“No way to do it, considering they farmers,” Bo Catlett said. “They ever see more than three coming they got to get out…Maybe try draw them up in the woods.”
Moon shook his head. “Armando told them, don't leave your homes. Something about leaving your honor on the doorstep when you flee.”
“I'm not talking about they should flee,” Bo Catlett said. “But they start shooting from the house, that's where they gonna die. They don't have enough people in one place. Like you-” Bo Catlett looked at the map. “Where you at here?”
Moon pointed to the square on the Eastern slope, the closest one to the wavy line indicating the San Pedro River.
“You no better off'n they are,” Bot Catlett said, “all by yourself there.”
“I got open ground in front of me and high rock behind,” Moon said, “with Red and some of his people right here, watching my back door. Nobody gets close without my knowing. So…around here, both sides of the crest, the Apache rancherías. Red, that's you right there. Coming south a bit, these circles are the horse pastures…Here's the canyon, Bo, where you got your settlement.”
“Niggerville,” Bo Catlett said. “Some day they put railroad tracks up there, you can bet money we be on the wrong side.”
“Here's the box canyon,” Moon continued, “where you gather your mustangs. I'm thinking we might do something with that blind alley. You follow me?”
“Invite 'em in,” Bo Catlett said, “and close the door.”
“It'd be a way, wouldn't it? If they come up to Niggerville and you pull back, draw 'em into the box.”
“If they dumb enough, think I'm a black lead mare,” Bo Catlett said.
“We'll find out,” Moon said. “Red's gonna be our eyes, huh, Red? los ojos.” And said in Spanish, “The eyes of the mountain people.”
The Apache nodded and said, also in Spanish, “It's been a long time since we used them.”
Moon said, “Him and a bunch were gonna summer up at Whiteriver, visit some of their people, but Red's staying now for the war. That's what they call it in town, the Rincon Mountain War.”
Bo Catlett seemed to be thinking about the name, trying it a few times in his mind. “We got any say in it?”
“We're still around when the smoke clears,” Moon said, “I guess we can call it anything we want.”
1
Phil Sundeen looked at the notice with the big word “WARNING” at the top like it was a birthday present he had always wanted. He read it slowly, came down to Armando's name at the bottom, said, “That's the one I want,” and sent Ruben Vega out on a scout, see if the notices were “for true.”
That Monday morning Ruben Vega rode a fifteen-mile loop through the west foothills, spotting the little adobes tucked away up on the slopes; seeing the planted fields, young corn not quite belly-high to his horse; seeing the notices stuck to saguaro and white oak and three times drawing rifle fire-Ruben Vega squinting up at the high rocks as the reports faded, then shaking his head and continuing on.
He made his way up through a mesquite thicket that followed the course of a draw to a point where he could study one of the videttes crouched high in the rocks, sky-lined for all to see, a young man in white with an old single-shot Springfield, defending his land. Ruben Vega, dismounted, circled behind the vidette to within forty feet and called out, “Dígame!”
The young man in white came around, saw the bearded man holding a revolver and fired his Springfield too quickly, without taking time to aim.
Ruben Vega raised his revolver. “Tell me where I can find Armando Duro.”
Thirty dollars a week to frighten this young farmer and others like him. It was a pity. Ruben Vega said to the man, who was terrified but trying to act brave, he only wanted to speak to Armando Duro and needed directions to his house. That was all. He nodded, listening to the young farmer, holstered his gun and left.
Yes, he told Sundeen, the notices were “for real.”
“They shoot at you?”
“They don't know what they're doing.”
“I know that,” Sundeen said. “I want to know if they're good for their word.” When Ruben Vega told him yes, they had fired, though not to hit him, Sundeen said, “All right, let's go.”
He paraded out his security force: his prison guards, railroad bulls and strikebreakers; most of whom wore city clothes and looked like workingmen on Sunday, not one under thirty years of age, Ruben Vega noticed. Very hard men with big fists, bellies full of beer and whiskey from their first weekend in town, armed with Winchester repeaters and revolvers stuck in their belts. Sixteen of them: two had quit by Monday saying it was too hot and dusty, the hell with it. One was dead of knife wounds and the one who had killed him was in jail. Ruben Vega knew he would never be their segundo, because these men would never do what a Mexican told them. But that was all right. They could take orders directly from Sundeen. Ruben Vega would scout for them, stay out of their way and draw his thirty dollars a week-the most he had ever made in his life-which would make these men even uglier if they were. But he didn't like this work. From the beginning he had not liked it at all.
He didn't like Sundeen waving off the few news reporters-one of them the young one who had been with Early-who had hired horses and wanted to follow. He didn't like it because it surprised him-Sundeen not wanting them along to write about him.
He asked, “Why not bring them?”
“Not this trip,” Sundeen said. “Get up there and show us the way, partner.”
Ruben Vega followed his orders and rode point, guiding Sundeen and his security force up into the hills where the WARNING notices were nailed to the saguaro and white oak. There. Now Sundeen could do what he wanted.
Looking over his crew of bulls and headbusters sweating in their Sunday suits, the crew squinting up at the high rock formations, Sundeen said, “Who wants to do the honors, chase their pickets off that high ground? I'd say there's no more'n likely two of'em up there-couple of bean farmers couldn't hit shit if they stuck their weapons up their ass. How about you, you and you?” And said to the others, “Get ready now.”
More than two, Ruben Vega thought, because they know we're coming to see Armando. Maybe all the guns they have are up there now. Guarding the pass to the man's house. Ruben Vega nudged his mount up next to Sundeen's.
“They'll have plenty guns up there,” he said quietly.
Sundeen turned in his saddle to look at him and smiled as he spoke, as though he was talking about something else. “We don't know till we see, partner. Till we draw fire, huh?” Then to the three he had picked: “Go on up past the signs.”
Another show to watch, Ruben Vega thought, seeing the three men moving their horses at a walk up through the ocotillo and yellow-flowering prickly pear, reaching the sign nailed to a saguaro…moving past the cactus…twenty feet perhaps, thirty, when the gunfire poured out of the rocks a hundred yards away: ten, a dozen rifles, Ruben Vega estimated, fired on the count, but the eruption of sound coming raggedly with puffs of smoke and followed by three single shots that chased the two riders still mounted, both of them bent low in their saddles and circling back. One man in his Sunday suit lay on the ground, out there alone now, his riderless horse running free. The one on the ground didn't move. Sundeen was yelling at his security force to commence firing. Then yelled at them to spread out as their horses began to shy and bump each other with the rifles going off close. “Spread out and rush 'em!” Sundeen yelled, pointing and then circling around to make sure they were all moving forward…Ruben Vega watching, wondering if Sundeen knew what he was doing…Sundeen pausing then as his men charged up the slope firing away…Ruben Vega impressed now that these dressed-up shitkickers would do what they were told and expose themselves to fire. Sundeen hung back, grinning as he looked over at Ruben Vega now sitting motionless in his saddle.