Piccadilly Doubles 1

by Lou Cameron

  Willy Unger moaned and rolled his head in Ernestine’s lap. She turned to the Negress, closer to the rear, and whispered, “You’d best wet a towel for his head, Jezebel.”

  Jezebel reached for a keg near Freddy Dodd’s right hip and the youth put a hand on it, saying, “You just leave the water be, she-coon! We ain’t got water to waste on no wet towel hereabouts.”

  The black girl shot her mistress an inquiring look and Ernestine said, “He’s burning up with fever, Freddy. A few drops of water on a towel might help to cool his head.”

  Freddy didn’t look back as he spoke up. “A few drops of water might be worth a killin’ two or three days further out. We’re headed into the Mojave, lady! Do we strike water fit to drink this side of the Chuckawalla Range, it’ll be worth puttin’ on the map! We ain’t got water to put on no towels. We ain’t got water fer nothin’ but drinkin’, and if you aim to git across this time of the year, you’ll let the mules drink first!”

  Jezebel leaned back, unsure, holding a folded cotton cloth in her lap. Then Willy moaned again, licked his dry lips, and murmured, “Momma, make them let go my toes.”

  Ernestine hesitated, aware they were heading for the confrontation she dreaded. She knew that the sullen youth was an employee and that the water kegs, and everything else in the wagon, belonged to her. Yet, Freddy had said he knew the way to Los Angeles City, and this desert did seem awfully wide, so ...

  Willy’s sister, Alfrieda, suddenly sat up where she’d been reclining near the front of the wagon bed and, crawling over her mother and feverish little brother, joined Jezebel in the rear. Alfrieda took the cotton cloth from the young Negress. “Here, I’ll do it, fraidy cat!”

  The girl started to tip the keg, ignoring Freddy’s hand on it until he tried to resist her, then she slapped it away as she insisted, “You mind your manners, Freddy Dodd! You heard my momma say she wants a damp cloth for Willy.”

  Freddy half turned to glare at her, snapping, “God damn it, missy! I said not to trifle with that water and I mean it!”

  Alfrieda stuck out her tongue. “Pooh! What are you going to do, hit me?”

  Freddy looked confused. Alfrieda laughed, throwing her blond head back with a look more knowing than one might expect in a fourteen-year-old as she challenged, “Go on, I dare you, double dare you! You been wantin’ to hit me ever since we started out, but you’re a fraidy cat, ain’t you?”

  Freddy said, “Aw, shoot!” and turned away. Ernestine Unger murmured, “That’s enough, Frieda,” but the girl prattled on as she wet the cloth with a generous splash of tepid water. She said, “Well, it’s true, I’ll betcha. I’ve seen the way Freddy looks at me when he thinks I ain’t lookin’ back. He looks like he’s just pinin’ to give me a good lickin’, but he ain’t got the sand in his craw to try, so there!”

  Ernestine took the damp cloth her daughter handed over and placed it gently on Willy’s head. It was obviously time she and her budding daughter had a woman-to-woman talk about certain facts of life. Why, it seemed only yesterday that her Frieda was a pink and blond baby! Where had the years flown? She certainly didn’t feel any older. Yet, suddenly men were looking at her little Frieda the way men looked at, for heaven’s sake, awoman!

  Frieda poked Freddy Dodd’s elbow with a finger and asked, “What you lookin’ at back there, Freddy? Ain’t nothin’ back that way but miles and miles of nothin’ I ever want to see again!”

  The youth muttered something and dropped to the ground behind the slowly moving wagon, the back of his neck red with confused emotions. He cradled the rifle in his right arm, finger on the trigger, and jogged around to the front to join his Mexican friend, plodding along beside the mules.

  Freddy said, “I’ll spell you a mite, if you want.” But Ramon held on the lead line and said, “I am not tired, and the mules do not like it when you lead them. You do not have the touch for coaxing a weary mule, or a virgin, for that matter.”

  Freddy snapped, “Now, what’s that supposed to mean, you mescal-soaked greaser? I guess I’ve handled as many mules, and women, too, as your own-self!”

  Ramon shrugged and asked, “Is that why we are taking so much time with this business, then? You know we should have finished them off back there in Apacheria on the other side of the river, but, no, you keep saying, just one more night, one more night, one more night! By the Mother of God, I think you’ve lost your nerve!”

