by Len Levinson
“That's it,” said Cochrane stiffly. “Johnny Pinto, you can leave now, or you can leave when we get back to the hideout, but from now on you're not a member of the gang. If you get into any more arguments with the men, I personally will throw you out of here.”
“What makes you think you can do that, sir?” Johnny Pinto asked tauntingly.
“This,” said Beasley's voice.
Pinto turned around. Beasley and several outlaws aimed their guns at him. Johnny raised his hands and smiled. “Hey, fellers—I was only kiddin’.”
“I wasn't,” replied Cochrane. “You can leave now or later—it's up to you.”
Pinto smiled uncertainly. “Well ... I...” He didn't know what to say. “I guess I'll stay on.”
“Keep your mouth shut, and do as you're told.”
“You won't hear a peep out of me all the way back,” replied Johnny Pinto.
Silence descended on the little clearing as the men resumed their meal. Nearby, the wounded man lay still, arms at his side, clothing splotched with dried blood. Dr. Montgomery placed his ear against his patient's heart and heard a dull weak thump. We shouldn't move him, he thought, but I guess we have to.
Vanessa Fontaine reclined on her sofa, reading the Austin Gazette. Every day the news was worse, with the scalawag governor humiliating former Confederate soldiers at every opportunity. Sometimes she thought about leaving Texas and heading for Paris, because her ancestors had been French.
Unfortunately, the news from Paris wasn't rosy either. The monarchists had taken over the government last April, after the collapse of the Paris Commune. Now they squabbled among themselves over power, some factions aligned with the Count of Chambord, others behind the Count of Paris, and a few backing the Bonapartists.
Vanessa threw down the newspaper in dismay. Wherever she turned, obstacles appeared. She'd believed that her husband's fortune would bring happiness, but she still felt strangely unfulfilled.
There was a knock, and she guessed it was her maid. She opened the door, and a tall strong-boned Negro woman whom she'd never seen stood before her. “Maxine can't come today, but I'm her sister, and I'll do a good job for you, you'll see.”
Vanessa still hadn't adjusted to Negroes who hired themselves for wages and quit whenever they felt like it. “What's your name?”
“Lonnie Mae.”
“Why can't Maxine come today?”
“I don't rightfully know.”
She knows, Vanessa figured, but doesn't want to tell me. It was the same at the plantation, with slaves scheming and plotting constantly. But Vanessa didn't feel like cleaning the suite of rooms herself. “Has Maxine told you what to do?”
“I don't need nobody to teach me how to clean a house, ma'am. I been cleanin’ houses since I could walk. Besides, Maxine told me how you like things, and where everythin’ is.”
“Where's my office?” Vanessa replied quickly, hoping to trip her up.
“Should be the room on your left.”
Vanessa couldn't help smiling. At least this one's not stupid, she evaluated. “Come in. There's a lot to do.”
Vanessa retreated to her desk to get out of the maid's way. She thought of going for a walk, but didn't feel like chatting with society women on the sidewalks of Austin. Vanessa felt more comfortable with men, but propriety had to be observed; she was a lady with a reputation to uphold.
Since she'd acquired wealth, some men seemed afraid of her, while fortune hunters were in constant hot pursuit. Men from the best families gave her a wide berth, because they wanted fresh young virgins for wives, not a worn-out old married lady of thirty-one years.
She fidgeted with a pen and blank piece of paper, fancying herself a poetess of sorts, but language seemed inadequate to describe her troubled feelings. Sometimes she thought she was insane, because of countless bad decisions, and strangest of all was running off with a seventeen-year-old boy.
Except that Duane Braddock hadn't really been a boy, despite his tender years. He was tall and strong as a man, unusually well educated for frontier Texas, and he'd turned eighteen since she'd met him. She wondered what he was doing just then, and with whom.
Lonnie Mae entered the office, dustrag in hand, a spotless white apron covering her black dress. She set to work diligently, wiping everything in sight. Vanessa watched surreptitiously over the blank sheet of paper. Lonnie Mae represented the new free Negro, subject of much controversy. It cost eight hundred thousand casualties on both sides to free them, considered Vanessa, and they're still cleaning houses, just as in the old days. The real cause of the war was damned Yankees wanting to humiliate the South, thought Vanessa, and darkies were pawns in their dirty game.
