Retreat
P.C. Allen
Robledo Mountain
Retreat
By P.C. Allen
Copyright 2019 P.C. Allen

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved by the author, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of their respective holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does it express any endorsement by them, or of them. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, service mark, or registered trademark.
DEDICATION
For my son. One of the greatest pleasures in my life has been, “Watching Scotty Grow.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, first and foremost, my thanks to my First Readers, Robert Green, Joyce Ward Kelly, and Robert Leger, who continue to give their time, creativity, and encouragement.
I owe a tremendous debt to my editors, ‘TeNderLoin’, ‘TheRev’, and ‘zap292’. All of whom wade through the gibberish masquerading as prose, add in all the punctuation, discover disappearing words, and rein in the loose and forgotten plot lines. The book you are reading now is largely a result of their selfless efforts. Any issues you may have with this book remain my sole responsibility as the decisions on what to include, what to change, and what to ignore were mine.
The cover of any book is just as important as the story. My sincerest thanks to Mike Groves, another of the very talented photographers who call the Mesilla Valley home. He graciously allowed me to use one of his photographs as the background of this book’s cover. I encourage you to visit http://mikegrovesphotography.com to see more of his incredible work.
Once again, a special thanks to Tatiana Fernandez at Vila Design for the cover design. She continues to astound me. Working from nothing more than a concept and a background photograph her imagination and talent are truly impressive. See more of her work at viladesign.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
A Few Words From The Author
About The Author
Books By P.C. Allen
Prologue

. . .Four stones were heated by the fire inside the sweathouse. . . The others sang songs of healing on the outside, until it was time for the sweat to be finished . . .
~ Excerpt from Apache Creation Story ~
The tired shaman straightened as he exited the wickiup, glad to be out in the fresh evening air. The worry etched deeply into every line on his face was all encompassing as he stared off into the distance.
Four times he’d failed. Four, a powerful number; he couldn’t, wouldn’t, fail a fifth time.
He’d had an extraordinary number of visions in the last handful of years. A long, glorious string of visions, that had proved to be accurate. More than in all the previous years combined. He thought he’d been blessed. Instead he’d learned he’d been cursed. Perhaps Raven, the great trickster, was behind these last four visions. Regardless, instead of assisting his people with spirit contact, he’d hurt them.
He’d counseled for a large raid on a white man’s town. He’d been assured of a large victory, succeeding where so many others had failed, with few loses among his warriors. The victory would be the beginning of the death knell for white men in Apacheria.
Instead of victory his warriors had been decimated with nothing to show for the effort and loss. The hated white man only increased his numbers as more and more arrived to stake out the land so precious to his group; Failure Number One.
To make up for that failure he’d been given a vision of a great victory against the most hated of his people’s enemies, the Navajo. That vision too proved to have been false, as again his warriors were decimated with nothing in return except the death wails of the women; Failure Number Two.
He’d been warned during a vision in the sweathouse over a year ago that his future and that of his family lay in the North. He’d convinced his leader of this even after a lengthy visit to a promising area in the South. He now knew his vision had been wrong; Failure Number Three.
The last failure was the most immediately dangerous for his people by far. He’d missed all the warning signs, signs which every shaman was trained from youth to recognize; yet, he’d missed them. And because he missed them, the leader of his people was now dead. He went to sleep last night an apparently healthy man, an old man to be sure, but healthy enough. The leader died in his sleep without a sound. If he’d been paying more attention, instead of worrying about failures, he could have interceded with the spirit world before it was too late and likely the leader would still be alive; Failure Number Four.
Four! A powerful number indeed.
He came out of his reverie to find his apprentice standing in front of him looking at him with concern.
Ignoring his apprentice, he stalked to the sweathouse still deep in thought. Removing his clothes, he entered the small hut, immediately breaking into a heavy sweat from the cloying heat and humidity.
As he settled himself, he hoped the spirits would hear his prayers for counsel and bless him with a visit. Without thought to the activity going on outside the sweathouse he took a deep steadying breath and began the focus chant.
Almost immediately he felt himself enter the serene peaceful existence of the spirit world. A world he well knew from his previous visions. This time though there were differences from the previous visits he could remember. Subtle differences, most of which he couldn’t quite put his fingers on, but they were there.
The difference he could identify was the ease with which he’d entered. He couldn’t remember a faster or smoother transition from the world of man, to the world of the spirits. He pondered this for some time before becoming aware of nebulous presence nearing him.
Suddenly, the presence blossomed into a young maiden sitting before him.
“I am Girl-Without-Parents. I have heard your call and am here to provide counsel if you would listen,” she said mildly yet her lips never moved.
“You honor me with your presence,” the shaman replied. “I am confused, and in need of counsel which only the spirits can provide.”
“What has you confused?” she asked pensively, almost as if afraid of the answer.
“Four times the visions I was given were wrong. Wrong for me, wrong for my family, wrong for my people.” With an imploring look he continued, “I would know what I have done to bring such bad visions from the spirit world; and, more importantly, what I need to do to regain your favor. My people won’t survive another bad vision.”
“I will help if I can, of course, but only the Creator knows all. So, tell me of these visions, and the results,” she said solemnly.
He lost track of time, even more than usual, as he recounted the visions he’d had, his actions, and the results. Girl-Without-Parents listened patiently, outwardly calm, but with an inner anger that grew with each vision and result the shaman told her of.
They’d been sitting in silence after he finished as she reined in her anger sufficiently to begin giving counsel when they both felt a shift in the spirit fabric.
With that shift, her anger was gone, replaced by sadness.
She answered his unspoken question. “That was your mentor, your teacher, leaving the realm of man for the spirit world and the Land of Ever Summer.”
The shaman gave out a great sigh of loss. In all his years he’d only gone against his teacher once. And that one time was counseling his people to move North instead of staying in the South as his teacher had advised. He should have listened to his teacher.
“Yes, you should have listened to him,” Girl-Without-Parents said as if reading his mind. “The four visions you seek counsel on, were all from a spirit with evil intent. Whether it was the trickster or one of the others, I can’t tell. What I can tell you is that you need to lead your people South and rejoin this branch of the family to the Southern branch, making the family whole once again as your teacher asked.”
“This I will do as swiftly as possible after preparations are made,” he promised.
“You will find another student awaiting you there. Not an apprentice but a student. That student will tell you of their need and you will strive to teach them what they seek,” she commanded.
Before he could reply the presence began to rapidly fade.
“My time with you is done,” she said as her form vanished. Her final words settled heavily on him in the still air of the sweathouse. “One last thing, listen to the counsel of your brother. If you have concerns discuss them with him and take heed of his words.”
With a heavy sigh he gathered his thoughts examining everything Girl-Without-Parents had said during his discussion.
Hours - which seemed like minutes - later, Nantan, Shaman, and now leader, of the Northern Garcia Apache, left the sweat lodge. Tiredly, he directed his apprentice to spread the word. His people were to be ready to leave first thing in the morning. They had a long trip South to make.
Chapter 1

My head was pounding!
Somehow, around the pain, I thought, ‘After seventy some years, you’d think I’d remember to never mix distilled and fermented alcohol!’
I may have looked twenty years old, but I was well over seventy. Getting sent back over 160 year’s in time was bad enough. Throw in losing everyone and everything I knew, and it was even tougher. Losing fifty years off my apparent age paled in comparison; but it was rough, too. Well, losing the years, both in time and age, had its good points; but still, until I’d adjusted to the reality of it, I thought I was either going, or already was, bat shit crazy.
Of course, hearing the voice of my dead wife whispering in my left ear at odd times, just reinforced the thought that I was experiencing a psychotic breakdown.
Eventually though, with the help of friends I made over the next few years, I’d come to adjust to my situation. My new reality. I think it was Anna, my lovely Anna, that finally grounded me to the point where I could accept my new reality.
