* * *
Clint, Matt, Ramón, and Inocente rode abreast in the wide sandy valley flanked by rocky mountains spotted with gray-green digger pines. They did not talk, just concentrated on what lay behind each bush ahead as the horse’s hooves beat a steady dirge. The mottled hills of oaks, piñon pines, and sandstone lay behind them. Now they rode between the barren hills of the western border of the Ton Tache.
Hawk ranged far and wide, always studying the horizon, unwilling to be caught bunched with the others. They trailed two extra mounts and chewed jerky as they urged the horses across the sand, passing an occasional clump of buckbrush or willows near the river. They watched continually for ambush but knew that if it came, it came. There was little they could do, for they followed, and a follower could easily be circled back upon or simply ambushed.
But no one suggested they turn back, for all knew that Ramón would go on, even alone And Inocente too seemed driven. Even when Matt occasionally broke the silence with a comment, Inocente remained silent, as did Ramón, who seemed intent on only one thing—blood.
The river disappeared into the sand, reappeared a few times, then, soon after they watered the horses and filled their goatguts for what Ramón said would be the last time in at least a day’s ride, disappeared for good. But the horse tracks continued. The valley widened and became a grass-covered plain several miles across. They reined up and rested their exhausted horses.
“At least the chance of ambush is less,” Clint said, surveying the barren landscape.
“It would seem so,” Ramón quietly agreed, “but don’t underestimate these Yokuts men.”
Clint shaded his eyes with a flat hand and studied the country ahead. “There is little place to hide.”
“For you, for me, but not for the Yokuts. This country is much like the floor of the Ton Tache, except there it is occasionally swampy or marshy since it is a basin for the water from the high mountains beyond. This is country the Yokuts is used to, country like that in which he hunts every day. Do not relax your guard.”
Sometime later, they reined up, again rested the stock and wet the animals’ muzzles with kerchiefs. Clint changed to the roan, Matt to the palomino, and they moved on.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, it grew perceptibly warmer than the coast had been and the heat of the country was confirmed by withered brush and dry grass. The hills flanking the wide valley stood brown and treeless, and even the salt grass lined only the ravines where the last water had flowed during the spring rains.
They slowed to a walk, mopped the sweat from their brows, and talked little.
The riverbed was now only a flood plain with deep-cut sides of sand and sandstone, and no brush spotted the wide flat valley floor. A single dying cottonwood, which had thrived in a better time, stood forlornly in the distance near the deep cut of the gravel-lined wash where a few of its primary roots had been exposed. Still the tracks of the horses and Indians stretched endlessly onward.
As they neared the twisting barren branches, Inocente suddenly jerked his horse to a standstill, and the others drew rein and followed his gaze. Only a quarter mile away, partially hidden in a deep cut where the low ravine-seamed hills swelled from the dry valley floor, twenty Indians sat their horses.
Clint and the others spun their animals, but before they could give them the spurs a half mile behind them twenty more rode out of a ravine and spread out across the valley on both sides of the wash.
The roan pranced nervously, reflecting his rider’s feeling then they whirled back to the east and saw another twenty gallop out from behind a deep cut to take up a position in front of them.
“Only a hundred or so to kill,” Matt whispered, palming the Colt.
Clint slipped the long gun from its scabbard. “You said you wanted to kill a thousand, Ramón. Looks like there’s a hell of a start for you right—”
Before he could finish, the earth at their feet exploded upward in a cloud of dust. Indians who had buried themselves in the sand rose out of the dirt like clay men, ten or more, with axes and lances.
Clint and Matt fired at the same instant, and two went down. Ramón drove his horse into one and knocked him aside while another swung his ax at Matt. The big Kanaka caught the Indian’s wrist and snapped it with an audible crack. The man fell and rolled away in pain.
Matt fired again, and another brave went down. Clint worked the ring and rotated his breech from the saddle of the rearing roan whose hooves kept two more Yokuts warriors and their lances at bay. Clint fired again and blew one Yokuts into the dust while another retreated from the fearsome weapon.
Hawk’s ax flashed, and his mustang charged in and out of the fray. As he fought with one, another leaped on the back of his mount and both men tumbled off into the dirt. Hawk bled from a deep gash in his shoulder but beat the warrior to his knees, smashing the man’s skull with the ax.
The Indians gave ground before the onslaught, and Hawk swung back into his saddle. Gravel flying behind, bent low, they spurred for the nearby riverbed. Without hesitation, the animals leapt down the six-foot cut to the sand bottom. The men gathered in a tight bunch in the riverbed, then saw the twenty Yokuts riders from the north, five of whom carried muskets, reach the dry stream on the far side.
Clint and Matt jerked rein on one side of their animals, forcing them to the ground then dropped beside them, pinning their heads down and using the horses as cover in the flat gravel wash. They aimed carefully, picking their targets. Musketballs kicked sand in their faces and whined around them as the first of the group from the north pummeled into the riverbed not forty paces away. The Colt bucked, spitting flame, and a brave was blown from the saddle. Another grasped his side, wavering and reining his mustang out of the fray. Clint worked the ring. Another Yokuts fell to Matt’s handgun.
