“Why did he shoot you, Caldo?”
“I witness. I see la Virgencita is guards you casa. She call my name. Mi nom-bre come from the lips of the Blessed Mother. I not kill any more peoples. I tell him, let train come, I will not kill. Let la Dona Elliot in peace. He no listen to poor old Caldo. Agua.”
His head slumped against the rocks.
“Caldo, here’s more water. Won’t you let me help you?”
Only silence and the buzzing of a wandering bee answered me. I touched his shoulder and Caldo slid, lifeless, to the ground. I looked for track, then, and saw he’d clawed his way from a place beyond the brush, dragging his legs. He had been there a while. If I’d come the usual route, I’d have passed him long ago. I was halfway between Udell’s place and mine. Could Rudolfo have passed me by on a more direct path, as I wasted the day riding around? I listened to the sounds of the brush. There was no rumble of hooves. Finches chirped and fussed with each other. A thrasher annoyed a woodpecker who’d been hard at work. If something were going to happen soon, it hadn’t come about yet. From Udell’s upper room, I would be able to see down to Rudolfo’s house, and from another, clear to the graveyard at my place. I could only hope the ground was dry enough to give up dust between the two, if someone were headed that way.
In one movement, I poured the last of the water on the ground and corked the canteen, shucking the rifle into the scabbard as I mounted the horse. Then I held my heels to Baldy’s sides and my face to his neck and headed back toward Udell’s place. Baldy got in a frenzy and started pulling the reins himself as if he were outrunning the Devil. The horse would run himself to death for me, and I had to pull him in to save him from himself.
Baldy started to foam. I hauled back on the reins and it took all my strength to turn him enough to get his attention. I jumped to the ground and took off running, tugging his reins. The horse balked and stamped his hooves. “Come on, you loco cayuse. You’re not running yourself to death but you are not stopping here, either. Come on. I’m saving your life.” I sort of half ran, half walked as fast as I could go. Halfway up a hill I slipped in the gravel paving the ground, and missed catching myself, too, landing hard with my left shoulder and cheek into the rough. That made Baldy more frantic and he jerked away from me, running off to one side. I let him go a minute and then whistled for him. Ornery as he was feeling, he came at his whistle, and I said, “You’re going to get a bushel of apples for yourself, for doing that, boy.”
My skirt had ripped at the left knee, too, and there was a hole in my long winter drawers underneath. I found a splinter in my knee, and pulled it but it wouldn’t budge; cholla thorns don’t let go nice. My knee felt fiery as I ran. Finally, from the top of that rise, I saw Udell’s place clearly. There, I got back on the horse and gave him his head, leaning into his neck again, and we made for the stone house. Stopping in a spray of dirt, I whipped the reins at the first post I came to, snapping a ring that would hold Baldy, who now was rank as I’d ever seen him.
“Udell!” I hollered. I hurried to the house and flung open the door. I called at the top of my lungs, but he was not in the house. “Udell Hanna!” I pushed aside the thought that Rudolfo’s men had already dragged Udell away and shot him the way they had killed Caldo. I looked in Udell’s bedroom and the storage room that was next to it where he kept his Springfield. It was gone. So were the bandoliers he often carried. I spun around to leave and saw the hat peg on the wall. It stopped me in my tracks. His army hat was gone.
I rushed through the top of the barn, making a ruckus I knew would draw him out if he were in the bottom, too.
“Sarah!” came a shout. “Soon as you left, I was in the attic looking for something and looked out the window. There are twenty men gathered at Mal-donado’s place looking for blood. I wish you’d have gone on home. What are you doing back here?”
“I need you,” I gasped. “They’re going to my place. I found Caldo, near dead. He told me Rudolfo’s going to … I’ll carry one of those.” I took a bandolier from him and slung it across my shoulder.
“Let’s go. Sarah, I’m not going to wait for you, and you don’t wait for me. Both of us ride, but if my horse falls behind, you keep on. If yours falls back, you just hide in the brush and wait until he can go again. One of us has got to get there.”
