9
An armed man cracked open the gate for them. In the shadowy light, his face opened as he recognized Slocum. “Donna said you’d be returning tonight.”
“Thanks. Is my amigo Don Carlos back yet?” Slocum asked.
“No, and I think she is upset that he is not here. She is awake in the house.”
“Gracias.”
“She must have been expecting him,” Nada said, close at his side as they moved along the walkway in the light of a few Chinese lamps.
“We’ll ask her,” he said under his breath to her.
She agreed with a nod and went inside the house with him.
“You are still up?” Slocum asked when Donna sprang from the chair.
She swept her salt-and-pepper hair back from her face. “I must have fallen asleep. Did you learn anything?”
“Oh, bits and pieces. You are concerned about Don Carlos?”
She made a peeved face. “Oh, I always worry about something. But he usually rides in when he tells me he will. Sometimes a day later.” She made a face that showed she understood about the distractions there were for men and continued, “He was due here twenty-four hours ago. I said nothing because, like I said, he can be detained.”
“Where did he go?”
“To check on some mining operations is all he said.”
“He has several of those?”
“Yes, and some partnerships as well.”
“If I went looking for him, where would I start?”
For a second, a flush of concern crossed her face. “Oh, he might get angry with me if I sent you up there.”
“I can save you that. Let me catch a few hours’ sleep, and then I’ll ride up there and see about him.”
She chewed on her lower lip and at last agreed.
“Get me up in four hours and I’ll go see if I can find him.”
“Sí. I really am concerned.”
He hugged her shoulder. “I’ll find him.”
“Over breakfast I will have Chavez tell you where we think he went.”
“That would help. Get some sleep.”
He knew she wouldn’t, but it sounded good anyway. With Nada under his arm, Slocum headed for their room. When the door was closed behind them, she stood on her toes. “Gracias for taking me with you tonight. I wish I could be more help to you.”
He hung up his holster on a hat tree, watching her unbutton her dress before him in the flickering light. She let her dress fall to the floor, and then she stepped over it to hug him. “You be careful.”
He kissed her, toeing off his boots. “You are hard company to leave. But stay here at the casa and be careful. They could find out you are with me and might think you know something.”
“I will be here. Do you have time for us?”
His pants off, he swept her up. “Of course.” He dropped her on the feather bed, then shed his hat and shirt. “I always have time for you.”
“Ah, hombre, you are the one.” She scooted the covers out from under her back and kicked them to the foot of the bed, holding out her arms for him to mount her.
“I need nothing but you in me,” she whispered. “That is like lightning to me.”
He saddled himself in on top of her and found that she was ready. The gates were already lubricated for him, and she raised her butt off the bed to accept all of him. Her arms wrapped around him, and she squeezed him inside and out.
“Oh, oh, my hombre, you are too good to be real. . . .”
Slocum was locked in sleep when someone knocked on the door a few hours later. He rose, still fuzzy-headed, to sit on the edge of the bed, and Nada tackled him from behind. “I am coming to have breakfast with you.”
“Good. It might brighten my day.”
“Oh, I could do that.”
“Sorry. Don’t have time.” His pulled on his pants and his boots.
She laughed. “I know, I know.”
“You stay right here. This is a safe place.”
“Oh, I will. I will.”
“Good.”
“I know you have been thinking about this one they call La Cucaracha. Who is he?”
“Kind of like smoke, ain’t he?”
“No one talks about him either.”
Slocum agreed. It had him puzzled. Most Mexican chiefs of movements and armies were very apparent. This one was unseen, and they kept it that way by killing anyone who spoke out about him, or even asked.
Slocum and Nada hurried through the hallways to breakfast. Donna was standing there prim and proper, just as he expected. She had never slept a wink.
“This is Chavez,” Donna said. “He can tell you where we think Don Carlos went.”
“I can ride with you, señor,” said the man, who looked to be in his forties.
“No, this place must be secure first. I can find Don Carlos, unless the earth swallowed him.”
Chavez nodded and blew on his coffee. “He was to go to the Ruby Mine first and see about some problems they are having with timbers.”
“I know that mine.”
“Then he mentioned the mine in Oro Canyon.”
“He having trouble there?”
