Chapter 16

The next morning, over a breakfast of beans, beef, and biscuits, Diego cleared his throat and said, “We talked it over and all agreed that, other than marrying, meeting and following you has been the best decision any of us has ever made. You have given each of us a better chance of a good life than any of us expected. None of us have much of an education or any idea what to do with the gold to make sure that our children, and their children to come, have a good life. So, we all agree that you are the jefe. We trust you to do the right thing for all of us. We will follow where you lead.”

I looked around at each of them and asked, “Are you all sure that is what you want to do? You could each ride off with enough gold to set you up for life.”

Cal put down his tin mug of coffee and said, “We all agreed to what Diego said. Hell, if me and Tye took off with a bunch of gold and the girls, some slick, city sharp dealer, would have us skinned in no time. Tye and me would be back to punching cows and the girls would be wanting to do to us what those Apaches wanted to do. So you’re stuck with us.”

After a round of chuckling, Kaviu said, “You gave me back my life and my manhood, where you go, I go.”

Taking a deep breath, I looked around and made eye contact with each of them. It was obvious that they were all in agreement. I then said, “Ok, this is what we’ll do; we’ll camp here for two more days to rest and feed the animals, then move on to Fort Mc Dowell. We can resupply there and get up to date information on what land is available along the Verde River.”

We ended up camping at that location for three days. It had enough water, plenty of grass for the animals, and lots of rabbits, quails, and doves. Between the snares set by Kaviu and Dove, and the hunting by Patrick with his little shotgun, we ate some great stews. The replicator was kept busy adding to our dried vegetable and fruit supply. We had also smoked a couple of javelina that Tye had shot when he was minding the horses. They each weighed in at between 60 and 70 pounds, so that gave us a good supply of mesquite smoked pork. I know that the experts say they aren’t pigs but they sure look and act like pigs, so as far as I’m concerned, pigs they are. On the fourth day, with us and the mules well rested and in good shape, we moved out.

Kaviu and I pulled out of camp ahead of the others every day to scout the trail, looking for the best path, water, and fodder. As we progressed, we used stones to make regular markers showing the way for the rest to follow. I made sure that we moved in short stages to avoid overworking the mules pulling the heavily laden wagons, and we continued our practice of stopping in the shade for two hours around noon each day. Whenever we passed a water source, we stopped to water the animals and to top off the water barrels.

The third day on the trail we were in the middle of the noon break, Kaviu and I were about to head out to scout the trail ahead when a group of riders came around a small hill and headed in our direction. I put my people on the alert and we all made sure that we were armed and ready, but I told the women to keep their guns out of sight and to stay in the wagons, looking as harmless as possible. I wanted our visitors to discount the women as a threat and to concentrate on the men. We men moved away from the wagons, and the others lined up about a pace behind me with rifles cocked and ready to fire. I set it up so that our visitors would be between us and the women in the wagons. You may have figured out by now that I was of the opinion that fair fights were for suckers.