Johnny threw his blanket off and sat up, reaching for his gun with one hand and trying to smooth his tousled dark hair with the other, all the while scanning the campsite. Scott’s bedroll was still spread out on the ground, but there was no sign of his brother.
Rubbing at one eye while slowly getting to his feet, Johnny realized that he felt very stiff after only one night of sleeping on the ground. <<That’s what comes of sleepin’ in a regular bed . . . gettin’ soft already, Madrid,>> he chided himself. Judging from the position of the early morning sun, he’d slept a bit later than he would have expected; but what bothered Johnny most of all was the fact that Scott had somehow been able to get up and move around the campsite without waking him.
Johnny tucked in his salmon-colored shirt and then slowly strapped on his gun belt. He was about to reach down to gather up his blankets when he heard a rustling noise behind him and then the sound of approaching footsteps. Quickly turning, his right hand hovering reflexively over the handle of his holstered six-gun, the gunfighter forced himself to relax when his missing brother stepped into view. Still attired in his long sleeved knit undershirt, the lean blond Easterner was carrying the fishing pole in one hand and wore Murdoch’s fishing creel on his own hip in place of a gun.
“Good morning,” Scott said, greeting him with a friendly grin. “Looks like it’s going to be a fine day.”
Johnny’s eyes narrowed as he silently studied the older man. Boston sure didn’t have the appearance of a man who’d had a bad night’s sleep. Not that Johnny was about to embarrass him by bringing it up.
Apparently unfazed by the lack of response, Scott set the creel and pole down on the ground near the fire pit and strode purposefully towards the wagon. Removing several items, including the heavy iron skillet that had been stowed in the wannigan, he returned with them to a spot near the campfire. “I hope you’re hungry,” he said in a determinedly pleasant tone, and then flipped the top of the wicker creel to reveal the fish inside.
Impressed, but equally determined not to show it, Johnny managed a nod. “Gonna need some coffee first.”
“Sounds good.”
While Scott set about cleaning his catch, Johnny started a fire and then went to work to heat up some water and brew a pot of coffee. Once he’d also set out two cups, plates and assorted utensils on a rock near the campfire, he sauntered back over to his rumpled blankets and proceeded to roll them up. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d been watching as Scott deftly wielded a knife, removing the heads and tails and then deboning three pretty good sized fish. Next the fillets were rolled in corn meal and placed in the big skillet to wait on the ground alongside rocks encircling the campfire until the coffee pot had been removed from the flames. In the meantime, Scott returned a few items to the chuck box and then busied himself doing something else over there by the wagon; Johnny wasn’t sure what, but his desire for coffee was much stronger than his curiosity about what this gringo brother of his might be up to next.
Johnny shook his head. Of course it was pretty clear by now that Scott wasn’t quite like a “typical” gringo. Still, it was going to be very hard to forget— . . .Dios, as if he could ever forget anything about that first day, when he’d finally come face to face with Murdoch Lancer. And met Scott. Even now, glancing over at the man beside the wagon, Johnny couldn’t completely forget how it had felt to be standing next to the stage in Morro Coy, finding out that the too serious, too stiff, over dressed Easterner was his . . . brother. As to what Scott had thought about him, well, his . . . half . . brother, hadn’t made much effort to hide his dismay.
He’d just finished pouring some of the steaming brown liquid into the two tin cups when Scott’s boots entered his line of vision. Glancing up, Johnny saw that Boston was holding the handle of a round covered pot. After setting it down, Scott came around the ring of stones and took up the skillet; once that was in place he remained crouched before the fire to oversee the fish. Johnny handed him a cup of coffee, which the older man accepted with a grateful expression. “Thanks,” he said, gesturing with the cup in his hand.
“Maybe you’d better taste it ‘fore ya thank me,” Johnny admonished him.
Johnny had seen the Easterner add large amounts of both cream and sugar to his coffee back at the hacienda; of course they didn’t have any milk or cream along, and, since he always drank his own coffee black, Johnny hadn’t noticed if they’d brought any sugar. Scott didn’t seem to be bothered by the absence of his preferred additions though, just kept his attention on the frying pan while taking occasional sips from the coffee cup cradled in his left hand.
“Have you got a plate?” Scott inquired a moment later, and then, when Johnny extended one towards him, he ladled a generous portion of fish onto it. Removing the skillet from the fire and putting it aside, Scott refilled his coffee cup, then set some water to warm over the flames before picking up a plate and serving himself. Once seated with his back against a convenient tree, he turned expectantly towards Johnny, unable to disguise his eagerness to gauge the younger man’s appraisal of the meal.
“Not bad, Boston.”
Scott couldn’t hold back a smile at the sight of his brother’s empty plate. “There’s more,” he pointed out, motioning with his head towards the campfire.
Depositing his coffee cup on the grass, Johnny got up and strolled over to the skillet. He lifted the third fillet onto his plate and split it in two with his fork before he sat down cross-legged beside Scott. Johnny slid one half of the fish onto his brother’s dish and then went to work on his own piece.
After the two had polished off most of the breakfast, Johnny gestured with his fork towards the covered “dutch oven” which Scott had left on the ground near the fire ring. “What’s in the pot?”
“Oh, some cornmeal, . . .a little salt, a little water. . . .I’ll let it bake while I’m shaving.”
“We got time for that?”
Scott shot Johnny a bemused look and then rose to his feet. “It won’t take long,” Scott said, pausing to extract his pocket watch from its resting place just below the waistband of his dark trousers. He flipped open the front cover to check the time. “It’s still very early.”
“Not,” he added, looking up at Johnny again, “that I expected to be on anyone’s timetable out here, Brother.”
As he too stood up and then returned to his previous seat to pick up the coffee cup he’d left there, Johnny grinned and shook his head a little at that. He’d pegged Scott as being one who’d prefer to stick to a timetable; he’d be pretty surprised to find he was wrong about that, since so far the man seemed to have had no difficulty whatsoever following the schedules that Murdoch Lancer was so fond of setting.
Meanwhile, Scott had removed the wash water he’d been heating and was busy using his tin plate to pull some coals out of the campfire; he then set the dutch oven on top of what he had accumulated. While his brother shoveled more coals onto the lid of the cast iron pot, Johnny poured out the rest of the coffee, dividing it between his cup and Scott’s.
When Scott produced a haversack from the wagon bed and began to remove a few articles, including a small bristled brush, a circular bar of soap and a wood-framed folding mirror, Johnny decided that Boston was indeed serious about shaving. Unconcerned about his own stubbled chin, Johnny gathered up the canteens and headed down to the stream to fill them.
As he crouched at the water’s edge, Johnny allowed his thoughts to flow back again, to that day when he’d first met them, Murdoch and Scott. He had to admit that he’d been disappointed, finding out that he was there because the Old Man was worried about his ranch. There’d been good reason to be worried, Johnny’d understood that right away, knowing what he did about Pardee. But Murdoch had been all too willing to listen to Scott, all dressed up and standing there talking in that too confident voice about how they needed to “engage the enemy.” Like it was some kind of a game, like it wasn’t real. Pretty words from a man who hadn’t even been wearing a gun.
Well, Scott’s plan had worked, he reminded himself as he fastened the cover on the first dripping container, then tossed it on the grass as he reached for the second canteen. And, so far, it seemed like the man was trying to fit in. But the eastern accent and those fine manners of his still served as a constant reminder that Scott wasn’t from around here.
