The Border Empire (8 page)

“Nothing more?”

“Wolf, to
my amigos.
When I have any.”

“I am surprised to find you riding with a band of outlaws and killers,” said Wes. “I have the feeling you're a better man than that.”

“What would you
have
me do?” El Lobo snarled. “My father is a Spaniard who return to his homeland on one of the great ships. My mother is an
Indio
who sell me into slavery when I am but ten summers old. I muck stables for a piece of bread and a pile of straw upon which to sleep. I am without a country.”

His voice was cold, flat, emotionless. Startled by the manner in which the man's life paralleled his own, Wes said nothing. He took a pair of extra blankets from the packsaddle and passed them to El Lobo. He then set about building a fire, seeking the hot coffee he had been denied earlier in the day. By the time the coffee was ready, El Lobo slept. Wes crept to the secluded mouth of the cave and found the rain had ceased and the sun was no more than two hours high. In what was left of the day, there was little he could do. Better that he remain with the wounded man, for he would almost surely have a fever before the night was done. He would need one of the two quarts of whiskey Wes and brought along for just such a purpose.

 

Selmer, Mull, and Coe were limping toward town when the rain started.

“Damn it,” Mull said, “if the two of you hadn't cut down on El Lobo, that varmint on the hill wouldn't of took us by surprise. I aim to see that Wooten hears about it.”

“He won't hear about it from you,” said Selmer. Drawing his revolver, he shot the surprised Mull in the head.

Selmer and Coe walked on through the driving rain, and it was Coe who finally spoke.

“Five men dead, and that gun-throwin' bastard didn't get a scratch. It'll be almighty hard, gittin' Wooten to swallow that.”

“He's got no choice,” said Selmer, “an' neither have we. This damn
pistolero's
got to be thought of as nine feet tall, a yard wide, an' hell on little red wheels with a gun.”

“El Diablo,
with horns, hooves, an' a spike tail,” Coe said.

“That, an' more,” said Selmer. “There was somethin' unnatural about him escapin' all of us at that lodgin' house last night. We got to build on that, else Wooten will have the both of us hung by the heels over a slow fire.”

Jake Kazman was furious. For a long moment, he glared at Dantzler, Shatiqua, and Boudlin in tight-lipped silence. When he spoke again, he turned away from Dantzler, one of his lieutenants, and directed his wrath at Shatiqua and Boudlin.

“We're goin' over this one more time, by God. You're tellin' me you found seven men dead, with not a clue as to who gunned them down or why?”

“Honest to God,” said Boudlin. “Nobody took the horses. We follered the tracks, but they was scattered seven ways from Sunday. Hell, they was all shod, and some of 'em was headed for Chihuahua.”

“Hell's bells,” Kazman roared, “that was likely the tracks of the killers. The two of you combined didn't have sense enough to trail them?”

“I've had enough of you rakin' my carcass,” Shatiqua said. “Them hombres had been dead long enough for buzzards an' coyotes to nearly pick ‘em clean. Whoever gunned 'em down had a three-day start. What good would it of done to foller ‘em, knowin' we'd lose the trail? Hell, two hours after we found 'em, it was rainin' like pourin' it out of a boot.”

“There's truth in what he's sayin', Jake,” said Dantzler. “If the hombres that done the killings an' scattered the horses rode on to Chihuahua, maybe Wooten will have word of them.”

It was something to consider, and Kazman turned thoughtful. When he spoke again, his anger had subsided.

“Even if Wooten's heard nothing, he should be told about the killings and the missing horses. There's somethin' more to this than meets the eye. I'll ride to Chihuahua and talk to Wooten.”

“I reckon it'd be a smart move,” Dantzler said. “It's almost like vengeance killings.”

Jake Kazman said nothing more. An hour later, he saddled a horse and rode south.

 

As the night wore on, El Lobo became feverish. He mumbled in Spanish and reached for the revolvers that weren't there. Time after time, Wes dosed the wounded outlaw with whiskey. He had removed El Lobo's gunbelt and had returned the twin revolvers to their holsters. Curious, he examined the weapons. They were matched .44-caliber Colts, with hair-triggers, formidable weapons in the hands of a man adept in their use. When his wounds had healed, what would El Lobo choose to do about the men who had shot him in the back?

