by Len Levinson
“How do you do,” said Don Carlos to young Consuelo, in the tones of an educated man.
She curtsied before him. “My mother has been talking about nothing but you for weeks, sir. I'm proud to meet the most ostentatiously eligible man in Mexico.”
Her mother nearly fainted, and a flicker of amusement passed over the great man's tanned visage. “And I'm honored to meet such a splendid señorita. But tell me, my dear, why are you hiding in the corner?”
“Hiding?” She looked from side to side. “Do I appear to be hiding? Just because I have not thrown myself at Don Carlos de Rebozo, like all the other señoritas, does that mean I am hiding?”
A maid administered smelling salts to Consuelo's mother as Don Carlos took a step backward and looked Consuelo up and down. “May I call on you this Saturday afternoon?”
“That would give me great pleasure, sir,” she replied, “but you must ask my mother's permission first. However, since she has fainted dead away, I will answer for her and say yes.”
And thus had begun their great love. She reflected upon it warmly as she made her way down the long lantern-lit corridor to the master bedroom. Many of the distinguished individuals whose portraits graced the walls had attended her wedding, while she had been center of the extravagant production, with everyone acting his or her designated role—and with the celebrated Don Carlos de Rebozo as her leading man. Since childhood, she'd dreamed of marrying a prince, and her wedding had been the fulfillment of that noble childhood aspiration.
Her wedding night had satisfied her hidden and less noble desires. She'd never admit it, not even to her mother, but as a young girl she'd frequently fantasized the most disturbing and unsettling desires concerning males. Often she'd suffered dreams where she'd awakened panting, covered with sweat. It wasn't a subject that a young girl could discuss with her priest, but she knew darkly and dimly that marriage could provide a possible solution to the problem.
She undressed in front of the mirror, her body illuminated by a candelabra on the dresser that reflected off mirrors, providing golden effulgence. She'd gained weight since getting married, but that was considered appropriate for Mexican ladies. In another two or three years, at the rate she was going, they'd call her pleasingly plump, but at present she still was a smooth-limbed, healthy-looking woman with full breasts, firm muscles, and a certain naughty gleam that occasionally came to her eyes.
She dropped a light silk gown over her shoulders, then knelt at the foot of her bed, crossed herself, and prayed for the safety of her husband, the health of her mother, and all the usual items, recrossing herself, and crawled into bed.
The white cotton sheets warmed with her body heat, but she felt lonely. Where is he? she wondered, as she lay frustrated in the darkness. Meanwhile, a maid tiptoed silently around the room, blowing out the candles. Doña Consuelo rolled onto her stomach and tried to get comfortable, as she remembered her wedding night.
She'd been half-terrified and half-lustful as she'd undressed in the dark with her husband. Then she'd lain stark naked on the bed, her heart beating wildly, alone with a man for the first time in her life.
The great caudillo had knelt between her legs and performed a certain act that she'd never imagined possible, and then, when she was completely relaxed, he'd made her into a real woman, stoking her fires until she shrieked with passion and madness. Needless to say, marriage to Don Carlos had soothed her worst frustrations, and she couldn't imagine being with anybody else.
Where in the name of God is he? she wondered, as she tossed and turned on her wide mattress. Doesn't he know how much I need him?
The stream was black ink flecked with silver, as Duane glanced about, listened, and waited, because Apaches liked to bushwhack lost wandering White Eyes near water.
He climbed down from the saddle, sat on the riverbank, and listened to the music of the night. Midnight grazed and watered himself, as Duane scanned cholla and nopal cactus for signs of Apaches on the prowl. He wished for a refuge where he didn't need to glance over his shoulder every few minutes, but no matter where he went, town or the open desert, he had to watch his ass.
He wished he could light a cigarette, but there was no smoking in Apache territory. Sometimes he longed for a woman, although he knew women generally led to trouble, such as the fight in Zumarraga. Sometimes Duane felt like jumping out of his skin and screaming at the top of his lungs. He felt hemmed in by life, constantly under assault, frustrated, confused, and bewildered.
