Instantly I rolled over and three bullets struck into the brush or the log near which I’d been lying. Quickly I took aim at the rider at the gate. Just as he leaned over to pull the pin, I squeezed off my shot, the bullet directed at the small of his back right above the cantle of the saddle.
The moment I fired, I dropped the rifle and, picking up the shotgun, fired one barrel at the rider nearest the fire.
He raised up in his stirrup, looked right at me although I was deep in the brush, and then, as his horse wheeled, he toppled from the saddle and fell at the fire’s edge.
They were gone, vanished! Two men lay on the ground, one near the fire, the other some distance away, where he had fallen from his running horse. Swiftly I reloaded my rifle, then the empty barrel of the shotgun.
All was quiet. A stick fell in the fire, and sparks flew up.
The horse of the man near the fire walked slowly away.
Moving carefully, I shifted my position to have a better view of the corral and the fire. I could see along both sides of the corral for most of the way, but some of the riders were grouped just beyond the end of it farthest from me. As the ground fell away there, I could not see them, although I could detect occasional movement. Nor did I dare fire, for the horses were milling about. Had they been loose in our pasture, the outlaws would have been driving them, a mile away by now.
Slowly the moments passed. I lay quiet, sweating, straining my ears for any sound. Some of them were pinned down at the end of the corral, and to emerge would bring them within sight, but where were the others?
The sun was going down. It would soon be dusk, and then dark. They had only to wait. Uneasily I glanced over my shoulder. It was already growing dark under the trees. I saw nothing, heard nothing.
When I looked back, the man near the fire had moved. So he was not dead then, only wounded.
Again I looked over my shoulder, searching the trees and brush for some movement. There was nothing.
The wounded man at the fire had put out a hand, and digging his fingers into the earth, was trying to pull himself along the ground. His rifle had fallen from his hand when he was shot and lay in plain sight.
Where were Jacob and Monte? How far could our shots be heard? Over a mile, I assumed, but could not be sure. I simply did not know, and so much depended on the terrain, the vegetation, and the general surroundings. I dried my sweaty palms on my shirtfront, and drawing my spare pistol, I placed it on a rock near my hand. The other was in my waistband.
Again I checked all around me.…Nothing. The wounded man had crawled several feet. My eyes swept the trees. Our horses had bunched at my end of the corral, away from the outlaws.
How many were down there? Three? Four? Brush crackled behind me, and two men burst out not thirty feet away. Whipping around at the first sound, I fired the shotgun point-blank at the nearest man; then, forgetting the other barrel, I caught up the pistol and shot into the next man.
A bullet burned my ear, another plunked into the earth beside me, and then I felt a sharp impact on my leg. I fired again, and that man went down. He got up, staggered a few steps, and fell again.
At that moment there was a burst of firing from out in front, then a second pounding of gunfire, and silence.
The fire smoldered, almost out. Slow smoke arose from the coals. The wounded man was gone.
A dark spot in the dust near the fire showed where he had bled, and there were drops of blood further along. When I was attacked from behind, he had chosen the moment to stagger away. His tracks were visible from where I lay.
The man hit with the shotgun slugs was dead; the other one was alive and conscious, his eyes wide open. “You goin’ to kill me?” he asked, his voice almost casual.
“You were trying to kill me,” I said, reloading the shotgun.
“You had us in a bind. We didn’t know where you was.”
“When a man sets out to be a thief, he sets himself up in a shooting gallery. He’s any man’s target.
“I never saw so many damn fools,” I added. “Men risking their lives for so little. If you stole all those horses, with today’s market there wouldn’t be enough left for one good night in a saloon. Any man who would risk his life or prison for so little has got to be soft in the head. At least two men are dead, two who will never see another sunrise, eat another meal, or know another woman, and for what?”
“I don’t have to stand for no preachin’.”
“Like hell you don’t! You have to stand for whatever you get! You’ve got no more choice than a rabbit.”
A call came from the fire. “Johannes?”
“Up here,” I said. “I’ve got me a pigeon. He’s lookin’ toward his rifle now, wondering if he should chance it. I may let him try.”
They came up the hill then, and through the brush. Only it was not just Monte and Jacob. Kelso was there, and two other men, two strangers.
“Looks like you had you a time,” Monte said. “Your pa couldn’t have done better.”
Chapter 40
DURING OUR EARLY years in Los Angeles, with a population not exceeding three thousand persons, there was an average of fifty to sixty killings per year; yet when we moved our horses to Miss Nesselrode’s rancho, there was no trouble. Even the black stallion behaved himself, shying only slightly when, riding beside him, I reached over and put a hand on his back.
The ranch was a quiet place with an old adobe house standing under the shade of huge old sycamores, and with a good view back toward Los Angeles.
On the morning after the delivery of the horses, Miss Nesselrode was busy with other things, so it was I who opened the shop and laid out the newspapers just in from Wilmington on the morning stage.
The streets were virtually empty, as I had come early to the shop. Down along Commercial Street, only one man was visible, a tall man, wearing an apron, who was sweeping the boardwalk. I had just taken a book from the shelf and was settling down to read when the door darkened and I glanced up to see the man whom we had seen watching the shop from across the street.
