The Romantics

by Peter Brandvold

  “Pas,” Cameron said. “What happened, Pas?”

  The Mexican inhaled sharply, his face twisting in pain. “When the girl yelled, Bud and him”—he glanced at Clark—“they ran out of the cave. I stayed with the Indio. Someone made a sound behind me. I turned around … and … someone stuck a knife in my guts. Ai, Mary! They killed me, compadre.” His lips formed a wry smile amid the pain. “I always heard a knife to the guts was the worst way to go …”

  Pas’s head sank sideways to the ground. He reached out with a bloody hand and grabbed Cameron around the neck. He whispered hoarsely, “Take … Take care of Leonora and my children, Jack.”

  Cameron grabbed his old friend’s arm and squeezed. “I will, Pas.” His voice broke and his heart swelled.

  He felt the tension leave Pas’s body. The hand slipped away from his neck and fell to the ground. Pas gave one last sigh and stopped breathing. There was a garbled, wet sound in his throat, which Cameron knew was the last of the air leaving his lungs. An arm shook spasmodically.

  “Pas …” Cameron said, overcome with sorrow and rage. He’d been the man’s neighbor, had eaten at his table, and knew his wife and four children as well as he’d ever known anyone out here in this no-man’s-land. He and Pas had helped each other defend their ranches from the Apaches. They were neighbors where having neighbors you could count on was often the difference between life and death.

  Now Pas was lying here dead with his guts spilling out on the ground, and his wife and kids were alone …

  “Cameron,” Clark said, as if from far away.

  Cameron continued staring at Pas, working his rage into a lather while his face remained hard and gray and expressionless.

  “Cameron,” Clark repeated.

  Cameron turned to him slowly. “What?”

  “The Indian,” Hotchkiss said. He’d run up with Jimmy Bronco and had been standing silently over Cameron, taking in the dead Pas Varas. “He’s gone.”

  Cameron jerked his gaze over to the tree to which the Indian had been tied, and saw the cut rope but no Indian. His sour gut turned even more sour and a black bug of dread hopscotched along his backbone. He kicked sand onto the fire. Darkness enveloped them totally as a gust of acrid smoke lifted skyward.

  “What’s that for?” Clark said.

  “I don’t want them watching us squirm.”

  “Jimmy and I will head down to make sure the horses are all right,” Hotchkiss said. Then he and the boy were gone.

  Cameron kicked a rock in frustration.

  “What are we gonna do?” Clark asked.

  “There’s nothing we can do … until morning,” Cameron said. His voice was low and gloomy.

  He saw Clark’s dark form turn to him. “What in the hell was she doing down there?”

  Cameron walked to the edge of the cave, squatted down on his haunches, and reached into his shirt pocket for his tobacco and papers. “She came down to try and convince me to help you find the gold,” he said.

  “And you let her walk back alone?” Clark’s voice was coldly accusatory.

  Cameron swallowed his anger. “She’s your wife, for chrissakes. If you can’t watch her, how the hell can you expect me to?” He knew it was a ridiculous argument—he should have walked Marina back to the cave—but he was in no mood to be chastised by Adrian Clark, whose presence was the reason they were all in this mess in the first place.

  He turned to face the back of the cave to light his cigarette, then sat there smoking, shielding the coal with his palm and scolding himself for not being more careful. He should have told Marina to stay in the cave, and they all should have been watchful. Cameron hadn’t known what to expect from Bachelard, so he should have been expecting anything.

  It was a ballsy move, though; he’d give the man that. Coming in and taking the girl right under their noses … But why in hell had he set the Indian loose? Surely he didn’t think the Indian would throw in with him; it must have been simply to gall and confound.

  And it had done just that …

  Clark said softly, “You don’t think they’ll kill her, do you?”

  “You already asked me that. No.”

  “Will they … ?” Clark couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “They might,” Cameron allowed.

  It was a cruel thing to say, but he couldn’t help blaming Clark for Pas’s death and the Indian’s escape. If he and Marina hadn’t been on that stage, Cameron would have been a lot farther down the trail to Contention City, and he’d still have the Indian to deliver to the soldiers tomorrow. As it stood, they might get Marina back, but the Indian was another story.

