Matthews rode to the trough. He dismounted and dropped the reins to the ground. The bay, the mule, and the horse he rode all plunged their noses eagerly into the water.
He watched the animals drink for a few moments, then looked up and over at the old gringo.
The man sat slumped low on the bench, arms folded across his chest, looking with an idle curiosity back at him. He wore dusty, rumpled overalls, rough boots that laced up the front, and a tattered old straight-brimmed hat shielded his eyes from the sun.
Matthews pushed the sombrero off his head and let it hang on his back by the neck loop. He had liberated a handkerchief from the shirt pocket of one of the bandits by the river; he took it from his own pocket, soaked it in the water of the trough, then wrung it out and wiped his face and mopped his forehead with it.
The animals, he thought, had had enough water; they would drink until they made themselves sick. He draped the wet handkerchief over the back of his neck and pulled them away from the trough by reins and halter rope. The mule was a little balky, but Matthews led all three to a hitching rail. He glanced again at the old man as he looped the reins of the two horses and tied down the mule's halter rope.
The old man groaned a little with the effort of coming to his feet. He shuffled over to the hitching rail. Looking Matthews up and down, he tucked his hands inside his overalls and said, "You look like a man with a story to tell."
Matthews gazed evenly back at him. "More than one, you want to know the truth." He pulled the handkerchief from the back of his neck and mopped his forehead again. "But then, so do you."
The old man sighed and looked around. At the hotel across the street. At the little restaurant and the several cantinas that ringed the dusty plaza.
"Mexico," he said with a shrug.
Thinking, Tell me about it, Matthews looked around at the many ramshackle adobes. "Hell of a lot of cantinas in this little pueblo," he said, just making conversation.
"Ciudad de ejército," said the old man. Army town.
"Where's your horse?"
The old man pointed at the roan Matthews had ridden in on. "Right there."
Matthews turned to the hitching post and looked at the roan. "That's your horse?"
"It is," said the old man. "Ain't my saddle, but that's for damn sure my roan."
Matthews smiled at the way things were circling around and coming back. He wiped the back of his neck a final time with the wet handkerchief, then dropped it at his feet. "Run into a few bandidos out there, did you, friend?"
The old man nodded. "Workin' a sluice box down on the Rio Bonita. Findin' some color too." He looked over at the animals tethered at the hitching rail. "Greaser assholes took my horse and left me to die out there. But eight or ten miles of cactus and dirt ain't nothin' for an old billy goat like me." He looked back at Matthews, down at the bandage that wrapped his left hand.
"You ran into 'em too, looks like."
Matthews raised the hand a little, glanced at the makeshift bandage with the rusty stain.
The old man shifted a little uneasily. "You leave 'em dead?"
Matthews gazed cooly back at him.
"All of 'em?"
Cole Matthews shrugged. "It's what I do."
The old man held his eyes. "Believe I can tell that," he said.
Matthews eyes were noncommital.
The old man was silent for a few moments, then, a little diffidently, looking up at the gunman from under his eyebrows: "So not to be too pushy about it, but am I leavin' with or without that horse?"
"You got your horse back, old man. I'll throw in the mule too, if you want it."
The old man's face broke into a grin. Together, they switched the saddles on the bay and the roan, and Matthews moved the army saddlebags full of pesos and gold from the back of the mule and slung them over the front of his own saddle.
The old man went to the mule. He took the animal by the halter, ran a hand down the bony length of the mule's snout, and cupped his big, soft, bristly nose. "Seems a sturdy, amiable fellow."
"I thought so."
"I won't ask where you got him."
"That seems best."
The old man stroked the side of the mule's neck. "Abraxas," he said softly.
"Come again?"
"Just named him," said the old man. "Gonna call him Abraxas."
"Oh."
"A Gnostic archon or something. Ancient days crap."
"Okay."
"I just like the sound of it. Uh-brax-us." He chuckled.
Matthews look said, I see.
The old man looked off at the distant mountains and Matthews' eyes followed.
"What's next for you, old timer?"
The old man was thoughtful. "Los Estados Unidos, I guess," he said, sounding like a man who was making up his mind about something. "Feels like it's time to be puttin' this little corner of hell behind me. Leave Mexico to the Mexicans. See if I can find some color north of the border. Texas, maybe." He turned to Cole Matthews and put out a hand.
"Blessings on ya for returnin' my horse, amigo. And thanks for the mule. A prospectin' man needs a mule."
Matthews took the old man's hand. "Watch yourself in Texas, viejo. Still a handful of renegades up that way."
The man smiled a ragged smile and tipped his hat to him, and he watched as the old gringo loosed his horse's tether, then the mule's, and shuffled off with the reins in one hand and a halter rope in the other, leading the animals away.
Cole Matthews shook his head. Abraxas.
- 2 -
He found a hotel with an adjoining cantina and paid a week's rent in advance.
It fronted the dusty street that circled the town square, was right across from the place of his encounter with the old prospector, in fact. A restaurante two doors down had a little veranda in front with a few tables and chairs that looked out on the street, and the plaza.