“I sleep,” El Lobo said, when he awakened the next afternoon.

“Since yesterday afternoon,” said Wes. “You've been wrasslin' with a fever all night, and I've been dosin' you with whiskey. You're on the mend.”

“Head hurt lak hell,” El Lobo said.

Wes laughed. “The whiskey. Sometimes the hangover's more painful than bein' shot. I have a pot of hot coffee and grub when you're ready.”

“Coffee,” said El Lobo. “Much coffee.”

He drank what remained of the coffee, and Wes put the pot on the fire to boil more. Empty lay near the cave's entrance, his eyes on El Lobo. Wes began slicing bacon into a pan, knowing the wounded man would be hungry once the whiskey had worn off. El Lobo ate the food, downing the second pot of coffee along with it. With only a nod to Wes, he then lay down and slept another four hours. When he awakened, he struggled to a sitting position, getting his back against the stone wall of the cave. When he spoke, it wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

“You ride the death trail,
señor.”

“I have my reasons,” said Wes. “So do you.”

“Sí,”
El Lobo agreed. “Selmer and Coe.”

“And then?”

“I do not know,
señor,”
said El Lobo. “These hombres shoot me.”

“You aim to make buzzard bait of them,” Wes said, “and I don't blame you. But when you do, the rest of the gang will be after your head, like they're after mine.”

“Per'ap,” said El Lobo, “and like you, I will not disappoint them. Have I the right to know why you wish to kill them?”

“I reckon,” Wes replied. “It's no secret. Fact is, I want the varmints to know why I aim to gun them down to the last man. You know of the murder of Maria in Chihuahua, but there's more. Just a hell of a lot more.”

Wes spoke for an hour, telling of the murder of his father, Nathan Stone, and of his vow to wipe out the Sandlin gang.
⁹

“Madre de Dios,”
El Lobo said.
“El muerte
trail be your duty, a blood debt that must be paid. But you do not know the
hombres
you seek?”

“No,” Wes said. “That's why I aim to wipe out the whole bunch, if I have to shoot my way from one end of Mexico to the other.”

“Per'ap we ride the same trail,
señor.”

“I must kill many,” said Wes, “while you seek only two.”

El Lobo laughed. “They kill me just as dead for shooting Selmer and Coe as they kill you for shooting many.
Comprende?”

“I couldn't agree more,” Wes said, “but you might be able to gun down Coe and Selmer without all the others comin' after you. That won't be the case if you ride with me.”

“These
hombres
—this gang—are in all of Mexico,
señor.
He who is not one of them is against them. To remain in Mexico is to die.”

“I don't aim to remain in Mexico any longer than it takes to smash this gang,” said Wes, “and neither should you. We can then cross the border into the United States.”

“I think there is no place for El Lobo in these United States. I not be welcome.”

“I can make you welcome,” Wes said. “Do you know of the Texas Rangers?”

“Sí,”
said El Lobo. “Since the war, many years ago, they are known as
los Tejanos Diablos.”
¹⁰

“I was once one of them,” Wes said, “and while they can do nothing to help me, they know of my reasons for being in Mexico. I'll make you a promise. Help me smash this band of outlaws, and you'll be welcome in the United States for as long as you wish to stay.”

“It is a temptation,
señor,
to one who has no country of his own.”

“You'll have a country,” Wes said, “if we get out of here alive. What do you know of Sandlin, the leader of the gang?”

“Nothing,” said El Lobo. “I hear the name, but nothing more. I join them when I am but seventeen summers. That be three summers past.”

“That makes you two years older than me,” Wes said. “How much do you know about the Sandlin gang?”

“There be many,” said El Lobo. “Per'ap hundreds. They be in Hermosillo, Nogales, Guaymas, Santa Rosalia, Namiquipa, Chihuahua, and many villages to the south which I do not know. There be many segundos. In Chihuahua is Wooten, in Namiquipa is Kazman. Of the many others, I do not know.”

