El Lazo - The Clint Ryan Series

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  As shadows deepened and the first bright star glimmered in the east, Clint and the men rode east with the last remnants of a burned orange sky at their back. The moon was waxing, so each night had been brighter. That amid the fact that the country had little cover made traveling relatively easy.

  Clint grudgingly admired Inocente. The man managed to mount with his stiff leg, and all through the long night of steady riding, never complained. Maybe he had been wrong about Inocente Ruiz. He was a tough, hard man who gave no quarter, a man who would stand and face his enemy. He had proven himself competent and a good man to have at your side. Sometimes it was better to be teamed with a skilled enemy than a clumsy friend.

  Beside him, Hawk rode silently. He knew the first good water adequate for the number of horses the Yokuts were driving was the lake called Buena Vista. And he was proved right.

  The steady nine hours of riding paid off. As night began to creep into morning, they sat overlooking the fires of the Yokuts camp on the lakeside flat a mile below.

  Clint admired the big lake beyond, rimmed with tubs, willows, and cottonwoods. The first hint of light shimmered crimson on its dark surface, and he marveled at the valley that stretched out before him with its silhouetted guardian mountains beyond. The valley looked to be a two-day ride across, and to the north it went on and on.

  Mist drifted from the valley floor and over the surface of the lake, obliterating some of the view. Clint rode up beside Ramón. “There are the horses—and the Yokuts. How do we separate the two?”

  “They are confident we have given up the chase,” Ramón said, “or that we’d not attack so many, or they would have no fires. It is good.”

  Hawk agreed. He studied the scene then pointed to the far end of the five-mile-long lake. They will stay close to the water until they pass that place where the hills meet the shore. Then they will swing to the north where the valley opens up.

  Ramón studied the lay of the trail. “That narrow spot is our best chance, maybe our only chance. They will ride behind the herd, and the herd is our best weapon against their numbers.”

  “A stampede?” Clint asked.

  A wry smile curved the corner of Ramón’s mouth. “Rather than the Yokuts eating our horses, we will see if our horses can eat the Yokuts.” He uncoiled his leg from the pommel and found the stirrup in its leather tapadero. “Are you ready to ride, amigos?”

  Each man settled into his saddle, resigned to the coming confrontation, and no words were necessary. As they rode away, Clint appraised his battered, but far from beaten, comrades. Inocente seemed clumsy in the saddle, which was far from normal; Matt, favoring his arm, was even clumsier than usual. Hawk rode with determination, but obvious weariness, while Clint’s head pounded with each hoofbeat. With his swollen and bloodied face, he looked more seriously injured than he was.

  But Ramón gave no quarter. He seemed dead set on making this personal war end here. Quirting his horse, he leapt washes and crashed through sagebrush. Driving animals and men, he cut no slack for the harsh country. It took an hour of hard riding through the hills before they sat astride lathered horses on a ridge looking down at the spot where the hills dropped in sharply to a narrow flat at lakeside.

  They worked their way down a narrow game trail, watered the horses, then backtracked to a ravine and took positions ten feet apart in the gravel bottom. Unseen by the approaching Yokuts, they blocked the sixty-foot narrows the herd must pass through.

  Each man checked his weapons and his tack, smoked, or sat quietly beside his horse. The sun hung in the midmorning sky before they heard the neighing and hoofbeats of the approaching herd. Still they waited while the sun baked them and flies pestered men and animals.

  “Ready.” Ramón looked up and down the line as the men mounted. He shoved his flat-crowned hat off his head to his back, then gave the spurs to his mount and was up and over the edge.

  The herd was only fifty feet from the ravine when the charging riders, waving jackets and shouting, stopped them in their tracks. A paint mustang leading the herd reared and turned panicking the others who piled up against the spooked leaders. Clint and Matt fired their revolving breech weapons, and the two reverberating shots in the narrows were enough.

  A hundred animals turned on the Indians and stampeded into them.

  Half of Cha’s band fled into the lake, plunging through tules as horses sank to their knees in the deep mud, lunging and falling. The other half headed for the steep hillside. Fighting to scale the shale slope, an Indian pony reared and dumped its rider to the ground. Screaming, he tried to fend off the surging wall of animals, but sharp slashing hooves hacked him senseless.

