Valley of Fire

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “God!” I sucked in my breath, tried to hold it.

  Sister Geneviève gagged, almost threw up.

  Even Sean Fenn had trouble speaking. “Be . . . quiet.” His eyes was watering, before I squeezed mine shut, trying not to breathe, trying not to smell, trying not to gag or lose my breakfast. He moved away, came back with a shell belt and a Winchester rifle, put those in the coffin, too. The barrel leaned toward me, making it harder for me to fetch, especially once the lid was on. And soon it covered us, trapping us inside darkness with the smell of dead, putrefying rats.

  A drawer opened, and moments later, Fenn began working a screwdriver quickly. Boots and cusses came down the hall, doors opening and shutting all along the second floor. I had to breathe again. The nun sucked in a lung-full, and gagged.

  “You”—I tried to whisper, tried not to send Jameson and coffee and the slop they served me in jail all over the sister’s habit—“should have . . . just run for . . . the livery. Could’ve stole some horses . . .” I couldn’t smell her lilac anymore.

  “That”—she spit, gagged—“was never . . . our plan.”

  “And this was?”

  “Quiet, damn it. Quiet or we’re all dead.” Sean Fenn spit. Spit again. Tried to spit out the taste of dead rats that filled the air. It sure filled the coffin.

  Might be, I thought briefly, this is Hell. In close confines with a beautiful, young woman, her lying on top of me, and us both trying to keep from retching, the stink of dead rats strangling us.

  The door busted open. To keep the bile down, I bit into the coarse wool of the sister’s outfit. I don’t know what Geneviève bit into.

  “Good, you’ve finally arrived,” Fenn was saying. “This is my brother’s coffin. Take it down to the depot.”

  “¿Qué?”

  “¿Señor?”

  “Gawd-a’mighty! What’s that—”

  “My dead brother,” Fenn said. “Killed. Butchered by Comancheros on the Texas Panhandle.”

  Idiot. Comancheros hadn’t acted up since the Comanches pretty much quit fighting years ago. Sean Fenn talked like he wanted them boys to find me.

  “I am taking his remains home to our dear mother in San Diego, California.”

  “Good,” came a voice, followed by a spit. “Get him out of here.”

  “But”—Fenn poured it on too thick—“aren’t you here to assist me in my hour of need?”

  One fellow gagged, and I heard boot steps staggering down the hallway. Didn’t hear him vomiting, which was a good thing, because that sound would likely have been too much for the nun and me.

  “We’re looking for an escaped killer.”

  Boots shuffled.

  “But,” Fenn begged, “for the love of God, I need—”

  Them boys was gone.

  “You can vomit now,” Fenn said. “But not too loud. Be back in a few minutes.”

  And the bastard left us there.

  Well, we didn’t lose our supper. Didn’t speak. Scarcely breathed. Summer nights still get cool in this part of New Mexico, but that coffin became a furnace. Made them dead rats smell even worser.

  A few minutes later—that felt like a week—the door opened again, and I heard Fenn directing a couple boys to take the coffin to the depot. One of the gents muttered a prayer in Spanish, then the coffin came up—and after a loud “¡Maldita sea!” from one of the hired men—our head end came crashing down. It’s a miracle the lid didn’t pop off, what with only four screws in place. Even a bigger miracle that the hired pallbearers didn’t hear my grunt and Geneviève’s gasp, then us choking at the stench, sucking in air, holding our breath, praying. Sean was cussing them boys for their stupidity.

  “Señor,” came a pleading voice. “Heavy. Es muy pesado.”

  “Yes, brother Gus was a large man. Pick it up. Gently.”

  Our heads were lifted. The men spit, gagged, sucked in breaths, started inching, grunting their way out of the room.

  “The back stairs,” Fenn directed them.

  And so we went. Bumping. Cussing. Slipping. A couple times they lowered the casket, spit, prayed, grunted, and hoisted us back up. We could hear the commotion caused by everyone searching for me and the nun, but nobody bothered to stop us. Oh, I guess a couple fellows come by to see what was going on, but the sight of the coffin and the smell coming from what was inside doused their curiosity.