Johnny had known a few city slickers who’d acted real nice and polite, without meaning any of it. Many of the Easterners he’d encountered hadn’t been able to hide their disdain for everything west of the Mississippi, let alone anything or anyone Mexican. Of course, the other night the boys in the bunkhouse had been laughing about some of the choice words they’d been teaching “Senor Scott.” And then the next morning, he’d overheard that language lesson going on. Apparently Scott had been trying to learn Spanish, though so far he hadn’t bothered to ask Johnny for any help
<<Thank you for your help, Brother>>
Holding the canteen under the rushing current, Johnny remembered that he’d actually thought for a moment that he was going to end up in the water, that day at the riverside. He’d been caught off guard, all right; Boston wasn’t easy to read. As he capped the second canteen, Johnny decided that Scott was pretty good at keeping things bottled up inside—up to a point. That the man had exploded with that punch was actually less surprising than how quickly he’d offered his hand in apology, saying something about how they should be able to get along. Because they were brothers. The same reason Scott had expected some help in town, the reason he’d come out after Johnny in the courtyard.
<<Because we share the Old Man’s blood>>
Well, it would be nice if that mattered, but he’d seen kin turn on each other often enough to know that carrying the same name didn’t necessarily mean anything, that sharing blood was no guarantee that one man could rely upon another.
Johnny slowly stood, grasping the cords of the two canteens, ready to go see what his “hermano grande” was up to now. There had already even been a time or two when Scott had tried to talk to him the way Johnny imagined an older brother would, even offering advice. It wasn’t as if he needed anyone looking out for him that way. He’d managed to get along fine so far.
Then again, Johnny thought, as he headed back towards the campsite, a man could always use a good compañero. A compadre. He wondered if Scott knew what those words meant.
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Once everything was packed into the wagon once more, Johnny harnessed the draft horse, leaving Rambler to Scott. After tightening the cinch, the former cavalry officer adjusted the stirrups to his own length. He was about to mount up, when Johnny quietly remarked that he was “maybe forgettin’ somethin’”. As Johnny handed him his gun belt, Scott accepted it with a rueful expression and was surprised when the young gunslinger refrained from any additional comment.
Before Johnny clambered up into the seat of the small buckboard, the brothers compared notes on their memories of the large wall map hanging in the Lancer Great Room; they both believed that they would easily reach the cabin by lunchtime.
Four and a half hours and too many downed trees later, Johnny finally reminded his older brother that they weren’t on anyone’s timetable. By then, Scott was more than ready to agree.
A portion of the dutch oven cornbread had proven to be a tasty mid-morning snack; the two hot, tired and hungry men finished it off as a part of their mid-day meal. His stomach satisfied, Johnny lay down with his head hanging over the bank of the rushing stream, reaching down to scoop water up into his face with both hands. It felt so good that he scooted his body forward in order to lower his head enough to give his hair --and the collar of his rose-colored shirt--a thorough dowsing.
As he shook the excess water out of his hair, Johnny glanced over one shoulder at Scott, who was lying on his back in the shade just a few feet away. With his hat over his eyes, his fancy leather trimmed jacket folded up under his blonde head and his arms in rolled-up shirtsleeves resting on his own full stomach, Scott was the perfect picture of contentment. Unable to resist such a tempting target, Johnny playfully scooped up more of the cold water in his cupped hands and directed it towards the beige checks on Scott’s chest.
With a sharp intake of breath, Scott sat bolt upright, his hat landing on its crown in the grass. Staring hard at his younger brother’s laughing face, Scott pressed his lips together, then dropped his gaze. “I can see,” he said tightly, still looking at the ground, “that I’m going to have to . . .
Lifting his face to reveal an answering grin, Scott launched himself in Johnny’s direction as he completed his sentence at a somewhat higher volume. “ . . .teach you some manners!” He landed hard alongside his brother as the younger man barely rolled out of the way in time. Reaching into the stream with his left hand, Scott thought better of it when he realized that Johnny’s hair was already dripping and his shirt was already more than a little damp. Shaking his head in amusement, he proceeded to wet down his own hair.
“I just didn’t want you falling asleep on me, Boston,” Johnny explained as he flipped back over onto his stomach.
Scott’s face assumed an expression of mock surprise. “But I understood that a ‘see-es-TAH’ was the custom out here.”
“I don’t guess Murdoch’s ever heard of it.”
“Should I ask Senora Maria to explain it to him?”
“Well,” Johnny replied as he pushed himself up off the ground, “you’d better not let her hear you sayin’ it like that.”
Scott rolled over onto his back to look up at Johnny who was now standing above him.
“Heard her quizzin’ you the other mornin’,” Johnny explained in response to his brother’s lifted brow. “She was kinda tough on ya.”
Maria Constancia Aguilera de Alvarez, the woman who ruled the kitchen at the Lancer hacienda, had been all too ready to mother the injured “Juanito”. But she had also taken an immediate liking to her employer’s elder son, charmed by both his good manners and the fact that Senor Scott had enlisted her assistance in his fledgling efforts to learn her native tongue.
“I’ve known college professors who were easier taskmasters,” was Scott’s rueful response, though his expression made it clear that he respected the elderly Mexican woman. His previous studies in Latin and French enabled Scott to comprehend a good deal of spoken Spanish, or at least it did if the speakers could be convinced to converse less rapidly than usual. But, those other languages so far seemed to be getting in the way of his attempts to master the Spanish accent.
Accepting Johnny’s proffered hand up, Scott stood facing his brother. “So . . ?”
“It’s see-ES-ta.”
“See-ES-ta,” Scott murmured under his breath, as Johnny moved away a few steps and bent down to retrieve his brother’s upended hat.
“Don’t even think about it,” Scott warned him sternly, catching the mischievous look on the younger man’s face and quickly moving forward to claim his headgear. Reluctantly ceding possession, Johnny shrugged.
“Hey,” he said in a nonchalantly drawling voice. “I know you like that hat. I watched ya fight three men t’get it.”
Scott’s look of surprise was genuine this time, as he watched Johnny saunter towards the patiently waiting Rambler and his draft horse companion. With the distinctive line of silver buttons down his pants leg flashing in the sun, and the gun belt slung very low across his hips, Johnny looked quite out of place in this idyllic forest setting; he seemed to belong in the center of one of the dusty main streets described in those western novels.
What the Easterner found most disconcerting was that it had only taken the blink of an eye for his practical joke playing younger sibling to transform himself back into the cynical, self-assured gunfighter; unfortunately, the “brotherly good will” engendered by the good natured teasing seemed to have disappeared in the blink of an eye as well. In the midst of such a light-hearted moment, Scott would not have expected Johnny to bring up the incident that had occurred in town the first morning after the brothers had arrived at the ranch.
Scott wasn’t certain, but he suspected that the aforementioned three men who had accosted him inside Senor Baldemerro’s clothing store had been members of Day Pardee’s band of ‘land pirates’. He had noticed Johnny, watching from a distance, making no move to assist him. Later, once his brother had caught up with them, Scott had thrown his own punch at Johnny’s face with enough force to lift the younger man off of his feet and send him rolling down the embankment, with Teresa as a horrified witness. Then Johnny had come charging back up.
<<He’s nothing to me!>>
Scott shook his head. What had just occurred here alongside this stream was so different from what had taken place in town and then later at the riverbank that day. Scott was entirely at a loss as to how to interpret the sudden, very deliberate, reference.
Realizing that Scott wasn’t following him, Johnny half-turned. “Vayamos, Boston,” he said. Then added, very slowly, “Ningún tiempo para una siesta.”
Puzzling out the words as he reached up to settle his hat squarely on his head, then leaned down to gather up his jacket, Scott considered that even when this gunslinger brother of his was speaking English, it sometimes seemed as if Johnny was using a foreign tongue. The Bostonian couldn’t help but wonder if the other man felt the same way about him.
Of one thing Scott was certain—there were a lot of things he would have like to discuss with this stranger, his half-brother. They had had so few real conversations of any sort; instead, it seemed as if each of them took turns throwing out tantalizing hints or allusions to past events, offering remarks about their present circumstances, making comments about Murdoch, Teresa, the ranch . . . each silently collecting the other’s words, carefully weighing them and then not really knowing quite what to do with them.
