Bad to the Bone

by Len Levinson

  Beneath his solid military demeanor, Don Carlos was deeply disturbed. Duane Braddock had claimed another victim, but the bloody news didn't fit with the naive and shy youth with whom Don Carlos had dined at the hacienda. Now that Don Carlos thought it over, Duane Braddock reminded him of students he'd known in Seville, the ones who'd spent their time in libraries, not ladies’ boudoirs.

  I've caused suffering to other husbands too, realized Don Carlos, and now it's coming back to me. But if I tell her how much I love her, and remind her about all she's given up, I'm certain that she'll take the prudent course.

  Don Carlos thought he understood Doña Consuelo, and surmised that she was petrified with terror. Despite her recent conversion to reality, she's still fundamentally a very sheltered child, he told himself. Maybe she's ready to leave her new paramour, but is afraid he might fly into one of his rages and kill her.

  Don Carlos worried about his little wife as he followed the Apache half-breed onto the desert. García caught up with Don Carlos, slowed his mount, and rode silently at the side of the nobleman, as his first sergeant. The column of twos advanced onto the open desert, hauling wagons at the rear, sending up a cloud of dust.

  Don Carlos turned toward García and asked: “What do you think about all this?”

  García appeared disturbed by the question. “I have no right, sir ...”

  “Forget for a moment that I'm Don Carlos and you're García. I'm asking you man to man. You've been working for me a long time, and you know me very well. Do you think I'm a fool for chasing my wife this way?”

  García shrugged, and said reluctantly: “I would do the same thing, sir.” The foreman of vaqueros held his forefinger to his own throat, and made a sudden motion. “The gringo has got to die. It is a matter of honor.”

  Of course, reflected Don Carlos. The vaqueros don't think I'm a buffoon, but a man of honor. You don't let a man run off with your wife, and even a vaquero can understand the insult. Duane Braddock has violated me in the worst possible way, and I don't care how shy and scholarly he is.

  The sun sank toward vermilion mountains in the distance as Don Carlos turned toward his foreman once more. “I'm curious about something else, García. You're a married man, and you must know something about women. What would make a good religious girl like Doña Consuelo do such a thing?”

  García shrugged, as if the answer were too obvious to discuss. “I grew up the only son among four sisters. My grandmother and one of my unmarried aunts also lived with us in a two room jacal. I have been with women all my life, and I have tried to understand them, but what man has ever understood women? They do not even understand themselves, and they are liable to do any crazy thing that comes to their minds. You can beat them, but it does no good. You can lock them up, but who has the heart to lock up a woman? How can you ask me how to handle your wife, when I cannot even handle mine?”

  Don Carlos saw the absurdity of his predicament and burst into laughter. García chuckled as well. Side by side they rode onward, as the sun cast long shadows onto the desert. I'm not the first man with horns on my head, realized Don Carlos. The vaqueros understand, because what man has never been betrayed by a woman? Duane Braddock sat at table with me, pretended to be my friend, and swore that he had no designs on my wife. He has broken the silent pact that all decent men make with each other, and ignorance is no excuse. Duane Braddock must be punished for his sins.

  Doña Consuelo sat in a shallow ditch, gun in hand, waiting for Duane to return. He was hunting a suitable place to spend the night, and they'd landed in a terrain of cliffs, pinnacles, buttes, and ledges, with plenty of nooks and crannies for two people to disappear inside.

  Since infancy, Doña Consuelo had heard about Apaches burning, looting, slaughtering, and raping. She was prepared to blow her brains out, her pistol cocked and ready to fire, if any Apache tried to capture her. Duane had been gone a long time, or so she thought. It was a new world, and she hoped she'd be able to hold up.

  “It's me,” said a voice behind her. “Don't shoot.”

  She spun around, and he lay on the grama grass a few feet behind her, a grin on his face. “I've found a nice little cave a little farther along. Let's go.”

