It might have gone on like that for minutes, except that M’Candliss’ foot slipped, throwing him momentarily off balance, and one of Gueterma’s punches hammered through his guard. The blow took him on the temple; a reddish haze seemed to erupt behind his eyes, blurring his vision. He stumbled, and before he could regain his balance, Gueterma hit him twice more in the face and knocked him sprawling.
Dazed, M’Candliss pawed at his eyes and shook his head. When his eyes focused again he saw that Gueterma had wheeled and was scooping up his pearl-handled pistola. He scrambled to his feet just as the Mexican, lips peeled in against his teeth, swung around with the pistol; and M’Candliss knew he wouldn’t be able to reach the man before he fired—
A shot cracked out.
But it did not come from the weapon in Gueterma’s hand; it came from somewhere behind M’Candliss. And for the second time he saw the pearl-handled revolver jump loose, heard Gueterma let out a cry of pain. M’Candliss swiveled his head, looked behind him.
Meckleburg and Sheriff Tucker were standing there, and Meckleburg had his rifle leveled and a tight grin on his face. “That makes it a fair fight again,” he called. “Go on, Cap—finish him off.”
M’Candliss jerked his hand in thanks, turned to face Gueterma again as the Mexican charged. As soon as they came together, M’Candliss stabbed a sharp right into Gueterma’s ribcage; followed it with a left under the wishbone. Gueterma staggered, air spewing from his mouth, his eyes glazing. M’Candliss went after him, slid under a wild retaliatory swing, and broke Gueterma’s nose with a hard right fist. Blood sprayed over both of them, rivuleted down over the Mexican’s Van Dyke beard. Gueterma skidded backward, wobbled, and sprawled on the ground.
But he wasn’t finished yet; he struggled to rise. M’Candliss threw himself on the man, straddled him, and put everything he had left into a sweeping right cross that landed on the point of Gueterma’s bloody beard.
A bone cracked. Gueterma screamed like a woman, and then the fire went out of his eyes and they clouded over. He lay still, breathing stentoriously, blood still leaking from his smashed nose.
M’Candliss got slowly and painfully to his feet. He stood over the unconscious Mexican for several seconds, dragging in deep lungfuls of the hot mountain air. Then, at last, he turned away and went to where Meckleburg and Tucker waited. Inside him now was a kind of peace, born of the knowledge that this battle had been won and that the people of Arizona would suffer no more at the hands of Frederico Gueterma and his bandito horde.
Chapter Fifteen
With the outlaws vanquished, their Galiuro fortress overrun by two companies of Territorial Rangers, and their leader in a well-guarded cell in the Territorial prison at Yuma awaiting extradition to Mexico, the international conference in Prescott was almost an anticlimax. But it was the kind of anticlimax M’Candliss was proud to be a part of, and one that he would have liked to see happen more often.
The U.S. and Mexican delegates arrived a couple of days after the fight at Saddleback Gorge, a little worse for wear but exceedingly pleased that their mission was no longer such a grim one. Their train had had to reverse all the way to Lordsburg, then re-route along a northern spur and drop down to Prescott via the Painted Desert and Flagstaff. After General Porfirio Diaz learned what had happened via telegraph, he sent another emissary immediately. Governor Shannon and Clement Holmes, who had recovered from his grippe without any serious complications, were never more pontifical. And the meeting became a good-will exchange which did much to further the closeness of the two countries.
M’Candliss was lauded for his bravery, as were Meckleburg and Tucker and the posse from Adobe Junction. Flynn, who was also present, having gone to Prescott from the raid on the bandito fortress, also came in for his share of praise. But he was mightily disappointed that he hadn’t been able to take part in the skirmish at Saddleback Gorge, and vowed that the next time there was a fight, he intended to be right in the middle of it, come hell or high water.
Isabella Ortiz was there as well. Despite her earlier avowal to unseat Diaz, no animosity was shown by either her or the new emissary from Mexico City. An unwritten truce had been posted, although M’Candliss knew that she would continue to do everything in her power to see that her people’s lot was bettered—through peaceful means.