He was a man of what we then called middle age, a neatly dressed man in a gray suit and a narrow-brimmed hat. Nodding a greeting, he asked if we had a Boston newspaper he might see.
“It is ten days old, which is very up-to-the-minute news for us.”
“For me, also.” He smiled, but his gray eyes were sharp, penetrating. “You have a nice shop. Are you the owner?”
He was leading up to something, and I was wary, yet something else disturbed me also. There was a faint suggestion of an accent in his voice, something vaguely familiar.
“Mind if I sit down? This is a reading room, is it not?”
“Of course.” Opening a box of books, I began taking from it several volumes by Bulwer-Lytton and a collection of tales by Poe. I glanced at it again, as he had been a friend of my father’s and a man whom I had known slightly.
He saw the name. “Is that Edgar Allan Poe? He has become very popular in Europe, suddenly.”
“These are the first of his books we’ve had. My father knew him, and I have met him.”
“He died, I think. A few years ago.”
“I had not heard.” For a moment I straightened up. Another thread to the past, gone, lost forever. “He was a soldier once, so my father said. For as much as two years, I believe, and a sergeant.”
He glanced at me. “Surely you did not know him here?”
“We lived in the East then. My father said that as a boy Poe was a noted swimmer, and thought of swimming the English Channel.”
“Well for him he did not try. Nobody could swim the channel! That’s preposterous!”
He changed the subject. “You have a nice shop. Is it yours?” It was the question I had avoided.
“It belongs to Miss Nesselrode.”
“Nesselrode? An interesting name. Have you known her long?”
“Long enough. She’s a fine woman.”
“I do not doubt it, but I am curious. The name is not commo
n, you know. I have seen her, I think. A tall, attractive young woman?”
“Yes.”
“Most women of her age are married,” he commented.
The comment deserved no reply. He was seeming to read his paper, making idle conversation the while. Yet he was prying, he was seeking for something, and it seemed to be about her. It occurred to me suddenly that she was no longer such a young woman, yet she seemed ageless. I had never thought of the passing years affecting her in any way at all.
“I wonder”—he spoke casually—“how she came by the name?”
“As most of us do, I presume.” I spoke rather brusquely. “As you, no doubt, got yours.” Straightening up from my work, I said, “When it comes to that, I do not believe we have met. I am Johannes Verne.”
“I am Alexis Murchison.”
An interesting name. The Murchison would be English, no doubt, and the Alexis? It could be Russian.
He shook out his paper, settled himself as if to read.
“You are not a cattle buyer. Is it horses in which you are interested?”
“We have many horses in Russia.”
“You are from Russia, then? Not England?” Was that the accent I detected? But where could I have heard it before?
He was irritated. “Does it matter?”
“Not at all. We have had Russians in California from the beginning. I believe they had thoughts of claiming the area at one time.
“As to the name, I was simply curious, as you were. California is welcoming many strangers these days. Some come for gold, the wise ones for land, and others are simply buying or selling. Of course,” I added, “others are merely prospecting.”
“I am a traveler. The name Nesselrode intrigued me. It is uncommon.”
“So you said. I knew some Nesselrodes back east when I was a child. Quite a large family. If the name interests you, I believe I could provide their address, in Philadelphia. He is a painter, I believe, and his wife taught ballet, when there was anyone to teach.”
He folded the newspaper and put it down. “Thank you very much.”
“Not at all,” I replied. “When you want to know anything, please feel free to ask.”
He gave me a look that had a whip in it, but I smiled and he went out, his back very stiff, and when he closed the door, it was with an emphatic bang.
Feeling pleased with myself, I returned to putting books on the shelves. The streets were growing busy now, people coming and going about their trading and shopping.
That accent, now. Russian, was it? Where had I known any Russians? I hadn’t.
The thought returned. Who was Miss Nesselrode? Was his interest romantic? Her age…It gave me a sharp feeling of discomfort to realize she was not what people called a young woman any longer. Yet she was as slender and graceful as always, unchanged so far as I could see.
She came in suddenly, yet not so suddenly, for I had been hearing the distinctive click of her heels on the walk.
She closed the door behind her and glanced around, then looked at me with sudden awareness. “Hannes? What is it?”
“There was a man here…the one we saw across the street. I think he was trying to find out about you. I do not believe his interest was romantic, although I could be wrong.”
She smiled beautifully. “Romantic? I am afraid it is late for that.”
“Is it ever?” I paused. “His name was Alexis Murchison.”
She was drawing off her gloves. There was a moment of stillness.
“No,” she was thinking aloud, “it cannot be. Not after all this time.” She came through the gate in the railing that divided her desk and the shelves from the reading room, where there were easy chairs and a table. “What did you tell him?”
“What could I tell him? That you are a beautiful woman. That you own the shop. What else do I know?”
She was amused. “I haven’t told you very much, have I?”
