The Romantics

by Peter Brandvold

  “That’s funny—I never used to see myself that way.”

  Going laughed as he strode over to another rock, wagging his head. “Ho-ho! You are indeed a romantic, my dear. If you were not so fond of Jack Cameron, and I not so fond of She-Bear, we would make a good pair, don’t you think?”

  Marina laughed. “You know, I think we would make a lovely pair, señor,” she said, smiling a smile that wrung Going’s heart.

  He watched her lead her horse away, shamelessly admiring the way her hips swung as she moved, the way her riding skirt pulled taut across her nicely rounded hips, the way her full black hair shifted along her slender back.

  A night with one such as that, he thought, her strong young legs wrapped around my back, would kill an old goat like me. But … ah … what a sweet way to go!

  Marina had returned from picketing her and Going’s horses near water and fresh graze when Clark rode out of the canyon, his dun horse gleaming in the dying light, puffs of golden dust rising about its hooves. Clark’s shoulders were slumped, his face drawn with despair.

  He said nothing as he drew up next to the fire Going had lit from wood scraps he and Marina had gleaned from the side canyon.

  “How does it look?” Going asked Clark good-naturedly.

  “Dark,” Clark complained, throwing off his saddle.

  They were low on food, so Going took his rifle into one of the side canyons and shot a javelina, which he dressed on the spot, then carried over his shoulder back to the camp by the ruined church.

  He built a spit from green cottonwood branches, sharpening the skewer with his knife. The sun had gone behind the westward hills as he set one skewered hindquarter of the javelina over the fire, which had burned down nicely and shone with hotly glowing coals. The meat sent up heavenly smells as it cooked. Grease dripped from the cracking skin, snapping and hissing in the coals.

  They ate under a sky streaked with the Milky Way, a quarter-moon lifting over the craggy clifftops. They washed down their supper with coffee—in Clark’s case, coffee liberally enhanced with brandy. He was no sooner finished eating than he rolled into his blanket and began snoring.

  “You better get some sleep, señorita,” Going told Marina, who was sitting on a rock, cup of coffee in hand, staring off in the darkness.

  “Yes, I suppose …” she said vacantly. Going knew she was waiting for Cameron.

  “I will take the first watch,” he said to her, and got up stiffly, stretching the kinks out of his legs. He picked up his rifle, an old trapdoor Spencer, and moved out from the fire.

  He checked on the horses nibbling contentedly on some bunchgrass, then ascended an acclivity on the other side of the spring. It was a steep climb, but mountain goats and probably the ancient ones, as well as the Spanish priests who had once mined this country, had beat a decent switchbacking trail into the craggy, flinty earth. With the moon it was not hard to make out the trail.

  When Going came to the top he sat on what appeared to be a barrow, within which some ancient was no doubt buried. He’d seen plenty of such prehistoric graves when he was a kid herding sheep in these mountains and hiking to the alpine lakes to fish for the sweet-tasting trout that spawned there.

  Suddenly he stared in astonishment. A pinprick of light flashed below, not far away, maybe a hundred yards nearly straight below him. Going could tell it was a campfire.

  Who the hell could that be? Apaches? Bachelard? Hell, it might even be Cameron, looking for them …

  Crouching and holding his rifle out before him, taking extra care with his steps so as not to loosen any stones that could give him away, Going started down the trail, toward the flickering fire.

  Slowly, quietly, he fed a shell into the Spencer’s chamber … just in case …

  CHAPTER 31

  GOING APPROACHED THE fire quietly, one slow step at a time, zigzagging between boulders. He could see a man sitting before the fire, gazing into the flames. The man held a canvas coat closed at his throat. Wolves howled in the distance, and every time a howl lifted, the man jerked his head around as if expecting to see one of the animals moving in for the kill.

  Going made his approach from behind. With the man’s back clearly in view, he moved forward, scanning the ground for sticks or stones he might step on and betray himself.

  “Easy now, señor,” he said at last, holding the barrel of his Spencer about a foot from the back of the man’s neck. “No sudden moves now, eh? Slowly lift your hands above your head.”

