“I’m sorry, Jack. I could have given you that, at least.”
She leaned toward him and he took her in his arms. He felt the smooth cotton of her dress and wondered if she were really here … if she had really come back to him. He gentled her back in his arms, snuggling her head against his shoulder, and lowered his lips to hers.
The kiss was sweet as desert rain, her lips silky and moist.
When he opened his eyes, his breath caught in his throat. It was no longer Ivy Kitchen in his arms, but Marina.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said, startled. “I’m sorry.”
The Spanish beauty looked at him strangely, as if she had no idea what was happening. She was not wearing a blouse, and her full, naked breasts nestled against his buckskin tunic.
“I thought you were Ivy,” Cameron said, pushing her away and looking around for Clark.
Then something touched his outstretched boot. Waking, Cameron looked down and saw a stone by his ankle—one of the stones from the circle he’d made.
Instantly he brought the Winchester to bear. Just as quickly, a moccasined foot kicked it out of his hands.
CHAPTER 10
CAMERON KNEW HE didn’t have time to draw his pistol. He threw himself sideways and rolled, trying to separate himself from the Indian.
It didn’t work. Just as he was pushing himself up with his hands, the Apache was on him—all sweaty, smelly, grunting two hundred pounds of him—big hands clamped viselike around Cameron’s neck, cutting off his wind.
Cameron fell back. The Indian scrambled to kneel on his chest, face twisted into a mask of pure hatred as he pressed both thumbs into Cameron’s throat and pounded Cameron’s head on the hard rock beneath him.
Cameron wrapped his own hands around Perro Loco’s wrists and tried to wrestle free, but the Indian’s hard-knotted arms would not budge. Cameron began seeing red, felt himself weakening from lack of oxygen, and knew that in a few seconds he would pass out … and then he’d be finished.
His right hand found his pistol and brought it up as he thumbed back the hammer. Perro Loco jerked away, releasing Cameron’s throat. Dragging a mouthful of air into his lungs, Cameron pulled the trigger. The gun barked loudly, making his ears ring, but the Indian had shoved Cameron’s hand and the bullet spanged off a rock above them.
Then they were fighting for the gun, Perro Loco keeping one hand on Cameron’s throat, the other on the gun. They rolled over once … twice … three times, grunting like embattled grizzlies. Cameron cursed and sucked air down his battered throat, trying to maintain his grip on his gun while keeping the Indian’s immensely strong right hand from pinching off his breath again. He wanted to go for his bowie but knew that to do so he’d have to release either the gun or the hand on his throat.
Either way, there wouldn’t be enough time to bring up the bowie before he bought it.
Finally he let go of the hand squeezing his throat and placed his left hand on the Indian’s big, slippery face, feeling for the eyes. Finding them, he dug in his fingertips, pushing Perro Loco’s head back. The Indian released Cameron’s gun and yelled in pain.
Cameron smashed the gun against the man’s head with as much force as he could muster in such close quarters. It was a good blow. The Indian’s other hand dropped away as the man fell sideways. Cameron braced himself on one knee, thumbed back the pistol’s hammer, and fired into the dark body of the man only two feet away.
The gun exploded with a sharp flash of orange light, temporarily destroying Cameron’s night vision. When he could see again, the Indian was gone.
Cameron heard footsteps, saw a shadow separate from the rock out of the corner of his right eye. Turning that way, he emptied his revolver, but there was nothing before him but a jumble of black rock, ghostly wisps of gunsmoke, and the coppery smell of burnt powder.
Above, the stars shone indifferently, flickering like distant lanterns across a lake.
Cameron cursed, looked around for his carbine, found it, and started running after the Indian. Following a faint trail through the rocks, he stopped to listen. The Indian was dead ahead, only a few yards away. Cameron tracked him by the raspy sounds of his breath and the occasional rattle of rock as he ran.
Cameron hurdled rocks as they took shape in the darkness, racing along the pale ribbon along the edge of the spur, then down the other side, holding the rifle out for balance. He paused twice more, holding his breath, and heard the Indian’s labored breathing above the pounding of his own heart.
The third time he stopped—
Silence. Then a cricket sounded somewhere behind him.