“I do know a little more than before he came in,” I commented, “because he had a very slight accent. I was puzzled as to where I’d heard it before.” I glanced at her. “You are Russian, are you not?”
“I was once, a very long time ago. Now I am an American. A Californian.”
“But you were a Russian.”
“When I think back now, it seems another world, another life, and almost another person.”
“You will go back?”
“I cannot. You see, Hannes, I was sent to Siberia, and I escaped. There were nine of us who started and only three who made it. I was a young girl when we escaped to China. My brother was killed in Siberia before we even got away, another died of hardships, and a third was killed in Mongolia by men who robbed us. I am the last of my family, and there is nothing to which to return. And I would be arrested.”
She looked into the sunlit street, watching an old carreta rolling past. “When I reached China, I was taken in by an English family and earned my keep teaching French to their children. When I got older, I hired out as a governess. I saved my money, determined to come to America.
“I have been poor, Hannes, and I do not wish to be poor again. I work, I plan, I save.”
We sat for a long time watching the people passing, and then she said, “We were so young, Hannes, and so very naive! We wished to change everything! I was too young to take part, but I listened to my brothers and their friends. They were excited. They were filled with enthusiasm. They wanted to reform their government. They wished it to be more liberal, and to follow the path of England and France.
“My mother was English, you see, and we had spent vacations in England. We pitied our serfs and we thought our government too rigid, but we were naive, and we had no idea how deeply embedded in Russian nature were the ideas we wished to change!
“My brothers belonged to a secret society called the Union of Welfare, which had been organized among the Semonovsky Guards officers, but it came to nothing and disbanded in 1821. My oldest brother had belonged. He was transferred to Tulchin in the Ukraine, and Colonel Paul Pestel was also located there. They organized what was called the Southern Society.
“When Alexander I died, they planned a revolt, but they were idealistic dreamers, they had no contact with the troops who they believed would join them.
“It was called the Decembrist Revolt and it was put down quickly and harshly. Five men were hung, including Pestel, and of the 121 men tried for treason, 109 were under thirty-five. Some were sentenced to hard labor, some sent to Siberia.”
“But you were a young girl!”
“It made no difference. In Russia if someone in your family was involved, it was taken for granted you all were. We were sent to Siberia and we learned through sources friendly to us that we were to be eliminated. It was then we chose to escape.”
“And now?”
“I could not go back. We are still considered enemies, and the fact that some of us escaped has compounded the evil.”
“Would they come back here? Would they try to get you back?”
She hesitated, biting her lip. “I do not think so. I was not that important. Still, I do not know. It would depend on the situation there. If by bringing one of us back to trial they could embarrass someone politically, it might be.
“You see, there were others of our family, very distant relatives but of the same name, who were very active. Count Nesselrode was at the Congress of Vienna. He was very active in the government.”
“You must be careful.”
She studied me for a moment. “Do you think of Don Isidro?”
“He is never far from my mind, but…there are other things.” I stood up suddenly. “I am restless for the desert.”
“But what is out there for you, Hannes? Beauty, of course, but what else?”
“I don’t know.” I frowned. “Maybe that’s the trouble, I just don’t know.” I walked across to the window, then turned to face her. “There’s something out there for me, something unfinished, something I must do.
“All of this”—I wa
ved a hand—“I can feel it happening, it’s in the air. A man could become rich and successful here, but is that what I want? Or is there something else? Something my father and mother found?”
“Are you sure? Did they find anything? Or were they simply escaping from here? They had happiness with each other…we know that, but was there anything else?”
I remembered that time in the desert when Peg-Leg had found me, so long ago now. I tried to remember if I had been frightened, but could not remember fear. I had been in trouble, but I had known what I had to do, and was trying. I might even have made it.
No…no, I could not have made it. Peg-Leg had saved my life. I would have died out there, for there were too many miles and I had too little knowledge of the desert.
What was drawing me back? The house by the springs? The desert itself?
“Someone is coming,” Miss Nesselrode said suddenly. “Be careful!”
Stepping away from the window, I turned to face the door. It opened tentatively and a small boy peered in, a small boy with very large dark eyes and a very large straw hat. He glanced quickly from Miss Nesselrode to me, then thrust a folded paper at me and ducked out the door before I could speak.
The handwriting was familiar, the note brief:
Can you come? I need you now, desperately!
Meghan
Passing the note to Miss Nesselrode for explanation, I went out the door.
Her home was but a short distance. I could be there in minutes.
Chapter 41
AN OBVIOUSLY FRIGHTENED maid opened the door for me. “Oh, señor! Come quickly! But be careful!”
She pointed the way, and I crossed the patio to the galería, pausing in the doorway.
Meghan was facing me, and also facing a man whose back was toward me. There was no need for him to turn for me to know him. It was Rad Huber.
“Good morning, Meghan. I am sorry to be late.” I moved on into the room, and as he turned toward me, I said, “It has been a long time, Rad.”
He would outweigh me by forty pounds and was at least an inch taller. There was brutal power in his physique and in his features as well, but there was something else…A faint shadow of weakness, perhaps? A sense of something incomplete, unfinished?
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