  The man straightened, stiffening, and froze. Going saw him shudder.

  “Who are you?” the man snapped.

  “I’ll do the asking, since I have the gun. Lift your hands above your head and tell me who you are.”

  “I’m …” The man hesitated, lifting his hands and jerking his head sideways for a glimpse of the man holding the rifle on him. “I’m Davis, Tom Davis,” the man said.

  Going had noticed the man’s hesitation and wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was the man lying about who he was, or was he just too nervous to spit it out without fidgeting?

  The man repeated, “I’m Tom Davis, from out Californy way. Who’re you?”

  “Alfred Going. Some call me Tokente. What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

  The man hesitated again, then said, “I’m prospectin’.”

  “Alone?”

  “My partner, he took off on me a ways back. Took all our supplies with him, the bastard.” The man chuffed a laugh and shook his head. “Really left me in a fix, he did. I don’t s‘pose you got any smokin’ tobaccy on ye?”

  “No,” Going muttered, still unsure what to think of this man.

  He didn’t look like a miner. He looked like an outlaw. But what would an outlaw be doing this far off the beaten path? Hell, there wasn’t anyone to steal from in a hundred square miles.

  Except Going’s own party, that was …

  JAKE HAWKINS WAS thinking the same thing. He knew the mining story sounded feeble, considering he didn’t look any more like a miner than did Jesse James or Cole Younger, two of his heroes. The problem was, he couldn’t concoct a better story on the spur of the moment, especially one this crotchety old Mex would believe.

  The man had to be from Cameron’s party. What else would he be doing out here?

  Hawkins silently chastised himself for getting careless and building a fire out in the open. He was getting as stupid as his brother Ed. And where was Ed? Jake hadn’t seen him in a couple of days, since he’d branched off the trail to follow Cameron.

  Going slowly walked in front of Hawkins, half shutting one eye and giving him the twice-over. “Maybe you are following me, eh, amigo?”

  “Why would I be followin’ you?”

  Going shrugged. “You are a long way from anywhere. It would be a very long trail out with ore; that is why very few have ever tried to mine this country—except the padres, that is, long ago. But they smelted their own ore.”

  Hawkins swallowed, growing more and more nervous by the second. He’d known there was something wrong with his story. Sure, this country was too remote for only two men to try hauling out ore. Jake, you dumbshit.

  “Well, I guess we just didn’t think of that,” Hawkins said with a smile, knowing it sounded lame. “Why don’t you put the gun down—you be making me nervous—and sit down for a spell? I sure don’t mind the company.” He gave a brief chuckle.

  Behind the grin he used to look benign, Hawkins was concocting a way to get Going to drop his guard. Hawkins only needed a second or two. If the man put the gun down or just looked away for a second, Jake could go for the knife he kept inside his shirt, on his back between his shoulder blades.

  “I don’t know,” Going said, “it seems strange, a man camped alone out here. You know what I think? You got wind of my friend Cameron and the Clarks and their quest for gold, and you decided to follow them to the mother lode.”

  “What?” Hawkins said. “‘Cameron and the Clarks’? I don’t know what you’re talkin
’ about, friend.”

  “You mean to tell me you have never heard of Jack Cameron?”

  “Jack Cameron? Who’s that?”

  “One of the best Indian-trackers in Arizona. You never heard of him?”

  Hawkins thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No … can’t say as I ever have.”

  “No?” Going said, feigning surprise. “Well, have you ever heard of the name Jake Hawkins?” He smiled and fixed his eyes on Hawkins’s plug-ugly face. “A petty thief who steals from the poor and the elderly so he can drink himself comatose every weekend in Nogales or Tombstone or Tucson. A pathetic waste of a man, just like his brother—what is his name … Ed? Yes, Eduardo. The Hawkins boys of Tucson. Famous in their own way—their own childish, petty criminal way. Who in the southern Territories does not know them, eh? Certainly not me.” Going’s voice grew hard. “No, certainly not me, gringo scumbag. I have lived in this country nearly all my life, and I read the Tucson paper. I have read your name in it often.” Going smiled.