Scott’s thoughts flashed on some of the other important individuals in his life. There were his closest childhood friends, and then, later, other Army officers, boys and men whom he had considered to be “like brothers”. Now he wasn’t entirely sure if he understood what that phrase really meant.
Seeing that Johnny was already in the midst of making the adjustments that indicated his intention to assume the role of advance scout on Rambler, Scott tossed his jacket onto the wagon seat. Hands on hips, he stared at the forward wheel a moment, before sliding a glance over at Johnny.
“No time . . . for a nap?” he ventured.
“You got that right, Boston,” Johnny replied softly as he lifted his leg into the stirrup. Swinging up into the saddle, he looked down at Scott and repeated his response, “You got that right.”
Tilting his hat back onto the crown of his head, Scott Lancer let out a soft sigh and then slowly resumed his place on the bench seat of the small supply wagon. Although his enigmatic younger brother had laid no particular emphasis upon any of the words of that short sentence, Scott couldn’t help wondering, as he watched Johnny ride away, about all the many things that he still hadn’t gotten right.
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CHAPTER 4 B
Neither of the Lancer brothers had been right about the distance they’d had left to travel to reach the collapsing cabin. Their memory of the map of the ranch had led them to believe that they would easily reach the abandoned structure well before it was time to halt for lunch; when their fatigue and growing appetites had demanded that they stop for a meal, they had agreed that it was likely they still had a ways to go given the detours and delays of clearing a path for the wagonload of tools and provisions. As it had turned out, they’d traveled only ten minutes more before finally arriving at the small clearing that contained the cabin.
The condition of the dilapidated building was as bad as Murdoch had described, if not worse. All that remained of the few windows were empty panes with an occasional pointed fragment of glass. There was a large, gaping hole in one section of the roof. When Scott drove up, Johnny, who had already dismounted, was trying to push the weathered door open. It initially refused to budge until an extra shove sent it slamming against an interior wall. By the time that Scott had climbed down from the wagon seat, Johnny was already inside. Removing his gloves as he entered the cabin, Scott came up to stand beside his brother and join him in silently contemplating the “Holy Grail” of their journey, the fabled woodstove.
It was not quite what either of them had expected. Rather than an example of the familiar, compact pot-bellied stove, or even one of the simpler box variety, the small cabin had been furnished with a cook stove that would have done justice to most farmhouse kitchens. Despite the tarnish now disfiguring its strip of nickel trim, the heavy black cast iron woodstove had clearly been the pride and joy of whoever had built the place.
After tucking his gloves up under his belt, Scott tipped his hat back on the crown of his head, placed his hands on his hips and then finally broke the silence. “Well . . it’s a stove, all right.”
Johnny, his arms folded across his chest, slowly nodded, without taking his eyes off of the stove. “Yup.”
Both brothers continued to stare at the grimy black form.
“Looks heavy,” Scott offered.
“Pfft. I coulda moved it by myself, easy,” Johnny announced in a grim voice. “With one hand.”
“Fine.” Playing along, Scott picked up the lid lifter from the cook stove top and carefully removed just one of the circular plates. “Let me make it a little bit easier for you,” he added dryly.
“Thanks, Boston.” There was a slight pause before Johnny continued. “You know we’re gonna hafta take it apart to move it, even with two of us.”
“I do think you’re right, Brother.” Scott made no effort to hide his dismay. Then he looked over his shoulder.
“Johnny . . . we’re going to have to take it apart just to get it through the door.”
As the brothers exited the cabin, Johnny volunteered once again to take charge of Rambler, while Scott selected a few tools and headed back inside to confront the stove. He started by removing the rest of the plates from the cook top surface and then set about disconnecting the stovepipe. He’d just finished detaching the heavy cast iron doors to both the oven and the firebox when Johnny returned and together they experimented with lifting the stove. Discovering that the body was simply resting upon a four-legged metal frame, they felt confident that they would be able to carry the main section to the wagon. Fortunately, Johnny had already thought of maneuvering the wagon closer to the building; the draft horse still stood patiently in the traces. The younger man’s suggestion of removing the cabin door provided the extra inch of width required in order to ease their weighty prize through the entryway.
Once the stove had been heaved up into the wagon bed, Johnny set about lashing it in place, while Scott made a few trips back and forth, bringing out the rest of the stove parts, some iron skillets and a few other salvageable items from the cabin. After fastening his final knot, Johnny joined his brother inside for a quick perusal.
“Anything left?”
“Nothing more worth saving.”
While Scott drove the small wagon a safer distance from the structure, Johnny strolled to the rear of the cabin. The ground around the building was mostly packed earth and sparse grass. When he reappeared, carrying a short rough-hewn ladder and wooden bucket with rope handles that seemed useable, Scott was waiting for him with two buckets from the wagon.
“So, we ready to fire this place?” Johnny asked.
“I thought we might soak the perimeter first,” Scott replied, with a slight lift of the buckets he was holding in each hand. He started to head in the direction of the nearby stream, though after a few paces, he paused to look back over his shoulder. Nodding his head towards the two horses, he asked if they should be moved further off. “They aren’t going to like seeing flames.”
<<Won’t like the smell much either,>> Johnny thought to himself, setting down the ladder and the bucket and returning inside to grab an old moth-eaten blanket. Ripping it into two strips, he picked up the wooden bucket once more and followed his brother down to the stream. Whoever had built the cabin had chosen wisely, as the stream actually emptied right here into a fairly sizeable pond. Johnny tossed the two halves of the blanket into the water to soak while he tested the old bucket; it didn’t appear to have any holes. Scott silently trudged back towards the cabin with his own two pails of water, but Johnny paused to wring out the two pieces of fabric before following him. Seeing that Scott was already at work soaking the ground around the cabin, Johnny set his own bucket down near his brother’s feet as he passed by on his way to the horses. Unhitching the draft horse from the cart, he led the animal over to the quietly grazing Rambler. Johnny then tied one of the damp cloths over each animal’s face and led them to the edge of the small clearing, as far away from the cabin as possible, while insuring that they would still be in view.
By the time that Johnny had finished with the horses, Scott had already made another trip to the pond and was still working at dampening the perimeter of the cabin. Johnny wordlessly scooped up two empty buckets and made another trek of his own. On his return trip, he was surprised not to encounter Scott with the third container, but when he reached the cabin, he found that his brother had set the ladder up against the north face of the building. The ladder was a simple affair, two poles and three log rungs, and Scott was testing it to see that it would in fact bear his weight. Taking one of the filled buckets from Johnny, the Easterner ascended the three steps and proceeded to wet down the cabin roof. Once the first pail was empty, Johnny accepted it from him, handed Scott the next one and then dutifully returned to the pond with the two empty buckets.
“So why’re you doing this?” he asked upon his return, as he handed another bucket up to Scott—who during Johnny’s brief absence had moved the ladder to another side of the small building.
“We don’t want the roof to catch, at least not until it falls in. The sparks could reach those trees,” Scott replied, gesturing at the branches overhead, which, while not especially low, did extend well into the area just above the roof. He splashed the water over the mossy, weathered surface as he spoke, then handed the bucket back down. Scott waited while Johnny set the empty pail aside and then lifted up the heavy filled one. Their eyes met and Johnny asked his question. “So I figure you’ve done this before?”
”Ye-es.”
Scott’s attention was all on his task and even though he drew out the one word a bit, there was no mistaking the finality in his tone. Johnny waited for him to descend the ladder with the empty bucket and hand it over; then watched as his brother turned to move the ladder to another side of the building. As Johnny headed to the pond for one final trip, he couldn’t help wondering about the fact that Boston seemed to know quite a bit about both how to build up a fire and how to burn down a building.
