Pieces of Sky

by Warner, Kaki

  Of course, when she said it like that, there was no way he could. So as calmly and simply as he could, he tried to explain. “We need a wagon. And the only way to get one into this canyon is down twenty miles of bad road. But first they have to realize we’re missing. Then they have to find us. Then they have to round up that wagon and get it in here, all of which could take two and a half, maybe three days.” He waited for that to sink in. When he saw her weakening, he finished her off. “Three days with no food, almost no water, and two tons of rotting horseflesh—”

  “Enough!” She held up a palm to stop him. “You made your point.”

  Brady reined in his temper. He wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself or having his judgment questioned. “The point, Your Ladyship, is I can get to the stopover and back by morning with enough supplies to hold us until help comes.”

  “Why can’t Mr. Phelps—”

  “Phelps is dying.”

  For a second he thought she might cry, which rattled him. It also surprised him and said a lot about her character that she would weep for a man she didn’t know, but not shed a tear for herself. The woman was a paradox.

  “I am not deserting you,” he told her for the third and final time.

  “You promise?” She said it with a wobbly smile, as if the answer he gave wasn’t the most important thing she would hear this day.

  He didn’t smile back. “I give you my word.” She didn’t look particularly reassured, but he’d done all he could. “I’ll check on the Kinderly women before I go, then move Phelps over here so you won’t have to build two fires.”

  When she didn’t respond, he rose and started away, then stopped. He scratched his chin and thought for a moment before retracing his steps. He stopped beside her. “By the way,” he said to her bent head.

  “You being English and an expert besides, maybe you could tell me.” He paused, waiting for her to look up. When she did, he gave her the full force of the legendary Wilkins smile. “Would ‘bloody’ be cussing, or profanity?”

  She didn’t disappoint, God bless her, and gratified by the look of shock and indignation on that dirty, sunburned face, Brady tipped his hat and walked away.

  In his experience, a little anger could go a long way on a cold, lonely night.

  TWENTY-TWO MILES NORTHEAST, SANCHO RAMIREZ LED FOUR HORSE-MEN up a dusty trail along the south face of Blue Mesa. It was a hard climb over sharp rocks and through prickly scrub, and so steep in places, the men had to lean forward, gripping the manes of their horses to keep from tipping backward. By the fourth switchback, the horses were dripping foam, their sides heaving as they fought for air.

  At the top, Ramirez cut between two granite boulders. Motioning the others to stay, he waved the drag rider forward, then rode out onto a wide, flat shelf that ended in a sheer drop. Dismounting, he let the reins drop and walked to the edge.

  The drag rider, Paco Alvarez, a stocky man with quick, darting eyes, dismounted and ducked into the shade of a sandstone overhang to roll a smoke. He didn’t like heights. And he didn’t like being so near the rancho. What if someone saw them up here? What would happen to all of Sancho’s plans then?

  Through a veil of tobacco smoke, he watched Sancho walk back and forth along the ledge, muttering to himself, his long, gray hair whipping around his face like thin wisps of smoke. Paco noted he was limping, coming down hard on his bad knee as if he wanted the pain, needed it to keep his mind focused. Paco wondered if he was drifting again.

  It happened a lot lately. Sancho would forget things, like what day it was, or the names of the men they had hired, or the fact that his mother, Maria, and her lover, Jacob Wilkins, had both died years ago. It was as if the present was slipping away and his mind was sliding back into the horrors of the past. Paco didn’t like that either. In prison, Sancho had promised him half of the rancho if he would help him destroy the Wilkins family. It was the only thing that had kept Paco alive during ten years of hell. He wouldn’t let Sancho’s craziness ruin it now.

  Out on the ledge, Ramirez threw back his head and laughed.

  “Cállate,” Paco hissed, knowing how sound carried on the rocky slopes.

  Sancho turned, a look of surprise on his gaunt face as if he’d forgotten Paco was there. He grinned, showing gaps where teeth used to be, and waved Paco closer. “Ven, Paco. Mira.”

  Reluctantly Paco moved to the edge and peered down. The valley opened below him—rolling grasslands, the silver ribbon of the creek, piñon canyons sloping inward like spokes on a wheel, and at the hub, perched on a bend of the creek by the mesquite tree, the rambling hacienda where he had been born. Paco felt something tighten in his chest. Even at this distance, he could see the slash of red at the base of the adobe walls, blooms from the hundred rosebushes Maria Ramirez had planted thirty years earlier to commemorate the birth of her son.