  Hawkins spread his fingers. “Why … you’re crazy, friend. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I told you, my name’s Tom Davis.”

  “Turn around,” Going said.

  “Huh?”

  “Turn around.”

  Going had decided to tie the man’s wrists behind his back and take him back to the others. He and the Clarks would have to keep an eye on him. Going did not know how the man had found out about the gold, but find out he certainly had.

  No doubt the Hawkins boys had planned to wait until his own party had found the cache, then ambush them and take whatever they could carry.

  Where was Ed Hawkins, anyway?

  Going asked Jake that very question.

  “I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about,” Hawkins said.

  “You don’t, huh? Maybe he followed Cameron, eh, gringo? Is that where the charming Eduardo has gone?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Going smiled. “Ah, yes, the charming Hawkins boys.”

  “Go fuck yourself, you dirty old bean-eater.”

  Going clubbed the man with the butt of his Spencer. Hawkins yelled and stumbled forward, then hit the ground. Going looked about for something with which to tie him and saw a lariat looped around the horn of Hawkins’s saddle, which lay on the ground about fifteen feet away.

  Starting for the saddle, Going put his back toward Hawkins. In an instant Jake pulled the knife from the sheath between his shoulder blades and sent the Arkansas toothpick flying end over end through the air.

  The weapon entered Going’s back point-first, and the man grunted, stiffening and turning at the same time. He swung his rifle around and fired. The Spencer’s .45-caliber bullet nearly took off the top of Hawkins’s head. Jake Hawkins gave an airy whimper, kicked his feet, and died.

  Going staggered sideways and collapsed to his knees, cursing. The rifle slipped from his hands.

  What a fool he’d been to turn his back on the man!

  The knife had entered just beneath his left shoulder blade. Blood flowed down his back, soaking his shirt. On his knees, he reached around to try and grab the knife, but he couldn’t reach it. The pain was hot and intense.

  Cursing himself once more, he struggled to his feet. He could not stay here. If he was going to survive, he would have to get back to the Clarks. He wasn’t sure he could make it—he was losing blood fast and his legs felt like putty—but he had to try.

  The only alternative was to lie down and die, and Alfred Going was not a man who just lay down and died.

  At least he’d shot Jake Hawkins. As he moved away from the fire, looking for the trail on which he’d come, that single thought gave him satisfaction.

  It took him nearly twenty minutes to cover the hundred or so yards back up the ridge. He had to stop several times as his head reeled. Blood was streaming down his back, into the waistband of his buckskin breeches, then down his butt and left leg.

  He wanted to lie down and give up but something pushed him on. Moving as if sleepwalking, he reached the crest of the ridge and started down.

  About halfway down the butte, he collapsed. His face hit the ground with a mind-numbing force. He tried to get his arms beneath him, to push himself up, but they would not respond. He felt as limp as an old towel.

  Finally, sucking air into his lungs, fighting off the pain that pierced his entire being with every breath, he managed to lift his old Smith & Wesson cap-and-ball revolver from the holster on his side. He thumbed back the hammer, lifting the gun skyward, and fired. The pop resounded off the surrounding cliffs, sounding obscene in the heavenly quiet.

  He thumbed back the hammer once more, fired again, and then one more time.

  Semiconscious, he did not know how long it was before he heard running footsteps and labored breathing. “Here … I think he’s here,” he heard a woman say.

  A man coughed, cursed. It sounded as though he was slipping on the gravelly slope. He cursed again. Then Going heard the footsteps approach, smelled Marina’s sweet scent just before he saw her kneeling down beside him.

  “Oh, señor!” she cried. “What happened?”

  It took him a moment to reply, wincing against the pain in his back. “J-Jake Hawkins … was dogging our trail.”

  “Hawkins?”

  “Si. I know not why, but … Help me, señora … back to the camp.”

  More footsteps pounded near—dark, breathing raspily. He cleared his throat. “Going … what the hell happened?”