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Once several small fires had been set inside the cabin, the brothers stood by while the building burned, the three water filled buckets at the ready. Although the old wooden furniture and the remains of the faded cotton curtains at the windows were quickly engulfed by the flames, since there wasn’t even a hint of breeze, the fire was never in danger of getting out of control. The roof, already weakened by the gaping hole on one side, collapsed into the flames, just as Scott had hoped.
After a late supper, the brothers were sitting in the deepening darkness, staring into the flames of their campfire, when Scott announced his intention to go for a swim to try to remove some of the soot and smoke which was the inevitable result of prolonged proximity to the burning building. When Johnny questioned the fact that he had waited until it was dark, the older man pointed out that the moon was rising, a three-quarters moon, which would provide more than enough light to swim by.
“That water’s goin’ to be some cold. Make more sense to wait til tomorrow, when you’ll have the sun t’warm ya.”
“I’ll sleep better clean,” Scott said lightly, and Johnny bit back a retort.
“Besides,” Scott pointed out, “There’s some of that leftover chili to warm up, we can have another bite to eat before we turn in.”
Johnny watched silently as Scott rose and then disappeared in the direction of the wagon; after rummaging around for a bit, he finally came back into view carrying his leather haversack and his bedroll. Tossing the bedroll to the ground, he gestured with the bag in his hand. “I’ve got some soap, and a scrub brush, if you change your mind.”
By the time Johnny reluctantly decided to saunter down to the edge of the pond, Scott had already stripped off his clothing and was floating on his back in the chill waters.
“How cold is it?”
“Not bad,” Scott replied. He grinned up at the stars, seeing no reason to explain that the temperature of the mountain stream fed pond felt quite similar to that of the waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean. He lowered his feet to the muddy bottom to stand in the waist deep water. “Now, you can toss that soap out here,” he suggested, then waited while Johnny cast about the shore until he spotted the soap tin lying near the pile of Scott’s clothing. After a careful toss, Johnny began to slowly unfasten the white barrel-shaped buttons of his salmon-colored shirt.
Occupied in scrubbing at his short blond hair, Scott was taken by surprise when he heard a yelp from Johnny. The younger man had evidently taken a few steps into the cold water and then thrown himself in. Coming up for air, Johnny flung the dark hair and water out of his eyes with a forceful “Who-ee!” “Thought you said it wasn’t cold!”
Scott laughed. “Oh, I didn’t say that.”
After a final generous application of soap, Scott turned the bar over to his brother and then dove under water, surfacing to swim towards the center of the pond with a series of sure strokes, before abruptly halting to flip over onto his back once more. “Clouds are rolling in.”
“Yup. Might get some rain tonight.”
“That’ll cool off those embers.”
Johnny’s response, if he made any, was lost as he ducked underwater to rinse the soap from his own hair.
Once they were both back on shore, Scott took a small towel out of the rucksack and tossed it at Johnny, then removed a second one for himself. After wiping down his arms and torso, he wrapped the towel around his waist, and quickly pulled on the knit “long-john” shirt that he had been using to sleep in. Then he gathered up his socks and beige tattersall shirt, carried them to the water’s edge and dropped them into the water before returning to finish dressing.
Watching as Scott rinsed his shirt and socks in the pond, then wrung them out; Johnny considered that he might just have to go swimming with his clothes on the next day. The odor of his smoke infused pink shirt easily overwhelmed the clean smell of the lye soap. Leaving Scott pulling his boots on over a fresh pair of socks, Johnny headed up to the campsite to heat up the chili and the coffee left over from supper. Before joining his brother in their second course, Scott ran a line between two trees and draped his wet clothing as well as the two damp towels over the cord.
“I could do with some more of that fish if you're feeling lucky in the mornin’.”
“So you liked that, did you?” Scott asked in a pleased tone.
Johnny laughed. “Better’n this chili.”
“Well, this pond looks promising. I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’m gonna drop these dishes in the pond, take care of ‘em in the mornin’.”
As he unrolled his blankets, Johnny cast another look up at the night sky and then suggested they might be wise to bed down beneath the wagon. Since the cart was just a little too narrow for the two of them to comfortably fit between the wheels lengthwise, the best the brothers could do was to keep their upper bodies undercover. Scott seemed a bit reluctant, and although Johnny guessed that it might be because of the dream he’d had the previous night, neither of them mentioned it. Once they’d settled in, both men slept fairly soundly, and the clouds passed overhead without the predicted rain.
The next morning it was Johnny who awakened first, nudging Scott from sleep before easing himself out from under the wagon. They rolled up their blankets and tossed them into the wagon bed before setting about performing the same tasks as they had the previous morning—Johnny starting a fire and preparing coffee and Scott heading off, fishing pole in hand, in the direction of the pond.
When Johnny appeared at the water’s edge to fill a bucket, he was surprised to note that Boston wasn’t trying to catch their breakfast by “drowning worms” as Johnny had assumed, but was instead intently engaged in flicking the fishing line back and forth over the surface of the placid pond. The younger Lancer headed back to the campsite, savored a cup of coffee and then made up some cornmeal tortillas. Once Scott had returned and set the skillet of fish over the fire, Johnny asked his brother about his fishing technique. As he munched on a tortilla, Scott explained that it was something he’d learned to do when he was a boy.
“In Boston?”
“No . . . in Maine, actually. I used to visit relatives up there, in the summers. It was my uncle who taught me.”
“So . . . you got a lot of relatives?”
“No, not really, not close ones anyway. It was pretty much just my grandfather and I, most of the time. But his younger sister lived in Maine, my Aunt Cecilia and her husband, Elwood Holmes.”
Johnny nodded and sipped at his coffee, figuring he’d asked enough questions for now. Meanwhile, Scott was remembering that he owed his aunt a letter and resolved to take some time for that once he was back at the ranch. He had many fond memories of his time spent with Aunt “Cee” and her late husband, Uncle “El”. Scott concentrated for a moment on turning the fish over in the iron skillet; when that had been accomplished, he turned to his brother and volunteered some additional information.
“We did quite a bit of fishing. And, when I was older, we went up north to do some hunting, and trapping.”
<<Guess that explains it,>> Johnny thought, <<Why a city boy acts like he knows what he’s doin’ out here.>> Out loud, he asked about what they’d been after on those hunting trips.
“Bear, sometimes. Venison, mostly.”
As he served up their breakfast, the New Englander considered asking some questions of his own. He wondered if Johnny had spent much time with his maternal relatives in Mexico; for that matter he would have very much liked to have asked some questions about Maria Lancer herself, but having read those reports on his brother’s gun fighting career, including some of the background information which the Pinkerton agents had uncovered, Scott hesitated to make such inquiries. He was wary of introducing a painful or uncomfortable topic; unlike Scott, Johnny had known his mother, but then lost her at a young age. . . too young. Instead, Scott posed a safer question—one about hunting, and over breakfast the two young men thoroughly debated the best techniques for killing, skinning and cooking rabbits.
Once the breakfast things had been cleaned and packed away, Scott removed his clothing and the still slightly damp towels from the line and draped them over the rope lashing the stove to the wagon bed, hoping the articles would dry in the morning sun. Noticing that Johnny was watching him as he pulled a rumpled, but otherwise identical beige checked shirt from his haversack, Scott announced his intention to fetch a few buckets of water to dowse the still smoldering remains of the cabin. Once Johnny had departed in the direction of the horses, Scott swiftly exchanged the knit undershirt he was still wearing for the tattersall one. After carefully rolling and adjusting each beige sleeve, he arranged a clean neckerchief inside the collar of the shirt and then headed off to the pond, a bucket in each hand. Johnny, feeling twinges in his back from moving the stove and lugging water, decided he would volunteer to drive the wagon, and readied Rambler for Scott.
