Hayes Viva Gringo!

1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-62933-003-7
Verlag: BearManor Media
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 170 Seiten

U.S. Marshal Ezra Macahan picks the wrong time to visit his kid brother, Joshua, a cavalry soldier stationed at Camp Furlong, New Mexico.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hayes, Steve

Leseproben

Chapter Three

Once he had assured himself that the Villistas were not interested in who had been shot, or pursuing him, Macahan rode through the hills at a steady, easy lope until he had put several miles between himself and the pueblo. By then it was late afternoon and he had reached a shallow bend in the Rio Casas Grandes. After resting long enough to water the horses and smoke a cigar, he forded the tree-lined river and rode northeast until dark.

He made camp in a secluded arroyo guarded on three sides by wind-sculptured rocks. Rather than hobble the outlaws’ horses, he blocked the narrow entrance with a barricade of dead, sun-bleached creosote bushes. Then loosening their cinches but leaving the blanket-covered corpses tied over their saddles, he fed each horse a handful of grain. Lastly, he unsaddled the patient piebald mare, gave her the last of the grain and watered her from his canteen. Lady nudged him appreciatively with her muzzle. But the moment he turned his back, she lowered her head and tried to open his saddle bags with her teeth. Macahan shouldered her aside, “Whoa, wait, hold your horses, dammit,” and squatted beside the bags. Lady cocked her head at him, as if amused by the absurdity of his remark, and impatiently pawed the dirt until he dug out a coffee can. Quickly, she tried to grab it with her mouth. But he was ready for her and roughly elbowed her aside.

“Goddammit, be patient, will you?” Prying open the lid, he tipped a few ground coffee beans into his palm and offered them to the mare. Lady wrinkled back her lips, licked up the sticky grains, snickered happily and nudged him for more.

“Uh-uh, that’s all you get.” He pushed her away. But she was not having any of it and followed him like a lost puppy as he collected enough mesquite and dry grass to build a small fire. Exasperated, he got out his hobbles and dangled them in front of her. Lady whinnied and backed up; stood there glaring at him. Macahan ignored her. Emptying his canteen into an old blackened coffee pot, he heated the water over the fire and then filled his enamel mug with muddy-looking coffee. The mare angrily stamped her foreleg but made no attempt to move closer.

Macahan stretched his long legs out on his bedroll, leaned back against his saddle and ate the last of his jerky and hardtack. The hardtack was stale and he dunked it into his coffee until it was soft enough not to break his teeth. When he was finished eating he rolled a smoke and lit it with a burning stick. A bitter wind off the Sierras made him shiver. He wrapped his serape around him to keep out the damp chill. Cold was his enemy: it caused the arthritis in his left shoulder to flare up. Once it started, the stabbing ache kept him awake all night. A doctor in El Paso whom he’d consulted about it told him it was incurable and would only get worse as he got older. Depressed, Macahan left the office feeling he had wasted his money and from then on avoided the cold at all costs.

Just before bedding down, he threw the coffee dregs on the ground by the piebald. Lady tossed her head indifferently and didn’t move. Macahan chuckled and crawled into his blankets. The last noise he remembered hearing before falling asleep was the mare slurping up the coffee-soaked sand.

He rose early the next morning. The pre-dawn gray sky was streaked with primrose and mauve and a light mist whitened the hilltops. Pulling on his boots he stamped the numbness from his feet, saddled up and rode at the same steady mile-consuming lope toward the border.

By mid-morning he was only a few miles south of Palomas, the port of entry into the United States. Reining up in a narrow barranca, he dismounted to relieve himself and to give the horses a rest. But he had barely re-buttoned his Levi’s and lit his last cigar when the mare whinnied nervously. Moving to the rim of the gully he peered over the top and saw a cloud of swirling dust approaching from the southwest. Still more than a mile away, it was undoubtedly caused by a large number of riders.

He got out his field glasses. It took a moment to focus then a column of mounted Villistas appeared. There were at least three hundred of them. They were all armed, all traditionally dressed, all led by a middle-aged man on a white horse. Burly, swarthy, and sporting a thick black mustache, he wore a tan tunic-style jacket, white shirt, a yellow bandanna tied loosely at his throat, and a plain flat-brimmed brown hat.