  Matt and Clint kept up a steady barrage of rifle and pistol fire, scattering the Indians, driving the horses. The leader and five other Yokuts spun, gave heel to their horses, and rode to stay in front of the herd.

  As they pushed the herd and drew even with the Yokuts who had split from the main group, Clint and Matt fired two shots each, and two more Yokuts rolled from their horses to enter the spirit world.

  It was all Cha and his half-dozen riders could do to stay ahead of the stampede, but they managed until the narrows widened and they were able to gallop away to the side and let the animals pass. Cha and two other braves who also carried muskets dropped to the ground on a knoll to wait. As the horses surged past, the Indians took aim at the cattle riders who pushed them and fired.

  Spotting the threat, Ramón, Clint, and Hawk dropped low and to the sides of their horses away from the waiting Yokuts. Matt, with his huge bulk was unable to do much to lessen himself as a target. Inocente could do little more than crouch—bending low with the stiff leg was nearly impossible.

  Matt, hindered by his wounded arm and wanting to save the remaining shots in his pistol, still managed to lift his musket and fire, but his shot only kicked sand in front of the waiting Yokuts. A musketball furrowed Matt’s broad back, careening off his shoulder blade, almost knocking the big man out of the saddle, but he held fast, recovered, and galloped on in pursuit of the herd.

  Inocente fired his long gun one-handed, and a Yokuts musketeer who was fighting madly to reload flew backward, his weapon slung upward. A tall Indian sighted carefully and squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked in his hands, spit flame, and Inocente flew from the saddle. Unseen by the others, Inocente hit the ground rolling. The ball had smashed through his shoulder.

  The herd, and his amigos, pounded on.

  By God, we’ve made it past the first test—we have the horses, Clint thought, slowing to a steady lope. Now can we keep them?

  He looked over his shoulder and saw Matt, his back bloodied, but all his concentration on the moving herd in front of him. Hawk and Ramón rode side by side, low in the saddle, the wind blowing the Chumash’s hair and the vaqueros braided queue straight out behind them.

  And Inocente? Where the hell was Inocente?

  Clint reined his horse around in a slow circle to search for his sometime enemy, sometime comrade, and saw him two hundred yards behind. He was struggling unsteadily to his feet.

  Two Yokuts stood on a knoll only sixty paces away, but apparently they had not seen the fallen vaquero behind them. Their attention remained focused on the disappearing herd.

  Maybe I can get to the son of a bitch first, Clint thought. Putting his spurs to the big palomino, he brought his romal across the animal’s powerful rump. He was within a hundred yards when one of the Yokuts turned to see what it was that brought the loco rider back into harms way and spotted the dazed vaquero.

  Both warriors ran for their mounts. They swung into their wooden saddles and spurred toward the wavering bleeding vaquero who stood facing them in defiance, knife in hand,

  Clint snapped off a shot at the Yokuts braves, but the hammer clunked with a thud on an empty cylinder. In one fluid motion, he sheathed the Colt, came up with his reata, and shook out a loop.

  One-handed, the brave leveled his musket at Clint, and the big
-bored weapon bucked and spit fire. Clint jerked back in the saddle, the ball careening off his leather belt. He reeled with the blow of the lead ball with the sickening dread that he had been gut-shot. Feeling no pain, he fought for and found a stirrup he had lost and glanced down to see a crease in his belt—no blood—and again had his loop circling.

  At fifty feet the other Indian leveled his musket on Inocente. Clint cursed silently at the distance, still too far for his reata. But the Indian hesitated, waiting for his horse to bring him closer. Clint’s loop whistled out, opened wide in front of the two galloping Indian ponies, and caught both animals’ front legs. Clint dallied and veered away.

  Both animals went down, their legs jerked from under them. The Indian’s musket fired into the air. The Yokuts braves plowed face first into the dirt not ten feet in front of Inocente who stumbled forward and drove his blade into the back of one of them.