As for Ramon Esteban, whose revolucionarios still roamed the Mexican state of Chihuahua, the subject was not discussed at the conference. Esteban, as long as he remained on his own side of the border, was no concern of the United States. By tacit agreement, it was accepted that the internal problems of Mexico would be dealt with without outside interference.
On the last night of the conference, there was a farewell party—a final gathering of dignitaries and concerned individuals who would be returning to their various homes in the two nations come morning. The celebration lasted far into the night, with Governor Shannon giving a speech that had only been out-oratoried by his inaugural address, and the Mexican emissary following with one of similar eloquence, before the participants devoted themselves to food and liquor, music and dancing.
The party was the first opportunity M’Candliss had to speak to Isabella privately; the conference had kept them both too busy for socializing. They ate together, danced together, and later on they slipped out and went for a walk together in the moonlight.
“What will you do now, Isabella?” he asked her, even though he knew the answer. “Will you return to Mexico?”
“Yes, I must,” she said. “I must do whatever I can to help my people.”
“By rejoining Esteban and his guerillas?”
She was silent for a time. “I do not know, Capitan,” she said gravely. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“You saw how much was accomplished at the conference. There’s more to be gained at the bargaining table than with guns.”
“Once I would have scorned such an idea.”
“And now?”
“I am willing to consider it.”
“Good. I think you’ll make the right decision, Isabella.”
“I can only hope that God grants me the wisdom.”
They walked in silence for a time. M’Candliss was acutely aware of her beauty—hers, not the similarities to Rachel’s—and inside him there was a small, dull ache of loneliness. That ache had been there ever since the death of his wife, and perhaps it would always be there, because there were few women whom he could love and who could love him. His wife had been one. And Isabella Ortiz, perhaps, was another. But they were of different worlds, if not of different ideals. In another time, another place, they might have courted and been married and produced fine children. That time was not now—but it might come some day.
He said these things to her later, after he had walked her back to her hotel. He said them on impulse, and felt foolish afterward, but Isabella seemed moved by them, as if similar thoughts had been on her own mind. Her eyes were soft as she looked at him, and she touched his cheek with gentle fingers.
“Yes,” she said, “perhaps some day, my Capitan. It is something for both of us to dream about, verdad?”
He nodded. “Something to dream about,” he said.
Her eyes probed his for a long moment. Then she stepped close and kissed him—One of the sweetest kisses M’Candliss had ever known.
“Vaya con Dios,” she said then.
“You too. Go with God, Isabella.”
She smiled, touched his cheek again. “Hasta luego, mi Capitan,” she said softly, and a moment later she was gone inside her room.
“Till we meet again,” M’Candliss murmured. And he knew that they would meet again, some day, and that that meeting would be a momentous one for both of them.
If people dreamed long enough and hard enough about such things as peace and freedom and love, their dreams were bound to come true...
A Preview of GRAVE MEN
Chapter One
Priest snapped awake in his seat, reaching for his knife. He had a mouth full of bl
ood from biting his tongue, and the taste only reminded him of murder. In the nightmare he’d been tied to the chair next to his mother’s corpse again, watching his twelve-year-old sister shoot it out with Spider Rafe.
They still got bad sometimes, the dreams, but not so often anymore. Since he’d cut back on his liquor, he could almost get a full night’s sleep, but these siestas always brought the ugly memories on. Usually he could fight through them and didn’t wake up with his heart squeezing through his ribs. This was different. Maybe the sawdust in the air drew him back, or the clouds of bluebottle flies swimming after the dogs in the alley. Maybe he just missed his sister.
The burning high August winds continued to beat at the town, laying down a heavy hand of heat that became a fist at around two in the afternoon, clenching until you wanted to throw yourself in the river.
Priest tried to shrug his thoughts off. He got the feeling that somebody was saying his name close by. Resheathing the blade, he looked to the back of the shop, wondering what might be rushing toward him now, and checked to see if it had already come through the back door. Shadows twined among the empty shelves and he heard his name again, this time in his father’s voice.
