A man at the other end of the bar muttered in the local Indian dialect.
“Too many Norteamericanos in here—why can’t these gringos stay on their own side of the river?”
Some of the other Mexicans laughed; but softly, for there were just a few of them in this particular cantina, and besides the particular group of Norteamericanos their compadre had been referring to were hardly the kind of men one wanted to get on the wrong side of.
The group of counter-guerillas had ridden in only about an hour ago, and now occupied several of the tables at one side of the room. They complained of enormous thirst, and the room was filled with the noise of their laughter and loud boasting in their own language.
These were the same men who had been organized into groups by Colonel Dupin and paid well by Bazaine. Now that all but the last shipload of Frenchmen had left Mexico, their wages consisted of occasional payments in gold or silver from the severely-depleted treasury in Mexico City, and whatever else they could pick up in the way of booty from the haciendas or villages of suspected Juarista supporters. Hard looking, gun-hung men, their beards making them look even more dangerous, they stayed on in Mexico because the risks they took here were considerably less than the risk of going back to the United States, and the excuse of fighting a war gave them license to rob and plunder almost as they pleased. Most of the soldiers of fortune who had come to Mexico in droves after the war, attracted by the high pay and the prospect of being on the winning side for a change had already returned when the tide of war had changed in Juarez’s favor. Those that remained were the dregs—outlaws, men who had ridden with Quantrill’s raiders and enjoyed killing, deserters from the Union army who had nowhere else to go.
The gray-tunicked counter-guerillas were good men to stay clear of, but they had also been giving the small band of guerilleros that Steve rode with a lot of trouble recently. Having nothing to lose, these bearded killers took more risks than any troop of Imperialist soldiers would have dared—and did more damage. They were an annoyance—and more than that, a hindrance to the great, sprawling army that advanced towards Puebla. Therefore, they had, somehow, to be eliminated.
Steve drained the bitter-tasting beer in his glass and slid it across the bar. “Better make it two more,” he told the pock-faced bartender. “Tonight I have a great thirst.” He pretended not to catch the rather surprised look the man exchanged with the small group of Mexicans at the end of the bar. So this gringo spoke their language, did he? And quite well too, so they had better be careful what they said. He did not look like the kind of man who would take to insults kindly, this hard-faced, blue-eyed Norteamericano.
The bartender brought the two bottles of beer in rather a hurry, and Steve counted out his change carefully, giving the impression that he was short of money.
“Hey—you’re an American too, ain’t you? How come you speak their damn lingo so well?”
The American who had just come up to lounge against the bar next to Steve had short-cropped red hair and enormous handlebar mustaches.
“Just curious,” he said hastily when he met the hard blue eyes that seemed to narrow slightly as they bored into his. “I bin here about a year myself and still don’t know more than a few words, mostly for the things I want most!” He gave a coarse, meaningful laugh, but his eyes were still inquisitive.
Steve shrugged shortly, sipping his beer. “I had plenty of time to learn it,” he growled. “Didn’t have a choice.” He let his glance at the other man become openly suspicious. “Why’d you want to know?”
“Hell, no particular reason, I guess! Just tryin’ to start up a conversation with a fellow American. A man can get real homesick for the sound of his own language, sometimes.”
“I guess. Ain’t had the chance to speak it too much recently.”
Steve kept his answers short, slightly sullen, as if he was determined to remain suspicious. He finished both bottles of beer and grudgingly allowed the man to buy him a drink.
His name was Cole, and he was from Texas. He said that after the war he had “just drifted over here” and had ended up joining the counter-guerillas for the money. Steve, acting as if the liquor was just beginning to get to him, admitted that he was a Californian.
“My folks came down the Oregon trail from Missouri, though. One of the earliest wagon trains, my old man use to boast. They were dirt farmers in Missouri and they stayed dirt farmers in Oregon. But me—I got the hankerin’ to see California—an’ after that, the rest of the world. Shit!” he grimaced. “Shoulda known better!”
“I did all of my travellin’ in the States, with Quantrill—things seemed awful dull after that—that’s why I decided to join up with a couple of my friends and get mixed up in this shootin’ war.”
Expansively, he bought Steve another drink and took him back to one of the tables to meet some of his friends.
Predictably, their conversation seemed to center around wars and women. The presence of a stranger in their midst who was also an American seemed to make a few of them curious, although with their own strange code they didn’t press him too much. It just seemed natural, after a few more drinks, for him to admit that he hadn’t seen much of the Civil War since he had deserted the Union army in ’62.
“Got in a fight, one time—how was I to know he was an officer? He wasn’t in no uniform, an’ he was carryin’ a gun. Anyhow, after that I didn’t have no choice but to drift.”
“Hey listen, you shoulda joined our side! We were doin’ some real fightin’ then, weren’t we boys?” The laughter was boisterous, but not derisive.
Steve let his words slur very slightly. “I didn’t have too much sense, back then. Got back to San Francisco to celebrate missin’ the war and ended up on a damn ship…”
“You mean you were shanghaied? Happened to a friend of mine once, an’ he never did come back home. How’d you end up here?”
