Ralph Compton - The Alamosa Trail

Once Brenda’s hands were free the girls, cautioned by Katie to be as silent as possible, worked quickly and quietly to get their own horses saddled.

Once the three horses were saddled, Katie walked back over to Red’s body. Leaning over him, she undid his gun belt and slipped it off his waist. Both Marilou and Brenda thought she was going to keep it. Instead, she dropped it into the fire. Then she hurried back to her horse.

“Get mounted,” she said quietly. “But just walk them slowly for now. When the excitement starts, ride as fast as you can.”

“What excitement, Mama?” Brenda asked.

“You’ll see,” Katie promised.

The three women started riding slowly and quietly out of the camp. They were about fifty yards away when the cartridges in Red’s gun-belt started going off, activated by the heat of the campfire.

It sounded as if an army had invaded, with the shots occurring so rapidly as to be on top of each other. Looking back toward the camp, the three women could see sparks flying from the fire. They could also see Shardeen and Whitey rolling around on the ground, with their arms covering their heads.

“Ahh! What the hell! We surrender! We surrender!” Shardeen shouted.

The outlaws’ three unsaddled horses soon came galloping by the women. The horses, whinnying loudly with flared nostrils, had been terrified by the sudden and unexpected noise in the middle of the night. Katie knew they would run for miles before calming down. Shardeen and Whitey would be left afoot, deep in the mountains of northern Mexico.

Over the last few days, Katie had seen her husband and son murdered. She had been raped, she’d watched fear grow in the eyes of her two young daughters, and she had just been forced to kill another human being. If someone had told her one week ago that she would have to endure such an ordeal, she would not have believed herself capable of surviving.

But she had survived. And now, with bullets popping, Shardeen and Whitey screaming in fear, and the outlaws’ horses galloping off into the night, she was actually able to enjoy one of the best laughs of her entire life.

Chapter 11

In the churchyard of the Mexican town of Chihuahua, Father Sanchez began the funeral prayer of commitment as two women stepped up to the open graves and dropped dirt onto the coffins of the dead. The women, the widows of the two slain policemen, were dressed in black with their faces covered by veils.

Capitán Bustamante stood a little way behind the mourners, holding his hat in his hand as the funeral ended. As the two widows were leaving the graveyard, he stepped out to confront them.

“Senoras,” he said in a solemn voice, “this, I promise you: The men who murdered your husbands will pay for this crime with their own blood.”

The older of the two women, Senora Montoya, stopped and looked at Bustamante through eyes that were bloodshot and red-rimmed from crying. For a long, uncomfortable moment, she held him with her stare. Finally, in a low, woeful voice, she spoke.

“And when these men are dead, Capitán, will our husbands be returned to us?” she asked.

Bustamante blinked his eyes a few times, surprised by the woman’s response.

“No, and for that I am sorry.”

“Then do not speak to me of murderers paying in blood. Their lives will bring me no comfort. Not if it does not bring my husband back to me,” Senora Montoya insisted.

Father Sanchez hurried over to comfort the two widows. He flashed Bustamante an admonishing glance. “My son, do not speak of more killing in this holy place,” he said.

Bustamante left the churchyard. Behind him in the church belfry, a muffled bell tolled once for each year lived by the two slain policemen, thirty-two times for Montoya, twenty-eight for Arino. The bell tolls could be heard all over the town, and when Bustamante walked through the plaza, he saw that many were standing with their hats held reverently across their chests as they waited for the funeral to end.

The tolling didn’t cease until Bustamante was in his office. He hung his sombrero on a peg, then glanced over at his deputy, Lieutenant, or Teniente, Santos.

“How was the funeral?” Santos asked.

“Very sad.”

From outside, they could hear the hoofbeats of a galloping horse.

“Someone is in a great hurry,” Bustamante said.

“Listen, someone is shouting,” Santos said.

“Senor Capitán! Senor Capitán!”

Bustamante looked through the front window of the office. “It is Jose Meras.”

The rider stopped in front of the police station then swung down from the saddle, just as Bustamante and Santos came outside to see what it was about.

“Capitán Bustamante, the men who killed Montoya and Arino,” Meras shouted excitedly. “It was seven gringos and one Mexican. They have been seen!”

“Where?”

“In the mountains, near the village of Escalon.”

“Escalon?” Bustamante turned to Santos. “Teniente Santos, who is in charge of the police at Escalon?” he asked.

“Sargento Gonzales.”

“Only a sargento? No officers?”

“It is a very small station, senor,” Santos replied.

“Very well. I will send a telegram to Sargento Gonzales, telling him that these men may be coming to his village.”

“Gonzales has but one man assigned to him, Capitán,” Santos said. “I do not think he can arrest eight men.”

“All the better. I will tell him to take no action, but just to observe them until we get there. After all, why give the glory to a mere sargento, when, by rights, it should be ours to claim. Santos, call the company together,” Bustamante ordered. “We are going after the murderers.”

“Sí, senor! Why give the credit to a mere sargento?” Santos replied with a big smile on his face.

Chickens squawked and scurried to get out of the way as Jim Robison and his friends followed Hector Ortega across the plaza of the little village of Escalon. A couple of men who were lazing in the shade, their sombreros shielding their eyes, made no effort to move as the riders passed within a few feet of them. An old woman was drawing water in the middle of the plaza and Jim and the others rode over to the well and dismounted. Without having to ask for it, the old woman offered her dipper to them.

“Gracias,” Jim said, taking the dipper. He drank deeply, then passed the dipper over to the others. Only Ortega didn’t drink from the well. Instead, he sat in his saddle in silence, watching the others.

“I know the son of a bitch don’t talk,” Tennessee said. “But don’t he drink water?”

“Mujer, trae agua,” Ortega said to the old woman at the well.

“Sí, senor,” the old woman replied. Filling the dipper with water, she carried it over to Ortega and handed it up to him.

Ortega drank thirstily.

“Maybe the son of a bitch thinks he is too good to get his own water,” Tennessee said.

Ortega tossed away the remaining few drops, then handed the dipper back to the old woman. He looked directly at Tennessee.

“I am your chief,” he said. “It would not look good in the eyes of my people if I drank at the well with those who are beneath me.”

“Beneath you? What do you mean, beneath you? I’ll show you who is—” Tennessee spouted angrily, but Jim put out his hand to stop him.

“Easy there, Tennessee,” Jim said.

“Easy? You just going to let him talk like that?”

“Yes.”

“Senor, I suggest you listen to your friend,” Ortega said to Tennessee. “He is man who knows his place.”

“You son of a bitch! I wish I knew enough Spanish to cuss you out in your own language,” Tennessee sputtered.

Again, Jim interrupted him. “That’s enough, Tennessee. Remember, he is our trail boss.”