6

Moon, Bo Catlett and Red, the leader of the Mimbres, packed up into the high reaches to shoot some game, drink whiskey, have a talk and get away from their women for a few days. Moon said that's all they would have, three days. On the piney shoulder of the mountain where they camped, they could hear the mine company survey crew exploding dynamite as they searched out new ore veins: like artillery off to the west, an army gradually moving closer, having already wiped out several of the Mexican homesites.

Armando Duro had drawn the line and posted his trespass notices, giving himself a printed excuse to start shooting. But how did you tell a man like Armando he was a fool? Armando was not a listener, he was a talker.

Moon, in the high camp, took out a roughsketch map he'd drawn and laid it on the pine needles for Bo Catlett and Red to look at, Moon pointing: little squares were homes and farms, though maybe he was missing some; the circles were graze. X's marked the areas where the survey crews had been working.

Here, scattered over the pastureland in the Western foothills, the Mexican homesteads. How would you defend them?

“No way to do it, considering they farmers,” Bo Catlett said. “They ever see more than three coming they got to get out…Maybe try draw them up in the woods.”

Moon shook his head. “Armando told them, don't leave your homes. Something about leaving your honor on the doorstep when you flee.”

“I'm not talking about they should flee,” Bo Catlett said. “But they start shooting from the house, that's where they gonna die. They don't have enough people in one place. Like you-” Bo Catlett looked at the map. “Where you at here?”

Moon pointed to the square on the Eastern slope, the closest one to the wavy line indicating the San Pedro River.

“You no better off'n they are,” Bot Catlett said, “all by yourself there.”

“I got open ground in front of me and high rock behind,” Moon said, “with Red and some of his people right here, watching my back door. Nobody gets close without my knowing. So…around here, both sides of the crest, the Apache rancher'ias. Red, that's you right there. Coming south a bit, these circles are the horse pastures…Here's the canyon, Bo, where you got your settlement.”

“Niggerville,” Bo Catlett said. “Some day they put railroad tracks up there, you can bet money we be on the wrong side.”

“Here's the box canyon,” Moon continued, “where you gather your mustangs. I'm thinking we might do something with that blind alley. You follow me?”

“Invite 'em in,” Bo Catlett said, “and close the door.”

“It'd be a way, wouldn't it? If they come up to Niggerville and you pull back, draw 'em into the box.”

“If they dumb enough, think I'm a black lead mare,” Bo Catlett said.

“We'll find out,” Moon said. “Red's gonna be our eyes, huh, Red? los ojos.” And said in Spanish, “The eyes of the mountain people.”

The Apache nodded and said, also in Spanish, “It's been a long time since we used them.”

Moon said, “Him and a bunch were gonna summer up at Whiteriver, visit some of their people, but Red's staying now for the war. That's what they call it in town, the Rincon Mountain War.”

Bo Catlett seemed to be thinking about the name, trying it a few times in his mind. “We got any say in it?”

“We're still around when the smoke clears,” Moon said, “I guess we can call it anything we want.”