Dillinger (v5) (11 page)

He turned to the third man. 'You, Kata, get as many rifles as we have hidden and come back here to me.'

They moved to do his bidding and within a few minutes he was alone listening to the sound of them vanishing into the dusk.

He stood for a while, thinking, then picked up a handful of dust and tossed it into the fire. In his veins, he felt the fire of vengeance.

10

As he drove, Dillinger was lecturing Rojas. 'When I was a kid,' he said, 'I learned that some people have big fists and small brains. Other guys have lots of brains but their fists are useless. And some have brains and fists and know how to use them both. I've been trying to pigeonhole you, Rojas, and I figure you for the first kind, big fists, small brains.'

'Gringo,
I will get you to the Federalistas, sooner or later, just as Senor Rivera wants.'

Dillinger applied his right foot to the brakes so hard Rojas went flying into the windshield, hurting his nose and forehead. 'Sorry,' Dillinger said. 'I thought I saw a snake in the road.'

'You drive this car like a crazy madman.'

'Then I guess you'd better just get out,' Dillinger said, waving Rojas's gun at him. 'Out!'

'You can't make me get out here. Take me to the hacienda.'

'I can take you back to town, how about that?'

'No.'

'Well, that's where I'm going, Rojas. Out!'

'Suppose no one comes by?' Rojas, said, getting out of the convertible.

'Somone'll come by. If it ain't people, it'll be your own kind, vultures, coyotes, somebody,' Dillinger said, laughing, as he swung the car around, sending up a cloud of dust to envelop Rojas.

A couple of miles towards town Dillinger spotted some desert wild flowers growing out of an outcropping of rock not too far from the road. He stopped the Chevvy and picked an even dozen of the flowers, put them carefully on the back seat.

The town seemed deserted.

Inside the hotel saloon, Chavasse greeted him with a wave.

'Rose upstairs?'

Chavasse nodded. Dillinger didn't see any reaction of jealousy in Chavasse's face. Wouldn't he have been if ...?

Upstairs, he knocked on her door, keeping the bunch of wild flowers behind his back.

'Who is it?' her voice said. Amazing how just her voice could get him going.

'Your favourite outlaw,' he said, touching his moustache with his free hand.

She opened the door, wearing a dark green kimono with silver and gold bands around the sleeves. With one hand she clasped the front of the kimono closed, but the top of one breast showed just a smidgin. It was enough. He remembered when the girl before Billie Frechette would sometimes greet him at the door with nothing on top. This woman was different. His feeling was different.

'I thought you were being turned over to the authorities?' she said.

'You sound like an authority to me. Can I come in?' he whipped the flowers around, startling her.

'Oh, they're beautiful,' she said, turning to find something to put them in. She used a pitcher as a vase. 'Your face looks better from your fight with Rojas,' she said.

'Your face looks better to me all the time, too,' he said.

And then he puts his arms around her. 'You'd better close the door,' he said. 'It's all right. I'm on good behaviour.' But his heart was beating like a tight drum.

Fallon, waking, gave a long, shuddering sigh, rubbed his knuckles into his bloodshot eyes and pushed himself up. After a while he swung his legs to the floor and padded across to the window. In the grey light of dawn the mountains seemed forbidding, and in the village great balls of tumbleweed crawled along unpaved road, pushed by the wind.

He shivered, aware of the coldness, of the bad taste in his mouth. He was getting old, that was the trouble. If you had to hide out in a place like this, at least it could be for doing something worthwhile, like Johnny, instead of the petty junk he'd gotten into trouble for.

They'd stopped work at the mine last night just before midnight because no one had the strength to continue. They should have used dynamite the way Dillinger had said. It would have long been over, one way or t'other. Rivera had sentenced them to death to save his damn gold.

Now the Indians in the mine knew something he didn't know. That was always the case when they whispered among each other.

