Chapter 48: CARAVANS

Gabriel McClanahan snorted that three blind mice could have followed the trail young Jody and his purloined palfrey had laid out. He kept Myrtice at a steady walking pace, occasionally pausing to examine a hoofprint, with Vicente Serrato and that wet-behind-the-ears Hebrew kid jogging along behind. He was mildly chagrined when the trail joined a wagon track, which would've made following the rider's path that much more difficult if it had been a heavily traveled road. The occasional blood spoor assured him they were going the right way. The two assistants squinted as hard they could whenever the old mountain man pointed to a spot in the road but they simply couldn't see whatever he was seeing and had to trust he knew where they were going.

In the canyon down the road, two miserable men hurled accusations and recriminations at each other as there was damn-all else they could do. Ollie's grotesquely swollen and skewed nose had finally stopped bleeding, but every now and then he had to honk another bloody plug into the grimy bandanna wadded up in the hand of his unbroken right arm. His eyes were squinched and face was striated where tear ducts had been pumping overtime to flush grit from mucous membranes.

Opposite him, Stan sat with his back against a boulder, sullenly massaging the dislocated thumb on his right hand that he'd had to yank back into alignment by himself on account of his good friend Ollie had gagged at the idea and wouldn't do it. His face was an oozing mass of scrapes. A knot the size of a duck egg adorned his crown, a couple strips of scalp had been torn off and three of his front teeth knocked out. Against Ollie's advice he'd removed his boot and the injured ankle had promptly bloated to twice its normal size and turned purple. He couldn't even get his sock back on, much less the boot. The first thing Stan had heard as he regained consciousness was Ollie's sarcastic, "Well, here's another fine mess you've got us into." That was before Ollie's nose had inflated to where he could no longer breathe through it.

They were in a pickle. No doubt about that. Miles from civilization, without food, without water. One of them couldn't walk. The other could barely see. All their kit had been on the backs of those damned horses. They had no resources except their pistols and gunbelts. They were up the proverbial creek without a barn shovel.

And then Ollie heard something... or thought he did... and frantically signalled for silence.

"Whah?" Stan grumped. "Noo specken someun?"

"Shuddup!" Ollie whispered. "Horzzes cubbing."

"Wah? Ah doan unnerstan wad noor sane..."

"Shusgh... horzzes cubbing dowd road you morod!"

Ollie got clumsily to his feet and pulled the gun from his holster, shaking it vigorously to remove dirt and grit. He'd fashioned a sling for his broken arm from his own bandanna and Stan's (not without an argument). His left hand shook, but held steady enough to hold the weapon so he could roll the barrel with his other hand. Okay, so it wasn't rolling all that smoothly and would probably jam if he tried to shoot twice. Hopefully he wouldn't have to shoot at all... just look menacing.

Carefully easing out toward the road, keeping hidden behind a scrim of bushes, Ollie observed three men riding by... an old white-bearded guy, a tall gaunt Mexican man with a fine flourishing mustache, and an overfed white boy with dark curly hair spilling out from under his hat. They were all armed. He experienced a moment of panic when the old gent gestured the other two to a halt, then climbed off his horse and shuffled around the road for a bit before remounting and moving off. Ollie let them pass unmolested.

Thirty minutes later Ollie's ears pricked up again and once more he checked his weapon.

"Now whath?"

"Waggod cubbing."

Stan snickered with derision. "Whath oo thig ooth dooen?"

"Gudda hode up dad wagod iz wad. You stay id trees ad cubber be."

Ollie resolutely jammed his now misshapen hat down over his eyes. With pistol in hand he prepared himself to boldly step forth and commandeer that oncoming vehicle, no matter what it was or who was driving.

Shortly after the search and recovery teams had departed Condor, Cat and Paul had decided there was nothing further to be gained by their hanging around the camp. However, as the horses they'd arrived on were deemed insufficiently recharged to go back under saddle, the camp boss, Cheech Madeiros, made other arrangements. A supply wagon had rolled in from Hawk Camp and disgorged the remainder of its load. After ascertaining (with some skepticism) that both Brother Paul and his sidekick, Sister Mary, were capable of handling a team, he agreed to let them take the supply wagon back to the hacienda. Barranca, Major and Toby were to be left behind with the remuda.

Paul, Cat and Murdoch's gear was transferred from the pack mule to the wagon. Jimmy Hanson considerately fetched all of Sombra Joey's kit as well. A pouting Chucho was squeezed in between the Brother and the Sister and off they went. Chucho's peevishness was slightly alleviated by Cochie's grave pronouncement that they were relying on him for navigation—an honorable responsibility for a thirteen-year-old!

Cat was driving, not in the mood for any kind of idle conversation. From time to time Paul would glance at her face in profile, taking in the grim, set lines of her mouth and brooding eyebrows. Any other woman would have been faltering by now, but not this one. He knew quite a lot about her from his wife, Marcia—Cat's former sorority sister. Knew that she had the tenacity of a terrier and a reputation for getting not mad, but even.

