[Texas Rangers 06] - Jericho's Road (21 page)

Ranger Hewitt came out of Tony’s room. Andy asked, “How’s the patient?”

Hewitt shrugged. “I’d just as well find me a shade tree and sleep all day. He’s not in shape to go anywhere.”

“
I’m not worryin’ too much right now about him leavin’. I’m worried about somebody comin’ in after him.”

Andy entered Tony’s room. The young man lay on a cot, his face toward the wall. He did not acknowledge Andy’s presence. He had lost a considerable amount of blood, and he still suffered from shock. Andy could imagine how much he must be hurting. A wound was usually more painful the second day than the first. Andy said, “Are you hurtin’ too much to talk to Big Jim?”

Tony offered no answer.

Andy said, “He’s worried about you. You’re not bein’ fair to him.”

Tony did not look at him, but he murmured, “What the hell would you know about it?”

“
All I know is that you’re bein’ an ungrateful young whelp and your family is too good for you.”

“
My real family is south of the river. I wish you’d taken me there instead of bringin’ me to this place.”

“
If we’d tried, your mother and sister would be cryin’ over you this mornin’. You’d be dead.”

“
You figure I owe you somethin’?”

“
Not a thing except maybe to act like a human bein’. I’d give everything I own to have a family like yours.”

Tony cursed. “Take them and be damned. Soon as I can I’m goin’ back where I belong.”

“
If you can get past Jericho, and the Rangers, and me.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

H
e appeared to be a ragged old Mexican beggar, riding up to the ranch house on a tired-looking burro the third day after the battle. The ancient saddle with its wide, flat horn appeared almost as large as the animal itself. The man presented no evident threat, but Andy looked him over for sign of a weapon. He saw none. The man spoke in Spanish. Andy did not understand him, so he beckoned to the McCawleys’ middle-aged maid. She had stepped outside to shake crumbs from a tablecloth.

He told her, “I don’t know what he wants.”

She spoke to the old man in Spanish and listened to his reply. “He asks whose hacienda this is. I told him Señor Jaime McCawley is the
patrón.
He says he has heard that Señor McCawley is a generous man and kind to poor Mexicans.”

“
Tell him that right now Mr. McCawley is also a very suspicious man when it comes to strangers.”

She and the gray-whiskered oldster conversed a bit more. She said, “He says he means no one harm, that he is simply a poor man on his way to see his son in San Antonio. He is hungry and wishes only for a little food. In return he is a
curandero,
a healer. He would work his magic on any here who may be sick.”

“
I doubt as his magic would help much on a gunshot wound. And I wouldn’t suppose he’s got some kind of charm that would improve Tony’s sour outlook.”

“
Many of our people put much faith in
curanderos.
They have powers no one else can understand.”

Like Comanche medicine men, Andy thought. Logic told him the shamans’ magic was useless, but he had seen strange things happen as a result of it. Sometimes logic did not work well either.

The maid said, “I will go and tell
la señora.
”

“
I wouldn’t bother her.” Andy found that he was talking to himself. The maid had hurried inside. Shortly, Juana and Teresa came out, the maid explaining to mother and daughter what the old man had said.

Big Jim’s wife appeared intrigued. She asked something in Spanish. The man replied, “
Me llama Gonzales.
”

Andy took that to be his name, though the rest of the conversation went past him.

Teresa said, “Mama, these
curanderos
are fakers. There’s nothing he can do for Tony.”

Her mother said, “There are many things we do not understand, child. What is to be harmed if he takes a look? Just a look, that is all.”

“
Papa may not be pleased.”

“
There are things your papa does not know either. We have never turned the hungry away from our door. I see no harm in feeding the old fellow.”

Andy felt uneasy, but it was not his place to argue with Mrs. McCawley. He said, “It might be a good idea to search him and make sure he’s not packin’ any iron.”

Teresa told the old man what Andy had said. The
curandero
made no protest. He lifted his arms to demonstrate that he carried no gun. He had a skinning knife at his waist. He removed it and its belt, hanging them over the horn of his old saddle.

Mrs. McCawley said, “He is a stranger. There is no reason he would want to hurt Antonio.”

Andy replied, “Right now any stranger will bear watchin’.”

The old man seemed a stranger to water. Mrs. McCawley and the maid brought him a plate of beef and beans and a cup of coffee on the patio. He sat in the shade and devoured the food quickly without availing himself of a chance to wash his face and hands.

Teresa frowned. Quietly she told Andy, “These beggars all have some kind of story. If he is a true
curandero,
why does he not heal himself?” The old man had a swollen cut on his hand that he had said resulted from letting his knife slip while he butchered a fat goat.

Andy said, “Maybe he expects the dirt to heal it.”

Teresa said, “I have a bad feeling about this man. Would you watch him?”

“
I will.” Andy suspected she would probably rather have asked Farley, but Farley and Hewitt were out at the corrals looking over some brood mares a couple of vaqueros had brought in to mate with McCawley’s best stallion.

When he had eaten his fill, Gonzales asked to see the sick man. Mrs. McCawley led him to the room where Tony lay. He said his medicine would work better if everyone left. The two women withdrew, though Teresa’s eyes begged Andy not to go. The old man frowned at him. Andy sat in a chair and said firmly, “I’m stayin’.”