Chavez shrugged. “Have you been to that mine?”
Slocum nodded his thanks to the girl who brought his heaping plate of breakfast. “No, but I have been to Oro Canyon.”
“From this direction, after you get to Oro Canyon it’s in on the right about halfway to the trailhead that goes out of the Madres.”
“The one they use for hauling ore-loaded mule trains to Silver City, New Mexico.”
“Sí, you can’t miss it.”
“Gracias,” Slocum said and began eating his breakfast.
“I have put some jerky, ground corn and brown sugar mix in your saddlebags, some raisins, extra matches, a slicker and a thin bedroll wrapped in canvas, a small axe. Is there anything else?”
“Canteens?”
“Two filled with water.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he managed between bites.
“I hope he comes in today,” Donna said.
“So do I. Chavez, tell me what you know about this outlaw, the Cockroach.”
“I hear a few things.” The man shook his head. “But I don’t know who he is. Maybe he is two or three men.”
“Whoa. You think he’s more than one person?”
Chavez turned up his callused palms. “I have wondered about it.”
Slocum turned to Nada. “What do you think?”
“Makes good sense, huh?”
“Yes, why didn’t I think about that before?”
She shrugged and grinned. “You had not got that far.”
They all laughed.
The Ruby Mine was four hours or more away. When he left the village under the stars, Slocum made certain no one was following him by reining off the road and waiting in a turpentine-smelling grove of pines for fifteen minutes or so. Then, satisfied no one was trailing him, he trotted the bald-faced horse to the north. Out of nowhere, Angela’s abrupt departure and McCarty’s three ranch hands waiting at St. Francis came to his mind. There still were some days left before he had promised to get back to them. Perhaps they had learned something more about this Cockroach.
The Ruby Mine took its name from the man who first discovered the gold vein. Don Carlos came in as an investor, and Ruby made enough money to sell out and go live in Veracruz with some putas in a fancy castle. But Ruby’s transition to a settled life had been a little bumpy. He’d lived too long on the wild Mexican frontier to really become a part of that rich society. Besides publicly scratching his crotch when it itched, he’d once whipped his dong out to show some very fancy ladies what they were missing by not having an affair with him. One was the wife of a very high official in the government. She had fainted at the sight of his huge dick, then, behind her husband’s back, started calling her husband “Little Peter.” But last Slocum heard of him, Ruby threw his own parties and the fancy folk avoided them.
Slocum spoke to the mine superintendent, a man called Vincennes, who told him that Don Carlos had ridden on to the Oro Canyon operation two days earlier. After thanking him, Slocum headed out. Oro Canyon was a good ways farther up the road, but he pushed on and arrived at the front gate in the middle of the night. A sleepy guard with a rifle refused him entrance and told him to come back when the mine was open.
Slocum swung around on Baldy and headed back south. After a quarter mile, he turned off the road and hobbled his mountain horse out of sight, then made his way around back under the stars and came in on the small buildings that were the offices for the mine. He tried the back door of the main office and discovered that it was unlocked. In the starlight coming through a front window, he saw three people bound and gagged on the floor.
“Don’t make a sound,” Slocum whispered, using his jackknife to cut the woman loose first.
“Oh, I am so glad you found us,” she whispered hoarsely as she shook the rest of the ropes loose.
“What happened here?” he asked, busily cutting the bindings on the second person, a young man.
“Several men took over the mine four days ago. They began to load two pack trains of mules with rich ore over the last two days, and today they set out with it.”
“Gracias, señor,” the young man said.
“How long have you been tied?” Slocum asked.
“A day anyway,” the young man said, heading for the door.
Slocum jumped up and caught him. “You can’t go out there. Where are you headed?”
“I’ve got to piss!”
“Piss in the corner over there. She won’t look.” Slocum looked at the woman for a confirming nod, then continued, “There’re still damn guards they left here.”
The third man, after he was untied and the gag was taken from his mouth, looked obviously shaken in the poor light. He bore a wound where someone had hit him on the forehead—possibly with a piece of pipe or a gun barrel—and the blood had dried on his face.
“Where is Don Carlos?”
“I think at my casa,” said the older man, who was apparently the mine boss.