Fallon pulled on his hat and coat, opened the door and went outside onto the porch. It was still and cold, the only sound the wind whistling through the scrub, and a strange air of desolation hung over everything. It was as if he had stumbled upon some ancient workings long since abandoned. He frowned and went up the slope.

The ore shed was empty. Usually by this time it was filled with Indians crouched together against the wall, waiting for the first shift to start. The steam engine was cold, something that was never supposed to happen. One of the watchman's regular duties was to keep it stoked during the night.

He returned to the cabin, led his horse from the shed at the rear and saddled it quickly. The first thing he noticed as he went down into the village was the absolute stillness. No smoke lifted into the sky from early-morning cooking fires and there was a complete absence of life. Not so much as a dog crossed the street as he rode up to the well and dismounted.

He opened the nearest door and peered inside. The room was bare, even the cooking pots had gone and when he touched the hearth it was cold.

He tried the next house and the next, with the same result, and returned to the well slowly. As he stood there beside his horse, a dog howled somewhere out in the desert, the sound of it echoing back from the mountains. Was it a dog? Or was it one of those Indian signals? In that first moment of irrational fear, he scrambled into the saddle and galloped out of the village.

Whatever was wrong had succeeded in frightening every man, woman and child in the place. He pushed his mount hard and half an hour later reached the head of the valley and rode down to the hacienda.

As he went across the courtyard, the door opened and Dona Clara appeared. Her hair was plaited like an Indian woman's. She seemed considerably distressed.

'Senor Fallon, thank God you are here.'

Fallon looked down at her without dismounting. 'Isn't Don Jose here?'

She shook her head. 'I'm quite alone except for Maria, my maid. My husband went up to the north pastures with Rojas while it was still dark. His herdsman brought the news that some of the cattle had been slaughtered.'

'What about the servants?'

'Usually the cook brings me coffee in bed at six. When she didn't come I decided to look for her.' She shook her head in bewilderment. 'The kitchen is cold, there is no one there. It is like a house of the dead.'

'It may be something to do with what happened yesterday at the mine,' Fallon told her. 'I'll ride down to the servants' quarters. There must be somebody who can tell us what's going on.'

He galloped round to the rear of the house and down the slope towards the cluster of adobe huts beside the stream. When he kicked open the first door and went inside it was the same story. The servants had taken their belongings with them.

As he scrambled into the saddle again, someone screamed up at the hacienda and he dug his heels into the horse's flanks and urged it up the slope. When he entered the courtyard a buckboard was standing at the front door. Dona Clara leaned with her face to the wall, and Felipe, Rivera's vaquero, stood on the steps, hat in hands.

Fallon dismounted. 'What is it?'

Felipe came down the steps slowly, his face very pale. 'See for yourself, senor.'

In the back of the buckboard behind the rear seat lay something covered with a brightly coloured Indian blanket. Fallon moved forward and drew in his breath sharply. Father Tomas gazed up at the sky, his faded blue eyes retracted only slightly. The mortal head wound had turned his face into a grotesque mask.

Fallon covered it with the blanket. 'Where did you find him?'

'No more than a hundred yards from my hut, senor. The strange thing was that the horses had been hobbled.'

'They didn't bury him. They sent the body here as a message.'

Dona Clara turned from the wall. Her face was drawn and very white, but she had obviously regained control of herself. 'Senor Fallon, tell me the truth. What does this mean?'

'What has Don Jose told you?'

'He tells me nothing. Please, I must know what is going on.'

'There was a dispute at the mine. Twenty or so men were trapped by a cave-in. The new American suggested dynamite to move a huge rock that was blocking our rescue work. Don Jose refused and ordered the American turned over to the authorities. Father Tomas pleaded with Don Jose. So - I am sorry, Dona Clara - Don Jose shot Father Tomas as an example.'

'I don't believe you!' she cried.

'There were many witnesses.'

'Is that why the cattle have been slaughtered?'

Fallon shrugged.

'Is that why the people have run off?'

Fallon didn't answer her.

