Then the baker’s dozen of bare-headed and cotton-shined riders had passed by, without a glance in his direction, as the moon shone brightly on white stripes across dark faces framed by long hair bound with rolled cloth. As they jingled off into the darkness he murmured, “Jesus H. Christ, those Quill Indians seem to be headed for town! So how do we get there ahead of ‘em to raise the alarm?”
The pony didn’t answer. Longarm wasn’t sure he could have either. Cutting cross-country by moonlight, over busted-up range he didn’t know, would be risky riding slow. Those painted Jicarilla had been following the trail at a lope. But hold on. Could no more than thirteen of anything hope to raid a whole town on the prod with all that Apache talk in the air?
He led the pony back to the trail afoot. “They have to be headed somewheres else. In a hurry, seeing they missed us standing there like moonlit graveyard statuary. They could circle the town and be across the river and back on their reserve before sunrise. So that makes more sense.”
Then he remounted awkwardly, and rode on up the trail to the northeast as he muttered, “Might be interesting to see where they just came from.”
He naturally knew better than to ride into a canyon entrance in Apacheria. That could be a fatal move in calmer country. So a quarter mile out, as the range began to rise at a steeper angle, Longarm led the pony off to the other side of the trail, tethered it to lower but lessferocious greasewood, and gave it a hatful of canteen water before he put the wet Stetson back on his head and started legging it the rest of the way, saddle gun at port arms.
A mesa was called a mesa because that was the Spanish word for a table and the early Spanish explorers had noticed how many flat-topped hills they seemed to have in these parts. Most mesas grew that way because millions of rainstorms had carved away land that hadn’t been covered by a lava flow, an ancient lake bottom dried to dense mudrock, or whatever, leaving land that had once lain lower perched higher in the sky. The moonlit caprock of La Mesa de los Viejos was far higher than Longarm had time to climb. So he worked about a third of the way up the gentler slopes below the jagged rim of the flat top, and proceeded to mountain-goat around bends that swung into the canyon that the trail entered down below.
He found he was near the upper limits of easy sidewinding when one of his boot heels dislodged a fist-sized chunk of scree that, fortunately, fetched up in a clump of yucca instead of rattle-clanking all the way down the slope. So he eased down to where the footing felt surer and learned great minds often ran in the same channels when he rounded a bend to spot movement ahead and freeze in place.
He sank slowly down to one knee as he tried to decide what he was looking at, near the very limits of eyestrain in the moonlight. Then one of them stood up to stretch near that big moonlit boulder, and Longarm proceeded to crawfish backward, slow as hell for a white eyes who’d just spotted painted Apache!
He figured they’d been posted there because that boulder overlooked the trail below. He knew he was moving so slowly because you weren’t supposed to move at all near Jicarilla without getting spotted.
But his luck seemed to hold. It wasn’t always clear whether Indians had spotted you or not. Then he’d made it back down to the schoolmarm’s borrowed pony, and he’d run it over a mile before he reined in to pat its warm neck, saying soothingly, “I know. You had to have been up there with me to savvy why we left so fast. But let’s just set this rise and listen for a spell.”
They did, but all Longarm heard was the panting of his mount and the pounding of his own heart. So a million years later he decided they’d best get it on back to town.
He was tempted to lope the spunky mount some more. But he never did. He knew Trisha would have to answer for any needless wear and tear on a borrowed pet. So he trotted it down slopes and walked it up slopes as they made good enough time. They hadn’t gone near as far as he’d told Trisha they might. For while a lone lawman might or might not be able to sneak up on outlaws, he wasn’t about to try it on Quill Indians in canyon country without a cavalry column backing his play.
They soon saw the lights of Camino Viejo ahead of them, and by now the winded pony was breathing naturally and the dry night winds had blown most of that sweat away. He knew he could get by with just watering it before Trisha took it back if he walked it the rest of the way to cool it down easy. So he did, remembering that cautionary poem about mistreating borrowed horseflesh as they poked along. He recited it to the pony:
“I had a little pony, its name was Dapple Gray. I lent it to a lady, to ride upon one day. She whipped it and she lashed it, She rode it through the mire. I wouldn’t lend my pony, now, for anybody’s hire!”
When the pony he was riding didn’t seem to notice, he confided, “I’ve known gals who ride like that. I reckon it’s because they let us fool men worry about the rubdowns, whiplash wounds, and loose shoes. But we won’t be returning you too stove in, considering some of the other little ponies you met on the trail tonight!”
There was no other stock at that hour in the small corral out behind his hotel. But there was water in the trough along the north rails. So he tethered the saddled mare there for the moment, and snuck himself and his Winchester up the back stairs.
Trisha answered his second knock. As he stepped into the dark room she said she’d thought he was gone for the night. So she’d gone to bed. He could see she hadn’t wanted to wrinkle her underwear in the very short time it took him to strike a light, say he was sorry, and shake it out. She hadn’t seemed quite as blonde down yonder, but few men would have complained. Like a lot of gals who seemed a tad skinny with their duds on, Trisha Myers had a body that would have worked fine cast in plaster for one of those Greek goddess gals.
She stammered, “Shame on you! Or should I say shame on me? I’m all confounded and still half-asleep. What time is it and what did you find out, Custis?”
He rebolted the door and leaned his carbine against the wall, and tried to tell her it was time to get dressed so they could take that pony back. But she somehow sat him down beside her on the rumpled bedding. He said, “It ain’t midnight yet, but your schoolmarm chum may be asleep already. So with any luck we’ll be able to put her pony safe in its stall out back without disturbing her.”
Trisha moved his hand to her bare lap with both of hers as she demurely replied, “Never mind how disturbed Meg Campbell needs to feel right now! I’m so disturbed I’ve been feeling myself down here, and they say too much of that can make a girl go crazy or blind!”
Longarm put his other arm around her, and stretched them both across the mattress so he could finger her more friendly as they kissed. But when she took his hat off and commenced to fiddle with his gun rig he said, “What about that mare out back?”
To which Trisha replied, bumping and grinding, “Screw the silly pony. Let her get her own swain. Or better yet, screw me, for I’ve not had any since I first came up from Santa Fe last winter and I’m a naturally warm-natured woman, as you may not have noticed.”
As a matter of fact he hadn’t. But seeing a lady he’d mistaken for a mousy small-town waitress was slithering all over him while she flat out begged for it, he figured it wouldn’t hurt that pony to loiter in the moonlight out back for a few more minutes.
CHAPTER 13
The wise and doubtless French philosopher who’d said no human being is ever more sane than right after they’d enjoyed some good food and a satisfying screw had doubtless met up with someone like Trisha Myers in his travels. Because she’d no sooner come, begging for him to do it faster and swearing she’d kill him if he dared to stop before they were both old and gray, than she commenced to stew about what her friend, the schoolmarm, was going to say if they didn’t get her pony back to her before midnight.