“Keep your voices down.”
The older man agreed and then shook his head as if all was lost. “To be sure, they are already over the pass with those mules and gold. It’s too late to stop them.”
“Lead the way to the house. We must find Don Carlos first before we worry about that the ore. Do either of you have a gun?” he asked the younger man and the woman.
“There is one in the desk drawer,” the woman said. “It is loaded. I don’t think they took it.”
Slocum told the younger man to get it. She went instead.
“Can you use a gun?” Slocum asked the young man.
The man swallowed hard. “I am not sure.”
“I can,” the woman said.
“Good. Take out that guard down at the road. I don’t care if you shoot him or whatever. Then hide, so if there are more of them, they won’t find you.”
“Where are you going, señor?” the woman asked.
“Me and the boss are going to find Don Carlos. Alive or dead.”
“Oh, I hope he is all right.”
“I hope so too. Be quiet and take that guard out. Then you must hide like I said,” Slocum made clear to them.
“Sí,” they replied. Then the woman and the young man left the office and headed toward the gate.
Slocum and the older man headed for the casa. There was a light on inside the residence, and they stole up alongside the building. Slocum, with his .44 in his fist, got to a window and could see the bedraggled-looking Don Carlos tied up in a high-backed wooden chair. Thank God he was alive.
“Untie him,” Slocum told his companion and went to find the outlaws.
There was a pistol shot behind them from the direction of the gate, then another. Two men he had heard talking beyond the door jumped up and ran to the front door.
“Delo, what’s going on?” one of them shouted.
“Put your hands in the air or die!” Slocum ordered, slipping into the room behind them.
The second man spun and took a shot at Slocum, but too late. Slocum’s shot caught him with a lead bullet in the face. The other man tried to charge back into the house, but his falling buddy blocked the doorway. Slocum rushed over to cover them.
Slocum jammed the muzzle of his Colt to the man’s temple. “I’m counting to three, then I shoot you. Tell me who you are, who you work for and where the others are at. One—”
“Ricky Carmella. Ricky Carmella. My boss is—my boss is Andrew, and he is gone with the mules.”
Slocum ripped the man’s gun away and then looked up at Don Carlos, who was taking ropes off his hands as he stood in the doorway.
“Ah, amigo,” said Don Carlos. “Why did it take you so long to get here?”
They hugged each other.
“I came as soon as I thought you had finished your business with some sweet thing and needed to be back at your casa.”
“Soon enough. Soon enough.” Don Carlos dropped his chin, and at the sound of the woman’s voice, his head flew up. “Clara?”
“That guard bastard down there won’t rape anyone ever again.” She rushed over and hugged her boss. “You are all right?”
“I’m fine, my darling. Give me that gun,” Don Carlos said, holding her tight. “You may shoot one of us waving it around like that.”
She handed him the revolver.
“Where are the other men?” the older man asked, looking around.
“Locked in the mine,” Don Carlos said.
“Where are the women and children?” Clara asked.
“They put all the families in the warehouse,” Don Carlos said to her and his mine superintendent. “Ralph, have you met my amigo, Slocum?”
“Yes, he untied us.”
Slocum shook Ralph’s hand.
“How did you ever take them on by yourself?” Ralph asked.
Slocum shook his head. “They were down to three guards, who were obviously buying them time for the pack trains to get out of the valley.”
“How far away are they? Do you think they have gotten away with the ore?” Don Carlos asked.
“Somewhere between here and the pass up north would be my guess,” Slocum said.
“No way to stop them.” Don Carlos dropped his chin in defeat.
“Do you have some tough men working for you?” Slocum asked.
“Yes, but—”
“Go get them out of the mine. Are there any horses or mules to ride?”
“Sure, but—”
“We need them. We’ll need saddles and guns.” Slocum’s mind was rolling out the things that he needed to make up an army.
“The guns are in the supply room,” Don Carlos said. “There’s ammo too.”
The young man, no doubt an accountant who couldn’t shoot, came over with an inventory book. “What all do you need, señor?”
“Blasting powder, blasting sticks, detonating caps—let me see. I’ll need some bows and arrows.”
The man dropped the book down against his legs. “We have none of them.”