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The brothers made good progress through the long morning. After lunch, Scott, who was beginning to appreciate the notion of a “see-ES-ta”, settled himself against a tree with his hat pulled low to shield his face. He almost immediately lifted the brim when he realized that his brother was not doing likewise. Since Scott had readied the meal, it had been Johnny’s turn to pack up the things. Now, instead of taking his own brief nap, Johnny was methodically removing from the wagon the empty tin cans and glass canning jars which had accumulated over the past two days. As Scott watched with growing interest, Johnny strolled over to some boulders a good distance away from their resting spot and then set up five of the cans from the collection he had gathered. Well aware that he had his brother’s attention, Johnny avoided looking at the older man until he had retraced his steps, then paused beside Rambler to remove the carbine from the sheath and a cartridge box from one of the saddle bags. He carefully examined the weapon, checking to see that it was ready for use, before he finally spoke.
“Let’s see what you can do, Boston.”
Scott had made no attempt to disguise his interest in the proceedings, had, in fact, been waiting expectantly in anticipation of a demonstration of marksmanship from his brother the renowned gunslinger. Now his blond eyebrows lifted at the challenging note in the younger man’s voice, but he rose to his feet willingly enough. Johnny grinned at the serious expression on the Easterner’s face, but didn’t speak again until Scott was close enough to accept the short-barreled rifle.
“You did some good shootin’ against Pardee. So. . .you use this kinda gun in the War?”
“A Spencer? Yes,” Scott replied with a nod. The expression on his face was unreadable, as he stood holding the gun in one hand, casually, at his side. The seven-shot repeater had been popular with the cavalry and was used by many of the Lancer hands.
Scott glanced towards the waiting targets. “That was a long time ago,” he said finally, looking back at his brother. <<And,>> he couldn’t help thinking, << the targets weren’t tin cans.>>
Even though he had just watched Johnny do the same thing, Scott reflexively checked the breechloader, verifying once more that the weapon was primed for use—or, rather, that at least one cartridge was visible--- and stared at the glittering cans lined up on the rocks with a determination born of his competitive nature. He knew that he must sound as if he was making excuses; he also knew that he had always been a pretty decent shot. But a deer, a bear, . . a man. .. there was a much larger margin for error. Those tin cans were looking very small.
In one smooth motion, Scott raised the weapon and sighted. Then working the lever to load each cartridge in turn, he fired off three shots.
All three were misses, bullets pinging loudly against the rocks.
Johnny noted with some approval that Scott had aimed at each of the first three targets in turn, and the gunfighter’s keen eye had also recognized that, although Scott had not hit the marks, he hadn’t been all that far off target, either. Not on two out of the three, anyway. So maybe Ol’Boston wouldn’t be pulling any fancy moves, like shooting a gun out of a man’s hand, but he’d most likely have no problem defending himself. And, with some practice, who knew. . . .
Scott lowered the weapon, gazed wordlessly at those defiant tin cans for a moment, then raised the stock and pressed it to his shoulder once more. This time, his aim was true and two of the cans in turn went bouncing tinnily off of the rocks before landing on the ground. The ejected shell casings joined the others on the ground at Scott’s feet.
“I tend to miss right,” he said with a shrug, attempting to return the gun to Johnny. Johnny, his pink-sleeved arms folded tightly across his chest, simply shook his dark head and then gestured with his chin towards the remaining two targets.
With a small sigh, Scott resumed firing, using his remaining two shots to dispatch one more can.
“Not bad. You don’t miss by that much.”
Johnny handed Scott the box of cartridges and waited while the carbine was readied. Then the two walked side by side towards the rocks, Scott cradling the seven-shot Spencer in one arm. “It’s been . . six years since I handled a weapon,” he volunteered. There was a long pause as Johnny absorbed this information.
“No huntin’ trips lately, I guess.”
“No,” Scott replied with a note of regret, shaking his head.
“Guess it all came back to ya, against Pardee.”
“I guess it did.”
Johnny began arranging five more targets—the two untouched cans were joined by one of the punctured tins, and a couple of glass jars. “So now let’s see what you can do with that gun you’re wearin’,” Johnny suggested, indicating the Colt strapped to Scott’s side.
Shaking his head, Scott demurred. “That’s going to take some practice. The only time I’ve ever used a side arm was when I was in the cavalry.”
Johnny turned and studied his brother. He knew that even out West, especially in the larger cities, you could find plenty of men who didn’t carry guns, but he still found it difficult to conceive. Of course, when he had first met the man, Scott hadn’t been wearing a rig; Johnny had assumed that the ‘dandy’ had a hidden weapon, to avoid spoiling his outfit. The Colt resting in Scott’s holster--- in fact, the holster itself as well as the gun belt--- had all been provided by Murdoch on their first day at the ranch.
“So. . . back East, you don’t wear a gun?”
“In Boston? No. . never.”
Johnny’s only response was to take the carbine out of Scott’s hands, turn his back on the targets and walk away. Scott followed. Halfway back to their starting point, Johnny stopped abruptly and gestured once more at his older brother’s holster. “Go ahead.”
The Easterner slowly removed the gun from its resting place and raised it to eye level, his right arm fully extended. Sighting carefully, he methodically fired five well-spaced shots. One of the cans clattered off of the rocks, one glass jar shattered. Johnny spoke before the sound of the final report had faded away. “You got one more shot.”
“And three targets,” Scott retorted ruefully.
“So pick one.”
The final shot was maybe close enough to the unpunctured tin can to move it a little, but the silver surface remained unblemished. Scott didn’t look too happy, but Johnny now knew what the man could do with the weapons, a very good thing to know when you were riding with someone. Boston could handle the long gun, no question. As to the “sidearm”, well, that was another story. If there was trouble, his brother just wasn’t likely to have the time and space he needed to be of much use, Johnny figured he might be able to teach the college boy a thing or two. The gunfighter sauntered towards the targets, pausing only to toss one word over his shoulder. “Reload.”
Johnny arranged six targets this time, and turned back just as Scott was slipping the last bullet into the chamber. Their eyes met, and the older man very deliberately slid his loaded weapon back into the holster.
“Your turn.”
Grinning widely at the prospect, Johnny stepped towards Scott, then just as he drew even with his brother, he suddenly reached for his gun, drawing and whirling around to face the array of cans and jars. One-two-three-four-five-six shots in rapid succession. Six shots, six targets. Not one clear miss, though to Johnny’s practiced eye, few of the shots had been dead on; two of the items had been merely grazed. However, since grazing a glass jar tended to make the container shatter, the gunslinger doubted that Scott had noticed that the aim had been just a hair off.
“Impressive,” he heard his brother murmur in that dry tone of voice which was quickly becoming familiar.
Johnny lowered his weapon and slowly turned, only to see Scott looking at him with a genuine smile that lit up even those perpetually serious light blue eyes. Dropping his gaze, Johnny started to reload. “Set ‘em up?” he asked. Keeping his attention on his gun, he heard rather than saw Scott move off to comply.
Once the four still serviceable targets had been set up, Johnny pulled a black leather glove from some well-concealed pocket and wedged his left hand into it. The he asked Scott to “Gimme a count.” The Easterner obligingly counted to three, whereupon Johnny, starting out facing the rocks this time, swiftly drew and fired, even faster than before, dispatching each container in turn. He used his remaining shots to send two downed cans bouncing amongst the rocks.
“Even better,” Scott observed with a grin, and Johnny had to agree.
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Target practice over, the brothers resumed their slow trek to the line shack. They would spend the night there, of course, a good thing as the skies were once again threatening a possible storm. The stove could be reassembled and installed early the next morning. At issue was whether or not to head back to the ranch immediately to, as Scott put it, report on their successfully completed “mission.” Though it would be an exceptionally long day, they could probably arrive home not long after nightfall, since the route from the shack to the hacienda was supposedly a direct one, over open terrain.