  “I ain’t lost my nerve. I just thought it’d be best to git them out in the wide open desert a ways first. You know I’da done ’em that one night back along the Gila, had not that denied old prospector come along and jined us at the fire!”

  Ramon didn’t answer. The two young owl-hoots trudged along for a time, hat brims lowered against the sun’s baleful glare. Then Freddy said, “That derned old Frieda purely deserves what she’s a-gonna git, you know that?”

  Ramon said, “I think you want to lay with her. I think you waste all this time because you hope some way to make her give herself to you of her own free will.” He sighed and added, “You know, of course, you are a fool.”

  “Shoot, I don’t want that skinny little thing’s old cherry. Why, I’ll bet she don’t even know why boys and girls is different!”

  “Then what are we waiting for? You know there is not enough food and water back there in the wagon for all six of us to reach the far side. The longer you take to make up your mind, the less reason there will be for us to kill them. They are swilling food and water like we were somewhere in the Land of Milk and Honey. At the rate we are going, none of us will reach California!”

  Freddy Dodd nodded. “That’s the truth, amigo, but, listen, I been thinkin’.. .”

  “Thinking is a dangerous game for a man with no brains, amigo”

  “I guess I’m as smart as any dern murderin’ Mexican, damn it! I guess I know how to reach California with the Ungers’ money and a bit of fun!”

  “Fun? What is this nonsense about fun, amigo? We agreed when we took this job it was an easy way to reach the gold fields with a grubstake. I do not remember anything about it being fun!”

  “Well, listen, I been thinkin’, if we jest kilt the old lady, the coon, and the puley little boy, there’d be enough water to keep old Frieda goin’ fer a day or so.”

  Ramon plodded on, making disgusted noises deep in his throat, as Freddy insisted, “I’ll share her with you, Ramon. I jest want to see her one time stripped down with all the sass scared outten her. I mean, I know we dasn’t take her all the way with us alive, but what’s to stop us from totin’ her along fer a spell? She don’t weigh all that much, and it ain’t as if we’d have to feed or water her, once we had her trussed up right.”

  Ramon snorted in disgust. “I thought you didn’t want the girl. It seems to me I just heard something about her being a skinny little thing.”

  Freddy Dodd grinned sheepishly. “Aw, what the hell, you know I been jerkin’ off over her all the way across the mountains. I jest want to have her fer a little while, Ramon. Shoot, I’ll even share her with you, afore we do her like her momma and the black gal.”

  Ramon didn’t answer. He knew his companion too well to think he could talk him out of the thing he had in mind. Freddy was a lot like one of the mules he led. One could not yank the foolish gringo to one side, once he’d taken the bit in his teeth. One could but steer him gently in a more prudent direction.

  Ramon said, “We shall be stopping for the night soon. We are nearly in the middle of this particular playa, and once it gets dark, nobody will ever know what we might choose to do out here between the ridges.”

  “What are you gettin’ at, Ramon?”

  “I am getting at both of us having our own way. I am getting at doing what must be done tonight. Do you have that cap-and-ball six-shooter that we took from the Texan loaded and primed?”

  “Sure, it’s in my bedroll back in the wagon.”

  “Good. This is what I want you to do. I want you to wait until we stop at sunset. Then I want
you to slip the six-shooter to me and go off into the chaparral to gather firewood.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I intend to shoot the two women and, if he has not died of the cholera by nightfall, the sick muchacho. The virgin I shall save for you. We shall build no fire, and while I stand guard, you will get this nonsense about her out of your system.”

  “Hot damn! You’re gonna let me carry her along a spell?”

  “No. Her body must be found with the others, tied to the wagon wheels and mutilated in Apache fashion. One night should be enough to teach you how little pleasure there is in an unwilling virgin, and by sunrise we will be on our way, riding the mules, with the money, food, and water.”

  Freddy walked on in silence for a time before he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you kill her in the mornin’ if she still acts uppity. Mebbe, if she knows her life depends on it, old Frieda’ll larn to treat me right and we won’t have to kill her—all right?”

  Ramon started to object, then nodded and said, “As you wish, amigo.” Freddy muttered, “Hot damn! I can hardly wait for that old sun-ball to go down!” and Ramon sighed in genuine sorrow for his poor, foolish formercompanero and the postponement of his trip to the gold fields of California.

