He didn’t want to finish analyzing the scene, but he had no choice. He owed her that much and more. Drawing his Colt, he left the blood trail and swung wide to search the edge of the brush. He recognized the prickly pear he’d loosed three rounds into the night before. At least one of the slugs had not been wasted, blood spatter covering several pads. The trail led south toward a cluster of large mesquites, probably where the horses had been tied up. He would check that later.
Moving more quickly, he steeled himself for the inevitable.
“Good God.” In an opening surrounded by acacia shrubs McCutchen found the remains of the old woman’s body. She hadn’t just been killed. She had been desecrated. He swallowed and took a deep breath before bending over the grisly scene. The woman had been shot several times. By the looks of it, more than a few of them before she fell, and some after. In anger one of the bandits had carved her with a knife.
He coughed, finding it harder to breathe. About to stand, he noticed something clenched in the woman’s hand. Prying back her fingers revealed the amulet she had kissed the night before. Too much unfinished business, he thought, as he rubbed the amulet between his thumb and finger. It looked Aztec. He recognized the grotesque face of the sun god at the center.
On wobbly legs he stood while slipping the amulet inside his duster next to the tin. He reached the smoldering chink house and the blood stained dirt at its entrance before his curiosity got the better of him. After confirming all tracks led toward the stand of mesquites, he opened the rusty tin.
“Crazy old bitty.” The tin contained a dozen tightly rolled marihuana cigarettes. He clenched the busted and swollen fingers of his left hand, listening to the voices of his grandfather and the old woman in competition. But his grandfather, a Ranger to the end, had gone to rest along time ago. This woman’s body was barely cold, and she had died, in part, because of him. “Good medicine.” It was the least he could do for a woman whose name he would never know.
He pulled out a single cigarette. Stooping over the burning coals of a roof beam, he puffed it to life and took a slow drag. He coughed at first, hacking up a loogie, then settled into the familiar routine of inspecting the scene. By the time he reached the mesquites where the horses had been tied his breathing came easier.
There had been five of them. One dead, one wounded. Out of the three remaining, one was heavy while the other two where slight. They rode away toward the south. The woman had mentioned Huerta. If these were Huertistas operating this far north they needed protection against the roving Villistas, the infamous peon cavalry of Pancho Villa. Only one place for twenty miles could provide that sort of protection. First he had to fetch his horse.
The remaining goat followed him half way to the cantina before turning around. He felt affection for the little loner, but a half-chewed up gringo rinche wandering Matamoros by himself was conspicuous enough without a goat trailing him. On the other hand, there was no point in being furtive now. No longer quietly tracking prey, his next move would be offensive. Soon enough his enemies would know exactly where he was.
By the time he reached the northern edge of town his gate had quickened and his tic had completely gone. “I’ll be damned.” He patted the tin in his duster.
After reaching the riverbank of the Rio Grande, he pursed his lips and pierced the morning air with a sharp two-toned whistle. He bent the pitch upward and added a trill at the end. Repeating it twice, he crouched behind a yucca. It didn’t pay to be a visible target anywhere along the river these days, on either bank. In less than a minute he heard a familiar whinny as his horse, Chester the IV, trotted up from the river bottom.
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