  Cameron had a feeling he’d see the Indian again, but on the Indian’s terms this time. Cameron knew he’d dishonored Perro Loco not only by capturing him, but by the way he had been captured—slipping a gun to the man’s head while he was fornicating. Undoubtedly the Indian would be looking to recoup his honor, and the only way he could do that would be to hunt Cameron down and kill him.

  Goddamn it.

  IT WAS A long night. Cameron and Clark stayed in the cave, smoking and pacing, not saying much. Hotchkiss and the kid stayed with the horses. No one slept a wink.

  At dawn Hotchkiss and Bronco came up the grade from the water, trailing the horses. They saddled all the mounts, including Varas’s Appaloosa, and Cameron wrapped the dead Mexican in his blanket and draped him over his saddle, securing him with the ropes they’d used on the Indian. Clark rode the Indian’s horse.

  They rode down the grade and picked up the trail that skirted the dry wash as the sun neared the peak of the eastern ridge, whitening the sky and silhouetting the desert scrub and saguaros before it.

  Birds chirped and rabbits scurried through the brush along the wash. Hawks hunted, the golden rays of the sun finding them circling the canyon or perched stonelike on rocks. It could have been a perfectly fine desert morning, with everything right with the world.

  Only the grim faces of the unshaven riders, weary from worry and lack of sleep, told a different story. Even the horses seemed downtrodden as they made their way, heads down, tails held straight down between their legs, back out of the canyon. They followed the narrow trail around boulders and cactus to the main stage road.

  Cameron kept on eye out for Bachelard. He knew the old guerrilla would appear sooner or later. The man was in no big hurry; the more time Cameron, Clark, and the others had to squirm, the better off he was.

  As far as the Indian went, Cameron didn’t figure he’d see him again until Perro Loco had had time to return to his band and gather a war party.

  After scouting the trail ahead, Cameron returned to the ragged line of riders, who were starting to sweat in the warming sun, and fell in beside Clark. Something was bothering Cameron.

  “Hey, Clark,” he said. “When Bachelard shows, you are going to give him the plat, aren’t you?” Even to his own ears it sounded like a stupid question. But Cameron didn’t know Clark well enough to understand his motivations.

  “Of course I’ll give him the plat,” Clark said, irritated. “What kind of a man do you think I am, anyway? Besides, I have a copy.”

  Cameron had expected as much. No one would go after treasure with only one copy of the map.

  “The original is stitched into my coat,” Clark said. “The copy’s in my boot.”

  “Better give him the original. If you give him the copy, he might think you’re trying to trick him.”

  “I thought of that.”

  Cameron held pace with Clark’s horse, studying the man. Clark was dour. His face glistened with sweat, and his unshaven cheeks appeared gaunt and hollow, his eyes sunk in their sockets.

  He was not a well man to begin with, and last night’s ordeal had set him back. Cameron could tell he wanted his property back, but the idea of giving up the plat to Bachelard was going down like tar.

  “You really think it’s there, don’t you?” Cameron asked him wonderingly. “The gold.”

  Clark did not lo
ok at him. His brooding eyes stared up the trail, upper lip curled slightly in a perpetual sneer. “It’s there, all right, and I’m still going to have it. Every ounce … Bachelard be damned.”

  A half-hour later the sun was nearly straight up, and the desert terrain was so bright it stung the eyes. They were riding through a shallow valley, with low rimrocks on both sides. The ground was rocky in places, and studded with ocotillo and brushy clumps of creosote. Cicadas sang. A roadrunner dashed across the trail and disappeared behind a boulder.

  Hotchkiss’s old eyes were the first to pick the riders out of the desert. He halted his horse.

  Cameron reined his buckskin to a stop and followed the old man’s gaze. About a hundred yards ahead sat seven riders, side by side and no more than twenty feet apart. Three sat close together. They were little more than shadowy outlines from this distance, but Cameron could tell the one in the middle of the three was a woman.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  Clark and Jimmy Bronco brought their mounts up to Cameron and Hotchkiss. Clark grimaced as he stared ahead through the bright sunlight. “Is it them?”