  Finally, we got lowered gently onto the depot, and I heard Fenn thanking the fellows, the jingle of coins as he paid them off, and then, the most glorious sound.

  A train whistle.

  “Brother Gus,” Fenn said, “we’ll have you on your way home soon.” Fenn’s footsteps moved away from the platform, and there was nothing for me and Sister Geneviève to do but shift our bodies a bit (my arms having gone to sleep and my left thigh cramping), suck in more of that foul air, spit on each other to try to get the taste of dead varmints out of our mouths, then fall silent as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe train pulled into the station.

  Well, all sorts of folks come to the platform. Most of them, I warrant, was under the direction and employment of Felipe Hernandez. Nobody would be getting aboard that train without some inspection.

  “I am Sean McMurtry,” I heard Fenn telling somebody, “bound for San Diego with the body of my dear brother, Gus. Murdered in Texas a week back.” At least he had dropped the bit about Comancheros.

  “I see, señor.”

  That voice caused me grave concern. It was Felipe Hernandez.

  “I know what it is like to lose a loved one. To have a loved one murdered.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Fenn said. “I heard about that. Your brother-in-law, correct?

  “Es verdad.”

  “Shot down in cold blood by that cowardly murderer Micah Bishop.”

  “Have you seen a nun during your time here, señor?”

  “No. I have spent much of my time in my hotel room, awaiting the train. Spent this evening telling my brother all the things I should have told him while he lived.”

  That was another thing I disliked about Sean Fenn. He fancied himself an actor, but, for my money, he wasn’t no Lawrence Barnett. John Wilkes Booth, maybe.

  “And you have seen no strangers?”

  “Señor Hernandez. I am a stranger in this town.”

  “Sí. Forgive me.”

  “¡Patrón! ¡Patrón!”

  Merciful God, somebody was calling Felipe Hernandez. He must have left while the locomotive coughed and belched, because the next voice I heard was not that of Hernandez. It had a German accent.

  “You ship your dead relation home?”

  “That’s right, Conductor.” Fenn was talking. “To California. Here is my bill of lading.”

  “It is in order. Load”—he got a whiff of the rats—“it in the last boxcar.”

  We got hoisted again, began tilting one way, then the other. I just prayed those dead rats wouldn’t fall out of the flour sack.

  “I will ride with my brother.”

  “Nein. Against the railroad’s policy.”

  “I was very close to Gus.”

  I couldn’t hear, but am certain Fenn slipped the conductor a greenback or two because I heard the door open to the boxcar, felt us being slid in among sawdust or straw or hay or something. Another sound came from inside the car. It sounded like . . . but I couldn’t make that one out. Then came a man’s grunt, followed by Fenn thanking the boys who had loaded the coffin into the car.

  The train jerked back, then I heard the conductor yelling, “All aboard!”

  Sean Fenn said, “Leave the door open, if you please, gentlemen.” He laughed. “So I can breathe fresh air.”

  Moments later, two long blasts of the horn, then hissing, squeaking, and we were moving.

  Heading south. Away from Felipe Hernandez and this bloodthirsty town.

  Almost.

  “Señor!”

  “Yes, Señor Hernandez?” Fenn didn’t sound too friendly. That wasn’t acting.


  “Perhaps you could answer this question for me. . . .”

  I didn’t hear the question—too much noise from the train, bells ringing, the locomotive grunting, and a pounding within the boxcar.

  Couldn’t make out Fenn’s reply, either.

  The train was moving mighty slow.

  “I didn’t quite catch that, Hernandez.” Heard that plain. Fenn had dropped the señor.

  Some other shouts were lost in all the commotion, then I heard something I did recognize.

  The report of a pistol.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Pretty soon, it sounded like Gettysburg out there. I tried to push open the lid to the coffin, but didn’t have much room, especially with the nun lying on top of me.

  “What are you doing?” Geneviève Tremblay raised her head off my shoulder, bumped it against the lid. Groaned. A bullet tore a hunk through the coffin, buzzed my ear, thudded into the lid.

  “Mother of God!” The nun dropped back onto me, heavy, almost knocking the breath out of me. Or would have, if I hadn’t expelled all the air in my lungs when that bullet practically made my presence in a coffin fitting.

  A horse whinnied. Another answered.

