The Last Laugh of Joaquin de la Mora

Short Story

Tate Edwards stood, pistol in one hand and bandanna in the other, over what was now just a pile of horsemeat. It had been his horse, the one he’d named Jude, now turned pin-cushion by Comanche arrows. And past the horse a ways, lay his two mules, also dead.

The waterskin on the back of Jude was all but done leaking its water, having been pierced by an arrow.

He reloaded the pistol from the horn of powder slung across his gut. It was a Colt Paterson, a cap’n ball gun, and a pain to load. It had also misfired on him more than once. One of the first revolvers ever made, and ever sold, the Paterson’s novelty had no doubt saved his life.

The Comanches, expecting only one more shot after he had fired off the rifle, for they had only ever been acquainted with flintlock pistols, had tucked tail and ran as soon as he went on firing.

It wouldn’t matter though. They would be back for him once they worked up the courage. That, or after he died of thirst. Then they would be back to do the honors on his dehydrated scalp.

He was one hundred miles away from anyone or anything that looked remotely like him. He was horseless and without water. Effecively missing two out of the two things necessary for survival in the West Texas plains.

Around him, holes littered the wadi where he had made his camp. And even now, the shovel he had used to dig them beckoned him to continue his search.

There was gold here, he could feel it. It was on the map, the one he’d traded off of Jouquin de la Mora of the Mexican Navy for a single rolled cigarette.

He pulled said map once more out of his pocket, and carefully unfolded it. Stained yellow now, from sweat and dust, it crinkled as he manipulated it, having become brittle.

He checked his bearings. To the north was Elephant rock, and to his south… nothing but more of the Llano Estacado, or as the white man called it—the Staked Plains. Thirty thousand square miles of the most inhospitable land man had ever had the displeasure of wandering into.

He glanced upwards at the sun lolling overhead. A brilliant white heat. Not even a sun really, just a ball of flame. An all-seeing eye of death that baked the life out of whatever its gaze touched. He squinted, wiped his brow with the bandana and briefly wondered if he could get the moisture back out of the little scrap of cloth.

If he slept the rest of the day, he could start back towards the last waterhole he passed. It wasn’t far off. One night of walking at a good pace and he would be there. He could patch the waterskin, and maybe make it back to the next hole, that one was a good four nights of walking. With the waterskin patched up he could make it though, especially if he holed up during the day. And with enough guts and a little luck he could walk himself out of here.

But the gold… he desperately wanted to know it was here. To touch it. To hold it. To have it to come back to. Even if he found it, he knew he couldn’t tote it out on foot, but dammit, he at least wanted to know it was real!

Glancing from the shovel back to the map, he decided to take one more poke before nightfall.

Then he heard the laugh. It was faint. Barely audible, but unmistakeably the laugh of Joaquin de la Mora, Captain of the Santa Maria.

The laugh of a ghost.

He was taunting him. Taunting him from the grave. “Senior Edwards, one thing you will learn, you may hang me, shoot me, or beat me, but Joaquin de la Mora will always have the last laugh.”

Slowly, despite himself, he picked up the shovel. He knew better. He knew better than to waste his strength and his moisture on more digging. But it didn’t matter. He was so close and the gold was only ever one more hole away, and then one shovelful, and then one last scoop…

The first time he’d met Joaquin de la Mora was on the deck of the Santa Maria. The ship was listing badly to the starboard side and taking on water quickly. The smell of gunpowder was thick in the air.

They’d been bold in their attack, thick as that morning’s fog had been, and it was not clear that the Santa Maria had even seen them coming.

They were Texians, sailing aboard the San Jacinto, a two-masted schooner which was as quick as she was nimble. Originally built for the slave trade, she was now property of the Texas Navy. And her new mission—protection of the fledgling Republic.

They’d slipped up beside the Santa Maria, overtaking her quickly, and let loose with every gun they had. Then, not waiting for an answer, nor taking time to reload their own cannons, the Texians had prepared to board.

Tate was one of the first across, pistol in one hand and a short saber in the other. He had cut the saber down to be about half as long, turning it into one big knife that still sported a saber’s sweeping hand-gaurd. It was a weapon for a rogue and not a gentleman, made for brutalism and tight spaces.

His first shot had taken a scrawny Mexican sailor just under the chin, dropping the man in place. His second shot had missed the next man up, splintering the wood on a mast arm just behind him. But they’d crossed blades after that, and it took no more than a parry-slash-thrust for Tate to gain the upper hand.