  Clint spun his horse and headed for the vaquero. Inocente staggered away from the dead brave, but the other regained his feet, raised his ax, and charged with a scream. Clint veered the big palomino, and the horse crashed into the thick-chested Indian, sending him sprawling into the dust. The exhausted palomino collapsed to his knees and Clint flew over his head. He hit rolling and rose to face the Yokuts brave.

  Sidestepping a whistling blow from the brave’s ax, then another, he backed away, desperately trying to stay out of reach. Again the brave swung the heavy sharpened stone, enough to crush Clint’s skull with even a halfhearted blow. Reeling away, Clint’s heel caught in a clump of sage, and he slammed to his back.

  With an ear-splitting scream, the brave victoriously raised the ax. Before it could fall, an arrow thudded into the man’s chest, driving him back. The ax tumbled from his hand as he grasped the fletched shaft with both hands and sank to his knees. A trickle of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth as he fell face forward, driving the obsidian head of the arrow out through his back.

  Clint struggled to his feet, his heart beating like a pounding drum, and turned to see Hawk casually sitting his horse, bow in hand, notching another arrow.

  Clint and Inocente ran for the palomino. With a sweep of his knife, Inocente cut the loop of the reata, still binding the Yokuts’ horse. As Clint reined the horse around, Inocente reached up with his good arm and hooked Clint’s elbow into his. Clint spurred the powerful caballo away from the pile of Indians and ponies, swinging Inocente onto the back of his mount.

  “I will coil your reata, Anglo!” Inocente’s voice rang with what Clint read as sharp criticism as the line dragged behind the horse. “Had I not cut it, you would have lost it.”

  Hawk reined up beside them. They slowed to a trot. Clint took the coiled reata from Inocente and tied it to his saddle. He felt like giving the man riding behind him the elbow and leaving him in the dust for the Yokuts. But he did not; instead, he quietly steamed in his own juice.

  They rounded a sage-covered hill, and Clint saw Ramón leading Inocente’s runaway mount. The nervous stallion pranced and sidestepped as Clint drew rein, and Inocente slid from the animal’s back,

  Ramón tore Inocente’s bloodied shirt away, studied the wound through the vaquero’s shoulder, then temporarily packed and bandaged it as best he could with pieces of the cloth. Inocente clamped his eyes shut and winced but said nothing.

  He tried to mount but could not. Exasperated, he cursed under his breath. Ramón stepped forward and pushed Inocente up into the saddle on his next try.

  “Gracias, amigo,” Inocente said. He turned to Clint, and Clint realized that what he had read as criticism in Inocente’s tone was really the cold efficiency of the man. Without emotion in his voice, Inocente continued. “I will reweave your reata for you when we return to Santa Barbara, as soon as I regain the use of this arm. It was a fine reata, and you are as fine an hombre del lazo as I have ever seen. Gracias, mi amigo.”

  “De nada,” Clint said, surprised at the man’s compliment. Clint grinned widely and shook his head as Inocente reined his horse around.

  He trotted away, and Ramón reined up beside Clint.

  “Hombre del lazo, eh? The lazodor. El Lazo, the Anglo. Chihuahua! No one in Santa Barbara will believe it.” His laugh rang across the valley as he nudged his horse ahead and began to hum a lively Mexican song.

  When Ramón had finished his tune, Clint broke into an even more lively sea chantey. An hour later, they caught up with the herd, Hawk, and Matt. Matt was kneeling on his tree-trunk legs beside a patch of rosemary, and Hawk was treating the wound in the big man’s back.

  Clint dismounted and walked to Inocente. “Let me help you down so Hawk can care for that shoulder.”

  “Do stallions need help running?” the vaquero grumbled. “Do eagles need help flying?”

  He tried to swing a leg over the saddle, but his dark eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out, pitching forward. Clint caught him as he fell. By the time he came to, Hawk had his wound bandaged and bound as best he could, a travois constructed, and Inocente lashed securely to it.

  “It is the way we haul meat back to camp,” Hawk said, a smile flickering at the corners of his month.

  Inocente looked up at him and growled. “I can ride,” he complained loudly as they began to drag him behind the herd.