Yet, paradoxically, he also felt invincible, overconfident, and optimistic about the future, the result of being young and filled with energies he couldn't control. He heard no sounds of an unshod hoof against the ground, or the measured moccasin tread of an Apache, so he undressed quickly, withdrew a sliver of soap from his saddlebag, and waded into the cold water.
It was deep as his waist, with smooth rocks on the bottom and the full moon shining in the sky. Teeth chattering, he soaped himself quickly, pausing occasionally to listen, his Colt lying on a boulder three feet away. He shampooed his hair, dived beneath the surface, shook off the dirt, and headed for shore.
He put on his last clean clothes: black jeans, black shirt, and yellow bandanna. Climbing onto Midnight, he urged the animal across the stream. Midnight's hooves splashed through the water as he headed toward a dark canyon in the distance. Duane pulled his hat tightly onto his wet head and searched for a lonely out-of-the-way spot to spend the night.
Doña Consuelo opened her eyes with a start as her husband entered the darkened bedroom. He wore his black velvet robe, for he'd bathed before coming to her.
“Where have you been?” she asked, raising her head from the bed.
“Business,” he replied, gruffly.
He never explained anything to her, because he didn't think she understood. Don Carlos considered his wife a beautiful but naive young work of art with whom he had the good fortune to be married. He removed his robe in the darkness, because he didn't want her to see his aged wrinkled nakedness without benefit of the girdle he wore beneath his suits.
Unrestrained, his belly protruded like that of any gentleman in his fifties who tended toward overindulgence in food and drink. He crawled into bed, bussed her cheek, and said, “I'm awfully tired, and I really must get some sleep.”
He rolled over, wheezed, and closed his eyes. She gazed at his noble profile outlined by light streaming through the windows, and felt guilty about her womanly requirements. Don Carlos de Rebozo had more important things to do than play with his giddy little wife.
Besides, Doña Consuelo was sleepy herself, having just been awakened from a vague dream. Certainly there are drawbacks to being married to an older man, she mused, but when he's awake and feeling strong, I'll bet he's a better lover than any young man.
Doña Consuelo had no way of knowing this, for she'd been a virgin prior to her marriage, and would never dream of being unfaithful to her beloved husband. But she believed it anyway, just as she believed in the transubstantiation of sacramental wine into the Most Precious Blood, or the Immaculate Conception. She snuggled against her bewhiskered husband, and dropped back to troubled sleep, hoping that he'd feel better tomorrow night, or possibly the night after.
Duane found a level length of ground alongside a seepweed bush, and decided it would be his bed for the night. Far from main trails, at the edge of a vast basin, it was possible that no white man had ever been in the vicinity since the dawn of time.
He unsaddled Midnight, picketed him, and laid out the bedroll. Then he crawled inside, using his saddle for a pillow, with his Winchester rifle lying nearby. He rolled onto his back and stared at the heavens filled with swirling stars.
Duane was tired of the owlhoot trail, and wished he could lead a normal life. He knew that many wanted men changed their names, moved to another part of Texas, and no one knew who they were. That was his master plan, but there was something he had to do first.
Duane harbored a dark secret of which he was greatly
ashamed. His parents had never married, and then they'd been murdered when he was one year old. According to information that he'd uncovered, his father, Joe Braddock, had been a rancher sucked into a range war with a big money man named Sam Archer of Edgeville, Texas. Duane's mother had been Miss Kathleen O'Shea, daughter of another small rancher. Joe Braddock and his gang, known as the Polka Dots, had been hunted by Sam Archer's paid killers, and massacred somewhere in Mexico. Shortly thereafter, Duane's mother had died of illness and grief, and Duane Braddock had been taken to the monastery that raised him.
Duane had hardly known his father, but vaguely remembered a hearty fellow with a thick black mustache, carrying the fragrance of whiskey, tobacco, and gunpowder. His mother had been blond, with frail features and a few freckles. According to what he'd been told, Miss Kathleen O'Shea had been a devout Catholic, and when she was dying, had ordained that her baby son be sent to the monastery, so he could become a priest someday.