Lonnie Mae worked her way methodically around the room, giving every surface a thorough cleaning. At least she's a worker, Vanessa acknowledged. I don't have trouble respecting somebody who does a good job.
Lonnie Mae approached the desk. “Would you like me to pass by while you're here, ma'am?”
“I'll stop.” Vanessa arose and walked to the chair in the corner, where she sat with Lord Byron. She glanced over the pages and observed Lonnie Mae polishing the desk. The Negress was tall and strong, with flowing feminine lines, dark brown complexion, and features pleasing to Vanessa's eye.
“Were you born a slave?” Vanessa asked out of curiosity.
Lonnie Mae stopped what she was doing, then turned and faced her employer. She thought for a few moments and then said, “Yes, ma'am.”
“Is life very different now that you're free?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“In what way is it different?”
“Because I'm free, ma'am.”
“But nobody's really free,” Vanessa tried to explain. “You're still doing the work that darkies did under slavery. What's the difference?”
The Negro woman replied politely. “It's true that my husband and I still work the same, but our children will go to school, and they'll be lawyers, doctors, and ministers someday. That's the big difference, ma'am. We can work our way up like white folks now.”
Vanessa returned to her desk and reflected upon what Lonnie Mae had said. She's got a man and children, she's got something to live for, while I've got my bank account, Lord Byron, and memories of Duane Braddock. Who is the mistress, and who the slave?
CHAPTER 3
AFAINT GLIMMER APPEARED IN THE endless blackness. Gradually it enlarged, changed proportions, and became a bearded man in a hooded robe strolling across the desert, Jesus Christ surrounded by disciples, with halos around their heads. “It looks like he's coming around,” Christ said.
The patient struggled to open his eyes. Christ floated in foggy shrouds, while St. Matthew held a canteen of water to Duane's lips, but Duane lacked strength to swallow. He tried to pray vocally, but no sound come. His existence was pain, and he couldn't even moan. Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins . . . then his eyes closed, and he dropped into endless oceans of sludge.
Dr. Montgomery pressed his ear to his patient's chest. “He's getting stronger, all right. Soon he'll take nourishment.”
Cochrane was surprised that the patient had lasted so long. It was a week since they'd found him, but somehow he was hanging on precariously, bathed and dressed in clean clothes. Dr. Montgomery had been attending him since they'd returned to their hideout, a scattering of adobe haciendas in a spot gracing no maps of Mexico; they called it Lost Canyon.
Located by chance during one of their many dodges through the Sierra Madre Mountains, it was surrounded by crags and deep sudden drops, inaccessible except for three narrow passageways, each heavily guarded at all times. If a stranger drove past, he wouldn't know Lost Canyon was there.
They had a natural well and pond at one end of the canyon, and plenty of grama grass for horses and cattle grazing in the afternoon light. Cochrane returned to his hacienda, lit a corncob pipe, and looked out the window at his little village domain. It was a far cry from Charlottesville, but at least he didn't have Yankees breathing
down his back. His irregulars maintained a small farm, and if money was required, there was plenty stashed in a cave. An old tattered Confederate flag fluttered in the breeze in front of Cochrane's house, and he was pleased with all he'd accomplished.
He watched Dr. Montgomery ministering to the wounded young traveler, who lay outside on a cot set up before the doctor's hut. The doctor believed sunlight had healing properties, and exposed his patient's naked wounds to the rays whenever possible. The stranger was feeding off himself, growing thinner every day, the bone structure of his face standing out like a skull.
He's probably an outlaw like Johnny Pinto, Cochrane figured. Why else would he be riding alone across Mexico? But he's an educated man, and possibly we can have a conversation if he recovers. Unfortunately, he might not survive.
Cochrane had learned to hold back feelings. It wouldn't do for a company commander to break down and cry in the midst of battles for hills and valleys that no one had ever heard of before. The young student of philosophy had become a hard, cold, frontline commander who'd literally charged the mouths of cannon on numerous occasions, and he'd led old Troop D in the most massive cavalry battle of the war, Brandy Station. Cochrane had seen conditions of blood and death beyond the ken of most men, and learned that inner strength was the most important characteristic for a frontline officer.