It was Scott who was the first to suggest waiting an additional day. “We have enough food, and the ranch work will still be there. . . .”
Johnny readily agreed. “We could do some more shooting,” he offered, and Scott seemed to very much favor that idea.
It was still only mid afternoon when Johnny, who was once more riding ahead on Rambler, called out that he thought he could see a clearing up ahead. From the map, the brothers knew that the new line shack was open to fields on two sides, but the route from the abandoned cabin had taken them through forest. The last bit was very steep, slow going for Scott and the stove-laden wagon, and Johnny quickly disappeared from view.
It was only after he had spent some time walking alongside the hardworking draft horse and offering the animal considerable encouragement that Scott and the wagon finally broke clear of the trees. As he clambered back up into the seat, he studied the side of the line shack, a much larger wooden structure than the late cabin.
Johnny was nowhere in sight.
What Scott did see, as he came around the front of the building, was two armed men wearing dark hats, their guns pointed directly at him.
“Madrid said you’d be comin’ right along behind him.”
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CHAPTER FIVE
<<Madrid said you’d be comin’ along right behind him.>>
Scott swiftly scanned the area one more time, but still saw no sign of his brother, or of Rambler either, for that matter. While contemplating the reins clasped in his gloved hands, he watched the armed men out of the corner of his eye. Realizing that it would be foolish to try to reach for a weapon, he simply waited.
One of the men stepped forward impatiently. He was wearing a rumpled dark suit and a string tie, with a fancy vest almost hidden by the sling in which his left arm was resting. Scott stared down at this incongruously well-dressed stranger who was grimly pointing a gun at him. Something about the man seemed familiar.
“Put your hands up!”
As he slowly draped the reins over the front edge of the wagon and then carefully complied with the man’s “request,” Scott gazed past him to the second member of the welcoming committee. He was dismayed to recognize Micajah, the newly hired Lancer ranch hand. The Indian’s face, beneath his feather-decorated hat, remained impassive; the shotgun he held was also pointed directly at Scott.
The man wearing the sling harshly reclaimed Scott’s attention. “Set the brake.”
Keeping his hands in the air, Scott obediently used his right foot to do so.
“Now, slow and easy, you unbuckle that gun belt of yours---with your left hand.”
Keeping his right hand upraised and his eyes on the man with the six gun, Scott fumbled at his belt buckle, the task more difficult than it would have been if he hadn’t still been wearing a glove. Finally, the leather strap slipped free and the Colt thudded onto the wooden wagon seat.
“Throw it down here.”
Still using his left hand, Scott reached across his body to gather up the holstered weapon and lightly toss it to the ground. It was the Indian who stepped forward to retrieve it, all the while keeping the shotgun trained on Scott.
“I’ll take that.”
Looking up, Scott saw a third man who had evidently come around the far corner of the line shack. A larger man than the other two, this one was bare-headed. He was wearing a filthy white vest over a very dirty blue shirt, as well as a rather wolfish grin.
Micajah, his face still expressionless, extended Scott’s gun belt towards the newcomer, who snatched the weapon from the dangling holster, checked to see that it was loaded and then pointed it at Scott.
“And I’ll take the hat too.”
The Indian’s expression, framed by his straight, chin-length hair, didn’t change. But the man with the sling smirked; whether it was at the demand for the headgear or in anticipation of the dawning recognition on Scott’s face, was hard to say.
For Scott now identified the man in the dark suit as one of those who had accosted him during his ill-fated shopping trip to Senor Baldemerro’s store. There had just been two of them at first, a big stocky bearded fellow and this man wearing the dark hat and string tie. They had eventually been joined by a third assailant, quite likely this late arrival, the one who now laying claim to Scott’s hard-won hat.
Scott wondered again whether the three who had attacked him had been members of Pardee’s band of land pirates. As he reluctantly removed it, Scott considered throwing the hat in the man’s face, but realized that it wouldn’t do him any good. He was out numbered three to one; clearly those were the type of odds that these men preferred.
“Where’s your fat friend?” the Easterner asked coolly instead, since the bearded fellow whose ample stomach he remembered elbowing was nowhere in evidence.
“Coley ain’t here,” the dark-suited man replied. “You just be sure to ask your brother about that---next time you see him.”
“No time like the present,” Scott responded in his most pleasant tone. “Where is he?’
‘Well, I guess he’s around back, tending to his horse. Ain’t that right, Gil?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Gil announced, stepping forward to claim the hat. As he deliberately settled his new prize on his head, he grinned cruelly up at the captive. “He didn’t help ya before, and he ain’t gonna help ya now.”
Scott pressed his lips together and stared hard at Gil, but there really wasn’t anything he could say.
“Climb on down from there,” the man in the suit commanded. He seemed to be the one in charge . . . or maybe not. Gil turned to the Indian, gesturing with Scott’s gun and ordering Micajah to “Tie ‘im up.”
But to Gil’s displeasure, and Scott’s great interest, Micajah looked to the other man for approval, and, receiving a nod, lowered his weapon and circled to the rear of the wagon. As Scott, with his hands still in the air, slowly climbed down from the seat, he noted that the Indian’s gun was resting upright against the rear wheel. Temptingly within reach, but since Scott knew it wasn’t possible to move fast enough to avoid a bullet, he could only watch as the dark skinned man used a rather large knife to slice through one of the ropes lashing the stove in place.
A sudden gust of the wind that was coming up blew in Scott’s face, and he lowered his head against it. He also slowly lowered his right hand, and, when no one objected, started removing his gloves. That task completed, he tucked them beneath his belt and then looked up to address his captors.
“I’d like to speak with my brother.”
“Why, so he can tell you to your face he’s led you into a trap? Seems like a fancy dan like yourself should’ve figured that out by now.”
Before Scott had had time to absorb his dark suited “friend’s” assessment, Micajah was approaching with the rope and Scott turned to face him, his hands extended, wrists loosely crossed. The still silent Indian regarded Scott impassively for a moment, then set about fastening the cords in place. The acceptance of his offered hands gave Scott a moment of hope, that perhaps he might have something of an ally—a hope swiftly dispelled when the rope was yanked tight enough to bite into his flesh.
Just as Micajah finished tying off the last painful knot, the man with the sling gestured towards the bandanna at Scott’s neck. “Blindfold 'im, too,” he commanded the Indian. “Use that.”
As Micajah unfastened the loosely tied neckerchief, Scott forced himself to look away from those cold dark eyes. Instead, he scanned the area again, this time trying to take it all in: the darkening sky, the open expanse around the cabin, the woods from which he’d emerged a few minutes earlier, the wagon and draft horse, and the line shack itself, as well as each of his three captors. Even though he tried to steel himself, Scott still reflexively flinched away as the folded cloth approached his face. The inevitable was delayed only momentarily, and then he was left standing in darkness.
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Struggling to emerge from his own darkness, Johnny Lancer lifted his eyelids just enough to make out the dim figures of two men.
“Think we’ll really get three thousand?”
“We know he’s got at least two.”
<<Two what?>> Johnny wondered. <<Who . . ?>>
Then he remembered. Those shadowy figures were Gil Roberson and Vic Howard, two of Pardee’s guns, men he’d met for the first time in Morro Coyo. Johnny guessed that they were now all inside the Lancer line shack; the men appeared to be standing and looking at something on a table in the center of the room. He quickly closed his eyes as Gil turned towards him and then heard footsteps coming in his direction.
“Why don’t you go get Lancer and bring him in here? It’s starting to rain.”
That was Howard. <<He’s gotta be talkin’ about Scott.>>.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll go get ‘im in a minute.”
“And Gil--- “
“Yeah?”
“Don’t rough him up any more.”
“And why the Hell not?’
Howard sighed. “I told you. We bring Lancer’s boy back in one piece and no one’s gonna come after us.”
