In an eddy by an ocotillo bush he washed his clothes and bathed himself. He wished he’d thought to have brought his pouch of tobacco along, for if ever there was a time to sit and contemplate things it was then. Not only what had just happened, but what awaited him down the trail. His real business.
His clothes did not fully dry until the sun had fallen. He came out of the stream and sluiced the water from his body with the edge of his hands, then dressed himself and walked back to where they’d made camp.
She sat leaning on one palm with her legs bent at the knees and drawn back behind her. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail and her cheeks were flushed pink from the sun. The shawl lay some feet away. Bare skin showed at her neckline where the dress had been ripped.
She said nothing, only watched him. When his eyes fell on her cleavage she seemed to purse her lips some as if judging him, but he couldn’t be sure.
‘We’ll spend the night here,’ he said. ‘Fill the canteens, get good and watered, eat what’s left of the jerky. Tomorrow we’ll make the last push into Tin City.’
She turned her head and lifted her chin. Balum ignored her. He went about gathering up what might burn; ocotillo sticks, dry grama. He could feel her eyes on him as he carried it back to their small encampment. When he fished a match from his pocket and stoked the fire, she only flipped her hair over her shoulder and sat without uttering a single word that might reveal her state of mind.
They ate jerky out of a skillet and listened to the river chortle by. When they bedded down, he chose his spot away from her. He spread his bedroll and dropped his saddle at the top, unbuckled his gunbelt, peeled off his boots, and crawled inside. Still she watched him, though he gave no indication that he knew.
Before sleep took him, he lay awake and set to considering his plan of action once he reached Tin City. Where to put his horse, who to ask first, exactly how to phrase his inquiries. But such rational thoughts had no clout over images of Josephine’s body glistening wet and naked in the stream. They came barreling back along with what she’d said. How she’d acted. His mind wrestled with it — it made no sense. Balum knew himself, knew he was no manicured dandy. He was rough in every way. Rough in his looks, in his speech, in the way he comported himself in the world. Not every woman’s idea of the perfect man. But he also knew that for some women he brought out the lust in them.
What he brought out in Josephine Wilsey was disdain and bedevilment. She seemed to be offended by his very presence, at odds with each decision he made. And so the entire scene that afternoon in the waterpool would not square.
It seemed he’d lie awake all night pondering such incongruency, but sleep he did, for when he opened his eyes it was well on to morning and Josephine had already risen. She came hiking up the streambank carrying wet canteens looped by their straps over her shoulders. She let Balum’s thud into the sand beside him and continued her march to the oxcart where she heaved the rest into the back. Then she turned.
‘Well? Do you plan on keeping me here all day so you can undress me with your eyes or shall we hitch up the horses and move on?’
The final push through the desert seemed more a Sunday stroll compared to what they’d just been through. They were well rested, hydrated, stocked with ample water. The horses had regained their strength. They pulled the cart with such vigor it made Balum wonder if they knew a livery filled with hay and oats waited just ahead.
As they neared Tin City, Balum weighed the effects of arriving in town alongside Josephine and determined it was not in his favor. His arrival should not be public. On the two previous occasions he’d visited he had made lasting impressions. Gunfights, deadmen, broken glass. The only benefit Balum had was that each time had been with Joe, and Joe’s physical appearance was one of the few in the world that could overshadow Balum’s. This was Balum’s small advantage; that he might pass undetected for a while, mistaken for one of the endless roughnecks come to chase their dreams of riches in the silver mines.
As he walked alongside the roan he debated the best way of telling her. He wanted no argument, no foolish questions. He did not wish to explain himself.
For some time his mind worked on this until a smile broke over his face. The hell with it. He’d simply tell her to go on without him and that was that. He didn’t need a reason. Get your ass moving.
He stopped and let the cart move ahead. Josephine appeared on the other side. He opened his mouth but she cut him off.
‘Balum, I’d like to have a word with you.’
He felt his eyebrows rise. ‘Yes?’
‘How far is Tin City?’
‘Under three miles. Just over the next ridge.’
‘Good.’ She crossed her arms under her breasts and squeezed and watched Balum’s eyes flash down and back up. An expression there he couldn’t untangle. ‘Don’t go taking offense,’ she said, ‘but I don’t believe it would look proper for us to arrive in one another’s company.’
He nodded slowly. Waited.
‘There are optics, you see. People might assume something improper, and I have a reputation to uphold. As I said, I work with Doctor Friedman. It is a reputable business, and I am a reputable woman.’
‘Of course.’
‘And you…’ She stopped, looked away. Realized she’d gone too far.
‘Yes?’
‘Well,’ she made a motion with her hands as if repairing something, but she had not the means to fix the damage done.
‘I’m not a reputable man,’ he finished for her.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘No,’ she crossed her arms more tightly and twisted her mouth. Her eyes turned to the cart wobbling down the trail, then flashed back to Balum. ‘But you aren’t. You haven’t come to mine silver. I can only imagine the real reason, some secret business in a town full of loose women. I’m surprised you didn’t have your way with me there by the river.’
Balum shook his head and turned and walked after the cart.
