Then, less than an hour on, he saw how the hoofprints he’d been following led up the now-much-lower western wall of the wash. So he reined in, swapped saddles and packs again, and rode the mule up into the blazing rays of the setting sun.
It felt as if he was riding into an open fireplace, as late in the day as it was. He had to stare down to one side to make out the hoofprints the others had left in the caliche, etched almost black against salmon pink by the low sun.
They led him, just around sundown, back to that same desert trail, or one just like it, leading south from Sonoyta instead of towards such a nosy border town. Better yet, there were lots of other hoofprints headed both ways. It figured to be the main post road from the border town to the coast town of Puerto Periasco.
Longarm muttered, “Mighty slick!” as he reined south to follow, not the sign he could no longer read, but the road that had to lead much the same way. It was not only possible but likely the fugitives would part company with this well-beaten track before it led them past curious eyes on the main streets of Puerto Periasco. But there was no better place to catch a steamboat bound for the far horizon than the only seaport for many a dreary mile. The desert came right down to the sea, from the Colorado-Gila delta to the Rio Sonora to the distant south, and they were as good as caught if they tarried all that long in any part of Mexico. For los rurales could read, and there was a lot of bounty money posted for Harmony Drake.
As he rode at a trot in the gathering dusk, Longarm tried not to think about the Mexican reward posters offering handsome bounties on El Brazo Largo, muerto o vivo.
Which translated fairly tightly as “Longarm, dead or alive.”
Chapter 7
A couple of dark hours down the road, Longarm topped a rise to see lamplight ahead. A lot of lamplight ahead. Someone had lit up the front of a wayside ‘dobe structure as if they’d been expecting company.
Longarm wasn’t sure of his own reception. So he rode the sorrel and led the mule off to one side through the cactus and brush until he figured he’d be out of range of all that lamplight as he circled in for a look-see.
It only took a few minutes. Longarm tethered his stock and moved in afoot with the Big Fifty at port. Standing close to a far taller clump of organpipe, he could make out an anxious-looking older Mexican in the open doorway across the road. Sun-faded blue lettering across the buff adobe above the door and windows proclaimed the place to be afonda por coches or stagecoach stop. Longarm hadn’t known there was a coach line from Sonyata down to that steamboat line on the Sea of Cortez, but it made sense.
He decided it made more than sense as he slipped back to where he’d tethered his now sincerely jaded riding stock. The fondero in that doorway was obviously expecting a night coach to Puerto Periasco. His relay fonds was about ten or twelve miles south of the border. A stagecoach was called a stagecoach because it changed team in stages, every hour or so, which was about as far as one could drive a team at a steady trot. So even though it seemed to be running late, the Mexican stage from Sonoyta was likely to overtake anyone just riding along on one weary mount, or hell, beat the fugitives into Sonoyta with time to spare and pocket jingle to buy some serious side arms and get set to greet their arrival from a chosen vantage point!
Longarm knew the fleeing felons hadn’t jumped the border near a rurale post to buy passage south aboard a faster stagecoach. He had no desire to alarm the already worried Mexican more than he had to either. So he worked his way back to the road and rode in at a walk, singing “La Paloma” off key to let everyone know he wasn’t sneaking up on them.
The older Mexican in white cotton, but with boots befitting his social station, stepped out into the road as Longarm approached. As Longarm rode into the lamplight, the fondero indicated he’d noticed Longarm’s accent by calling out, “Buenoches, Senor. Have you see anything of the mail coach from Sonoyta? Was supposed to be here by this time, and is not good for to leave the relay team harnessed so long before they have a load for to pull, eh?”
Longarm reined in as he replied, “I haven’t seen anyone on this road south of the border but myself.” Which was the simple truth, as soon as you studied on it.
Getting no argument about that, he continued. “I was hoping I might still be able to board that night coach. I can’t understand it, but this stock I’ve only ridden a short way seems about to founder under me and I have a steamboat to meet in Puerto Periasco!” The fondero said, “We can board your stock and give you a faster ride, if that fregado coach ever gets here. Come inside for to drink with me in a more civilized position. I will have my muchachos take care of your jaded riding stock and we shall see what we shall see.”
Longarm allowed that was the best offer he’d had since sundown, and the two of them were soon seated at one of the blue wooden tables inside, being served pulque in earthenware mugs by a pleasantly plump cantina gal who liked to feel cool above the nipples, judging from the way she wore her pleated cotton blouse.
Pulque tasted better when a man was really dry, which might have been why the slightly slimy home brew was more popular south of the border. Longarm was thirsty enough to have enjoyed his own spit if he’d had more to spare. So he meant it when he told them both it was really swell pulque.
The older fondero rattled off some orders in rapid-fire Spanish to the gal, who dimpled at Longarm and headed back to see that the other help carried them out. Longarm kept his face blank, lest they savvy how well he savvied their lingo. So far, nobody seemed to be plotting against him or his four-footed traveling companions.
The older man opined there might not be any coach at all coming down the road that night. He explained how Los Yanquis Negros had brushed with Victorio at a place called Los Manantiales de Culebra de Cascabel and chased him across the border into Chihuahua.
Longarm frowned thoughtfully and mused half to himself, “If Black Yankees signifies the 10th Cav down from Fort Sill, which it ought to, and if they just chased four hundred Bronco Apache across the Tex-Mex border into Chihuahua from a part of the states we’re more likely to call Rattlesnake Springs, I’m stuck. How would Indian fighting so far to the east have any bearing on whether you’d be expecting a night coach to Pueto Periasco or not?”
The fondero explained, “Our own army garrison here in Sonora is on the way to join other federales in Chihuahua. You were so right when you said that diablo grosero has many riders following him!”
Longarm finished his pulque and, not wanting more, got out two cheroots as he quietly repeated his observation that any number of Apache on the far side of the Sierra Madres were hardly likely to stop any stagecoaches over this way.
The fondero again explained. “Apache are not the problem. Banditos are the problem. Since all this trouble to the east has drawn so many of our soldiers and mounted police away, the segunderos de la calle who seldom show their dirty faces have grown bolder. There has been much stealing of cows, and even horses, this summer. They say that the big gang led by El Gato Notorio has been seen on our side of the Sierra Madre!”
Longarm lit the older man’s smoke for him as he said without too much thought that he’d heard El Gato was more a rebel than a bandit.
He regretted saying it when the older man rose to his feet with a remark about late coaches and stomped out the back way to see how his boys were doing with the stock. It was easy to forget how divided opinion could be about El Presidente Porfirio Diaz down this way. The smooth-talking but murderous mestizo had stolen the liberation movement of Juarez according to some, while others opined that the one-time top general of the late Benito Juarez had now given Mexico the law, order, and stable government it needed.