The Mexicans had swarmed the deck then, crawling up from the ship’s underbelly like so many ants. They let off a volley of musket fire, but it did nothing to slow the Texian’s momentum.

Then the fight was hand-to-hand and blood slicked the Santa Maria’s deck. And at the last of it, Tate leveled his revolver at a scrawny sailor, more boy than man, and canoed his head right down the middle.

The Santa Maria surrendered.

It was as the ship settled and smoke cleared, that Tate glanced around.

He spotted Lothrop at the bow of the ship, busy accepting terms from the Mexicans. Lothrop was Captain of the San Jacinto. A tall man with an angular face, who possessed a harsh and judgemental gaze. He considered himself an officer and a soldier, and forbid the looting of the dead or of prisoners. Often, Lothrop had declared his crew to be, “true Navy men and not God-forsaken pirates.”

Tate was of different mind.

Working his way stern, Tate placed mast and cabin between him and Lothrop’s petty stare.

Then, Tate picked over the bodies of the fallen, as was his tradition, and relieved them of what jewelry or trinkets they had on their person.

When they were relieved of their possibles, he checked their mouths and, using his cut-saber, pried loose any gold teeth he happened upon. Such were the tight spaces that his knife was made for.

“Lothrop will give you the lash if he catches you,” a sailor named Weston said.

“Sod off,” Tate snapped. “You tell him and it’ll be me you have to worry about.”

Weston merely shrugged.

That was when Tate saw the necklace on the next body over. Glimmering around the corpse’s neck was a gold chain, and what appeared to be a golden locket.

Tate reached for it, but all he caught hold of was the wrist of Peter Clarke, another of his shipmates, and the man who had somehow managed to snatch the locket a second before him.

“That’s mine,” Tate snarled, pulling the skinny Clarke by the arm.

Clarke swung on him then, and his fist clipped Tate something good in the side of his head.

Tate fell backwards, slightly stunned, and Clarke tried to scurry away.

But they were at it after that - Tate scrambling across the dead on all fours, catching Clarke by the heel, twisting him to the ground.

Clarke, now more or less sitting on the deck of the ship, kicked out at Tate with his free leg as hard as he could.

Tate let go of the man, part-ways because of the kick and part-ways because at just that moment, the ship had tilted violently in the water.

Then Clarke found his feet, and Tate scrambled to his own. Standing now, they both circled each other, unaware of the crowd that had started to gather. They were brawlers and circled each other as such, Tate with hands held low and loose by his sides, like a big bear waiting to catch a salmon in its paws. And Clarke, crouched so low that his hands nearly swept the deck, cat-like and looking for an opportunity to pounce.

It was Tate that moved in first, throwing a wild overhand right—but Clarke was expecting it and moved the top of his head to meet it.

There was a crack as Tate’s fist met the top of Clarke’s head, and Tate yelped, grabbing at what could only be a fractured hand.

Clarke moved in then, grabbing up Tate’s legs and flipping him hard down into the deck—

—a gunshot split the air and the noisy throng of sailors parted for one, Captain Lothrop: “What’s this about?”

Nobody answered.

“Show me your hand,” Lothrop commanded Clarke.

Slowly, Clarke lifted his hand, displaying the golden locket.

“Looting,” Lothrop said. “This is your first offense, isn’t Clarke?”

Clarke started, “It is—”

“—than count me a virgin if this is his first,” Tate broke in.

“Shut up, Tate,” Lothrop said. “If you weren’t so stupid this would be your first time too. But you’re not. So its ten lashes.”

Tate lunged upwards. “Why you fucking—”

Two men, Kitt and Briggs, stopped him. And at the command of Lothrop, they lifted his weapons in one smooth motion, leaving Tate as toothless as a new born babe.

“You got first, second, and third watch of our Mexican friend here,” Lothrop said, moving aside to reveal the Mexican officer standing behind him. Lothrop motioned to the Mexican officer, and then to Tate: “Take our Mexican friend, he’s your responsibility. If anything happens to him. Molested in anyway, or if’n he escapes—you’ll have to fight the noose.”

Briggs shoved Tate forwards.

Reluctantly, Tate snatched the Mexican Captain by the arm.

“And Tate,” Lothrop said. “This isn’t me giving you light duty. Its giving you a chance to get yourself hung.”

In the San Jacinto’s hold, Lothrop showed the Captain to his new quarters. Lothrop had apportioned a part of the ship’s belly for a makeshift brigg, which was nothing but a string of shackles bolted to a cross-timber at the stern of the ship.