It got like that on occasion. He stared out through the open front door and caught sight of Chicorah, oldest son of Sondeyka, one of the Apache subchiefs, coming up main street with three of his braves, bringing Gramps back home again.
Now he could hear the stamp of horses, and the murmurs of Gramps as the old man argued with the Apaches in their own tongue, getting nowhere with them. Gramps, as usual when he came back from one of these journeys, wore a grimace of general disdain and spoke only Apache. Chicorah kept up his noncommittal grin, but Gramps scowled, almost pouting, becoming whiter by the minute.
Despite the treaties, there were men in Patience who’d draw down on any Apache who dared jump the rez and enter town. Priest checked the boardwalks and nearby rooftops. Nobody had noticed yet. He glanced around the store and figured he might as well get it over with, he’d just been waiting for something to happen anyway. He stepped outside.
One of Chicorah’s men, Delgadito, was a Chevelon Creek Mescalero, and the other two bucks appeared to be Mimbrenos. Once the Chiracahuas would have attacked the other Apache clans as soon as settlers, but Sondeyka had adapted better than most of the chiefs before him. Delgadito had been a scout for the army, and he still carried a Burnside .54 carbine. The others had their Winchesters laid against the pommels of their saddles, pointed straight up. You stuck a couple thousand Apaches together from the six main tribes and you couldn’t tell what kind of bonds were being forged up there on White Mountain, who might be starving and who was still singing to the ghost of Cochise.
Gramps stank of mescal, but the old man’s eyes were clear. He seemed angry, but resigned to the fact that they were giving him back to Priest again. He wore a breechcloth and a buckskin shirt much too large for his thin, loose-skinned frame, and his sporadic month-long forays into San Carlos had given him a red-mud-colored, leathery look. Nobody knew why Sondeyka’s people had taken such a shine to Gramps, but at least they hadn’t killed the crazy coot so far.
Chicorah kept his hair even longer than most Apaches, curled and looped in fanciful waves the way Hickok wore his, as an open invitation for anyone man enough to try to scalp him. Fifteen or twenty years ago, when Mangas Coloradas and Cochise led Apacheria, an Indian scalp had been worth two hundred dollars. Ranchers who’d fallen on hard times used to go after Mex scalps just as quickly. Mexicans were farmers tied to their land, easy to find, and nobody could really tell the difference anyway.
Chicorah inspected Priest calmly. “You want blood.”
“I just had a nightmare,” Priest said. “Nothing personal.”
Chicorah knew some of the troubles that ran around inside Priest’s skin, and he nodded sagely. “You have a store.”
So he was going to get into it. Priest steeled himself as best he could, even though it wouldn’t work with Chicorah. “Yes.”
“An empty store.”
“That’s true, for the moment. I just finished putting the shelves in today.”
Actually, most of them had been done for ten days, but he’d gotten the last countertop sanded this morning. He’d taken it slow, wanting to stay busy, but there wasn’t any point to it now. Lamarr had been gone three weeks. That meant he’d gambled most of the goods money away and whored and drunk the rest of it.
Down the street, buckboards and carriages bustled by. Priest heard women laughing, and boys yelling behind the livery. The tension kept growing, and he couldn’t be sure if it was only within him as usual, or if it had finally bled to the outside. Nobody was looking this way.
“It’ll be the largest general store in town, where you can find anything you need,” he said. The words came to an abrupt end in his throat and stayed there.
Contemplating this, the four Apaches and Gramps all swung back a bit in their saddles as they studied the sign above. Their gazes glided over the plate-glass front window and mounds of sawdust drifting in the dirt. Priest tried not to sigh. Chicorah pulled a cigar out of his shirt, one of a handful he’d gotten from the territorial government men who brought the beef up to the rez. He sniffed at the tobacco, struck a match, and lit it.
Delgadito went a little further, showing he knew the score and wasn’t about to let Priest waste their time with any kind of deception. He actually pinched his chin and squinted as if thinking hard. “Where are the many goods that will fill this large place? All those shelves and counters and tables?”
