The Bells of El Diablo (28 page)

James stepped over the brave and out of the corridor he was in, and stopped. Something hard pressed up against the side of his head, just behind his right ear. He turned to see Chulo standing beside him, holding a cocked Patterson revolver in his massive right fist. His dark animal eyes bored into James, the Yaqui’s lack of expression more disconcerting than any evil leer would have been.

Chulo pressed the gun harder against James’s head. James saw the big finger curled through the Colt’s trigger guard tighten, and he narrowed one eye, bracing himself for the shot he likely wouldn’t hear.

Another click sounded.

Chulo’s eyes flicked to one side. Then he turned his head. Crosseye stood behind him, just over the big Yaqui’s right shoulder, smiling as he pressed the Lefaucheux pin-fire revolver against the side of Chulo’s head. The fancy piece’s hammer was angled back, ready to slap forward. It almost looked as if it were eager to do so.

Chulo must have thought it looked that way, too. He pulled his Colt away from James’s head, depressed the hammer. Crosseye pulled the Lefaucheux back from Chulo’s scalp but kept it aimed at the Yaqui’s head. He turned to James. “Believe them redskins done pulled out, Jimmy. If you two are done powwowin’ over here, we’d best head back to the wagon.”

“Right.” James looked at Chulo, who let his pistol drop to his side but continued to give James that eerily expressionless stare. “Till later, amigo.”

James stepped around Chulo and followed Crosseye back through the network of stony corridors to the wagon, where Apache Jack was smoking a cigarette near the tailgate while Vincente sat behind the Gatling gun, a bandage covering his ruined ear. Pablo stood a ways from Jack, looking nervous. Vienna stood behind the boy, her hands on his shoulders. She looked relieved as James and Crosseye walked up to her.

“They’ve pulled out, Jack,” James said, giving the boy’s sombrero a teasing pull. “Like you said, it must’ve been a small band.”

“Yeah, well, there’s more small packs where that one came from.” Apache Jack turned and felt his way along the side of the wagon to the front, nervously puffing on his quirley. “Let’s find us a spot to hole up in. From now on, we’d best only travel after dark. We still got a good two-, three-day ride ahead of us.”

Near the base of the Las Montanas de la Sombras, the Lipan Apaches’ sacred range that appeared just as its name suggested—a hulking black shadow angling off
the southeastern edge of the greater massive sierra of the Mother of Mountains itself, the Sierra Madre.

It was dusk of the party’s third long day of travel.

Coyotes yammered madly in the quiet, high-desert air, snarling. James could hear them fighting over something, hear their padded feet kicking up dirt and gravel, hear the indignant yip of one getting bit. He walked slowly toward the edge of a gravelly wash, peered down over the low bank. The day had gone, leaving only a lilac wash in the far western sky between toothy black ridges, but there was enough light that James could see the fire in the lobos’ eyes as they fought, thrashing, over a dead javelina. Or rather what was left of the mottled black beast with its scrunched-up pig’s face and deadly tusks now painted with its own frothy blood.

The coyotes were so involved in their fight that none of the five—nor one other, smaller coyote standing back from the others and merely yipping and lifting its long, pointed snout toward the dimly kindling stars—managed to wind or see the tall, dark watcher in twill trousers, buckskin vest, and gray kepi, a red neckerchief knotted around his neck. James stepped back from the edge of the wash, not wanting to disturb the creatures, though they’d awakened him from his sleep in a wash where he and his traveling companions had sought refuge from the sun and wandering bands of Apaches and the occasional passing pack of banditos.

He’d leave the coyotes to their meal. He’d been in Mexico long enough to know that sustenance didn’t come easily to man or beast. The coyotes here were spindly and ragged; they deserved to have their bellies padded.

Far back from the brow of the wash, he tipped his hat back off his forehead and surveyed the Shadow Range that loomed ahead of him like a giant dark brown wall, its rim touched with the dying copper and saffron rays of the setting sun. From here it looked like one solid wall rising straight up out of the desert, but Apache Jack had assured him there were fissures and gaps and winding canyons that gave entrance to the forbidden range, and sometime tomorrow they’d reach the canyon in which the bells had been housed for the past three centuries.

