The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [3]
And now he was like this.
Hadn’t she already sown the seeds?
If there was one thing she knew, it was that she would have him.
CHAPTER 2
It was two days’ ride to Cananea.
Quantro, ignorant of the country, led the way. Pete rode closely behind, offering advice when the younger man asked, but otherwise he remained silent. White-Wing, riding her own pony and leading the packhorse, brought up the rear. She had remained quiet since the night she had arrived unbidden in his camp. Unobtrusively, she had tended the horses and cooked the meals, noticing that Quantro always managed to avoid speaking directly to her. But she had seen his eyes on her, and to feed the hunger she saw in them, she had casually added an extra swing to her buttocks as she moved. Out on the trail he ignored her completely.
They had followed the high, twisting trails that clung miraculously to the canyon walls. More than once, Quantro, who had been unconscious during the ride up into the mountains, stared with awe at the sheer drop that was directly below his outside stirrup, while his other boot grazed the rock face of the wall beside him. If the buckskin had made one mistake, they would have both pitched over into the void like Juh, the Apache chief, whose name the pass now bore.
The first night they had camped at a clear spring, the last night they would spend in the mountains. Quantro had shot a small deer that he had handed wordlessly to White-Wing to prepare for the cooking-pot. Even he had to admit, as he spooned the stew greedily, that she was a good cook. When they had eaten they slept surrounded by scrub oak.
The next day took them across rolling hills. When Quantro spied a bunch of well-fed cattle emerging from a draw in search of rich grazing grass, he watched them with interest. They were branded with a Z. He reined in and sat the buckskin, allowing the slight breeze to cool the sweat that had gathered down the center of his back.
“Whose beeves are they?” he asked as Pete hauled up alongside. “I’ve never seen that brand before.”
Pete sniffed. “San Berdoo ranch. Owned by John Slaughter.”
“An American ranching in Mexico?”
“Sure,” Pete replied, fashioning a cigarette as they waited for White-Wing and the packhorse to make up ground. “A Spaniard name of Ignacio Perez built a hacienda some way north of here, by San Bernardino Springs, in Arizona. Ranch runs clear down here. They say there’s something like 73,000 acres.”
“That’s one lot of land. What about the Indians? Didn’t they run him off?”
“Not right away. Fact is, for as long as anyone can recall, the springs have been a camping-ground for both Apaches and Navajos when they were riding the war trails.” He paused to chuckle. “Anyways, they both kept an eye on this Perez, and with Indian logic they figured it was best to leave him in peace. Truth was, they knew a high-class caballero, gentleman, like him would breed only the finest of horses, and what Indian doesn’t want the best animal on four legs running beneath him? They figured it would be easier to steal his horses than raise them for themselves. Anyhow, when the Mexican governor issued a scalphunting pronunciamento back in ’42 to get rid of the Apaches, Cochise of the Chiricahuas and Mangas Coloradas of the Mimbrenos decided to sack the hacienda as a small gesture of their disapproval. After that it was deserted until a couple of years back when John Slaughter bought the place. Seems to be making out, too.”
They ate the last of the deer that night camped by a spring where mesquite and madrona flourished, then the next morning angled down an arroyo with the mountains on their left. They picked their way carefully down the pot-holed track that led away from the Sierra Medio, the Middle Mountains, and rode on to a broad valley. Quantro continually asked questions about the country, storing the information should it be needed in the future.
Also, he gained an impression of how long he had been unconscious