  There was no point in further talk or another wasted day on the trail to nowhere. A man needed to eat, a man needed to drink, and a man needed to womanize, but if he was a real man, he satisfied his needs when they did not get in the way of his common sense. This gringo at his side was not a man. He was a whimpering boy, begging like a baby for a piece of candy; and a prudent man did not try to cross a hundred and fifty miles of basin and range in August with a baby!

  Freddy was saying, “I don’t see why you want me to go off when it’s time to do ’em, Ramon. I mean, I kin shoot the nigger whilst you shoot the mother and we’ll flip to see who gits to do the kid.”

  Ramon shook his head. “No. It is better my way. You will give me the gun when we stop, and I will shoot everyone. Then I will leave Apache sign, and if anyone ever finds them .. .”

  “Yeah, but you jest remember I git a night with old Frieda afore we do her, right?”

  “Es verdad,” Ramon shrugged, promising. “You shall spend the night in the wagon with her. You have my word.”

  He saw no reason to add that Freddy would be dead when he burned them side by side in the wagon.

  There were six rounds in that pistol. He’d shoot Freddy point-blank as the gringo handed it to him that evening. Then he’d shoot the Negress, the mother, and the two children, in that order. He was only a day’s ride west of the Colorado. He’d ride back on one mule with the lingers’ money and find himself a sensible partner before he headed once again for the gold fields of California.

  The Mojave came in just after supper. He was alone and on foot, and the corporal of the guard told the two troopers who’d stopped the Indian at the gate to take him to the captain. Captain Lodge, in turn, told one of the troopers to stand by and sent the other to fetch his scouts and junior officers. Then he offered the Mojave a cigar and a seat in the orderly room. The Mojave refused both and stood there silently, as the captain wondered what one said to a visiting Indian who didn’t seem to want anything.

  The Mojave was a middle-aged man with a moon-face and a thick waist. Like most tribesmen along the Lower Colorado, he wore little more than a deerskin loincloth and yucca-fiber sandals. He carried no weapon and seemed, after not receiving an answer to his first guttural words to the captain, to have dozed off on his feet. His eyes were half closed, and he ignored Lodge when the captain tried a few words of Border Mex on him. After what seemed a very long and awkward time, Digger Greenberg came in with Rabbit-Boss. The Mojave frowned slightly and asked Rabbit-Boss, “I ne ma Mo-Ha-Vey?”

  Rabbit-Boss grunted, “Ka!” and squatted on the floor near the door, not deigning to take further notice of the stranger. The captain shot Greenberg a puzzled look and the scout laughed and explained, “This old boy just asked Rabbit-Boss was he Mojave and Rabbit-Boss set him straight. I reckon them antelope horns puzzled the old geezer.”

  Lodge asked, “Can you speak Mojave, too?”

  Greenberg shrugged and said, “Some. Mojave is a lot like Sioux. I’ll be blamed if I kin figure how a mess of Sioux wound up as farmers on the Lower Colorado, but there you are. What do you want me to say to the varmint, Captain?”

  “Ask him what he wants, for openers.”

  Greenberg nodded and began to address the Mojave in his own version of Lakota. The Mojave looked pained and said in English, “You talk funny. I can hardly understand half of what you are trying to say in my tongue. I think we should speak in yours.”

  Lodge gaped at the blank-faced Indian and asked, “Do you speak English, for God’s sake? Why in thunder didn’t yon say so?”

  The Mojave didn’t answer.

  Digger Greenberg said, “I’ve run across this dodge afore, Captain. Sometimes a man kin learn a mite by lettin’ on he don’t know what folks is sayin’ about him.”

  Lodge nodded and, turning to the Mojave, said, “All right, my friend, you’ve had your little joke. Do you want to tell us what’s on your mind, or do you want to stand there playing cigar-store Indian until someone carves their initials on you?”

  The Mojave gave no indication whether he understood the sarcasm or not. He said, “I am called Owns-the-Water. My people farm an arroyo one day’s walk from this place.”

  Lodge asked, “Upstream or down?” But Owns-the-Water ignored the question and said, “Some Apache think we did not see them cross the Mi-Ney-Tonka, but we did. For the past few days, they think they have been hidden in a brush-filled dry wash. My people have been watching them. There are thirty-seven men and forty-eight women in the band. They have seventeen children, sixty-four ponies, and eight burros. We have not finished counting their guns.”