“Right.” Gil sounded skeptical, it also sounded to Johnny as if the man was standing right over him. “Old Man Lancer’ll just let us take off with all that money.”
“Well, why not? Part of it’s Madrid’s anyway ---and he’s gonna be with us.”
Gil laughed and then Johnny felt a push at his shoulder. He willed himself to stay relaxed and not to react.
“Yeah, I guess he’s gonna be, won’t he?” Gil gave Johnny another shove.
“Madrid isn’t comin' around yet?”
“Guess not.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t hit him so hard next time.”
“You going soft on him too?” Gil asked, giving Johnny a good hard poke in the ribs.
“He’s worth more in Mexico alive than dead. You know that.”
“Yeah. But listen, Howard, if we get $1000 each, maybe I’m not gonna bother ridin’ all the way to Mexico.”
“Well, let’s just wait and see how much we get out of Murdoch Lancer first.”
Gil was moving away now, slow, heavy, footsteps across the wooden floor, but Johnny still didn’t dare open his eyes.
“Vic, we still splittin’ even with the Indian?”
“He is taking all the chances.”
“Yeah,” Gil laughed mirthlessly. “I guess he is.”
“I need to tell ‘im to bring back another horse. We’ve got our two and Madrid’s, but there’ll be four of us riding south.”
“Maybe,” was Gil Roberson’s ambiguous response, followed by the sound of a door creaking open. There were more footsteps, two sets of them, and then the door banged shut. Then silence.
Johnny eased his eyes open and carefully scanned the gloomy interior of the shack. He was alone. The single room was sparsely furnished, with a table, a couple of chairs, two more bunks on the opposite wall. He was lying on a lower bunk and he couldn’t move.
One thing for sure, they’d trussed him up pretty good. His legs were slightly bent, his ankles bound together. Since he could neither straighten his knees nor pull them up higher, his ankles had to be tied to a post or something. He was lying heavily on his left shoulder, hands behind his back, with ropes biting into his wrists and slowing circulation to his stiffening fingers. The little bit of squirming motion he could manage, trying to find a better position, merely pointed out how very uncomfortable he was, how much everything ached. But the worst of all was the throbbing pain in his head. Well, that and the foul tasting gag in his mouth.
He tried pushing the gag out, but it wouldn’t budge. Next he experimented with making a noise, but all he got for his trouble was a faint guttural sound, barely audible even to his own ears. Of course, the pounding in his head was loud enough to drown out most anything. Feeling a bit defeated, Johnny closed his eyes.
He’d left Scott and the wagon behind in order to ride on ahead to the line shack. Looking things over as he’d ridden slowly past the front of the cabin, he’d caught a glimpse of a smaller building off to the side, and had decided to investigate while waiting for Scott to drive up with the woodstove. Johnny had hopped down off of Rambler and tied the horse to a porch post, thinking to stretch his legs a bit.
When he’d walked around the corner of the line shack----without a weapon drawn, a real greenhorn mistake--- he’d come face to face with two of Pardee’s men. Roberson was holding a long gun and Howard stood next to him, with one arm in a sling but a six gun held steady in his good hand. Then for good measure, Pardee’s Indian had stepped up from behind. Johnny hadn’t ever heard a name, but he recognized the dark skinned man who had stood silent guard while he and Day had shared that bottle of tequila.
Outnumbered and outgunned, Johnny had tried being friendly. Gil had informed him in a menacing voice that he was going to “fetch” this time. When Johnny had smiled and asked sympathetically if Howard had caught a bullet somewhere, the man in the dark suit had made a remark about how at least he “hadn’t been gut shot.” The way he’d said it, Johnny figured that Coley hadn’t made it and that they all knew who had killed Pardee’s second in command.
Just when he’d decided that he might as well let out a shout and try to give Scott some kind of warning, Johnny’d felt a crack on the back of his head and then everything went kind of dark. Well, he hadn’t lost all awareness; probably his head was just too hard for that. He’d realized he was being tied up, half carried-half dragged inside somewhere, known that Gil was heaving him up onto the bunk. He just hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
Now Johnny realized regretfully that he should have figured that some of Day’s boys might still be around somewhere, looking to salvage something from all the time and effort they’d put in. It really stood to reason that some of them would be holed up nearby, nursing wounds or grudges, or both.
At least now Johnny knew why these men hadn’t put a bullet in him right away, as payment for Coley and Day and who knew how many others: Money. Gil and Vic knew Madrid was worth money, down in Mexico.
And it sounded as if they had Scott too. Johnny tried to listen for something beyond his own ragged breathing and the hammering inside his head, strained to hear what was going on outside the cabin. Odds were Scott was okay, since there hadn’t been any gunfire---Johnny wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying here, but he was pretty certain that the sound of shots being fired would have penetrated his awareness, would have roused him even from the depths of the murky trough in which he had been lingering.
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Suddenly, the door slammed open.
Startled, Johnny forced himself to stay still, then carefully raised his left eyelid just enough to see who was coming in. He could just barely make out a tall, lean silhouette of a man, no hat, kind of light colored hair—Scott!
His brother took a big step into the room, then Gil was right behind him, reaching out and giving Scott a push hard enough to make him stumble against the table. It took a moment, but Johnny finally realized that Scott was blindfolded, and from the way he moved his hands, it was apparent that they were tied. Tied in front of him at least, which was an advantage over the way that Johnny’s own arms were pinned painfully behind. Roberson shoved his prisoner one more time, all the way to the rear wall of the cabin and growled at him to sit down.
“Whoa, now.” Gil stepped over to Scott. “Wait a minute. I almost missed this.”
It wasn’t until Roberson held the object up to examine it that Johnny realized that he’d just removed the knife that Scott had been wearing in a sheath on his belt. Then he brought it down in a slashing motion. Despite the blindfold, Scott still snapped his head around, but otherwise didn’t move. It took a moment, but then Johnny understood that Gil had just cut his brother’s belt; there was a soft plop as Scott’s gloves fell to the floor and then Roberson was wrenching the sheath away from the severed leather strap.
“That’s a good knife. Nice n’ sharp. I like that. Now, siddown.”
Scott slowly complied.
Vic Howard had come in not too far behind Gil, carrying a few things in his good arm, some items that he’d dumped on the table. Now he extended a length of rope towards his partner. “Tie his feet.”
“You do it, Howard.” Gil was busy stripping off his own belt so he could attach his new sheath.
Johnny couldn’t make out Vic’s expression, but it was a pretty safe bet the man wasn’t too happy from the way he slipped off his sling and then stomped over to Scott.
“’Bout time you stopped wearin’ that excuse anyway,” Gil informed him.
Vic, crouched down in front of Scott, didn’t bother to reply.
It was Scott who broke the silence. “Where’s Johnny?” he asked in a level voice.
“He’s—“ Howard started to say, but Gil talked over him. “I told ya. He didn’t help ya before and he ain’t gonna help ya now.”
“I guess I’d rather hear it from him.”
“Well, it looks like you’re gonna have to wait til morning then,” Vic informed him, tying the last knot and getting to his feet. “Because Madrid’s gone to bring a message to your father. Let him know he can have you back for one thousand dollars.”
“He doesn’t have that kind of money,” Scott said firmly.
Howard laughed. “Maybe not. But you do. That $1000 he gave you for coming out here. Madrid has his money and now we’re gonna get yours too.”
Scott was silent. Johnny assumed that his brother was also thinking about that $1000 for one hour of their time and wondering exactly the same thing -----how did these men know about the money that Murdoch had offered them?
Johnny didn’t doubt there were plenty of people on the ranch who might have gotten wind of it; it was hard to keep secrets about something like that. Word traveled quickly when one person heard something and then mentioned it to someone else. But how the Hell had Roberson and Howard found out? Until he had identified himself to Day and Coley up on the rise overlooking the hacienda, Johnny was certain that none of Pardee’s men had even known that he was a Lancer. One thing for sure, he didn’t have his $1000 along with him; he wasn’t carrying any cash at all.
