6
Before dawn Slocum saddled his horse. With Nada riding double behind him, they followed Monte up the main trail. Her arms were around his waist and her tits were pressed into his back, and she seemed thrilled to be taken along. Slocum couldn’t tell whether his guide liked the notion or not. But Slocum was footing the bill so Monte had little to say about who went with them.
This region was still not a part of the Madres that Slocum knew well, as he did some places on the western slopes. There were lots of pine trees at this elevation, and they spooked several mule deer that bobbed away like jackasses in high hops.
“Where are we headed?” Slocum asked when they stopped at a clear trout stream to water their horses.
“Where they have the McCarty woman.”
“Good. But how come no one saw her come into the mountains?”
Monte shrugged. “I guess they disguised her as a man.”
Slocum narrowed his eyes at the man. “You’re certain she’s up here?”
“Why would I bring you up here if she wasn’t? You wouldn’t pay me if she wasn’t, would you?”
The man had a point, unless this Cockroach was paying him to deliver Slocum into a trap. No, Monte was too nervous to try that. Still, how did his guide know where she was hidden? Especially since no one else had seen her.
In midafternoon, they reached a village, larger than the one where Nada lived.
She leaned forward and quietly told him, “This is San Phillipe. There is a church here and a cantina. I will try to find out where the woman is. I have friends here.”
She slipped off the horse’s rump.
“Where will we meet you?” Slocum asked.
“I can find you, hombre,” she said, and with that she was gone like a small whiff of smoke.
“Where did your puta go?” Monte asked.
“To see a man about a dog,” Slocum said absently. “Where will we camp?”
“Oh, at a place that has horse feed.”
“Good. Mine needs some good feed tonight.”
“They charge more for alfalfa.”
“Buy it.”
Monte nodded, but seemed unconvinced. “They can eat grass just as well.”
“Which would you eat, the chicken or the feathers?”
Monte simply rode on. “It is your money.”
No wonder Monte had such a skinny horse. The idiot never cared for the animal. They rode over a stone bridge like the kind the Romans had built, which he’d read about in books as a boy. At the sight of some dust-coated, hipshot horses at a hitch rack, Slocum gave a head toss.
“Local vaqueros,” Monte said. “That is a cantina where they hang out.”
“Are they bandits?”
“Oh, maybe they ride with them—sometimes.”
“We near the Cockroach’s place?”
Monte shook his head.
“How much farther?”
“Tomorrow.”
Slocum looked hard at the man’s back. He still might need to kill him. If Monte doubted that Slocum would kill him, he better think twice. And what would Nada find in this place? She acted like she could learn something here that would help him.
The pole corrals were stout enough to hold their horses. The short, thickset, ugly man who said he owned the place asked them for twenty cents apiece to board their horses and feed them the good stuff. Slocum paid him after the man showed him a sample of the sweet-smelling hay.
When the two horses were unsaddled and put in the small pen allotted to them, Monte looked around. “Where is your puta? When do we eat?”
“It’s still early.” Slocum unrolled his bedroll and spread it out. “If she doesn’t come back soon, I’ll buy you something from a vendor.”
“Why bring her along if she won’t cook?”
“She makes good scenery,” Slocum said, not interested in listening to the man bitching about her.
“She only wants part of the reward. That is the only damn reason she came along.”
“Maybe,” Slocum said, ready to put his hat over his face to take a siesta. “You going to guard the place?”
“I guess, if you’re going to sleep.”
“I’m going to do that.” He rolled over onto his side, gave up on the hat and closed his eyes. Before he fell asleep, he envisioned Nada’s compact body—nice.
When he awoke, she still wasn’t back. He sat up and saw his guide with his back to a pine tree about half asleep.
“No problems?”
“We don’t have a cook yet.”
“I told you what I’d do.”
“Why waste money? You brought her. She’s a lazy bitch and will use you anyway to get out of work.”