We’d been married almost a year. When I had the time to think about it, I still found it hard to believe that I’d found Anna. Okay, so Las Cruces isn’t exactly Casablanca but with just a little modification, the line about, ‘all the gin joints in all the world’, would apply to me meeting Anna. I’d probably never have noticed or entered that restaurant, if it hadn’t been for meeting her grandfather a couple of times over the previous few months.
Thinking of Anna, I opened my eyes, only to immediately shut them again as the pain in my head flared. The glare of light from the sun as it peeked over the Doña Ana Mountains streaming through the French doors, was tough to take with a hangover. When I thought I had a handle on the pain, I squinted my eyes open as I turned my head.
Anna’s head was on my shoulder, her twinkling eyes were wide open and looking at me with a smile on her face.
“Good morning, mi Pablo,” she said softy. “You don’t look well.”
“I don’t feel well,” I grumbled in reply. “I don’t think we’ll be leaving for Las Cruces this morning my love. I’m sorry, but if this headache didn’t kill me the ride would.”
Anna gave a small giggle. “That’s okay Pablo. From what I saw of George and the others last night, I don’t think any of you will be able to make the ride, today.”
Anna was right. All the men in the Hacienda were too hung over to do much of anything. Aspirin and copious amounts of liquid to rehydrate were great at helping us recover from hangovers, but they’re not an antidote.
My cousin, George Pickett and I, managed to recover from the celebration enough to ride to Las Cruces the next day. We arrived in the early afternoon, with Anna and I each leading three mules. George left us almost immediately. He had six more miles to go to get to Fort Fillmore, and report back in from his leave.
At supper Anna’s great grandfather, Mr. Garcia, asked if the invitation for him to spend time at the Hacienda was still open. Anna was quick to assure him it was a standing invitation, and he would be welcome any time he showed up, for as long as he cared to stay. Yolanda and Tom were there as were all the cousins, so he would be more than welcome, even if we weren’t there.
Mr. Garcia thanked us, and the conversation turned to other subjects. After supper Anna, handed me my guitar and asked me to sing, as she wouldn’t get to hear it for a while. I thought for a minute and played “Till the Rivers All Run Dry” followed by “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”. The rest of the evening I played whatever the family requested, finally closing with “Anna’s Song”.
As were going over to the house, Mr. Garcia told Yolanda’s father that he would take him up on the offer of a ride to the Hacienda in the morning. Anna beamed me a smile on hearing that, whispering to me that it would do him a lot of good to be around all the kids. We spent the night with the Mendoza clan enjoying soft beds and clean sheets knowing we wouldn’t have those luxuries for a few months.
The next morning, we said our goodbyes and rode out to Mesilla, for a quick stop to check in with my Deputy Marshals, Esteban and Ed, as well as say goodbye to George.
The visit with Esteban and Ed was disturbing to say the least. Apparently the comancheros we’d killed on our raid a few months earlier were part of a larger group and had been awaiting the return of their leader and the rest. The leader had taken a large number of captives and goods east to the Comancheria, to sell to the Comanche.
The gossip being spread around the cantinas and bars, was that the leader had been livid on his return to the camp and finding all his men dead, and the rest of the captives as well as the loot gone. While no one knew his name, he was described as a big man with a flat nose, which had been smashed and broken sometime in the past.
Everyone who’d seen him agreed that he most closely resembled an angry bear, both in build and disposition. He had publicly vowed vengeance on Esteban, Ed, and me during his last saloon appearance a few days ago, before disappearing into the desert.
So far there hadn’t been any reports of raids on ranches or farms in the area, but they were keeping their ears open. I told Esteban to write up a report and send it to the Judge, asking for any information he might have.
Anna and I debated putting off the trip until we’d tracked down the group of comancheros, but eventually decided to continue as planned. I wrote Tom a brief note explaining the situation, telling him to put the cousins on alert to this new threat. I gave Ed the note and asked him to take it to Juan for delivery to the Hacienda with the next delivery of building supplies. I also asked Ed to stop by the Mendozas and let them know about the threat as well.
We said our goodbyes to George outside Fort Fillmore and reminded him that even though we’d be gone for a few months, the invitation to visit the Hacienda remained open.
Anna and I led our mules west from Fort Fillmore, finally beginning our long-anticipated trip. I was worried about the comancheros and Anna picked up on my worry. We were hypervigilant on the first portion of the trip not only while we were riding but at night as well, getting up numerous times each night to check the surrounding area.
We rode into Hurley, our first planned stop, exhausted and ready for a break. We spent a somewhat more relaxed two days in Hurley, ‘showing the badge’ after introducing ourselves to the Sheriff and Mayor.
The hotel was barely habitable and only contributed to my sense of unease. I was continuously on edge and, for the first time since we’d been married, I found myself snapping at Anna. When I realized what I was doing, I gave her a big hug and apologized to her.
For some reason I couldn’t get my mind off the leader of the comancheros, and his vow to get even with me. There was no telling what he would do, and it gnawed at me relentlessly. Anna did her best to comfort me, but I was worried. I was worried like I hadn’t been worried since coming to this timeline. I had a bad feeling, a premonition, that both Anna and I were going to regret not delaying the trip.
The third morning after arriving in Hurley, we packed up and rode the short distance to Fort McLane. We introduced ourselves to the Fort Commander using the letter of introduction Colonel Miles had written for us. He was indifferent to my status as US Marshal but was extremely interested in me as the owner of the Estancia Dos Santos, and our ability to regularly supply him with beef at an acceptable price.
Anna eventually negotiated a price of seven dollars and seventy-five cents a head for a contract that in every other respect was the same as those we’d signed with Fort Fillmore, and Fort Thorn. The Indian Agent for this area was on a trip to El Paso, though, and wouldn’t be back for some time
I let Tom know the terms of the contract in a letter I sent from the fort, as well as instructions to have Hector contact the Indian Agent when he made his first delivery, to see about selling him some beef.
Visitor accommodations at the fort looked to be even worse than the hotel in Hurley, so we decided to leave on the next leg of our trip, instead of spending the night at the fort.
We stuck to our tried and true method of paralleling the road, staying a half mile off the road to attract less attention. The further west we rode the more relaxed I became, until it was almost as much fun as the honeymoon trip up to Santa Fe.
There was still a small part of me that worried about the situation back home, but the distance and our lack of ability to influence the outcome lessened my worry with each mile west we rode.
We knew that Apache, Yaqui, and Navajo raiding parties frequently crossed this area at all times of the year, looking for targets of opportunity, so we rode carefully and were ever watchful. This was the kind of tension we were used to though, and it caused no undue stress. During this part of the trip, we passed two different slow-moving trains of freight wagons, hauling goods west, as well as a large wagon train of settlers headed for California.
Sonoita proved to be a town in name only. It was really nothing more than a handful of adobe buildings, centered around a general store. There was no government of any kind. After a quick lunch at the only cantina, we left for the three-mile ride to Fort Buchanan.
The Fort Commander gave us a cordial greeting after discovering who we were, and why we were there. We spent two hours learning the fort was established primarily to stop the cross-border raiding activity of the Apache and Yaqui Indians. The Major in charge of the Fort told us that he patrolled the wagon road as often as he could, but the bulk of his forces patrolled the border area. According to him, Sonoita and the Fort were so far off the beaten path that they had very few visitors or settlers in the area. There were so few visitors in fact, that the fort did not even have any visitor’s quarters. I crossed both Sonoita and the Fort off the list as a regular stop on the circuit.
