Ambush at Shadow Valley Read online

  ‘‘Yes,’’ said Hector, ‘‘that is what I say too.’’ He patted his horse’s neck as it drew water. ‘‘We have been on their trail only one day and already their crimes have grown darker and uglier.’’

  ‘‘They’ll only get worse if we don’t stop them, Guardia,’’ said Sam. ‘‘If this is Soto’s first time raping, killing and taking a scalp, it’s only because nobody introduced him to it before now. We’ll find out now what influence Ransdale has on him, even though Soto is the one in charge.’’ He gave Hector a grim look. ‘‘If we don’t stop them soon we’ll find out if Soto has an appetite for torturing and killing innocent women.’’

  ‘‘A woman?’’ Hector shook his head. ‘‘She was not a woman, this poor helpless girl,’’ he said. ‘‘I saw her. She was una niña joven. A child so young and innocent she died not knowing such animals as this live in the world.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Sam said flatly, not wanting to talk about it any further, but seeing that Hector, like any man new to such situations, needed to get some things settled in his mind.

  ‘‘I have seen it many times,’’ Hector continued bitterly. ‘‘These men come into my country and think they can do whatever they please. It is as if my people do not count as human beings to these gringos.’’

  ‘‘Ransdale is a Texan, but Suelo Soto is from far south of here, Venezuela I believe,’’ Sam said quietly.

  Hector stopped talking and took a deep breath. ‘‘Again I must apologize, Ranger,’’ he said. ‘‘Not everyone from your world is bad, and not everyone from my world is good. It is a fact that wise men must come to realize.’’

  ‘‘Apology accepted, and your reasoning understood,’’ Sam said. ‘‘When a man hunts in the dark it’s easy to want to shoot the first target he sees.’’ Seeing that his stallion had finished drawing water, he reached down and took his reins from Hector. ‘‘We’ve got some daylight left. We best push on harder before these two get a chance to kill again.’’

  ‘‘Wait,’’ said Hector. ‘‘What about these two? We cannot leave them lying here this way!’’

  ‘‘I didn’t intend to leave them lying, Guardia,’’ Sam said. ‘‘I figure we can lay some rocks over them, keep the wolves and coyotes off them until somebody comes along and finds them.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Hector said firmly. ‘‘We must bury them. There are things that must be done . . . words that must be said over them.’’

  Sam stopped and looked at him. ‘‘Every minute we spend here makes the odds better that we’ll find the same thing waiting for us along the trail. If you want to stay and bury them and say some prayers over them, do it. But I’m more concerned about the living right now. You’ve seen what these two will do next chance they get.’’ He started to walk away.

  ‘‘Go on then, Ranger,’’ Hector said. ‘‘I will try to catch up to you when I am finished here. These are my people! I owe to them in death the same respect I owed to them in life.’’

  Sam stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath. Maybe the sight of the dead young girl had hurt him more deeply than he cared to admit. Throughout gathering their bodies the question had nagged at him, how much of the mindless torture had happened while they were still alive? His hands clenched into fists as the question came and went again. ‘‘You’re right, Hector.’’ He let out his tight breath and with it released his fists. ‘‘These people have been through enough. I’ll see if there’s a shovel somewhere in the cart. We’ll get them buried. You can say the words.’’

  When Soto and Ransdale reached a stretch of flatlands between two towering hillsides, they stopped their horses long enough to sip tepid water from a canteen and look along the trail behind them. ‘‘We wasted too much time with the old man and the girl,’’ Soto said, eyeing the fresh scalp hanging from Ransdale’s saddle horn. The big paint horse stood beside him on its lead rope.

  ‘‘Shhh,’’ Ransdale said with a strange grin, running his hand down the long, glistening black hair. ‘‘You’ll hurt her feelings talking like that.’’

  Soto shook his head and squirted out a mouthful of water. ‘‘You really are as crazy as everybody in Yuma said you are.’’

  ‘‘Crazy?’’ A flash of white-hot anger streaked across Ransdale’s eyes, but he managed to mask it with his smile and said, ‘‘Nobody in Yuma ever said nothing like that to my face.’’

  ‘‘Crazy doesn’t bother me,’’ said Soto. ‘‘I must be a little loco myself, going along with something like that back there.’’

