He closed the book over a finger to keep his place and brought it down flat on his chest. He looked across the room at her. "Don't call me that," he said gently. "Mi nombre es Cole."
"Lo siento," she said, holding the covers aloft. "Cole."
She cocked her head to one side. Her look was demure, a little timid. "Bring the – " She stopped in mid-sentence, her brow furrowed. Trying to pull up a word. "Light," she said after a moment, "bring the light, if read you want."
He clasped the book to his chest with both arms. It was the first full sentence he had heard her speak in English, and it was a little mixed up but getting pretty good. Like his Mex. He sat looking at her for a few moments, then laid the book down on the floor and rose to his feet.
~
He awoke to find that he had one arm around her and she was snuggled into his chest, her little fists up in front, like a sleeping kitten. He moved a strand of hair off her forehead and she awoke, and looked up at him with big brown eyes.
She smiled.
"Buenas dias," he said.
She closed her eyes and murmured contentedly and snuggled in tighter. "Go to the chickens," she mumbled into his chest. "Get some huevos. I will make us desayuno – breakfast."
Chapter Three
- 1 -
Guapo, it turned out, meant handsome. In the little barn that day, she had been telling him that his horse (and he himself) was very handsome. If he had known how to say it, he would have tossed off, You're not bad yourself, Chiquita or something, but that was before his Mex was much fluent.
So he told her now. Four or five weeks on. Maybe six; the days were hard to keep track of.
They lay face to face in the bed they now shared, both a little out of breath, both with a little sheen of sweat on the shoulders, and he put a gentle hand to the side of her face. "Usted es una mujer tan bonita," he said softly. You are such a pretty woman.
She smiled her sad smile and put her own hand on top of his. "And you are a very kind man." Her eyes turned serious. "For one so skilled in violence."
"Kind?" he said.
Her brow furrowed. "Did I mean – gentle?..."
He kissed her on the tip of the nose. "I'll take either," he said. "Gracias."
She rolled over onto her back and lay at his right, the bed cover at her waist, her breasts exposed. She put a hand behind her head and just lay, gazing up at a tiny lizard making its way across the ceiling. She sighed.
He came up on one elbow and looked down at her. With a finger he began to draw a tiny, caressing circle around the nipple on her left breast. "Que?" he said. What?
She lay in silence for a while longer, then looked up at him, looked evenly into his eyes. "I know it has come," she said. "The time for you to go." She brought the hand from behind her head and ran fingers through his hair.
" Llévame contigo," she said. Take me with you.
He didn't know what to say. She was right, of course. It was time to move on. He was restless, she could see it, (women always could) and there was no point in denying it. Hell, it was past time to go. The Federales would be coming back sooner or later, for one thing. And he had to take her with him, that was a given; he couldn't just ride away and leave her alone in the desert, in a crumbling little adobe with a pair of graves out front, at the mercy of a hundred different kind of wolves. But take her where? To leave her to what?
He looked down at her, into her eyes, and continued to draw a feathery, teasing little circle around the nipple on her breast.
She let her fingers play gently down the side of his face, then rested her hand on her stomach. She moved her gaze back to the ceiling.
"I been thinkin'," she said.
"About what?"
She turned her head and faced him again.
"Turn me out," she said. "Les' go to Santa Marta. There are cantinas there. Turn me out, Pistolero. Iss' my turn. My turn to take care of you now."
He smiled down at her, still circling and teasing the nipple with his fingertip. "I told you not to call me that."
"Les' go to Santa Marta, Cole," she said with a little tit-for-tat smile. "Turn me out." She lifted an eyebrow. "Yo haré dinero para nosotros." I will make money for us.
He leaned down and kissed her on the nose again.
Chapter Four
- 1 -
The bay was saddled and stood ready by the little stone well.
Isela ran fingers through the horse's mane and stroked the side of his big neck. A bundle of things – a dress, a pair of shoes, a hand mirror with a crack down the middle, a Bible she could not read, a copper daguerreotype of herself, her husband and her son, taken at the Virgin of Guadalupe celebration in Santa Marta two years before – was tied up in a blanket and lay in the dirt at her feet.
In a crouch, Matthews gave the cinch a final tightening, then stood up straight. "I'll just get the Winchester, then we'll be off," he said.
She cocked her head, looked puzzled.
"La carabina," he said, and she nodded. Ah.
He walked toward the house and as he neared the door he saw them over his shoulder, six or seven riders coming in over the top of a little knoll. Their approach was leisurely and so they didn't kick up much dirt or make much noise, and – hidden by the knoll – he didn't see them until it was very nearly too late. Six, he could see now, in the brown khaki of the Mexican Army. All but one had .43 caliber Whitney-Laidley rolling block rifles slung over their backs. He turned back to her.
"Isela," he called. "Go to the barn. Run!"
She looked up. "Que?"
He pointed. "El granero. Vaya!"
The soldiers reined in at the well just as he slipped inside the door of the little house. Isela bolted, but too late. Three of the riders maneuvered their horses quickly and skillfully around her, and she was boxed in. One – a big man with a pair of stripes on his sleeve – leaned over and took her by the hair. She gave a little cry and instinctively reached up and grasped at his big wrist with both hands. All the soldiers laughed.