Early the next afternoon, we were a little over half-way to Tucson, the next stop on our circuit when we decided to stop for a late lunch. I’d just taken a bite of my ham sandwich when I noticed a brown mass on the western horizon, stretching from side to side as far as the eye could see. Before I’d finished the mouthful of sandwich I was chewing, I knew we were in for a big sandstorm. I cursed under my breath, but Anna heard it and looked at me crossly.
I pointed behind her. “Sorry, but we’re in for a sandstorm, my love, and a big one at that. We need to move quickly.”
Sandwiches in hand, we mounted and rode northwest looking for a suitable arroyo or canyon to help us ride out the sandstorm. This wasn’t the Mesilla Valley with its abundance of arroyos and canyons and finding one was difficult.
We got lucky and came across an arroyo running north and south. It took us a couple of minutes to find a way down to the bottom and another few minutes to find a curve to better shelter us and the animals.
Using the panniers, packs, and saddles we built a hollow square, big enough for both of us to fit inside against the western wall. I hobbled and tied the horses and mules to some strong mesquite against the eastern wall before wrapping all their heads in canvas. Finished with the animals I went back over to the western wall and helped Anna unfold our large piece of canvas.
Working together we slid one end of the canvas down between the wall of the arroyo and the pack frames we’d stacked up against it. When it was far enough down, I lifted each of the two stacks of pack frames while Anna pulled about six inches of the canvas under them, before I set them back down.
The wind had picked up by now, as the leading edge of the sandstorm hit the arroyo and we hurried to tuck the sides of the canvas under the panniers on both sides. Done with that, we scurried under the canvas and I lifted the saddles while kneeling, so that Anna could pull the final ends of canvas under them.
Anna and I sat at the back of our little refuge against the wall of the arroyo between the pack frames. Anna dug through her saddlebags to find the cotton cloth squares we’d packed, while I pulled one of the small water barrels over near us and used it to start refilling all four of our camel packs. When I was done with that, Anna handed me the cloth, receiving her two camel packs in exchange.
We dampened the cloths before tying them behind our necks, making a face mask. We could hear the wind howling around us, see the canvas shaking, and hear it flapping violently. A few minutes later we lost most of the daylight as the brown roiling haze of the sandstorm raged over us.
For the next two days, we sat and waited for the storm to blow itself out. After the first couple of hours a coating of fine sand covered our hair, clothes, the packs, and saddles. Despite our face masks, the dust managed to get into our noses and mouth and, over time, irritated our throats making it uncomfortable and difficult to talk. Luckily, it wasn’t summer! While the air under the canvas was stifling, we weren’t sweating to death in one hundred plus degree temperatures.
The first twenty-four hours we talked for a few hours before having a supper of beef jerky I carried in a bag inside my coat, so it wasn’t covered in sand. We slept uneasily through the night and had a breakfast of more beef jerky while we talked some more about the future, our plans, what could go wrong, and what backup plans we needed to come up with.
The final twenty-four hours were maddening, as three different times the wind started to die down and we got more light leading us to believe the storm was about over, only to have it come roaring back. We held each other and waited silently for the last few hours.
We must have dozed off in our boredom as I woke up a few hours later with Anna’s head on my shoulder. It took me a few minutes to realize that everything was quiet and calm, and a few moments more to realize that meant the storm was over.
Gently waking Anna, I let her know the storm was over, and we needed to get out from under the canvas. As quickly as I could shift the saddles and lift the canvas, we were out from underneath it and breathing clean, clear, refreshing air.
The horses and mules seemed to have weathered the storm without much harm, and we gently unwrapped their heads one at a time, swabbing out their nostrils with our damp cloths, giving them small drinks and arranging feed bags.
It was almost dark by this time, and we spent what little daylight we had left finding firewood and pulling out what we needed to cook our first hot meal since breakfast three days ago. The last thing we did before going to bed was strip down to get out of our sand laden clothes. We washed both ourselves, and our clothes, the best we could, using almost all of a full three-gallon cask of water.
We finally rode out of the arroyo the next morning, pushing the animals hard, to get to Tucson as early the next day as we could. We were both looking forward with anticipation to a nice hot bath.
We rode into Tucson near mid-morning and found it to be somewhere between Santa Fe and Mesilla in size. Asking a couple of men, we received directions to the best hotel in town, and tied up in front of it a few minutes later. We checked into a room for two nights. Discovering the hotel only had one tub, I had it sent up for Anna to use while I arranged for the care and feeding of the livestock and went to the barber shop for my bath.
I came out of the barbershop an hour later clean, freshly sheared, wearing fresh clothes; looking, and feeling, much better. Anna was waiting in the hotel lobby looking like she was feeling better after her bath, too. She pinned my badge on the outside of my coat and we went in search of the best place for lunch.
We were sitting in the restaurant enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee when the Town Marshal walked in, looked around, and came over to our table. He took in my badge and without introducing himself, rudely informed me that it was customary for visiting lawmen to come to his office and introduce themselves when they got to town.
I sat back in my chair and, as I looked him up and down, I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about people that made them act like assholes when they had a little bit of power. I looked over at Anna who, with a twinkle in her eye, beamed me one of her special smiles. Picking up my coffee cup, I took a drink, wiping my mouth afterwards with a napkin before asking him who he was.
My actions up to this point didn’t sit well with him and he answered tersely, “I’m the Town Marshal!”
“Well, now! That’s sure enough a rather strange name to my way of thinking, but I guess you can’t be held accountable for what your parents named you. What can I do for you, Mr. Marshal?”
“No damn it! My name’s not Marshal, I’m the Town Marshal,” he replied in exasperation.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? I’m Paul McAllister and this is my wife Anna. I’m the US Marshal for this part of the territory. What can I do for you?”
“Damn it, man! Are you deaf as well as stupid? I asked you why you didn’t come to my office and introduce yourself when you got into town?”
I was starting to get just a little angry by this point, and looking at him with a glare I said, “That’s the second time you’ve cussed in front of a lady. Apologize immediately and mind your tongue, or Tucson will be looking for a new Marshal this afternoon!”
The Marshal got red in the face as he lost all self-control and started to draw his pistol. Both mine and Anna’s pistols were out and pointed at him in a flash.
He calmed down immediately and moved his hand away from his holster. For effect, I cocked the pistol. “I’m still waiting to hear the apology.”
Looking from me to Anna, who cocked her pistol with a grim look on her face, the Marshal eventually stuttered out his apology to Anna. We both let the hammers down and holstered our pistols.
Taking a drink of coffee, I looked at the Marshal who remained standing in front of our table. With a sigh, I addressed the Marshal, “I don’t know who you think you are, or what powers you think you have, but let me make a few things clear. I don’t know you, I don’t even know your name, since you haven’t had the manners to introduce yourself. I don’t work for you, and I’m not responsible to you. Where I go, when I go, and who I see; are absolutely none of your business, unless I choose to make it so.
“My wife and I have spent the last few weeks in the saddle, and two of the last three days hunkered down in a sandstorm, so we’re a little out of sorts. Neither of us appreciate your rude interruption as we’re relaxing for the first time since we started this journey. We may or may not see you before we leave town.
“Rest assured, however, that either I, or one of my Deputies, will be in town for some period of time at least twice per year. When, is none of your business. I strongly suggest you show yourself to the door with the clear knowledge that you’re still alive, only because you’re so slow with your gun that even my wife beat you to the draw.”
Ignoring the Marshal from that point on, I turned to Anna and asked her if she’d like another cup of coffee. At her nod I poured us both a fresh cup. The Marshal finally turned and left as I was pouring.
Anna looked at me and said, “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him.”
“You’re probably right; but people like that, in positions of authority, just get my dander up,” I replied.
Drinking our coffee in contemplative silence for a few minutes before Anna spoke up. “That Marshal reminds me of somebody, but I don’t know who.”