“These mountain people work in your mine?”
“Sí.”
“They will know all about them. They’ll find some.” Slocum thanked him.
Inside of an hour, Slocum had assembled a dozen good riders, men who could ride and shoot. They carried saddlebags loaded with blasting sticks. Two of them had made crude bows and short arrows.
Outside the ring of lamps, Slocum spoke with a man Don Carlos introduced as Indio, a hard-faced man with lots of Indian blood in his veins.
“Can we take another route and cut them off at the pass?” Slocum asked him.
“Sí, señor, but it is a difficult and dangerous path, and not all of us who take that trail at night will live, I fear.”
“Tell the men of the danger. I want six to go and try to head them off. Tell them how hard and bad the ride will be before you ask for volunteers. You must cut them off from the pass and send them back to us. Shoot blasting sticks at them. Kill anyone who does not turn back. I figure they will be up there at the pass near dawn.”
In his deep, rusty voice, Indio said, “All right, I know the men I need. They will follow me. They hate these men for raping their daughters and wives when they were here loading the mules.”
Slocum nodded his approval. “They deserve to die.”
“They will,” Indio promised him.
“We will come up the trail from behind them and cut off any retreat.”
“Vaya con Dios,” the man said.
Slocum agreed and sent the man on his way. “You wish to wait here?” he asked Don Carlos.
“Hell, no. I want all those bastards killed and I want to help do it.”
“Get a horse for both of us then. Mine is tired.”
“Ralph! Two good horses,” Don Carlos shouted and waved his arms as though to bring on an army.
Two stout horses soon appeared. Don Carlos called them to come over, then he turned to Slocum. “Why are you here?”
“A bandit called La Cucaracha attacked my friend McCarty’s hacienda and kidnapped his wife, Martina. McCarty lost his arm and has two bullets in his back so I came up to find his wife. Someone said they had her at a place in Sierra Vista, but they had moved her when we got up there. You were late getting home, so I came to look for you. I will have to get back to looking for Martina and the Cockroach soon, though. Do you know anyone who has ever talked to or seen this one they call La Cucaracha?”
“I should have known you are doing good for people,” Don Carlos said and shook his head. “My God, this has been a nightmare.”
The man continued, “You can find no one who has seen La Cucaracha because he is a ghost.” He shook his head. “There is no Cockroach.”
“But they say he leads them.” Did Don Carlos really know?
“No, his men get his orders and they follow them. He is never there.”
Indio came by with his armed men all on horseback. He spoke in a strong voice. “Be ready, patrón. We will send them back to you.”
“God be with you, hombres,” Don Carlos shouted, and the crowd cheered as the men tore away in the night.
Slocum stepped up onto his horse. Don Carlos followed him, and they trailed Indio’s band up the road. Behind Slocum and his friend rode two dozen armed men ready to meet the wave of mule trains that he counted on Indio turning back. Only time would tell if the plan would work.
“We need to be at the base of the pass to catch them,” Don Carlos said as they rode side by side.
Slocum agreed. Dust was churned up by the horses’ and mules’ hooves. Slocum’s belly rubbed on empty. This was a desperate business. Some of the men were to take a deadly shortcut in the darkness. If Indio and his crew failed to turn the bandits back, there would be no recovery of the ore. The boiling dust stung Slocum’s eyes. Up ahead, Indio and his men soon took their leave from the main trail and disappeared into the night.
Slocum led the second column with Don Carlos. Since he was in the lead, the stirred-up dirt wasn’t as bad for him as for the men in back. They trotted their animals when the terrain let them. A jingle of metal, the protest of their saddles, mules and horses snorting out of their nostrils and men’s coughing filled the night. The dark junipers along the way looked like giant squat frogs. No moon overhead made their progress slower than Slocum would have liked.
Hours later, he heard a mule up ahead braying away and halted the column. “Keep our mules quiet,” Slocum ordered. Men jumped off to muzzle their animals, but not before several had brayed.
“What is it?” Don Carlos asked him.
“That may be them. They may have put off climbing the mountain till daylight,” Slocum said. “Everyone get your guns. Tie your animals good or we may have to walk back.”
“I can hear them,” Don Carlos said. “There are many mules up there.”