Tate locked the Captain up, wrists above his head, and then sat down on a little stool, his back set against one of the ship’s supports.

The Mexican started to chuckle.

“What you on about?” Tate asked.

“At you, the man to whom winning is not enough. You are compelled by a very base impulse, Senior,” the Captain said cheerily. “You want more. And when you get more. You want even more. Until at last, you find yourself here, waiting for your lashes and stuck with my company.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with looting,” Tate said. “It’s time honored tradition. But Lothrop comes from a line of Puritans or Quakers or some such and got no natural instincts.”

“My name is Joauqin de la Mora the Third,” the Captain said. “And yours?”

“You just keep calling me Senior,” Tate said. “Got no need for more friends.”

“As you wish, Senior.”

Tate scowled.

The sun was just setting when the edge of Tate’s shovel struck something hard and metallic. The clang was deep and brassy, sounding like he’d struck solid iron. Dropping to his knees, he pawed away at the dirt until he could make out the shape of an object. It had a curved edge and a smooth, iron rim.

He took at it with the shovel, clanging away, and pausing every so often to inspect his discovery.

It was the iron hubcap of a wagon wheel.

He stepped back, and paced. Smiling and excited, not hardly believing his luck. Then he let out a terrific yell, jumping high, and throwing his hat on the ground. “Dammitt. Dammitt-all-to-hell.”

Why did he have to go and find something. “Lord,” Tate said. He looked up at the stars that spun overhead and shook a fist at the creator: “I am not a strong man.”

Every bone in his body wanted to continue working at the hole, to uncover the wagon and the gold it had carried, but he couldn’t. For already the devil had his throat.

He was playing a dangerous game digging like he had for the last few hours. He’d worked up a pretty good sweat, and already his head was pounding from dehydration and his tongue was starting to swell. If he didn’t make it to that waterhole tonight, he wouldn’t be alive to spend the gold.

At this, and realizing he had no other choice, he picked up the watersack and slung it over a shoulder, setting off towards water. He reckoned it was 15 miles, give or take a few. Assuming he kept a good pace through the night he would make it just around daybreak. He was a fit man and walking was easy enough.

The stars were bright and there was just barely enough light to navigate by. He cleared the wadi, and followed the little game trail that had brought him here.

He had been walking for the better part of an hour when he felt the unreal sensation of being watched. A cold breeze brushed the short hairs on his neck, and he froze up, all silent like, just listening for any sign of what was out there.

He waited awhile, still, with bated breath.

It was just when he was starting to move again that he heard a bird call out. Clear as day—and that was the problem—it was night…

Another bird answered the first, sounding like desert quail. And he was sure that it was neither bird nor beast that stalked him, but man. The Indians were back, come to finish him off.

Pulling the Colt he started forward, for there was nothing else to do. And every so often, out in the night, a shadow would waver, or a pebble would go a-scattering, there’d be a-rustling, and the night quails would call to each other.

“A smoke Senior,” Joauqin asked. “There is no reason to be completely miserable down here.”

Tate continued to roll the cigarrette and ignored the Mexican.

“Senior, I am the one destined for the gallows, but you, merely a whipping. Certainly, sharing your tobacco is not too much to ask?”

“I ain’t got much left,” Tate said.

Joaquin laughed. “This could be so easy, Senior. You give me a cigarette, I smoke, I lean back, I relax. We share some conversations as friends, and then I leave you alone. I can die in peace when we get back. But instead you are a greedy man. A very greedy man, Senior. It is not a good thing. This greed. This need to have and to keep. Already, it has set you up for a lashing. Do not let it be the thing that kills you.”

“The hell you talking about, kill me?” Tate asked.

“Senior, a cigarette?” Joauqin asked once more. “Just one. Please do not make me barter with you, for you will surely lose such a negotiation.”

“I already said no,” Tate said. He struck a match on a leg of the stool, and lit the smoke now hanging out of his mouth.

“I hope you have another,” Joauqin de la Mora said, changing tacts. “For if you do, it could make you a very rich man.”

Tate leaned forward. “What you mean Mister? What you got to trade?”

“There it is, Senior. That greed I was talking about.” Joaquin smiled, and his hands opened like flowers in the shackles above his head. “Sure, I have something to trade.”

Tate rubbed the whiskers of his chin, until finally, he said: “How ‘bout I just take it off you.”

Joaquin’s brows came together, and a small, queer grin made a contortion of his mouth. “Senior, what I have to trade… it is in my head.”

“Sounds ‘bout right,” Tate said. “Fantasy and fae-tales. I will fall for no such thing.”