I shrugged and said it would come to her eventually. We finished our coffee and walked back to the hotel and asked the man behind the counter where we could find the Mayor. He took in my badge, and politely told us that the Mayor ran the livery stable at the southern edge of town.
We walked back to the hotel stables to get our horses only to find the Marshal rifling through our panniers. We stopped ten feet behind him, I drew my revolver, looked at Anna, and cocked it. The sound reverberated throughout the stable and the Marshal went completely still.
“Marshal no name, please tell me why you’re pawing through our panniers without our permission,” I said in as reasonable a voice as possible.
“I’m looking for stolen valuables. I don’t like the look of you, and I don’t think you’re a US Marshal,” he replied belligerently.
I cocked an eyebrow at Anna who just shrugged. I looked back at the still bent over Marshal before saying, “Stand up slowly, with your hands visible.”
He did as I instructed and as he turned towards us, I heard a small gasp from Anna. I glanced over at her getting a look that said we needed to talk in return.
“Marshal, this is a territory of the United States. The 4th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. That means that unless you have a search warrant, you are in violation of federal law, and I’m well within my rights to shoot you for attempted theft. This is the second time you’ve made me angry today. There won’t be a next time. Have I made myself clear?”
He started to reply but stopped when Anna broke in. “Pablo, the excitement from the restaurant and now this is getting to me. Please take me back to the room to rest for a while.”
Now that was interesting. She clearly wanted to talk to me as soon as possible. I motioned with my gun for the Marshal to leave the stables. He left without a word, and I tied the covers on all the panniers making sure they were tight before turning to Anna, taking her arm, and leading her back over to our room in the hotel.
No sooner were we inside and the door closed, than Anna asked me for the stack of wanted posters, descriptions, and warrants I’d gotten before we left Mesilla. Digging them out of my saddlebag, I handed them to her, curious to see if she would find something of interest.
She spent a few minutes looking through them before pulling a poster and warrant out of the pile and handing them to me. I looked down to see a picture of the Marshal we’d just been talking to.
His name was Fred Atchison. He was reportedly part of the Red River Gang and was wanted for robbing the Overland Stagecoach near Las Vegas, killing both the driver and guard. I looked up at Anna and she handed me three more wanted posters, one for each of the Red River Gang.
The leader of the gang was Mike ‘Two Hands’ Stubben. His nickname apparently stemming from the fact that he was completely ambidextrous and wore two guns. There were no pictures for the other two gang members, and the descriptions were generic which didn’t help us much. I looked up from the papers, and found Anna throwing her shawl on over the shotgun sling she’d just finished putting on.
I raised an eyebrow at her and in a tart tone she said, “If you think you’re going up against four of them by yourself you have another thought coming.”
Putting on my shotgun sling, I wondered if I’d ever win an argument with her.
Checking that our shotguns were loaded, we walked downstairs and got directions to the Marshal’s office. We crossed the street and walked arm in arm down the sidewalk.
Just before we got to the Marshal’s office, I had Anna check for a back door and if there was one to see if it was locked. She returned less than a minute later telling me there was a back door, but it was locked. We walked into the office and found a young Deputy sitting at a desk, reading an old newspaper. He looked up, and seeing my star introduced himself and asked how he could help us.
“We’re looking for the Marshal,” I replied.
“You just missed him,” came his reply. “The Marshal went over to the Mayor’s office just a few minutes ago.”
Out of curiosity I asked, “How long have you been the Deputy?”
Giving a deep belly laugh he replied, “This is my third year as a winter Deputy. Normally, I’m a cowhand, but I prefer to spend my winters in town.”
I asked the same question about the Marshal, and the Deputy told us that the Marshal had taken the job about six months earlier, when the old Mayor and Marshal had been killed walking down the street one evening after a late poker game.
He also told us that both the Mayor and Marshal had just been reelected before they were killed. No one in town wanted either job, so the new Mayor agreed to take the position and had appointed his friend the new Marshal.
Without coming right out and saying so it was clear from the Deputy’s tone of voice and body language that he didn’t much care for either the Mayor or the Marshal. I asked him for directions to the Mayor’s office and again he laughed before pointing out the window to a small adobe building across the street.
“That used to be a storehouse, and since it only has the one door, I’m certain both the Mayor and Marshal are still inside,” he said helpfully.
I thanked him and told him I’d see him a little later.
On our way across the street I told Anna to enter behind me and move at least two steps to the left with her shotgun ready. She nodded and reached down to grip her shotgun. I stopped in front of the door, pulled my shotgun around holding it by the stock with my finger on the trigger, and at Anna’s nod I opened the door and entered.
The ‘Mayor’ was sitting at a desk talking to the ‘Marshal’, who was standing on the right side of the desk looking at a small ledger lying open on the desk in front of the ‘Mayor’. The ‘Mayor’ looked up, saw me entering the door with my shotgun ready, and reached over to a pistol lying beside the ledger.
He cocked it as he was raising it towards me and, without hesitation, I fired the shotgun in his direction. In the small confines of the office the blast was deafening. The ‘Mayor’ was thrown against the back wall before falling to the floor.
Less than half a second later, I heard Anna’s 20-gauge shotgun go off, and watched as the ‘Marshal’ joined his friend on the floor against the back wall. At least this time he’d managed to get his pistol out of his holster!
I took Anna in a big hug. “Are you alright?
“I’m fine,” she replied, hugging me tightly before pulling back. “What’s next?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “I’m just making it up as I go along.” After a few seconds of thought I said, “Wait here and don’t let anyone in until I get back with the Deputy.”
At her nod I opened the door to walk out and found the Deputy crossing the street towards me at a trot. I waved him inside and he paled slightly at the sight of the ‘Mayor’ and ‘Marshal’ lying along the back wall.
Pulling out the wanted posters and warrants from my coat pocket I handed him the two for Mike ‘Two Hands’ Stubben and Fred Atchison. He read them both, looked at the two bodies, shook his head, and handed the papers back to me.
“That explains the rash of stagecoach holdups over the last six months,” he said shaking his head.
“Has anyone matching these descriptions been close to either the ‘Mayor’ or ‘Marshal’?” I asked as I handed him the papers on the other two members of the gang.
He read them quickly, thought for a second, and then shook his head saying, “Neither of them had any close acquaintances in town that I’m aware of.” After another moment of thought he added, “When they first arrived in town, there were four of them; but the other two left town for California after the first week, or so they said.”
While the Deputy and I had been talking Anna had been looking through the ledger.
She looked up and interrupted us. “This ledger is broken into two parts. The first part shows a list of deposits and withdrawals from a bank in Santa Fe. The current balance is over $35,000. It also gives two names and the address of a boarding house in San Francisco. The other part of the ledger lists deposits and withdrawals for the livery stable, with a current balance of $18,000.”
The Deputy’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head at the numbers Anna gave. In 1855 that amount of money would allow him to retire at his young age, and never have to work a day in his life again if he was careful.
“Please make arrangements for the bodies with the undertaker,” I instructed the Deputy. “The weapons these two have should cover the cost of burial.”
He nodded and left while I searched the two bodies. Between them they had just under twenty dollars, which I gave to Anna telling her, tongue in cheek, that it would cover the cost of our ammunition. We left the office and went to the bank to discuss the account shown in the ledger.
The bank president took in my badge and greeted us cordially after I introduced us. When he asked us how he could help us Anna handed me the ledger.
I said, “I need the answers to some questions. Is the account in the ledger still open? If so, is the current balance in the ledger accurate, if not, what’s the current balance? Does the ‘Mayor’ have any other accounts open under any other names?”
“I’ll have to check,” was the unexpected response. The town wasn’t so large to have many large depositors, and this was a very large account.
He started to move to the tellers’ area when I stopped him. “I also need the balances of any accounts the ‘Marshal’ has open as well.”
