Valley of Fire

by Johnny D. Boggs

  She started to move again, but I shook my head. “Just sit there for a minute. Get your breath back. Make sure you’re really all right.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Just listen to me, Sister. For once.”

  Her face softened, and she sank back a bit, relaxing. Oh, I knowed she wasn’t hurt too bad. I just wanted to look at her some more.

  It was a round face, not too tan, not too pale, the neck long, lovely. Made me wish I could place a string of pearls over them, then I remembered I’d broken off that crucifix she had worn. She smiled. Lovely smile, showed me that her teeth was white. She had all of them, near as I could tell, unlike most of the women I’d knowed. The lips was rosy, narrow on top and thick on the bottom. Her smile pushed her cheeks up, and she was so lovely there, with blood above her lip, and her hair all messed up, and her habit dirty and ripped.

  She looked like an angel.

  I could have stayed like that for another hour or so, but I heard Demyan Blanco panting, heard the mule bray and then start urinating. Then Blanco was yelling, not at Sister Geneviève and me, but at his cousin, who come panting and cussing and groaning.

  No longer smiling, Sister Geneviève decided that it was time to get up, and I moved over to help her, then saw something else almost as lovely as that young nun. I did a kind of stumble, dropped to a knee beside her, and caught myself with my bound hands. Snatched up that little .22, which the good Sister must have lost during her spill, so smooth that none of them b’hoys knowed I’d just armed myself. Have I ever mentioned that I am mighty good at palming cards, too?

  With a little laugh, I stood, saying, “Lost my balance there,” and slid the hideaway gun into the pockets of my trousers.

  Blanco and his cousin was too busy cussing each other to notice. Sister Geneviève didn’t see my slight of hand, neither.

  I helped the nun over the dead tree, and she sat on it. I started to do the same, but decided I’d better go fetch my hat, check and hobble my paint horse.

  Them two cousins, staring at me as if I was to blame for all this unnecessary excitement, looked mean.

  “Where’s your horse?” I asked Jorge de la Cruz.

  He answered in a tirade of Mexican profanity.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It’s a damned fool idea to travel across this country with four people and grub for two. It’s even dumber to keep going with three horses and make some poor, dumb son of a bitch walk.

  Naturally, that poor, dumb son of a bitch was me.

  The big farmer’s horse had skedaddled, likely loping back toward Anton Chico. All of us hoped that that big buckskin would break his leg in a prairie dog hole and feed some ravens and turkey buzzards, and not make it back to the little village. Folks would start questioning things, and one of them folks might be Felipe Hernandez.

  That wasn’t the worst of things, neither. Sister Geneviève’s blue roan had cut up his left rear leg pretty bad, and he shouldn’t be going nowhere for a long while. That left the mule, which wasn’t going anywhere if she didn’t feel like it, my paint, and Blanco’s black. That horse, which looked to be part Arabian, might have been able to run down de la Cruz’s buckskin, but Blanco wasn’t about to leave me and the nun alone with his dumb cousin.

  So they decided they’d do without.

  Damned fools.

  I should have shot them right then and there.

  But the more I studied on it, the more I looked at Jorge de la Cruz, I started to understand just why the Sister hadn’t opened the ball earlier. Like I already mentioned, a Ladies Companion ain’t much of a gun. I mean a .22 is a handy little pistol when you’re shooting at barn rats or maybe rattlesnakes, if you’re close enough. But I didn’t think a .22 would get through de la Cruz’s muscles and into any vitals. Like as not, even if I emptied all five rounds into him, it would just make him madder—like a hornet sting or something. And I’d still have Demyan Blanco to consider. So I kept the little pistol in my pants pocket.

  Sore and tired and more than a trifle mad, we made camp in the woods. Blanco did consent to some coffee, and we fried up some salt pork for supper, finished the cabrito, and went to sleep.

  Next morning, our merry little group resumed our trek, even though I argued that if the Sister rode that roan too much, he’d go lame. Maybe even die.

  They didn’t listen, didn’t care. Gold fever had struck both of them mighty hard. I figured it to be a fatal case . . . for them, for Sister Geneviève, and for me.