  Horses?

  Bullets sang out. The train seemed to be picking up speed.

  “Push up!” I yelled at the nun.

  “What?”

  “Put your back against this lid.” Just talking filled my mouth with the stench of dead rats.

  She understood. She worked her hands between my arms and pressed against the bottom of the coffin. I lifted my arms on either side of her body, pushing the lid.

  I pushed harder. Her body strained. She drooled on my chin. The rats smelled deader. Harder we pushed. Straining. Hell, there was only four screws in that thing.

  The lid came flying off. The nun rose, and toppled over the side, crying out in pain. I sucked in air that didn’t stink of rats, sat up, reached for where I knew that Winchester should have been.

  It disappeared.

  The train lurched. So did I. The flour sack emptied its contents. I forgot all about the shell belt and the Winchester that was gone. I grabbed my hat, and flung myself out of the coffin, landing on straw, and something else.

  I cussed.

  “That’s what it is,” Fenn called out in the darkness.

  I began peeling the fresh horse droppings off the palm of my hands.

  It occurred to me that no guns was shooting. I looked toward the sound of Sean Fenn’s voice, waiting for my eyes to grow accustomed to the new darkness.

  A match flared, and I caught Fenn’s face, then followed the light. It grew brighter. Then, glorious light.

  Fenn had fired up a lantern.

  By that time, the train was moving at a lively clip.

  I glanced around. Sister Geneviève was on her knees, shaking her head, then locating Fenn. She came to her feet in an instant, but didn’t cross herself, didn’t pray, didn’t do one thing but make a beeline for Sean Fenn and slam a fist into his jaw.

  ’Twas a sight that made a pagan like me proud.

  Sean Fenn had four inches and thirty pounds on me. He was a big gent, tougher than a cob, but the nun’s fist had sent him backward. Unfortunately, he didn’t fall out of the boxcar.

  “Rats!” Sister Geneviève sounded more like a fire-and-brimstone Baptist than a nun from the order of the Sisters of Charity. “Rats were not part of the plan!” She lowered her hand and began massaging the scraped knuckles.

  Fenn laughed and touched his jaw, turned to me and shrugged.

  The nun went about straightening her habit, her hood, then reaching inside the coffin. For a moment, I thought she was after the dead rats, but she pulled out the shell belt, and tossed it to Fenn, who was lighting a cigar from the lantern’s globe.

  Behind me, I heard hoofs scraping the floor, and turned, finding two bay geldings. Off to the other side, I spied a burro, two goats, and a crate full of chickens.

  A rooster crowed.

  Figuring my palm was as clean as I’d get it, I picked up a handful of hay, rubbed my hands in it, then brought the straws up to my nose . . . just to breathe something other than dead rats. I turned my head and spit, then dropped the hay, and faced Fenn.

  He held the Winchester. He was a fast one.

  A grunt caught my attention. Turning, I seen Sister Geneviève on her knees, hands pressed against the foot of the coffin. Stupid, I know, but my first thought was Is she really praying over those rats?

  Then the coffin moved. She was pushing it.

  I stepped out of the way.

  She give me a cold look. “Would you mind helping me?”

  “Helping you do what?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared into the coffin, and pushed again. At which time, it struck me. I walked to the front, grabbed the box, pulled it to the open door where the wind blew hard and the air smelled of piñon. I stepped to the side, grabbed the pine again, and me and the nun pushed that box full of dead rats out of the car, and into the night.

  Sean Fenn never lifted a hand to help. He did withdraw his cigar, blow smoke, and say, “Thanks.”

  I stared out the rolling darkness, breathing deeply, letting the cool air wash me clean.

  Finally, facing Fenn again, I asked, “What happened back there?”

  “Yes, Mister Fenn. Explain that gunfight, if you please.” The nun had taken my lead, and stepped to the open door. The wind whipped off her hood, and I got an even better look at her face, though it was dark despite the lantern. Her dark hair blew. Her chest heaved in breath after breath.

  Fenn stared at her.

  “The depot?” I had to remind him.

  “Oh.” He shifted the rifle under his armpit, puffed on the cigar a mite, then withdrew the smoke, and wet his lips. “I bought that coffin in Vegas. Had it brought up to the room.”