He was wondering if the Indian had doubled back when Perro Loco slammed into him from behind, throwing him forward and knocking the rifle out of his hands. Cameron flew face-first into a mesquite shrub.
He turned quickly to the Indian, who was coming at him, holding something over his head. From its size and shape, Cameron could tell it was a good-sized rock. At the last second Cameron sprang to his right.
The rock crashed into the shrub where Cameron’s head had been. The Indian was still recovering from the lunge when Cameron hit him with a roundhouse right to the face. The Apache fell backwards and down, beyond the mesquite shrub, and disappeared …
Cameron looked for him. Nothing but darkness. It was as though a black cloth were held before him. He heard a thrashing from somewhere in that blackness, a grunt and several muffled words that could only be Apache curses, then a sudden yell. The yell was loud at first, but it quickly diminished in volume until the man went silent.
The cricket continued to chirp.
Cameron took one cautious step forward, then felt around with his right foot. The ground gave way just beyond the mesquite shrub. It shelved away for several feet, then dropped sharply—how far, Cameron couldn’t tell with only the stars for light. But from the sound of Perro Loco’s cry, it was a good distance.
Picking up a hefty stone, he dropped it over the edge. It took nearly two seconds to smack rock and clatter away, which told him the drop was enough to kill a man—even an Apache of Perro Loco’s caliber.
Cameron gave a sigh and stood there peering over the ledge. He had an uneasy feeling. He wanted to see that the Indian was dead, but there was no way he could know for sure … unless he climbed down there in the dark and risked breaking his neck.
It wasn’t worth the risk. He’d wait for morning and take another look around. Hopefully, the body would be visible at the bottom of the chasm.
He gave another sigh and, rubbing the sore knuckles he’d nearly cracked when he’d belted Perro Loco, looked around for his rifle. Finding it, he rubbed the sand off it and looked for a good place to settle in for the night, maybe catch a few more hours of sleep. His lungs were raw from the climbing and fighting, and his hand hurt. His eyelids were heavy with weariness, but the adrenaline was still coursing through his veins.
Hoping to calm himself, he dug his tobacco pouch and papers out of the breast pocket of his tunic and rolled a smoke. He smoked and listened to the faint night sounds, trying to empty his mind. Finally he rubbed out the quirley, settled back against the rock wall he’d found in the dark, and slept.
He didn’t wake until a gold shaft of sun warmed his eyelids like a hot stove on a chill morning. Birds were chirping and a cicada sang. A breeze stirred. Cameron gave a jump, remembering Perro Loco and what he’d been doing here.
Blinking sleep from his eyes, he got up and looked around, stretching the kinks out of his legs and back. Things certainly looked different in the light of day.
Moving around, he discovered that he had followed Perro Loco southward off the spur, onto a finger of rock that was no more than a hundred yards long and about twenty-five yards wide. It was a jumble of granite, sandstone, sparse grass, and a few shrubs, a piñon or two growing from fissures in the rock. Cameron soon located the mussed mesquite shrub where he’d fallen and Perro Loco had gone over the ledge. Cameron peered over the edge into a wide canyon with serrated walls, f
illed with boulders, dry water courses, and shrubs.
The Indian lay about thirty feet straight down, his leggings a soft tan in the golden morning sun. The man was lying in a sandslide, head turned to one side, one arm up, elbow crooked. His legs were splayed. There was a red splotch in the sand near his mouth.
He was dead. No one could survive a fall like that. But just to be sure, Cameron jacked a shell and lifted the carbine to his shoulder. Then he thought better of it; a rifle shot would echo around in that canyon forever, alerting who-knew-how-many Apaches to his presence. He regretted leaving his field glasses at his first campsite on the ridge—he could have used them to double-check Perro Loco’s condition. He sure wasn’t climbing down there—the way was impossibly steep. Then he shook his head. No, he reassured himself; the Apache had fallen nearly straight down—only one broken bush gave sign of his journey down the canyon’s wall. The man was dead.
The only problem was, Cameron didn’t have any proof. The soldiers at Contention City were going to have to take his word the Indian was dead … or ride out here and see for themselves.
