Gun for Revenge (4 page)

Gabriel caught up with Escalero as he was returning uphill from the stream. He had two heavy, dripping canvas water bags slung over his shoulders. Gabriel took one and helped the old man rope them to the side of the wagon.

Neither spoke until they were sure the bags were secure; then Gabriel asked Escalero if he had a weapon.

‘
Sí, señor. Una pistola
.’

‘Mind if I take a look at it?’

‘It would be my honor – Señor Jennings.’ Escalero pulled a gun from under his loose-fitting shirt and handed it, butt first, to Gabriel. As he did he looked intently at the gunfighter, his calm, unflinching gaze telling Gabriel that he had not survived all these years by being unobservant.

Gabriel smiled grimly.

‘How long you known,
compadre
?’

‘Since from the beginning,
señor
– when I first stopped the wagon and saw you. These eyes, they may be old and no longer able to see an eagle on high, but they do not forget a face.’

‘You’ve seen me before?’

‘
Sí, señor
.’

‘Where? When?’

‘One night. Outside La Casa Vega.’

‘Las Cruces? That’s been a spell. You got a powerful memory,
hombre
.’

‘This is one memory I wish to forget,’ Escalero said sadly. ‘I am but a grain of sand in God’s eyes, yet I know it is wrong to take the life of another – for any reason.’

Gabriel shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

‘Sometimes,’ he said softly, ‘things happen for no reason. They just happen. Who knows why? Fella gets an itch. Has to scratch it. Calls you out. Slaps leather. It’s him or you. I make no excuse for bein’ faster.’

‘Nor do I pass judgment on another man’s deed.’

‘That why you haven’t told the
señorita
who I am?’

‘No,
señor
. I have not informed Sister Kincaide because I do not wish her to hire you – you or any other
pistolero
who is willing to kill these men for her. No good can come of it.’

‘Well, ’least we agree on one thing,’ Gabriel said. ‘But you don’t have to worry about me.’

‘You are all done with killing,
señor
?’

Gabriel nodded. ‘An’ there’s nothin’ I can think of could make go back to it again.’

As if suddenly remembering the gun in his hand, he now examined it. It was an old 1860 Army Colt single shot pistol. The grips were missing, the screws holding the brass trigger guard in place were loose and the firing pin was worn.

‘When’s the last time you fired this?’

‘Not so recently,
señor
.’

‘Figures.’ Gabriel pulled the 1890 Remington .44-40 from his Levis. The gun was only a year old and he’d paid extra to have a gunsmith engrave his initials on the left side plate.

‘Here, take this.’ He handed the revolver to Escalero.

‘What about you,
señor
?’

‘I got the Winchester. An’ if need be, I can always pick up another handgun next time I’m in San Dimas.’

‘
Muches gracias, señor
. It is most gracious of you.’

‘Let’s hope you never have to use it,
compadre
.’ Gabriel took a handful of cartridges from his belt and gave them to Escalero. The old Mexican placed them carefully in the storage box under the wagon seat. Then they stood with their backs to the sun talking about where the next water could be found, what the chances were of it being dried up or poisoned with alkali, and on which sections of the trail to San Dimas to be on the lookout for bandits.

‘If these hellions do jump you,’ Gabriel concluded, ‘they’ll come out of the sun hopin’ the glare will blind you. So be sure an’ keep your hat pulled down over your eyes an’ aim for the horses—’

‘The horses,
señor
?’

‘Sure. They’re a bigger target. ’Sides, around here horses are hard to come by. And a bandit without a horse ain’t worth pissin’ on. I know it goes against the grain,’ Gabriel said as the old Mexican looked uncomfortable, ‘but remember, you got a woman to protect. An’ keepin’ her away from those gutless sons-of-bitches is worth more than a few horses.’

‘Do not worry,
señor
. I will defend her with my life.’

‘I never figured differently,
amigo
.’ Gabriel paused as he saw Ellen emerge from the cabin then said softly, so only Escalero could hear: ‘Keep this between us, OK? No reason to throw a scare into her.’

Escalero looked offended. ‘
No soy un hombre que chismes, señor
.’

Gabriel grinned, amused by the old man’s saltiness. ‘I wasn’t suggestin’ you’re a gossip,
amigo
, I just meant this is
strictly our business.
Hombre a hombre. Comprendo
?’

