Valley of Fire

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “I told you as much,” Sister Geneviève said demurely, “when I bought those horses and mule.”

  “Bastardo,” Jorge de la Cruz whispered, then spoke again in Mexican at his cousin, who shook his head.

  Blanco took over the interview. “You said the ingot was given to you by another nun.”

  Sister Geneviève nodded. “That is so.”

  “And you do not know where she found it.”

  “As I told you back in Anton Chico—”

  The Centennial rifle came up to Blanco’s shoulder. “Then why do you travel with this rapscallion, Sister? Why do you leave the road and hide in this arroyo? Why is it that Felipe Hernandez rode into our quiet village shortly after you left?”

  That got my attention. I stared into the night, wondering if Hernandez was out there waiting.

  “He says that you helped this miserable gringo escape from jail. He was sentenced to hang.” Blanco was grinning when I turned back, figuring if Hernandez was out there, I’d already be dead. “There is a nice reward for your return to Las Vegas, señor.”

  “Where’s Hernandez?” I asked.

  The rifle lowered, but just slightly. I stuck my hands behind my back, palm out, hoping Sister Geneviève would get my intention and place that little Ladies Companion in it.

  “I sent him to Puerto de Luna,” Blanco said.

  “Señor.” Jorge de la Cruz said. “Step away from the Sister of Charity. Do so now, amigo, or I will kill you both.”

  “Do as he says, Mister Bishop.”

  The way she said it, I knew it wasn’t a suggestion, and all them years in that orphanage run by nuns must have made me obey her. I moved closer to the fire, and turned around, half-expecting to see that nun gun down them two boys with that pocket .22, but she just stood there.

  “Where is the gold?” Blanco asked.

  “If it is not with those horses,” the farmer said, “it must be on their bodies.”

  “You dumb son of a bitch,” I told the fool. “You think we’d carry gold on us? Heavy as gold is?”

  “Those are small ingots, señor.” Blanco nodded at his massive cousin.

  The cousin stepped in between Sister Geneviève and me. “Take off your clothes.”

  Blanco grinned.

  Now, being truthful and all, this being likely the last testament of Micah Bishop, I admit that I had wondered just what that nun looked like under all that black wool and white trim, had done some picturing in my mind my ownself, but there is a limit to what even a rapscallion and horse thief and card sharp will tolerate. Nuns had practically raised me and all. I might be what you call lapsed or a backslider, but there was some things you just did not do.

  “What kind of men are you?” I snapped, and took several steps until that Winchester barrel was right at my sternum.

  Blanco’s eyes didn’t blink. I could hear Jorge de la Cruz turning around, figured he had that pistol aimed at my skull.

  “She’s a nun!” I yelled.

  “Felipe Hernandez has put a price on her head, too,” Blanco said. “Nuns do not help outlaws.”

  “There was Sister Blandina!” I said. “She helped Billy the Kid up in Trinidad.”

  “She was not my nun. Nor is this wench.”

  Now, here I was, an inch from a .45-70 slug ripping through my chest, had gotten the attention of them two ruffians, and all Sister Geneviève had to do was pull that pistol, put a slug in the big man’s back. That would distract Blanco, and I’d knock the rifle aside, jerk it from his hands, beat his brains in with the Winchester’s stock.

  That’s what I was hoping would happen. I mean, that nun had shown no qualms about shooting me after she’d busted me out of jail. I’d even suspected her, since she had partnered with Sean Fenn, of not even being a nun, but now she acted so sweet and innocent.

  “You must not harm him.” She didn’t shout that. Just said it like she was telling a toddler, pretty please, that he needs to hush.

  Blanco shot her one mean glance. I contemplated knocking the rifle aside, but then decided I was in no hurry to get to Hell.

  “You will do as my cousin says. Take off your clothes.” That mean horse trader must have been picturing her as I’d been doing.

  “No, señor, I will not do that. You may kill me. Do as you wish. You may even kill Mister Bishop.”

  That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “But then you will never find more than three-quarters of a million dollars in ancient Spanish ingots.”

  Both of them thieves whispered a stunned, “¡Joder!” Then they got quiet, staring, dreaming of all that beautiful gold.