  Still, I reckon we had made twenty miles that first day, pretty good considering the country, and the fact that Jorge de la Cruz, big farmer that he was, couldn’t ride worth a damn. Sister Geneviève was better on a horse that he was.

  Ask me, the farmer was the fellow who should’ve been walking.

  Instead of me.

  Me afoot cut our speed down considerable. We dipped into a draw, and followed it. I tried to keep Pedernal Mountain in my sight, but the trees often blocked the view. Around noon, we come to a water hole, and, man alive, did that water taste good. We drank, filled our canteens, soaked our feet, let the horses get their fill.

  Blanco offered me a quid of tobacco, but I shook my head. He bit off a chaw, worked it with his teeth, then nodded his head southwest. “How far?”

  “We ain’t halfway there.”

  He kept chewing. His Winchester had been left in his saddle scabbard, but the cousin was staring at me across the little pool of water, and his hand stayed too close to his ancient five-shot revolver.

  “I am not used to this country,” Blanco said. “It is rough.”

  I told him, “You ain’t seen Hell yet.”

  He looked at me, waiting for some explanation.

  Sighing, I swept my hands around the country we was in. “In case you ain’t notice, we’ve already started climbing down. This is high country, where we’re at now, plenty of shade, plenty of water. We gotta follow this draw, and then the country’s gonna flatten out and dry up. It won’t turn hospitable till we’re near Gran Quivira, and that ain’t very hospitable.”

  “How do you know so much about this country?” Blanco had worked his tobacco up enough to spit. Damned fool spit into the water.

  “Didn’t spend all my youth playing cards and . . . selling . . . yeah, selling horses.”

  “You were a horse trader?” I’d gained some stature with Blanco.

  “More or less.”

  “So what did you do, to learn about this country?”

  “Scouted some for the Army,” I said.

  That was gospel. You’ll find me on the muster roll of civilian scouts at forts Stanton and Craig. We’d chased some Apaches now and then. Thankfully, all we done mostly was chase. Rarely found any. My duties was usually riding dispatch between Stanton and Craig, but shortly before I decided it was time to desert, they had started sending me up toward Bascom. That wasn’t a fort no more, but the Army was using it as a sub-post. Anyway, you ride through that triangle, you cover a lot of ground, get to learn the country. I’d crossed the Valley of Fire many a time. Had I knowed there was a fortune of gold buried underneath them black rocks . . .

  I reached my bound hands to my chest, touched it, felt something that kinda reassured me for a moment. Then I cupped my hands full of water, away from where Blanco had turned it slightly brown, and washed my face again.

  Those Army days brung back fond memories. That time I’d bluffed Sergeant Ernest Sadler with a king high, not the flush, to his three queens showing. One time, our patrol had even found some Apaches not too far from Gran Quivira, and I’d managed to hide and escape. Brought two soldiers back, deader than dirt, and everybody at Craig called me a hero. Wasn’t no hero. I was just smart enough to hide. And I’d been lucky.

  I’d also hid out in these hills, even used the ruins at Gran Quivira as a hideout. Like that time when they’d caught me passing that counterfeit bill at Grzelachowski’s store in Puerto de Luna. Or when Jim Greathouse took umbrage over my winning streak. Or whe
n Sergeant Sadler led a patrol trying to catch me as a deserter—or because he’d learned how I’d bluffed him out of two months’ pay. Yes, sir, this was good country to hide out in. Not fit to live in. But hiding out, many outlaws considered it tops.

  Yes, sir, some of this country had been good to me.

  Sure wasn’t now.

  I reckon we’d covered ten miles that day coming into McGillivroy Draw and heading into the valley. Exhausted, we camped again in the draw, finishing the tortillas, wishing de la Cruz’s buckskin hadn’t made off with the farmer’s canteen. I checked the roan’s leg, put another mud poultice on it, patted him, give him some extra grain.

  Next day turned worser. Pedernal Mountain lay behind us. So did the trees, the shade, the higher country. We descended into the Estancia Valley.

  Some Mexican once told me that estancia, in Spanish, means “place of rest.” Permanent, I figured. We came out of the piñon and juniper and into a vast bowl of blowing dirt.

  Oh, there was some desert scrub here and there, grass that already looked overcooked by the sun. I had to pull up my bandanna to keep from swallowing a pound of dust, kept walking, head bent low, hearing the horses laboring behind me.