I dashed for the house, caught up the reins, and threw myself up onto Baldy’s back. He reared and danced a minute, then we headed for home. A noise came from my throat, like a groan, a cry of pain held down, panic moving my spirit beyond what I could see, and I rode for home. I cut off the corner by the big ocotillo, taking Baldy wide away from the dead body of Caldo and off the road and toward a stand of mesquite and palo verde. We slowed. I had to let him catch his breath, or the poor animal would die under me before I got there. I heard hooves, saddle rigs, and jingles. Likely they moved up on the road, abreast of where I was flanking them. Rudolfo’s army. My chest hurt, but panic forced me to go toward home even if I had to walk. Clouds gathered. What had been a blue sky scattered with a few puffs of white became gray.
I took the rifle from the scabbard again and made sure there was a round ready to fire. I walked Baldy over raw desert, curling around cholla and barrel cactus. We came to a rift in the soil and he strode down in as if it were nothing at all. Moving up toward the back of my house, I heard closer hooves, a single rider. I got off and wedged Baldy into a copse and waited, rifle ready. The bandoliers across Udell’s chest and the Montana hat gave him a look of being not natural, out of place.
I was a hundred and fifty yards away. I waved a hand, carefully and low. At last, he recognized me in the brush. He kept moving, said nothing, only waved a finger the way you’d throw a rope, toward the house. I climbed on and followed him. We reached the barn at nearly the same time. I was breathing so hard, I didn’t know who’d succumb first, me or the horse. Poor Baldy needed brushing, but all we could do was put the animals in the barn, collect Chess, and head for the house.
“Charlie! Elsa!” I hollered. “Gilbert? Everybody, come on in here.”
Udell said, “I saw them mustering in the field there. Watched for a while, then Rudolfo himself came out, wearing pistols, and took a horse, leading the way. I grabbed my kit and came ahead.”
I added, “Caldo, that fellow that drove his coach, got himself shot coming to warn us. Wells Fargo got in cahoots with the train and changed the route. According to him it’s going to run straight through Rudolfo’s front parlor. Caldo wouldn’t fight us because of what Elsa did the other night. He said Rudolfo’s going to kill us all and take Elsa back. He won’t rest until this entire family is dust.”
Granny came in, moving slowly, hauling a twelve-gauge shotgun. “I’ll load,” she said. The light in the house lowered, as if the clouds themselves felt the coming of this storm.
Charlie moved quickly around the room. “There’s nothing over these windows,” he said. “Gil, pull that table over here and stand it up. Elsa, you get in the pantry and stay there. Grampa,” but Chess had already left the room.
“They’ve got a small army with them,” I said.
Udell said, “Nineteen, counting Maldonado. They’re bringing an empty horse, too. I don’t think they aim to leave with ‘im empty.”
“They’ll stop at nothing, then,” I said. “Harland, get your boys hidden. Take them to the pantry, too.”
“Give me a gun. I’ll fight,” Harland said.
I wanted to send him to a bedroom like a child but I said, “In the kitchen, there, top shelf behind the can of soda and the medicinals.”
As he left to get it, the front door opened. Savannah, all a-smile, stepped in. “Hello, everyone. Sarah, I got a new pattern for … what’s happened?”
Charlie spoke first. “Aunt Savannah! Take Elsa home with you. And tell Uncle Albert we need him. Maldonado is on his way to take Elsa by force. Udell saw nineteen mounted riders carrying guns. Elsa! Come here, quick!”
At that moment a low thud hit the wall of the hou
se, then a dozen more shots. Some of them found windows. One went clear through from the parlor and into a bedroom, where it hit the wash pitcher and caused it to explode as if it were a charge of dynamite. We rushed to find cover, keeping low to the ground. There was a spell of silence, then a volley of gunfire, I’d reckon two or three shots from each man, hit the front of the house. I heard a housecat screech.
Rudolfo’s voice boomed loud in the silence that followed. “I want my daughter. Elsa Maria Ramirez-Valdon Maldonado, come out here, before I kill the rest of them. Carlos, Charlie Elliot, you bring out my daughter! I will have you dead.”
Charlie was by a broken window. He hollered, “She’s married, Señor Maldonado. Go home.”
I crawled on hands and knees to where my son stood. I called out, too, “Rudolfo? Go on home for now. You hear me? This doesn’t have to be this way. Why don’t you just come over for supper? Come visit her. She’s married. She chose it. You can see her as much as you want and we don’t have to be enemies. Go on now, and come back later.”