He sat with a bottle of warm cerveza in his hand, watching the people that milled about the now busy plaza. An open air market had sprung up while he slept, and tables filled the space displaying meat and sausage and fish, many kinds of produce, and some flowers. A wandering gaggle of shoppers – mostly women and girls – moved about with baskets hung from their arms, selecting this or that, and then dribbling a few sad, hard won coins into a vendor's hand.
Soft Mexican music was being plucked from a guitar by an old man who stood next to the adobe wall of the restaurante behind him, a hat at his feet to receive the alms he solicited.
Across the street, in the plaza, a woman with an armful of flowers caught Matthews' eye, largely becaused she stood looking openly at him.
She was neither young nor old, and not beautiful but more than pretty, and she carried herself with a certain haughty dignity that the peónes surrounding her seemed to shrink away from.
Cole Matthews brought the bottle to his lips and looked her up and down. A little flashily dressed for this day in this town, he thought, in a white, long-sleeved shirt and tight black trousers tucked into ankle-high boots. The pants surprised him – something of a scandalous sight on a woman in Mexico, let alone tightly fitted ones – but she had a presence that carried it off, and she looked good in them, no question about that. On her head, and tilted down over her eyes, was a black, straight-brimmed flamenco-style hat with the neck loop tight under her chin. She looked good. Their eyes met, locked, and he set his bottle down on the table.
She turned to the flower vendor and put a single bill down on his table. Turning back to Matthews and meeting his eyes again, she waved away the proffered change and walked into the street.
He watched her sexy, confident walk toward him across the dirt of the avenida, and brought the bottle to his lips for another sip.
She stopped at his table and laid her flowers down. She pulled out a chair, seated herself, and crossed one leg over the other.
"
Yo supondré que no le importa si yo me siento," she said. I'll assume you don't mind if I sit down.
Matthews just looked back, puzzled but intrigued, into sly brown eyes, the crafty, artful eyes of a fox.
She took off the hat, dropped it on the empty seat of the chair beside her, and shook her hair out. Sleek and black, it fell to her shoulders. She crossed her wrists in her lap and cocked her head a little to one side. "Should I speak English?" she asked.
Cole Matthews leaned back in his chair and took in the moneyed, composed look of her. The shirt, he could see now, was the purest white silk. She filled it nicely. He smiled.
She cocked an eyebrow. So very sure of herself.
He took another sip of the warm Mexican beer and set the bottle on the table. "It would move things along," he said.
She looked down at the sombrero that lay on the pavement beside his chair. Then she raised a hand and made a little gesture at the sight of him, at the serape he wore. "Going native?" she said. "Why is that?"
He shrugged. "When in Los Perdidos..."
A little purse of the lips. "Doesn’t look bad on you."
He looked up at the sun high overhead, then twisted in his chair and brought the serape up over his head and swept it from his shoulders. "Está poniéndose demasiado caliente para esta cosa, sin embargo," he said. Getting too hot for this thing, though. He dropped it to the ground.
She cocked an eyebrow again. Looked mildly impressed. "Pretty good Mex for a gringo," she said.
He eased back in his chair and sat looking her.
A bald man, middle-aged and wrapped in a white apron, hurried up. Matthews guessed him to be not just a waiter, but also the owner of the place. The man nervously worked the apron with his hands and leaned solicitously over the table.
"Señora Rodriguez..." he murmured.
The woman looked up at him like she was noticing a bug. Then she glanced across the table at the bottle in Matthews' hand. "Lo mismo," she said indifferently. The same.
The man nodded and scurried away.
Matthews glanced at the woman's hands resting folded on the table. A ring was there. Third finger, left hand.
"Señora..." he said softly, a musing.
"Si," she said with a little toss of her hair. "Estoy casado." I'm married.
He smiled, a smile that said, So?
The smile she returned was cautionary. A warning. "My husband is not no one," she said. "He is el Comandante Supremo." A tilt of her head to one side, in the direction of the army garrison. "The leader of a pack of many wolves. Hundreds of uniformed killers of men." She leaned back in her chair. Crossed her wrists in her lap again.
"Does that give you pause?"
Cole Matthews looked at her with an honestly quizzical smile. "Why would you think it would concern me in the least?"
The waiter-proprietor was back. He set a glass and an open bottle of beer on the table and stood waiting to see if anything more was expected.
She sat up a little straighter and pulled a five peso note from her shirt pocket, handed it up to him. "Para ambos de nosotros," she said. For both of us. "Y vea que el hombre de guitarra consigue el cambio." And see that the guitar man gets the change. She waved him away.
Matthews glanced over his shoulder at the old fellow still standing and plucking a melancholy tune behind him.
The waiter folded the bill deftly between thumb and forefinger, murmured Si, Señora, si with another obsequious dip of the head, and was gone.
The woman ignored the glass and took a sip of beer straight from the bottle. Giving a glance to the big revolver in the shoulder holster under Matthews' arm, she said, "I'm sure it doesn't. I'm quite sure nothing concerns you much at all."
Cole Matthews lifted his own bottle off the table and took a sip.
She gazed steadily at him. "Which room are you in?" she asked.
He was silent just long enough to make her uncomfortable.
