His boots were dusty, and although he had tried to brush himself off there was traildust on him. 'Senor?'
Well, I stepped out of the brush. By and large I'd found Mexicans the salt of the earth, and many a time when on the dodge the only thing that kept me alive was a bait of frijoles and tortillas at some Mexican sheep camp.
'Come in and set,' I said. 'There's coffee ready and beans in the pot.'
So we ate, and then he rolled him a smoke and we yarned the night away. He was afoot ... he didn't say how or why, and in those days a body didn't ask questions. It happened I had an extra horse, a paint pony, pretty as a picture.
A few days before that pony had been ridden by a mighty handsome young Comanche with bad judgment. He was riding loose, hunting for some action, and when he saw me he exercised that bad judgment ... he decided I was easy pickings and fell in on my trail. Only I was keeping an eye on my back trail and when I saw I was followed I circled arround and hunched down close to the trail to see who it was.
When I saw it was a Comanche with two fresh scalps, I stepped out and spoke to him. He turned as if he was shot and started to lift his rifle, which was his second case of bad judgment, for I only figured to set him afoot so he couldn't follow me any longer.
He put hand to that rifle and I shot him through the brisket, emptying the paint pony's saddle like there'd never been anything there. The Comanche was game; he came up fighting, so I let him have another one, caught up the pony, and left out of the country.
'You need a horse,' I said to the Mexican, 'you take that one. The Comanche who owned him won't be hunting him.'
'Gracias, senor.' He spoke simply, yet with feeling, and he had a right. In that country at that time the only folks he was apt to meet would more than likely finish him off for his guns or whatever else he might have.
We drank more coffee and talked, and then at the last he said, 'Amigo, I have no money. I cannot pay for the horse.'
'He is yours, think nothing of it.'
'My grandfather,' he said, 'used to drive mules on the Santa Fe Trail.'
Well, now. That was an interesting bit of information if I'd been interested in his grandfather, which I wasn't, or in the Santa Fe Trail, which I'd seen my ownself.
'It was there he nearly lost his life. He was of a pack train for Nathan Hume.'
It all came back to me now, and I recalled as if it had been last night, us sitting by the fire and him telling me about that pack train. They had come from Santa Fe, and were crossing the plains, bound for Independence, Missouri, or some such place, and they had been making good time until they were hit by a war party of Kiowas.
They were strung out too far, and they didn't have much chance. A few of them gathering around Nathan Hume himself, among them my Mexican friend's grandfather, bunched up and made a retreating fight of it back to the Rabbit Ears Mountain, where they dug in for a stand.
They were wiped out ... all but that Mexican, who found a hole and crawled into it. The Kiowas scalped and mutilated the bodies after robbing them of everything worth having, and then rode off a-running. After a bit that Mex came out and hoofed it back to Santa Fe.
When he got back he was warned to lie low, that the governor had sent a detachment of soldiers after Hume, and that if he were found he would be arrested. Nathan Hume had been smuggling gold secretly mined in the San Juans.
So this Mexican smuggled himself out of town on a borrowed mule and then joined a train headed for Mexico City. He had friends there, and he planned to get some help and return, for he was sure he knew where the gold was ... and was sure the Indians had not found it.
The trouble was, shortly after arriving in Mexico he was thrown from a horse.
His back was broken and he never walked again. He knew where three hundred pounds of gold was hidden, and he couldn't do a thing about it.
This was the story that was told to me by the Mex to whom I'd given a horse.
'Did you ever give thought to hunting that gold?' I'd asked him.
'Of course, senor, but'--he shrugged--'I had a difficulty in Taos ... a matter of a senorita ... and I was followed to Las Vegas. I killed a man, senor, a man with many brothers and cousins and uncles.'
He put his cigarette in the fire and smiled. 'I like life, senor, and I am a man who is content with a little now and another time. If I went north I might find the gold. I might also find a grave, and the odds for the latter are best. If you want the gold it is yours, senor.'
'Any idea where it is?'
'There's a box canyon back of Rabbit Ears. It was there they made their stand ... the bones of the mules might be there still.
'There was a pool of water there, covered with a green moss or scum, and beyond the pool a hole under a boulder. The gold was hidden in the hole, rocks tumbled over it, and with a broken gun Nathan Hume chipped a cross on the boulder. You should find it.'
The next morning we parted, and once in the saddle he held out his hand to me and we shook hands. 'Be careful, senor, and ask no questions. The Mexicans who mined the gold had sons and grandsons, and they know that Nathan Hume's mule train did not get to Missouri ... they might even have spoken to the Indians.'
It was not the first trailside story I'd heard of buried gold or lost mines.
Such stories were told and retold all up and down the country, although this was the first time I'd heard this one. But I kept it in mind, and planned to take a look for myself sometime. Only things kept happening.
In Serbin, a town of Wendish folk in Texas where I'd had friends, I killed a carpetbagger and was thrown in jail for it. But my Wendish friends found a way to help me escape and left my horse where I could find it. I joined up with a trail herd headed for the Kansas towns, but I was a man wanted by the law.
In Abilene, which was new, raw, and wild, I found my name was known. There'd been a cousin of mine there named Tyrel and he'd killed a man in the streets, somebody said, but then I got the straight of it. He had faced down Reed Carney, walked up to him, and made him drop his gun belt into the street.
Tyrel and Orrin Sackett--I'd heard tell of them, although they came from the Cumberland Gap country; but it gave me a rarely good feeling to know the Sackett blood ran true.
That was long ago, and now I was here, riding north in the Panhandle of Texas, riding over the Staked Plains and heading north toward Borregos Plaza, Adobe Walls, and the buffalo camps. I was riding a lineback dun across the plains where a man could stand in his stirrups and look straight away for three days, it was that level.
So I shoved my rifle down in the boot, I canted my hat back on my head, and I looked off across the country and opened my mouth in song. At least, I felt it was song, and tried to make it that way, although the dun wasn't sure. The sky was blue and the plains were wide, and there was land around to stretch in.
Maybe I'd only a few dollars in my jeans and a hanging party left behind, but the wind smelled good and the sun was warm, and it was a great time to be alive.
The country around me began to break up again into softly rolling hills, with a few ridges and some hollows where there were trees.
'Oh, I left my girl in San Antone, Away down near the border, I ...'
A tuft of feathers showed over the crest of a low hill, and a dozen yards away an Indian appeared, and then another and another. A broken line of Kiowas stretched out for two hundred yards. They were riding slowly toward me, their lances pointed skyward. I glanced around quickly, and across the valley there were half a dozen more riding toward me, walking their horses.
At least a dozen of them had rifles, and they seemed in no hurry. Down the valley the way lay open, but several of the Indians were further along than I was, and they had only to cut over and head me off. There were at least thirty Indians in the whole party, and they had me boxed.
Sweat broke out on my forehead, but my mouth was dry. I had seen what Kiowas could do to a prisoner, for I had come upon what was left when they had finished, and it was no sight for a man with a weak stomach.
If I tried to make a run for it I would be dead within a minute.
Turning my horse at right angles, I rode straight for them, still singing.
Chapter 4
My rifle was in the boot, and to reach for it would mean death. My pistol, in its holster, was held down by the thong hooked over the hammer, a necessity when riding rough country.