Escalero nodded, bowed his apologies and turned his attention to the mules. He was some old Mexican.

Meanwhile, Gabriel watched Ellen approach. He noticed she had pinned her veil up and despite her grim black attire, looked uncommonly pretty in the morning light. He liked the way she walked, too – like a spring colt prancing in a pasture or a young girl hurrying home from school.

Carrying the earthenware bowl of fresh eggs and the last of the biscuits he’d earlier insisted she take with her, Ellen let Gabriel help her onto the wagon. She then thanked him again for his hospitality.

He heard the disappointment in her voice. It cut deep and for an instant he considered changing his mind. Ellen must have sensed he was wavering because she continued to look hopefully at him, all the time praying he’d offer to go with her.

When he didn’t she sagged as if all life had been sucked from her. Then, turning to Escalero, she sadly told him to get started.

The old Mexican slapped the mules with the reins and urged them forward. The wagon creaked and rattled as it rolled away.

Gabriel shaded his eyes with his hat and watched them drive off. He felt as if a part of him was leaving with them.

Ahead of the plodding mules, at the far end of the valley, the trail forked: one route led to the desert and eventually San Dimas, the other climbed into the scorched foothills and then continued on up, higher and higher, finally reaching the Sierra Madre Occidental: massive, rugged, untamed mountains fraught with danger.

Gabriel sighed and toed the dirt with his boot. For the second time in his life, he knew he was losing someone important. Worse, for the second time he had chosen not to do anything about it. Could it be he wasn’t the man he hoped he was? Had his father’s prophecy finally come true?

‘Son,’ he’d said on the day Gabriel told him he was striking out on his own, ‘the path you’re taking is not a righteous one: it is leading you away from the Good Book.’

‘Pa, if God is the Almighty, the way you keep sayin’ he is, then he should be all around us – everywhere. An’ if he’s everywhere then I shouldn’t have no trouble findin’ him when I need him.’

‘You keep packing that iron on your hip, boy, an’ you’re gonna need him all the time.’

‘Not if I’m fast enough,’ Gabriel replied. ‘An’ I’m plenty fast.’

His father, his low resonant voice sounding just as
spiritual
as it did at prayer meetings, said:

‘Son, I know I can’t change your mind. Only your ma could do that and she’s in higher hands now. But you hear me, boy. Hear me good. Gonna come a day when being fast with a gun won’t help you. Then you’ll find out what kind of man you truly are.’

And now, today, Gabriel thought as he again absently toed the ground, he had found out.

God damn that ol’ man’s soul, he thought angrily. Then, immediately feeling ashamed for speaking ill of his father, he silently apologized and let his mind wander back to Cally.

Memories of their brief time together flooded his mind. Oh, how he’d loved her and how she had loved him. And though that was five years ago and he’d long
since gotten over losing her, encountering Ellen had brought those memories to the forefront and he realized they were as painful as ever.

So, why hadn’t he gone with her?

Common sense told him that he’d made the right choice; but deep down, where a man can’t lie to himself, he knew that his fear of hanging shouldn’t have stopped him; he knew his failure to measure up would always haunt him.

Heavy-hearted, he trudged to the cabin. On the way he passed the barn. His footsteps brought the stallion
charging
to the door. It snorted, tossing its proud head and pawing the dirt as if challenging him to dare enter its domain.

Pissed off, Gabriel picked up a stone and threw it at the Morgan. It hit the horse on its flank, stinging it, causing it to flinch. It reared up, angrily pawing the air and neighing shrilly. Then as Gabriel continued on to the cabin, the
stallion
suddenly charged him.

Gabriel heard the horse coming. It wasn’t the first time the Morgan had attacked him. He had scars to prove that. Not wanting any more, he sprinted to the cabin and got inside before the stallion could bite him.

Safely indoors, Gabriel looked out of the window and saw the all-black Morgan raging up and down in front of the door.

If I didn’t need you so much, you miserable lop-eared bastard, he thought, I’d shoot you right between the goddamn eyes.

He did not sleep well that night. Ghosts of the past haunted his dreams and he was still troubled by them when morning came.