The thought had crossed Paul's mind that—if and when Eduardo Montero was still of this world by the time this mess got resolved—his days might yet be numbered. Cat would never, ever, forgive him for the last six months—especially if Jody accrued permanent injury, didn't survive or ended up incarcerated. It had also previously occurred to Paul—although he hadn't delved that far into it—that possibly no one had thought to verify her whereabouts on the night Montero was attacked.

As they turned onto the wagon track described as Yakut Trace, Paul noticed that the surrounding terrain had gradually given way from grassland and forest to arid rocky fingers poking down from the barren ridge to the west. The track twisted and turned between these outcroppings. Chucho happily informed them, in all seriousness, that they were about to enter a region known to be infested with ghostly legions of the murdered and massacred.

And that's when a bloodied, wild-eyed and filthy spectre clothed in rags staggered out into the road before them, one arm in a makeshift sling and the other brandishing a gun.

"Stob or ah'll shood!"

Cat hauled up on the reins. "Excuse me?"

Paul and Chucho stared in stupefaction. All their lives they'd heard lurid tales of the cannibalistic reanimated corpses known as zombies—but this was the first time they'd ever encountered one.

"Ah sed stob or ah'll shood!"

"Oh dear. Oh my. Oh my goodness!" Cat looked the unlikely highwayman up and down, pretending to be flustered.

"Please sir, do not shoot us! We have nothing of value. I'm simply driving this poor blind padre and this poor retarded boy to the county orphanage." And please let them be quick witted enough to catch on!

"Ah... uh... we deed djure waggod."

Listing slightly to starboard, the fellow grimaced and motioned with the weapon for them to debark.

"Geddowd, alla ya."

Paul stared straight ahead, making clumsy pawing motions in Cat's general direction as if he couldn't see her.

"What is it, Sister Mary? What's happening?"

Chucho slumped between them, grinning idiotically with a string of drool depending from the corner of his mouth.

"Father, there is a gentleman in the middle of the road. I believe he means to rob us."

'Father' Paul clasped his hands and leaned forward, elbow on knees, still looking into nothingness.

"Oh surely not! May we be of some other assistance to you, my son?" he inquired pleasantly. "You're quite welcome to ride along with us to the next village."

The man's face softened from menacing to thoughtful. The gun lowered by several inches. And then a second individual appeared from the shadows of the trees, this one hopping on one foot, bracing himself with a broken-off branch and also holding a gun.

"Do wath he theth ad doe one geths hurth!" Gunman Number Two lisped with authority.

Paul changed his tune but maintained his unruffled mien.

"Best do as the man says, Sister. He sounds quite determined."

Paul made a show of patting around to get his bearings and climbing down clumsily enough to lend veracity to his supposedly sightless status. Chucho followed. When Cat was down she took their hands and led them off to the side as Hop-Along and One-Arm tried to figure out how they were actually going to get onboard.

Cat had to bite her tongue to contain her mirth as a comedy of disabilities unfurled. Utility wagons were not designed for ease of ingress or egress, with a handy mounting step such as a buggy would have. No. A prospective transportee of necessity had to place one foot on a wheel spoke and lay one or both hands on some element of the seat or sideboard in order to haul himself or herself upwards to the driver's box... problematic for an unaccompanied female trying to manage long skirts in the process, not so much for an accompanied lady who simply waited to be grasped at the waist and handed up. A short... or blind... person... would have difficulties.

At this juncture, the two newly baptized road agents found themselves temporarily stymied by mobility and dexterity issues: Ollie had two good legs but only one working arm, and that one was encumbered by a pistol. Stan had only one leg to work with. And while he did have two good arms, the thumb on his right hand was swollen and useless so he had to hold his gun left-handed. It took them a good five minutes to work out a strategy.

While Stan held guard over their captives, Ollie let down the rear gate... not an easy task for a one-armed man. Then Ollie held his gun on them while Stan went around to the back and scootched his hind end up onto the wagon bed. He had to butt-crawl over a mountain of gear to reach a position where he could cover the detainees while his partner clambered up to the driver's box.

A number of worrisome thoughts crossed Ollie's mind just then... He wasn't sure he could manage two horses with just one hand. He wasn't sure he could even find their way back to Morro Coyo. On the other hand, Oliver Hardison was very, very sure that God would not kindly look down upon a former altar boy responsible for abandoning a nun, a blind priest, and an innocent orphan in the middle of nowhere where they might be eaten by a lion, a tiger or a bear.

A brief argument ensued between the neo-outlaws, at the conclusion of which the nun, the blind priest and the innocent orphan were ordered to climb back aboard their own conveyance as navigational insurance and bargaining chips in the event of interception by any individuals of the law enforcement persuasion.