Matthews took the Winchester from where it leaned against the wall by the door and went to the open window. Well, one break, he thought. You haven't seen me yet, muchachos. Slowly and soundlessly, he levered a round of .45-75 under the hammer.
The only soldier without a rifle on his back – a youngish man with a faint, sparse moustache and the single gold bar of a sub-lieutenant on his shoulder boards – took off his cap and wiped his forehead with a shirt sleeve. There was a revolver in a holster high up on his belt. He said something Matthews couldn't hear and two soldiers dismounted. Clear the house, no doubt, because they unslung their rifles and began walking his way. He poked an inch of the Winchester's barrel through the curtains and watched their shuffling, lackadaisical approach. Brown-skinned boys with rifles in their hands and bayonets on their belts. One said something and the other kicked at a pebble and smiled.
The big corporal who held Isela by the hair lifted her up off the ground. Her face contorted with pain and she cried out again; desperately clutching the man's wrist, she kicked her feet and lost a shoe. She arched her toes, trying to touch dirt, and the soldiers laughed some more. One reached down and took up the reins of the bay. He jerked him in close and around like he was an Army horse now.
Cole Matthews put his front sight on the chest of the man who held Isela twisting and dangling.
He squeezed the trigger. The Winchester cracked loud and punched his shoulder, and he levered another round. The big man was knocked off his horse; Isela tumbled into the dirt beside him and curled up and stayed there.
The lieutenant was suddenly barking commands to go here or do that and brandishing his sidearm about. Looked to be an 1878 model Nagant, Matthews th
ought. (Wasn't that Mexican Army officer issue these days?) He brought the Winchester a little to the left and took the man off his horse with a head shot. The lieutenant died with his mouth open, a dark little hole in the center of his forehead, and looked completely astonished as he fell from the saddle. Matthews pulled the Schofield, and, carrying the Winchester in his left hand, he went to the door and out.
The two boys who had been sent to check the house froze in their tracks as he appeared in the doorway. Wide eyed, they just had time to jerk their rifles up before they died. Matthews stepped forward and fired from the hip, shooting first the one on his right, then the one on the left. The big, heavy slugs from the Schofield punched them back, and they crumpled into the dirt together.
He stepped between their bodies and raised the Schofield to take an arms-length shot at one of the two soldados still on horseback, but they both dropped their rifles and reined hard around and rode hell-bent-for-leather back into the desert.
One's mount was faster and leaped out in front. Matthews put his front sight between the shoulder blades of the man closest, on the horse slowest. The .45 roared in his hand and the man jerked and fell sideways off his saddle.
Matthews holstered the Schofield. He still carried the seventy-six in his left hand. He levered it, brought it to his shoulder, and looked down the barrel and through the buckhorn sight at the fleeing soldier's back. He squeezed the trigger and the man went flying.
He went to where Isela lay. He pushed a horse out of the way with a shove on the rear flank and looked down at her, the Winchester in his left hand. She lay on her side, in a protective little crouch, eyes closed tight and arms up around her head. Next to her, the big man who had taken her by the hair lay flat on his back.
"You okay down there?" he said.
She opened one eye and looked up at him.
He brought the Winchester up and rested it on his shoulder.
She sat up and looked all around, brought up a hand and rubbed at the top of her head. Some long brown hairs came off in her hand and she looked at them angrily, then swiped them away on her dress.
The big corporal groaned and stirred. There was a blood-red, nickel-sized hole in the left side of his chest, but he was alive and struggling to breathe.
Isela turned and looked down at him. She reached across and took the bayonet from the scabbard on his belt. When he shifted again she raised the bayonet high overhead and plunged it down with both hands, deep into his chest.
There was a gasp, a spasm that raised his head an inch and opened his eyes, and then the big man's head dropped back thunk! into the dirt. His last breath was long and slow, and he gazed sightlessly up at the sky.
Matthews extended a hand to help her up. "I'll take that as a yes," he said.
~
He watched as she went about looting the bodies, moving from one to another like a little carrion bird, examining boots and taking rings and riffling pockets, now and then stuffing something into the front of her dress.
He turned to the horse the young lieutenant had been riding, a fine looking white mare with a ropy knot of saber scar on the side of her neck. He took her by the bridle. "Seen some action, have you girl?" he whispered, and gently stroked the flat of her forehead. She snorted softly and her eyes were a little wild as Matthews held her by the bridle, but then, he reflected, she had just had a rider shot off her back.
Alone among them, this horse bore saddlebags. He went through first one side and then the other, finding only two things of interest: a field map of the Sonoran desert and a lensatic military compass in a leather case. He stuffed the map down inside the front of his gunbelt and dropped the compass into a shirt pocket.
He examined the horse's rear flanks, both sides. No brand on this one, must have been the lieutenant's own property, but there was a large RM embossed high up on one of the saddle stirrups, and that wouldn't do. He crouched down and unfastened the cinch, stood up again and hoisted the saddle off with both hands, then tossed it to one side where it thumped heavily to ground and raised a cloud of dust.