He crossed to the stove, listlessly stirred the embers and began breakfast. But he had little appetite and taking his plate outside, he walked around back and dumped most of his scrambled eggs, bacon and fried potatoes on the ground for the scavengers. Next he washed himself in the basin on the rock behind the cabin, lathering his face before shaving in the piece of cracked mirror that he balanced up against the wall. The straight-edge he’d stolen from a barbershop soon after escaping from the boys’ reformatory in El Paso seemed as dull as his spirits. He honed it on the old leather strap dangling from a nearby nail then carefully finished shaving. But he still nicked himself.

He squinted at his reflection in the mirror – a reflection that was backed by a cloudless, lemony-blue sky – watching as a tiny bubble of blood welled up on his chin. He dabbed it with the towel, staining one corner; then, too depressed to care about the glory of the day or the caracaras circling hungrily overhead, he dumped out the soapy water and walked around to the front of the cabin.

That was when he noticed the barn door was open. He realized he must have not locked it last night. Not that it mattered. The stallion could have kicked the door down any time it felt like it. Locking the Morgan up at night was merely Gabriel’s way of reminding it of who was boss, just as the stallion sometimes bucked him off for the same reason. It was a game they played to keep each other alert and in check; a game that both man and horse accepted without rancor.

Once inside the cabin Gabriel dressed and brushed his hair. A smear of blood on his palm reminded him that his chin was still bleeding. He splashed a little whiskey onto the towel and pressed it against the cut. It stung
momentarily
, but satisfied his concern about infection. He went to cork the bottle but instead impulsively took a swig. The whiskey warmed his belly and made him feel better. He took another swig, then another, and another until
eventually
he felt pretty damned good. He chuckled, amused for no reason, and on hearing the stallion neighing went to the window and looked out.

Brandy limped up to the door, favoring his right
foreleg
. Gabriel went out and studied the horse, wondering whether there was something really wrong with the leg or if it was the whiskey playing tricks with his mind. No, he thought, the leg or his hoof is definitely bothering him. Warily approaching the Morgan, which never moved but watched him with its fierce dark eyes, he knelt, lifted the leg and examined the hoof. Seeing no stone or thorn lodged there, Gabriel set the hoof down and gently felt around the leg, first checking the fetlock, then the cannon and lastly the knee.

Finding nothing wrong he straightened up and walked slowly around the stallion. Still no sign of physical
problems
.
Returning to his original position, Gabriel shook his head, baffled.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ he asked, thinking aloud more than actually talking to the horse. The stallion snuffled softly and nudged Gabriel’s arm with its nose.

Suspicious of the Morgan’s gentleness, Gabriel warily rubbed its forehead and spoke soothingly to it. At the same time, he grasped the thick black mane and tried to lead it forward. Let’s see you walk, he thought. Then maybe I can get some idea of what’s ailing you.

But the stallion jerked free, and lowering its head
playfully
butted him in the chest sending him stumbling
backward
. As he sat down hard on the step the horse reared up, pawing at the air and whinnying.

Thinking he was going to be stomped, Gabriel raised his arms to protect himself and rolled sideways. But the flailing hoofs never touched him. Instead, the Morgan whirled and galloped off, head raised, neck proudly arched, long tail feathering in the wind.

Gabriel watched, agape, as the obviously uninjured stallion leaped the corral fence and pranced joyfully around in a circle.

Son-of-a-gun, he thought, as he realized there was
nothing
wrong with the horse. That black devil’s been jerking my tail! 

The day passed slowly. He had no idea why, but he felt like it was the lull before the storm.

To keep his mind off Ellen he spent all morning
catching
up on his chores. There were chickens and pigs to feed (the goats ate whatever they found on the hillsides), eggs to collect and a cabin to sweep out. When he was done, he saw the wood for the stove had gotten low, so he brought in more from the pile behind the cabin. He then entered the barn, intending to clean the stallion’s stall. But the Morgan had apparently forgotten its moment of
gentleness
and tried to cow-kick him every time he got close. Gabriel threw the broom at the horse and plodded back to the cabin, thinking, Damn him, he can clean the stall himself.

By now the sun was almost directly overhead. Hungry, he wolfed down three hard-boiled eggs, a cold ham steak and a bowl of refried beans. As he ate in the silence of the cabin, a silence he had never noticed before, he realized there was a big difference between being alone and being lonely. He’d been alone most of his life, but seldom lonely. Now, he missed Ellen. And not, he realized, because she reminded him of Cally. But because in a few short hours she had made such a positive impression on him that
without
her his life seemed empty. It was an ugly feeling and he again regretted not helping her.