  Things stayed that way for the longest while, them cutthroats practically salivating over their newfound riches that they hadn’t found yet, the nun just standing there, hands nowhere near that pepperbox pistol in her habit, me realizing that I really needed to empty my bladder, and the horses swishing their tails.

  “Where is it?” Demyan Blanco had finally found his voice.

  “It is buried,” she said, pausing, “at the mission ruins at Gran Quivira.”

  I bit my bottom lip. She, a nun, had just cut loose with a shameless falsehood. Or had she? Maybe she had lied to me. I mean, she told me the gold had been buried at Gran Quivira, but now was buried somewhere in the Valley of Fire.

  “Gran Quivira?” Blanco pursed his lips. “There has never been gold there,” he said after a moment. “There is nothing near those old ruins but salt . . . and . . .”

  “Fantasma.” Jorge de la Cruz spoke in a whisper so soft, I could just manage to hear.

  Well, them cousins went at each other again, barking in Mex, gesturing at each other. A good time for Sister Geneviève to pull that .22 and start the ball, but she remained an unmoving angel.

  “There are no ghosts!” Blanco finished his argument with a flurry.

  For a moment, I thought he might turn that Centennial rifle on the big farmer, but, alas, that wasn’t in the cards. His giant cousin kicked some sands, hunched his shoulders, and glared.

  “I would not discount the stories of their presence,” the nun said.

  Blanco spit and snorted. “I thought you would only believe in one ghost, Sister, the Holy One.”

  “I believe in angels,” she said calmly, “and what is an angel but a ghost, a specter, an apparition.” She give him one of her charming smiles. “It is said that before the Revolt of 1860, four hundred and fifty poor souls starved to death and were buried in a mass grave. That is why there was nothing there but ruins when the gold arrived during the revolt.”

  I could see Blanco’s eyes doing some mental figuring. He knowed that piece of gold had been made during the reign of King Philip Something or other, and I doubt if he was that caught up on his studies of ancient New Mexico, but it must have struck him as being reasonable.”

  “The gold arrived in 1680?” Blanco asked.

  “Yes. When the Pueblo Indians revolted.”

  Blanco shook his head. “Sister, the Pueblo Indians were revolting. So why would those dirt-diggers at Gran Quivira not kill the priests and soldiers there?”

  “The Northern Pueblo Indians revolted,” she corrected him like a child.

  Reminded me of my schooling back at the orphanage, only she said it right pleasantly, and didn’t crack no knuckles with her ruler.

  “Not the Pueblos in the Salinas region. Besides, by that time, there were few of Las Humanas, as the Indians there called themselves, left at the pueblo and mission. As I said, most had died during the terrible drought in the years before. The sur vivors—the Spanish survivors, I mean—in Mora where the gold was mined fled for Mexico, or at least to what is today known as El Paso.”

  “And, naturally,” Blanco said, his voice accented with sarcasm, “they took all that gold with them. They loaded down their burros with a fortune in gold. As they fled for their very lives?”

  “Wouldn’t you? Three-quarters of a million dollars worth of gold?”

  That shut the bastard
up.

  “Why did they not come back?” Blanco asked. “When de Vargas returned years later?”

  The farmer just blinked with stupidity. I reckon he hadn’t studied much history.

  “¿ Quién sabe?” She shrugged.

  Blanco chewed on this for a spell, carried on a quick conversation in their native tongue with his cousin, gesturing at each other, voices rising every so often, one pointing at me, the other at the Sister, then to the south a long way toward those ruins, then north back to Anton Chico.

  They got quiet again, but only because the Sister had started talking.

  “That much gold is too much for the Sisters of Charity. As I said, another Sister in our order revealed the story to me. We are humble people. All we desire is to help those in need, especially the children. If you can take me to the ruins at Gran Quivira, and we find the gold, you may have most of it. All we ask, as the Sisters of Charity, is enough to improve our school for girls, our orphanage, and our hospital. Is that too much to ask?”

  More of that harsh Mexican lingo, more pointing, then both men nodded.