He nodded, clearly curious but also clearly intimidated by the badge, not asking any questions. When he came back, he said, “The balances in the ledger are accurate, neither man has more than one account, and the balance in the ‘Marshal’s’ account is just under forty dollars.”
“Do you know when the last stage holdup was?” I asked after a few moments of hard thinking.
“It was eight days ago. The robbers got away with almost $4,000 in the strongbox,” was his immediate reply.
“Hmmm,” I said while thinking furiously. “I need to see the detailed account information for both men, immediately.”
The Banker stiffened as he said, “I can’t do that without their permission.”
“That’s going to be a little difficult, since they’re both dead,” I replied with a glare.
That news shocked him, but again he surprised me. “I still can’t give you that information.”
I looked at Anna shaking my head in disgust before looking back at the banker. “The ‘Mayor’, and ‘Marshal’s’ real names were Mike ‘Two Hands’ Stubben and Fred Atchison, leaders of the Red River Gang up near Las Vegas.”
I took the papers on both men out of my coat pocket and handed him the wanted posters. Now he was convinced but still refused to show me the account information. I sighed heavily and handed him the two warrants which included a statement authorizing review and seizure of all bank accounts.
As he was reading the warrants I said, “You can either give me immediate access, or I’ll put you in jail for ‘obstruction of justice’, and you can wait until transport to Santa Fe is arranged. Once in Santa Fe, you can explain your obstruction to the Federal Judge.”
His face lost all color, and he gulped before handing me back the warrants and leaving to get the account information.
Anna beamed one of her smiles my way. “I’ve never seen so many contrary people in one place in all my life.”
“Confiscation of the funds in these accounts is going to hurt the bank,” I explained. “He was just trying to delay the inevitable.”
He came back with the information I’d asked for regarding both accounts and handed it to me. I compared the activity recorded in the mayor’s ledger with what had been provided by the banker and when I was sure it matched, I asked where the Overland Stage Office was as that was our next stop.
“It’s two doors down on this side of the street,” the banker replied helpfully.
Standing up, I said, “We’ll be back when we’re done with the stage company manager.”
Anna followed me out of the bank curious at what I was going to do at the stage office. We walked into the stage office and, after confirming the man behind the counter was the manager, I introduced Anna and myself.
“Now that you know who I am what can you tell me about the holdups your stage company has experienced over the last six months?”
The manager answered my questions readily. “The stage has been held up five times in the last six months. Every holdup was within twenty miles of Tucson and was done by the same two men wearing black clothes and bandanas. In every case at least one person, the shotgun rider, was killed. The total amount taken from all five robberies is $14,500.”
“I see,” I said thoughtfully. “What was the date of each robbery and what was the total amount taken in each robbery?”
He checked a diary and his account ledgers, before writing down the dates. I handed them to Anna asking her to check the dates against the ledger and see if she could determine if there was a pattern.
While she was doing that, the manager was looking back through the records and adding up the amounts. He handed me another piece of paper with the amount stolen during each robbery. After a quick look, I handed it to Anna as well.
After a few minutes Anna said she was done. “There were deposits made ten days after each of the first four robberies.”
“How much was each deposit?” I asked.
She read off the amounts of each deposit and I compared the number she gave me to the amounts stolen. In every case the amount deposited appeared to have been rounded up or down to the nearest twenty-five dollars.
“Well, that pretty much solves the robberies,” I said after giving them the results. I looked at the manager. “I need you to come to the bank with us please.”
He closed up the office and we all walked back to the bank, where we went directly to the bank president’s office. I asked to borrow his desk, his pen, and three pieces of paper. He waved me to his chair and after sitting down I wrote out the same set of instructions three times numbering each piece of paper sequentially as ‘1 of 3’, ‘2 of 3’, and ‘3 of 3’.
When I was done, I handed the three pieces of paper to the bank president and told him to read all three and after confirming they were exactly the same to sign all three. When he was done, I gave the same instructions to the stage manager who had a big smile on his face after reading the first paper. When he had signed all three, I signed them as well and kept the first copy giving each man one copy for their own records. I handed my copy to Anna and asked her to keep it with the ledger.
The paper instructed the bank to transfer $14,500 from the ‘Mayor’s’ account to the Overland Stage Company account. The remaining funds were to be added to the funds from the ‘Marshal’s’ account and a Bank Draft issued to the Judge in Santa Fe and given to me to deliver to him.
When he’d verified the transfer, the stage manager left, and I told the banker we’d wait while he prepared the Bank Draft. While he was doing that, I wrote out two copies of a receipt for the Bank Draft, numbering both as I had the instructions, and signed them. I gave him the second copy when he gave me the Bank Draft.
Before we left, I asked, “Did the ‘Mayor’ own the livery stable and his home?”
The banker shook his head. “The bank owns both and rented them to the ‘Mayor’. The house is part of the stable complex.”
I sarcastically thanked the banker for his help and we left.
Anna took my arm as we walked. When we passed the hotel she asked, “Where are we going?”
“To search the ‘Mayor’s’ house and stables if necessary,” I absently responded. “There’s still the money from the last robbery that hasn’t been deposited yet.”
Anna gave my arm a squeeze. “You know, cousin George was right.” I looked at her questioningly. “It’s never dull around us.”
I had to laugh and agree with her.
We found the stables strangely quiet with seven horses in stalls, no animals in the corrals, and no mules anywhere. We eventually found an older man leaned back in a rocker with his feet up on the desk, fast asleep. He woke up with a startled exclamation, almost tipping over backward in the rocker, at the sudden noise, as I loudly cleared my throat from the doorway.
When he righted himself, I introduced us both and asked him about the horses in the stable. He proved to be quite loquacious. Over the next five minutes we learned that one horse belonged to the ‘Mayor’, one belonged to the ‘Marshal’, the other five horses were rentals, although nobody had ever rented them.
The stable had had no business in the last four months, as the prices had been set too high, and the only time the ‘Mayor’ was in the stables was to saddle his horse or give him his monthly pay. He wasn’t too surprised when I told him the ‘Mayor’ was dead, and suggested he close up for the day and go see the banker to find out about his job and his pay.
He nodded and quickly left after walking out with us. Once he was gone, we made our way to the small house sitting off to the side and walked in the front door when no one answered my knock. There were three rooms in the house, a front parlor, a combination kitchen dining room, and a bedroom.
I started the search in the bedroom, looking under the mattress, under the bed, through the dresser, and in the small closet. When we didn’t find anything there, we went through the kitchen and then the parlor finding nothing.
I walked back to the kitchen door and looked around distractedly. “I’m sure the money is here somewhere. We just have to figure out where.”
Anna stood in the doorway with me looking at the kitchen. After a couple of minutes, she looked up at me. “Where’s the cold room?”
“I’m not sure there is one,” I said.
She pointed at the table where a plate of partially eaten toast and eggs as well as a glass of what looked like milk had been left out. “There’s no milk bottle anywhere,” she pointed out. “The toast has butter on it but there’s no sign of any butter, so both must be stored somewhere.”
I beamed her one of my special smiles and told her she was one smart lady. She snorted, gave me a light arm slap, and told me to look out the back door for a separate cold room or cellar entrance.
While Anna searched the kitchen more carefully for an entrance to a cold room, I walked out the back door and around the house. The only thing I found was the outhouse and I was pretty sure the money wasn’t hidden there. I returned to the house through the back door and found Anna studying the pantry floor.
Joining her we both stood looking into the pantry. “This pantry is odd. The shelves are much too narrow for the amount of floor space there is,” she said pensively.
I looked down at the floor to see if there was the outline of a trap door. I didn’t see a trap door, but I did see a small rectangular notch just big enough for a finger to fit into a cut between two of the floorboards.