When he’d finished eating he chased his meal down with a shot of J. H. Cutter. He was not much of a
day-drinker
, especially when he was alone, but the whiskey boosted his sagging spirits.

Whistling, he went out and worked in the vegetable patch all afternoon, weeding, planting black-bean seeds, watering his onions, chayote squash, bell peppers, and flowering jalapeño vines. In the oven-hot sun it was hard, back-breaking work, especially lugging buckets of water up from the stream, and when he stopped at sunset he was worn out and soaked with sweat.

After cooling off in the stream he returned to the cabin and fixed a meal out of his lunch leftovers.

After supper, he lit a cigar and sat on the doorstep sipping his whiskey while watching a swarm of bats
hunting
insects in the darkening sky.

Dusk gradually chased away the last light. Insects whined past his ears in the darkness. A sickle moon and endless stars brightened the indigo sky. Presently, a cool breeze swept down off the Sierras. Gabriel pulled up his shirt collar and drank from the bottle. Mind drifting, he spat out a smoke-ring and idly poked a finger through it. The whiskey and a full stomach made him sleepy. His eyelids grew leaden and gradually he dozed off.

Out of nowhere Cally’s face appeared. She smiled and said something he couldn’t hear. She looked exactly as she had when he’d ridden off that night, only minutes ahead of a posse, leaving her standing in the cantina doorway, her lovely face and long autumn-gold hair glinting in the lamplight. He’d promised her that he would be back, no matter what, and she’d smiled that sad little smile of hers
and waved goodbye. He had meant what he said, but like so many other outlaws on the run, his destiny was decided for him.

Gabriel’s dream was suddenly interrupted by a shrill neigh. He looked up just in time to see the Morgan burst out of the barn, already at full gallop, and charge off down the slope into the darkness.

Gabriel wondered what had startled the stallion. Ten years ago it might have been a band of hostiles after
livestock
, or marauding Comancheros down from west Texas, the mixture of renegade whites and liquored-up Comanches ready to rob, rape or kill anyone they came upon; but now, in the summer of ’91, those types of raids were a thing of the past. Even attacks by border trash were rare.
Bandidos
were all a person had to worry about these days. And generally they stayed in the mountains,
ambushing
travelers rather than wandering out into the open and risking a fight with the well-armed
Rurales
.

Still, something had frightened Brandy and Gabriel decided to investigate. Armed with his Winchester and a lamp, he crossed to the barn. Empty. Wondering if the unpredictable horse was playing games with him again, he decided to take advantage of its absence and clean out the stall. He hung the lamp on a hook, he grabbed the
pitchfork
and began removing the soiled straw.

At that moment the stallion returned. Gabriel heard its hoofs clatter into the barn and whirled, pitchfork raised to keep it away.

‘Get outta here!’ he yelled. ‘Y’hear me? Go on!
Vamos
!’

But the Morgan was already charging. It swerved past the fork, slamming into Gabriel and sending him
sprawling
. From the floor he saw the enraged stallion rear up, screaming, forelegs flailing, and knew his time had come.
But the descending hoofs weren’t aimed at him; instead they pounded at something under the straw in the stall. Again and again the stallion stamped the straw. Then at last it stopped and stood there, snorting.

Shaken, Gabriel slowly got up and stared at the
trembling
stallion.

‘Whoa, easy now, fella, easy….’

He inched past the agitated horse and saw the dead sidewinder curled amongst the straw, its horned head and fat body mashed by the flailing hoofs.

‘Judas H. Priest.’ Gabriel whistled softly and looked at Brandy. The Morgan had calmed down. Realizing that he owed the horse an apology, maybe even his life, he reached out to rub the stallion’s soft black nose – then jerked his hand back, just in time to avoid getting bitten.

‘Why, you ornery sonofa….’ Gabriel grabbed the lamp and stormed past the fiery-eyed Morgan.

As he was leaving, Gabriel saw a bucket sitting by the door. He grabbed it, hurled it at the horse and ran out. Nor did he stop running until he was safely in the cabin. There, after catching his breath, he went to the window and looked out.

The stallion stood in the doorway of the barn,
silhouetted
against the moon. It looked nothing short of
magnificent
and Gabriel couldn’t help admiring it.

The more things change, he thought wryly, the more they stay the same.

He went to bed.