  “Jorge is a faithful Catholic. He agrees with your terms, Sister. We shall take you to Gran Quivira. But we do not need this norteamericano.” Blanco rammed the barrel into my stomach, knocking the breath out of me, and when I doubled over, the sneaky fiend tried his best to hammer out my brains with that barrel.

  I hit the ground hard, rolled over, wheezing, just managing to see through tears of pain that Centennial’s barrel which Blanco had planted on the bridge of my nose.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “No!” Sister Geneviève wasn’t talking so sweetly now.

  That’s my girl! I thought. Start shooting these bastards.

  But she just said, “You must not kill him.”

  Now, you got to understand that I couldn’t see too clearly. Not with a rifle barrel between my eyes, and all them tears welling in them from getting my head bashed in, but it seemed to me that Demyan Blanco didn’t care one whit about the nun’s demands.

  “You fool!” Once again, Sister Geneviève sounded like that madam up in Colorado. “You kill him and we’ll never find that gold!”

  He looked up, but his finger was still tight on that Winchester’s trigger.

  “He knows where the gold is. I don’t!”

  The finger slipped out of the Winchester’s trigger guard. I closed my eyes. Might have even mouthed a prayer. The pressure left my nose, and when I opened my eyes, and blinked away all them tears, Demyan Blanco had stepped away from me, moving toward the nun. I sat up, went right back down, rolled over, and heaved cabrito and tortillas and coffee and water onto the ground. Got so dizzy, I dropped into my own vomit. Almost immediately, I got out of that wretched muck. Then I fell right back into it, and watched, and welcomed, the world turn black.

  Gran Quivira lay maybe eighty-five miles southwest of Anton Chico. Eighty-five miles of rough travel, especially once we reached the Estancia Valley. If we reached it . . .

  Felipe Hernandez would find that we wasn’t in Puerto de Luna, might have already got there, and he’d come back, madder than that feller had been in Jacksboro when he’d figured out that I was using a marked deck, and he’d broke my nose, and likely would have broke some more things if Big Tim Pruett hadn’t bashed his head with a whiskey bottle.

  I always liked Big Tim. Wished he was riding with me right then.

  Drums pounded inside my head, flattening my brains, and my stomach felt as if I’d swallowed a gallon of bile. I feared my bowels would loosen, and I’d embarrass myself in front of Sister Geneviève, but God was smiling on me.

  So was that damned sun.

  They’d let me sleep in my own vomit, then splashed water on my face, the fools—I’d rather have had them urinate on me rather than waste good water—jerked me up, tied my hands with leather cord, and boosted me in the saddle.

  Breakfast had been tortillas and water, but I didn’t eat. My stomach wasn’t up to food right then. They had decided to run a cold camp and get moving quickly, before the sun turned the country into a furnace. Or maybe they decided Felipe Hernandez might be on his way back toward Anton Chico.

  All morning, we rode, the nun in front of me, Blanco taking the point, and de la Cruz, pulling the mule, bringing up the rear. It wasn’t so bad, not at first. The morning dawned fairly cool, clouds helped, and we rode in the arroyo, twisting this way and that, till the dry creek bed ended, and we climbed out into rugged plains.

  By that time, them clouds had blown away, the sun baked us, and the wind blew hot and dusty. Finally, we started climbing, maybe a thousand feet in elevation, and Anton Chico’s probably at least a mile high. That was good. I mean once we started climbing, the piñons and junipers provided us some shade, and blocked most of the wind.

  We didn’t stop for noon. Didn’t stop for nothing, except when the horses, and once Sister Geneviève, had to answer nature’s call. Them two cousins made some hoarse whispered comments while the nun did her business in the bushes. I didn’t like the way they looked at her. Come to think on it, I didn’t like Blanco and his cousin none at all.

  The trees grew too thick, branches slapping at us. Well, slapping ain’t the best term. They knocked the hell out of us, leaving both arms with scratches and welts. The mule got stubborn, locked his hind legs like anchors, causing de la Cruz to cuss and torment and pull. The big oaf had to climb off his horse, and pull and tug and cuss some more. I had stopped, turning around, watching the fight from my saddle. Demyan Blanco came riding back, yelling at his cousin, yelling at the mule. Then he rode behind the mule, and jerked the Winchester from the scabbard.