  Cameron nodded.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Cameron sucked air through his teeth. “Well, I guess we’ll ride up and hear what they have to say. Everyone spread out. Keep several yards between you in case they try anything.”

  He clucked his horse forward and the others followed suit. Cameron shucked his Winchester from his saddle boot and cocked it.

  “I don’t like this,” he told Hotchkiss under his breath. “I don’t like this a bit.”

  “You and me both,” Hotchkiss said.

  CHAPTER 8

  CLARK’S BREATH WAS shallow and he could hear his heart drumming in his ears.

  The stitches in his head were irritated by the heat, and the sun was frying his face in spite of his hat. Dust clothed him; he could feel it everywhere—even in his underwear and deep within his ears.

  But the dust was nothing compared to the pickle he found himself in with Bachelard.

  Clark grunted, suppressing a cough. What the hell had happened? The plan had been to find Reese McCormick and head to Mexico, where they would become rich men. Clark would buy a Western ranch operation, with a big log ranch house, a herd of Texas cattle, and real cowboys. Clark’s family’s Missouri plantation was long gone to carpetbaggers, so Clark would simply start over. The West was just the place for doing such a thing.

  He had no illusion that Marina loved him. Their marriage had been arranged, in a way—if you can call winning your wife in a poker game an arrangement—and there had been no time for love to develop between them. But to Clark love was not important. Clark was a Southern gentleman, who married a woman for the same reason you bought thoroughbreds: so they could produce more thoroughbreds while looking very nice about the grounds.

  Before the war, Clark’s father had arranged for Adrian to marry the daughter of a wealthy friend. Clark had not loved the girl but accepted the engagement as part of the due course of his life; love was not a consideration. The girl—dark had forgotten her name—had been young and beautiful and wealthy, and that had been enough.

  But then the war came along, first postponing, then canceling, the marriage—the family was living in poverty now, with relatives in Colorado. Clark had been ushered off to war by his father, albeit in a non-fighting capacity. If not for the war, Clark would no doubt be married to a woman he did not love, but who would have produced worthy heirs, and all would have been right with the world.

  Now he carried in his mind the image of Marina on his arm at some stockmen’s gathering in Wyoming or Colorado, a roomful of frock-coated and silk-gowned admirers gazing at her extraordinary beauty, champagne glasses clutched in their bejeweled hands. He loved her the way men can love a beautiful, beguiling woman for the idea of her alone, for the thought of her naked and writhing beneath him, for the progeny she would produce, and for the fancy figure she would cut at a dance.

  Unconsciously he believed—he hoped—that when Marina saw the gold, she’d forget all that blather about tracking down her daughter. Because of her Latin beauty and sensuality, Clark thought he could overlook Marina’s unmentionable relationship with her uncle, but he wasn’t sure he could live with the bastard child it had spawned.

  While he was not certain which meant more to him, Marina or the gold, he had to admit the thought of leaving her with Bachelard had crossed his mind. With that much gold a man could have any woman he wanted.

  He chastised himself for the half-conscious thought. His father had raised him better than that. Adrian Clark might have been stripped of his wealth, but he still had his honor, by God!

  Now he reined his horse to a halt and suppressed a gasp. Bachelard and his men sat their mounts about thirty feet away. The group that had run down the stage had been joined by Perro Loco. Clark’s heart drummed so wildly he could hear it in his ears.

  Between Bachelard and the Indian, Marina stiffly sat a gray pony, her back taut and her face tense. Her hands were tied behind her back and there was a noose around her neck. The end of the noose was held by the Indian. His forage cap shaded his forehead, but Clark could see his smoldering black eyes. The muscles in his bare arms coiled like snakes.

  Clark glanced at Cameron, who sat his horse tensely, returning the Indian’s dark look. They were like two wolves meeting in the woods—two wild, angry, bloodthirsty wolves fighting for the highest stakes of all.

  Bachelard took the cigar from his mouth and flashed a malevolent grin. “Hello, Cameron. Heard a lot about you. We meet at last. You already know my friend here.” He glanced at the Indian, whose gaze was locked on Cameron as though fixed there by some unseen force.

  Cameron nodded at the Indian mockingly and broke a smile.

  Perro Loco stared at Cameron. Cameron wasn’t sure the Indian understood English; he’d given no indication of it since Cameron had captured him.