  The favored son. The true son. The son that would kill her.

  “See, Paco? Es lo mismo. Nada is changed.”

  Feeling dizzy, Paco stepped back. “He added a porch.”

  Sancho tipped his head back, eyes closed, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the wind. “Do you smell them? Her roses?” A half smile softened the sharp angles of his face. “She knows I am back.”

  Disgusted, Paco flicked the butt of his cigarillo at a passing beetle. “She knows nothing, Sancho. She’s dead. Muerta.”

  “No. Listen.” Sancho cocked his head as the wind whispered through the overhang with a sound as mournful as a woman’s sigh. “She calls to me.”

  Paco lost patience. Grabbing the other man’s arm, he jerked him around to face him, trying to break the hold of the past. “Forget her, Sancho. What about the rancho? What about Wilkins?”

  It was a foolish move. Despite his haggard appearance and damaged leg, Sancho was neither weak nor slow to react. His shoulders were solid, his arms knotted from years of being worked like a mule, his hands still so fast Paco never knew the knife was there until he felt the blade against his throat.

  “¿Qué dice, Paco? Forget her?”

  Paco didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Sancho was an artist with a knife. Paco had seen him cut a man to ribbons and still keep him alive for hours, and he knew the only way to survive was not to fight back. “Hermano,” he choked out, staring into glittering black eyes that were so like their father’s it made his stomach clench. “It is me. Paco. Your brother.”

  Sancho thrust him away. “Half brother, pendejo. Do not forget.” He sheathed his knife, then turned, his attention caught by activity at the rancho.

  A woman came out the door in the courtyard wall. Paco couldn’t see her face, but he recognized the lurching gait.

  Sancho must have seen it, too. “Puta,” he spat out. “This time I kill her.”

  At a sound, both men turned to see a lanky, bearded man watching them from the boulders. “We gonna jaw all day or find someplace to hole up?”

  There was a moment of confusion, as if Sancho didn’t recognize Haskins, the mean-eyed Texan they’d recruited in a San Pedro cantina. Then his face cleared. “Vámonos,” he said, shoving Paco ahead of him toward the waiting horses.

  “Where we going?” Haskins asked as Sancho swung into the saddle.

  Sancho gave a cackling laugh that made the skin between Paco’s shoulder blades quiver. “To a place where even el diablo cannot find us.”

  Four

  MOONLIGHT FILTERING THROUGH TALL PINES LIT THE TRAIL as Brady’s weary horse clattered through a dry wash in front of Jamison’s cabin. Because he approached from upwind, Brady wasn’t prepared for what he found, and when the smell hit him, it triggered such an onslaught of images he went spinning backward in time.

  Flames. The cabin. Inside, two bodies entwined like lovers, matching bullet holes in their foreheads. Outside, Jacob’s voice rising into the fiery night sky. “Jesus God, what have I done?”

  The horse shied, snapping the hold of the past. By the time Brady brought him under control, he realized the smoldering cabin wasn’t th
e line shack at the ranch, and the bodies on the porch weren’t those of Don Ramon and Maria Ramirez, but Lemuel Jamison and his wife.

  Shaken, he leaned over to spit the stench of burnt flesh from his mouth, then reined the limping horse toward the trough. It had been riddled with bullets, and except for a scant inch of murky water, it was empty. The pump handle had been shot off, so Brady couldn’t pump more. After scooping what he could with his hands, he let the horse suck up what was left as he looked around.

  The timbers in the house were almost burned through, which meant the Jamisons had died at least a day before the stage was due. So whoever did this wasn’t after the stage or its passengers, but something Jamison had, such as food or whiskey, horses, guns and ammunition.

  Brady hunkered to study the ground. With the full moon almost directly overhead, he could see tracks in the damp earth around the trough—shod horses, shod men, the pinched-out butt of a Mexican cigarillo. Not Indians. White men or Mexicans.

  Sancho. And this time he and Paco weren’t alone. With a sense of urgency, Brady remounted and headed northeast.