Hawk knelt beside Clint, bow in hand. He loosed two for every shot of Clint’s with deadly accuracy.
Cha signaled his band up and out of the ravine. The cattle riders’ attention was fixed on those attacking from the west and north. They could be on them before the cattle riders knew they came, but the chattering fire of the men panicked his braves, and they reined away.
“Fools!” Cha shouted, “Dungeaters!” But they reined their horses around in confusion and rode for the cover of the bank.
Five of the Yokuts who had buried themselves charged into the riverbed. Ramón and Inocente, with no time to reload, remained astride their mounts and uncoiled their reatas. Their rawhide loops snaked out and caught two of the Yokuts men.
The vaqueros spurred awa, then circled the three that followed, catching them in the web of reatas and using the screaming Yokuts they dragged for dead weight. Arrows cut the air around them, and Inocente laughed viciously as one of the Indian’s arrows skewered another. Against the animals’ instincts, the horses were driven into the braves, who fell beneath them. The vaqueros dismounted and with their knives finished the two they dragged, then recovered their reatas and rode back to where Clint and Matt knelt firing at the retreating Yokuts braves.
The twenty from the west reached the wash, less than a hundred yards away, and leapt their mounts into the gravel bed. Ramón and Inocente reloaded. Matt fired his last shot then reloaded madly. The twenty Yokuts warriors approaching from the west converged with a dozen survivors from the northern group, pounding toward the five Californios. Clint and Matt took careful aim. One rider fell, then another, A horse somersaulted into the gravel, his rider slamming into the dry bed not to rise.
With none of his own arrows left, Hawk scrambled to gather those of the enemy protruding from the sand. As fast as he could notch and fire, he returned them to their owners.
Just as Ramón and Inocente finished reloading, Clint carefully sighted and blew one of the leaders of the western group out of the saddle. His horse stumbled and rolled, and Indians, horses, and gravel exploded in a roiling tangle. Those still mounted split to ride on each side.
Matt sidestepped an ax hurled by a screaming
warrior but in doing so stepped into the path of another. The second man’s ax glanced off Matt’s thick neck. Sahma, trying to drive his braves forward into the killing fire, decided he must take on the giant of a man himself. He gave heels to his mount and bent low in the saddle.
Unfazed by the blow, the huge man spun to face him. Lance in hand, Sahma charged. But the huge man sidestepped the lance and wrapped his mighty arms around the animal’s neck as it crashed into him. Sahma managed a glancing blow to the man’s head with his stone lance, but still he clung to the mustang’s neck, and the animal went down.
Blood poured over the big man’s face from his split scalp, and the taste of victory flooded Sahma’s soul. Then one of the man’s massive hands clamped on his neck, and he felt the other hand slip his own stone knife from his waistband. The shaft of his lance broken by the fall, Sahma grappled for the stone knife, but the huge man seemed to envelop him. He saw the massive fist coming but could not block the blow.
He was unconscious when his own knife split his breastbone.
Clint spun and felled another brave with his Colt.
Inocente fought a warrior chest-to-chest, each man’s knifehand locked in the other’s grip.
Clint sighted on the Indian’s back, but feared he might hit Inocente with the shot and instead palmed his knife. The gleaming blade flashed across the ten paces and buried itself to the hilt in the small of the Indian’s back.
The man sagged in Inocente’s grip. Inocente reached down and plucked the knife out of the warrior’s back, wiping it on his calzonevas. He hurried to Clint’s side, flipped it, caught it by the blade, and offered it back to Clint.
“Gracias,” he managed, then recovered his musket and began to reload.
The remaining braves regrouped a hundred yards beyond in the riverbed. Cha madly tried to get his men to ride into the fight, but with the constant roar of weapons they had bolted, and only his most trusted two remained at his side. They rode within range, leapt from their horses, and dropped to the ground, sighting carefully. The muskets barked, and their shots were returned in kind.
A musketball from Cha’s musket creased Clint’s shoulder. Another careened off the saddle of the roan he crouched behind and smashed into his cheekbone, bloodying it and knocking him backward, a hammerblow but not a penetrating one. He backhanded the blood away and fought on.
Cha ordered his remaining men to their horses.
“They hesitate,” said Ramón, stumbling up beside Matt and Clint.
“Then let’s encourage them to keep going,” Clint said, and dropped to the ground. From the prone position, he quickly fired the last two shots from his rifle. One Indian flew from the saddle, and another horse went down, its rider scrambling to double with another.
With whoops that echoed down the riverbed, the Yokuts decided they had had enough. They spun their horses and galloped away.
The stench of black powder lingered over the dry wash, and it was quiet but for the moaning of two wounded Indians,
Matt limped to Clint and Hawk, lying behind the roan. “Clint, I could use a hand,” he said.
Clint saw that an arrowhead protruded from the fleshy part of the Kanaka’s bicep. He rose and looked to Ramón to help but saw him tending a musketball wound in Inocente’s thigh.
