When Hector, Ben and Joe returned, Megan was already on her horse. She had a fair idea of what had become of Red Mayhill and his partners, but said nothing. Now they were riding to find cover from Wilshaw Broome and what was left of his gang. Joe took the lead rope of the pack pony from her hand and she fell in behind Ben. Joe followed, and Hector brought up the rear as usual.
They bent around, sometimes through cactus thickets, occasionally splashed across shallow fords of the Rio Bonito. Ben led on through a wilderness of pear, followed every point of the compass in their winding flight. Joe estimated that they were taking two or three miles to gain one in making it to the lone oak they had seen in the early morning.
It was long past midnight when they rode into a pocket of what appeared to be an impenetrable barrier of prickly pear. Ben stopped, spoke for the first time in two hours.
‘Close up,’ he said, ‘it’s easier to make a trail.’ Then he moved on, twitching left and right, scraping his legs through the harsh, unyielding vegetation.
Joe was unhappy at the thought of taking flight before Wilshaw Broome. And he was thinking of the hanged men, the trademark, ear-cropping of Hector Chaf. He didn’t know then that the disfigurement had a peculiar significance to Broome, that it was a personal matter between the two men. Joe was sickened at the feral cruelty, but he understood the country’s ruthless nature and the men who lived by way of it. He also knew that in the end, he could be living or dying by it himself. Through listening to Ben and Hector, he was convinced that if there was but a single man working for Broome who wasn’t a lawbreaker, it was because Broome didn’t know it. Broome’s personnel were the kind of men who’d usurped the loyalties of Hector Chaf and Ben McGovren, and Joe was now certain that the land gifted by his own grandfather was the McGovrens by any reasonable law. After gaining control from Broome, it would be once again, he concluded.
Joe’s mind was still agitated when they rode into a wide clearing. He hauled in his mount, saw the lone oak tree against the lightening sky.
‘You know this place?’ Ben asked Hector.
‘Yeah, I do. But the pear’s bigger and taller than it used to be. Ol’ Cochise himself might have difficulty findin’ us in here.’
‘Good, let’s camp,’ Ben said.
They all dismounted a little way from the tree, quietly unsaddled and line-hobbled their horses to graze. Still without a word, each one of them then rolled themselves into their blankets. Within minutes, and due mainly to the torment of weariness and nervous tension, they were sound asleep.
When Joe woke five hours later, he sat up, kicked away his blankets, rubbed his eyes and cursed. At the other side of the glade, there were five horses quietly snatching at the meagre brome. He blinked, cursed again and was about to shout something, when there was a sharp whistle at the edge of the thicket. He looked around, saw that Megan was watching him from a gap in her blanket. Hector propped himself up on his left elbow, raised his carbine with his right hand. Ben put his fingers to his lips and gave a returning whistle.
Emerging from the scrub, an old, stooped man came walking slowly towards them. He had a straggly beard, and his grey hair fell to his shoulders.
‘Jeesus,’ Hector huffed with astonishment, ‘the Apaches’ have found us, after all.’
‘Come on in, Quedo,’ Ben called out. ‘Hector’s here; you’ll remember him.’
‘Sure I remember him,’ Quedo Lunes replied. ‘He’s maybe one o’ the white men worth rememberin’. An’ I’d know him by way he’s stacked up … even when he’s lyin’ down. That’ll be Mr Jasper rubbin’ sleep from his eyes. He ain’t aged much like the rest of us … must be a clean’ livin’ one,’ Lunes chuckled at his own quip.
Joe got to his feet. He was about to query what the old man meant, but Hector stopped him. ‘The crazy galoot don’t mean anythin’,’ he said. ‘He’s just spent too many years suckin’ on mescal. An’ in this light, you could favour your pa,’ he added with a roguish grin.
Megan rolled from her blanket and pushed herself up, stared enquiringly at the wild-looking old man.
‘It’s all right, Megan,’ Ben said. ‘This is Quedo Lunes. You’ve heard me speak of him.’
‘Nice-lookin’ boy,’ Lunes chuckled, then, paying no more attention to any of them, he turned and walked off, told them to follow.
Megan sniffed and pulled her pants belt in a notch. ‘I really liked the cabin, an’ Ma an’ pig an’ cow an’ horse dirt,’ she muttered. ‘I knew where I stood.’
Two hours later, they followed Lunes through a gap in the thicket and eventually found themselves in another clearing that was surrounded by old pear and high mesquite. Up tight to the brush were three earth lodges around a shallow water pocket. Another Mexican was sitting cross-legged, rolling up tacos of cold beans and beef.
‘It’s us, Gitano. We’re here,’ Lunes called out.
The man looked up, nodded non-committally and spoke rapidly in his own language. ‘No la Ciudad,’ he said, which more or less meant that he only expected to see Ben McGovren and Quedo.