  “He ran into Jake Hawkins,” Marina said. “We have to get him back to the camp. There is a knife in his back.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Clark complained. “What the hell was Jake Hawkins doing out here?”

  “Following us … for the gold,” Marina said. She was trying to pull Going to his feet. “Help me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Going said tightly. “Hawkins is dead.” He managed a smile.

  Clark cursed again and took Going’s other arm. They lifted the man to his knees, then eased him to his feet. He moaned with pain.

  “You will be all right, señor,” Marina said. “When we get you back to the camp we will remove the knife and get you well again.”

  “Gracias, señora, but I don’t think—” They lifted him to his knees and he gave a yell. Awkwardly they started down the trail.

  “I thought we agreed that you would call me Marina,” she said, grunting under the injured man’s weight.

  “Si,” Going managed breathily.

  “You sure are getting friendly with the men in our party,” Clark groused. Marina ignored him.

  They reached the camp fifteen minutes later, and eased the man into a sitting position by the fire. He had passed out, so Clark supported him while Marina removed his tunic and undershirt, cutting the material away from the knife jutting from his back.

  “That’s nasty,” Clark said, wincing at the wound. “This far from a doctor, he’ll never make it.”

  “We have to remove the knife,” Marina said.

  She clutched the handle and pulled. It came up only a half-inch, pulling the skin up with it, and more blood. Going groaned hoarsely.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “You’ll have to.”

  Clark scowled, as if to say, What’s the use? but eased Going into Marina’s arms and placed both his hands on the knife. He bit his lip and pulled. He wiped his hands on his trousers, wrapped them tightly around the hilt, and heaved, grunting with effort.

  Finally the knife pulled free of the bone. The blood-soaked blade glistened black in the light from the fire. Marina eased Going onto his side, then rolled him onto his stomach so she could inspect the wound.

  “It does not look good,” she said with a sigh. “We have to get the blood stopped. I need some cloth. In my saddlebags … get something, anything … please.”

  Clark grudgingly did as she asked. When he handed Marina a white shawl, she tore it in two and soaked one of the halves with water from a canteen. Then she began, gentl
y to clean the wound.

  It took her fifteen minutes, working carefully around the wound, pouring water into it and delicately removing particles of sand and anything else that might cause infection. Then she stitched the wound with sterilized thread and needle that she had packed in case of such an emergency.

  By the time she was finished, there were three piles of blood-soaked cloth and two empty canteens by the fire. She’d tied a makeshift bandage around Going’s back, heavily padding the wound. Hoping she’d gotten the blood stopped, she slumped next to the man, dead tired. Her head was almost too heavy to lift.

  Clark lay on the other side of the fire, sipping from his last brandy bottle. “A lot of work for nothing,” he said with a sneer. It was as though he enjoyed taunting her any way that he could, now that he knew she loved Cameron.

  She ignored him. She could give him that small comfort, at least.

  She slid back against a rock and closed her eyes. One of them would have to stay awake with Going, in case the wound opened again. She knew she could not count on Adrian, so she would have to be the one.

  But for the moment, she needed to shut her eyes, if only for a moment …

  CHAPTER 32

  ALL NIGHT JACK Cameron and Jimmy Bronco moved steadily and deliberately through the mountains. Even with the moon it was often a treacherous ride.

  At one point, when the moon was blocked by a peak and Cameron couldn’t see the terrain, Cameron’s horse nearly slipped down a ridge into a gorge. If he hadn’t felt the cool breeze blowing up, sensed the drop, and reined in the buckskin, he and the horse would have been goners.

  Riding through a meadow encircled with pines, they stopped when they heard a hunting mountain lion scream, and Cameron felt a chill in his loins, knowing what such a creature could do to a man and a horse. Other sounds filled the night as well—wolves, night birds, the wind sawing the stony peaks around them, the tinny chatter of water bubbling in a creek or spring, javelinas scuttling in the brush—and Jimmy and Cameron traveled nearly as much by these noises as by sight.