The Chili Queen: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  “You will not find me wanting,” she replied. “But I wish I had bought a heavy coat. I would find it a more agreeable companion than the rain.”

  Ned could think of a number of more agreeable companions, but he didn’t mention them. “Not much farther now,” he told her, although he knew they had come only a little way down the trail.

  He led off into the darkness again, staying as close to the rock wall as possible, Emma behind him. The rain didn’t let up, but after a while, the wind no longer penetrated the canyon. Another flash of lightning lit up the trail, illuminating the drop-off beside them. Ned wondered if Emma was afraid of heights. There was nothing he could do about it if she was, so he didn’t ask.

  Ned judged it was nearly midnight when the trail finally leveled off, then widened. It had taken them four, maybe five hours to make the descent. He stopped his horse and waited for Emma, who was farther behind than he’d thought. But in a few minutes, she stopped beside him, breathing heavily.

  “Done?” she asked.

  “A little farther. There’s an adobe somewhere down here. It’s better shelter than a tree.”

  “Can you find it?”

  Her voice shook, and Ned knew she was shivering and tired, but she didn’t complain. He was tempted to leave her there and look for the shack, but he wasn’t sure he could find his way back to her. So he said they would search together. But after half an hour of looking, Emma begged Ned to camp where they were. He picked a spot under a rock overhang, and they unsaddled the horses. Since it was too wet to make a fire, they wrapped themselves in their blankets, then Ned opened the sardines that Emma had stuffed into one of the bedrolls, and they ate them with damp crackers. Ned stashed their other things, pleased that Emma had brought along the coffeepot and a pound of coffee. She would wake to the smell of camp coffee. Ned told her as much, as he opened the lid of the pot and braced it against a rock where it would catch the rainwater. He wished they had bought sausages and pork ribs so they could have a decent breakfast. “Do you think a shovel would work as a frying pan?” he asked Emma. She didn’t reply, and Ned looked closely at her, but he had talked her to sleep. He gently pulled the blanket up to Emma’s chin, then studied her shape in the darkness before he lay down a few feet away from her and fell into a deep sleep.

  As it turned out, Emma wasn’t awakened by the smell of coffee, but by the toe of a boot pressed against her. So was Ned, although the boot toe gave him a sharp kick. He awakened in an instant, and his first thought was that the posse had followed them into the canyon. But as he slowly raised his head, he was overcome by a feeling of revulsion, even before he recognized Earlie’s sly face. Earlie was drunk and stinking very bad, and he held a gun in his hand. It was pointed at Ned.

  “We don’t see you for maybe four, five years. Now we see you twice in one day,” Black Jesse told him.

  Ned did not correct him to say it had been twice in two days. Instead, he glanced at Emma, who was lying on her side. Her eyelids flickered, and he knew she was only pretending to be in a very sound sleep. Black Jesse prodded her with his toe, and said, “Hello, the house.” Emma sat up. If she was frightened, she did not show it. In fact, she covered a yawn with her hand.

  “Me and Earlie stayed up there, in that little house. You remember it, Ned boy? It’s big enough to room us all. You could have slept there, too, out of the rain,” Black Jesse said.

  Ned remembered the house, of course, and with a sickening feeling, he remembered, too, how he knew about it. He and the Minder brothers had camped there.

  “We finished up our whiskey and was just wondering what to have for breakfast, and we seen your horse tracks,” Black Jesse continued. “But you can’t tell from the trail of a snake if it’s coming or going, so we sneaked up, and here you are.”

  “We haven’t much, but you’re welcome to it,” Emma said. She pulled on her boots and reached into the pile of provisions, but Earlie stepped on her hand. Emma winced but said nothing.

  “I guess I’ll take your guns first,” Earlie said. He picked up Ned’s gun, which was next to his saddle, and Black Jesse kicked aside Emma’s blankets and found hers. Earlie continued to hold his gun on Ned, while Black Jesse built a fire. Moving slowly and deliberately, Emma found the coffee beans and spread a handful of them onto a rock, then smashed them with a stone, and dumped the grounds into the pot of rainwater. She made a fire and set the pot on the flames. Then she laid out the two tin cups she had bought in Jasper and the canned goods and told the Minders to help themselves. Emma was so calm that Ned wondered whether she realized the danger they were in.

