her.”

His mother took her rifle and turned to them, smiling. “I’ll be all right.”

Juan started off, Eileen Mulkerin following.

“I’ll be all right,” Mariana said, “if you wish to follow them.”

“Follow
him?
He would know, somehow. He always knows. If he says stay, we stay.”

“I will make coffee.”

Montero stripped the saddles from the horses as Sean began to gather wood.

Several times Sean paused to listen and to look around. There were no deer tracks here, no tracks at all. The realization worried Sean, although he did not know why. Twice, in gathering wood, he saw arrowheads. They were longer, slimmer than any he had seen before, and beautifully worked. Stooping to pick up a stick he saw an egg-shell thin bit of pottery. It crumbled to dust in his fingers.

“What kind of a place is this?” he asked Montero.

The Californio shrugged. “It is a place in which to be still,” he said briefly. Then after a moment, because after all he had known Sean since he was a child, he said, “It is a place of the Old Ones.”

Sean glanced at him, then strolled back to where Mariana had started the coffee. “Don’t wander around,” he said to her. “Stay close to the fire and the horses.”

“You think there will be trouble?”

“Not yet, but this place is eerie. Don’t you feel it?”

“It is quiet.”

“I wonder where they went.”

“After the gold, I suppose. Better stay back under the trees. If anyone should come up they’d not be likely to see you.”

“What about you?”

“I thought I’d look around the ruins, over there.”

“I’ll come with you then.”

Montero spoke. “Señor, I would not go over there. It is not a good place. Under the trees is best, or near the fire.”

“All right.” Sean glanced again at the ruins, puzzled. Not a good place? Superstition, probably. There was a lot of it among the Indians and some of the Californios.

This place was far from any he remembered. There had always been talk, of course. Here and there some hunter of wild horses had penetrated this wild country and returned with stories, and occasionally trappers had added their bit. But actually very little was known.

Sean paced uneasily, aware that somewhere, not too far off, Machado and the others would be searching for them. Wild as the country was, and scarce as trails were, they might still be found, and he had no desire for a pitched battle in such a place as this with Mariana and his mother along.

Jesus Montero was an old but careful man, and a good shot. He was not the kind to pull out when the going was rough. Nor was his mother, that stubborn woman.

“Let’s cook up now,” he suggested, “then we’ll eat and put out the fire. No point helping them find us.”

Montero agreed, but took over the cooking himself. Sean wandered about, studying the rim and places where he could be without offering a target. He avoided the ruins because he had no wish to anger Montero. He liked the old man and respected his wishes.

Yet he grew more uneasy. Twice he climbed out of the basin, and from the rim above, studied the country around. There were too many concealed approaches, too many places men could hide.

When Sean returned to the fire, there were tortillas, bacon, and coffee. As they ate, he talked to Mariana. She was, he decided, not only beautiful but also uncommonly sensible.

“You said he was an Indian? The Old One?”

“Who knows? We call him Juan, and my father called him that, but whether it is his name or not, we’ll never know. Nor will we know whether he is Mexican, Indian, or Anglo. I think he’s Indian, but as I’ve said, of some tribe we do not know. He’s supposed to be from a vanished people.”

“We have those in Mexico. Vanished people, I mean.”