  Still stroking the long, black hair as if in fond memory, Ransdale said, ‘‘Yeah, I noticed I didn’t have to talk you into it very hard, did I?’’

  ‘‘No, you didn’t.’’ Soto wiped his shirtsleeve across his mouth. ‘‘I expect a man is capable of just about anything once out of a hellhole like Yuma. It’s been a long time since I had a woman.’’

  ‘‘Me too,’’ said Ransdale, ‘‘if you can call la pequeña here a woman. Right, little one?’’ he said to the scalp at his fingertips.

  ‘‘Young woman, old woman, what’s the difference? It’s done,’’ Soto said, looking away from Ransdale and his morbid conversation with the dead girl’s hair, and the way he caressed it as if it were alive. He spotted the thin cut of a narrow trail leading off across a rise covered with tall bracken and wild grass. In the distance he caught a pale spiral of gray smoke adrift on a breeze. ‘‘Are you still hungry?’’

  ‘‘I can eat, that’s for sure,’’ said Ransdale, still engrossed in fondling the silky, black hair. ‘‘What have you got in mind?’’

  ‘‘I think there’s folks over there a few miles, if you can pull yourself loose long enough to go see.’’

  ‘‘I believe I can,’’ Ransdale said, bending slightly in his saddle, raising the long hair to his face and breathing in its fragrance. ‘‘Just so you don’t think there’s something wrong with me,’’ he added, ‘‘I didn’t take this hair just to be doing it. This thing is worth money in Durango you know.’’

  ‘‘Apache hair used to be worth a few dollars but not anymore,’’ said Soto, ‘‘especially not Mexican hair.’’ He nudged his horse forward as he spoke. ‘‘You’ve been gone longer than I thought.’’

  ‘‘I’m not talking about the government bounty on Apache scalps. I know that’s over with. I’m talking about private collectors,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘I know a man who buys any kind of hair—Irish red, Swedish yellow. He don’t care so long as it’s woman.’’

  ‘‘How much money are you talking about?’’ Soto asked skeptically."

  ‘‘Not a lot of money, but some. Every little bit helps.’’ He grinned again and nudged his horse along beside Soto, letting the long hair lie draped over his knee as if liking the feel of it. Shrugging he added, ‘‘So, if I can catch myself a woman alone and make a little something for my trouble, what’s the harm in it?’’

  ‘‘It’s none of my business.’’ Soto stared ahead toward the faint waft of smoke in the distance, deciding not to take part in any more of Ransdale’s bizarre indulgences.

  ‘‘Wait a minute,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘Have you got a mad-on because those two are the same as you?’’

  Soto glared at him. ‘‘They weren’t the same as me. They’re Mexican. I’m not Mexican"

  ‘‘I know where you come from,’’ Ransdale said confidently. ‘‘It sure as hell ain’t from this country. You might talk better English than the rest of us at Yuma did. Your ways might be a little more polished. But you’re not American and I know it.’’

  Soto ignored him as they rode on. When he did speak again, he asked, ‘‘Why did you cut up her face?’’

  As if resenting the question, Ransdale spit and said defiantly, ‘‘Why not?’’

  Ten minutes later, at a thin line of trees atop a low rise, the two stepped down from their saddles and walked forward until they looked down at a sun-bleached plank-and-adobe shack. ‘‘Goatherds,’’ Ransdale said, eyeing a small corral where a few spindle
-legged goats milled near a water trough. A few yards from the goats a large bitch dog with a thick, matted coat lay watching the animals as if they were her pups.

  ‘‘Looks like dinner to me,’’ Soto said flatly, glancing from the goats to the plank shack.

  ‘‘I can get the rifle and pick the dog’s head off from here,’’ Ransdale said.

  ‘‘I see no need to kill it just yet,’’ said Soto. He watched a middle-aged woman step out of the shack, her graying hair gathered and tied up in a large bun atop her head. Behind her an elderly man, bowed deeply at the waist, ambled along, clutching a cane for support. ‘‘I bet these folks are accustomed to feeding every wayfaring pilgrim who comes along.’’

  ‘‘Well, that includes us,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘We’re pilgrims for sure.’’