Scott, of course, had to be figuring that these two men had gotten their information from Johnny himself, was maybe even starting to believe they all were working together. Johnny retreated into the darkness behind his eyelids—it was easier to think and he couldn’t see that much anyway.
He also had a feeling that Gil in particular wouldn’t take it too well if it was discovered that he was awake and listening in. Johnny considered moving around anyway, trying to make some kind of noise to let Scott know this wasn’t right, but the damn gag was so firmly in place, and the ropes on his wrists and ankles were so tight that he doubted he could do much more than get himself another whack on the head, and maybe one for Scott too. No, better to be patient, conserve what energy he had, and listen hard to what those two had to say. At least the throbbing in his head had subsided to a dull ache
He cracked one eye open a sliver when he heard Howard suggest going out after the food box. Gil was agreeable to that and the two of them walked out the door, letting it slam it behind them without even a backwards glance. During that brief moment when the door was open, Johnny could make out the damp sound of lightly falling rain. Irrationally, he worried about that cook stove getting wet.
Scott had no such concerns. The moment the door slammed shut behind his captors, his bound hands came up to his face to adjust the bandanna blindfold he was wearing. He didn’t rip it off, just edged it up a bit so he could look down and study the bound wrists he was now holding at chest level. Smart—when Roberson and Howard returned, they most likely wouldn’t notice anything different.
When Scott brought his hands up to his face, evidently trying to loosen one of the knots with his teeth, Johnny didn’t move, barely dared breathe. His brother didn’t have much time and Johnny didn’t want to chance making any sort of noise that might distract him.
Gil and Vic were gone longer than Johnny would have expected, but it still didn’t seem as if Scott had made any real progress in loosening his bonds. There were footsteps on the planking of the front porch and Scott’s hands dropped into his lap just as the front door was shoved open. Howard and Roberson came in with the Lancer chuck box, lifted it up onto the table and started taking some things out. Gil made some comment about how it was a good thing they’d cooked a meal outside before the rain started. Unaccountably, Johnny thought about Murdoch’s stove again, sitting out there in the rain, and missed Vic’s answer, if there was one.
Johnny was starting to regret that he hadn’t tried to do something, anything, to let Boston know that he was here, that he was a prisoner too. Gil was busy lighting a lamp, and through one half opened eye, Johnny saw Vic remove his hat and toss it on one of the bunks against the far wall. The man’s dark eyebrows were a stark contrast to his prematurely grey hair, even in the dim interior of the line shack. Howard pulled up a chair and sat himself down in front of Scott. Johnny’s feeling of regret intensified, when the man in the dark suit started talking to his brother in a studiedly casual voice.
“So . . I guess you all thought ol’Johnny Madrid was switchin’ sides that day, turning against Pardee, when he came riding on in so hard.”
There was no response from Scott. Gil reached up to hang the kerosene lantern back up on a nail sunk into one of the cross beams and then stepped over closer to where Scott was sitting against the back wall. He bent right down to put his face on a level with the blindfold.
“That was all Day’s idea, sending Madrid in like that. To find out if you were back yet, with those vaqueros of yours.”
Since Scott was sitting on the floor, just beyond the circle of the light from the kerosene lantern, Johnny couldn’t see enough of his brother’s face to even take a guess what the man was thinking, and Scott still didn’t say anything. The pressure from the gag combined with his own angry tension was making Johnny’s jaw ache fiercely now. He closed both eyes and willed himself to relax and just listen. Whatever game they were playing with Scott, Day’s boys weren’t done just yet.
Sure enough, it was Vic’s turn again.
“See, if you hadn’t been back yet, Johnny Boy was going to talk your Old Man into surrendering.”
Then Gil:
“And if you were there, it was gonna be Madrid’s job to take care of ya.”
Reflexively, Johnny’s jaw clenched, his eyes squeezed shut and he was just about to start thrashing wildly, then froze when he heard his brother’s calm voice.
“As i recal, he never got the chance, did he? . . . And I suppose that bullet in the back was just a part of the plan, something to make it all the more . . . convincing?”
The disbelief in Scott’s voice was unmistakable. During the ensuing silence Johnny felt overwhelming relief that Boston wasn’t buying what Day’s boys were selling. Scott had raised a good point and they didn’t seem to have an answer.
But Vic Howard was not to be underestimated.
“Well, . . Mr.Lancer, you were a military man, so I guess you know how it is. Sometimes the orders don’t make it through. Seems one of the boys just didn’t get the word.”
It took a moment, but then Gil chimed right in. “That’s right, and ol’Johnny was so mad he almost didn’t want to hook up with us again. But you can see he changed his mind on that. We just thought he was comin’ up here alone.”
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Scott Lancer sat alone with his thoughts, assessing his situation. He was a prisoner and he had names for his captors: “Howard” the man in the dark suit, and “Gil” the one who had taken his hat, two of his “old friends” from the store in Morro Coyo. Then there was Micajah, the man that he and Cipriano had hired on at the ranch. Scott was able to distinguish Howard and Gil by their voices, but Micajah hadn’t spoken a single word.
There had been nothing from Johnny either, so most likely he had, as Gil and Howard had claimed, ridden back to the ranch. Whether he had done so willingly or under duress was the painful, unanswered, question. As much as he wanted to believe that his brother hadn’t really led him into a trap, Scott couldn’t help recalling how much Johnny had wanted to come up here on his own. But he tried to persuade himself that there was really no point in wasting time wondering about that now. Gil’s repeated admonition that “he ain’t gonna help ya now” was more than likely true: his half-brother either wouldn’t help him or couldn’t do so. Rather than relying upon Johnny for assistance, Scott knew he was simply going to have to find his own means of escape.
So he was sitting here in the dark, methodically rubbing the thick ropes that bound his wrists against the edge of the belt buckle clasped between his knees. The metal wasn’t very sharp; Scott was trying to wear through the fibers rather than cut them. Since he was working the underside of the cords, any strands that he did manage to severe would be hidden from his captors’ view. He had been at it for hours now, he was very tired, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay awake and focused on the monotonous task. Keeping a mental count seemed to help: <<Sixty three, sixty-four, sixty-five. . . . >>
He was still seated on the floor, but instead of resting against the back wall, ropes encircled his torso and upper arms, holding him in place. Before he and Gil had gone to bed, Howard had tied Scott to a support post, presumably in the center of the room. At least one of the men was off to his left, snoring loudly. From time to time, someone would shift in a bunk and Scott would stop, frozen in place. Sitting motionless, listening, he worried that Howard or, worse, Gil, would wake up and notice what he was doing.
The sound of falling rain had stopped some time ago, and when he looked beneath the bottom folds of the blindfold, Scott could barely glimpse the edge of a path of moonlight on the wooden floor. He could see the dark shape of his hands, the glimmer of the belt buckle, and not much else. The cords holding his upper arms in place prevented him from reaching up to further adjust the blindfold, otherwise he might even have chanced removing it---- if only to dispel the nagging sensation that he was being watched.
Based on the comings and goings of his captors, Scott was pretty certain that he was sitting directly in front of the cabin door. He really had no clear idea of the layout of the line shack, didn’t know if there might not even be a weapon within reach. That would have to wait until his hands were free. Which wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.
But Scott knew how to be patient. There had been a period in his life when he’d had no choice but to learn that lesson. So he kept moving the ropes against the edge of the belt buckle, in sets of one hundred. Keeping the count, taking a break, then starting over again. Counting, stopping, listening. He told himself that they were asleep, that no one was watching. Then he started counting again. <<One, two, three, four, five, six. . . .>>
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