James turned and walked up a rocky slope to where Crosseye sat on a flat rock, well below the crest of the hill, running his bowie knife deftly over a hunk of ironwood he’d picked up along their trail. Somehow with the big knife he’d managed to carve the plumed head and tail of a desert quail, though he was now working on one of the feet, holding the piece up close to his face and wincing with the effort. Wood shavings curled down from the bird to his thigh before dropping onto the black rock beneath him.

He held up the bird, grinning proudly. “Not bad for a cross-eyed duffer, eh?”

“You never cease to amaze.”

“When it’s done, I’m gonna give it to Vienna so when she gets back home she can set it on her mantel to remind her of her adventure in Old Mexico.”

James sat down beside the oldster. “You best go back down to the wash, squeeze in another hour of sleep before we pull out. Good dark soon.”

Crosseye said, “How come you don’t like to talk
about her, Jimmy? She’s a good woman, and it’s clear by how she looks at you, you shine for her.”

James glanced at him, squinting one eye. “You see anything wrong in it—her and me?”

“What could be wrong in folks feelin’ good about each other? As long as it don’t hurt no one else.” The older man studied James for a time, his steady eye boring into James’s. “Hell, you can’t hurt Willie.”

“I reckon I already did that.”

“The war did that. You quit mopin’ about it. You got you a good woman, and you think to the future, not to the past, or you’ll be a miserable wretch for the rest of your days, and you’ll make her miserable, too. Vienna’s been through enough.”

James ground a heel in the dirt. “She’ll probably head back home, like you said. That’s where she belongs.”

“Then you belong there, too. Tell your old man to go diddle himself. He’s all swallowed up in the war, so he can’t see what’s clear—the South is a goner, and he has to make peace with his own, ’cause that’s all he has left, or shut the hell up about it.” Crosseye sheathed the knife and heaved himself to his feet. “There, I said it. I was out of line, talkin’ about old Alexander Dunn that way, but I figure I’m far enough away I can say what I want about anyone I feel like sayin’ it about!”

He chuffed, amused at himself, and shouldered his rifle. “Christ, I’m gettin’ crazier than Apache Jack. Must be this high, thin air and all that sunshine.” He went hopping down the hill in his bandy-legged stride, and James was alone with the calls of the night birds and the scuffs of the nearby coyotes that, judging by
the dwindling sounds they made, were now feasting more than fighting.

James leaned his rifle against a rock beside him, dug out his makings sack, and rolled a cigarette. He’d just finished the cigarette when feet crunched gravel down in the darkness at the base of the slope. Vienna called his name quietly. Her voice warmed him, soothed him.

“Here,” he said, not having to raise his voice, as the coyote had fallen silent now, and all was quiet.

He heard her boots in the gravel. Then he heard her breathing, saw her shadow move against the fading sky. She sat down beside him, wrapped her hands around his left arm, and snuggled up tight against him, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. “Done sleepin’?” James said.

He felt her nod her head against him. “Can’t sleep well during the day. I’ll be glad to get the bells and hightail it out of here.”

“Me, too.”

“James? I’ve been meaning to tell you…” Continuing to squeeze his arm, she glanced up at him. “What Jack said about you…leaving the war.”

“About being a coward?”

“He didn’t mean it. He doesn’t know what happened.”

“He doesn’t need to know.”

“No. No one needs to know. But you need to know that I don’t fault you for what happened. And I’m sure Willie, wherever he is, doesn’t fault you for it, either.”

James placed his hand against the back of her neck, feeling her silky hair beneath his palm, and pressed his lips against her forehead.

“I just want you to know,” she said, looking up at him again, her eyes glinting in the starlight, “that I love you, James. And I’ve buried what happened.”

James felt a frown cut into the skin above the bridge of his nose. It was a question that he’d wanted to ask many times but had never found the words. “Vienna, don’t you grieve him? I mean, you and Willie…”

She gave a little groan, then stood and, crossing her arms on her chest, walked a little ways down the slope. She turned back to him, and her voice was low and firm. “James, frankly, I’m a little tired of hearing about Willie.”

“Vienna, Christ…!”