It hadn't worked that way, because Duane had got sick of the scriptorium less than a year ago. Since then he'd been on a quest to discover what had happened to his parents, and avenge their deaths. My mother and father fought for their rights against the big money combine from the East, he thought, but they were outnumbered, outgunned, and paid the ultimate price.
Duane had never met Sam Archer, didn't know what he looked like, but hated him anyway. “You think you've got away with the crime, Mister Rancher Man, but you're wrong,” whispered Duane. “You can surround yourself with hired guns, but I lived with the Apaches, and I can outsmart any hired gun who ever lived. No matter how many miles I have to travel, or how many mountains must be climbed on my hands and knees, I'm going to track you down. You might be sleeping peacefully right now, but one day I'll put a bullet into your bean.”
Duane wondered if he had the sand to calmly and deliberately shoot a man in the head, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. First he had to stay on the dodge awhile, until the Fourth Cavalry got tired of looking for him. Then he'd head for Edgeville, for his unscheduled meeting with Sam Archer.
Just a little while longer, then I'll be free to do whatever I want, Duane promised himself. When Mister Archer is buried in his grave, I'm going to be a cowboy again, and to hell with this cold and lonely owlhoot trail.
Doña Consuelo opened her eyes with a start, at the second knock on the door. “Who's there?”
The voice of García, her husband's foreman, came to her ears. “Something has happened! Is Don Carlos there?”
Doña Consuelo shook her husband firmly. “Wake up—Don Carlos!” she spoke urgently into her husband's hairy ear.
He grunted like an old buffalo as he opened his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
“García is here—it's important!”
The great caudillo rolled out of bed slowly and with great difficulty. In the wan moonlight she could make out his rotund belly, not to mention his flaccid legs. He pulled the robe around his shoulders, opened the door, and disappeared into the corridor.
Consuelo wondered what had happened. It could have been an Indian raid on their cattle, a murder, illness, an accident, a fire, or any one of a thousand terrible calamities. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around her husband's pillow, inhaling his fragrance, and blushing at the mere thought of her physical needs.
The door opened, as Don Carlos returned to the bedroom. “I'm afraid it's your mother,” he said. “She's taken a turn for the worse.”
Consuelo's first reaction was that God was punishing her for her evil desires. “What happened?”
“She collapsed this afternoon, evidently. The doctor says that she won't last much longer.”
Doña Consuelo sucked wind. “But. . . but. ..” She couldn't digest the news.
He placed his hand on her forehead. “My poor darling, I know how you love your dear mother. We'll leave for your father's hacienda first thing in the morning. Be calm, and pray to God for strength.”
He sat with his arm around her shoulders, as she felt morbid terror arising from the floorboards of the bedroom. Her mother had nurtured, pampered, and taught her everything she knew. Without her mother, she'd be devastated, for her father had always been remote, and her husband had more important things to do than hold her hand and listen to her babble.
Doña Consuelo knew that cancer consumed people from the inside, sucking their lives away, causing them to die shriveled and ancient before their time. Tears flowed down her cheeks, as her husband sought to comfort her. “There, there,” he cooed. “People live and die every day, but life goes on, and so shall we.”
CHAPTER 3
NEXT MORNING, APPROXIMATELY TWO hundred miles to the north, a dusty stagecoach rolled down the main street of Escondido, a bustling town on the American side of the Rio Grande. No one paid special attention to the conveyance, because Escondido was the site of much trading activity, most of it illicit, between Texas and Mexico.
In the cab, among the other passengers, sat a tall blonde woman named Miss Vanessa Fontaine. She was dressed in a lavender mohair dress trimmed with blue velvet, with a white crepe de chine scarf. She gazed sullenly out the window at adobe buildings lining both sides of the street, and horse manure lying in the middle, along with whisky bottles, scraps of paper, bones of animals picked clean by dogs, and various other items too misshapen to recognize.
Miss Vanessa Fontaine was a lady of the world, and nothing fazed her, not even a filthy little border town. She pulled her head inside the window and looked at her fellow passengers: a cowboy, a lawyer, and a traveling salesman who'd been her company since Fort Stockton.