  Lodge nodded soberly. “That sounds like Diablito’s band. You say they’re definitely on the west side of the … what did you call it?”

  Greenberg cut in. “He meant the Colorado, Captain. He calt it the Great Water.” Greenberg turned to the Indian and asked, “How far across your Mi-Ney-Tonka is the Apache camp, Owns-the-Water?” The Mojave said, “One day south. One sunrise to high-noon west. I count this as my people travel.”

  Lodge shot the scout a puzzled look, and Greenberg said, “I make it thirty-odd miles south-southwest, Captain. Mojave make better time than a wagon train, less than Diggers or cavalry.”

  Lodge went over to the wall map, stabbed it with a finger, and mused, “Say it’s somewhere about in here, it doesn’t make much sense. There’s nothing in that area but flat, dry scrub. What sort of hunting would there be in that sort of country, Greenberg?”

  “Grasshoppers, mebbe. Late summer runs most critters offen the flats and into broken country. Small game hugs the washes and arroyos, this time of the Big Dry. Bighorns, deer, and pronghorn keep to the higher slopes of the desert ranges until the fall rains green the flats.”

  “They’re pretty far south of the Immigrant Trail. They don’t seem to be in a position to bother anyone.”

  Greenberg shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Cap. They’re botherin’ the shit outten this here Mojave, or he’d have stayed put in his squash patch down that way. There’s a sometimes wagon trace called Slocum’s Cut-off runnin’ past them patches betwixt the river and where it jines the main route further out to the west. You cain’t cross the Colorado down that way when it’s high water, but right about now a greenhorn could ford the danged crick anywheres!”

  “You think they could be stalking a wagon train? No immigrants are supposed to set out across the open desert without checking in with us first.”

  “Lots of folks don’t do as they’re supposed to hereabouts, Cap.” The Mojave hesitated, then cleared his throat and said, “Two men, two women, two children, one wagon. They did not see us as they went past. I think they have passed the Apache, too. If the Apache did not see t
hem.”

  “Did your scouts hear any shots, Owns-the-Water?”

  The Indian didn’t answer. Foolish questions did not deserve an answer.

  Greenberg explained, “He’d have said so if they had, Cap. Besides, no Apache’s about to waste no shots snappin’ up easy pickin’s like that. If they’ve spotted them fool immigrants, by now it’s all over.”

  Matt Caldwell came in, his face flushed, and said, “Sorry I’m late, sir.”

  Lodge asked, “Where’s Lieutenant Gordon, Mister?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I’ve been trying to find him, but he’s not in his quarters and … ”

  “Never mind. I told you they sent me nothing but thieves, drunks, and Abolitionists. Let me bring you up to date on what this Indian just came in with.”

  Caldwell studied the Mojave as he listened to his C.O.’s assessment of the situation. He noticed Rabbit-Boss glowering at the Mojave from his squatting place by the doorway. The Mojave was pretending a trifle obviously that Rabbit-Boss did not exist. When Captain Lodge asked, “Any questions, Mister?” Caldwell nodded and answered, “Yes, sir. I’ve been wondering why Mr. Owns-the-Water here is so anxious to betray the position of those other Indians.”

  Digger Greenberg snorted in disbelief. “Do Jesus, Lieutenant, didn’t you jest hear the captain tell you that band was Apache?”

  “You mean, every other tribe in the area is against them?”

  “They is iffen they has women, ponies, or anything else worth stealin’. Diablito’s band, if that’s the outfit holed up down there, is short at least two dozen mounts. Most of the women and kids is ridin’ double, and by now the whole bunch is hungry. There ain’t enough to feed a band of Diggers in that neck of the desert, and Diggers run in small bands and don’t eat all that much. This hombre, Owns-the-Water, don’t cotton all that much to havin’ Apache neighbors, even iffen Diablito don’t know about it. I mean, like I said, the Mojaves are some breed of long-lost Sioux, halfways to becoming Pueblos, and they still keep more ponies than most farmin’ tribes.” Matt Caldwell nodded in sudden understanding and, smiling at Owns-the-Water, said, “You came to us for protection, eh?”