Chapter 23
"I can't figure it out," Will told Isum. "It sure looked like we had an assassin scoping out the place, but it's been a week, and we've had no sign."
"Could be he's more patient than most," Isum said. "Maybe he's spotted us and waitin' till we quit guardin'."
"If Del ever wants to go to Mexico again," Will said. "I think I'll knock him over the head until he gets over the idea."
Isum laughed. "Onliest one we seen was that poor Mexican riding that burro. Said he was working for Weber, and we checked it out. He is working there."
"Looked pretty harmless," Will said.
And that's just what Guerrero wanted them to think. He was content to wait until they tired of the all-night watching, and then he'd get his chance. At least that was his plan.
He'd hired himself out to a German farmer named Leon Weber, who spoke Spanish very well. Guerrero used the alias, Juan Moreno. After Guerrero had been working at the farm a few days, he asked, "How is it, Se?or Weber, that you can speak Spanish so well?"
"Oh, I was a boy in 1862 when my father took us to Mexico to escape having to join the Confederate Army," Weber told him.
"I was in Mexico three years before we came back, and I learned to speak from my Mexican friends.
For three years, I spoke nothing else outside the house, but inside, we still spoke German. "
Weber was impressed with his new worker. He kept right after whatever task Weber gave him until it was done, and Weber was saving money, paying the campesino half what he would have had to pay a German worker.
He was disappointed when Moreno didn't show up for work the next day.
Guerrero had decided he'd waited long enough and the guards around the Cole place would have relaxed by now.
After he left Weber's place, he hid about a mile and a half northwest of the Comal River headwaters in an area covered with dense oak and mountain cedar with lots of rocky recesses and crevices for perfect concealment.
From there with his field glasses he could look down on the town, and he could see the road along the Comal River.
"Vega has got us scared to go out of the house, Del," Elena said one afternoon, "but I need to do some shopping, so if you'd hitch up the carriage, I'm going downtown. Carlos says he wants to come and Lupita is coming too."
Del hitched up the buckboard and said, "You want me to come along?"
"No need," Elena said. "We're going down to Scherff's and coming right back."
Del was behind in tilling his fields, and he had to sharpen his plows.
Through his field glasses, Guerrero saw the buckboard with two women and a child, which meant Cole was alone at his ranch, and this was the time he'd prepared for these last few weeks.
Del was trying to file out several gouges in the plow blade, but the more he filed, the more he felt that he should have gone downtown with his family. He sighed deeply, dropped the file on an upturned log, and saddled his horse, getting ready to head into town.
The air inside Ernst Scherff's Mercantile smelled heavily of roasted coffee beans, salted pork, and the sweet, starchy scent of new calico bolts.
Lupita was already running her fingers over a roll of blue gingham, asking prices of the clerk, while Carlos's mother stood by the counter checking off her list of baking supplies.
Carlos shifted from one leg to another. His mother looked down and said, "Do you need to go?
"Yes, I can't hold it anymore."
"Then go ahead but don't dawdle. We're packing up now and about ready to leave."
As Carlos left, Elena said, "I'll probably need one more can of baking powder and maybe a pound or two of raisins."
Carlos slipped past a stack of iron wood-stoves, and shoved through the rear exit. The blinding Texas sun hit him instantly, along with the dry heat of the alleyway behind the Main Plaza. He hurried toward the whitewashed outhouse near the livery stables.
He never made it to the door. A heavy, calloused hand clamped over Carlos's mouth before he could draw a breath to scream.
The scent of cheap tobacco and stale sweat filled his nose.
The fright caused him to release his bladder, and he felt the warmth in his groin and down his legs.
Within seconds, a cloth was stuffed into his mouth, his hands and feet were tied, he was gagged, crammed into a thick burlap sack and tossed into the back of a covered supply wagon.
Carlos bucked wildly, his boots making noises against the wooden floor, but it was no use.
"Tranquilo, malcriado," a low voice hissed in Spanish near his ear.
"You settle down, or I'll bust your head.
" The driver snapped the reins, and the wagon rattled away, blending instantly into the dusty traffic heading toward the road to San Antonio, but he was already thinking about abandoning the wagon, which he'd stolen at the other side of town.
Inside the mercantile, several minutes passed.
His mother had walked over to discuss a bolt of cloth with Lupita.
