Posted: Jun 20, 08 10:20am

Tex-Mex Border, 1876

Diablo stood on the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande thinking it didn't matter now, the horse dying. For the first time in six days no line of dust raised by the Federales followed him. Damn Porfirio Diaz! "Some day, hah, Diablo would...."

Beside the ear of his horse he had cut off two days before, and sucked on even now, Diablo had eaten his last flesh six days before. Texas could wait.

He bounded back to his fallen horse. His claws twitched. As he ripped a foreleg and shoulder away he saw the riders appear across the river. His mouth watered.

The three mounted men stopped beneath a live oak and gazed toward Diablo. Flies buzzed. A horse blew. Another stamped its impatience.

"We gonna hang this one, Sheriff?"

"Yeah. Upside down over a fire. I'm hungry. You boys ever had roast Mexican? Mighty good."

"I reckon I could eat a leg."

"Too stringy. I prefer rare white meat," the other deputy said. "Brains and eggs wouldn't be bad though."

Today, down along the Rio Grande, they still talk about the old buffalo hunter finding a live oak tree standing at the mouth of a canyon with three fresh skeletons hanging from a low limb, the bones striped clean. Deep claw marks can still be seen in the huge live oak today, as if long ago something had marked its territory. The canyon is still known as Three Skeleton Canyon.