Chapter 7 El Haciendo
Tied up, now a prisoner of the local jerife and his deputies, Bret ended up in the town he'd been heading for. As they entered the gates of the open plaza, he soon saw how much the Keene gang, including himself, was hated. Not only Spanish curses, but stones were thrown at him. The jerife took the shaken, bloodied man into his strong jail amid shouts for his immediate hanging.
Thrown into a cell, Bret wiped his sleeve across a cut on his forehead and sank down on the cot. When he looked up at el jerife, he saw an unforgiving face and an uncompromising stance. As Sheriff Raoul Cuesta y Nuevevilla locked the bars of the cell, Bret looked away. Beaten and bloodied, he was not in very good spirits.
"Bájale, muchacho," said the sheriff, who told the prisoner to 'calm down.' "For now, you are safe."
After that, Cuesta went to his outer office and laid his long-barreled Walker Colt, a .44 such as the Texas Rangers used to carry, on his desk. A Ranger himself had given it to him. It was a kind of gun carried by an honest man, and Cuesta considered himself an honest man.
Inside his cell, Bret tried to focus, his eyes staying open only with rapid eye blinks. Every part of him had come alive with the stoning. He felt very used up, and his heart beat like a hummingbird's wing.
A deputy of Cuesta's, a burly, broad-built man with a huge moustache, forced his way through the crowd outside and into the jail.
"Señor Cuesta! No esta bueno. Hay una multitud en la calle." Señor Cuesta! It's no good. There is a mob in the street."
Bret heard him, and translated what he could. He came over to the bars, gripping them until his knuckles were white as he listened to that angry mob. It was a noise he wasn't likely to forget any time soon.
If the jerife had not been such a well-respected man, they'd have overrun the jail by then, dragging the prisoner out to a nearby tree and putting a knotted rope around his neck. Cuesta, staying strong, was all that Bret had going for him.
Restless, he moved back to the cot and sat down with his back against the wall, just waiting for the mob outside in the street to burst into the jail and haul him out of it.
After a bit, letting the mob settle down, Cuesta went out. He sent most of them back to their homes or work, then returned with a basin of water and a cloth for Bret. He shoved the basin through the tray slot in the bars and handed Bret the cloth. Putting the basin on a stool, the prisoner sat down, dabbing at the cut on his forehead.
"Where are your friends, señor?" Cuesta asked.
Since Cuesta spoke in English, Bret used it, too.
"Not my friends," he muttered, still trying to make sense of all this. "I wasn't part of that gang."
"A lie, señor. You were there when Don Encomiendo's son, Manuel, was shot, no?"
"I was a prisoner. Keene, the gang's leader, was using me. I didn't want to help him. Believe me!"
"I cannot." Cuesta laughed, dryly. "You came because it is rich here." Aqui.
"Sheriff, what's going to happen to me?"
Cuesta gestured to Bret to put the bloody rag in the basin and then push it under the bars again. Just about to leave, he said, "Well, some want to hang you. But you are my prisoner. I will hold you for Don Encomiendo. He will want to see you, mi amigo."
"No doubt," Bret said grimly. "But what if the folks outside get me first?"
"They will not. I have given them my word that you will meet justice before too long."
"Sheriff," Bret tried again, "the real robbers and thieves will get away."
"No one will get away from me, señor. Trust me."
Once at his desk again, Cuesta laid with his Walker Colt across his lap. Pablo, his deputy, brought some supper in later and gave it to the prisoner. Bret ate, then slept and dreamt of lying on a hard road, beaten, bloody, and filthy with dust.
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Don Juan Encomiendo y Tortuga awakened him with a shout. The prisoner's eyes flew open, then he raised himself to sit up.
"Where are the others!" cried Encomiendo from outside the bars, looking in at the prisoner. "The rest of the gang!"
"I don't know," Bret muttered, rubbing a hand over his face and yawning slightly, the other hand limp on his leg.
"Open it," said the Mexican rancher. He flourished a riding crop at the cell door and the sight of it caught the caged man's eye. Bret started to worry and got up.
Sheriff Raoul Cuesta opened the door and the lithe, medium-sized Encomiendo flew in. The slaps and stings of the don's crop landed on Bret's arm, which he had raised in protection. In unalloyed anger, the don continued until Cuesta ran in and held back his arm. Bret had fallen to the cot.
"No, Don Encomiendo," cried Cuesta. "No!"
A few Spanish words flew between them. Encomiendo began to settle back down with Cuesta's calm conversation, though beads of sweat glistened on his face and neck, and his eyes bulged. He was still outraged, so Bret kept his arm up to ward off further blows.
He understood now who these two men were. They had known each other for a long time, had watched the village grow and prosper, and had fought in wars of ages ago. They were—rich man and poor man—amigos. Friends.
Red-faced, Don Encomiendo raced out of the cell just as pell-mell as he had raced in. Two of his vaqueros entered and hoisted Bret to his feet, throwing a rope on his wrists. Sandwiched between them, he was hurried out to catch up with the angry, fleeing rancher.