“Senior, let me tell you a story. And then when I have finished… you let me know if a single smoke is too high of a price.”

Tate leaned back again, and took a puff.

“Have you ever heard the story of one, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and his search for Quivira?” Joaquin asked.

But Tate said nothing, smoking contentedly, and determined to remain uninvested.

“The story goes that Quivira was a great city on the plains,” Joaquin continued. “It was rich in all manner of spoils. Copper, Gold, Silver… And ruled by a Chief, but not an Indian Chief as we would think of him, someone we would most assuredly recognize as a King—”

“—such never been found on the plains save naked Indians and Buffalo,” Tate broke in. “And certainly, no Indian monarch.”

“This was many years ago, Senior. Almost three hundred years ago to be exact, what Empires have risen and fallen in such a time. Is it not possible, that these lands were once very rich, and the people in them very rich?”

Tate waved him on.

“Regardless, Coronado and his party, they heard of this distant kingdom from an Indio whom they called ‘the Turk.’ If you ask others of the story, or perhaps you are familiar with it yourself, the story goes that Quivira was never found.

“Coronado and his men marched around the plains north of the Rio Colorado, and at last under threat of death, the Turk confessed that such a place did not exist. It was a deception, concocted by the Turk’s people, the Cicuye, to lead the Spanish hero and his army out onto the great sea of grass that he may become lost forever.”

“See, weren’t nothing out there,” Tate said. “Nothing but naked Indians.”

“But you are wrong, Senior. As I have already indicated. The Turk was executed not because he lied, but because he knew too much.”

“What do you mean?” Tate asked, leaning forward.

“They found the gold. A wagon full,” Joaquin said. “But in their greed, they loaded it so full of treasure that it could not make the journey. As soon as they reached especially rough country, an axle broke, and with it the men’s dreams of wealth and fortune.”

“What happened to it?” Tate asked.

“Coronado ordered it buried. Then he swore each man to silence and executed the Turk. When they returned to Mexico, he concocted the great tragedy of the meaningless quest. Which was, of course, a convenient lie designed to keep others from searching for the treasure that he buried. After all, who would search for something that never existed, eh Senior?”

“Well? Did he ever go back for it?” Tate asked. “Come on, spit it out.”

“He died before he could ever raise another party.”

“What about the other men? The ones that he swore to silence?”

“Some tried, yes,” Joaquin said, but none ever made it. “The country had become perilous by then. Even now, it is in the middle of Comancheria.”

“But it wasn’t Comancheria way back then,” Tate said.

“True, it was not. But one cannot take wagons into that country, Senior. It made them slow, and easy targets for the Indios that were there. They may not have faced down Coronado with his army… but a few spaniards with their wagons. Well… they never came back.”

“Should have taken mules,” Tate said. “A couple of mules could haul an awful lot of gold out of there. Move quick too, in and out. Like you said, no need to get greedy. Just one saddlebag would make a man rich beyond his wildest dreams.”

“Indeed, Senior,” Joaquin said. “Now you see what I am trying to tell you about greed.”

“Whereabouts was this wagon supposed to be buried?” Tate asked, hesitantly.

“I know. But I will not tell,” Joaquin said. “It will go with me to my grave.”

“You don’t know nothing,” Tate said. “How could you? A secret like that don’t keep for no three hundred years.”

“It has been kept, Senior, because one of my ancestors on my Father’s side was on that expedition with Coronado. And he was not a greedy man, Senior. He kept the secret, and he kept his neck. We the de la Mora’s care not for gold, but for life, and for love… we like to laugh, Senior. And to play jokes.”

“Do you have a map?”

“It is in my head, Senior,” Joaquin said.

“You could tell it to me, and I could write it down,” Tate said.

“I could, but you would not even share a cigarette with me,” Joaquin said. “Why should I share a fortune with you.”

Tate stood then, upset, and paced. Then he bent over the Mexican Captain, and with a finger in his face said: “Now look here. You can have all the tobacco on me. All of it. You just got to give me the location of that buried wagon.”

“That is a poor trade, Senior,” Joaquin said.

“They are gonna hang you,” Tate said. “It ain’t going to do you no good when you’re dead. But it could do you good now. It could buy you one of these here smokes you want so bad.”

Joaquin made a face of disapproval and turned his head, making a big show of his predicament. “Fine. I will give you the map. Do you have paper and pen?”

“I can sure get some,” Tate said, already up and taking two steps backwards. “You hold on right there.”