  For a second, I thought Blanco was going to shoot the poor beast. But, no, he done something even dumber.

  He jacked a cartridge into the chamber and aimed. Realizing his intentions, I grabbed a tight hold of my reins. That big cannon boomed, the bullet slamming into the rocks between the mule’s hind legs. Oh, that got the mule moving all right. It also sent de la Cruz’s big buckskin horse cutting through the timber, heading to parts unknown.

  I ain’t no cowboy. Never claimed to be, never wanted to be. That piebald did a little bucking, and the only reason I didn’t lose my seat in the saddle and wind up tasting gravel was because I’d hemmed the gelding in pretty tight between them piñons. The roar of the Winchester echoed loudly. A limb knocked my hat off, caused my head to pound some more, and I caught a glimpse of the mule hightailing it, heard Blanco cussing, and in the corner of my eye, I saw de la Cruz running after his frightened mare. My gelding calmed down, just enough, that I craned my neck, just in time to see the mule slam into the blue roan, and send Sister Geneviève sailing. The mule stopped. The roan rolled over, and I was off my horse.

  “Dear God!” I prayed, which ain’t nothing I do often. Feared the roan had rolled over the nun, and a Sister who weighs a hundred pounds after a heavy rain ain’t no match for a nine hundred pound gelding.

  “Stop!” Blanco shouted at me, but I paid him no mind. The roan gelding was coming up, and I snagged them reins. That horse was like a jackrabbit dodging a hawk. He reared, them front hooves coming close to braining me. He backed up, jerked me to my knees, dragged me a few feet, then his butt hit a juniper branch, and he come right at me.

  I was up in an instant, still holding the reins tightly, biting back pain as the leather burned my palms. The roan just missed running over me, but I pulled the reins, started hushing and sweet-talking him. The mule brayed. Blanco cussed and come running at me. I heard him jack another shell into the Centennial.

  My head was throbbing again, dust stung my eyes, the reins had left welts on my palms—should have bought a pair of gloves back at Abercrombie’s—and my knees was skinned and pants ripped—should have bought some chaps, too.

  The blue roan snorted, but started to calm down. I felt Blanco’s rancid breath on my neck, but I wasn’t in no mood to put up with that horse’s arse.

  Turning, I thrust the reins at him and snap
ped, “Here. You hold him.”

  Leaping over a dead tree, I found the nun laying on her back. Her hood was down. She held a handkerchief under her nose.

  I knelt beside her, and when she started to rise, I put my hand on her shoulder, gentle but firm. “Don’t move.”

  She sank back to the ground, removed the handkerchief, sighed at the blood, and placed it back, sniffling.

  “Anything busted?” It taken a moment before I could find the words. My heart was still racing, and my breath came out in short bursts. It sorta hurt to breathe.

  “I don’t think so.”

  My hands, still bound with that leather cord that bit into my wrists, touched her left ankle, then I eased up her leg, not touching the skin, nothing like that. Just on her skirt. She lowered the bloody piece of cotton underneath her nose, which had stopped bleeding, watching me. I looked at her, then moved my hands to her other leg, seeing if she flinched, touching her ankle, calf, lower thigh. Didn’t go no higher.

  Using her arms, she pushed herself up. I decided her wrists and arms wasn’t broken.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  She obeyed. Didn’t gasp or nothing.

  “I don’t think you busted anything”—I smiled—“’cept your nose, and it ain’t broken.”

  “I’m glad to know that.” But she tested it with her fingers, just to be certain.

  We just stared at each other.

  Crazy. I mean the first thing I noticed about her, with her hood down and all, was her eyebrows. They were perfect. Well, it ain’t that I’d ever noticed any woman’s eyebrows or nothing like that, so I can’t say I’m an expert. But they looked perfect, thick then tapering in this perfect curve. Her eyes were a light brown, not too dark, not too light. I reckoned they was perfect, too.

  Her dark hair, which hung to her shoulders, was kinda matted and sweaty and coated here and there with specs of dirt and piñon needles. I mean, it was a hot day, and she’d just been rammed off a horse and over a dead tree, so you couldn’t expect everything about her to be perfect.