  The vegetation was sparse. The soil, comprised mostly of decomposed limestone and pale caliche, reflected back the bright moonlight, so it was like riding across a thin blanket of snow at dusk. He should make good time. If the horse got him as far as Blue Mesa, he’d find a way to make the last climbs on foot. He could be on his way back with a wagon by afternoon.

  The horse gave out three hours later and well short of Blue Mesa. After slipping off the bridle, Brady left the crippled animal munching withered grass and started walking toward the notch that marked the south pass into the home valley.

  The day warmed. The sun burning into his back and the heat rising off the ground made him feel like a chicken on a spit. By midmorning he knew he was in trouble; his feet felt like half-cooked meat and he wasn’t sweating enough. Breaking off a prickly pear leaf, he cleared it of spines then settled in the shade of a scraggly mesquite to chew the moisture from the pulpy leaf.

  He tried wiggling his toes. They didn’t move, so swollen the creases in his new boots were stretched smooth. A mixed blessing. At least now the fit was snug enough to keep him from sliding around on the ooze from his popping blisters. After chewing the cactus dry, he spit out the pulp, then rose and started moving again.

  Three miles. Five. Dirt caked in the dampness spreading along the sides of his boots. Every step sent pain shooting up his legs. The sun peaked, began the slow downward slide into the hottest time of the day.

  He staggered on, his head pounding, his tongue thick as a brick. The cramps in his calves moved up into his thighs and it became a struggle to keep his mind on track. Landmarks seemed no nearer, as if he had been wandering in circles, and the thought came—at first no more than a whisper in the back of his mind, but growing more insistent with each lurching step—what if he had miscalculated? What if he didn’t make it?

  By the time he started the last climb, he’d lost feeling in his feet, his thighs were a mass of knotted, cramping muscles, and his vision was starting to waver. Squinting against sunlight ricocheting off a caliche outcrop, he studied the faint trail zigzagging up the steep slope. It seemed so far and he was so damned tired. Swaying with weariness, he closed his eyes against the glare. But the image of the trail remained imprinted in his mind, showing him what his sluggish brain had been slow to accept. Freshly turned earth, broken sage branches, flattened tufts of bunch grass. The trail had been used recently and by more than one rider.

  Sancho.

  His eyes flew open, and before reason could assert itself, he was charging up the slope. A hundred yards and the false strength gave out. He tripped, went down on his knees, then hung there, hands splayed against the hot ground, his head sagging between his trembling arms. After he caught his breath, he tried to push himself upright but couldn’t balance. His legs gave out and he fell hard, driving the air from his lungs.

  Maybe he slept. Maybe he passed out. At first all he knew was blackness. Then shapes appeared in the shadows of his mind, backlit against a fiery sky. The smell of fear and scorched flesh burned in his throat as a voice called his name.

  With a gasp, he sat up, eyes wide, heart thudding.

  A red-tailed hawk blinked back at him from a boulder thirty feet away. With a high-pitched “skree,” it lifted off and the images faded, leaving behind a bitter taste like hot copper on the back of his tongue.

  With a groan, he forced himself to his feet and started up the trail. At the top, late-afternoon sunlight hit him full in the face, almost blinding him. Chest heaving, terrified of what he might find, he staggered out onto the ledge and looked down.

  RosaRoja spread below him. Safe. Whole.

  Relief buckled his knees. He tilted. The last thing he saw as the ground rushed toward him was the pinched-out butt of a Mexican cigarillo.

  IT WAS JUST AS PACO REMEMBERED IT—THE MEADOW DOTTED with wildflowers, the clearwater creek, the ring of tall timber crowding the bluff. And above it, half-hidden behind a pile of boulders, the entrance to the cave.

  Dread settled over him like a heavy cloak.

  Telling the other three men to make camp, Sancho dismounted and motioned Paco to follow. The steep trail up to the cave was almost gone, buried beneath a tangle of brush and grass and blocked in places where rocks had tumbled down over the years. It didn’t slow Sancho. He tore at the overgrowth, kicked rocks aside, scrambled for new footholds. By the time he neared the top, he was almost running on all fours.

  But Paco’s feet dragged like they were weighted. A knot in his stomach grew tighter with every step. As he climbed higher, the sandstone arch became a mocking grin—the boulders, huge jagged teeth.