Steve let his eyes travel around the circle of bearded faces as if he was making up his mind whether he could trust them or not, and then he shrugged.
“Seems like I was just born to do the wrong thing! I jumped ship at Vera Cruz an’ managed to hide out until she sailed. An’ then I find that the pretty little Pepita I was shacked up with had a jealous husband, an’ he didn’t like gringos particularly. So—” he gave a wry, half-angry grin “—so I got myself thrown in jail, an’ they left me there to rot. Any of you fellers been in a Mex jail? I didn’t believe they still had dungeons until they put me in one. Some of those cells fill halfway up with water when the tide comes up—an’ they make you work like a dog for the slops they feed you. But I sure learned the language!”
“You bust out?”
Steve gave them all a wary look. “Hey—you fellers kinda work for the government, don’t you? I tell you, only way anyone’s gonna get me back in that jail is feet first, an’ I ain’t so slow with a gun that I won’t take some company with me!”
“Simmer down, buddy—ain’t nobody here going to turn you in. I’ll bet most of us here have seen the inside of a few jails ourselves, huh?”
The speaker, a big man with enormously strong shoulders winked reassuringly at Steve, and pushed a bottle across the table. “Here, have another snort. You oughta think about joining up with us, if you’re at loose ends.”
“Thanks, but I’m beginning to feel like I’m bad luck, even to myself. Guess I’m gonna try and make my way back to California.”
“Better watch out for them Juaristas along the way then! Them bastards even got an army pointed this way.”
Still pretending to be half-drunk, Steve listened as the liquor loosened the tongues of his companions and they began to discuss the war; their comments about the Imperial troops not only contemptuous but verging on being insulting.
“At least the French were fighters, an’ they knew what they was doing. It was them kept that Juarez in his place.”
“Only good thing I can remember about bein’ attached to Mejia’s army was the women—the little sold
aderas.” The big man who had spoken began to chuckle, his eyes crinkled with nostalgia.
“I recall when me an’ a couple of my buddies had our own little gal—an’ she weren’t no ordinary Mex whore either. Purtiest thing you ever did see—half French an’ half American, with hair like polished copper. Tom Beal took her off some French colonel—you remember Tom?”
“Heard he got killed in San Luis.”
“She killed him. Put a knife in his gullet, slick as a whistle. I taught her to use that knife, too.” Matt Cooper gave a reminiscent chuckle and Steve, every muscle in his body rigid, the rage almost blinding him to all reason, used every ounce of willpower he possessed to remain seated, his body slouched back in the chair. If he moved, he would kill Matt Cooper.
Unaware of the effect his words had caused, Cooper was going on with his story, bottle clutched in his hairy fist.
“Not that Tom didn’t deserve to get hisself killed. Funny guy, Tom. Mean and cold, and a deadly fighter. Hated women, in a way. Useta get a real kick out of hurtin’ them. Pecos and I, we kept him from hurtin’ our gal too bad, when we was around, but that day we had just got in town and while we was getting ourselves drunk, Beal took her down to some cantina—he useta make her whore for him when he needed money, see? Only this time he went too far, way I heard it later. Started to strip the clothes off her, right in front of that whole roomful of grinning apes—feller I knew said it was like a slave auction—he was goin’ to sell her to the highest bidder. Only she went crazy all of a sudden and let him have it with the knife…”
“You ever hear what happened to her?”
Cooper shrugged, his huge shoulders moving bearlike under his tight jacket.
“That was when the French were runnin’ everything back there. We went down to the guardhouse after we’d sobered up, Pecos and I, and all that sergeant would do was shrug his shoulders. Told us some French officer came in while they was questioning her, and took her off with him to Mexico City. But I bet she fell right on her feet there, just like a little cat. She sure was something!”
Steve kept looking at the buttons on Matt Cooper’s open tunic, planning just where he’d put his knife in. His mind had begun to function again, but the cold rage he’d felt when the big man started on his rambling discourse still remained, making his resolve implacable. Now that he knew where the counter-guerillas were going he ought to get out himself and plan a little surprise for them. But first he was going to kill Cooper.
It was a good thing they thought he was drunk, and were going on with their own conversation. He could feel the fury in himself, coiled like a rattler ready to strike, in the pit of his stomach. So that was part of her story she hadn’t told him. He remembered her saying, that first night, “I’ve killed a man, Steve,” but she hadn’t told him who the man was, or why. How much more had she kept hidden from him behind those slanted green eyes of hers? Ginny—his sunhaired darling, with her softly parting thighs, her seductive, temptress mouth opening under his kisses—how many men had experienced the same delights that he had? She had killed one of them, driven to God knows what depths of desperation and degradation; and another sat across the same table from him, swilling his liquor like the swine he looked to be. Had they vanquished her stubborn spirit, dragged her spitfire pride in the dust, broken her just as he had been broken in that wretched prison? He had never felt such a fierce, frantic desire to kill as he did at this moment, even though the rational, thinking part of his mind told him coldly to wait—the time would come.
It was easy to pretend drunkenness when he finally stumbled away from the table, chair scraping noisily as he did. They were all more than a little drunk by now and hardly noticed his weaving departure. Only Cole called after him, his voice a raucous bellow.