  He gathered the horses’ reins and led them into a notch between two jagged escarpments. Doña Consuelo followed, as sharp stones stabbed and twisted her boots. She was utterly filthy, and wished she could take a bath, but she'd left her bathtub far behind. It's not that bad, she tried to convince herself, as Duane led her to the front of a cave.

  “It's a perfect spot,” he told her proudly. “If anybody tries to get us, they'll have to come through that passageway, and I believe they'll find it too high a price to pay. I'll take care of the horses—make yourself comfortable—be right back.”

  She lowered her head and entered the cave. To her surprise, the ceiling swept up after the first few feet. She raised herself to full height and saw a roundish chamber with a flat rock floor and the bones of a lobo in the corner. She kicked the offending ossified calcium formations out the door, then searched for a spot for the bedroll. She located a flat stretch, knelt, and unrolled the blankets where they could look out the door when they awakened. A smile came to her face as she accomplished this tender task.

  He returned to the cave, took one look, and pointed to another spot. “Put the bedroll over there.”

  “But I like it here.”

  “Somebody could shoot you in bed from that passageway. Move it.” He walked around the cave, kicked the wall, picked up something from the floor, and held it to his eye. “An old arrowhead. I guess we're not the first ones to sleep here.”

  “I hope it's not a place Where Apaches come regularly.”

  “Nobody's been here for a long time,” said Duane.

  “How do you know?”

  “If people visit a place, they keep the dust from settling on the floor.” He bent over, scraped his finger along the rock, and held up the alkali powder. “See?”

  He took off his hat, slapped it against his knee, and put it back on. Then he laid out his weapons on the floor, and made sure everything was in working order. Next he crawled to the edge of the passageway and peered into the open desert.

  It was becoming dark, and no Apaches, bounty hunters, or vaqueros of Don Carlos were visible. Duane maintained a strong facade for Doña Consuelo, but had become unsettled by the shooting in the cantina. It had come so quickly, he'd barely had time to draw. No matter where he went, or what he did, somebody started up with him. Do I carry the mark of Cain? he wondered.

  Sometimes he thought he was doomed, and should go back to the monastery, but not with a beautiful woman only twenty paces away. He returned to the cave, and she was sitting on the blankets, pulling off her boots, her skirt lifting to show a length of leg. This is worth dying for, he admitted, as he moved toward her.

  “Duane,” she protested weakly.

  He lowered her to the blankets, crawled on top, roved his hands over her hips, and kissed her lightly. “I've been dreaming about this moment all day long,” he whispered. “I saw you sitting in the saddle, and I thought, I've got to have some of that.”

  He kissed her throat, and she dug her fingernails into his thick shaggy hair. The scratch of his beard thrilled her as he unbuttoned her blouse. His hand slipped inside, and came to rest on an extremely sensitive portion of her anatomy.

  “I also was looking at you today,” she replied. “You sat in your saddle like a real caudillo, and I thought, 7 can't wait until it's time to go to bed.”

  They undressed each other frantically, kissing portions of each other's emerging anatomy, tossing garments wildly through the air. Duane's heart filled with mad animal lust as he inserted his tongue into her petulant mouth. Her body undulated rhythmically beneath him, provoking his ardor to higher summits, as night came to the Apache homeland.

  Frowning, Don Carlos stood at his camp table, studying a map. He and his men hadn't covered as much ground as he'd anticipated, becau
se the fugitives's trail had petered out three hours ago on a long stretch of rock. Now the half-breed was scouting about, trying to find where they'd gone.

  Don Carlos wondered whether to throw away the wagons and travel lighter. We'll never catch them at the rate we're going, and I wonder if there's a better way. Where are they headed, and can we cut them off?

  Don Carlos didn't think the gringo would visit another Mexican town, after the last murder. He'd also stay off main trails, sleep where no one could find him, and live off the land, like an Indian. But he could not hide for the rest of his life, and one day I will catch him.

  “Sir?” asked Lázaro, outside the tent.

  “Come in.”

  The half-breed entered, and appeared more vital since he'd returned to the desert. “I have been unable to find his trail, sir, but in the morning I will try again.”