  We didn’t talk. Couldn’t.

  If we was lucky, we’d cover maybe two or three hundred yards before we stopped to rest. One time, Sister Geneviève kneed her roan close to me, and without speaking, unhooked her canteen from the horn and handed it to me.

  I shook my head.

  Her mouth moved. Her lips were chapped. I reckon the hood of her outfit had gotten ripped up during her horse wreck, but she’d fashioned it into some kind of bonnet, which protected her a bit from the sun and wind. Her face was turning red, and her eyes was bloodshot.

  My lips was sore, and when my tongue touched them to moisten them, they burned like hell.

  “Drink.”

  This time I heard her.

  I also heard Jorge de la Cruz guzzling his water, like we had plenty to spare, like we had five miles to travel instead of fifty. He started cussing again, and Demyan Blanco was too tired, or maybe too disgusted, to cuss back.

  “Save your water.” My voice sounded foreign, cracked, ugly, thirsty. Hell, I wanted that water she was offering me, but I knowed better than to drink it. We’d need it. Need a lot more than we had.

  “Vámanos,” Blanco ordered.

  After motioning for the pretty nun to hook her canteen back on the saddle horn, I resumed my march.

  Late afternoon, I noticed the clouds. At first they appeared over the Manzano Mountains, way off to the west, but soon I knowed they was bound our way. The wind picked up, hot at first, wicked, gaining fury. The mule began getting stubborn again.

  “Por Dios,” de la Cruz said, almost begging. He seen them dark clouds, too. “Maybe it will rain.”

  All that powdery lime-colored sand had turned Blanco’s black horse practically white. We was all dusted, filthy. The Sister’s roan was lathered with sweat, which the sand had turned to mud. The wind howled.

  Monsoons strike this country hard and furious, but usually them frequent afternoon thunderstorms don’t start till July or thereabouts. June was a mite early, but I decided I wouldn’t mind a good, soaking rain, even though a cold rain could leave a body shivering to death. From how them clouds looked, this storm promised to be a regular Old Testament, fire-and-brimstone, come-to-meeting kind of storm. Already, I could see the purple curtain stretching in the distance from those black clouds to the drab earth.

  “We should find cover,” Blanco said. He had trouble keeping his horse in line, the black jerking his head this way and that, fighting the bit.

  I laughed. “Where?”

  The wind turned into a gale, then into a hurricane, then became the wrath of God. I could smell the rain, could practically taste it. I was moving closer toward Sister Geneviève and the blue roan, which was practically dragging his injured leg. The mule jerked free of de la Cruz’s grasp and took off. The farmer tried to make my piebald go after him, but the horse suddenly did an abrupt turn, his back to the wind, to the storm. Blanco screamed as his black did the same. Even the nun’s almost lame animal turned so he wouldn’t face the coming storm. They refused to go.

  I knew why.

  “Get off!” I had to shout like hell so the nun could hear me. “Off !” I repeated, and she slipped from the saddle. I tried to help her as much as I could with my hands tied and all.

  “What is happening?” de la Cruz yelled.

  With my hands numb from the tight rawhide, I pressed Sister Geneviève close against the lathered horse. Taking the reins, I brought my arms over the nun’s neck and pressed against her as tight as I could, sandwiching her between my body and the roan.

  “What are you doing?”

  I could just hear her. Before I could answer, the hailstones hit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The only baseball game I ever saw occurred the summer before last down in Silver City. A local saloon sponsored a team and give its players uniforms with beer mugs embroidered on their shield-front shirts. Every boy on the saloon team’s starting nine topped two hundred pounds. Called themselves the Fat Fellows, they did, and that they was. Fat. The game I attended, the Fat Fellows was playing a bunch of boys who championed those newfangled velocipedes. I doubt if any of them weighed much more than Sister Geneviève. They called themselves the Slim Jims. Wasn’t much of a game. The Fat Fellows trounced the Slim Jims, 20-6, then bought beer for all the spectators and even them bicycle pedalers.

  The reason that game comes to mind is on account that most of them hailstones that pounded us was the size of baseballs.