“We'll have to root the varmints out as we come to them,” Wes said. “I reckon you'll know where to find Wooten and his bunch in Chihuahua?”

“Sí,”
said El Lobo. “You shoot two in the cantina, and four when you escape the lodging house.”

“And three more out of the bunch that gunned you down,” Wes said. “As far as you know, there's only the three who escaped my ambush and Wooten himself in Chihuahua.”

“Sí,”
said El Lobo.

“Bueno,”
said Wes. “When you're able to ride, we'll start with them.”

Jake Kazman listened incredulously as Wooten told him of the strange events of the past two days.

“Two men in the cantina,” Kazman said.

“Three,” said Wooten gloomily. “The 'breed was hit high up, but it nicked a lung.”

“Four men that night, and four the next morning,” Kazman said. “That's eleven dead men, in two days. There'll be hell to pay when word reaches Nogales.”

“Well, by God,” Wooten said angrily, “if you go takin' word to Nogales, don't forget to tell 'em about you losin' seven men an' a herd of horses.”

“I'm in no hurry to get word to Nogales,” said Kazman soothingly. “If all this is tied together somehow, it could be a vendetta, a conspiracy.”

“Meanin' what?”

“Somebody's got a powerful mad on,” said Kazman. “He gunned down seven men and then let the horses drift, an' that says he's after us. Maybe all of us. When word of this gets around, this hombre's got to look almighty tall, an' bulletproof.”

“Or we'll look like damn fools,” Wooten said.

“Now you're gettin' the drift,” said Kazman. “Any trouble with the Mex law here over the shooting?”

“No,” Wooten replied, “but the old Mex woman at the lodgin' house raised hell. I had to pay for the sheets an' for cleanin' up the room where the woman was killed.”

“Keep it quiet about the woman bein' killed,” said Kazman. “Don't even mention there
was
a woman involved. Two hombres gunned down three of your men in a cantina. From there, they escaped, and in a gunfight later that night, four more men were killed, without killing or capturing the hombres. But your story gets a mite thin when you send seven men after the killers and only two return.”

“Damn it,” Wooten snarled, “that's how it was. How do you aim to account for them horses that never made it to the border?”

“I'll be forced to tell the truth,” said Kazmari. “My boys was bushwhacked and their horses stole. One of Mexico's daily cloudbursts washed out the trail of the thieves doin' the killin'.”

“The truth, hell,” Wooten said bitterly. “You don't know the pair that rode in here an' give
me
hell wasn't the killers who cut down your men and scattered your horses.”

“I don't know that they
was,
either,” said Kazman. “I'm tellin' you, I won't tell any more of this than I'm forced to. If this is some bastard set on bustin' up the gang, then he's got his work cut out for him. Let him make big tracks in Hermosillo or Guaymas, and his hell-raisin' here won't be so hard to believe.”

Kazman and Wooten parted company, neither satisfied, both uncertain as to their next move.

 

Day after day, in the seclusion of the cave, El Lobo had practiced with the twin Colts, working the stiffness from his arms and shoulders. A week after he had been shot, he pronounced himself ready to ride.

“I cannot stand another hour in this cave,
señor,”
El Lobo said.

“Damn it,” said Wes, “stop callin' me that. It makes me feel like I'm your daddy. My name is Wes.”

“Sí,
Señor Wes,” El Lobo said agreeably. “You may call me Wolf.”

“Sí,
Señor Wolf,” said Wes.

For the first time since their meeting, they had occasion to laugh, and they did so. It would become a standing joke between them as they rode the
muerto
trails.

Selmer, Coe, and Wooten had spent yet another day seeking to add men to their diminished ranks, without results.

“It's no damn use,” Selmer said. “We got to go to Nogales or Juarez for gunmen with sand enough to throw in with us.”

“Yeah,” said Coe. “We've had too many dead men. Even the Mexes that can use a gun are shyin' away from us. They're callin' this mystery gunman El Diablo.”