'Senor Fallon,' she said, 'I would like you to escort us into Hermosa.'

'Don't you think we should wait for your husband to return?'

She shook her head. 'No, we'll be safer in town. We can go in the buckboard and take Father Tomas's body with us. Felipe can drive.'

She turned without giving him time to reply and went into the house.

Fallon looked up at the mountains as the early-morning sun slanted across them and shook his head.

'Have you got a gun, Felipe?'

The vaquero shook his head. 'The
patron
keeps all firearms locked in the armoury in the cellar. He alone has the key, senor. We would need sledgehammers to break down the door.'

Dona Clara emerged from the house, a shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders. Behind her the maid carried little Juanita. The women sat on the rear seat with the child. Fallon climbed back on his horse. They turned through the gate and went up through the trail towards the head of the valley.

The sun moved over the top of the mountains, chasing the blue shadows from the desert, and Felipe cracked the whip over the horses' backs, urging them on.

Already the heat lifted from the land like a heavy mist and Fallon wiped sweat from his face with a sleeve.

They dropped down through a dry arroyo and moved toward the place where the trail from the mine joined the one to Hermosa. Beyond this point it wound its way between great, tapering needles of rock and entered a canyon so deep that the bottom was shaded from the sun and unexpectedly cool.

Through the silence a jay called three times and Fallon glanced up sharply. Or was it a jay? Usually they stayed close to water and there was none here. At that moment there was a spine-chilling cry from behind that re-echoed within the narrow walls of the canyon and two Apaches galloped in from the desert, blocking their retreat.

Felipe threw one terrified glance over his shoulder and curled his whip out over the horses. The canyon widened into a deep, saucer-shaped bowl with sloping sides. If they could get to the other end, they would be in the clear. Felipe whipped the horses again. He made out three specks ahead, and as they closed the distance, the specks were clearly three Apaches on horseback. Felipe tried reining in the confused horses, but now the Apaches in front were close enough so that one could raise his rifle in an almost casual gesture and fire. The shot bruised him and again Felipe tried reining the frightened horses, but a second shot rang out and found its mark. Felipe cried out sharply and went over the side.

As the women screamed, the buckboard slewed, the rear wheels bouncing over a boulder. The terrified horses reared up, snapping the lead traces, then burst through the Apaches as the buckboard turned over, spilling its occupants to the ground.

Fallon reined in as Maria rolled beneath him. He lost his seat and went backwards over the animal's rump, falling heavily to the ground. He rolled over and over, half stunned and landed beneath the wrecked buckboard beside Father Tomas's body.

Dona Clara was running for the narrow entrance to the canyon, clutching Juanita in her arms, tripping over her long skirts, her mouth open in a soundless scream. An Apache in an old blue coat with brass buttons galloped behind her, laughing, holding his rifle by the barrel. He swung it in a circle and Fallon could see it curving toward Dona Clara's head and he could do nothing to stop it as the Apache's rifle splintered bone and Donna Clara pitched forward onto her face. Juanita clutched at her mother's body, screaming, trying to shake her back to life.

Fallon looked about him desperately, but there was no retreat. The sloping sides of the bowl lifted smooth and bare into the sky out of the white sand. Rough hands dragged him from under the buckboard.

The Indians lashed him to the rear of the buckboard, his hands behind him. Maria crawled over to her mistress, weeping, then tried to take Juanita in her arms but the child would not let go of her mother. Felipe leaned against the rock clutching a bloody arm. The Apaches were armed with repeating rifles and two of them had revolvers in their belts. Their faces were painted in vertical stripes of blue and white.

What happened then was like something out of a nightmare. One of the Apaches turned Dona Clara over. She was mercifully dead. He went over to the frightened Maria who was begging him for mercy but, his face impassive, the Apache lifted his rifle and smashed her head again and again. He picked up little Juanita, who was now kicking and screaming, and when Fallon yelled, 'Leave the little girl alone,' he lifted Fallon's chin and spat in his face.