Rio Largo

Circle T. To kill all the cowboys and burn all their buildings to the ground.”

The three of them were riding abreast under the star-sprinkled heavens. The Rio Largo was miles behind them—the rancho less than a mile ahead. A stiff breeze from off the mountains fanned the long hair of the two women, and the manes of their horses.

Trella was deep in the grip of sorrow. She had barely uttered three words since leaving the river. Hijino had made bold to lean over and touch her arm a few times, playing his part of the devoted protector, but she did not respond. Now, to Dolores’s proposal, she merely nodded.

“You must snap out of it, mi hermana. The fate of our rancho depends on us. Everything father and mother worked for, all their years of sweat and toil, will be for nothing if we do not keep our heads and do what must be done.”

In acute misery, Trella softly asked, “How could it come to this? How could our happiness be so quickly crushed?”

“You dwell on the past,” Dolores criticized. “On what we have lost, not the steps we must take to ensure our future.”

Trella looked at her. “How can you? Do you not have emotions? Our parents are dead. Our brothers, dead. The loss is almost more than I can bear.”

“Snap out of it, I tell you,” Dolores said harshly. “We will be dead, too, if you do not. We must plan, and plan carefully. We must foresee every contingency. Such as the one I fear the most.”

“What can be worse than what has already happened?”

“More proof you are not thinking clearly. For as terrible as things are, for all our loss and our sorrow, things can get worse.” Dolores paused. “They can get very bad indeed, if Paco and Roman and the rest of our men at the river are wiped out by the cowboys.”

“Paco will not let that happen.”

“A fantasy, sister. Do you think Father let himself be shot? Do you think our brothers let themselves be murdered? No. Bad things happen whether we want them to or not. We must be realistic. The cowboys outnumber our vaqueros. Unless Paco is very clever, the cowboys will win.”

The starlight bathed the tears glistening in Trella’s eyes. “We should not have left them there.”

“On the contrary. The cowboys would have given chase, and you and I would be caught in the fight.” Dolores swiped at a stray lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. “The best we can do is pray for Paco and the others. By now they have either driven the cowboys off, or met their end.”

“They were safe enough in the trees,” Trella mentioned. “The cowboys could not get at them.”

“Paco was not going to wait for them to try. He planned to attack them as soon as we were safely away. Paco felt it better to strike first, with surprise on his side, than to wait for the cowboys to move against him. Paco is a good man. I have faith in his judgment, but I had faith in our father and our brothers, too.”

Hijino smiled at her comment. He had met a lot of people with faith. They were always surprised to find out that faith did not stop bullets. His only faith was in his pistola, and the speed with which he could draw it.

“I don’t know if I can go on without our loved ones,” Trella was saying.

“Quit being silly,” Dolores snapped. “We must go on. Our father saw to it that we know as much about ranching as any man. We can run the DP, the two of us. We will take over the valley, and not let a single gringo set foot in it without our permission. We will not make the same mistake our father did.”

“Do not speak ill of him.”

Dolores sighed. “I loved him as much as you. But it was unwise to let Kent Tovey move in.”

“How could Father have foreseen that Tovey would betray him? None of us can predict the future.”

“Si. But we mold the future by the decisions we make in the present. The decisions you and I make over the next several days will determine our futures twenty years from now.”

Hijino shut out their prattle. It was all for nothing, only they did not realize it. He glanced from one lovely woman to the other, supremely delighted at the capricious whim of circumstance that had delivered them into his hands. He did not know which one to kill first. Or how. The how was important. He had time on his hands, so there was no need to rush. He could indulge himself. It would be great fun.

All the vaqueros were at the river, but there were the servants to deal with. Hijino ticked them off in his head: the cook, the two maids, the old man whose name Hijino could not remember, and who did the gardening and other odd jobs and slept out in the woodshed because he liked being by himself. That made four.

Ordinarily, at that time of night, the casa would be dark, but every window was lit when they arrived. The servants were too overwrought to sleep and came out to greet them. The old man took their horses to the stable. The cook scurried to the kitchen for food and drink for Trella and Dolores. The maids hovered over them like anxious hummingbirds.

Trella invited Hijino in. He stayed in the background, savoring the sweet nectar of anticipation. Where to begin? he asked himself. Or, rather, with whom? So many possibilities presented themselves.

Dolores excused herself to freshen up, saying, “We will meet in the kitchen in twenty minutes, sister.” She ignored Hijino as she went out.

Trella slumped in a chair, a portrait of despair. “I am tired. So very tired. But I could not sleep if I wanted to.”

“Me either,” Hijino lied. “Con permiso, senorita, but I left my rifle with my saddle. I should get it in case, as your sister says, the worst comes to pass.”

“Whatever is best,” Trella said wearily. “But hurry. I want you by my side, tonight and ever after.”

The sweet look she gave him would melt most any man. Hijino smiled and said, “You flatter me, senorita. I am but a humble vaquero.” Then he got out of there before he laughed in her face.

The stable doors were open. The old man was stripping the saddle blanket from Trella’s mare, and grunted in greeting when Hijino entered. “A terrible time, eh? I feel sorry for those poor girls.”

“I, as well,” Hijino said, standing under the hayloft.

“Would that I were younger!” the old man said with great passion. “I would teach those gringos. In my day, I was an hombre to be feared.”

“I bet you were.” To Hijino’s left was the ladder that led to the loft. He casually moved toward it.

The old man draped the saddle blanket over a stall. “You would not think it to look at me, but I was formidable. I fought Apaches. I fought the Navajos. They were everywhere then.”

Propped against the ladder was a pitchfork. Hijino stood next to it, and folded his arms across his chest.

“I rode with Senor Pierce before he started the DP,” the old man said, as he led the mare into a stall. “He was young, but I knew he would make something of himself. You can always tell with the good ones.”

“How about the bad ones? The killers?”

The old man patted the mare, then moved toward Dolores’s mount. “Killers are not always bad. Roman has killed, but he is a man of honor. The truly evil ones are those who snuff out life as you or I would snuff out a candle.”

Hijino took hold of the pitchfork’s long hardwood handle. “Maybe they do not see themselves as evil. Maybe they only do what they like to do, and to them that is good.”

“Bad can not be good,” the old man said as he undid the cinch. “A deed is either one or the other.”

“So Roman has shot men down, but he is good? Does that mean I am good, too, if I have done the same?”

“It depends on why you did it,” the old man asserted. “Roman has only killed in self-defense.”

“If I were to bury this pitchfork in your back for no other reason than to watch you die, would that be bad, then?”

“What a strange question. Most assuredly, it would be bad.”

By then, Hijino was close enough. “In that case, I am perhaps the most evil person you have ever met.” The metal tines met with no resistance as he drove them into the old man’s back, between the shoulder blades.

With a loud gasp, the old man stiffened and tried to turn, but was held in place by the pitchfork. “In heaven’s name, why?” he bleated.

“Were you not paying attention?” Hijino asked. Grinning savagely, he twisted.

The old man cried out. Blood spurted from his nose and the corners of his mouth. He reached behind him to