The unnamed young traveler had shown inner strength aplenty, in Cochrane's professional military opinion. Alone on the desert, he hadn't surrendered or blown his brains out at first sight of Apaches. Instead, he'd fought the odds and actually claimed two of the enemy, quite an achievement. The stranger was Cochrane's kind of man, and Cochrane was curious about him. Who's this philosophical outlaw? he wondered.
A young Mexican woman stepped out of the hacienda against which Cochrane sat. “Dinner is ready,” said Juanita Torregrosa, Cochrane's woman, and the only female in Lost Canyon.
He followed her through the doorway, watching her tall voluptuous body move beneath a thin cotton dress. She was five-eight, with shiny straight black hair gathered behind her head, and tanned Indian-like features. They lived together in two small rooms, one a kitchen and office, the other the bedroom and riding academy. He sat at one side of the rough-hewn table as she placed the cast-iron pot of stew in front of him.
She'd introduced him to Mexican food, and he'd become addicted to it and her. She was nineteen years old, a rare exotic flower whom he'd met in a broken-down cantina near Hermosillo. Juanita ladled stew into a bowl and passed it to him, as delicious spicy fragrances rose to his nostrils. Then she filled her own bowl and sat opposite him. They reached for tortillas as the sound of horse and rider passed the front of their little abode.
They didn't say much during the meal, because they'd been together two years and knew each other's minds without verbalizations. She'd been working as maid for the local alcalde when Cochrane met her. Tired of mopping floors, she'd been searching for excitement, found it with the strange scarred American desperado, and the fact that he was a gringo was no great consequence to her. Juanita tried to keep an open mind.
They communicated mainly through their bodies, and both were fairly content with the arrangement. He wished he had someone on his intellectual level, while she wanted an estancia and a family. But life was easy together, and she didn't want to push too hard.
Juanita had studied Cochrane well during their time together, and concluded that the war had scarred more than his face. If he really loved me, he'd buy me an estancia in Durango.
She couldn't understand why he preferred to be a bandito and live in an adobe hut. Sometimes she thought he was un pocito loco, but it was better than being a maid. And in her heart of hearts, she hoped someday God would smile on her and Cochrane would buy her that estancia. She'd mentioned it several times before, usually broaching the subject at an oblique angle, like a cavalry troop launching a sneak attack. “By the way,” she began innocently, “the roof has been leaking again.”
“I'll fix it after dinner,” he replied. “Where's the spot?”
“If there was just one, I would have fixed it myself. But there are many of them. If only, for once in my life, I could have a roof of my own that did not leak.”
“There you go again,” he said gently. “In English, we call it nagging.”
It was a word she'd never heard before, and she added it to her growing English vocabulary. “If you are not careful,” she complained sadly, “one day you will lose me.”
“I'd be sorry if that happened, but we all do what we have to.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You are the coldest, most selfish man I have ever known.”
“But you haven't met that many men yet,” he replied affably.
She felt herself becoming angry, but it was a long way to the nearest town. Sometimes she thought she loved him, and other times hated him.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” said the company commander.
Sergeant Beasley entered the kitchen, hat in hand. “We've spotted Mexican cavalry about ten hours south of here, sir. Shall I tell the men to put out the fires?”
“Yes, and keep me informed if they head this way.”
Cochrane finished the stew, wiped his mouth with a tattered napkin, and rose from his chair as if Juanita weren't there. He looked out the window, saw Dr. Montgomery leaning over the wounded young man, and felt terrible premonitions. He shuddered uncontrollably as images of bloody battlefields arose to his vision. Then he noticed Dr. Montgomery walking toward the command-post hacienda and wondered what the doctor was going to report. There was a knock on the door, Juanita opened it, and the doctor ignored her as he approached Cochrane.
