Mojave (14 page)

Then we was all silent. Peach Fuzz passed one of Whip's canteens. We each taken a drink, then that canteen was dry. I handed it back to Peach Fuzz. “How we doing on water?”

He picked up Whip's other canteen. “This one's 'bout empty, too,” he said. “That pot's empty. Got the bladder, though, and a gourd.” He steered us back to our original conversation. “But I don't get all this. If Candy Crutchfield was a-bringin' in her own brides, they'd have their own menfolk. Ain't like that Lucky Ben fellow wants to marry some other girl, and it ain't that that peckerwood of a drummer. . . .” He stopped talking.

I pulled my now ruined six-dollar hat back on my head. “I ain't figured everything out yet myself,” I said, and looked back at Jingfei. “But you know something.”

She stared. Quiet Not got suddenly quiet.

“Back outside that canyon passage,” I reminded her, “you said, ‘This isn't what we agreed to. '” She'd make a savvy card player herself, because her porcelain face remained stone. Didn't even blink. “My guess is that you realized Rogers Canfield and Whip Watson wasn't exactly honest about your arrangements.”

“We have signed contracts,” she said.

“I warrant so do the girls Candy Crutchfield's hauling to Calico.”

“
If
she has mail-order brides,” Jingfei said. “She could be lying.”

She wasn't. I knowed that because Candy Crutchfield stepped from behind a one of them tall red rocks, armed with a new Marlin repeater, and she said, “Oh, I ain't lyin', girl. And I reckon I gots me one other wench to bring to Calico.”

She appeared to be on the short side, maybe five-foot tall, and that's in them big stovepipe boots with two-inch heels that she wore. Certainly, she didn't dress like Jingfei, and I'd hate to picture her in a gold-trimmed
changyi.
What she wore was patched Army-issue blue trousers that was too big, and she wasn't exactly on the skinny side, neither, held up by the dirty canvas suspenders and the gun belt around her waist that holstered an ivory-handled Schofield. A six-button bib-front shirt, red and black checked, one nasty-looking bandanna, and a linen duster that blowed behind her because the wind had started blowing. Her black slouch hat looked worser than the one I'd left behind in Calico.

At first, I thought she had some giant boil or cyst on her cheek, but then she turned her head a mite and spit, and the wind blowed brown tobacco juice all over the tan vest of the fellow who stood behind her. He didn't complain none, and I couldn't blame him.

I'd knowed some whores who dipped snuff, but never a lady who chawed Starr Navy tobacco by the crate-load. Not that I'd ever mistook Candy Crutchfield for a lady.

That's 'cause Candy Crutchfield was one mean-looking woman. Her dark eyes was too close together, her face scarred and dirty, her nose swole up and crooked from having been punched too many times. She had greasy brown hair, streaked with gray, that touched her dirty bandanna.

“So you're the Celestial queen Canfield spoke 'bout so much.” Candy Crutchfield stopped to chew her tobacco some more. Tan Vest moved to the other side of her. “Reckon I see why. You's real purty. Be a fine addition to The Palace of Calico.”

While she was admiring Jingfei's beauty, I counted the men who stood behind her. Seven of them, a hard lot of hard rocks. Heard some laughter behind me that I knowed wasn't coming from Peach Fuzz, and I figured there'd be two or four men back of us, too. Too many for me to take, so I kept my hands so Candy Crutchfield would see that I wasn't planning on trying nothing. Trying nothing but staying alive.

“Real purty rig you got there, too.” Crutchfield spit tobacco juice that didn't hit nobody. She trained them beady eyes of hers on me. “Last I saw, we had commanded two of Whip's wagons. One didn't make it up the hill.”

I guessed she was asking me what had happened. I said, “It wrecked.”

“And Mal?”

My expression must have told her I was trying to say,
Who the hell is Mal?

“One of my boys. Bragged how he could ride an ox and get that prairie schooner movin' like the Pony Express.”

Last I'd seen of Mal he'd been rolling down that hill.

“He lied,” I said.

She nodded matter-of-factly. “Figured. The girls in that prairie schooner all right?”

“They're all dead,” Jingfei answered. “Thanks to you.”

Crutchfield's eyes left me and sized up Jingfei. “Whip Watson's a wonder with a whip,” Crutchfield said, “but I skin with somethin' better.” She braced the Marlin's stock against her belly, kept the barrel in our general direction, and moved her left hand toward the blowing tails of the duster, so I could see that big, bone-handled knife sticking out of a sheath that I hadn't seen before. If the blade was anywhere near the size of the handle, I'd hate to get cut by it.

“I skint buffalo. Skint bloatin' cow carcasses. Skunks. Beavers. Coyot's. Wolves. Fish. Dogs. Cats. An' I skint men and women, black, white, red, brown. Skinnin' an uppity yellow-skinned bitch with a big mouth wouldn't bother me at all.”

