Elmore Leonard: Gunsights

Dana Moon had come down from Whiteriver to guide for Lieutenant Early and his company of 10th Cavalry out of Huachuca. They met at St. Helen, a stage stop on the Hatch & Hodges Central Mail Section route, where the “massacre” had taken place: the massacre being one dead swamper, shot several times and his head shoved into his bucket of axel grease; the driver of the stage, his shotgun rider and one passenger, a Mr. R. Holmes of St. David. Four were dead; two passengers caught in the gun-fire and wounded superficially; and one passenger abducted, Miss Katherine McKean of Benson, on her way home from visiting kin in Tucson.

Loco was recognized as the leader of the raiding party (How many one-eyed Apaches were there between San Carlos and Fort Huachuca?) and was last seen trailing due south toward the Whetstone Mountains, though more likely was heading for the San Pedro and open country: Loco, the McKean girl and about twenty others in the band that had jumped the reservation a few days before.

“Or about ten,” Dana Moon said. “Those people”-meaning Apaches-“can cause you to piss your britches and see double.”

Brendan Early, in his dusty blues, looked at the situation, staring south into the sun haze and heat waves, looking at nothing. But Brendan Early was in charge here and had to give a command.

What did they have? In the past month close to 150 Warm Springs people had jumped the San Carlos reservation, women and children as well as bucks, and made a beeline down the San Pedro Valley to Old Mexico and the fortress heights of the Sierra Madres. Loco's bunch was the rear guard, gathering fresh mounts and firearms along the way. Maybe Bren Early's troopers could ride like wild men a day and a night, killing some horses and maybe, just maybe, cut Loco off at the crossing.

Or, a lieutenant in the U.S. Cavalry might ride through the scrub and say, “What border?” even after ten years on frontier station, cross leisurely with extra mounts and do the job.

Dana Moon-sent down here by Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts at San Carlos-waited, not giving the lieutenant any help. He sat his chestnut gelding, looking down from there with the tobacco wad in his jaw. He didn't spit; he didn't do a thing.

While Lieutenant Early was thinking, Then what? Track the renegades, run'em to ground? Except his troop of U.S. Cavalry would be an invading army, wouldn't it? having crossed an international boundary contrary to treaty agreement and the mutual respect of foreign soil, customs, emigration, all that bullshit.

“Lord Jehovah protect us from dumb-ass officialdom,” said the lieutenant out loud to no one in particular.

All soil west of the Pecos looked the same to Bren Early-born and raised in Monroe, Michigan (adopted home of George Armstrong Custer), before matriculating at West Point, somehow getting through, one hundred seventy-ninth in a class of one ninety-two-and there was no glory standing around a wagon yard watching civilians bleed.

Dana Moon read sign-grain shucks in horse shit, and could tell you where the rider had come from and how long ago-and sometimes he could read Bren Early's mind. He said, “You're gonna hurt your head thinking. You want to do it, I'll take you four and a half days' ride southeast, yes, across the line toward Morelos, and on the sixth day Loco and his fellas will ride up to our camp. But not with all your troopers. You and me and Bo Catlett to handle the cavvy if he wants to come, six mounts on the string, grain and water. If you don't want to do it I think I'll quit government work; I'm tired looking over the fence and watching dust settle.”

“On the sixth day,” Bren Early said, nodding. “And on the seventh day we'll rest, huh?”

He bought the tight-fitting suit of clothes off the St. Helen station agent for seven dollars, and for three more got Bo Catlett a coat, vest and derby hat. Hey, boy, they were going to Old Mexico like three dude tourists:

Rode southeast and crossed into Sonora at dusk, guided by the faint lights of a border town, against the full-dark moonside of the sky.

Dana Moon's plan: ride straight for a well he knew would be on Loco's route; get down there in the neighborhood, scout the rascal and his band to make sure they were coming; then, when they arrived, parley with the thirsty renegades, keeping their guns between the Apaches and a drink of water. Talk them out of the McKean girl first-if she was still alive-then talk about the weather or whatever they wanted, gradually getting the discussion around to a return trip to San Carlos for everybody, all expenses paid.

Or commence firing when they draw within range, Bren Early thought, seeing it written up as a major skirmish or, better yet, the Battle of…whatever the name of this rancho used to be, sitting in the scrub oak foothills: three weathered adobes in a row like a small garrison, mesquite-pole out-building and corral, part of an adobe wall enclosing the yard.

Out fifty yards of worn-out pasture was a wind-mill rigged to a stock tank of scummy water. From the end house or the wall, three men could cover the tank and a thirsty traveler would have to get permission to drink if the three men didn't want him to.

The Battle of Rancho Diablo. Give it a hellfire exciting name. Who'd know the difference?

On the sixth day Dana Moon rode in from his early-morning scout, field glasses hanging on his chest. He said, “What ever happens the way you expect it to?” He did spit right then.

Bren Early saw it. He said, “Duty at Huachuca.”

“They split up,” Dana Moon told him and Bo Catlett. “It looks to be Loco and the young lady coming ahead. They'll be here by noon, the ones with the herd maybe an hour behind. And some more dust coming out of the west.”

“Federales,” Bo Catlett said.

“Not enough of 'em,” Moon said. “Some other party; maybe eight or ten.”

They brought the spare horses and feed into the middle adobe, three saddled horses into the building closest to the stock-tank end of the yard, and went inside to wait.

Hoofprints out there meant nothing; people came through here all times of the year travelling between Morelos and Bavispe and points beyond, this being the gateway to the Sierra Madres.

Still, when Loco came, leading the second horse and rider they took to be the girl, he hung back 300 yards-the horses straining toward the smell of water-and began to circle as he approached the rancho again, coming around through the pasture now, keeping the wall between him and the adobes.

“We'll have to wing him,” Bren Early said, flat against the wall with his Spencer, next to a front window.

Moon watched through the slit opening in the wooden door. He said to Bo Catlett, “Mount up.”

Bo Catlett did and had to remain hunched over in the McClellan, his derby hat grazing the low roof.

“That one-eyed Indian is a little speck of a target, isn't he?” Bren Early said.

“Tired and thirsty,” Moon said. “I'm going out.” He looked up at Bo Catlett. “He flushes when he sees me, run him down. There won't be any need to shoot.”

Bren Early, dropping the stock of his Spencer to the dirt floor, said, “Shit. And parley awhile.” He didn't like it; then thought of something and squinted out past the window frame again.

“I wonder what that girl looks like,” he said. “I wonder what the one-eyed son of a bitch's been doing to her.”

Moon said, “Probably looks at her and thinks the same thing you would.” He glanced up to see Bo Catlett showing his yellow-white teeth, grinning at him, and Moon thought of his mother telling him a long time ago why colored people had good, strong teeth: because they ate cold leftovers in the kitchen and couldn't afford to buy candy and things that weren't good for you.