“But where would I go?” Joaquin called after him, and then he broke into a laugh. A long and loud laugh.

Day broke over Tate with his face held to water. He’d made it back to the water hole. No Comanche had bushwacked him, neither had the Llano Estacado swallowed him up, nor had he succumbed to his thirst.

He had walked through the night, a man with a mission. A man who must live to collect the riches no doubt buried in that wagon.

He drank his fill, and then lay on his side, one of his hands touching the water, the way a man might let his hand linger on a lover after a long night of bliss.

He rested there for a long while, worn out, but happy. The kind of happy that only a newly rich man could be, and would ever be. And while he had not seen the gold, he had discovered the wagon, touched it even. And he knew the thing was in his grasp.

As the sun grew brighter, and thus hotter, Tate stirred.

Rising from his place by the water, he filled the waterskin. He had repaired it, to the best of his ability, with a needle and thread. It held only half as much now, for he could only fill it about half way before it started leaking from the hole he had stitched shut.

He found a little crevice in the rocks that lay someways off, a place hidden from the sun, and he wedged himself up inside. Clutching the waterskin to his chest, he settled in to sleep the day away.

About noon he woke, having slept and dreamed, and stirred awake by the terrible heat.

He pushed himself upright, and took a long drink from the waterskin. The water tasted stale and warm and murky. It did not taste nearly as good now as it had earlier.

He stared out at the white waste before him. Sand-and-rock-and-scrub-and-limestone-and-rock-and-limestone-and-scrub repeating over and over in so many different concoctions. Lonely desert crags, and dried brush. Mesquite trees and cactus. The greenery of the desert was its own deception, for it led a man to believe that he could live in such a place, if he but tried.

Of course, Tate knew better. For water holes were few and far between, scattered across the country and changing by the season. Only the Indians had fully mapped them out.

Two of the waterholes Joaquin had told him about were dry, and he had been lucky to stumble upon a few of his own.

His eyes hurt, for it was bright out, and the land seemed to catch the light and reflect it. It was the devil’s country, surely.

His thoughts turned once more to the gold. Now with a belly full of water, and having proved he could make it back to the water hole in one easy night’s journey, and knowing the gold lied the same journey away, he wondered why he shouldn’t go back. Retrieve a small portion of it and walk it out on foot. He couldn’t take much of course, but he could take some. Enough for a new outfit. Maybe, he could even raise a proper party, enough men to guide a wagon…

And then it was settled.

As soon as the sun went down, Tate started back towards the wagon. The water in the waterskin felt cool against his back.

He could be walking out of here, completely. It was four nights to the next hole at least, and even as he walked back to the wagon a pit in his stomach was forming. It was the type of pit that meant he’d reached for too much, had talked himself into trouble again.

Up to this point, he’d hardly make the case he was responsible for his misfortune. He’d played as safe as possible. Losing his horses, his mules, and his water had not been his fault, just something to be dealt with.

But now, he was taking a gamble. He was betting on those Comanches not finding their courage, and he was betting on his legs not giving out, and he was betting on the water staying where he knew it to be.

This country was not one to be trifled with. It did not let a man live on margins, and that’s exactly what he was trying to do.

As he walked, the night again played tricks on him, or so he thought. The shadows cast by rock and mesquite moved twice as much as the night before, and a lonely brazos wind from somewhere up north made it sound like something was always moving out in the underbrush. The night quails even made another showing, but this time he counted upwards of eight.

He worked the shovel until his hands were raw and his back felt near to giving out. The wagon had been buried on its side, with what had been the top of it left up against the bedrock wall of the wadi.

The wagon’s positioning against the wadi’s rock wall made him think a chamber had been left inside the wagon relatively free of dirt, and filled with just gold.

An hour after day break, he struck something hard just where the side of the wagon should have started showing. More work and he discovered that the side of the plank-wood wagon had already been opened up. Stones were set over the hole in its side so that it could be reburied.

Someone had already been here.

His heart stuck in his throat, even as he pried away the stones covering the hole in the side of the old wagon. He lifted the slabs off one at a time, and tossed them off onto the ground behind him.

The side had been opened up pretty good, and it was dark inside. He couldn’t see anything, so he dropped down on his belly, and let his arm dangle down into the cavity. He lashed around for something, anything, but he touched nothing save for the floor of the wagon and the bedrock wall opposite.

It was big enough for him to slip inside, so he lowered himself down. Then he pulled a match from his pocket and struck it for light.

Dust particles swirled and danced inside the little cavitation, and it smelled dry and stale, and old. And it was empty. Empty, save for a small wooden box at the far end.

