Slowly but deliberately, Ortega remounted. With a small click of his tongue, he turned his horse away from the plaza.
“It is him,” the old woman said. Raising a shaking hand, she pointed a long, bony finger toward Ortega. “He was with them.”
No one paid any attention to her.
“He was with them,” the old woman said again, loudly this time, and she got Gonzales’s attention.
“What are you talking about old woman?” Gonzales said.
“‘When the gringos came into the village, that man was riding with them,” the old woman said. “I gave him water to drink. He told me he was their chief.”
Ortega immediately slapped his feet against the sides of his horse. The animal bolted forward like a ball from a cannon.
“I knew I had seen him before!” Gonzales said. He turned toward Ortega just in time to see the horse bolt forwards. “Alto!” he shouted.
Ortega bent low over the horse’s neck. Gonzales drew his pistol, and this time he didn’t hesitate to use it. He fired, but missed.
“Shoot him!” Gonzales shouted. “Someone shoot him!”
Angrily, Gonzales looked around at the others. “Pull your weapons, you idiots! Shoot him! He is one of the murderers!”
Bullets now whistled by Ortega’s head as he pounded his heels into the animal’s back. Not one bullet hit him.
“After him! After him! We must run him down!” Gonzales shouted.
Despite Gonzales’s urgings, there was very little likelihood that Ortega could be run down. None of the villagers were mounted, nor were any of the horses even saddled. Ortega made good his escape, leaving Gonzales to fume in the dusty street, the sergeant’s pistol still clutched tightly in his fist.
Because of his age, and because he was a natural leader listened to by the others, Jim Robison had become the undisputed ramrod of the little group of riders. Jim and his friends, along with Katie and her daughters, were camped for the night on the banks of a small, swiftly running stream. Here the water was cool and clear and they were able to fill their canteens and boil a pot of coffee. They cooked rice, augmented by a couple of rabbits, some wild onions and freshly picked mushrooms.
“What are we going to do if Ortega don’t show up again?” Frank asked as they ate.
‘We’ll get the horses and start back without him,” Jim said.
“How do you know they’ll give ’em to us?”
“According to Clay Allison, the horses have already been bought and paid for. They have no choice in the matter. They’ll have to give ’em to us,” Jim insisted.
“Right. And if they don’t, we’ll just go to the law,” Gene said. “That is, if the law don’t shoot us as soon as they see us.”
“We’ve got no problem with the law now,” Barry said. “I mean, we’ve got the women with us. All we have to do is have them say it wasn’t us that took ’em.”
“And are they just going to forget about the men we killed back in Escalon?” Frank asked.
“So what do you think, Jim? What will we do about that?” Barry asked.
“Our best bet is just to get the horses, then get ourselves back on up to Texas,” Jim answered. “I plan to shake the dirt of Mexico from my boots soon as I can.”
“Texas, yes,” Katie said. “That sounds good to me.”
“I don’t know why you are so anxious to get back,” Marilou said. “There’s nothing back there for us.”
“What do you mean?” Katie asked.
“Pa’s dead. Nate’s dead. What’s left?”
“The ranch,” Katie said. “Your pa and I cleared land, battled Indians, drought, locusts, bankers, and Yankee carpetbaggers to build that ranch. There is no way I’m going to walk away from it now. We’re going back to Texas to bury our dead. Then we’ll get on with the livin’. It’s what women have always done and we’re no different.”
As Jim listened to Katie talk to her daughters, he couldn’t help but admire her. He had never taken himself a wife, had never really wanted to settle down. But now, seeing Katie with her daughters, he couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t missed out on something.
“We goin’ to stay here for the night?” Frank asked.
“Yes,” Jim said. “Frank, you take the first watch.”
“Jim. Jim, you awake?”
Jim stirred in his bedroll, and Gene shook him again. “Wake up,” he said.
Jim grunted.
“Damn, the older you get, the harder you are to wake up.”
“I’m awake,” Jim said.
“Maybe it’s time you quit cowboyin’,” Gene suggested.
Jim sat up and ran his hand across his face, then scratched his scalp as he yawned. “I told you, I’m awake,” he said.
“It’s four o’clock. It’s your watch.”
Jim stood up, walked over to one side and urinated, then came back to sit down on a rock near his bedroll while he pulled on his boots.
“Anything happen during the night?” he asked.
“Not a thing,” Gene said, pulling his own boots off. “What time we goin’ to get started today?”
“I figure round sunup,” Jim replied.
“Damn. It’ll take me that long to get back to sleep,” Gene said.
Despite his protestations, Gene fell asleep within minutes, his snoring joining that of the others in camp. Jim took a walk around the perimeter of the camp. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, he found a rock and sat down.
It wasn’t too long afterward that he heard the noise. Pulling his gun from his holster, he moved quietly to investigate. A minute later he located the sound’s source and, when he saw what it was, stopped dead in his tracks.
There, in the bright spill of predawn moonlight was Katie Kincaid standing in the stream of water, totally nude. She was taking a bath, and because she had no soap, she was using the grit of a handful of sand. The result made her skin pink and shiny.
Jim caught his breath. He didn’t like the idea of spying on the woman in her private moment, but he could barely take his eyes off her. He knew she was a handsome woman, but he had no idea how beautiful she really was.
Katie seemed intent on scrubbing her body, rubbing herself down with sand so hard that Jim thought she was about to rub herself raw. At first, he couldn’t understand why she was so intense with her bath. Then he realized exactly what she was doing, and his heart went out to her.
Katie Kincaid was trying to wash away all the degradation and humiliation she had suffered over the last several days. And at that moment it dawned on Jim that, by spying on her, he might actually be adding to her humiliation, so he turned and started to walk away.
“You needn’t leave, Mr. Robison,” Katie said from the stream.
Jim was shocked by the words. He had no idea she even knew he was here. He stopped.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said.
Katie emerged from the water dripping wet. She started toward him, but he stood riveted to the spot, his eyes still averted.
“You aren’t intruding,” she said. “I heard you making out the watch last night. I knew when you would have the watch, so I chose this time to take my bath. You turn around, Mr. Robison,” she said.
Jim turned, then gasped. He had seen naked women, of course, but they had all been whores, often wasted by dissipation. Katie Kincaid had lived a difficult life, but it was one made up of hard work and clean living. As a result, her body was firm and well-toned. Whereas the whores Jim had encountered often had large pillowy breasts, Katie’s breasts were small and well formed, and he was keenly aware of her tightly drawn and sharply protruding nipples.
“I have to know,” Katie said.