markwildyr.com,
Post #102
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| Courtesy of Wikipedia.com |
Some of
you have asked for more of Huntinghawk, so I’ve gone back to my series of stories
featuring Curt Huntinghawk. There are six of them, so we might spend some time
with the big Indian. Whenever you tire of him, let me know. Here we go with the
first part of the first story I wrote about him.
*****
HUNTINGHAWK
Curt Huntinghawk found
the print in soft sand between fragments of tufa. He almost missed the mark
left by a boot with a deep gash in the heel because it was in the shadow of a
cholla spine. It was clear though. Almost too clear. He lifted his head and
searched the ridge as the hair on the nape of his neck bristled. The Phantom,
or El Espectro, as he was known by the rest of the group, was too
canny for a mistake like this. Hawk had his own private name for the
drug-runner… Wolverine, after the pugnacious, tenacious, tough beast of Hawk’s
own north country.
A member of a group of
Native Americans—a term he detested since anyone born in America was one—Huntinghawk
was employed by the Border Patrol to track smugglers along the Mexican border. Dubbed
the “stragglers” or “slowpokes” by the locals because they followed along
behind people they tracked, the unit adopted the name Rezagados Colorados…
Red Stragglers.
Hawk, as everyone dubbed
him, considered the year he had been with them the most interesting and
challenging in his life. Of course, prior to this, that had consisted mostly of
some logging and warming the benches in various employment offices while he
tried to stay out of trouble.
Right now, Hawk figured
he’d found new trouble. Wolverine would know someone was on his trail learning
his habits and slowly closing in on him. As Wolverine was almost certainly a
local, he could not permit this. Hawk scanned the flats of the Lower Sonoran desert.
A smuggler’s road ran five miles to the north. A mile to the west was an
unmarked water source located in some rocky hills called the Dragon’s Back. The
Mexican border lay south, and ten miles to the east lay the closest town. It
was mid-day, so town was not an option for the Wolverine. The print pointed
north, but Hawk was betting on the water, a clear, pure spring that bubbled up
in the hilly rocks and trickled through an arroyo a mile or so before
evaporating beneath the hot Sonoran sun.
The Rezagados were
not peace officers; they carried government ID’s as protection instead of side
arms. Most of them lugged a personal hunting rifle when tracking traficantes as a more substantial shield against
harm… for snakes, they claimed when questioned.
Hawk rested his
Winchester in the crook of his arm, tugged his broad brimmed hat more firmly on
his head and turned his steps westward, traveling fast. The closer to the waterhole
he got, the more his hackles raised. In the grip of some internal alarm, Hawk
suddenly dropped to the ground and wiggled his way to a small boulder that
provided better than the thin cover of the surrounding mesquite and paloverde. Crawling
around the rock he halted abruptly. Coiled in the shade of the rock was the
granddaddy of all rattlesnakes. Obviously irritated by his presence, the snake
struck with barely a warning rattle. Hawk threw himself backwards, snatching
his hat from his head and throwing it straight into the dripping fangs. Something
slammed him violently in the head, and he rolled unconscious into an arroyo.
Noises penetrated his
foggy brain, setting nerves on edge. Damn, can’t a man get some sleep? Sleep? He
fought his eyes open and winced from the brilliance of the late afternoon sun. He
was flat of his back on the floor of a shallow gulch. Standing almost at his
feet, staring at him with bugged eyes, was a young man. When Hawk struggled to
his elbows, the youth turned and fled down the wash. Shit! No wonder the kid
ran. Hawk was as naked as the day he was born.
“¡Ven!” he croaked. “¡Ven
aqui! No estoy La Migra.” The kid was almost certainly an illegal, and Hawk
tried to assure him he wasn’t looking for wetbacks.
A cautious head appeared
around a bend of the arroyo. Slowly, the kid stumbled forward, and Hawk saw the
youth was in little better shape than he was.
“¿Quien esta?” the boy asked. “¿Porque
lo desnudo?”
Hawk crawled uncertainly
to his feet, too groggy to worry about his nakedness. “Sorry, don’t speak your
lingo. Just a few words.”
“Oh,” the boy said. “Who
you are?” he asked in heavily accented English. “Why you no clothes?”
“Bad guy shot me,” Hawk
explained, not sure that was true. Maybe Wolverine got close enough to simply club
him. “Stripped me and left me to die.”
“Oh,” the youth said
again, stepping closer and peering at Hawk’s forehead. The Indian put a hand to
where the boy’s brown eyes were focused: it came away with dried blood.