“My partner’s bringing them down from Haloosa Creek by wagon tomorrow.”
“The big black?”
“That’s right. Lamarr.”
Beaming now, Delgadito was thinking of Lamarr fondly. Delgadito had once wrestled Lamarr in White Canyon and lost, and ever since he’d sort of loved him for it. You could never tell with Apaches. Step across their trail by accident and they’d hang you upside-down over a bonfire; or you could kill seventeen of them while defending a water hole and they’d call you a friend for life.
“If you gave the big black your money, it is because you did not want it.”
That, too, was true in its own fashion, but Priest kept silent.
Gramps got off the sorrel, taking nothing tied to the horse, including the Springfield in the saddle boot. He came over to Priest and stood there with his head hanging. The others got down from their horses as well, slowly, playing it out. They were getting a real kick out of this, the Mimbrenos braves starting to chuckle a little. Priest kept checking the street, watching a few passing coaches, the odd glances of lone riders, but nobody concerned enough to stop.
Chicorah stepped up close and stared at Priest for a while, leaning forward so they could get deep into each other’s face. The Apache kept grinning beneath his natural fury, but mostly there was only disappointment.
He eventually turned to Delgadito, who dropped the barrel of his Burnside, aiming low. Priest frowned through it all. Delgadito almost seemed embarrassed, shocked that he was doing what he was doing. This wasn’t his way. He walked until he was in the doorway of the shop, drew down on the lamp beside the chair, and pulled the trigger. Kerosene splashed everywhere against the finely sanded pine shelving.
Chicorah puffed on his cigar one more time, letting Priest know what was coming. Giving him plenty of time to react if he really wanted to.
Priest just stood there, his shoulder muscles relaxing for the first time in weeks. Chicorah tossed his cigar down and they all stood back and watched the place go up.
Flames erupted and the front window fractured and blew out in less than a minute. Priest didn’t work glass very well, but he had thought he’d done better than this. Now he saw how mistaken he was. Anybody could tell what a rough-shod job he’d done.
The fire spilled higher, with spirals of smoke twirling in the wind. Some of the pine was so fresh he could smell the bubbling sap. The heated air caused the sawdust at th
eir feet to first course one way and then the other.
For Chicorah to burn a mercantile store—even an empty one—while Apaches died up in San Carlos waiting for the government agents to deliver pathetic amounts of beef and blankets, showed just how far out on the edge he was. No wonder he and Gramps got along so well.
“You have a larger fate than this,” Chicorah said. “Your mother and father need no food.”
Priest made a strangled noise like he’d taken a whip across the eyes.
It was almost going a step too far, and Chicorah seemed to realize it. He braced himself, and Delgadito and the other two bucks kept their eyes on Priest’s blade. Even Gramps lifted his chin.
Flames warmed Priest’s back and the smoke billowed around him as if something inside of himself were being burned out. Chicorah was too polite to call Priest a coward, but the Apache had just come damn close. Honor meant more now than ever before, as it was stolen inch by inch along with everything else.
Priest tried to match Chicorah’s smile but knew he looked insane doing it. His breath came in bites, and he heard his father say his name again. He drew his lips together into a bloodless, wrinkled line. Then he let it pass, as he did most things.
Chicorah put his hand on Priest’s shoulder and said, “We have all made too many bad mistakes these last few years. It is time for you to stop making yours.”
They all remounted, and Priest and Gramps watched the horses trot up the street, in no hurry at all, nobody giving them a backward glance. Chicorah didn’t like cigars anyway, and tossed his into the dust.
The fire soon swallowed the store, rising in gushes to surge at the sign above: MCCLAREN & RUSSELL. Lamarr had never much liked the sign, arguing that his name should go up top, what with him being the first Negro to own even half a shop in Patience. It had taken Priest a week to properly carve the letters and seal the wood. Flames chewed at the words until the paint bubbled and spit down into the street. A lot of people had gathered around to watch as the roof started to cave in.
Border Fever Page 13