“Yes, Papa!” came Elsa’s voice. She stood at a window, her form in full view. “Come to me, and let us talk!” she said.
Our answer was a roar from a Sharps, like the boom of a cannon, and something huge crashed through the window showering Elsa with glass, immediately speckling her face with blood. I watched then as Rudolfo swore and pulled his pistol, shot the man through the head who’d fired haphazardly at his daughter. As he fell, the man’s horse went wild with fear. Inside, Charlie surrounded Elsa with his arms and tugged her to the floor in a far corner. Gilbert called then, “Someone’s around the back. I saw two men.” Chess went to Gilbert’s side. Harland’s boys peered from around the pantry door, one above the other like three heads without bodies.
“Rudolfo!” I hollered. “Let’s talk this over. You’ve got the land. You got what you wanted, passage for your … goods to Mexico.”
“My Elsa did not come freely to your house. You have stolen her. A hostage … tu rehén … I will take her back. No one leaves here alive. That is my final word.”
Granny hefted the big shotgun to her lap. “Let ‘em in. I’ll let a vent in the skunk before he gets in the door.”
Savannah went to her. I thought she’d drop to her knees and pray, or tell my mama to put away the shotgun, since firing it would likely kill her from the recoil. Instead, Savannah herself took it from Granny’s hands and pointed it toward the door. She said, “Albert will hear this ruckus and come running, and right into their sights. I’m not letting them harm a hair on his head. Tell them, Mr. Hanna, that no one leaves here at gunpoint. That this family stands for its own. Tell them they’ll answer to me or to the devil, but they’d better leave.”
I wanted to laugh. To cheer. To cry. Udell did as she asked, and hollered those things at Rudolfo. In reply, they opened up shooting at us as if we were squirrels caught in a trap. Gilbert and Chess fought from one wall, Charlie and me from another, while Udell fired from his wall and Elsa and Savannah reloaded everyone’s weapons. This new house of mine, this house Rudolfo himself had helped build, was getting beaten to dust. We stopped to reload again. The smell of sulfur and black powder filled the rooms. A loud explosion shook the house, raining dust from the ceiling, and something burst into flames out in the center plaza.
“Bombs,” Udell said. “They’re throwing bombs on us. Charlie, come help me put out the fire.”
Chess turned as they hurried to the center of the house, and said, “No! It’s a diversion …” but his words were cut off as the front door fell from its hinges, rammed from outside by men with a log. Rudolfo and two other men got into the parlor, and seemed to be everywhere. Shots ricocheted off the stove.
Elsa ran forward, saying, “Papa! I’ll come with you. Stop the shooting. Don’t kill anyone. I’ll come. Only stop. Please stop!” She ran toward him, and Rudolfo caught her arm, pulling her toward the doorway. The two men stood in our way.
Savannah let go with both barrels. Udell and I took down another man as Savannah sank to the floor and moaned. The two men who’d come in with Rudolfo lay dead in their tracks, but somehow he had gotten in and out without being hit. Another bang came from back of the house and we heard all the children scream. Charlie dashed toward the noise and returned to the room to see Elsa being dragged toward the group of men by her father. He charged out the door, pistols in both hands, firing, and four men fell from horses. A quarter of our attackers lay dead. More than half Rudolfo’s men had already gotten to the gate, and the rest were moving away from the house toward it.
Rudolfo dropped Elsa’s arm and aimed his pistol at Charlie. In that second, Elsa saw what unfolded before her, and ran like a deer, arms outstretched, toward Charlie. We held our breaths. The pistol in Rudolfo’s hand was a Colt .44. It went off like a cannon. Charlie sidestepped as if it were instinct, and the bullet hit Elsa square in the back with a dull thump as loud as a bat hitting a baseball. She stumbled and fell into Charlie’s arms. In the span of half a second, my first thought was oddly separated from what was happening, and that it looked like the same wound I’d seen on Caldo. No doubt, the same gun had done him in, too. My second thought was horror at seeing her fall. Thirdly, I pictured the bullet had pierced Charlie, too. They would both lay dead. His mouth open in shock, Charlie stood in his tracks, dropped his guns. Picked her up from the ground. She was as limp as a rag. Dead before she hit the ground.
Charlie screamed in concert with Rudolfo, their voices fierce as mountain lions’.