Knowing he was looking at Pancho Villa, Macahan quickly returned the glasses to his saddle bag, mounted, grabbed the reins of the outlaws’ horses and kicked the piebald into a brisk canter. He kept to the gully for as long as it lasted. When it finally became too narrow, he was forced to ride on level open ground exposing himself to the Villistas. He hoped to get a jump on them but they spotted him immediately. About a dozen of them left the column and spurred their mounts in his direction.

They came across the desert at an angle, rapidly closing ground, and Macahan realized they intended to kill or capture him. Alone on the piebald he would not have been concerned; Lady could outrun most horses. But the outlaws’ mounts balked at being pulled along and fought their bits, jerking their heads, tugging at the reins and slowing the mare down.

Puffs of smoke appeared as the Villistas opened fire. Their aim was poor and the bullets whined past him, ricocheting off the rocks. But with Palomas still a mile off and his pursuers quickly gaining ground, Macahan knew it was merely a matter of time before he was hit. He looked about him, hoping to spot a place where he could hide the horses and the bodies then double back later for them and still collect the reward. But the land was flat and he knew he would not reach Palomas before the Villistas rode him down. Cursing his bad luck, he reluctantly released the reins of the outlaws’ horses and spurred the mare into a full gallop.

At once his pursuers stopped gaining on him. Ahead, in the distance, he now saw the scattered adobe dwellings of Palomas. He breathed easier. Unless there were more Villistas waiting for him in the quiet little pueblo he was home free.

Just then the mare lurched and almost stumbled. Macahan jerked her head up and Lady quickly regained her stride and galloped on. Guessing she had stepped in a rut or a gopher hole, he leaned low over the mare’s neck and encouraged her onward. She gamely obliged and within minutes he was close enough to the village to see the curious brown faces of its inhabitants watching him from their doorways.

He glanced over his shoulder. The Villistas had given up the chase and were riding back to the column. Relieved, Machan eased the mare up and fondly patted her on the neck. Her hide was sweaty and flecked with foamy spittle. He wiped his hand on his thigh and was shocked to see blood on his Levi’s. He reined up immediately, dismounted and looked the mare over. Blood ran from her mouth and, with a grunt, Lady sank to her knees. Macahan kneeled beside her and saw blood welling from a bullet hole just behind his left stirrup.

“Jesus,” he said.

The mare wheezed loudly and tried to get up. But her legs betrayed her. She lay there, motionless, fighting for air as her lungs filled with blood.

Macahan took her head between his hands and held it gently. The big blue eye nearest him stared back. It was filled with so much trust he could have wept.

“Damn you,” he said softly. “Who’s going to share my coffee with me now?”

The unwinking blue eye stared at him for another moment. Then it closed and the mare shuddered. Her head became a dead weight in his hands. He knew she was gone. He lowered her head to the warm sunbaked dirt and got to his feet. His world had suddenly become a lonelier, darker place. He turned to several small, half-naked urchins who had come running up and now stood watching him. Not one of them was over ten but he spoke as if they were men. “Tienen que cuidar mi caballo. ¡Cuiden me caballos con sus vidas! ”

“Si, señor.”

“No dejen que nadie la toquen. Nadie! ¡Me entendien!”

“Si, señor.”

“Yo llegade pronto. Dile que el Cabacho va matar al que toquen mi caballo!” Satisfied that they understood he would be back shortly and that they must guard the dead mare with their lives he dug out some coins and shared them among the children. Instantly, as if by drawn by an invisible magnet, other children came running up demanding pesos. Macahan ignored them and walked grimly into the village.

The border guard stepped from his gate-shack and held up his hand to the tall, lean, tight-lipped man driving the two-wheeled ox-cart toward him. A new recruit, he was anxious to prove to his superiors that he could handle the job.

“Mister, you can’t bring that dead horse across.”

“Her name’s Lady.”

“What?”

“She was born in the U.S. of A.”

“I don’t care if she was born in the White House and related to Abe Lincoln, you ain’t bringing no fly-bitten carcass across on my watch.”

“Reckon you’ll have to shoot me to stop me.”

The guard looked uneasy but stood his ground. “If I got to, I will.”

“Be gunning down a Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

“Got any proof of that?”

Macahan opened his fringed leather jacket and showed the badge pinned to the lining. “Name’s Macahan. Ezra Macahan. Out of El...