“You’re right—”
Shots rang out in the night, and Don Carlos was struck by one. Slocum ran over in time to cushion his fall off the horse. Another miner rushed in to help him, and they carried Don Carlos to cover. Bullets whizzed all around like angry hornets.
“They may try to charge us. Spread out and lay down some fire,” Slocum ordered. “How are you doing?” he asked his friend.
Don Carlos, his teeth clenched, managed, “Hurting like hell.”
“You have any liquor?” Slocum asked the man on Don Carlos’s other side, who was using a folded sleeve torn off his own shirt to press on the wound.
The man shouted over his shoulder for some liquor. The miners’ bullets were taking effect on the bandits. Wounded men and mules were screaming in the night. A man running low to reach them delivered a bottle to Slocum.
He raised Don Carlos’s head and the other man, Ramon, fed him some of the liquor, mescal or tequila, probably. The pack train bandits had stopped shooting, and Slocum felt they were either about to run away up the mountain or charge back through them.
“Amigos,” he shouted “be ready! They may try to break through us.”
The thunder of hooves told him he had correctly guessed their plan.
Anger must have powered them. The miners rushed to block any opening and fired the repeating rifles from the mine armory in a constant barrage. Horses, mules and riders went down. When their magazines were empty, the miners, armed with knives or their bare hands, tore the bandits from their mounts to stab or beat them to death.
“Any get by?” Slocum shouted over their war cries.
“One or two got by us,” one man responded.
“Three or four of you head back for the mine so they don’t harm anyone there.”
“There are three of us who have guns and animals to ride,” a man shouted. “We will take care of the mine and the families.”
“Be careful. They’re butchers,” Slocum shouted back. “How many of our men are wounded?” he asked the first man who brought a lighted torch.
“Not many,” the young man said.
“Good. Bring those who can be moved over here—carefully.”
Shortly, several of the men began collecting loose horses and mules.
Four men who had been wounded lay beside Don Carlos, some of whom were only slightly injured and would be able to ride back under their own power. Things were shaping up. Several mules with packs still on them were being gathered. Two dead miners were located, and their bodies were brought to Slocum’s command post.
“We need some long poles to make ambulances between two horses or mules to transport Don Carlos and the other badly wounded men back to Sierra Vista.”
“Hell, I can ride a horse,” Don Carlos protested.
“No, you can’t,” Slocum said, loud enough that all the men nearby heard him. Others tending the wounded nodded their approval of his observation of their patrón’s condition.
“There is a corral down the road,” a young man said. “It has some good rails in it.”
“Borrow them. We can pay back the owner later.”
The man took some others and they raced off to get the rails.
“I’m not a baby,” Don Carlos protested.
“No, but it is important that you live,” Slocum said.
“Seven wounded outlaws,” a gray-haired man with a rifle reported, driving his wards into Slocum’s central command area.
“Find out about their boss. Who they work for.”
“What if they won’t tell me? They’re being pretty closemouthed.”
A big, burly man from the mine stepped up, armed with a machete. “Which one won’t talk to you?”
“Him, for one.”
The knife-wielding man put the sharp edge of his instrument to the man’s chest. “How many fingers do you have?”
“Ten.”
“No, now you will have nine. Put your hand on that log.”
Bug-eyed, the outlaw shrank back. “What do you need to know?”
The big man gave a head toss to the interrogator. “Ask him before I chop his whole hand off.”
“Who do you work for?”
A silence spread over everyone. Except for the raucous braying of some mules, the valley was shrouded in quiet.
The man barely managed to say, “La Cucaracha.”
Slocum pointed at him. “Who is he? Tell us who he is!”
The man shook his head and shouted out loud, “I don’t know! I never met him.”
With two hands on the machete handle, the big man slashed off the outlaw’s left ear alongside his face and the blood flowed freely. “No more lies! Tell us.”
“Mother of God!” the gang member screamed, holding the side of his head with his hand. “You have killed me. I have never seen him. Only the big bosses see him.”
Don Carlos, lying on a blanket, nodded at the stone-faced Slocum standing above him. “See? It is as I told you.”
No one had seen him—yet he led many gangs.
Unbelievable.