  “And?”

  “Turns out, Felipe Hernandez owns the funeral parlor.”

  That figured. The man owned everything else.

  “Guess one of his kin told him,” Fenn said. “Made him wonder why, if my brother had been killed in Texas, I waited till Vegas to put him in a coffin.” He grinned. “Then one of his men mentioned that I’d said poor Gus was killed by Comancheros.”

  “I knowed it!” I couldn’t help myself. “I knowed that lie would trip you up, get us all in a heap of trouble.”

  “Well, we got away.” Fenn flicked his cigar into the night, backed up a few steps, and drew his revolver. He punched out the empties and began reloading the chambers from the shell belt the nun had tossed him. Facing the Sister, he added, “And the dead rats helped us get away.” He stared at me.

  “Not yet.” It was Geneviève who spoke.

  “How’s that?” Fenn didn’t look back at her. Didn’t even look at the Colt he was reloading. He kept his eyes on me, the untrusting cad.

  “We haven’t gotten away.” She was kneeling—not in prayer—by the horses, which did smell a lot better than what we’d been smelling.

  “Oh, Hernandez will come after us,” Fenn said. “But he can’t outrun a train.” Fenn pulled back the hammer, lowered it gently, and dropped it into the holster he wore. He had filled every chamber with a .44-40 shell. Most folks kept the one under the hammer empty so they wouldn’t blow off a toe or entire foot, accidentally.

  “He can send a telegraph.” That came from me.

  Geneviève and Fenn looked my way, their expression seeming to say, He’s not the idiot we thought he was.

  Fenn stepped toward the door, holding his hat on his head as he peered into the night.

  “Even you can’t shoot a telegraph wire,” I said. “From a moving train. In the middle of the night. Without a moon.”

  “Besides,” Geneviève added, “they might have already sent that wire.”

  I will admit that I felt pleasure in that distraught look on Fenn’s face, despite the fact that if I got caught, I’d be dead real soon.

  Fenn started with, “There’s a chance
—” but quit before he made a complete fool out of himself. There was no chance. No chance at all.

  Sister Geneviève stood and moved closer to the two horses. She spoke to them softly, reached one, and began rubbing her hand over its neck. The second horse tilted its head and gave her a nuzzle. She hadn’t put her hood back up. The nun, I mean.

  She peered over the nearest animal’s back. “I don’t see any saddles.”

  I got her meaning. “Likely in a baggage car, or with the folks who own these mounts.” But I was looking, too, causing the hens to cluck, the rooster to scratch, and the goats to start peeing.

  The laugh from Sean Fenn sounded full of contempt. “You can’t jump horses out of a moving train.”

  He was right, of course.

  Heading south out of Vegas, we was moving at a right fast clip. But before long, the train would turn west, bound for Santa Fe. Pulling any load through Glorieta Pass wasn’t easy. Around there, the train would slow to a crawl. We’d ease the horses off then, hoping they didn’t break their legs, or we didn’t break our necks, and ride on to . . .

  Valley of Fire? Bareback? Three people on two horses?

  Horses wasn’t the problem. What if Felipe Hernandez telegraphed ahead to some stop like the station by Starvation Peak? Or Bernal? Fulton or Rowe? Nah, that wasn’t likely. Most of them places had only telegraph repeaters to send the message down the line and water tanks. The train didn’t even stop between Vegas and Santa Fe, except to take on water.

  “Come to think on it,” I said, being struck with genius, “best thing would be to get off at Romero.”

  On cue, the horn tooted, and the train began to slow.

  “We wait till they get water, and when the train begins to move out, we get the horses out.”

  “And the brakeman?” the nun asked.

  “It’s still dark,” I said. “Got to take the chance he won’t see us.”

  “Two horses. No saddles.” Fenn was annoying me.

  “You know me, Sean. Horses tend to follow me around.” I grabbed a hold on one of the wall slats as the train jerked to a stop. “There are a few homes around there. Might could find us some saddles and blankets and such. It’s an easy trail. South from Romero to Anton Chico, Puerto de Luna, Fort Sumner, and down toward Lincoln. Easiest way to get to the Valley of Fire.”