Bending down, I stuck my finger into the notch feeling for a release latch. After a couple seconds of experimenting the latch moved to the left and released a catch holding the floor down. Using both hands I lifted the floor from where it had popped up, swinging it up on hidden hinges at the back of the pantry.
With the floor up, we could see a set of stairs leading down. I looked at the trap door and saw that it had been disguised by the simple expedient of using the normal staggered floor planks joins to hide the door, much like what I had done to hide the cave entrance.
Anna left while I was looking at the door and returned with a lit lamp. Pushing me out of the way she started down the steps before looking back at me. “Are you coming with me?”
Grinning, I said, “Right behind you, my love.”
The cold room proved to be quite large. Along the right-hand wall, we saw a small milk can sitting under a set of shelves holding butter, eggs, bacon, a ham, and a small wooden box of potatoes.
Along the back wall was a large heavy worktable. Four empty strong boxes from the Overland Stage Line were under the table, while a fifth opened box was on top of the table. A heavy chisel and sledgehammer were also on top of the table lying next to a shattered lock.
Against the left-hand wall was a smaller table holding two neatly folded sets of clothes, all black.
I walked to the table and picked up a bag of money from inside the strong box. We’d count it later when we got back to our room, but I was pretty sure it held all the money from the last robbery.
Anna picked up something from behind the clothes on the other table and brought me a small metal money box like we used at the Hacienda. She put it on the worktable and opened it up, revealing a mix of half eagle, eagle, and double eagle gold pieces.
I put the money box and the bag of money from the strong box, inside the wooden box the potatoes had been in, before picking up the straw the potatoes had been nestled in and putting it over the top. Anna led me back upstairs, closing the trap door after I was out, and followed me out of the house.
Back in our hotel room we both counted the money and found all $3,750 from the last robbery in the money bag as well as another $600 from the small money box. There was no way of telling where the $600 came from so I just dumped it loose in a burlap bag and put the bag of money from the stagecoach on top of it. I tied up the burlap bag and put it under the bed with our saddle bags.
I retrieved my courier bag and suggested to Anna that we go get some coffee while I wrote up my report to send to the Judge. She thought that was a splendid idea and we walked down to the restaurant.
Anna kept me company the rest of what was left of the afternoon. I wrote out the long report to the Judge, telling him what had happened and letting him know that I was bringing the various pieces of documentation, the Bank Draft, the ledger, and the money we’d found in the cold room with us on our trip to Santa Fe in a few months.
I added the wanted posters and warrants for ‘Two Hands’ and Fred that I’d marked diagonally with the word DECEASED, the date, Tucson, and Resisting Arrest. Anna read over the report and agreed it covered all the major points.
While Anna folded everything up into an envelope, I wrote another, much shorter, note to Esteban and Ed, telling them to ignore Sonoita and Fort Buchanan during their circuit and to remove the two dead men from their stack of posters and warrants. Anna read the note before folding it up into another envelope and handing both envelopes to me. She’d already addressed both envelopes, so I asked the waitress for a candle to seal them with. After sealing them with my ring, I put the envelopes in my courier bag to mail out tomorrow.
Later that night, following an acceptable supper in the restaurant, Anna and I discovered that while the bed in our room wasn’t perfect, it was more than adequate for ‘exploring possibilities’.
We fell asleep cuddled close together with the cool night air of early spring wafting through our open window.
Chapter 2

We were up early, and after breakfast we rounded up the deputy and the stagecoach manager before walking over to the bank.
The four of us walked into the banker’s office over his objections. I closed the door and told him to shut up and listen, as Anna looked away to hide her smile. I asked the banker if the ‘Mayor’ had been up to date on his rental payments for the stable and house.
When he said that he was current, I turned to the Deputy. “I want a complete inventory of the stables to include the horses, tack, and feed. Once that’s done, you’re to sell them to whomever wants them for a minimum price of,” I stopped there and turned to Anna with a raised eyebrow.
She smiled at me and gave me a number that seemed a little high, but I didn’t question it. I turned back to the Deputy, “It’s helpful to marry a girl who grew up in her grandfather’s stables. Now, that’s the minimum price you will accept. If you can’t get that price, then you’ll put up the horses and store the tack and feed, at the city’s expense, until one of my Deputies comes through to take everything off your hands.”
None of them liked that very much as it stopped them from buying everything for a song and forced the city to pay for the upkeep and storage. I looked at all three of them with a hard glare.
“As far as I’m concerned, you earned this for failing to notice the timing and amounts of the deposits compared against the date of the robberies, the overnight absence of both the ‘Mayor’ and ‘Marshal’ on the dates of the robberies, and the size of the deposits, for a business with absolutely no clients. You had to have known something was wrong but turned a blind eye to it through sheer laziness.”
By the time I was done they all had sheepish looks on their faces.
Turning to the banker I asked, “Do you know how to get into the cold room at the house?” At his nod, I continued, “There are two sets of black clothes with bandanas, as well as all five strong boxes from the robberies in the cold room. I recommend you have them removed before renting it out again.”
We left the three of them in the banker’s office and went to buy more supplies for the long ten-day trek to Colorado City, currently the largest of the three towns in the area that would one day be known as Yuma, Arizona.
Leaving early the next morning, we were relaxed and focused as we traveled. It felt good to travel again like we had on our honeymoon. All the major tension I’d been feeling and transmitting to Anna had been overcome by our discovery in Tucson that the ‘Mayor’ and ‘Marshal’ had, in fact, been wanted fugitives; not to mention being responsible for the latest rash of stagecoach robberies in the area. The short time we’d spent in Tucson more than justified our entire trip.
We arrived in Colorado City in the fading twilight ten days after leaving Tucson. We were both ready for a few days of good meals, soft beds, and most importantly, a hot bath. The accommodations were much better than Tucson, but again, there was only one tub, so I resorted to the barbershop bath house while Anna used the tub in our room.
We spent the next two days doing our meet and greet sessions with the various ‘powers that be’ in town. Our reception was much better than we’d received in Tucson, and we ended up having supper with the Mayor, Marshal, and Commander of Fort Yuma, along with their wives our last night in town.
The conversation at supper was lively with Anna regaling our table mates with stories about my exploits taking on the Stevens Gang, the Comancheros, and the Red River Gang. By the time she was done, even I was impressed with her version of me, and I knew better!
Riding north, we left Yuma the next morning following the Colorado River for the first day before moving a half mile east to parallel the river still traveling north. When we stopped for lunch on the third day, I got out the compass and map while Anna made a lunch of rabbit stew.
I shot azimuths on the two tallest peaks and marked them on the map. I grinned when I discovered we were less than a mile from Arroyo La Paz. If mining there didn’t pan out, Goodman Arroyo was only a little further north, and we’d check that next.
I returned to where Anna was cooking and told her the good news. She beamed me a smile and I just had to give her a big hug and kiss when she tried to hand me a bowl of stew. She gave me a small giggle along with a light arm slap when I let her go, and she sat down next to me to eat her stew.
We rode into Arroyo La Paz less than an hour after lunch and turned to follow the arroyo in a generally northeast direction. We explored the arroyo and its branches for an hour before coming on the perfect camping spot in a side arroyo, that ended in a large bowl less than a hundred yards from the main arroyo.
One side of the bowl had caved in, leaving a gentle ramp up out of the arroyo. When we rode up the ramp, we discovered a nice grass covered area surrounded by an irregular circle of hills literally covered in dense thickets of mesquite.
We set up our camp at the base of the hills nearest the ramp and let the horses and mules graze without hobbles or pickets for the time being. With camp set up, we took the metal detector and two shovels and walked back down the ramp to the arroyo.