He caught up to the team and stopped them and in less than two minutes unhitched the roan and walked it out from the traces. No more time did it take to rig Josephine’s horse back up. She climbed aboard the driving bench and wrapped the shawl tight around her shoulders while Balum heaved his saddlebags and gear from the back. He threw the saddle over the roan and cinched the girth strap and turned his head and saw her watching him. Her eyes were hot, impatient for something. Like he had something more to give her.
He waved her off with the back of his hand. The same motion she herself had made when she shooed him from the streambank.
‘Go on now,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel like standing around in this desert much longer.’
‘Very well.’ She took up the reins. ‘You have a pleasant day, Mr. Balum.’ She slapped the reins over the horse. The oxcart lurched forward, veering and pitching over rock and stone until it found its balance and went creaking down the trail to Tin City.
He pulled his hat low over his eyes to shield them from dust, and when it settled he took his hat off and slapped the brim against his thigh and laid it back over his head.
‘Goddamn,’ he said aloud. He couldn’t figure that woman out. But he was rid of her. At least there was that.
9
They rode under a cloudless sky; Valeria in the saddle, Joe just behind her with an arm around her waist. The constellations served as guidemap to their getaway. Valeria knew the way. She pointed the horse to Ursa Minor, crossed a dry arroyo and turned northwest to Cepheus and Cassiopeia while all the while Joe second-guessed himself, knowing somewhere deep within him that they had no chance, that two on a horse with little food or water taking refuge in abandoned cliff dwellings would end in tragedy. When visions of Big Tom and his gang ransacked his head, he washed it all away by leaning forward and smelling the dark lush hair that held such prettier thoughts within.
Far into the night they came upon a basin with a spat of water in its bottom. They drank, waited side-
by-side for the horse to take its fill, then mounted up and rode on.
Morning found them on foot. The air held coolness still, and the horse needed the rest. Stars faded into the sunrise. Valeria switched from constellations to landmarks to guide her path across the desert. They could push hard — she knew the first few watering holes — and so they did. They traveled all day despite the glare of the sun, and when evening returned they continued on until they reached a sandstone gorge where water trickled over polished rocks, and there they collapsed, fatigued and not yet halfway to the Scarlands.
Before he fell asleep, Joe counted. He whispered numbers to himself, and when she heard him she turned to him.
‘What are you counting?’ she asked.
‘The hours.’
‘Until we reach the Scarlands?’
He shook his head. Leaned into her. ‘Until he catches up.’
She was silent then, considering. After a while she said, ‘How long do you think?’
‘With luck he didn’t discover you were gone until morning. He would have had to assemble his men. Water, food… ammunition. Find our tracks. I figure we got a twelve-hour start, maybe more.’
‘It’s not enough, is it?’
Joe reached out and stroked a tendril of hair behind her ear. She was beautiful, but she was also tough. There was no hiding the facts from her.
‘No,’ he said.
‘What will we do?’
‘For now there’s nothing to do but sleep. We’ll push on, see what the day provides. There will be a way — there always is if you want it bad enough.’
They slept only four hours. Any more would have been a luxury only a fool would take. It was enough to freshen the horse — the rest, the water, a stomach full of oats — and for the first several hours the animal took the two of them through patches of dry shrubs and around purple verbena without complaint, its feet kicking sand over the cholla clear till the morning hour when the sun spilled over the earth and lit the crimson chalices of claret cups like a thousand little fires burning in the early dawn.
The rising sun made clear not only the land about them, but something else, something Joe had been waiting for that, when he spied it, caused his arm to tighten around Valeria’s waist.
A dust cloud. Faint and far away, only visible due to the low-hanging rays of sunlight. It cut through the rider’s dust like an orange menacing fog that could not be outrun and would bring death to them both.
He had told Valeria there was always a way, but the truth was that sometimes there wasn’t. Plenty of white-washed bones lay strewn about the desert to attest to that. Pioneers, pilgrims, outlaws, all kinds of men and women struggled to survive and failed. Joe looked behind him again. He would not be counted among those numbers. He would survive. With Valeria.
Again he spun through his options, few though they were. They could hole up before reaching the Scarlands. Make their stand somewhere else. But the desert offered little cover. They could perhaps reach the cliff dwellings if they ran the horse to its death. But where would that leave them? He could separate himself from Valeria, take a different route and force Big Tom’s men to split up. But he saw no happy outcome there.
One option that called to him was to dismount and let the horse take off alone. On foot, Joe and Valeria could conceal their trail. But they’d be left without water, without food, without a horse. And where would that get them in the end?
No. The fact was that the men trailing them would catch them. Unless they were forced to slow down.
Joe thought about that.
What would slow them down was wariness. Fear. The way they rode now was on a rampage. But if they knew Joe was close and dangerous, that he could pick them off their saddles with a rifle shot, they would have to slow down.
Still, the idea of waiting for Big Tom to catch up did not sit well. If they could make it till nightfall, Joe would have his chance. A chance at exactly what he wasn’t sure. Sneak into their camp, use his knife. A dangerous plan.
