El Lazo - The Clint Ryan Series

  * * *

  Clint sat on a small rise, looking out over their backtrail. They had backtracked to the last of the Cuyama River water-holes before they rested. They agreed that the Yokuts would think they had returned to Santa Barbara, that they needed to rest and assess their damages before pressing on to recover the stolen horses.

  Satisfied that they were not being pursued, Clint rode down to the side of the pool to join the men. Inocente’s leg was stiff, but the ball had passed through cleanly, and Matt’s arm had only limited use, but it was his left and he shot right-handed. Matt’s scalp had been laid open with a three-inch gash, and his neck was bruised and swollen, but he seemed hardly to notice. Hawk was unscathed, with the exception of a scrape across his face from a Yokuts ax and a knife wound in his arm that seemed to bother him little. Clint had a burn on his shoulder from a musketball, but it had done little more than weep blood. His cheek was slashed and bruised, and he had a healthy knot on the back of his head from banging against the rock wall.

  “What do you think, Ramón?”

  Clint walked over and sat on a rock near Ramón, his head propped upon his saddle. Ramón glanced up with a questioning look. “That wound of Inocente’s is the worst,” Clint cautioned. “Maybe he should return to Santa Barbara.”

  “That is up to Inocente. I go on with the darkness.”

  “Tonight?”

  “As soon as it is dark.”

  “Then I go on too.”

  “Bueno,” Ramón said. He rolled a cigarette and offered it to Clint, who declined, then handed it to Hawk, who accepted with a nod. Ramón rolled another.

  “And you, Hawk?” Ramón asked.

  “I will ride with you and Clint. I have not yet had my fill of killing Yokuts.”

  As they talked, Clint walked to where Inocente lay, his hat over his eyes. “The leg getting stiff?”

  The vaquero slipped his hat to the side and squinted up at Clint but did not answer.

  “Your leg is bad,” Clint continued. “I’ve seen wounds like that go green and more than one die from the like.”

  “You came to cheer me up, Anglo?”

  “No, I came to suggest that you return to Santa Barbara where Don Nicholas can treat that properly.”

  “While you go on?”

  “While the rest of us go on. Since Matt’s hurt fairly bad also, he can ride along with you if you wish.”

  “Since when did you become the Capitán of this expedition?”

  “I only—”

  “You are rude and insulting, as usual. You take care of yourself, gringo, until I have the opportunity to deal with you.”

  “By God, man,” Clint stormed away. “lf pompous were an acorn, you’d be an oak.”

  He sat down near Hawk and Ramón, who looked up at his Anglo amigo and smiled. “He will learn one day that a sharp tongue cuts your own throat.”

  Hawk glanced over at the wounded vaquero. “He is half Chumash, from the tribe in the high mountains where the condor lives. He wishes to be Castilian, like his keepers.”

  Clint just shook his head.

  “Whatever he is, too bad he wouldn’t go,” Matt said with a grin. “That would leave more Yokuts for the rest of us.”

  Even Hawk smiled at that.