Tony seemed to brighten a little as Gonzales spoke quietly. Andy strained to hear, but it was a lost effort because he could not understand the language. Gonzales laid his hands on Tony and said words that Andy took to be some sort of incantation. He had witnessed similar performances by Comanche medicine men.

Tony had spoken little to anyone in the family, but he talked at length to the
curandero.
Afterward, though he said nothing to Andy, he appeared to have a stronger light in his eyes.

Maybe there’s more to this magic stuff than most of us can see, Andy thought.

He stood at the front door, watching as the old man rode northward on the overburdened burro. Teresa joined him, a question in her eyes.

Andy said, “I don’t see as he hurt anything. Maybe he did Tony some good, even if it’s only in his head.”

She replied, “These are strange times. You never know for certain who are your friends and who are your enemies.”

“
I guess he’s just a harmless old—” Andy caught himself. He had been about to say
harmless old Mexican.
She might have taken that as an affront to her mother’s side of the family. It was the sort of thing he would expect from Sergeant Donahue, and perhaps Farley. He completed the sentence. “Harmless old beggar.”

She said, “It will take him a long time to reach San Antonio on that poor burro.”

“
Time doesn’t matter much to a burro.”

The next time Andy looked in, Tony was sitting up, a pillow propped behind him. It was the first time Andy had seen him that way. Tony nodded, saying nothing though he appeared at least civil. His attitude changed when his stepfather came in hot and dusty from working cattle and stopped to ask how he was. Tony turned his face to the wall and made no comment. Big Jim looked dejected.

Andy followed him out into the parlor. He said, “If it’s any comfort to you, a while ago he seemed like he was feelin’ better.”

“
Seein’ me spoiled it, I suppose.” McCawley went into the kitchen. He poured a glass of raw tequila and drank half of it in one swallow. “His uncle convinced him that I married his mother just so I could steal this ranch. But it was the only way I could keep Jericho and some others of his kind from gettin’ their hands on it. Once these border troubles are behind us, I plan to sign everything over to Tony and his sister.”

“
Maybe you ought to tell him that.”

“
He’d want me to do it now. I’m afraid it’s too early. The courthouse crowd would find a way to take it away from him, like they took so much away from old Don Cipriano and Lupe.”

“
They might do it anyway if anything happens to you.”

“
That’s why I keep a crew of good men around me, so nothin’ does.”

Farley and Hewitt remained at the horse corrals until nearly time for supper. They proceeded to the patio to wash their hands and faces. Drying himself with a towel, Farley said, “We seen an old Mexican stop at the house this afternoon. What was he after?”

Andy explained that he claimed to be a
curandero,
and that he spent some time with Tony. That quickly caught McCawley’s interest. He said, “Nobody told me.”

Andy said, “Guess nobody felt like it was important. Mainly he just wanted to beg a meal, then be on his way to San Antonio.”

Farley said, “San Antonio’s north.”

“
That’s the way he went.”

Farley and Hewitt exchanged looks. Farley said, “For a little while. But after he traveled north for a ways, he took a turn to the west. Me and Hewitt seen him.”

McCawley’s jaw dropped. “West, toward Jericho’s?”

Andy felt a stab of conscience. He realized he should not have allowed Gonzales into the house. “You reckon he was here to spy for Jericho?”

McCawley mulled over the question. “He might’ve been, but what could he find out that Jericho doesn’t already know? That Tony is here? Jericho knows that. That we’re keepin’ a guard on him? Anybody with half a brain has to figure that we would.”

Andy said, “He might’ve intended to do Tony harm, but I searched him for weapons before I let him come inside. I watched him all the time he was here.”

“
Did he say anything?”

“
Not to where I could understand him. Most of it was sort of a chant.”

“
We could trail him,” Farley offered.

McCawley shook his head. “We wouldn’t likely catch up to him before dark. If he came here as a spy he probably won’t stop till he gets to Jericho’s place. Let’s just be happy that there wasn’t any harm done.”

It nagged at Andy how the old man’s visit had seemed to boost Tony’s spirits. Maybe Tony believed in
curanderos,
or perhaps the old man had told him something. He returned to the door of Tony’s room and looked inside. He wanted to ask what the visitor had said, but if it had been anything significant he knew Tony would not tell him. It was frustrating that he could not figure the old man’s motives, though by now he was convinced that Gonzales had been up to no good.

Burt Hatton hesitantly entered the office that Jericho Jackson considered his private sanctuary from the frequent disturbances which plagued his life. He stood a moment, unsure of Jericho’s reaction to the interruption, then tapped his knuckles against the doorjamb. He said, “That pet Mexican of yours is outside.”

Jericho set down an account book he had been working on and flipped a stub pencil deep into the rolltop desk. It annoyed him that Hatton had entered unannounced and uninvited. “A little wait won’t hurt him.”

“
He says he’s just come from over at Big Jim’s. Got word for you about that boy.”

Jericho shoved the account book into a drawer and locked it. There was no telling when some of the help might decide to snoop, including Hatton. His finances were nobody’s business but his own. “All right, damn it, I’ll see him. But outside. I don’t want him comin’ in this house. He’s liable to be carryin’ lice.”