  Not at first. The first stones come down by the thousands, stinging my shoulders, bending the brim of my hat, bouncing off the ground, off the roan, but no bigger than a thumbnail. Before long, those stones looked like white walnuts, only harder than a walnut shell. The roan lowered his head. When the stones kept getting bigger, I eased Sister Geneviève to the hail-covered ground, moved her and me underneath the roan’s belly.

  When that hail had reached baseball proportions, even over the noise of the stones pounding the earth, the wind roaring, and Sister Geneviève’s praying, I heard Blanco screaming. It was hard to see, what with me under a horse and trying to shield a nun, and hail coming down like the walls of Jericho, but I could just make out Demyan Blanco, standing by the black’s side, trying like the dickens to get that Winchester Centennial out of the scabbard. Then he went down, knocked to the frozen earth by a hailstone.

  Didn’t think I’d get a better chance. Couldn’t see the big farmer, but even that giant would be smarting after getting cannonaded by hail.

  “Stay here!” I told the nun, eased my tied hands over her neck, and leaned into the storm.

  Hail bruised my back and almost knocked me to my knees. I slipped on the icy earth. The wind tried to blow me down. It did once, but I got up, prying the pepperbox from my pocket. The crown of my hat absorbed blows that otherwise would have cracked my skull. Still, one ball slammed into my shoulder, and down I went to my knees, groaning, fighting back pain, as more stones pelted me. One glanced off my forehead, and fire shot through my head. I saw orange dots. Hadn’t been knocked that silly since Tin-Nose George give me a concussion with a bung starter whilst I wasn’t looking.

  I knowed I couldn’t keep on seeing orange dots. I made myself stand. Made myself look. Made myself walk.

  The black was gone. Without a rider on his back, without a man holding its reins, Blanco’s horse skedaddled. I dropped into a crouch, trying to see, trying to protect myself, trying to find Demyan Blanco in order to draw a bead on that sorry excuse for a horse trader.

  Just like that, the hail stopped. Like someone had turned off the spigot. But the storm wasn’t over. Far from it.

  Rain fell in icy, smarting, abysmal streaks. Those drops weren’t the size of baseballs, but they stung something fierce. My clothes got soaked. Water cascaded off my hail-battered hat brim like I w
as standing under a waterfall.

  I tripped over Demyan Blanco.

  I stopped myself from planting my face in the frozen ground with my hands, which still gripped the Continental .22, pushed myself up, and turned.

  Blanco’s forehead, just above his right eye, was bleeding. Even with all that cold rain, I could see that. Cold rain falling in his face, and he wasn’t moving. That’s how out he was. Or maybe . . . maybe he was dead.

  The Winchester wasn’t near him. I didn’t know if the horse had run off with that big rifle still in the scabbard or what. But it didn’t matter. Blanco was out.

  I brought up the pepperbox. Aimed at his throat.

  Something groaned beside me, and it wasn’t the wind. Seeing something moving, I turned, flinched, and just managed to avoid Jorge de la Cruz’s boot. Instead of knocking my teeth down my throat, his heel caught my shoulder. The little popgun fell onto the icy stones the rain was quickly melting.

  I fell the other way.

  But didn’t stay down. I rolled, heard a gunshot that the storm’s wind and rain muffled. Maybe I heard the bullet slam into the ice, or maybe I just imagined that. Didn’t matter. I rolled and rolled. Another bullet come close, so close I felt I could smell, even taste, the sulfur.

  Diving behind a clump of bush, I quickly came up, wiped rain from my eyes and face, tried to breathe, tried to see.

  I couldn’t see nothing. The rain had turned into a wall, and the sky got blacker than the ace of spades. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. But I knowed this monsoon wouldn’t last.

  Storms like these had a tendency to bleed out real quick, like that fellow who got his neck sliced by Big Tim Pruett in that dram shop up in E-Town back in ’79.

  There was another shot, I think. Couldn’t tell for sure. I knowed I should have been counting bullets, but didn’t think to do that when somebody was trying to gun me down. I was cold, wet, and miserable, and then it started thundering.

  Lightning flashed so close that I squeezed my eyelids tight and saw orange again. The thunder accompanying it came instantly. Before my ears stopped ringing, I was moving, low in the rain, back toward where I thought Demyan Blanco was still laying, where I thought I’d find that .22.