“It's not much,” said the salesman, whose name was Charlie McPheeter, “but you'd be surprised the amount of traffic that passes through a town like this, and they all need hardware to replace somethin’ that's broke. If yer innerested in money, it's a damn fine town, but if yer worried about a stray bullet a-flyin’ over yer head, yer in the wrong damned place.”
The lawyer replied: “Half the residents are wanted by the Mexican or American authorities, and as far as I know, there are no lawyers in Escondido. It's wide open for a fellow like me.”
“We'll all be a-suein’ each other inside of a week,” drawled the drunken cowboy, who was sprawled in the corner, a bottle of something in his hand.
The lawyer sneered at the oafish fellow, but Vanessa considered the cowboy the most interesting passenger on the stagecoach, because he was exactly what he appeared to be, and made no bones about it.
The stagecoach came to a stop before a large hotel, and on the veranda, a vaquero with a cigar in his mouth strummed a guitar. Someone opened the coach door, and a wave of sundust entered the tiny enclosed cab. A hand grabbed Vanessa's wrist, and before she could do anything, it pulled her out the door.
“Howdy,” said an American cowboy with a stubbled chin, his shirt unbuttoned to his waist. “You're just about the best-lookin’ woman I've ever saw.”
She looked at him reproachfully, and he released her, took a step backwards, and smiled unsteadily. “I meant no harm, miss. It's just that yer beauty bowled me—”
She turned away in the middle of his sentence as if he didn't exist. Atop the cab, the stagecoach guard threw down a bag to a gentleman in a green visor. Vanessa looked at the squat desert town while a crowd of beggars formed around the stagecoach. Men gazed at her from the sidewalk, her golden hair catching every ray of sun. “Can anyone help me with my bags?”
“Will I do?” asked her cowboy traveling companion, whose name was Pyle. “I'm a-lookin’ fer a job.”
“Do you think you can carry those bags for me?”
“Yes ma'am,” he winked lewdly, “and if thar's anythin’ else you want, don't hesitate to ask.”
She glanced at him skeptically. “Such as?”
“You know.” He slowly ran his tongue across his upper lip.
“You drunkard—if you were ever alone with a woman, you wouldn't know the first thing to do. I'll see you in the lobby, and
don't leave anything behind.”
Everybody in the small, cramped chandeliered lobby stared as she crossed to the desk, where the young clerk, attired in a suit with a string tie, awaited her. “Ma'am?”
“I'd like the best suite of rooms in the hotel.”
“We only have one kind of room, ma'am.”
“Then I guess you'll have to knock down a few walls for me, because I need my elbow room. I am Miss Vanessa Fontaine, and perhaps you've heard of me.”
“Who?”
Vanessa heard the voice of Pyle. “They calls her the Charleston Nightingale, and she's supposed to be the best singer west of the Pecos.”
The desk clerk vaguely remembered hearing something about a Charleston Nightingale who sang in saloons. “Yes ma'am, anythin’ you say.” He spun the register around. “Sign here.”
Pyle admired her languid form as she bent over the desk and scratched her name with the quill pen. Then she strolled down the corridor, followed by her new servant carrying two suitcases in each hand, his tongue hanging out.
The room was far too small for Vanessa's tastes, with a window that opened on a corner of the backyard. The bed was graced with the customary cavern in the center, a dresser, and a wood chair. A scrap of Mexican blanket was nailed to the wall for decoration, and the narrow space carried the faint odor of whisky, tobacco, and men's sweat. She opened the window, pulled back the shades, and made way for the arrival of her suitcases.
“A real nice room,” said Pyle, as he put the luggage down.
She handed him the coins. “Please stop leering, for God's sake. Why do you get so drunk?”
“What the hell else is there to do?”
He slammed the door on his way out, and she heard his footsteps recede down the hall. Then she untied her bonnet, hung it on the bedpost, removed her boots, stretched out on the plain blue bedspread, and stared at the ceiling. What have I done to myself this time? she asked herself.