  “As stallions run and eagles fly?” Clint said to the vaquero a hint of amusement in his voice. “Even they have to rest sometimes.”

  “Maybe your Chumash half can ride, vaquero,” Hawk added smugly, “but your Spanish half is beat to hell. You have lost a great deal of blood. With rest, your strength will return. I would suggest you allow at least the Spanish half the comfort of the travois.

  “Comfort, hell,” Inocente cursed him quietly then winced as the travois hit a bump.

  Twenty-Five

  It took two long, hard days to reach Rancho del Robles Viejos. After a day and a half in the travois, Inocente decided he would prefer dying in the saddle. He was sure the jarring drag would kill him if his wounds did not.

  Clint, pushing the herd, had time to assess and admire Estoban’s beautiful palomino brood stock. But as fine as the others were, none were finer than Diablo del Sol, the golden horse that had carried him through so much. He regretted the loss of the red roan, but returning the palomino to Don Estoban would now be like losing a part of himself.

  As the herd neared the burned-out hacienda, those who worked cleaning and salvaging stopped to watch. Estoban picked his way out of the blackened beams of the establo, and Juana followed close behind.

  By the time the stock was driven into the pasture and the men had dismounted, old Estoban’s eyes were filled with tears. With a cry of delight, Juana ran forward and threw her arms around her mare.

  Hawk walked over to a group of Chumash employed on the rancho and renewed old friendships.

  Estoban threw his arms around Inocente. “Madre de dios, mi hijo, you have saved a lifetime of hard work. Anything you want is yours—anything.”

  Inocente looked over at Juana, who had Florita haltered and was leading her from the herd to join the men. To his surprise, she returned his look with equal warmth.

  Estoban stood beside his segundo and rested his hand on Inocente’s shoulder affectionately.

  “Easy, jefe, my shoulder.” Inocente took his eyes off Juana then pushed his hat off his head. “You are grateful to the wrong man, Patrón. Ramón, and the Anglo, El Lazo--”

  “El Lazo?” Estoban interrupted.

  “Lazo, the Anglo, as fine a hand with a reata as any I have seen. And the Chumash, and the Kanaka—all were more responsible for the return of your beautiful Andalusians than I.”

  Don Estoban Padilla removed his hat and looked gratefully at Inocente, Hawk, Ramón, Matt, and Clint. “I thank you all.”

  “What Inocente said about the rest of us is not true.” Clint stepped forward, “Not true at all. Each of us played a part, none greater than Inocente.”

  “It is good,” Estoban said, returning his hat to his head. ?
??But there is serious news for us all.” He turned, his eyes on the only Anglo among them. “News has come that Mexico and the Estados Unidos are at war. They are fighting in Texas, and soon we suspect there will be fighting here.”

  The news chilled Clint like a dip in ice water. His country was at war with Mexico and consequently Alta California. He looked from face to face, but saw only smiles.

  Estoban stepped forward and laid a hand on Clint’s shoulder. As far as we are concerned, you are one of us, El Lazo, a vaquero first—whatever else you wish to be is unimportant.”

  Juana dropped the halter lead and walked over to Inocente. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. You brought back not only my Florita but something even more valuable.”

  “What is that?” he asked, his face suddenly flushed.

  “Humility, mi Inocente, it is a most admirable trait in a powerful, handsome man. An occasional smile is also admirable.”

  Inocente reddened even more and as usual had no answer for the beautiful girl, but he managed to curl his lips up slightly.

  “Now each of you must select a horse from my finest,” Estoban said. “Who will pick first?”

  The four men turned to Clint. He accepted the honor without hesitation, for he knew exactly what he wanted and cherished the opportunity. He walked back to Diablo and grabbed up his reins. “If it suits you, Don Estoban, I’ll stay with this old fella. We’re kinda’ gettin’ partial to each other.”

  “A good choice, amigo,” Estoban said. Clint wanted to shout hooray on receiving the don’s gift. Instead, he stroked the horse’s withers.

  They spent the night camped at the rancho, and in the morning, Estoban added five thousand reales, the equivalent of five hundred American dollars, to each man’s poke—in the form of golden Spanish doubloons.