Brave man that I am, I turned Candy Crutchfield's attention back to me. Hooked my thumb back toward the south and said, “Whip Watson'll be coming this way right soon.”

She laughed. Spit. Brought her left hand back to the Marlin. “Nah,” she said. “He can't. He's dead.”

Reckon me and Peach Fuzz and Jingfei all blinked at the same time. Which got Candy Crutchfield cackling so hard she liked to have swallowed her tobacco, which would have made her sicker than the dirty dog she was. But she didn't, just turned her head the other way and spit more brown juice that this time landed on Tan Vest's right pants leg. Some of the boys sniggered at Tan Vest's luck, and I might have too had I any saliva in my mouth to do any sniggering.

Jingfei whispered, “The gunshots we heard.”

“That's right.” Candy Crutchfield had a good set of ears. I'd barely heard Jingfei myself, and Crutchfield stood about ten yards in front of us. “I left a dozen of the boys back at that pass.”

The pass! The one I'd warned Jingfei and Peach Fuzz about. “I told you!” I exclaimed. “Said that was a perfect place to set up an ambush.”

“And you was right, iffen it's the same place I'm talkin' 'bout.”

Had to be. I was about to describe the canyon, but Peach Fuzz said, “But how come we got through?”

With a snort, Crutchfield turned around, and Tan Vest backed up and over quite a ways, but this time the woman didn't spit. Started to, but stopped, and wiped her mouth with the back of her left hand, keeping her right on that big rifle. “I ain't no fool,” she said. Had to stop, to spit, but the juice just went down in front of her own boots on account that the wind had died down. “And my boys ain't idiots, neither.” She turned, looked at some of her boys, reconsidered her thought as she spotted Tan Vest, and added, a bit softer and with less boast. “Most of 'em, anyhow. Nah, the boys had orders to kill Whip Watson and his men. Not a China princess and her two servants on a little picnic ride. They let y'all pass. Good thing, too. I'da shot 'em all dead iffen they was to harm a hair on her precious head. So Whip and his lot is feedin' buzzards. Verne should be bringin' word to me shortly. Told the rest of the boys to head out to Calico, get things ready for us. No idiots ride with me. I ain't like the late Whip Watson.”

The wind picked up again. Crutchfield stepped back. She motioned at me and Peach Fuzz.

“Speaking of idiots, step down off that buggy.”

“What for?” Peach Fuzz said.

I whispered to Peach Fuzz, “Idiot.”

Candy said, “So I can kill you.”

Peach Fuzz gasped and sank back into his chair. My stomach did some teetering and some tottering. Jingfei just stared real hard, her porcelain face granite, her hands still on that Winchester in her lap, which, to my reckoning, Candy and her idiot boys hadn't spotted yet.

“I don't wants to get blood and brains on 'em leather seats,” Crutchfield said. “Step off. Act like men.”

Peach Fuzz was about to stutter, or, since I couldn't see him, was about to pull that Spiller & Burr and likely get hisself and Jingfei and me killed. So I leaned forward, smiling my best, warmest smile, and said, “You don't want to kill us. You have need of men like me.” Even jerked my thumb toward Peach Fuzz. “And him.”

“I don't need no fools,” she said. “That's why I let Mal try that damned fool stunt.”

“How many men do you have?” I asked.

“Enough.”

“You lost more than Mal back at Whip Watson's camp.”

“Good. Don't have to pay 'em nothin'.”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” I said, “if you lost some more at that pass.”

She spit. “Balderdash.”

“What,” I asked, “if your boys didn't hold off Whip and his men? You thought about that?”

“Don't need to.”

“Don't you?” Now Jingfei was staring at me, with that
do-you-know-what-the-hell-you're-doing?
kind of look.

I didn't, but I told Crutchfield, gesturing again toward Peach Fuzz, “Me and him, we deserted Whip. Woman-napped the Chinese princess here.” Now Jingfei was really giving me an evil eye.

She snorted—Crutchfield, not Jingfei, who was too ladylike to snort or fart or chew tobacco or anything like that except to answer nature's call with two armed guards—and spit out more juice. “You're borin' me, and I want to get back to camp, have me some whiskey, and do some celebratin'.”

“You think Whip Watson would just let us go on a . . . picnic?”

She brought the Marlin up, braced the stock tighter against her shoulder, and said, “Try not to bleed all over 'em leather seats.”

My voice rose an octave or two, and I doubt if I sounded much like that thespian who'd played Captain Bang in
Our Island Home,
as I sang out, “You'll have need of every gun you can muster if Whip Watson ain't dead, and I'm real good.”

