With a final grunt and a heave the horse pulled itself up the last short incline and stepped out on the top of the low bluff. It stumbled to a halt and when there was no further urging from the man on its back, stretched out its neck and blew gustily.

The rider leaned forward, his hands propped against the pommel of the saddle, and surveyed the scene before him. There she lay, the Rio Grande. He frowned, she didn’t look so grand right now. Broad and shallow and the color of mud, she meandered back and forth between sandbars and deadfalls, braiding her slow way to the sea.

He took a long look behind him before he turned back to the river and laughed. Pretty or not, right now, she may as well be the Jordan. His salvation surely lay on her other side, if anywhere. The glance behind had confirmed that his pursuers were closing fast.

They’d stumbled onto his trail around noon yesterday and they’d pushed him hard ever since. He figured that it was sheer dumb luck that they’d found him, but they must have a good tracker, because he hadn’t been able to shake them since. Now his horse was faltering. He’d reached the border just in time.

This wouldn’t be the first time he’d crossed this river a half a jump ahead of trouble. It seemed he’d spent most of the last dozen years or so going back and forth across the Rio Grande. The river ran through his life like the blood ran through his veins, Anglo on one side, Mex on the other, not really belonging to either.

Now he was headed back to the Anglo side, but this time felt different. As if something had shifted, as if once he crossed, he couldn’t come back. That made him uneasy, made him hesitate, and it made him mad.

The wind off the river stirred his hair and he angrily swiped it back off his forehead. He had nothing to be nervous about. He was headed north to collect on a thousand dollar promise. He’d told the ‘Pink’ that he’d ride into hell for that much money and that’s exactly where he figured he was going. He planned to march up to he devil’s front door and demand his money. And God help his old man if he didn’t have it ready. Nope, there wasn’t anything in that to worry him. His old man now, if he knew what was coming, he’d have plenty to worry about. Hell, he thought with a grin, he’d be jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

That idea pleased him and released some of the tension in his shoulders, but still he hesitated, pinned somehow on the south side of the river and hating the feeling. He turned in the saddle when he heard the crisp, distant crack of a rifle, and resting one arm on the horse’s rump, he studied his pursuers. He could see them now, emerging from the dust cloud that had dogged him for the last day and a half. There were six of them, riding hell for leather. One idiot fired again, despite being hopelessly out of range.

For the sake of sheer bravado, he sat quiet and relaxed and watched them come. He idly wondered if they’d be so hot to get here if they thought there was any chance of really catching him. He grinned and briefly toyed with the idea of turning his horse and riding back at them. But with a played out mount, no rifle, and only three shells left in his stolen gun, not even he was that foolhardy.

Finally one of their wild shots kicked up dirt at the base of the small rise he sat on. “Hola, muchachos!” he shouted and lifted his arm in a lazy salute. Then feeling slightly better, he gathered up the reins of his horse and with a whoop and a flourish he pushed it into a sliding descent down the bank, toward the river. You’d best be counting out that money, old man, he thought, ‘cause here I come.

They hit the river running flat out and the water splashed up in a glittering wall before falling away to each side like a curtain opening on a fancy play. They passed through, heading north.

 

Shelley, 9/09