  He reached for one of the cans, but Earlie cocked his gun, pointing it at Ned’s head. “Us first.”

  Ned grinned at him, and crossed his legs, leaning back against his saddle. “I guess I’m not hungry.”

  Earlie slid his eyes to Emma. Ned didn’t like the look, and he started to say something to divert Earlie’s attention, but Earlie cut him off. “I guess I’m not hungry, neither.” He licked his lips. Emma glanced at him, then lowered her eyes, and Ned thought she trembled a little. “You aren’t really Ned’s sister?” Earlie asked her.

  “My name is Emma,” she replied. She had gotten up, and she stood beside the fire then. Her arms were crossed protectively in front of her chest. But her feet were a little apart, as if she were ready to spring. Ned hoped she wouldn’t until he figured something out. It would be almost impossible for the two of them, without guns, to take the Minders. He hoped Emma wouldn’t panic.

  Earlie continued to stare at Emma, a little leer on his lips. “No, I guess I ain’t so hungry just yet.”

  Emma sent Ned a helpless look, and Ned glanced around for some kind of weapon, but Earlie was too smart for him. He kicked a stone out of Ned’s reach.

  “Come here,” Earlie told Emma.

  She stayed where she was.

  Earlie’s voice grew hard. “Do what I say. You don’t think you’re too good for me, do you?”

  Emma shook her head. “No,” she said in a tiny voice. She seemed unable to move.

  Suddenly, Earlie reached out and gripped her, yanking her so hard that she cried out in pain. Ned half-rose, but Earlie pointed the gun at him. “If you move again, I’ll kill you—her, too,” he said, and Ned knew he would. But he couldn’t let Earlie take Emma. He knew what the man could do.

  “Come on to Nalgitas. I’ll get you all the girls you want,” Ned said easily. “Young ones. They know how to take care of a man.”

  “Maybe—when I’m done here,” Earlie replied.

  Ned moved his legs a little, ready to spring at Earlie. He would likely get killed then, and that would leave Emma on her own. She turned her head to Ned and mouthed the words, “Two evils.”

  At first, Ned didn’t know what she meant. Then he remembered what she had told him after he’d related the story of the Minders and the redheaded boys. She’d said that sometimes a person had to choose between two evil things. Maybe she had come to the same conclusion Ned had, that he ought not to get killed right away, that maybe in a minute, he could come up with a way to rescue her. Ned thought that what Earlie would do was a terrible thing, but it was not as bad as both of them getting killed. And Ned was sure that if the Minders killed him, they would kill Emma, too. Still, he couldn’t let Earlie ravish her. “Don’t do it,” Ned said in a low voice.

  Earlie only laughed. “If he moves, you kill him, Jesse. You get your turn next,” Earlie said, as he dragged Emma away. “Now, come on peaceable. You can’t think of any way you’d better like to have it.” With one last look at Ned, Emma went with Earlie.

  “Stop him. I’ll make it worth your while,” Ned told Jesse in a low voice.

  But Jesse only grinned at him and raised his gun a little higher. “Earlie’s made funny,” he explained. “He don’t like nobody to watch. I hope he don’t cut her. They’re no good to me after he cuts ’em.” Jesse shook his head. “Maybe she won’t mind. Some women, the worse you treat them, the better they l
ike you.” He frowned, then added, “Earlie’s some worse than when you knew him.”

  Earlie and Emma had disappeared behind an outcropping of rocks. Ned heard a scuffle, and Emma’s faint voice pleading, “No, please,” then a slap.

  Black Jesse didn’t pay attention. He reached for one of the cups and threw it at Ned. “I’d like some coffee right well.”

  Ned swallowed hard to control his voice. “I’d like it right well myself. Any objections?”

  Jesse thought it over. “I don’t expect Earlie would mind.”

  Ned was deliberate and slow, just as Emma had been when she’d made the coffee, so as not to alarm Jesse. He set one of the cups beside him, then used his shirttail to lift the coffeepot from the fire. “Let’s see if it’s done,” he said, opening the lid and raising the pot so that he could peer inside.