At the bottom of the ramp Anna put the headset on and turned on the metal detector to test it. She gave a small shriek and pulled off the headset rubbing her ears. I asked what was wrong and she said she didn’t know but the metal detector had begun a loud screeching in her ears as soon as she turned it on.
I took it from her, turned the squelch all the way down, put on the headset, and turned it on. She was right. Even with the squelch turned all the way down, the screech in my ears was loud. I swept it from side to side, getting a continuous screech, instead of the pings we were used to.
I walked all the way down to the main arroyo and back, continuing the sweep. The screech never stopped. I checked the battery and it showed it was half charged so I checked all the connections, and everything looked good with those as well. I walked up the ramp, and the screech died out to be replaced with the intermittent pings we were used to.
Turning around, the screech returned as soon as I was in the arroyo again. The only thing I could come up with was that we were standing on some kind of mineral deposit that was so big it was setting off the screech. I couldn’t think of any minerals that I’d ever read about in this area, in high enough concentrations, to do that.
Taking the headphones off, I dug down into the sand, pulling up a shovel full of sand and started gently sifting it off shaking the shovel side to side. I stopped after the second shake, staring in dumbfounded amazement, as the falling sand glittered gold in the bright sunlight.
It reminded me of the fairy dust Tinkerbell threw on the Darling children in the animated Peter Pan cartoon. Looking over, I saw Anna staring in bright eyed wonder, as the slowly falling sand continued to glitter.
Coming out of my stupor, I sifted a little more aggressively until most of the sand had fallen off. I looked at the shovel full of gold nuggets of varying sizes in wonder. Pouring the nuggets in a small pile behind me, I dug another shovel full of sand out of the ground repeating the shaking action and again watched the gold dust float down, leaving the shovel blade covered in nuggets.
Waving out over the arroyo floor, I looked at Anna. “If the whole area is like this, our panniers will be full in a couple of weeks or less instead of the seven weeks we planned.”
She beamed me one of her rare huge super megawatt smiles, and I decided she was pleased with the news.
I tested eight spots between the ramp and the main arroyo before finally telling Anna we didn’t need the metal detector. She picked up her shovel and a burlap bag, before walking down to the main arroyo and started digging. I followed behind her and moved off to one side to start digging myself. By the time we quit a couple of hours later we had three bags of nuggets between us.
The next morning, while Anna continued digging and sifting, I walked almost three miles down our back trail to where we’d left a stretch of hard pan. I used every trick Miguel and the instructors had taught us during Scout/Sniper training to hide the trail we’d made from the hard pan all the way back to where we were digging. If someone found us, it would be by luck and expertise, not because they followed our tracks. When I walked back into camp, Anna was just finishing making lunch, and we both ate with healthy appetites. Mine from the long walk and Anna’s from all the digging.
Over supper, we talked about the plan for the next couple of weeks. We calculated that we could collect, on average, 260 pounds of gold per day, with one of us digging and collecting full time during the day, and the other only digging and collecting a half day.
Whoever was digging and collecting a half day, would spend the other half of the day melting nuggets. We’d both melt down nuggets for a couple of hours every night after supper. If we could manage to pour 700 bars every day, we would be caught up roughly two days after we finished collecting the nuggets. This all rested on the premise that the gold field was as big as the metal detector indicated, but it was a plan we could work with until something changed.
Work the plan was exactly what we did, for the next eight days. By the end of the eighth day we had collected more than 2,000 pounds of gold to go along with the 400 pounds we collected the first day and a half. We had 5,600 bars already to go, leaving us to pour another 1,750 bars at a minimum. We spent two days melting the remaining nuggets and ended up with a total of 7,700 bars or just over the 2,400 pounds we originally planned.
We spent our final day at Arroyo La Paz rearranging and repacking the panniers with the bags of gold bars at the bottom of the panniers and the supplies and clothes on top. When that chore was done, we lazed around and talked.
We had both reached the decision that we’d need to hunt on the long 500-mile ride to Santa Fe, as we’d used more of the supplies than we’d anticipated. We were a little short on meat. Hunting wasn’t a problem, but I was still terrible at skinning and butchering, so Anna would do that part of the job with whatever help I could provide.
We also decided we would travel north along the Colorado River skirting the mountains for a few days, before turning east and working our way to Santa Fe.
Things went well for the first two weeks of the trip. We rode north as planned, skirting the base of the mountains along the Colorado River, and then turned east. Anna and I enjoyed our alone time in this rugged and desolate land.
We hunted as we’d planned, and Anna began teaching me how to butcher our kills. Like my stove top coffee, I’m afraid it was a lost cause, but I did try.
On our fifteenth day of travel we stopped at the base of a hill to fix lunch, and rest for an hour before moving on. I was cleaning up after lunch and repacking what we’d used, while Anna had climbed the hill to scout out the rest of the days ride with her monocular.
I’d just finished tying the cover down on the last pannier, when I looked up and saw Anna halfway down the hill waving me to her frantically. I climbed up to her as fast as I could and, while I caught my breath, she told me she’d seen what looked like a raiding party with captives moving north. They were about two miles south of us and another two or three miles east.
We climbed the rest of the hill and laid down, so we could see over the top. Anna searched for a couple of minutes with her monocular, before finding the group again. I found them quickly after Anna pointed me in the right direction.
The distance was a little long for the monocular, so I couldn’t get any detail, but the general impression was as Anna had said. A group of six or seven warriors traveling north with a group of four or five captives. We couldn’t tell for sure, but we both agreed that we thought the captives were children and a young woman who may have been carrying a baby or toddler.
Damn Murphy and all his laws! So much for a nice peaceful trip to Santa Fe.
I judged their line of travel the best I could and started scanning with the monocular looking for someplace suitable to free the captives. I thought I saw a cut in a long rocky ridge that might work about two miles north of us. I couldn’t make out enough detail to be sure though.
Anna and I talked about it for a few minutes and decided to see if we could work our way around the ridge to the other side. We rode north as fast as we could without raising a dust trail behind us. When we’d traveled what I judged to be two miles, we stopped at the base of another hill, and climbed up to check our position and the location of the ridge.
From this position, we could see the cut was really the end of a large miles-long arroyo, which would indeed make a good spot for an ambush. We remounted, and rode a little further north before turning east, and riding to within two hundred yards of the arroyo.
We tied up the animals to a large mesquite bush and hobbled them. While Anna took our rifles out of their scabbards, I dug out my ghillie suit from the pannier I’d packed it in. Anna handed me my rifle and we went scouting for a good ambush spot.
We’d seen that there was no way out of the arroyo for at least the first mile, so I was hoping to find a fifty to one-hundred-yard stretch that was almost perfectly straight. As it turned out the perfect spot was four hundred yards from the entrance.
I positioned Anna near the northern end of the straight stretch behind some creosote where she could look down into the arroyo.
“Stay out of sight until you hear me start firing. As soon as I start firing kill any of the warriors between you and the captives,” I said in a low voice.
Getting her nod of understanding, I walked south towards the entrance. I soon found a nice open spot in some creosote looking directly down into the arroyo, fifty yards from Anna’s perch. Digging a little depression as close to the arroyo’s bank as I could, I lay down, arranged the ghillie suit over and around me, settled in, and waited. And waited. And waited some more.
I’d just about decided that the arroyo wasn’t where the warriors were aiming for, when I faintly heard a young voice asking for water in Spanish, followed by the crack of a hand hitting skin and a cry of pain. The silence that followed was unnerving.
Less than five minutes later I heard adult voices talking a language similar to Apache, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. A calm settled over me as I waited for the group to come into sight. When they finally rounded the small bend in the arroyo, there were four Navajo warriors in the lead, then came the captives in a tight group ten yards behind them, followed by two more Navajo ten yards behind the captives.