As they talked about the cloth for two or three minutes, she looked up and said, "Where's Carlos?
" Both women flew to the back door, then to the whitewashed outhouse.
Elena jerked open the door and felt the blood drain from her face.
She collapsed momentarily against the outhouse door. "Oh, por Dios, no, no."
"Run to the front, Lupita, search for him," she yelled. Lupita went through the store and out the front door. Out front, she saw nothing but the usual wagons and riders in the street. Elena ran over to the livery stable and asked the liveryman, "Did you see a little boy?"
"Wal, no, I's in there forkin' hay," he said. "Onliest thing I saw was a covered supply wagon back here. Some Mexican with a beat-up straw hat, but it's gone now."
Elena ran back into the store just as Del stepped down from his horse.
"They kidnapped him!" Elena screamed.
"When?"
Elena shook her head. "He went to the outhouse. Oh, God, I should have stayed with him, but it was only four or five minutes. The liveryman said there was a covered supply wagon, but it's gone now."
"Ride home as fast as you can," he said. "Get Will and Isum. And get Abram, he's the best tracker. All I got is my Colt and my Winchester. Tell 'em I'm headin' down the San Antonio Road." With that he vaulted into the saddle and lit out.
Within minutes, he could see the wagon at the side of the road, but when he pulled up beside it and pulled back the tarp, he found only an empty gunny sack. His eyes scanned the countryside, but he could see nobody. He looked for horse tracks, and he could see where two horses had headed west.
The heat off the limestone was blistering as Del urged his gelding off the main San Antonio road.
The fake-out with the supply wagon had cost him precious seconds, and the kidnapper knew exactly what he was doing, trading the slow-moving wagon for two fast saddle horses to vanish into the rugged Hill Country.
Even though he felt like he'd been kicked in the cojones, he knew he had to think wisely because riding into a trap wouldn't help Carlos one bit.
The tracks led straight into the rough, cedar-choked breaks west of town, away from the flat coastal plains and up into the limestone ridges.
Del leaned low over his saddle horn, his eyes locked on the jagged prints left by the galloping horses.
One horse had a left front shoe slightly inward, a sloppy piece of blacksmithing that left a crescent-shaped scar in the pale Texas dust.
As he studied the terrain, he looked for places a sniper might set up, his hand dropping instinctively to the cold iron of his Winchester lever-action rifle held in its scabbard.
They weren't heading for Mexico yet. The kidnapper was turning into the hills, likely planning to loop back down toward the border once he shook off any immediate pursuit.
The afternoon sun baked the back of his neck, the air thick with the sharp, resinous tang of crushed cedar and dry grass.
When he thought about the terror his son was feeling, he returned his thoughts immediately to the task at hand.
The terrain grew steeper, the dirt giving way to unforgiving plates of limestone that hid the hoofprints.
Del slowed his mount to a trot, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He couldn't afford to lose the trail now.
If he lost them before Abram, Will, and Isum caught up, Carlos would be across the Nueces Strip before sundown tomorrow.
He paused at the crest of a dry creek bed, scanning the horizon. Far to the west, just below the shimmering heat haze of the ridgeline, a tiny puff of white dust caught his eye. It was barely visible against the pale sky.
Del checked his Colt .45 in its holster, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, and dug his spurs lightly into the gelding's flanks. "Come on, boy," he whispered. "We're running out of daylight."
Meanwhile, miles behind him, three riders tore out of Will's homestead at a breakneck gallop. Abram rode slightly ahead, his keen eyes reading the road even at a dead run. Abram Shallot was a long-time deputy marshal. He was part Indian, calm as a statue and smart.
Behind him came Will and Isum, their faces grim, rifles balanced across their saddlebows. They reached the abandoned supply wagon just as the sun began its long slant toward the west.
Abram vaulted from his saddle before his horse had even come to a full stop. He dropped to one knee by the empty gunny sack, his dark fingers brushing the crushed weeds where the two saddle horses had broken away.
"They doubled back into the hills," Abram said, his voice tight as he pointed toward the western ridges. "Del's already on 'em. His gelding's stride is long, he's pushing hard."
"Can we catch 'em before dark?" Will asked, checking the cylinder of his revolver.
Abram looked up at the sun, then back at the jagged rocky terrain ahead. "Del's trailing 'em by sight and luck right now. But once that sun drops behind the hills, he's blind, and we will be too. We need to move."