“He came to consciousness again!” the doctor said exuberantly. “I managed to pour some beef broth down his throat.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Not yet, but it's only a matter of time, I assure you. The healing power of the sun cannot be denied, and we'll feed him every time he opens his mouth. He'll be walking within two weeks, mark my words.”
It was the night of the grand ball, and Vanessa Fontaine dressed carefully in front of her mirror. She'd selected a plain black silk gown, and beneath it wore a black corset imported from New York. Vanessa loved to dress for parties and viewed herself as an actress on the stage of life. Tonight she'd play demure widow, and certainly didn't intend to mention that she and her husband had been divorcing when he'd been killed by Apaches. Their marriage had gone downhill practically from the morning they'd married, because Lieutenant Dawes had been jealous of her former love, young Duane Braddock.
She felt mischievous, frisky, and rambunctious as she placed a dab of perfume on her throat. Eligible Southern gentlemen would attend the ball, and perhaps she'd meet her next sweetheart. He'd better be richer than I, she mused as she applied a light shade of powder to flawless alabaster cheeks.
The upcoming ball reminded her of old Dixie, where she'd prepared for many parties with her innocent heart intact. Then the war broke out, the world turned onto its back, and she'd learned that love can be a weapon too. Her former purity resided in some old party dress grown moldy long ago.
There was a knock on the door, although she generally didn't receive callers during the day. She wondered who it could be as she took a step back from her mirror and observed her visage from all the angles. In the battle of love, the right glance at the supreme moment could be as devastating as cannon fire.
Vanessa became aware of a commotion taking place in the parlor. “Lonnie Mae?”
The sounds came to a sudden halt. Vanessa reached for her red silk robe and was tying the belt when Lonnie Mae appeared in the doorway. It was clear that something terrible had happened, for the maid could barely speak. “Miss Fontaine ... I wonder if I could take the rest of the day off. I know I ain't givin’ you no notice, but I—”
Vanessa interrupted. “What's wrong?”
“My son has got hit by a wagon.”
Vanessa didn't stop to think about
it. “Go ahead— go home. Come back when you're ready. Your son comes first.”
Lonnie Mae appeared struck by lightning, then suddenly she leapt forward and impulsively kissed Vanessa's cheek. “Oh, thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much.”
Lonnie Mae rushed to the parlor, and Vanessa followed. Standing near the door was a big Negro male whom Vanessa never had seen. He was six feet four, wore hard-worn work clothes, his skin pure ebony. Vanessa was stopped in her tracks by the sheer physicality of the man.
Lonnie Mae smiled nervously. “This is Harold, my husband.”
He bowed his head. “How do you do, ma'am.”
“I think you'd both better get going. Come back when you're ready, Lonnie Mae, and your job will be waiting for you.”
The couple rushed away, and Vanessa found herself alone in the middle of the parlor, wondering what had just hit her. So that's her husband? she wondered. Vanessa realized that she hardly knew anything about her new maid.
The lonely widow returned to her dressing room, still thinking of her maid's husband. His face had possessed brutal grace, and she'd felt his energy across the room. For the first time in her life Vanessa felt jealous of a servant.
But the former Charleston belle didn't prefer that hazardous path. Instead, she had a party to go to, and reached around to button the top of her dress. It was tricky, because she couldn't see what she was doing. I'll cover it with a wrap and ask somebody at the party to fasten the damned things.
She put on the scarf and looked at herself in the mirror. Oil lamps glowed on either side of her, and she was a statue by da Vinci, but often wondered who she was beneath the facade. Her life made no sense; she'd bounced from one man to another since the war ended and now planned to bounce to another.
In a way, she was sick of men, but womanly needs propelled her onward. If only they were like books in a library, and you returned them when you were finished. Vanessa didn't enjoy passing time with women because women didn't thrill her. And if she wanted to go anywhere, who'd carry her bags, saddle her horse, etc? Duane Braddock had been her favorite thus far, and she found herself recalling him often. Somehow she'd developed a fascination for the notorious Pecos Kid. For all I know, he could be dead by now, she reasoned. Duane Braddock draws trouble out of the woodwork. Vanessa had seen him in shoot-outs and punch-outs that beggared the imagination. Duane Braddock in an angry mood was awesome to behold.