He gave the horse a swat on the hindquarters and a tap with his boots and the horse responded by picking its pace up to a trot, its hooves clapping sandstone underfoot that rang out like broken tambourines against the swath of scorched earth around them.
They drank without dismounting. When the horse faltered in its gait they stopped in the shade of a sorry pinyon pine and watered it from the canteen, then tugged it out from the shade against its will and walked it back into the shimmering oven.
Joe wondered how many horses Big Tom would have. Certainly a spare for every rider, perhaps two. All those horses composed a great part of their advantage. It allowed them to ride fast, to gain ground.
He jerked to a stop and spun around on his heel. He put a hand to his eye and leveled it toward the dust cloud gaining behind them.
‘What is it?’ said Valeria.
‘That’s a big cloud, and that means a lot of horses.’
‘All of Big Tom’s men are well-mounted. He prides himself on his horse stock.’
‘Enough to have built his own corral.’
Valeria put a hand against Joe’s horse and stroked the animal’s lathered neck. The horse leaned into it, exhausted. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘We need another horse. Three more would do us right.’
Her eyes widened. She shook her head.
‘It would slow them down,’ he added. ‘Besides, it’s the only way out of this. By tonight he’ll be close enough to hear the echo of our voices, and by tomorrow close enough to catch us. We won’t reach the Scarlands — not on one horse.’
‘But how?’
‘At night. I’ll sneak in.’
‘There’s no way. There’ll be a dozen men, each one armed…’
‘And none of them expecting me.’ He saw the doubt in her eyes, or more aptly, the worry. He stepped forward, set his hand at her waist. ‘You forget,’ he said. ‘I’m half Apache. I stole my first horse on a Comanche raid when I was ten years old. Not more than a month ago I stole five off the Bell Brother gang in one go,’ he smiled at the memory, then squeezed her waist.
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she whispered. ‘Pero ten cuidado. No aguanto perderte.’
10
The silver mines on whose backs Tin City had been built occupied only a small slice of land to the south of town. Further west the ground broke and heaved and turned mountainous, even lush in the higher elevation. To the north more desert. Not much different from what Balum had just crossed. He sat the roan and wiped his palms down his trousers.
He would have sat even longer — he aimed to judge the flow of traffic, estimate the number of inhabitants — but the sun sapped him of such patience. He tapped the roan and rode in a half-circle around to the back of town where a full-sized livery sat. It would serve him well to have the horse in a stall, hidden from curious eyes. And the roan deserved the pampering.
He found the double doors wide open. He dropped from the roan’s back and walked it forward, down a long dark passageway lined with horse stalls on either side. The smell of hay and horse. Leather and sweat and dung.
‘Anybody home?’ he called out.
‘Stop right there, mister,’ a voice came from the darkness.
Balum stopped. One hand on the bridle and the other hanging free. The lack of windows made it hard to judge where the speaker was hidden, but Balum had a hunch he was hunkered down behind a haystack a dozen stalls further on.
‘Before you come any further you state your name and your business,’ the man said.
‘My name doesn’t matter,’ said Balum. ‘My business is seeing to my horse. I want him fed and watered and brushed, his hooves inspected and his shoes changed. That good enough for you?’
Several seconds ticked by. The man deliberated. ‘Are you one of Big Tom’s men?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘He didn’t send you?’
‘No one sent me. Now are you gonna come out from behind that haystack or should I stable the horse mys
elf?’
The man stood up. He held an old scattergun with the barrel tilted halfway up. He studied Balum, then laid the gun across a hay bale. When he walked into the corridor Balum could see the man’s face had recently taken a beating. Even in the poor light the swelling was obvious.
The man scowled but took the reins. ‘How long?’ he asked.
‘I can’t rightly say. But when I come for him I’ll more than likely need him in a hurry.’
‘You plan on making trouble?’
‘I never plan on it.’ Balum followed the liveryman down the corridor to an empty stall. He stripped his gear off the horse’s back and set it in the dirt, then said, ‘Seems you’ve had some trouble yourself.’
The liveryman snapped his head around. His eyes ran down Balum’s face to where the butt of the Dragoon protruded from its holster, then he snorted.
‘Big Tom?’ asked Balum. He thought the liveryman might be in a mood to confide, but instead he growled back.
‘I’ll keep my business to myself, just as you keep yours to your own self. Now seeing as how you plan on taking out of here with a fire on your ass, I’ll kindly ask you to pay in advance.’ He extended a wrinkled hand.
Balum took two dollars from his saddlebags. It was more than was needed, but he was flush with cash. The liveryman took it with no change of expression one way or the other, and turned and slunk off in direction of the tack room.
Balum watched him go. Something odd was going on. The old man had gotten his face pummeled, and Big Tom had something to do with it. Balum considered hanging around and pressing the man for details, but not for long. The hell with it, he told himself. He slung his saddlebags over his shoulder and walked back through the double doors and into a burning sun.
First off, a hotel. He needed something secure; in the saddlebags he carried more cash than was wise. His share of the Buford Bell bounty amounted to over sixteen-hundred dollars, and though he’d blown through some in San Antonio, he hadn’t been able to spend more than a swallow’s worth.
Balum's Harem Page 4