“Damn!” Hawk breathed. That
was a close thing. He had been shot. The bullet must not have actually
struck him, but passed close enough so that the concussion did the damage. He
looked around and found a smoldering pile of ashes, all that remained of his
clothing. There was no sign of his boots, but his billfold lay nearby,
identification and credit cards intact. Half buried in sand behind a two-hundred-year-old
saguaro, Hawk found the rifle Wolverine had not seen. He steadied himself by
leaning on the barrel and tried to assess the situation. A finger tapping his
broad chest brought his attention back to the boy.
“¿Agua?” the boy
asked, moving his finger to his dry lips. “Wa…ter?”
Hawk pointed his chin to
the west. “Over there. Not far. Half a mile. But it’ll be slow going.” He
opened the breech to the rifle and blew out dirt. Satisfied, he levered in a cartridge
and turned to find the boy studying him. Hawk was reminded of his nakedness,
but there wasn’t much he could do about it until he got to the waterhole where
he had emergency supplies stashed… if Wolverine hadn’t plundered them.
Hawk led the way, going
slowly to avoid prickly pear and thistles and sharp rocks… and that damned
rattlesnake! Once the boy stumbled against him, and Hawk pulled him into the
hollow of his arm for mutual support. It took over an hour to reach the spring.
The boy fell to the side of the small pool and lapped greedily at the cool
liquid. Hawk allowed him a decent drink before pulling him away.
“Not too much, you’ll get
sick. Wait a few minutes and then take another drink, okay? Understand? “¿Comprende?”
“Y-yes,” the boy
stammered. Hawk took a good look at him. He’d thought the kid was around
fourteen or so because of the beardless cheeks, but now decided he was older.
“My name’s Hawk,” he
said, holding out his hand. The kid staggered to his feet and accepted it in a
faltering grip.
“Ramon. Ramon Aquila. You
are indio… Indian, no?”
“Yeah. I’m a redskin. You
sneaking over the border all by yourself, Ramon?”
“No, no! Six! But we see
green truck and coyote, he run off. Ramon
get separated. Think Ramon die here by himself until see smoke. When find el guapo
in arroyo, I think we die together.
Hawk started at the term.
Trips across the border to visit some señoritas taught him guapo
meant handsome. Reminded once again of his naked condition, he padded over to
the place he’d buried his cache. It was still there. He drew out clothing,
including a worn pair of boots, some dried and canned food, and a couple of
blankets. They’d spend the night to rest his sore feet and allow the kid to get
his strength back.
Hawk stood in the thin
stream of cold water below the pool and soaked his cut and bruised feet for
fifteen minutes before soaping himself all over. The bath improved his outlook
a thousand percent. He dressed and tended his cuts from the small first-aid kit
in his stores. Deciding fresh air would be preferable to socks and boots at
this point, he spread the blankets and put together something for them to eat while
Ramon took his own bath. Hawk paused a moment to study the boy’s rangy body in
the dying light. He had mocha skin like those girls Hawk sometimes visited. The
boy went awkward when he saw he was being watched.
Hawk didn’t speak until
after they finished eating and the area was policed. “We’ll have to spend the
night,” he explained, “but I want to move away from the pool because animals
come here to drink at night. Don’t want to keep them from water. Tomorrow we’ll
head for my truck.”
“What… what happen to
Ramon?” the boy asked uncertainly.
“I’m not a man-hunter… not
for illegals, anyway. I’ll take you to my place until we can figure out what to
do, okay?”
The boy nodded. “Okay,”
“It’s going to get cold
here tonight, Ramon. I only have two blankets, so we’ll have to sleep close together.”
The boy nodded again.
Hawk experienced a
strange night. His head ached from the wound, but he didn’t think that what
kept waking him. Some large animal slaking its thirst—maybe a panther down from
the Sierras—pulled him from his sleep once, but something else was disturbing
him. Finally, he decided it was the pressure of the boy’s sleeping form molded
against him. He’d never slept with a man before except when he and some of his
buddies piled into a single bed at the height of a drunk. By then they were
more passed out than sleeping. A couple of times Ramon whimpered and pulled
himself against Hawk as if seeking protection.
*****
So now Hawk
and Ramon have found each other, and Hawk is experiencing some strange things.
What will come of it. Let’s see next time.
Now a renewal
of my tired plea for Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns. I also believe the STARbooks-published
River Otter, Echoes of the Flute, and
Medicine Hair are still up. I sure
would like to get the final book in the Cut Hand Series, Wastelakapi… Beloved, published, but it’ll take some help from
readers to get Dreamspinner interested.
My contact
information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email: markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr
Twitter: @markwildyr
The
following are buy links for CUT HAND:
And now my mantra: Keep
on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
Until next time.
Mark
New posts at 6:00 a.m. on the first and
third Thursdays of the month.
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