“Yes, I loved Willie,” she said, extending her arms impatiently. “And Willie loved me. When we were children.” She walked back up the slope toward James. “That was a long time ago. Longer ago than what can be counted on a calendar. So
much
has
happened!
”

Vienna paused, looked straight out from the hill for a time at the thickening night cloaked in twinkling stars, and shook her head slowly. She knelt down beside James once more. “I’m a different person now. I’m a woman now. And I know that Willie would understand if we’d found each other…and fallen in love. He’d want us to be happy.”

She placed a hand on James’s thigh. He could feel its warm caress through his trousers, the fingers digging in. She scuttled closer, wrapped her other arm around his neck, and closed her mouth over his.

Her lips were soft and pliant. She groaned, kissing him harder. He wrapped his arms around her, felt her body writhing against his, her breasts swelling behind her shirt and poncho, stirring a fire in his loins.

Pulling away from him, she drew a hard breath, running her tongue along her lower lip. She sandwiched his face in her hands and stared at him from beneath her brows—a bewitching, seductive look that almost made him quiver with a raw, physical need for her.

She smiled, reading his thoughts. “After we get the bells, James, we’ll have all the time for that in the world.”

She kissed him once more hungrily, pressing her breasts against his chest, then peeled out of his tightening grip with a husky chuckle, playfully fighting his arms away. He grabbed her again, kissed her quickly, and let her go.

A second chance, he thought, his heart quickening at the prospect. She was his second chance….

She gained her feet, her direct gaze holding his. A little breathless, she brushed off the seat of her black denims and threw her thick hair back behind her shoulders. She laughed, a gentle sound in the silence, and reached out to brush the tips of her fingers across the buckle of his cartridge belt.

“All the time in the world, my love….”

She turned and walked back down the hill, her slender figure and the red-and-white-striped serape slowly consumed by the darkness. He continued to hear her boots crunch gravel for a time, and then the sounds faded and she was gone.

But he could still feel the lightning fire of his passion and his desire for her jetting in every nerve.

An honest-to-God second chance….

In the silvery darkness, Pablo checked his mule down to a halt. He turned and threw a waylaying arm out at Chulo driving the wagon behind him.

The boy slipped easily down from the beast’s back, dropped the reins, and scampered up a slope on the right side of the draw they’d been following. James reined the chestnut to a stop to the right of Apache Jack, who sat in the wagon, silent in the quiet night, turning his head this way and that, listening.

The boy’s soft, running footfalls had dwindled to silence but quickly resumed, growing louder. James could hear the boy breathing hard with excitement as he appeared once more at the lip of the shallow bank. Pablo rattled off some whispered, ebullient Spanish and grinned.

Jack punched his open palm. “I’ll be damned!” He said something else that to James, beginning to pick up some Spanish, sounded like, “You found it, boy!”

As the shaver leaped onto the mule’s back, James regarded the sandstone wall looming over them and over the wash. It was a precipitous ridge, jutting straight
up to the star-washed sky, its crest a good two thousand feet from the ground. The wall had looked smooth from a distance, but now James could see some flues and fingers and pinnacles of rock jutting separately from the main mass, and gravelly ledges from which spindly brush and shrubs grew.

But he could not imagine that there was any way
into
the mountain from here.

A few minutes later, following the boy and the wagon, he saw that he’d been wrong. As the party traveled along the side of the cliff, they turned into a right branch of the wash. The wall peeled back to James’s right, like a massive door opening, and beyond—into the gaping hole—the wash continued, pale with flood-washed and polished gravel.

The canyon at its mouth was wide enough for two wagons to enter it abreast, but it narrowed considerably a hundred feet in, and just when James thought they were going to have to stop and leave the wagon behind, the walls fell back once more. The wagon passed freely, Chulo holding the mules to a slow pace, for the shod wheels and the wagon’s rough planks lifted a nasty clatter that could be heard by any near Apaches.

The floor of the wash climbed gradually, and the mules as well as the horses started to strain, but then Pablo stopped his mule at another black gap in the wall on his left. The gap was the mouth of a narrow, offshooting canyon. As Chulo stopped the wagon, Pablo tied the mule to a shrub standing to the right of the gap and whispered to Apache Jack, who nodded and returned
several phrases in Spanish, his spindly shoulders fairly shuddering with excitement.