The lead warriors were bunched up, talking quietly as they walked, not really paying much attention to their surroundings. The captives were all naked, walking gingerly on sore bare feet over the hot arroyo sand. The two trailing warriors were more concerned with keeping the captives moving, than they were with what was around them.
The captives were being led by a young Anglo woman in her mid to late teens. She was carrying a baby, while talking encouragingly to what looked like a Hispano brother and sister about ten years old, and an Anglo boy about eight.
I waited for the trailing warriors to get ten yards past me, and opened fire at point blank range. Two shots and I was moving to standup, so I could get a better angle on the leading warriors over the captive’s heads. By the time I’d stood up and had the rifle to my shoulder, it was over.
Anna had taken out all four leading warriors with single shots to each. The kids were crying in terror, and the young woman was looking at me like I was a monster. I told them in English and Spanish to stay there, and we’d get them some water in just a minute.
It took a couple of minutes for me to get out of the ghillie suit. When I finally had it off, I looked down and saw that Anna had already thrown them a camel pack and was showing them how to drink from the suction tube.
While she was talking to them and calming them down, I went back and got the horses and mules leading them back to where Anna was standing near the edge of the arroyo.
I took the coil of rope off my saddle horn and tied a bowline in one end. While I was working on the rope, Anna went over to the mules and pulled out my medical kit bringing it back with her. She opened up the medical kit, took out a sling, tied it around her neck, and told me she was ready.
The little minx laughed when I tried to hand her the rope, and instead leaned over grabbing the base of a mesquite bush growing on the edge of the arroyo. With a firm hold on the mesquite, she walked backward down the arroyo wall until she was dangling four feet from the bottom of the arroyo and let go. She landed lightly on both feet, and with a short laugh dressed the kids as best as she could using a combination of her spare travel clothes and what she could cut down from what the Navajos had been wearing. When she’d done what she could she told me to throw down the rope. I shook my head at her antics as I threw her the rope, but realized she was trying to calm the kids down even more.
Anna calmed the kids, got them into the rope, and I hauled them up one after the other. As I got them up to the top of the arroyo, I carried them to the shade of the mesquite where the horses were tied. Sitting them down, I gave them more water and a handful of beef jerky to gnaw on, while they waited for the others.
Anna was the last one up, carrying the baby in the sling while holding onto the rope with one hand and fighting off the wall with the other. As I pulled Anna up into my arms and wrapped her in a hug, she whispered that none of the kids had eaten anything but jerky. Looking into her eyes I saw both concern and determination.
In short order she was fixing the biggest pot of stew she could using what was left of the antelope we’d killed yesterday along with some potatoes and carrots. Her plan was simple, she’d feed the baby the stew broth using one of the camel packs and then spoon feed the potatoes after mashing them well.
While she was doing that I went over the kids with my medical kit. Besides all of them having bruises on their face, arms, and backs, the only complaint they had, other than being hungry, was their feet, which were in pretty bad shape. Of course, none of the warrior’s moccasins would fit any of the kid’s feet, not even the teenage girls.
With a silent sigh I told them exactly what I was going to do to their feet, and that it might hurt, but I would be as gentle as I could be. I started with the youngest boy first.
I washed the sole of each foot as gently as I could, removing all the sand, thorns, and slivers that I could find. I coated the soles in an antibiotic and analgesic cream, before wrapping both feet lightly with cotton cloth. I did the same for each of the rest, talking to them as I worked to learn what I could.
Most of the information I got was from the young woman, Elizabeth Saunders, who was fifteen. All of them had been with their parents in a small wagon train of six wagons that had formed in El Paso to travel to California together.
They’d been on the trip for almost two months, when they were attacked by a large raiding party just after sunup four days ago. When the attack started, she’d been put in charge of the kids, bundled into the back of a wagon with them, told to stay quiet, and not to come out until an adult came to get them. As far as she could tell, they were the only ones left alive from the wagon train when the fighting was over.
The Navajo had found them hiding in the back of the wagon. An argument broke out among two of the warriors shortly after they were found. Six disgruntled warriors left the group leading the kids north while the others stayed and looted the wagons. The last glimpse she had of the wagons was the other warriors moving south.
Mike Adams, a six-year-old, was the youngest of the group other than the baby. Sierra and Manuel Barela were eleven-year-old twins and the baby was 9-month-old Rose McClure. Elizabeth, or Beth as she preferred, was an only child, and was certain she had no living relatives.
Sierra did all the talking for the twins. Neither had ever heard their parents talk about any living relatives. Young Mike just shook his head when I asked him if he had kin anywhere, and Beth said she’d never heard his parents talk about relatives during the trip.
By the time I was done fixing up their feet and talking to them, Anna had the stew going and had fixed each of them some willow bark tea. As they sipped the tea, I told Anna we’d let them eat lunch here before loading up and leaving to get as far away as possible before we lost daylight.
She asked about the kids and I gave her what history I’d learned. I told her when we left, I would be walking, Beth would ride my horse carrying the baby, while the other three rode the mules. She started to say she would carry the baby.
I stopped her, reminding her she needed to be unencumbered as she would be the only fighter and would need both hands to handle the horse and whatever weapon she was using. She thought for a moment and then nodded her understanding of what I was telling her.
Two hours later, with everyone fed and everything packed back in the panniers, we were on our way. Anna led the way on her horse at a fast walk, followed closely by the kids. I followed well behind them on foot.
We managed to get back down around the ridge and headed east without any difficulty and when we were on hard pan about a mile from the cut I told Anna to keep going and I would catch up with her after I did what I could to mask the trail we were leaving. As they rode off, I cut a mesquite branch and started using it to sweep out any tracks we were leaving. The tracks got a little more difficult to hide once the hard pan gave out to sand.
The tricky part was where Anna and the kids had crossed the tracks of the warriors as they headed into the cut. Luckily Anna had been paying attention and had tried to stick to the hardpan or caliche as much as she could in that area. My efforts weren’t going to fool a good tracker for very long, but it would buy us some time, if the bodies were found in the next day or two.
A mile beyond the cut, I threw the worn branch aside, and broke into a trot following Anna’s tracks. I caught up with them two hours later when they stopped for the night. The camp was set up, the kids were all seated near a fire waiting for supper, which Anna was cooking over a small fire. She gave me a tired smile and handed me a cup of coffee telling me supper would be ready in a few minutes.
Exhausted from their ordeal and their bellies full for the first time in days, the kids were asleep soon after they were done eating. The baby fussed for a little longer, but soon followed the others into the land of nod.
Anna and I put out the fire and drank the last of the coffee as we talked quietly. We both agreed that we would adopt the kids and raise them at the Hacienda. We’d ask them if that was okay in a few days, but the only one that was really old enough to object was Beth, and we’d work with her if she wanted to go it alone.
Over the next week we made our way - though a little slower than planned - towards Santa Fe. I ranged on foot all around them, doing the best I could to scout the trail ahead and look for pursuit from behind.
While I was running around, Anna was telling the kids stories about the Estancia, the Hacienda, and all the people that lived and worked there. She tried to keep it focused on the kids already living in the Hacienda and the ones she knew in the village; but she was always answering questions about the village, the vaqueros, and the farmers.
Their feet were healing well and without problems, but without shoes they limited their walking to only what was necessary around camp.
I had left the decision on when to tell the kids about our adoption plans, and how to tell them, up to Anna. She decided that she would tell Beth first. The two of them talked late into the evening after the others had fallen asleep. Every once in a while, during the talk, Beth would glance over at me looking for confirmation on something Anna had to say, and I would nod in agreement.
Beth was in high spirits the following day and that was noticed by the others. Anna broke the news to them during the day’s ride, while I continued my running back and forth. When we finally made camp that night, the kids were all in much better spirits and were helpful around the camp as they had regained a sense of belonging and a certainty of their future.
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