  At that moment, there was a scream of terror, an inhuman high-pitched sound that hung in the air. For an instant, Ned thought that Earlie and Emma had been attacked by a panther, but in his gut he knew the scream was Emma’s. The sound was so piercing that it startled Black Jesse, who half-rose and turned toward the noise. Ned saw his chance and flung the coffee into Black Jesse’s face. Jesse dropped his gun as he put his hands to his burned flesh. Instead of going for the weapon, Ned picked up a huge rock with both hands and brought it down on Jesse’s head. Jesse didn’t yell. He made a single noise that sounded like “Whoomp.” Made strong with madness, Ned hit him again—and again, until the top of Jesse’s head was smashed in, and blood and gore covered his face. Jesse fell forward, his arm in the fire.

  Ned didn’t look to see if Jesse was dead; he knew he was. He grabbed the man’s gun and started after Earlie and Emma. He moved stealthfully, not knowing if Earlie had heard the sound of the rock against Jesse’s skull. It would be safer to circle around and catch Earlie from the other side, but Ned knew there wasn’t time. He hoped he wasn’t too late and he rushed forward—and found himself looking down the barrel of Earlie’s gun. Beyond was a body on the ground.

  Ned didn’t stop to think. He would die, but Earlie would die, too. He raised his gun, hoping he could get off a shot before Earlie killed him, when Emma’s voice pierced through the fog of his mind. “Ned!” she cried, and he looked up to see that he was facing Emma, their guns pointed at each other. As if she had exhausted her control in that single word, Emma dropped the weapon, just as her legs gave out. Ned caught her as she fell, and he lowered her to the ground.

  “He’s dead,” Emma told him.

  “Black Jesse, too,” Ned told her. “I smashed his head.”

  “I stabbed Earlie. I stabbed a man to death,” Emma told him.

  “He wasn’t a man. He was an animal.” Ned put his arms around Emma and held her, not asking her what had happened but waiting for Emma to tell him.

  She didn’t cry then. Instead, she went limp. Ned cradled her for a long time, rocking back and forth with her, until she roused herself and said, “I had a knife in my boot. He didn’t expect it. When he turned away, I stabbed him in the back. Did you hear him?”

  “I thought that was you.”

  Emma shook her head against Ned’s chest. “I must have killed him the first time, but I kept stabbing and stabbing. I couldn’t stop.”

  For the first time, Ned saw the blood on her shirt. The shirt was ripped, too, and he asked, “Did he—?”

  “No,” Emma replied. “No. He only tore my clothes.”

  After a few minutes, Ned lifted Emma to her feet. “I’ll have to bury the bodies so no one will find them. I ought to bury them in a ditch like dogs, but there aren’t any ditches,” he told her. “You sit by the fire.” He led her back to their camp and wrapped a blanket around her, then built up the flames, although it was already hot in the canyon. Then he went back for Earlie’s body. While Emma huddled beside the fire, crying silently, Ned dug a grave in the soft mud. Before he buried the two men, he found their horses and went through the saddlebags, pulling out a canvas sack filled with money. He dumped the loot beside Emma, then threw the bag and saddles into the grave. He removed the bridles from the horses and dropped the bridles in, too. At last, he dragged the two bodies to the grave and buried them facedown. Ned shoveled in the dirt and smoothed the mound, covering it with rocks and broken branches.

  It was almost noon when he finished and sat down beside Emma. “The horses are better than ours, but someone might recognize them,” Ned said. “The saddles, bridles, I don’t want them. But the money, well, I guess we deserve it.”

  “What?” Emma asked, and Ned realized she hadn’t even seen the money bag he’d put down beside her.

  He reached over and opened it, extracting the money and counting it quickly. “Over thirteen hundred dollars,” he said. Then he went back through the money, dividing it into two piles, and put one in her lap. “Fifty-fifty,” he said. Emma just stared at him, so he tucked the money into her saddlebag. He put his share into his coat pocket, then threw the bag into the fire.

  “We ought to get out of here,” he told her after a few minutes. “Can you sit a horse?”

  Emma nodded.

  “If we ride hard, we can make it to Nalgitas tonight. But we don’t have to. We can camp again, if you want to.”

