Come Sundown by Mike Blakely

Author:Mike Blakely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2012-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

“BUNCH OF TISWIN-SLURPIN’ savages,” Charlie said that night over a plate of beans he shoveled into his mouth with a piece of hardtack. We were sitting outside of Kit’s tent, prodding Charlie for information.

“What’s that tiswin?” Paddy asked.

“The foulest drink ever concocted,” Charlie said. “Them squaws take maize kernels and let ’em sprout, then they chew ’em up and spit ’em into a pot. They ferment it in there and it turns into tiswin.”

“Good God,” Paddy replied, a disgusted frown on his face. “They drink squaw spit?”

“It’s nasty stuff, but they’re pretty nasty critters.”

“Whereabouts have you seen them camped lately?” Kit asked.

“I left Manuelito’s camp way down in the Guadalupes, but their harvesttime is about done, so they’ll break camp to go huntin’.”

“Where do you reckon they’ll hunt?”

“Like as not the Sacramentos for elk and such. Unless they take a mind to hunt up some poor Mexican’s sheep herd.”

Kit questioned Charlie for quite some time on the location of other camps, the strength of the tribe as a whole, and information on which Mescaleros had done the most raiding. There was a chief named El Listo, or the Ready, whose warriors Charlie claimed had been most active on the warpath, but he said Chiefs Manuelito and Long Joe had also led raids.

“How many braves you reckon they could muster if they all got together?” Kit asked.

Charlie snorted. “There ain’t more than five or six hundred Mescaleros left—men, women, and children. I bet they couldn’t muster three hundred armed bucks. Besides, they’re scattered and don’t usually come all together.”

“Too bad,” Paddy said. “We’d have an easier time of it striking them all at once and just mopping up the whole country of them.”

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Charlie replied. “You’ll have to hunt ’em down like coyotes.” Charlie finished his beans and dropped his tin plate into a tub of water for someone else to wash. “You got a place where I can spread my bedroll?”

Paddy jumped to his feet before Kit or I could speak. “Come on, Charlie,” he said. “I’ll show you where to settle in.”

As they walked away, Kit stood and pressed his hands against the small of his back as if it ached. “Buenas noches. Kid. I’m about tuckered.”

I nodded at Kit as he ducked into his tent. By the firelight, I saw Paddy glance back toward the tent, then he leaned closer to Charlie Beach as they walked away. Paddy said something that made Charlie look at him with some surprise, then they faded into the darkness.

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