My son’s anger tore through me like a Bowie knife. There was no time to cry. Rudolfo charged at him, firing, but as Charlie moved toward Rudolfo with Elsa in his arms, bullets seemed to bounce off him. He was covered with blood, but walked on and on, toward the man who’d murdered his wife. Rudolfo’s gun clicked, loud and empty. Charlie laid Elsa on the ground and ran to pick up his pistols. Rudolfo’s men closed in, and then I moved out on the porch with Udell at my side and we rained lead on them. Hand over hand, Charlie shot. I fired my rifle and took down three of them. In a shower of bullets, Harland took one and Udell hit another four. Bullets peppered the metal trough and water gushed into the yard, swirling around a dead man, forming a red pool. Between us, all of Rudolfo’s men except two standing by him had either fled or died, and those two stood amidst frightened stomping horses, petrified, watching. Two of the animals fell and groaned.
Then the noise stopped. Silence blanketed the yard. Charlie, tears streaming from his eyes,again laid his pistols in the dirt and groaned with a sound that seemed to rend the very air, leaning over Elsa. Rudolfo thrust his men aside and raced toward him.
Gilbert ran straight into the reddened mud between horses and men and all, and grabbed Rudolfo by the throat. Rudolfo reached for his guns, and that hesitation kept his hands busy long enough for Gilbert to knock him to the ground. They rolled and rolled. Both of them soaked in mud, they grappled for their lives. Rudolfo outweighed him by fifty pounds of pure meanness. I couldn’t get a clear shot without hurting Gil. Then I saw a flash of metal. My heart stopped beating. Between the two of them, twisting like snakes trying to kill each other, a long Mexican dagger went from one hand to another. Red began to flow between them. Mud made them slip and slide together, made the blade handle slick as glass. A sound punch flew from one man to the other, and one mud-coated form rose above the other, knife in hand.
A bang and a loud “Hah!” from beside the house made my knees shake. The upper man jerked back, mouth opening in shock, knife upraised. His form slumped forward onto his enemy, and the knife fell. Chess’s voice hollered, “I got him!” followed by a string of curses.
The lower man shoved the dead one over. Looking straight at me, venom in his eyes, Rudolfo stood.
He ran to his horse and mounted it. Udell rushed forward and shot at his back once, then fired again but the gun was empty. He pulled the trigger again, then lowered his rifle as horse and man galloped away.
Chess yelled, “I got him,” again, and c
ame toward the mud where the final fray had taken place.
I outran him.
I lifted Gilbert’s head and shoulders into my lap and screamed and screamed until my voice gave out. Chess’s face was a knot of horror.
Gilbert opened his eyes. “I’m shot through the chest, Mama,” he said.
I hugged his head to my face, groaning like a wild animal. “No,” I said, repeatedly. Udell crouched at my side.
Chess made a fierce moan, dropped his rifle and stumbled away.
Gilbert winced. “Am I going to die?”
“No,” I said.
“I can’t breathe much, Mama. Damn, it hurts.” After a bit, he said, “Is everyone all right? Granny’s not killed, is she?”
“Granny’s fine.”
“Mama, can you give me anything for the hurt? I’m on fire inside.”
I crushed my face with my hands and let go a sob. Then I shrieked at Udell, “Get him a blanket! Get him inside!”
Udell bent and lifted Gilbert as if he’d been a child, as if he were strong as a bull, the same way he had carried my mama, he carried my son into the house. Past Charlie crying in the yard, cradling Elsa to his shoulder, past Savannah, horror-stricken, trying to console Charlie. Udell laid Gilbert on the kitchen table. Gilbert coughed and blood dribbled from his lip. All that was left now was his dying.
Chapter Nineteen
December 3, 1907
Gilbert moaned, half crying like a child, half stifled—the way I remember soldiers at the fort doing—as if he were scared like a little boy but still knew he was grown and was trying to brave up to the pain. I got my shears and cut through his Christmas shirt, opening the seams to release his arms without him having to move. Granny, Savannah, and I rinsed the mud away and wrapped him in clean linen with a folded soaker under his back. The bullet had not pierced his heart or he’d never have spoken a word, but it could do terror to the lights or other things. It had surely gone clean through, but too low to think there was a chance he’d live over this.