  “No,” she told him. “We must get back.”

  While Ned saddled their horses, Emma went through their things and took out a blouse. She stripped off her torn shirt, ripped it into pieces, and flung them about. She found a depression in a boulder where rainwater had collected and washed the blood off her face and arms, then put on the blouse. By the time she returned to Ned, the horses were saddled, the bedrolls secured. Ned had even tidied up the campsite so that anyone coming across it would not know they had been there.

  Emma let Ned help her mount, and he stood beside her a moment, his hand on her leg. “We won’t tell anybody about this,” he said. “If Addie asks, and she will, we’ll say the Minders got to the bank first, that we saw them.”

  “How will we explain the money?”

  “We won’t tell anybody about that, either. There’s no way Addie will know, and who is there for you to tell?”

  Emma thought that over. “I would rather endure their ridicule at our failure than have to relive this morning for them.”

  “Earlie and Black Jesse were common dogs. Perdition is too good for them. We had no choice. Remember that. There was no choice.” Ned looked up at her for a long time, while Emma stared down at him.

  “No choice,” she repeated.

  He started toward his horse, then turned and went back to Emma, reaching up for her hand. “I don’t like this life much anymore. When I buy that ranch…Well, do you think you’d like to live on a ranch?” Ned hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but he felt joy on the way when he said it. His green eyes crinkled as he smiled. “With what you get from your brother, we could put our money together. I guess you know what I’m asking.”

  Emma touched her hand to her mouth in surprise. There was a cut on her lip, and her cheek was bruised, probably where Earlie had struck her, and her eyes were red, but Ned thought she was beautiful. He was glad he had asked her to marry him.

  “I don’t know what to answer,” Emma said at last. “I can’t think about that now.”

  He’d surprised her, Ned thought. Well, by zam, he’d surprised himself. He should have waited until they were out of this place and the Minders were far behind. It hadn’t been the right time. But he wasn’t discouraged. He mounted his horse, then he leaned over and kissed Emma on the mouth.

  When he pulled away, Emma gave him a grave look. “I cannot make plans now. I must wait until after the business with John is done.” She had a look on her face of great sadness.

  Six

  It was nearly midnight when Ned and Emma rode up to The Chili Queen. They unsaddled their horses in the barn, then Ned walked Emma to the back door of the parlor house. Through the window, in the dim glow of a kerosene light on the kitchen table, he could see Addie and Welcome. He�
��d thought Addie would be working still, but it must have been a slow night. Ned didn’t care to go inside, but he couldn’t let Emma face the two women alone. They would pester her with questions, and she might break down and tell them what had happened. That would only cause problems for him and pain for her. So he followed Emma into the kitchen.

  “La!” Addie said when her eyes lit upon Ned and Emma. “Lookit who’s here.” She was a little tight. “We had a few less than a hundred customers, so we were obliged to shut up early.”

  Ned grinned at her. “We rode like hell to get back. I guess you were worried.”

  Addie picked up a glass and drank, spilling a little down the front of her dress. “Not me. I didn’t worry.” She brushed the drops into the fabric.

  “Well, I evermore bejesus did. I thought one of them must have got killed, him or she,” Welcome said to Addie. Welcome was full of liquor, too, and Emma eyed her curiously. “Somebody hurt you,” she said to Emma, looking at her closely. It was a statement, not a question.

  “I got bucked off a horse,” Emma replied curtly. “I didn’t get killed.”

  “Naw,” Ned said. “Neither one of us got killed, didn’t even come close.” He might as well get the telling over with. “Somebody robbed the bank before we did. We had to go north so’s nobody’d suspicion us.” Then Ned told the story he and Emma had made up. “We camped out on the prairie. The wagon broke down, and we left it behind. Then we traded in the team on a couple of horses. When we woke up, one of the horses had got loose of his hobbles, and we spent the morning looking for him. It was a damn long ride home, and I am purely sore,” he finished.

  Addie didn’t seem interested. She glanced at Welcome as if the two shared some secret. Then she waved her hand at Ned, dismissing his story. She’d been on the drink for a long time, or she’d have lit into him for abandoning her wagon.