Isela came up. She carried a smallish pair of brown Mexican Army boots by the laces. The pocket on her dress was bulging with assorted rings and coins and peso notes. She thrust a hand down inside. "Many pesos," she said, coming out with a fistful and showing him. She smiled. "Ours now."
He shook his head. "Usted lo guarda." You keep it.
She cocked her head and shrugged. If that's what you want... She stuffed the bills back into her pocket, fished around some, and came out with a silver pocket watch. She extended it to him with a somewhat shy, pleased with herself look.
He took it from her hand, popped it open with a tiny button on the side, and looked at the face of it. A Roman numeral dial with one word – Waltham – in the center. He turned it over in his hand. A clamshell design was etched on the silvery back. A Waltham was a pretty good American watch, and at least there was no picture of a Mexican wife or mother or cooing little bambino inside, but he didn't really want it. He had no pocket for it and he rarely cared what time it was. Nevertheless, he snapped it shut and held it up like it was treasure to him. "Gracias," he said with a smile, and shoved it into a trouser pocket.
She smiled back.
He extended the reins on the lieutenant's white mare. "Santa Marta?"
She turned and looked down on the dead body of the big man, the khaki-clad, two-stripe oaf who had amused them all by lifting her off the ground by the hair, and who lay now with a bayonet sticking out of his chest.
"Espere," she said. Wait. She knelt down. She took hold of the bayonet with both hands and wrested it free, twisting and pulling. It came out hard, dripping blood, and with an ugly little cracking and sucking sound. "Un recuerdo," she said, rising to her feet and wiping the blade on her dress. A memento.
He raised a hand and chucked her under the chin. "You're hard core, Babe," he said.
Chapter Five
Santa Marta was nineteen or twenty miles, the better part of a day's ride down a rutted and fading road under a hot Mexican sun. She wouldn't leave her goats behind, and so they straggled into town with a billy and a nanny trailing and baa-aaah-aahing behind the white mare. The nanny had a bell on its neck that clanged incessantly.
Matthews pulled up at the outskirts and looked down the dusty street. Isela, riding bareback, reined in beside him. She looked over at him as he leaned forward with both hands on the saddle horn and stretched and surveyed the little town.
"Whachoo theenk?" she asked.
There was a small general store of some sort on their left, (Mercantil, said a cracked and peeling sign) small, weathered adobes on both sides of the street, (Comer, proclaimed a sign on one, which he knew meant "Eat") and a cantina at the end of the short, dusty block. He saw the arch of a Catholic mission on what appeared to be the town's only side street. He gave a glance to the sun, which would touch the horizon soon.
"Bigger than I expected," he said.
She hooked a thumb in the direction of the little mercantile. "Yo tengo negocio allí," she said. I have business there. She looked off down the street, toward the cantina that lay at the end of the block, then over at Matthews. "The far cantina, en poco minutos?..." He nodded, and she nudged the mare with her knees and reined to the left, leading the goats behind her.
Matthews watched as she rode the short distance to the little store, threw a leg over the mare's head, and slipped from its bare back to the ground. She had discarded her own shoes and wore the smallish pair of army boots she had taken from one of the soldiers.
He gave the bay a nudge with his boot heels. He rode slowly past three or four adobe dwellings, a cantina smaller than the one at the end of the block, a
smithy, the little eatery, ("Comer") and an open-air market with nothing much on display. When he came to the cantina at the end of the street, he saw that it was nestled up against a larger, wood frame building, a hotel. ("Santa Marta Posada y Cantina") Figures, he thought, if they're running whores.
Behind the hotel was a pen full of growling, wandering pigs.
~
It was either tequila or cerveza, and so he opted for cerveza. He brought the bottle to his lips and took the place in. Three small tables in addition to his own, a scattering of chairs, a short bar. Not much of a bar, and no mirror or backbar behind it, but a bar, and Matthews figured a shotgun to be back there somewhere. The front door was open wide and was admitting flies, but the ventilation was critical. A curled and tattered poster from a long ago bullfight in Guaymas decorated the wall behind him.
The bartender was a big man for a Mexican, two or three inches over six feet and heavily muscled, built like the boiler on a locomotive. He sported a heavy, drooping moustache and carried what looked to Matthews like a .32 caliber Brazilian Gerard in a shoulder holster. A gunman and a brawler. Pretty much what it took to keep the lid on a place like this, Matthews knew. He sat on a stool behind the bar nursing his own bottle of warm beer.
Across the room, two Mexican men and a woman sat at one of the tables, drinking tequila straight from the bottle, jostling and snickering and speaking words he couldn't hear. The woman was thickly built and barefoot, her face plain but painted, with a broad, bland look that suggested Yaqui or Chatino blood. She sat on a chair between the two men in a colorful but worn Mexican dress, smiled coyly, and looked from one to the other as she put a hand between each of their legs. They flinched and whooped, and she threw back her head and laughed.
Isela appeared in the doorway. She looked about, saw him, and headed his way.
He looked up at her. "You tie the goats outside?"
She pulled out a chair and sat down, planted both arms on the table. "Vendido los," she said. Sold them. "Caballo blanco too. Got eight, how you say – hundred? – pesos for them."
"The general store man?"