‘We’re all safe, Gitano,’ Lunes appeased. ‘I’ve brought Hector Chaf an’ Ben. You know them. Mr Jasper an’ Ben’s muchachos, here too.’
Gitano gave a hardly noticeable response and went back to preparing the tacos. Joe looked towards Megan, and winked, smiled understandingly. For himself, he did bear a striking resemblance to his father, and he’d be about the same age as when the two Mexicans had last seen him.
After a supper of sow-belly and biscuits, Gitano, Megan, Joe, Hector and Quedo Lunes sat talking with Ben.
‘I ain’t told you just what Quedo was bringin’ you here for,’ he said. ‘But I did tell you I had some stuff that would make Wilshaw Broome squeal. An’ I didn’t mean in any courtroom.’
‘What sort o’ stuff are you talkin’ about, Ben?’ Hec asked.
‘Quedo,’ Ben started. ‘He told me Broome hired Gitano an’ two another Mexes to kill Judd Kettle.’
Hector looked quickly from Ben to Lunes, back to Ben. ‘I thought he fell from his horse an’ broke his neck. Too full o’ cactus juice, you said.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Ben acknowledged. ‘But there was others who didn’t think that.’
‘So what the hell did happen?’
‘Yeah, how’re these fellers implicated?’ Joe wanted to know.
‘Quedo ain’t, an’ Gitano was only ever used to doin’ what Broome told him. It was him an’ two others who were paid to bushwhack Judd. A couple o’ miles west o’ the ranch house, they beat him senseless before puttin’ him back up on his horse, an’ slappin’ it scared towards town. It was a miracle he got that far, I guess. Because he weren’t shot, folk just sort o’ assumed … said he’d been drinkin’. That was the story got put around.’
‘So one of ’em’s here, what happened to the other two?’ Hector asked.
‘Next day, Broome shot ’em both … threw ’em deep in the pear. Who the hell’s goin’ to check, let alone care? No one, except Gitano, but he knew his way around.’
‘Where do you come in?’ Megan asked Lunes, the wild, old Mexican.
‘I was already here,’ he said pithily. ‘How do you say – “wrong place, wrong time”? It’s the story o’ my life,’ he added with a heartfelt grimace.
‘An’ how’d you find ’em?’ Hector asked of Ben.
‘I didn’t. Gitano got away an’ took to this thicket. Not long after, Quedo got tired of actin’ the lunatic in Fort Wingate, an’ decided to shack up here with him. They been livin’ here for years. I’m more or less the only two-legged critter they seen in a long time.’
Joe had been holding something in his mind for a few minutes. ‘You’ve known about Judd for some time, Ben. I know you’re supposed to say nothin’ if you can’t say somethin’ good about folk, but he was my uncle. Why didn’t you tell us, before now?’ he asked.
Ben nodded amenably. ‘Because I wondered about the worth of it all. I thought about givin’ up, an’ movin’ on. I’d lost my land an’ didn’t expect to get it back, got tired all of a sudden. It ain’t much, but it’s sort o’ why, Joe, an’ I’m sorry. But now you’re here, maybe I can suck in another breath. I’ll be good an’ ready to go with whatever you want.’
Joe smiled. ‘Thank you, Ben. An’ we’ll build you a bigger, better cabin, with a load o’ new store boughts,’ he promised enthusiastically.
It was near midnight, and Ben was talking family stuff with Megan. Joe had walked off a ways with Hector.
‘I want you to have the Standin K, Joe, but not on top o’ more graves,’ Hector said quietly. ‘An’ now Ben’s gettin’ to be as feral as them two Mexes. I just hope it ain’t catchin’.’
Joe thought for a moment, shook his head for a suitable response, then came back on another tack. ‘It looks like we got ourselves a well-stocked an’ sited camp here,’ he replied. ‘We’ll smoke ’em … make sure that none o’ them graves are ours. Now, I got to go an’ see Ben.’
‘Hello, young feller,’ Ben said, looking up as Joe approached. ‘You look like you got somethin’ on your mind.’
‘Ben, I got to say this, just so’s there ain’t any misunderstandin’ when it’s too late.’ Joe nodded at Megan. ‘Miss Megan here ain’t ridin’ with us, an’ she ain’t stayin’ in this camp alone neither.’
‘An’ how do you figure to work that?’ Ben asked with a dry smile.
‘I ride out with Hec one day, an’ you the next. An’ whoever’s comin’ tomorrow, must be ready long before first light. Wherever it is we ride, we don’t come anywhere near here, either side o’ full dark. We’ll use night markers. That’s the meat o’ what I got to say, an’ none of it’s negotiable,’ Joe answered decisively.
‘Huh, straight in, eh, kid. Reminds me o’ your gran’pa,’ Ben snapped back.
‘I’ll ride with you first. An’ that ain’t negotiable either,’ Hec added.
‘Sounds like I don’t have much to negotiate with,’ Megan muttered sarcastically.