  Sancho reached the top and turned. He shouted something and waved Paco on, then disappeared between the gaping jaws. Wishing he had the courage to run and leave this madman behind forever, Paco forced himself forward. At the entrance he paused, winded and sweating. Somewhere in the darkness, water dripped. His heart responded to it, speeding up as if compelled to match the stronger rhythm.

  Warily, he stepped inside. Blackness closed around him, bringing with it a smell—musty, rank—the smell of madness. Ten years, yet it seemed only yesterday that he had watched Sancho stumble through this same arch, his clothes singed, his hands blistered, and a look in his eyes that would make the devil cringe.

  A cramp knifed through Paco’s gut. He doubled over, one hand braced against the damp wall of the cave. Madre de Dios. He hated this place. He hated the smell of it, the thought of it. He hated Sancho for making him come back.

  “Mira, Paco.”

  Paco straightened as Sancho emerged from the darkness, holding a lantern high. “It still works.” The play of light across his face gave his brows an upward slant and made his eyes look like they were lit from within. Paco shivered, wishing he hadn’t given his mother’s crucifix to that puta in Ruidoso.

  “Ven.” Sancho turned back into the darkness of the cave.

  On dragging feet, Paco followed.

  The cave narrowed as they went deeper. Walls slanted in. Out of the darkness loomed the darker shadow of the tunnel entrance. Sancho ducked inside, taking the light with him. The sudden blackness sent Paco rushing after him. They had to bend almost double to clear the tunnel’s low ceiling. Water dripped onto Paco’s back. His boots slipped on mossy rocks. The air grew thick with the stink of fear and sweat and decay. Thirty more feet, a dogleg right, then the tunnel opened into an inner cavern twice as tall as it was wide. Deafened by the pounding of his heart, Paco straightened and looked around.

  Maybe it would be all right. Maybe this time it would be different.

  “I am back!”

  Sancho’s voice bounced off the rocky walls with such force Paco cringed, hands clamped over his ears. As he watched his half brother spin a circle, laughing, his arms wide, the lantern bobbing in his grip, hate churned in Paco’s gut. He wanted to kill Sancho, tear out his throat so he would never have to list
en to that laugh again.

  So why didn’t he?

  Paco let his hands drop. An idea formed in his mind, familiar yet elusive, and gaining strength with every heartbeat. He took ahold of it, studying it from all angles, shaping it until it fit comfortably in his head.

  Why didn’t he?

  Sancho’s plan to raid the rancho would never work. Everyone in the territory knew of the bad blood between the Ramirez and Wilkins families. They would know it was Sancho. But if they did kill the Wilkins brothers, what would happen to the rancho then? Would it revert back to the old grant? Back to the Ramirez family? And if there was no one left from that family either, would it then fall to the closest blood kin—to Paco, the illegitimate son of Don Ramon Ramirez?

  Paco chewed the corner of his mustache as he thought it out. They would have to make it look like an accident—say, in a fire or a landslide. And then Paco would have to kill Sancho and Elena. He could do that. Sancho had trained him well. It might even be fun.

  Don Francisco. Don Francisco Ramirez, patrón de RosaRoja Rancho.

  Paco smiled. He liked the sound of that.

  BRADY BOLTED UPRIGHT, FULLY AWAKE AND MAD AS HELL BECAUSE someone was pounding on the soles of his feet and someone else was licking his face.

  Faces stared back at him—Jack, his usual grin turned upside down into a scowl—Consuelo, teary-eyed, clutching her medicine basket—Hank, looking fierce despite the worry in his dark brown eyes—and Bullshot, his mouth open in a toothy grin, his tail wagging more than his body did.

  “What’s wrong?” Thoughts of Sancho bounced through his mind.

  “You’re fried, that’s what.” Hank shoved a pitcher into his hands. “If Bullshot hadn’t found you, you’d be jerky by now.”

  Brady tried to go slow but the water tasted too good, and by the time Hank wrestled the pitcher from his grip, he felt queasy. He didn’t resist when his brother planted a beefy hand on his chest and shoved him back down. It was then Brady realized he was in his own bed and Jack was cutting off his new boots. He started to protest, then the first boot came off and the sudden release of pressure sent blood pounding through his foot in such an agonizing rush, for a moment he couldn’t even breathe. By the time they’d peeled away his socks and lathered the soles of his feet with Consuelo’s slippery elm salve, he’d recovered enough to ask for more water.