Hawk walked along the wash, plucking grass to pack his own shoulder wound.
“Sit, amigo,” Clint said to Matt. He grabbed his goatgut from the saddle of the roan, which had struggled to its feet.
Two arrows protruded from the horse’s side, two more from his broad chest. The roan sank to his knees then rolled to his side, driving the arrows even deeper. Clint cursed the loss of the animal as he saw blood bubbling from his muzzle.
He took Matt the water, then walked to the side of the roan that had carried him so well. He stroked the red’s neck, clamped his jaw tightly, and fired, making sure the animal was out of its misery.
Moving back, Clint knelt beside the Kanaka. Matt grimaced as Clint snapped the head of the arrow protruding from the back of his arm. He handed the big man his knife with its leather-covered hilt.
“Bite on this, amigo.”
Matt clamped down on the leather and Clint jerked the shaft back through the wound. Matt slowly rolled to his back, the knife falling to his chest, the whites of his eyes showing like mother of pearl.
Clint grabbed the goatgut and poured a little water on him. Matt sputtered and sat back up.
“Sorry, amigo,” said Clint, “but no time for rest now.”
Matt looked sheepish but gathered his strength and lumbered to his feet. “Hate blood almost as much as I hate horses,” the Kanaka mumbled.
Clint reached over and pulled Ramón’s silk bandanna from his head. He wiped the blood away from Matt’s face and his own cheek, then used the scarf to bind Matt’s arm.
Matt’s tired but warm smile returned. “Our blood mixes. We are brothers now.”
“Suits me,” Clint said. “Hope we stay that way for a long time.” But he wondered how long it might be. His own furrowed shoulder pained him. More a burn than a cut, it slowly wept blood. Shielding his eyes with a blood-covered hand, he studied the horizon.
Wounds or no wounds, they would press on. They still did not have the horses.
Twenty-Four
Even Estoban’s wife Doña Isabel did not know where he hid the family gold. He had waited until tonight to check on it since he did not want to be caught by the Yokuts raiders should they return, and he did not want to be found out by any of the family or servants.
The last guitar had quieted and the last campfire burned to coals. It was time.
Muñoz had performed a far greater service than he had known when he had locked the women and children in the matanza and kept the savages at bay. Only trusted Alfonso had known the location of the gold, and only through necessity, should anything happen to Estoban before he had a chance to pass on the secret. Now he would have to choose another confidant.
He had great hope for Inocente. The young vaquero had matured in the last few years, and Estoban held a secret hope that he would become a part of the family should Juana ever mature enough to judge the true value of a man. Inocente had his faults He was not particularly handsome and he was impetuous, as hot-loined young men can be. But he was all man and all vaquero, and he watched after the Padilla interests like a man possessed. These were qualities that Estoban valued highly, and though Inocente was a mestizo, they were qualities he would like to see mixed with pure Castilian Padilla blood.
In the darkness, Estoban smoked a cigar and walked from campsite to campsite to check on his people. Many families from other ranchos had come to help and all seemed to be asleep. Only Muñoz, the boy who was rapidly becoming a man in Estoban’s eyes, was awake, and he proudly stood guard.
Estoban stepped into the matanza with a bucket, removed the plank covering of the three-foot-wide, two-foot-deep adobe bloodsump below the meathook where the fresh carcasses were hung, and began digging out the dried blood and offal, placing it carefully in the bucket. Each time he filled the bucket, he carried the mess to the pigpen and dumped the bucket in their feed troughs.
It was a dirty, stinking endeavor, but he was already filthy from the salvage work. He was opposed to feeding offal to his sows, but he was more opposed to wasting anything.
It took eight trips before he reached the bottom of the well. Again he walked outside and carefully checked around. The camps were quiet. After removing the planks that lined the bottom, he dug away a foot of blood-soaked earth until he heard the clunk of the iron box.
He grunted and heaved it out, pulled it open, and removed one of the leather pouches to check its glittering contents. He smiled in satisfaction. He replaced the box, then the earth and the boards. It would take a man with a hearty constitution to dig through this mess in hope of finding a man’s treasure. He chuckled to himself as he worked and thought of what kind of loco man would hide something valuable under this filth and stench. Other me
n would choose a place under their beds or in their clean water wells. No, this place was a stroke of genius.
Stepping outside, Estoban pulled the door shut. A night-bird called, and far away a coyote yipped. “It is not so bad,” Estoban said quietly in response to the coyote’s lament. He leaned against the matanza and lit a patrones.
The hacienda would be rebuilt, the establo would be rebuilt. Only his loyal and trusted vaqueros could not be replaced. He mourned them, for they were men of his time, men he had looked up to as a boy. And of course he mourned the loss of the blood stock, the proudest Andalusian palominos in Alta California. With years of clever trading, his father before him had assembled the best, and Estoban had spent his life continuing and improving the line.
“Please, Lord,” Estoban prayed silently,” let Inocente return unharmed and with the brood stock. Return our sixty years of patient work—my father’s work, my work, and your work, Lord.”