Navarro stood and moved warily across the camp, sidling up to a scraggly pinion growing out of a sandy hump and peering into the arroyo. He didn’t have to speak very loud for his voice to carry in the hushed night. “Come on in.”
He waited, rifle extended from his hip. He saw Musselwhite’s silhouette in the trees to his left. Tixier had moved up to the arroyo, on the other side of Charlie. They all had a good shot of anyone coming in shooting, and out here, you never knew who you were going to run into.
The clip-clop of slow-moving horses rose to the left, coming from east along the arroyo. Two figures appeared, moving side by side—an average-sized gent in a tall hat and a short, squat man wearing a sombrero, with silver flashing along his saddle. They stopped within a few feet of Tixier and the taller man wearing the high hat said, “There any grass?”
“Down there,” Tixier said.
He, Musselwhite, and Navarro watched the men move westward along the arroyo, dismount, and stake their horses out with the Bar-V mounts and the pack mule. It took them fifteen minutes to unsaddle their horses and rub them down before they appeared out of the western shadows, approaching the camp with their saddles on their shoulders. Navarro and the others had waited, rifles at half-mast but hammers at half-cock.
“Sorry to trouble you, gents,” the taller man said as he and the shorter man wearing the sombrero approached Navarro.
“No trouble,” Navarro said mildly. He stepped to one side, so the two strangers could pass before him. “There’s coffee on the fire, and extra grub. What’s ours is yours.”
“Thank you, mighty kindly,” the taller one said as he and his friend stepped through the brush and headed for the fire tucked back in the hollow. He wasn’t that tall—well under six feet, but he was a good three or four inches taller than his partner wearing the sombrero, who still hadn’t said anything. Both wore six-shooters on their thighs, and walnut rifle stocks protruded from the scabbards they carried with their saddles.
“Cozy camp ye have here,” the taller one said conversationally as he tossed down his saddle and blanket roll. “We couldn’t even see your fire but from one little point on the ridge over this cut.”
“That was the idea,” Navarro said, moving back around the fire but keeping his eyes on the two new-comers. Both had stooped to arrange their gear, but they kept an eye skinned on Navarro and the others, who were drifting back to the fire.
By the guttering firelight, the Bar-V segundo studied each newcomer in turn. The taller man was just a kid, eighteen or nineteen, dressed in sloppy trail garb except for the expensive-looking top hat. He had a long face with dumb eyes and buck teeth making his clean upper lip bulge. His body was soft and fleshy, and he had the rounded hips and thick thighs of a heavy girl.
The shorter man was slightly older, a moon-faced Mex who grinned continuously and shyly while keeping his eyes lowered, occasionally glancing up from beneath a single black eyebrow.
He wasn’t much over five feet five, his large head sitting without benefit of neck on abnormally wide shoulders. His short arms were as thick as most thighs, his thighs as thick as most rain barrels. He didn’t look cunning enough to be a gunman, but he wore two silver-plated Smith & Wessons down low, in buscadero holsters. Both pearl-gripped revolvers shone through the sparely built holsters, glistening with oil.
“Yessiree, ye can’t be too careful out here,” the kid said, rummaging around in his saddlebags. “Say, you boys ain’t run into any Apache trouble, have you?” Producing two tin cups from the saddlebags, he turned to Navarro sitting on a rock across the fire.
“A little.” Tom leaned forward, picked up a scrap of thick cowhide, and used it to lift the speckled-black coffeepot from the flat rock in the fire. He extended the pot to the kid. “Joe?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” the kid said, extending a cup in either hand. When Navarro had filled both cups, the kid gave one to his Mexican friend sitting on his knees to the kid’s right. The Mexican knelt on his stubby thighs, eyes lowered, as though offering confession.
“Careful,” Navarro said. “It’s been on the fire awhile. If your friend there was to drop one of those fancy six-guns in it, why, I’d say it’d probably float.” He cut a quick glance at Tixier sitting on a deadfall to Navarro’s right. Returning his strained amiable smile to the kid and his silent companion, Navarro raised his own cup in a salute, and drank.
“Strong—that’s how we like it,” the kid said, lifting the cup to his lips. He blew ripples on the coffee and sipped. Making a face, he swallowed and shook his head, showing his buck teeth. “And whooo-eee, it sure is strong! Thanks for the warning. Appreciate it.”
Navarro glanced at Ward. The captain assumed his previous position to Navarro’s right, leaning back against his saddle, holding his cup in both hands as he watched the fire. He appeared to have gone back to his previous thoughts, as well, staring into the flames but no doubt seeing the Apaches who had ambushed him and his detail. He seemed no longer aware there were strangers in their midst.
The kid had followed Tom’s gaze to the soldier. “Hidy there, Cap. You is a cap, ain’t ye? I ain’t never served, but my old man, he was in the Army till I was ten, so I savvy the stripes and bars and such.”
Ward had turned to the kid slowly and only nodded, then lifted his cup to his lips and sipped. While Ward leaned toward the pot to refill his cup, Charlie Musselwhite said, “Your old man was in the service till you were ten? He musta got out—what?—five years ago?”
“Ah, I’m older’n that,” the kid said shyly. He blew on his coffee, sipped, and made another face. “Coffee like that, who needs firewater?”
Navarro decided to go ahead and fire off his question. It wasn’t polite, but there was something fishy about these two, and he didn’t care if he offended them. “Where you two headed—Cheatam and Gomez?”
Tixier flashed him a look over the blade he was again sharpening on the whetstone.
The kid regarded Navarro levelly, his eyes cool. He didn’t say anything for nearly a minute. Then he set his cup down and removed his opera hat from his sandy blond head. He played with the hat’s narrow brim. “We’re headed down Mejico way.” He let a little grin pull at the corners of his mouth.
“What’s down Mejico way?”
“Our employers.” The kid glanced at his buddy, the froggy, servile Gomez, then glanced around at the others. “We hunt Apache scalps and sell ’em down there, and then we go visit Tall’s sisters and cousins in Escorpion. It’s a town, in case you didn’t know—in a canyon a hundred miles into Mejico. They say there’s all kinds of spiders in there, and that’s where it got the name, but me, I been down there three, four times now, but I ain’t never seen a single one. But I seen plenty of Tall’s sisters and cousins. Muy bonita!” He chuckled and twirled his hat in the air, caught it one-handed.
Tixier said, “A lucrative business, hunting Apache scalps?”
“When they’re in season!” the kid piped, glancing again at his buddy, pleased with himself. Gomez knelt there, his coffee in his dark hands held low against his round belly, smiling at the ground before his knees. His teeth made a craggy white line below his black mustache, which drooped down around both sides of his mouth.
“Sounds dangerous,” Navarro said.
“No more than sport huntin’ wildcats,” Cheatam said. “Of course, we don’t work alone. We’re ridin’ to meet our bunch at Contention. Me and Gomez here—I call him Tall on account of his name is Tularecito and he’s so short—we got waylaid by the senoritas over in Wakely. They just wouldn’t let us leave—would they, Tall?” He didn’t wait for Gomez to respond. “We’re ridin’ hard to catch up. We’d still be ridin’, but our horses were ready to plum give out.”