  “I'm surprised that it's taking so long,” said Don Carlos. “I thought that Apaches were the best trackers in the world.”

  “He covers his trail well, and they say that he is part Apache too. But I know where he's headed.” Lázaro smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “The Sierra Madre mountains.”

  “Tell me the truth, half-breed. What are our real chances of finding them?”

  “He does not have time to cover everything. Between here and the Sierra Madre, I will find his sign.”

  “What if he's gone elsewhere?”

  “An Apache will hide in the Sierra Madre mountains, because no Mexicans will go there. But I was raised in those mountains, and know them well. You've heard the old saying, Don Carlos: It takes an Apache to catch an Apache.”

  ***

  The lovers lay in each other's arms, safe from enemies, covered with a gray wool blanket, cheeks touching. “Are you awake, Duane?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said softly, letting her womanly warmth thaw the knotted rage in his soul.

  “I was thinking about something, and I hope you won't laugh, but—have you had many girls?”

  “A few.”

  “A good-looking boy like you, you can probably get any one you want, no?”

  “I'm not as experienced as you might think.”

  “I've only made love with Don Carlos, but you're so different.”

  Duane looked away uneasily. “I feel as if I've ruined your life, Doña Consuelo. I did everything I could to get you, and once I even tried to make you drunk on mescal.”

  “I wanted you to get me from the first moment I saw you,” she told him. “And you will never be alone again, as long as I'm alive.”

  Don Carlos fretted on his canvas cot, because he knew precisely what was happening at that moment. The young lovers were alone, with the jealous husband far away, and Don Carlos tasted acids rising in his throat. He knew the story too well, because he also had tasted the heady bouquet of illicit love, as well as the ambrosia of marital bliss. He knew the mating game through all its permutations, and considered his twenties the finest time of his life.

  But his twenties were over, while Doña Consuelo was at the beginning of hers. He imagined her engaged in carnal delight, while he scratched and twitched alone on his cot. He knew the commitment that she brought to love, the tiny sounds that escaped her lips, and the exquisite contortions of her body.

  Don Carlos felt old, paunchy, balding, and no longer in robust health by any means. He knew that young lovers could satisfy physical appetites for hours and even days on end, with only an occasional meal and drink of water, because that was his own experience during his career as a Casanova.

  His very sophistication in love was an additional source of misery, because he understood well the language of seduction. He felt imprisoned inside his canvas tent, so he rolled out of bed, pulled on his boots, strapped on his Whitney, and donned his black leather riding jacket. Then he made his way to the embers of the fire, passing vaqueros sleeping on the ground all around him. He looked at the three-quarter waxing moon poised in a sky drenched with stars. The identical moon shone on Doña Consuelo in another man's arms, and Don Carlos nearly doubled over with pain.

  He couldn't stop thinking about Doña Consuelo with her shapely legs wrapped around Duane Braddock, and decided to blow his brains out. He reached for the Whitney, thumbed back the hammer, held the barrel to his right temple, and touched his finger to the trigger.

  He imagined them kissing and clutching deliriously, while she'd performed the same sinful acts upon Braddock that he, Don Carlos, had taught her. His finger tightened around the trigger, and then, in a flash of logic, he saw the ramifications.

  They'd say the old fool killed himself because his wife had run off with a younger man. His suffering would provide comic relief for vaqueros drunk out of their minds in cantinas, and the caudillo didn't want to be remembered that way.

  He removed his finger from the trigger, eased the hammer forward, and dropped the Whitney into its holster. Be a man, not a fool, he advised himself. My ancestor was a conquistador, and I must set an example for those who look up to me.

  Don Carlos would have preferred to fall on his knees and cry like a baby, but that was unacceptable for a caudillo. He had to find his wife, to make sure that she hadn't been kidnapped, and he had to shoot Duane Braddock.

  Don Carlos hoped that his wife had gone mad, rather than having fallen for another man. I should have locked her in a closet, he said to himself, but he could never be cruel to Doña Consuelo, despite his outbursts. I must do what's expected of me, he vowed. Whatever happens, I cannot disgrace my name.