  “You two throwin’ in together?” Cameron asked Bachelard.

  Bachelard shrugged. “Let’s just say we have a common interest.”

  “Quiet one, ain’t he?”

  “I never cared for a chatterbox.”

  Cameron’s eyes went dark. “You killed a good friend of mine last night.”

  Bachelard shrugged again. “He was in the way.”

  “I’m gonna kill you for that.”

  The Cajun didn’t even blink.

  Cameron stared flatly at the man, his cheek dimpling where his jaws joined. Finally he placed his hands on his saddle horn and shifted position. “But that’s between us alone. Why don’t you let that woman go?”

  “I’d like to do that, but first I’ll need the plat.” Bachelard’s eyes slid to Clark.

  “How do I know you’ll let her go?” Clark asked him.

  “I have no use for her.” Bachelard gave a wolfish grin. “Hell, me and Perro Loco here had our fill of her last night.” He removed the cigar from his mouth with a gloved hand and threw his head back. “Ha, ha, ha!”

  Clark felt as though he’d been clubbed in the chest. Anger filled him, filled his mouth with the taste of bile. He wanted to pull the pistol out of his holster and put a bullet between Bachelard’s eyes, and he would have done so if he thought he had a chance of hitting his target from this distance.

  “Easy, Clark,” Cameron said, reading his mind. “He’d love you to go loco. Give me the plat; I’ll ride it over to him.”

  “No, I’ll ride it over to him.”

  Clark gripped his reins firmly in his sweat-soaked hands and clucked the horse forward. He looked at Marina. She stared at him. Her eyes were scared but sane. Clark wondered if it was true, what Bachelard had said about him and Perro Loco, last night … If it was true, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to share a bed with her again. What a shame.

  He stopped before Bachelard, his horse jerking its head away from the Cajun’s black, which pricked its ears offensively. The Indian’s cold stare lifted the hair on th
e back of Clark’s neck. The look told him they were not going to get out of this without shooting.

  “Let her go and I’ll give it to you,” Clark said to Bachelard.

  “Let me see it.”

  Clark reached behind him, into his saddlebag, withdrew a rolled javelina-skin and clutched it before him.

  “Unroll it.”

  Clark did as he was told and held it facing Bachelard.

  “That the original?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do I know?”

  “You think I caught a javelina last night?”

  Bachelard stuck out his hand. “Give.”

  “How can you be sure the story’s genuine?”

  Bachelard shrugged. “I’m not. But for that much gold I’m willing to take a chance. Hand it over.”

  “Let her go.”

  “Oh, Christ … those damaged goods?” Bachelard grumbled wryly. He nodded at the Indian, who removed the noose from Marina’s neck.

  Bachelard turned to Clark. “He’ll slap that horse’s rump as soon as the plat is in my hand.”

  Clark glanced at Cameron, then shifted his eyes to Hotchkiss and Bronco. Rifles across their saddles and a grim cast to their eyes, they appeared ready for anything. It was small comfort to Clark, but a comfort nonetheless.

  Bachelard yelled angrily, “Come on—hand it over, pilgrim!”

  Clark jumped, startled by the sudden outburst, and thrust the plat into the Cajun’s outstretched hand. Bachelard smiled. “There—that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

  “My wife, Mr. Bachelard,” Clark growled through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, yes. Forgive me,” Bachelard said.

  Casually, his wolfish grin still directed at Clark, he unholstered his revolver, brought it up to Marina’s head, and thumbed back the hammer. But before he could pull the trigger, the Indian let out an angry, high-pitched wail that sounded like nothing Clark had ever heard before. In one motion the big Indian swung his leg around and leaped from his horse onto the back of Marina’s.

  Startled and amazed by the Indian’s sudden display, Bachelard brought back his pistol, frowning, and struggled with his horse’s reins as the horse jumped and danced, spooked by the Indian’s cry. Perro Loco slapped the hip of Marina’s horse, drawing a long-barreled pistol from the waistband of his leggings, and thumbed back the hammer as the horse bolted in a headlong, ground-eating rush past Clark, who was fighting with the reins of his own startled mount, toward Cameron.