Part 10 (2/2)

Yakima removed the shoe, tossed it into the brush, and glanced ahead, his jaws set with frustration. s.h.i.+t.

The only thing he could do was lead the horse along the posse's trail and hope he came upon a village or estancia where he could trade the horse for a fresh one. Barring a trade, he hoped for a portable forge and blacksmith's tools where he could pack the hoof and shape a new shoe. He would lose valuable time, maybe lose the gang's trail, but there was little choice.

He wished he had his moccasins to make the walk easier, but the soft-soled shoes were in his saddlebags atop Wolf. By the time he reached a settlement, his own feet would no doubt need as much attention as the sorrel's.

As he led the horse along the desperadoes' trail, overlapped by that of the posse, minutes stretched to hours. The stockman's boots drew taut around his swelling feet, and he could feel the skin on the b.a.l.l.s of both feet tearing, then oozing inside his socks, grieving him with every step.

After a couple of hours he sat down on a rock, removed his boots and socks, and cut away the loose skin on his feet with the Arkansas toothpick he always carried in a makes.h.i.+ft ankle sheath. He had nothing to pad the boots with, even if he could could have squeezed in anything besides his socks and his swollen feet, so he donned the socks, slid his feet back into the boots, and continued walking, fixing his attention on the flora and fauna-the creosote shrubs and mesquite snags and occasional white-throated swift darting about the chaparral- to keep his mind off the ache. have squeezed in anything besides his socks and his swollen feet, so he donned the socks, slid his feet back into the boots, and continued walking, fixing his attention on the flora and fauna-the creosote shrubs and mesquite snags and occasional white-throated swift darting about the chaparral- to keep his mind off the ache.

He crossed a valley, then a low saddle, before traversing a maze of ancient arroyos so choked with brush and boulders that it became difficult to stay on the riders' trail. From a distance, he saw two cougars, a lynx, at least fifty turkey buzzards feeding on a rotting bear carca.s.s, and a half dozen wolves snorting around an old deer kill.

Luckily, no Indians.

At about six o'clock that evening, he followed a winding trail up the side of a broad tabletop mesa, then continued following it to the edge of an open area in which a large rectangular adobe sat to the right of several crumbling barns and corrals.

An old rancho, by the look of the place. The tw.a.n.g of a guitar and celebratory voices rising from inside the house, in addition to the half dozen Arabian horses tethered to the hitchrack out front, bespoke a roadhouse. Smoke puffed in deep gray clouds from the chimney on Yakima's side of the house, rife with the smell of roasting pork.

A slender brown-haired girl stood at the stock tank at the other end of the yard, dipping a wooden bucket into the water. She wore a flour-sack skirt and, despite the evening's chill, a low-cut blouse, one strap hanging down an arm barely bigger around than a shotgun barrel.

Barefoot, lugging the slos.h.i.+ng water bucket in both hands before her, she shuffled back toward the roadhouse. She didn't turn her head toward Yakima. She kicked up dirt as she went, long hair blowing in the wind.

Yakima gave a gentle tug on the sorrel's reins and started toward the roadhouse.

”Hold it right there,” a man's Irish-accented voice growled to his left. ”One more step and I'll blow you all the way to the rock G.o.ds!”

Yakima turned to see a short, pudgy man with close-cropped gray hair and a gray-bristled beard move out from the open door of the adobe-and-log barn on his left, aiming an old Springfield trapdoor rifle straight out from his shoulder.

”I don't allow 'Paches. . . .” The pudgy man let his voice trail off as he sidestepped slowly up to Yakima, keeping his cheek snugged against the Springfield's stock, as if facing a mountain lion in its own den. He grunted uncertainly. ”You ain't 'Pache, are ye? Too d.a.m.n tall. What the h.e.l.l are ye, then?”

Yakima glanced at the sorrel flanking him on his left. ”I'm looking for a trade. He's got a b.u.m hoof, but it'll heal with tending.”

The Irishman lowered the rifle from his cheek but held the barrel steady on Yakima's chest, slitting one eye skeptically. ”You with that posse that tore through here a few hours ago?”

”Do I look like one of them?” Yakima didn't wait for an answer. ”I need that horse. . . .”

”I don't have no horse, just a big mule I use for skidding wood up from the draws. He don't carry riders, and he ain't for trade. But I got a forge and bellows in yonder you can shoe him with.” The Irishman canted his head toward the barn on Yakima's left. ”But I gotta make a livin'. . . .”

”You have some burlap I can wrap his hoof with?”

”Sure do. And you can even sleep with him in yonder.”

”Mighty pale of ya. How much?”

The Irishman lowered his rifle and grinned. ”For three dollars-or you can split me a cord of ash and cottonwood over yonder, keep my fire goin' tonight. I'm entertainin' Don Garcia-Viejo's segundo segundo and his greaser riders, and I'm slow-roastin' a sow hog. Like to make a good impression on the local gentry, don't ya know!” and his greaser riders, and I'm slow-roastin' a sow hog. Like to make a good impression on the local gentry, don't ya know!”

