Smack said, “Let’s take them to the entrance, Smiley. Then, you can help with checking the wagons while I go talk to Potter.”
“Who is Potter?” Jack asked.
“Amos Potter. You might say he’s the overseer of the canyon. Folks come and go, but his bunch—I’m one of them—pretty much stays here and runs the place. Potter makes the rules and sees they’re carried out.”
“I’d like to meet the man who has grabbed that kind of authority.”
“I’m guessing you will, if you behave yourself and don’t get shot first.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jordy’s trust in Jack’s judgment was generally unwavering, but as the riders and Studebakers approached the stone watchtowers near the canyon entrance, his stomach clenched and gave him pause. Like Jack, he tended to be a planner, preferred to lay out a course and stick close to it. But he could make no sense of what they were doing here, taking their wagons into the middle of the Comanchero compound where they would be easy targets facing a force at least five times their own numbers. Hopefully, Jack had a plan in his head that he just was not talking about.
Smack signaled a halt as they came up to the watchtowers. Jordy looked up and saw that the lookouts were perched on ledges about halfway up the mammoth stone formations that were much broader than they appeared from some distance away.
Smack looked at Jordy. “You,” he said, “come with me.”
Jordy looked over at Jack, who sat stone-faced on the wagon seat.
Jack gave the slightest nod of his head, signaling that Jordy should follow Smack’s order. Jordy nudged his gelding away from the wagon’s side and fell in behind Smack. As they entered the canyon, they met three well-armed men emerging and walking toward Jack and the wagons. Jordy assumed the men were Comancheros who had taken on inspection duty.
Nature had painted the canyon walls the same variations of browns they had been seeing since moving into Chihuahuan Desert country, broken up intermittently with outcroppings of white and gray limestone. He noticed healthy splotches of green along the canyon floor, contrasting sharply with the drabness of the terrain above. Then he saw the stream rushing along the base of the northwest wall before abruptly disappearing into a black hole in the canyon, probably to exit from underground someplace and complete its journey to the Pecos. The stream extended back into the canyon for as far as eyesight would reach. This was likely the source of water for all the horses held there, more important in the short term than pastures, which were likely sparse. He hoped that after all this trouble, Sierra’s horse herd was still here. Critters could not be fed under these conditions indefinitely.
No more than a hundred yards in, they came to a cluster of buildings and corrals that resembled a small village patched together without any thought of organization. The adobe structures were crumbling, many with gaps where clay mortar formerly bound the brick. A half dozen mud huts were backed up against the southeast canyon wall, roofed with thatch of some kind. The canvas tents near the far side of the village looked more inviting than the more permanent shelters. The few limestone buildings looked more stable but were obviously not constructed by craftsmen. They were the only buildings on the canyon’s northwest side.
Most of the visible human life was gathered in the shade of a lonely cottonwood tree, which Jordy guessed had been around for a century or more. Some men sat on benches lining two weathered tables, engaged in card games, it appeared.
A few others napped on blankets nearby, and two men were yelling angrily at each other some distance from the others, but nobody was paying any attention to the dispute. His count placed fourteen men within the vicinity of the tree.
Smack pointed to the mud huts along the canyon walls. “That’s where the whores do business. You play your cards right, Amos might let you folks take a pick and a poke. For the asking price, of course.”
Jordy said nothing but thought he would not get within handshake distance of any woman who had bedded with this outfit. And still he was sorry for the women whose paths had led them to a place like this.
Smack veered off to the right toward the limestone structures set just in front of the stream and canyon wall. They dismounted in front of the larger of the two single-story houses. The Comanchero handed Jordy his horse’s reins. “You stay put while I get Amos.” He walked up the dusty path to the house, knocked on the door and disappeared inside.
He could hear angry voices through the uncovered window openings but could not make out what the speakers were saying. It sounded like several others were speaking besides Smack. Soon Smack came out the door, followed by two men, one a slight Mexican man with a thin moustache, cleaner and better groomed than any canyon occupant he had seen yet. He wore a black, low-crowned hat with a turquoise-decorated band. Matched Colts in fancy holsters at his side suggested the man fancied himself a gunfighter. The other man, about his own height, weighed a good three hundred pounds, Jordy guessed, and cleanliness was not his forte. A razor had not neared any part of his face for several years. One of these men was Amos Potter?
His question was answered when the dandy and the ox stepped off to the side of the path, and another man stepped out the door and walked toward him, getting within six feet or so before he stopped. He was a little man, standing no