“Hey, Steve! You decide to join us, remember we ride out in the morning!”
He muttered something unintelligible and found himself in the coolness of the night air outside; sucking in great gulps of it, as if he’d been holding his breath a long time.
PART SEVEN
“La Guerra”
50
On March 12, 1867, the last shipload of French soldiers left Vera Cruz harbor, and on the same day Steve Morgan came back to the Hacienda de la Nostalgia.
He was wearing a uniform—it was the first thing Ginny noticed when she came running down the steps. She was still damp from the bath she had just taken—wet curls pinned carelessly on top of her head, her skin still glowing with moisture.
He was just dismounting from his horse when she stopped abruptly, not two feet away from him, teeth worrying her lower lip, green eyes starting to shine with anger as she remembered how enraged with him she was.
“Well?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Well! Is that all you have to say? It’s been almost a month, and all the word you’ve bothered to send me was that—that note that said nothing, which you might as well have written to Salvador!”
“Since it made you so angry, I’m sorry I didn’t tell Manolo to hand it to Salvador instead.” He stood looking down at her, a strange, hard smile on his mouth, his blue eyes blazing with some kind of emotion she couldn’t fathom.
“Well, at least Salvador has been bringing me news of the war,” she said sulkily, adding almost unwillingly, “I see you’ve joined the real army at last! When did that happen?”
“A couple of weeks ago, after we wiped out a troop of counter-guerillas who had been bothering us.”
He turned away from her rather abruptly and began to take his saddlebags from the horse, and she noticed that he moved one arm rather stiffly, as if it hurt him.
Her anger evaporated immediately and she ran to him, eyes wide with concern.
“Steve! You’ve been wounded, haven’t you? Oh, for God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me know?”
Her arms seemed to fly up around his neck, and the sarcastic comment he had been about to make died under the sweet, familiar pressure of her lips. He dropped the saddlebags and began to kiss her roughly, savagely, as if he had to seal his possession of her. There was only one thing to do, he found himself thinking crazily, and that was to take her to bed. He had had too much time alone with his thoughts, there was too much bitterness, like poison, collected inside him.
They did no talking in the bedroom afterwards, except for the occasional, half-breathless words of love and passion that came quite naturally as they rediscovered each other’s bodies and their capabilities.
He wanted her! In spite of the note of harshness in his voice and the sarcastic twist of his lips when he had first spoken to her; once she was in his arms he had held her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. And in spite of the grinning, watching faces of old Salvador and the peons who had come up to greet him he had carried her in his arms and straight into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him with a bang that they must have heard outside.
Drowsily content, Ginny lay with the weight of his body still pressing hers down as he lay half-asleep, his breathing slowly becoming more regular. He had come back to her after all, just when she was beginning to despair that he ever would. Her fingers gently stroked the ridges of scar tissue on his back, moved to touch the bandage that he still wore, wound tightly around his chest and shoulder to keep the thick wad of dressing in place. He had been wounded—he must have been in some battle he hadn’t yet had the time to tell her about. She had started to ask him about it when he had crushed her words into silence with his lips.
That’s why he didn’t come before, she thought, and in spite of the terrifying knowledge that he might have been killed without her even knowing it, she was somehow glad that it was his injury, and not his indifference, that had kept him away so long.
The patterns made by the late afternoon sun as it slanted through the window she had left half open for coolness were beginning to look faded, like the old-gold roses on a damask curtain she had seen once. In the kitchen, Salvador would be preparing dinner, his old, seamed fac
e probably sour as he wondered if they would eat it or not.
Ginny hadn’t been eating very well lately, but now, suddenly she felt as if she had been starving for weeks. And Steve must probably feel the same way too. He looked thinner, and his face had tired, tense lines in it she hadn’t noticed before. And he had had a haircut too—she touched the back of his neck with her fingers, discovering where his hair was just beginning to grow long enough to curl slightly.
His face had been buried in the curve of her shoulder and neck, in the masses of her hair, but now he suddenly turned it so that his lips grazed her cheek.
“You’re restless, chica. What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I was only wondering if you were hungry,” she confessed shamelessly. “I haven’t been able to work up an appetite all week, and now suddenly I feel as if I could eat anything! A mountain of tortillas—two bowls full of chili, oranges and papayas—and oceans of wine to wash it all down with!”
He began to laugh softly.
“That’s a hell of a thing to be thinking of in the position you’re in! What a set-down you’ve given me, especially since my hunger at present is all for you—you tempting little baggage!”
Holding her pinned down he began to nibble at her breasts, his lips and tongue teasing her nipples until she began to writhe under him, moaning helplessly.
“Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve—yes!”
“What does that mean? Have I really managed to arouse some other hunger in your wanton body?”
He rolled over onto his back, grinning at her, while she almost cried with frustration, her fingers clawing at his chest.
“Oh damn you, Steve! You can’t do that to me! I won’t let you!”
“As a matter of fact, I’m rather tired—and now you’ve mentioned it, the thought of food does sound mighty tempting.”
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