  ‘‘Tell me,’’ Soto said, stepping back and turning toward the horses, ‘‘how much does your private collector pay for gray hair?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know, but we’ll damn sure find out.’’ Ransdale grinned as they approached the horses. ‘‘I bet you start taking a liking to scalp collecting before it’s over.’’

  ‘‘Don’t count on it,’’ said Soto. ‘‘I’m in the business of opening railway safes without blowing them up. I’m not looking to change professions.’’

  ‘‘I don’t mean as a new profession,’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘I’m talking about doing it for fun as much as anything else.’’

  Soto only stared at him blankly as they gathered their horses’ reins, the lead rope to the big paint, and stepped up into their saddles.

  In the littered front yard the woman stood watching as the two riders moved into sight from the shelter of the trees. She used her hand as a visor across her brow and offered a smile until she got a better look at the men. Then her smile turned troubled, and she said over her shoulder in a German accent, ‘‘Papa, get yourself back inside. Take Big Bess with you.’’ She glanced around the yard and saw a smaller, younger dog staring toward the riders. ‘‘Take Little Bobby too,’’ she added firmly. Under her breath she said in a worried tone, "This is trouble if I’ve ever seen it."

  ‘‘What? What’s that you say?’’ the old man asked in an ancient, crackling voice, his accent thicker than the woman’s. He had to squint to see even a blurred image of his daughter. ‘‘Why must I get the dogs in?’’

  ‘‘Papa, don’t question me,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Get inside. Stay inside and keep your mouth shut no matter what happens out here.’’

  ‘‘Oh . . . ,’’ the old man said warily as understanding came to him. He turned his dim eyes toward the sound of hoofbeats, then shuffled back inside the run-down shack, calling both dogs to follow him.

  Chapter 4

  Having seen the old man and the two shepherd dogs disappear upon their approach, Suelo Soto stared at the shack as he and Ransdale reined their horses down and stepped them back and forth in the dirt. ‘‘I hope we’re not interrupting anything, ma’am,’’ he said politely, although his voice carried an unpleasant tone. ‘‘I’ve got a feeling there’s things here we want.’’

  ‘‘We don’t want any trouble, Mister,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Take anything you want and leave us in peace.’’

  The two men stopped their horses and stared at her. Ransdale said as he eyed her up and down with a wicked grin, ‘‘Did you say anything we want?’’

  Her eyes moved across the long, freshly taken scalp hanging against his leg, but she pretended not to see it. The sight of the wet, gory artifact sent a chill of desperation up her spine, yet she managed to keep her voice steady. ‘‘Yes, you can have whatever you want without a fight—only please don’t hurt my pa, or our animals.’’

  ‘‘What makes you think putting up a fight would bother us any?’’ Ransdale said, his grin going away, replaced by a dark, malevolent stare.

  Turning her eyes from Ransdale without answering him, she said to Soto, ‘‘Pick out a yearling. I’ll clean it and spick it for you.’’ She gestured a nod toward the small herd of goats milling nearby in a corral. ‘‘It’s better that I cooperate, do what you want done, rather than fight you over every little thing, isn’t it?’’

  ‘‘You’re a whore, aren’t you?’’ Soto said bluntly, causing Ransdale to snicker as if he’d meant it as a cruel joke or an insult.

  ‘‘I used to be,’’ the woman said, ignoring Ransdale for the moment and speaking only to Soto. ‘‘But I haven’t forgotten how.’’ She tilted her chin as she spoke and cocked a hand onto her hip as if compelled by instincts she thought she’d long abandoned. She felt herself steadily gaining a footing of control, and with it, courage. ‘‘In case you and your laughing friend want to know, my name is Clarimonde—’’

  ‘‘I don’t want to know your name.’’ Soto cut her off roughly. He gestured a finger up and down her. ‘‘Step out of that dress and let’s see what you’re carrying around underneath.’’

  ‘‘Yeah and let your hair drop,’’ Ransdale cut in.

  Without taking her eyes off Soto, she untied the two strings holding her dress at her throat and let it fall to the dirt. Behind her she heard the bitch shepherd whine and scratch at the inside of the door. She heard her father call the restless animal down.