Cuesta, uncertain, shook his muddled head and followed the party into the street. In twos and fours, the townspeople began to move back from Encomiendo's buggy. They liked him, he was a good patron, even if he did have a notorious temper. And it didn't take much for them to hate gringos, especially thieving ones.
Encomiendo waved to the crowd and climbed into his fringed and canopied buggy, then nodded to his men to pitch Bret in the back seat. They got in too and sat one on either side of him. Encomiendo himself drove, slashing the air with the crop, yelling at the horse. Bret noticed he didn't hit the horse.
After a long, bumpy ride across a flat plain, Bret ended up at the don's place, his estado or ranch. Why had the don brought him here? To hang him at home? He didn't like the smell of this.
Once out of the buggy, he was dragged up stone steps, then into the lofty ranch house itself. He quickly glanced around. Tiles were underfoot, iron sconces lit up the room, and there were weapons everywhere, on the floors, the walls, even over the arch above the dining dais.
When the ropes came off, he wiped his eyes with his fingertips, gouging out some of the road dust. His mouth was drier than sawdust on a barn floor. How he'd like a cool drink of water!
Encomiendo's men stood by, but Bret didn't dare take his eyes off the don. He swallowed and waited for Encomiendo's first word.
"Beast!" Well, not exactly a word he wanted to hear. "How could you shoot a boy? A boy!" Encomiendo threw wine into himself, almost choking. "Now he will not be well until Candlemas, if then."
Bret had no idea when Candlemas was, but he guessed it was a holiday well into winter. Encomiendo had turned to pour himself another glass of wine, but now he spun on Bret again.
He spoke a few impassioned words in Spanish, then nodded to his men, who jerked Bret out of the room. He tried to look back. Encomiendo had gone from red to purple-faced now. Was it the wine? He stood there, talking to himself. Or maybe it was to his dead esposa, whose full-length picture hung on the back wall of the dining area. She was as beautiful as the rest of the house.
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Hurled into a stone cell in the cellar of the house, Bret hit the wall hard. The door slammed to and the latch bolt was rammed home in its iron clasp. He could not open the door from the inside, and only a grill in the upper half of the door allowed him any air or light.
He eased himself into a sitting position, his back against the stone. He felt so stunned, like death had washed over him, he pinched himself to make sure he was not yet dead. Perplexed like never before, but still alive, he tried to sort out all that had happened in the last week or two.
Outlaws, robberies, the boy's shooting, it was all a muddle in his brain. He slept a ragged sleep in that tomb, again having a nightmare. This time, he was being trampled in the road dust by an angry man's horse. He didn't need to wonder who that man was.
In the morning, Encomiendo had him dragged forth again. He hit the floor of the hacienda's open living room and struggling to stand, waited again for the don to speak first. Encomiendo sat at the table on the raised dais, eating his first meal of the day. Bret's shoulders slumped with hunger and bad sleep, but his eyes were alert.
Don Encomiendo reached down and fed the dog at his side, then he laughed and joked at Bret's expense.
"After you work for me a while, gringo, you'll beg me like this for scraps."
Bret found his voice. "Work?"
"A simple fact. My son cannot now work. Now you will do it." Bret could feel his gut twist. He could see long hours in the sun, in the alkali dust—and he knew it wouldn't be the kind of work a thirteen-year-old boy would do.
Encomiendo had the only green valley for miles. If the meandering river dried up, as it regularly did in summer, he channeled small springs here and there to water it until it blossomed again. That took sweat.
Without speaking again, Encomiendo nodded and his two men yanked Bret out of the room again. Once out in a bright southern sun, he was hurried to a field of maize and given a two-pronged hoe to tear out weeds.
For two months, he toiled. Every day, and at times far into the night, laboring by smoky lantern. His tasks varied with the needs of the ranch. He might lead cattle to a far pasture, mend harness in the tack room with its single window, pound a horseshoe, draw water for the kitchen, chop wood at the back door, or scrape ashes out of the hearth. He wasn't given a horse to ride, but walked from field to field, from barn to pen to shed.
With regular meals, an established routine, and predictable sleep in his cell, he grew strong again, as strong as he'd been since becoming a part of Keene's gang. Renewed vigor coursed through his limbs, and with fresh eyes, he looked up from his chores to the distant hills—smoke-colored some days, orange, others.
Mesquite and juniper hills, dry, full of sand and scorpions, yet they pointed the way back to the States.
With regards to his ranch, Encomiendo had many tasks to think of other than his new 'hand,' and had even begun to plan a horse-buying trip before fall round-up. His son Manuel got better, as Bret had prayed he would. With time and a good doctor's care, his arm lost its stiffness. He couldn't ride with that arm yet, so he was as earth-bound as Bret.
Sometimes when Bret worked in the fields, Manuel would come over to practice his English. Sweating under the full rays of the sun, tired as he might be, Bret would take a break, sit back against a tree, and indulge him.
"You work hard, hombre," said the boy. "And my arm is almost well, why should I be angry? You didn't shoot me."