Cameron gave a satisfied nod, pursing his lips. “Sleep well, you bastard,” he said to the dead Indian, then turned and walked away. “I’ll see you in hell.”
CHAPTER 11
CONTENTION CITY WAS a sunbaked little wood-and-adobe village nestled in a rock-strewn, saguaro-studded valley. The bald ridges that surrounded it were the same sand color as the town’s little church, San Felipe, which abutted the east end of the main thoroughfare, sliding the shadow of its bell tower across the hay and dung-littered earth beyond the stout wooden doors.
The San Pedro River’s course through the town was clearly indicated by the cottonwoods and manzanita grass that grew lush along its banks. Miners sauntered there, with sporting women from establishments like the Dew Drop and the Headlight, on warm desert evenings as the sun fell behind the mountains and the night birds cooed. Drifters who could not afford a room in town often slept there in the grass, their campsites marked by cookfires sparking through the trees.
Dogs and chickens ran wild in the streets, as did the children of the whores from the Silver Dollar Gambling Parlor and Pleasure Emporium, one of the few milled-lumber structures in town. Burros ran wild as well—strays and descendants of those once used to haul ore up to the stamping mill before tracks were laid and cars were used.
In addition to its status as a thriving mining town and business center, Contention City was an overnight stop for the bull trains hauling supplies up from Chihuahua, and a watering hole and supply depot for prospectors, cowboys, gamblers, and bandits escaping to or from Mexico.
Adrian Clark had heard the village described as both “deliciously wild” and “hellishly evil,” and he wondered why the Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora Railroad had decided to make the little hellhole its railhead instead of avoiding altogether the “boiling kettle of sin,” as many travelers had dubbed it.
Clark rode between the adobe huts, avoiding the dead dogs, dead chickens, dead horses, and dead burros lying bloated in the deep-rutted, manure-packed street. Seeing the mangy lot of ragged, half-shot prospectors and freighters smoking and drinking on galleries, dull eyes taking in the strangers with guarded curiosity, he thought the railroad had made a hasty decision.
Clark only hoped he and Marina would not be here long. Judging by the fetid smells emanating from the restaurants and the seedy look of the hovels that called themselves hotels, he and his young wife would be better off sleeping in the desert, at the mercy of rattlesnakes and Apaches.
Bud Hotchkiss must have been reading his mind. “Not as bad as it looks, Captain,” he said, riding next to Clark.
Marina and Jimmy Bronco rode behind them. Bronco was trailing the horse over which Pasqual Varas’s body had been tied, attracting only slight attention from the men glancing up from the loafers’ benches along the boardwalks.
Hotchkiss said, “I used to spend time here, back when the mine was open, hauling ore. They might look a little rough around the edges, but the people of this little pueblo are some of the nicest you’ll ever come across. In fact, I met my first wife here. Lordy, was that a woman! Not the most loyal—I reckon I wasn’t, neither—but could she cook.”
The old graybeard glanced around and rubbed his jaw, his bushy brows furrowing slightly. His voice lowered and acquired a conspiratorial pitch. “Have to admit, though … that was a few years back. You know, it does appear this sweet little bend in the St. Pete has attracted a little of the lesser element…” Hotchkiss’s voice trailed off as he swung his leery gaze from left to right, inching his right hand down to the butt of the shotgun poking up from his saddle boot.
He led the procession around a corner and halted in front of a big wooden barn, the sign above its broad double doors reading, Establo de Lupido. The livery barn was weathered gray, like most of the other wooden establishments around town, and several of the shingles missing from its roof had been replaced with flattened tin cans that had turned red with rust. A wooden ramp led into the stable from the street.
Swinging down heavily from his saddle, Hotchkiss said to Clark, “Why don’t you and the missus head on down the street there? I believe the hotel where Jack always stays is just around the corner. It’s called Ma Jones’s Boarding House. You’ll see the shingle out front. The boy and me, we’ll stable these horses and take old Pas out to boot hill.”
Clark looked at the bundle on the horse Jimmy Bronco was trailing. It had considerably less give than it had had when they’d started riding that morning. It was beginning to smell, as well, so that they’d all ridden upwind from it.