"The rooms don't have numbers," he said. "Upstairs. End of the hallway, overlooking the street."
She took a final sip of her beer, then set the bottle down. It was still almost full. She reached for her hat, positioned it with the same forward tilt of the brim as before, and brought the neck loop tight under her chin. She looked from under the brim at him, into his eyes.
He raised his bottle in a little gesture of fare-thee-well.
"Adios, then," he said.
"Far from that," she said, and came to her feet and gathered up her armful of flowers. She left one bright red Mexican bloom on the table, turned, and was off down the street.
He watched her walk away. Thanks for the beer, he said in his mind.
Chapter Thirteen
- 1 -
He knew that, in all likelihood, he would not have taken up with her had he not learned that she was el Comandante's wife.
Not that she wasn't attractive. She was. With shapely legs and a wonderful ass, firm, full breasts for a woman somewhere just south of forty, and the brownest eyes he had ever seen, she turned heads and stole surrepticious glances. But when it came to women, his options were many, and a roll in the hay with her was basically a stick it to the Mexican Army thing. At least, he admitted to himself, it added greatly to the time he spent with her.
Her name was Guadalupe. (Like the saint, she said with a wicked smile.) Guadalupe Hernández-Rodriguez, and she was not only married to the General de Brigada commanding the district army garrison, but she was the daughter of a wealthy ganadero – rancher – as well. Upper crust all the way.
One strange thing. There was a small, brightly colored tattoo on her right shoulder, a rattlesnake entangled with a rose. The letters of her name, Guadalupe, curved underneath like a smile. Unless you saw her with her shirt off, you never knew it was there.
Her husband was away, she said. Out in the Sonora, leading a company of soldiers on some kind of a big deal hunt for somebody or something out there. He could be gone for weeks, she said, and she came to Matthews' door every afternoon or evening without fail.
She couldn't remember the last time she had had sex with her husband, she said.
He was a lump of clay without feelings, she said.
He was a brute, she said.
She had been so lonely for so long, she said.
I think I am falling in love with you, she said.
We could be happy together, Cole, she said. So very happy, you and I.
If only someone would kill my husband, she said.
- 2 -
They sat at a table on the bricked veranda that fronted the restaurant next to his hotel. She wore a dress this day, an expensive thing of crimson and black that tightly, provocatively wrapped her body; tilted down over her eyes was her black, flamenco-style hat.
She took off the hat and dropped it on a chair. She shook her hair out. "Will you do it?" she asked.
He gazed across the table at her.
"Sí usted?" she said. Will you? She scooped a forkful of rice from the meal of burritos and rice on her plate, brought it up, and held it just short of her mouth. Her voice was plaintive and soft. Her fork was in the air. "It is such a small thing for you, Cole-man. So easy for you. I know it is. Will you do it for me? For the love of me?" She popped the forkful of rice into her mouth and began to chew.
Done with his meal, he pushed his plate to one side. He picked up a linen table napkin and dabbed at the corner of his mouth. He sat looking at her for a moment more, then dropped the napkin down on the table.
&nbs
p; "Por qué no?” he said. Why not?
She smiled. She beamed. She dropped the fork down onto her plate and leaned over the table toward him. She covered his hand with one of hers.
"I knew you would!" she said happily. "Yo lo supe!" I knew it. She gripped his fingers and squeezed them tightly. Her smile was the smile of an evil child.
"Cuándo?" she asked, leaning forward a little more.
"Soon enough."
"Sí," she chirped. "Sí." Her hand slid smoothly off his and she sat back in her chair. The smile trickled away, and there was a new, darker look on her face.
"Qué?" he said. What?
She sat looking at him for a moment more, then she leaned over and lifted a purse off the veranda floor. She rested it in her lap, opened it, and brought out a knife. She laid it on the table and sat looking at him.
Matthews sat looking back at her for a moment, into brown eyes that were deep, dark pools of schemery, then he reached over and picked up the knife.
He turned it in his hand, feeling for heft and weight and balance. He bounced it lightly on his palm, then felt the tip with the pad of one finger. A lady’s blade, pure and simple, a pearl and turquoise handled six-inch stiletto with double edges that curved to a gentle point. Actually, more of a letter opener, he thought. He looked up at her.
“Use that,” she said. “He cut me with it one time. Kill the pig with that.”
Matthews tucked the knife down inside his belt.
She smiled at him, satisfied and content.
~
She left his bed sometime before he awakened, which was her way.
He dressed, opting for the shoulder holster again, and shaved, and made his way down to one of the tables on the veranda to have a cup or two of coffee and take in the activity on the street, which had become his way.
He sat holding his mug by the finger hole and glanced up at the sun, which was getting high in the sky, then adjusted the heft of the shoulder holster. His sombrero lay on the chair beside him.
He brought the mug to his lips and looked across the street to the little plaza, which, except for two boys playing a game in the dirt with some sticks, was empty.
The coffee was strong and good, and thinking, Well, they've figured out beer and coffee, anyway, he took another sip. Off to one side, he saw the ragged guitar beggar, rough sandals on his bare feet, taking up position alongside the restaurant wall. He watched as the man slung his guitar and began to play.