Tate scooched forward and grabbed up the box, for it was small and shaped like a trunk, yet no bigger than a man’s head. It felt empty, light as it was.

Disillusioned, he climbed up out of his hole, pulling the small box up behind him. Atop the wagon, with the sun high in the sky, he set for a moment and considered the box, knowing whatever was in it, was not gold.

Tate opened the box. At the bottom, was a scrap of parchment. Old and faded, but unmolested from the years, due to the dry nature of both the box and the place where it had been buried.

Carefully he unfolded the scrap of paper. There was writing on the inside, several lines of script. The first two lines in Spanish, the second two lines in a language he assumed was French, and the last two in English.

He read slowly and carefully: If you are reading this… know that there was gold here. But I, Joaquin de la Mora, II, beat you to it.

Tate read and then reread. Then he crumpled the paper and laughed. And he laughed until he cried a big weeping cry.

Joaquin de La Mora the Third had skunked him. His father had already retrieved the gold. He had sent him on a wild goose chase to the far reaches of the plains, and he’d surely laughed about it even as the noose snapped about his neck.

“Please do not make me barter with you, for you will surely lose such a negotiation.” Tate heard the words again, clear as day.

At least, Tate thought, he still had his life.

He woke just before nightfall to find that he had been pilfered of everything that he still had. The watersack, which he had set down right next to him, lay someways off, cut wide open and laid flat, the stain of water baked into the sand where it had been left to leak out.

Instinctually, he reached for his pistol but found his holster empty. It was gone, as was the horn of powder and his bag of cap’n balls. All, either lifted or cut from his person while he was sleeping.

Dread found him then, just as the temperature was falling.

For surely, it had been the Comanches. But why had they not killed him? What new game was this? If they could steal from him they could kill him, so why toy with him?

With the sky a flaming orange, he cut open the bloated horse.

He hoped to salvage the stomach, and use it as a container for water. Two days in the sun had started the thing well on its way towards decomposition, and the smell nearly gagged him. He stuffed the bandana into his mouth and held his breath.

The stomach was stretched near its limit by bloat and gasses. As he cut it out, it hissed something terrible, spewing foul juices. He stripped out of shirt, finding the smell unbearable and then emptied the stomach of its contents. The organ was still in passable condition and while he was sure that it would hold water, he doubted his ability to drink from it. No doubt, the spector of death by thirst would make him more amenable.

He set off then towards the waterhole. He was upset, piss mad in fact, but glad to at least be clear of this god forsaken place. He would make it to the waterhole. He would fill this foul stomach, and he would walk his ass to the next one, and then all the way out of this place, never to return.

He still had the Comanches to worry about, of course, but he felt less concerned, buoyoed by the fact that they had so far not killed him. They were playing with him. Torturing him to see what he would do. But they had not counted on the stomach. And as long as he was still alive, he had a chance to give them the slip.

The night quail did not visit him once that night, and their absence somehow made him feel all the more anxious.

He made bad time that night, moving slower for the lack of water and his depressed spirits. Twice, he made a wrong turn in the dark, and twice, he’d had to find his way back to the trace. As such, it was mid-morning and already hot when he spotted the waterhole.

He stumbled towards it, his mouth dry, and the horse stomach slung across his back stinking to high heavens.

He was no more than fifty yards away when the party of Comanches came riding up out from behind the rock towers that lay to his left.

It was as if they’d been waiting for him.

There were twenty of them, all squat and ugly looking bucks. They wore buckskin leggings, and their torsos were naked, all sinew and tightly-strung muscle. Bright and colorful feathers were woven into their hair, but their faces were not painted.

Tate stopped, and watched them come, barely able to care that he would die and hopeful that it would be quick. There was no running from a mounted party. And there would be no fighting, for they’d already disarmed him.

But they did not come for him, instead, they pulled rein at the waterhole and let their horses drink.

As their horses drank their fill, they looked on at him, pointing and laughing, and carrying on in their own tongue.

Tate watched as the Comanche horses drank the water hole dry, and with it, his hopes of walking out.

Then one of the bucks heeled his horse forward, Tate’s pistol conspicously tucked into the brave’s buckskin pants and his horn of powder slung across the Comanche’s chest.

The buck stopped some feet off from Tate, and asked in Spanish, “Encontraste el oro?” which translates, “did you find the gold?”

Tate heard the laugh again, the one that belonged to Joaquin de la Mora, but this time it did not come from the Mexican’s ghost, but rather, the party of Comanche braves.