“Whatever.” Slocum scrubbed his beard-stubbled face with his callused palms. Monte was sure pissed about having Nada along. No matter. He trusted her a lot more than he did Monte. Maybe she would find some information he could use.
The sun dipped to touch the western horizon, and Nada arrived with two bottles of red wine and a poke full of burritos. She handed Monte one bottle of wine and two burritos wrapped in fire-flecked flour tortillas. Then she went over and sat cross-legged on the ground beside Slocum.
He opened the wine bottle and offered her a drink. With a shake of her head, she looked across at Monte. “She isn’t there any longer.”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?” Monte demanded.
“The hacienda woman you two came after.”
“How do you know?”
“They moved her today.”
“Where to?”
“You are the guide. Figure it out.” She took the bottle from Slocum and then sat it on her leg and held it by the neck while she argued with Monte.
“Bitch! You don’t know shit about where she is or was.”
After a deep swig, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I know more than you do about her.”
“Hold up,” Slocum said. “First, lower your voices. Everyone in this village doesn’t need to hear about our business. Second, Monte, tell me where you think she is.”
“She is at a ranchero near here.”
Nada shook her head. “No. She’s not at the Sancho Ranchero.”
“Where is she then?”
“The Cockroach moved her this morning.”
“How do you know?”
“One of his men got drunk last night and told a working girl that he was taking the woman to his boss’s place—this morning.”
“Ha. You don’t even know this boss’s name. See, she has this cock-and-bull story. . . .”
“His name was Reynaldo.” Her cold words made Monte stop and swallow.
“Who’s he?” Slocum asked.
“Reynaldo DeVaca. He is the meanest man in this country.” She shook her head. “He kills people like they were flies.”
“We agree on one thing. DeVaca is a madman.” Monte took more wine from the neck.
Slocum shook his head. He could not allow Martina to be in this DeVaca’s hands for long, no matter if he was under another man’s orders. Cruelty festered out of some men regardless of the control others had over them.
“What shall we do?” she asked.
“Either of you know where his main hideout is?”
Monte shook his head. “I only knew about this ranchero where they held her.”
“Liar!” she spit out. “You don’t want to remember. They told you if you ever came back they would slit your bag, jerk out your balls and stick your leg through the sac.”
“Shut your mouth, bitch.”
Slocum scowled at him in disbelief. “You’ve been to his hideout?”
“I’m not going back there. Not for any money. Not even five hundred pesos.”
“Draw me a map.”
Monte had dropped his head down in despair as the darkness grew deeper around them. “If those bastards ever learned I even drew it, they would find me and kill me.”
“See, I told you he was a coward.” Nada pointed her finger at him in disgust.
Slocum chewed on his burrito and merely nodded in reply. They had been so close, and now to discover that she’d been moved. Damn, he hated that more than anything. So close and then so far again. What should he do next?
“Why did you come?” Monte demanded of her. “Just to ruin me? Just to ruin my chances of making some money?”
Her mouth full of beans and tortillas, she shook her head at him until at last she could speak, “He would not have paid you for an empty casa.”
“Stop arguing.” Slocum silenced both of them. “Does this DeVaca live on the ranchero where they held Señora McCarty?”
“I don’t know,” Nada said.
Monte moved closer to them. “No, it belongs to the Sancho family. They live in the federal district, and the crew of vaqueros works for a close amigo of the Cockroach.”
“What’s his name?”
“Ulysses.”
“Maybe he will tell us where they took Señora McCarty.”
“No, he is a tough hombre, and he has a dozen men.” Monte took a drink from his bottle. “They are all ruthless killers.”
“So?” Slocum could not believe what they were arguing about. Every bandit south of the border and most of them north would kill at the drop of a hat. His concern was not being killed but how to regain Martina from them.
“In the morning we are going to this Sancho Ranchero and see what we can learn. Now that’s settled.”
Damn, he hated arguments.