  CHAPTER 9

  DOÑA CONSUELO PEERED OUT THE FRONT entrance of the cave, the ornate Colt in her right hand. It was another sunny day, the desert shone like gold, and a condor flew over the mountain pass.

  Doña Consuelo felt at one with herself and the world, not missing her bathtub in the least. Duane had found a stream not far away, and she took a bath every day, washed their clothing, and sunned herself naked on the rocks, with Duane often joining her.

  Their diet consisted of fresh roast meat supplemented with a variety of roots and nuts. After three weeks on the dodge, she felt like part of the desert, instead of sweet little Doña Consuelo, too refined to perform useful tasks. She wouldn't object to living in the rough forever, because at last she was getting what she needed.

  But there was one major drawback: the Apaches. Because of them, she and Duane lived in constant fear of getting massacred. She pulled her head back into the cave and sat with her back to the wall.

  She wished Duane could take her on jaunts, but she didn't know how to move quietly, and Apaches might hear her. She'd never dreamed that she could be so happy, but sometimes felt uneasy, and occasionally was nauseous. Can I be pregnant? she sometimes asked herself.

  Duane scrambled across crags and ridges like a mountain goat, as he familiarized himself with the terrain around the cave. There were deep sudden gorges, high cliffs, and narrow passageways, not to mention small caves with animal turds on the floor. He could find no sign indicating that Apaches had been in the vicinity recently, and hoped it stayed that way.

  He stopped at regular intervals, to look and listen for Apaches, and then spotted a cave a quarter of the way up a mountain to his left. It appeared that he could reach it over a steep incline strewn with boulders. He climbed the approach, drew closer, and heard a growl from within. “Sorry,” he said, backing away. “Didn't mean to disturb you.”

  It sounded like a bear, and the Pecos Kid promptly descended the side of the promontory, because not even a .44 slug could penetrate a bear's hide. Duane came to a patch of wild lavender and soapweed on the way down, and was surprised to see a low passageway in its shadow. The opening wouldn't be visible unless someone stood a few steps away.

  Duane stuck his head inside, and noted that the passageway inclined upward, leading to what looked like another small-mouthed cave. Duane crept closer, wondering if the cousin of the other bear lived there. He raised his head, but was greeted by no hostile sounds.

  He p
eered into the cave, and it didn't look like more than crawl space. He got down on his hands and knees, inched inside, and hoped that the mountain wouldn't collapse on top of him. The space enlarged, showing a chamber larger than the one in which he currently resided. Duane found the usual pellets of animal excrement, and a dark hazy mass at the rear. Yanking his gun, advancing closer, he saw that it was another passageway. He edged himself into its dark convoluted turns, and said to himself, wait a minute—there's liable to be a mountain lion at the end of this thing.

  He lit a match, and it was dark rock all around him. He felt a mild stab of panic, as if walls were crushing him to death, and decided to get the hell out of there. But I wonder where it leads? he asked himself. The narrow alley continued, and he'd heard legends about a mountain of gold somewhere in the Sierra Madre. Maybe it's straight ahead, Duane postulated. If any lion messes with me, I'll shoot his lights out.

  With the Colt in his right hand, he crawled into the darkness, pausing every few lengths to look around. Then he noticed a faint glimmer coming from the other end. Have I come all the way through the mountain? wondered Duane.

  He crawled toward the light, the passage widened, and he saw the opening straight ahead. Arising in a vast domed vault, it reminded him of a cathedral, with another crack at its far end. He got down on his belly, inched forward, and his eyes widened at an incredible sight.

  About two hundred yards away, a deserted crumbling pueblo settlement nestled against the side of the next peak. Some sections leaned in odd angles, while others had collapsed totally. Duane wondered where the Indians had gone, as he moved down rock steps leading to the ground. The pueblo was at the edge of approximately twenty acres of grama grass, inside a cluster of mountains, the perfect hiding place.