  ‘‘I hate an unruly dog,’’ said Ransdale, his hand going to his gun butt and wrapping around it. Yet his eyes stayed riveted on the woman’s pale, naked breasts.

  ‘‘The bitch dog is old. She doesn’t mean anything by it,’’ the woman said. ‘‘Neither of these dogs bites. You don’t have to worry about them.’’

  ‘‘These dogs look too damn much like wolves not to bite,’’ Ransdale replied. ‘‘But you tell me if I look worried to you.’’ He glared at her, his hand resting on his gun butt.

  ‘‘No, you do not look like a man who worries about troublesome dogs when more pleasurable things are close at hand.’’ Relieved that the scratching and whining had stopped, the woman eased a hand up her flat stomach and cupped a breast to keep Ransdale’s attention drawn away from the door. She deliberately avoided looking at the fresh scalp at his knee as she reached up, pulled a long thin cactus needle from her hair, shook it out and let it fall.

  Having noted her accent and the way she handled Ransdale, Soto chuckled and said, ‘‘Yeah, you’ve been a ‘hurdy’ girl all right. I can see your mind clicking right along. Don’t try getting too bold on us,’’ he warned. ‘‘You can see what my pard thinks of womenfolk.’’

  ‘‘I will do only as you tell me to do,’’ the woman said submissively.

  ‘‘Whoo-ieee, I like the sound of that,’’ said Ransdale. He looked her tall, naked body up and down and said with a tight, hushed voice, ‘‘Her hair’s the color of wheat in the field.’’

  ‘‘Keep hair out of your mind for right now, Nate,’’ said Soto. ‘‘We’re going to eat some hot goat meat and make ourselves at home here for a while.’’ He glared at the woman and said, ‘‘Does that sound good to you, Clarimonde?’’ He deliberately used her name as if to let her know she had won something.

  "Yes, that sounds good to me," she offered with a coy smile. Now that she felt she’d diverted their attention from the shack for the moment, she stooped straight down to pick up her dress. ‘‘I will kill our largest kid and prepare it for you.’’

  ‘‘You don’t need to dress on our account,’’ Soto said, stopping her from pulling the weathered dress back up around her. ‘‘I might enjoy watching a woman go about her work without her clothes on."

  ‘‘Might?’’ said Ransdale. ‘‘I know for damn sure that I would.’’

  The woman straightened, picked up her dress and let it hang from her fingertips. Without letting her humiliation show, she nodded toward a smaller weathered shack thirty yards away. ‘‘I keep our butchering knives in there.’’

  ‘‘After you then,’’ said Soto, backing his horse up a step and allowing her to walk to the corral.

  The two watched her select the largest yearling from among the goat herd a
nd walk out, cradling it in her arms. They stepped down from their saddles and followed her to the shed. Ransdale took off his gun belt and draped it over his saddle horn as if preparing to force himself upon her as soon as they entered the shack. But a stern look from Soto kept him in check as they walked along, watching the woman stroke the kid’s neck and speak soothingly to it in German.

  Without looking around, the woman said matter-of-factly, ‘‘If I make you happy, I am hoping you will not kill my papa or the dogs before leaving."

  Chuckling, Ransdale said, ‘‘It’s not likely you’ll get what you’re hoping for—not with hair like this." He reached out with his gloved hand and ran it down her long hair hanging down her back.

  Ignoring Ransdale’s words, Soto said bluntly to the woman, ‘‘We’re American convicts running from an Arizona lawman. I don’t like leaving live witnesses behind us.’’

  ‘‘But you have nothing to fear from us,’’ said the woman. ‘‘No one here can say who you are. My papa does not see well.’’

  Ransdale grinned cruelly and said as he watched the sway of her naked hips beneath her hair, "Then that leaves only you."

  ‘‘You do not have to worry about me saying anything about you,’’ she said. Still stroking the kid in her arms, Clarimonde reached out with a foot and shoved the weathered plank door open, then walked inside the shack.

  ‘‘Oh?’’ Ransdale said. ‘‘And why is that?’’

  ‘‘Because I will ride along with you when you leave,’’ she said, pressing her cheek to that of the kid before setting it down atop a chopping block in the middle of the dirt floor.