Wiping a dusty hand over his lower face, Bret pulled it away and looked at the callused fingers. With those hands, he used to shuffle and deal, and do tricks with cards that would astonish men twice his age. They would not heal for a long time now.
"It's almost lunch," he said, huskily, his throat clogged with dust. "We should go back, or we'll miss it."
Manuel winked. "Mercedes," the younger of the two cooks, "will always keep a plate warm for you, Bret."
Chuckling, he said, "C'mon!" He stood and pulled the boy to his feet, then grabbed up his weeding tool. His arm on the boy's shoulder, they walked back together. Manuel listlessly tore off pieces of rawhide from a lariat and tossed them to the earth.
He was so downcast that Bret stopped. He clasped his arms and asked, "Is there anything wrong?"
"I feel bad you have to work like this, for no dinero." He looked up, his eyes glistening. "Papa ought to pay you."
"In a way he is, Manuelito." Little Manuel. "I have a place to stay, food to eat, and I do not have to ride with that gang anymore. For that alone, I'm content." And Bret truly was, even though he was ready to return to his old life now. He himself had 'healed' under the warm Mexican sun.
"But you must want to be free, Bret, no?"
"Someday your padre will free me. He was angry, but time heals even an angry spirit."
Manuel perked up. "I will get well, so you can go free. But you must promise to visit me someday."
"If I ever get free, I'm not so certain I can do that. We can write, though. We'll be friends through the pen."
Smiling, the boy said, as if he were now the teacher, "Seremos amigos a través de la pluma." That was what Bret had just said.
They headed in to the kitchen, where Mercedes—true to what Manuel had said of her—had kept Bret's plate warm. He and Manuel went out again to eat. Bret liked to take the midday meal, usually tortillas and beans, under the cool palms of the kitchen yard.
He and the boy could talk there, even if they had to fight to be heard over squealing pigs and clucking hens. A braying donkey might even add itself to the scene, and once in a while, a bleating goat tried to snatch a tortilla off the plate.
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After he had found his last wanted man, in this case the last wanted man being Mike Keene, Deputy Horatio Darby had hoped to retire. He already had a plot of ground picked out for a small farm. Never married, always on his horse, he might even look around for someone to share it with.
But he wasn't finished with his deputy duties yet. Not until he had Mike Keene in jail. He and the Mexican federales, men who had been assigned to help him, had caught up with the gang, but with two of his men dead, Keene had escaped again. One of his men, wounded in the gut and not expected to live, was taken to one of the cells of the local jail.
Darby never learned of that man's fate, but he knew he didn't want to trade places with him. The rest of the gang soon split up, some going off singly, others in twos and threes. Some joined a gang of Mexican rustlers who crossed into the U.S. and fled back across the border with stolen cattle.
Darby's main aim was still to find Keene, the leader of the old gang, so he scouted all of the likely places he'd be, following up on leads like a Chicago Pinkerton. He had word that an outlaw resembling Keene had been seen twenty miles south of the border. His description—tall, dark, fairly young—intrigued Darby. Could it be Keene?
With his deputies and a desert guide in tow, Darby set out to see if it was or not. When he rode into a small town with his sizable posse, a tavern was pointed out to him. He dismounted and pulled his six-gun. Inside the dark, smoky hole, where music played boisterously and dancers twirled in time to it, Darby saw his man. A dark gringo, like Keene, though shaggier than Darby remembered him.
Sitting at a table over cards, his back to the wall, the man looked up, even pushing back his hat to get a better view of the newcomers. Darby's jaw fell. It wasn't Keene, but some drifter who looked like him. The ever eager federales, though, forced the man up to go with them to whatever passed for a lockup in that town. They took the precaution of disarming him first.
The man sure fit the description of Keene! If Darby had seen him first, before 'Bret Maverick,' he would have arrested him.
Once out in the sun, there was a play for one of the Mexican deputies' guns. A shot rang out. The card player fell. The deputy who had almost had his gun taken away turned him over. He was still breathing.
"Pick him up and carry him into the jail," said Darby, "if there is one."
Si.
As the dying man lay on the rough jail cot, Darby went through his pockets. He turned up a small, square gold case, slim and carved with flowers, leaves, and, around the edges, vines. With his large, blunt fingers, he had a hard time prizing the catch open, but once he did, he found something that added to his present dismay. A tiny picture that might have been cut out of a larger one lay inside.
As in a photographer's studio, a potted plant rested on a small, draped table. The picture itself was of a seated lady, looking remarkably like Livy Keene, with just an ear and a part of the chin visible of the man at her side. Darby almost gasped. He closed the case and put it in his breast pocket.
He now knew that Bret Maverick, who was still missing, had been who he had said he was, a traveling card player, and that the man lying there in the jail cell was, indeed, Mike Keene. Why else would he have a small photograph case of Livy Keene in his pocket?
"Give 'im a decent burial," he said. After flipping a couple of coins at the local constable, he strode out of the jail, found his horse, and rode off into the deep, oppressive sun, heading for where he wasn't sure.
But he had to find a man, one last time—or he'd never retire in peace.
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