Trail Hand

forever.

Looking off to my left, I saw Rosa standing in her buckboard, facing me with a rifle in her arms. The next thing I knew, something struck me and I was flung forward into the dirt. There was a sharp pain in my chest and I had trouble breathing. Everything seemed to be spinning. I looked up and gasped.

“Rosa. What…?”

The last thing I remember before passing out was seeing her lever another round as she raised the rifle up to her shoulder.

I was content to lie where I was, warm and comfortable. But before long, I began to wonder just exactly where that was. I could detect a faint smell of perfume in the air and heard soft voices nearby that I couldn’t quite identify. It was clear I wasn’t still face down in the street, but, since I didn’t have the strength to sit up, I was forced to lie there, confused. I drifted in and out of sleep. The whole time my body rested, my mind fought for answers.

Over time it slowly came back to me, Miguel, the shoot-out, everything. The sudden realization that I’d been shot caused me to bolt upright. My eyes opened wide but captured nothing but pitch black darkness. My arms stretched out to feel but I couldn’t reach anything, either. I tried to make out where the voices were coming from, what they were saying, or who they belonged to, but couldn’t hear anything clearly enough to be of help.

I fell backward and started sweating profusely. When I tried to roll over, a sharp stabbing pain almost crushed the air from my lungs. I collapsed onto my back, exhausted.

“Where am I? Who’s there?” I tried to yell, but my voice was hoarse and distant, almost unrecognizable. I was so disoriented, I couldn’t even be sure if I was really making any sound.

A door finally opened to my right and light filtered in. A figure moved toward me and then paused. A match was struck and a lamp was lit. The glow hurt my eyes, causing me to swing an arm up over my face.

“Relax. You’re back at our hacienda. You’re safe.” It sounded like Rosa’s voice, although right then and there it wouldn’t have been too hard to convince me the words had come from an angel. She took a wet towel from a pan on the table next to the bed, bent over, and wiped my forehead.

“Why, Rosa? What…?”

“Pilar shot you from the cantina. ?Desgraciada! She always was looking for someone rich to take her away from here. Pilar must have promised to go with Miguel if only he got enough money.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Miguel was desperately in love with her and would have done anything she wanted. Pilar must have convinced him to betray us for money. She never was satisfied, that one, always looking for the easy life. Pilar would stop at nothing to get out of this pueblo, even if she had to make a fool of an innocent vaquero, or shoot a man in the back. Poor Miguel never had a chance with a she-devil like her.”

“You’re probably right about that,” I said. Pierce must have recruited her first, and Pilar, in turn, corrupted Miguel over to their side. She must have been the girl who arranged to have the telegraph messages sent to Davies. Miguel would have helped her translate them. What a web! “So, what finally happened to her?” I asked. “Where’s Pili now?”

“Where she belongs,” replied Rosa.

I suddenly recalled watching Rosa swing her rifle in my direction. She must have fired directly across me. “You shot her?” I asked.

She nodded. “She got what she deserved. I did what I had to. Besides,” Rosa said, looking down into my eyes with a smile, “I couldn’t very well let her kill a man who was about to ask me to marry him, could I?”

“I was?” I stammered, taken completely off guard.

She just looked down at me, hard, and frowned.

“I mean, I am!” I said a little more convincingly. She smiled, bent down, and kissed me softly.

“Duermate, mi amor. Sleep.” Rosa blew out the lamp and left the room, closing the door quietly after her.

My Navy Colt and holster hung from the bedpost, with my Henry rifle propped up in the far corner. The room was peaceful and quiet, and that night I went to sleep one painful but very contented hombre.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R. W. Stone inherited his love for Western adventure from his father, a former Army Air Corps armaments officer and horse enthusiast. He taught his son both to ride and shoot at a very early age. Many of those who grew up in the late 1950s and early 1960s remember it as a time before urban sprawl when Western adventure predominated both television and the cinema, and Stone began writing later in life in an attempt to recapture some of that past spirit he had enjoyed as a youth. In 1974 Stone graduated from the University of Illinois with honors in Animal Science. After living in Mexico for five years, he later graduated from the National Autonomous University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and moved to Florida. Over the years he has served as President of the South Florida Veterinary Medical Association, the Lake County Veterinary Medical Association, and as executive secretary for three national veterinary organizations. Dr. Stone is currently the Chief of Staff of the Veterinary Trauma Center of Groveland, an advanced level care facility. He is the author of over seventy scientific articles and has lectured internationally. Still a firearms collector, horse enthusiast, and now a black-belt-ranked martial artist, R. W. Stone presently lives in Central Florida with his wife, two daughters, one horse, and three dogs. He is presently working on his next western, Vengeance Is Mine.

Copyright © 2006 by R. W. Stone

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