Yakima glanced at the two-foot logs scattered among the sage near the barn, then turned back to the Irishman. ”I'll split your wood. But you better throw in a warm bed and grub.”

”h.e.l.l, I'll even throw in a fat wh.o.r.e. That wood-splittin' grieves my rheumatism!”

”Save your wh.o.r.e for El Segundo, but I'll hold you to the rest.”

They shook.

After the man who'd said his name was Mick O'Toole had returned to the roadhouse, Yakima set to work firing up the blacksmith forge in the barn. While the forge heated, he applied a compress of cool mud and whiskey to the sorrel's hoof, wrapping it tightly, then set to work on a shoe. When he'd hammered one to the shape of the hoof, he left it on the anvil, ready to be applied first thing in the morning, after he'd removed the compress.

The horse needed a good two- or even three-day rest, but overnight would have to do. Yakima had to get after Speares's bunch and the Thunder Riders. Hopefully, he would find someone willing to trade mounts with him farther along the trail.

Finished with the horse, which he stabled in the barn's shadows with measured amounts of oats, hay, and water, he took his boots off and applied some of the mud and whiskey to the bottoms of his own feet, sucking air through his teeth at the alcohol sting. He wrapped both feet lightly, then set to work splitting the firewood north of the barn.

He was weary from the long walk and the work in the barn, but hefting the mallet and smas.h.i.+ng the blade down through the logs, working up a rhythm, loosened his back and arms and focused his mind, distracting him from wondering how Anjanette and Wolf were faring among the outlaws. He'd half expected to find the girl dead in the desert, and hoped he could get to her before the gang tired of her and cast her off like trash.

The desert air turned crisp, drying the sweat on his back. An especially large wolf pack yammered in the hills north of the mesa, and Yakima vaguely wondered what had stirred them into such a frenzy.

When he had a half cord of wood split, he gathered an armload and started toward the roadhouse s.h.i.+ning like a rough, well-lighted jewel in the starry darkness. A fiddle had replaced the guitar, making more squawking noise than music, and several more horses stood before the hitchrack, swis.h.i.+ng their tails or drawing water from the stock trough before them.

Yakima mounted the porch steps, pushed through the batwings, and looked around through the smoky shadows in which three or four groups of Mexican men clumped, some playing cards while a few merely sipped from stone mugs and sat back in their chairs with dreamy, drunk expressions, enjoying the fiddle music of the skinny vaquero in ragged trail garb.

A couple of fat wh.o.r.es were at the table where five well-dressed vaqueros sat, smoking and drinking. One of the wh.o.r.es sat between two tall Mexicans, laughing and twirling a pudgy finger around in her shot gla.s.s while one of the men leaned toward her, whispering in her ear.

The other wh.o.r.e was bent forward over the table while another Mexican-the best-dressed one of the lot, with a white streak slas.h.i.+ng through his thick black hair-spanked her with his black-gloved hand. Yakima knew enough Spanish to know the man was chastising her for being fat-”Why in the h.e.l.l don't you stop eating, woman?”

She laughed, going along with the chiding but wincing a little with each slap.

The Irishman, Mick, watched the table from behind the bar, wearing a strained smile as he ladled pulque into mugs.

Yakima dropped his load of wood near the fireplace, in which two shanks of hog sizzled and sputtered.

”Bring in another load, and I'll fill you a plate,” Mick told him as he hustled the two stone mugs of pulque out from behind the bar, heading for the table with the well-attired vaqueros and the fat wh.o.r.es. He shook his head, muttering, ”What I don't put up with to stay on the don's good side . . .”

Yakima glanced at the Mexicans' table again, then went back outside, where he split a few more logs, then headed back to the cabin with another armload. Near the corner of the dark barn, he stopped suddenly as a girl's scream rose from inside the roadhouse. There was a sharp slap, and a man shouted in Spanish, ”b.i.t.c.h, you'll do as I order!”

Yakima continued forward as the Irishman's voice sounded in placating tones from the other side of the batwings. The fiddle had fallen silent, and all Yakima could hear from the roadhouse was the first man's angry voice booming above Mick's.

A horse snorted as Yakima pa.s.sed the hitchrack and mounted the porch steps, the patter of running bare feet growing louder. He was a foot from the doors when he heard a girl's sobs, saw a small, slender, long-haired silhouette growing out of the shadows before him. It was the girl he'd seen earlier at the water tank, her eyes now silver with tears.

The enraged voice rose again behind her. ”Get back here, puta puta!”

Yakima lunged to the right as the girl flew through the batwings, hair streaming out behind her. She ran across the porch and leapt off the steps and into the yard, heading for the barn.

Yakima turned back toward the door. The tall man with the white streak in his hair was striding toward the batwings, boots pounding the flagstones.

Yakima leapt back to the right, a log falling from the pile in his arms.

A wink later, the Mexican burst through the batwings like a bull from a chute. ”I warn-”

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