By grab, I had killed that guy with the bandolier back during the fight at camp just a few hours earlier. And the fellow in Rogers Canfield's office over in Calico—blowed his sorry hide right out a second-story window. Not to mention Pink Shirt in Chinatown. Sure, I hadn't popped a cap on him, but I had been the last person down the ladder and that ladder did cause Pink Shirt's death. And I'd shot down a real ass named Sean Fenn in New Mexico Territory. And also had killed that drover in Missouri and the idiot in the Indian Nations whose faces still gave me fits every now and then when I was trying to sleep. And I figured that I might have to kill another, perhaps two, maybe just one of those Percherons by accident, if I had to dive out of this Columbus carriage and pull the Colt and start blasting until I was blasted to Purgatory.

But I didn't have to shoot nobody. Yet. Because Candy Crutchfield was lowering the rifle, piddles of tobacco juice dripping over her thin lips, laughing, and shaking her head till tears flowed, cutting paths through the dirt on her face.

“You say you're good with a gun?” she finally managed.

“There are six dead assassins in Calico,” I said. Which was true, even if I'd only killed one, two if you counted Pink Shirt.

Peach Fuzz picked the wrong time to speak up. “And I'm better than he is!” he shouted.

I don't believe she believed me or Peach Fuzz, but she turned and tossed the Marlin to Tan Vest. Then pointed a finger at me, or maybe it was Peach Fuzz.

“Then I tell you what, Mister . . . ?”

Nope, she was looking at me.

“Bishop,” I said. “Micah Bishop. Wanted in New Mexico and Missouri and Texas and in the Western District of Arkansas Which Includes The Indian Territories.”

“All right,” she said, and she didn't bother asking Peach Fuzz his name. “I ain't had much fun lately, so here's the deal I'll make y'all whilst I'm waitin' on Verne. If one of y'all can kill Buster, just shoot him dead, then I'll let y'all live. Let y'all ride for me. Since Mal's dead.”

“Promise?” Peach Fuzz asked from behind me.

“Candy Crutchfield's a man of her word,” she said. “Which one of y'all wants the chance to shoot down Buster?” None of us moved, even when she added, “State of Nevada's put up a seventy-five dollar reward on him.”

“You go,” Peach Fuzz said, and give my shoulder a push. “You've got the newer revolver.”

Course, I just sat there, till I seen Jingfei's finger slipping into the trigger guard on that Winchester and her thumb pressing on the rifle's hammer. Then I was out of that buggy, and taking off my hat, and dropping my right hand near—but not too close to—the butt of the new Colt I'd bought in Calico. I was praying that Buster was Tan Vest because he didn't appear to have no luck this day.

Tan Vest's name wasn't Buster.

Buster stepped from behind the horses that were being held by a fellow still wearing the remnants of what he had been issued in prison.

Buster looked to be about the size of the Percherons put together. Didn't wear no shirt, but it was a hot day, only a vest, and I seen bulging muscles I'd never seen on no man or no draft horse. He also had only one eye.

Problem was, he didn't have a patch over the other eye, the one that wasn't there no more. So I just found myself looking into that hole, and trying not to cringe, and not to be rude, and finally made myself look at the rest of him—so I wouldn't be staring at that eye that wasn't there no more.

He wore Levi's and fancy boots with big Mexican spurs with bigger Mexican rowels, and a porkpie hat. His long black hair blowed in the wind, and he was reaching down toward his waist, and I spied a brace of Colts, butt forward on both of his hips. And my hand was about to try for my own Colt, but hell, he wasn't reaching for his guns, he was tugging on the belt and buckle, and next thing I knowed those guns had dropped into the dirt, and Buster, still grinning, was making his way right for me.

My left hand pointed. “Put those guns on,” I demanded.

“I won't waste a bullet on you, pig,” he said.

Candy Crutchfield laughed, spit, and give me some advice. “Iffen I was you, Micah Bishop, I'd shoot Buster down right now.”

Till that moment, I'd never know this about me. I'm a swindler and a cheat and a thief. I've killed men. I've broken a dozen or so Commandments. But I ain't never shot no unarmed man, especially an unarmed man with only one good eye. Even if that unarmed, one-eyed man had arms the size of telegraph poles and stood about a foot taller than me. Nope, I just stood there, watching Buster come, me still pointing at that gun belt he had dropped, and telling him, begging him to go arm hisself, and then he was right atop me, putting a ham of a hand on my left shoulder, practically pinning me to where I stood, and his right fist, more like a cannonball, slammed right into my belly.

Air whooshed out of my lungs, which begun trying to suck in some life out of the desert air, and I knowed I was vomiting, and gagging, and practically dying, and I felt Buster's big right fist drop to my holster. Something other than vomit fell by my feet. Buster was saying something—later Jingfei told me what he said was, “We'll settle this like men, with our fists,” after he dropped my Colt—and then pushing me to the dirt.

Hitting the ground, I somehow managed to roll over, and was trying to get back to my feet. Well, my knees was on the ground, and so was my palms, even though my lungs still wasn't quite working the way they should.