“What about his wife? Won’t she want him buried at their ranch?” Clark asked.
“Yes, she would,” Hotchkiss said with a sigh, and gave his head a grim wag. “But she’ll understand. I loved that bean-eater like a brother, I did, but if we don’t get him in the ground soon … in this heat.… No, she’ll understand.”
“Jesus,” Clark said.
“Yep,” Hotchkiss agreed.
All four of them sat there for several seconds in respectful, awful silence, casting their sad gazes at the blanketed bundle that, only a few hours ago, had been a living, breathing man. Marina crossed herself and muttered a silent prayer.
“Well,” Hotchkiss said, “you two get yourselves a room. Mrs. Jones’ll get her daughter to boil you up a couple o’ baths.” He gave Marina a kindly smile, thoroughly smitten with her.
“Thank you, Mr. Hotchkiss,” she said, handing him her reins. “I told Mr. Cameron how sorry I am about the trouble we brought you”—she glanced at the body again—“and I want to apologize to you, as well. I am truly sorry…”
Hotchkiss waved the apology off like a fly in his face. “I understand how you’re feelin’, but you didn’t kill our friend, Missus Clark. That was Gaston Bachelard’s doin’, and I guarantee you that man will pay the piper if me and Jack have to hunt him all the way to Mexico City.” He punctuated the statement with a curt nod of his head.
“Me too!” Jimmy Bronco piped up, indignant at being overlooked. Scowling, he led his horse up the ramp.
Clark stepped up and took Marina’s arm. “Come along, my dear,” he said. “Let’s get you to the hotel, shall we?”
“Where will you be, Mr. Hotchkiss?” Marina asked.
Hotchkiss grinned sheepishly. “Jack’ll know where to find me, ma’am.”
Marina dropped her eyes, smiling timidly, then let her husband usher her down the street, past two gray kittens frolicking in the shade cast by the livery’s open doors.
“Anybody run this horse lot?” they heard Hotchkiss bellow behind them.
They found Ma Jones’s Boarding House five minutes later. The big two-story structure looked more like a house than a hotel, but the weathered sign hanging on the wire fence encircling the weedy yard verified its identity. A blonde girl of about fifteen or sixteen sat on the glider on the open front porch, reading an illustrated newspaper. She wore a
blue gingham housedress with a soiled apron, and she was barefoot. She lifted her toes, then her heels, as she moved the glider slowly back and forth.
As Clark and Marina approached, she tilted her head and squinted her eyes, scrutinizing them boldly.
“If you’re here for the hangin’, you’re a day late,” she said.
“We’re not here for the hanging,” Clark said grimly, indicating his disapproval of the popular spectacle.
“Hey, I didn’t hang the guy,” the girl said with a chuff. She appraised Marina coolly, then went back to her newspaper.
Clark led Marina through the door, into a dark, cool lobby in which the smells of noon lunch lingered. The floor was bare wood. Faded, threadbare couches and mismatched chairs sat about the room on frayed rugs. An old man as thin as a buggy whip dozed in a chair before the window overlooking the porch.
Clark went to the desk and rang the bell several times, looking around with annoyance. A thin, gray-faced woman appeared in the doorway opening to his right, toting a broom. Breathing heavily, sweat beading on her lip, she cast an angry glance through the window, where the blonde girl could be seen swinging in the glider and reading her newspaper.
The woman scowled. “Ruth Agnes, you lazy—!” She looked at Clark and Marina. “What can I do for you? The hangin’ was yesterday, you know.”
Clark told her they wanted a room and, if possible, two baths. When he’d signed the register, the woman yelled from behind the scarred counter to the girl in the hammock, “Ruth Agnes, you put that trash away and start the boiler for baths!”
Clark said to the woman, “A friend of ours should be joining us shortly, within the next day or two. I’d appreciate it if you’d let us know when he arrives. His name is Jack Cameron.”
Through her bifocals, the woman scrutinized Clark’s ornate signature in the register book. “You’re friends of Jack’s, are ye?”
Clark heard the screen door squeak open and slap shut. “You’re friends of Jack’s?” the blonde girl echoed.
Dakota Kill and the Romantics Page 33