The Savage Curse (10 page)

It was cool inside the adobe. Bare as it was, it was the most comfortable place they had seen in a long while.

“Johnny, you got any idea how long we'll be stayin' here?” Ben was lying on a cot, his blanket under his head for a pillow.

“Long enough for me to work some things out.”

“What things?”

“Juan and Gale were right. We can't just go galloping into that cantina after Hobart. Juan's sister could be killed in the cross fire. Or Ollie would put her lamp out just for pure meanness.”

“Hell, that warn't my idea in the first place. I thought we'd just wait outside somewheres until we spotted the bastard and then let him have it.”

“You can bet Ollie's thought of that. He knows we're after him. He'll know it for sure once Crudder blabs to him.”

“Crudder don't know who we are. He thinks we're the Logans, dumber'n a pair of stumps.”

“Ollie will figure it out. He's smart.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it, Ben. No, we have to think this through.”

“You're the one with the thinkin' cap, Johnny. I can't hardly figger out how to get through the day.”

John laughed. “You do all right,” he said.

“Well, you got any ideas buzzin' around in that head of yours?”

“A couple.”

“I'd like to hear 'em.”

John sighed.

“Still working on them, Ben. Maybe by supper. You know, this ranch was a surprise to me. Green grass and all. Sheep. I'll bet this country holds a lot of secrets. It's an old land. Indian land. Like that canyon we were in with Crudder. The Navajos, Hopis, or whoever they were, lasted a long time with Kit Carson chasing them all over. I want to ask Gale about this ranch and the country.”

“What good will that do?”

“I don't know. We might find out a few things.”

“You got somethin' in your craw, Johnny. I can tell. You hold your damned cards pretty close to your vest, son.”

“Sometimes that's the best way. I don't have any cards yet, though. I'm just shuffling the deck at this point.”

“Well, I'm goin' to get some shut-eye. Wake me if you have somethin' important to talk about.”

“I will, Ben, I surely will.”

Ben slept until supper time when John awoke him. They washed up at the pump in back of the house, heard the sheep bells tinkling in the distance, the bark of a dog. The sun had smeared the western sky with splashes of gold and crimson, dusted the clouds with silver and purple, bronze and vermillion. It was quiet and there was a breeze blowing cool across the burning land.

“You set a fine table, Gale,” John said when they sat down to supper. The smell of mutton and gravy assailed his nostrils, stirred his salivary glands. Ben was grinning at the lavish spread, his eyes bright as sun-shot agates.

The girl who had served the
tepache
brought more food and drink, hot coffee and cakes for dessert. Gale treated Chula like a daughter and she also sat at the table, only getting up when something was needed from the kitchen.

“I have some fine brandy from Santa Fe,” Gale said when they had all finished eating. “We can sit in the front room where it's cool. Open those front windows, will you?”

Chula nodded.

When they sat down, Chula served brandy in delicate snifters.

“You're spoiling us, Gale,” John said, holding the glass to his nose, sniffing the vapors that arose from the dark liquor.

She swirled the brandy around in her glass, holding it with the reverence of a chemist, raised the glass up to her face, and closed her eyes as she drew in the aroma. She looked as if she might be holding a bouquet of flowers, sniffing the scents. Her hand was beautiful, John thought, strong and delicate as any he had ever seen.

Chula lit a lamp as the evening shadows began to flow into the room like a soft fog, even though it was still light out.

“The brandy reminds me of home and that takes away some of the loneliness,” she said.

“Yes'm,” John said. “Where are you from originally?”

“Texas, where the tall pines grow.”

“Never been there.”

“I miss seeing the hickory nuts fall in the spring, the smell of pine trees. Ever since Clarence was taken from me, I miss the little hills, the green trees, the change of seasons.”

Ben looked as if he might cry.

She took a sip of her brandy and leaned back, looked at John.

“We built this place so that the front faces east, just like the Navajos. We got that much from them and a lot more, I suppose. I miss seeing the sunsets, though, at this time of day, in this room. But in the morning, the sun streams through the windows and you feel happy to be alive.”

John said nothing. His mind was working in a divided state. Her words made him homesick for Missouri, even the high country of Colorado, but he also wanted to talk to her about the plan that was forming in his mind.

“I'm lucky to have what I have,” she said. “And mighty grateful, too. But I do get lonely of an evenin', sure as the grass grows tall on the prairie. I miss old Clarence, the folks back home. But I love the sheep and the men who work for me, men who have never seen a Texas sky or a catfish pond.”

She sniffled and took another sip of brandy. She looked out at the soft evening forming as the shadows darkened and seeped into the room, bending away from the oil lamp.

“John,” she said, “how do you plan to take down Hobart, knowing what you now know?”

She switched the topic so suddenly, John was caught by surprise.

He had a plan in mind now and the brandy had worked in him so that it blossomed in his mind like a garden of spring flowers.

“I might need your help,” he said. “I do have a plan to draw Hobart out in the open. You won't be at any risk, and I think Juan's sister will be safe.”

“I hope that head of yours is more than just something to hang a hat on,” she said. “But, sure, if I can help, I'm ready, willing, and able. Just what did you have in mind?”

“Gold,” John said. “Hobart lusts after gold and I think I know a way to make him come to me, just like he did back in Colorado.”

Gale looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. So did Ben.

“Gold,” John said again, “and salt. That's what I aim to do.”

“Salt?” Ben said.

“Did you say salt?” Gale asked.

John smiled at both of them.

The flame in the lamp flickered with a sudden waft of breeze through the windows and the shadows outside darkened into night and settled a deep hush over the land in that strange alchemy of transformation when known things changed into unknown shapes and all landmarks disappeared.

It was a perfect time to speak of his bold plan, a time when dreams could take on form and substance and seem attainable.

“I'm going to need an old mine,” John said, “somewhere close to Tucson. An abandoned mine, if you know of one. Any old abandoned mine will do.”

Ben and Gale both drew in breaths and stared at John with pitying looks usually reserved for the very feeble-minded, or the insane.

13

TO A RAPT AUDIENCE OF TWO, BEN AND GALE, JOHN SAVAGE LAID out the rudiments of his plan.

“If we can find an old abandoned mine shaft,” he said, “somewhere in the mountains around Tucson, I can set it up real quick. We salt the mine, haul some rock into the assay office in Tucson. The rock will have enough gold in it to start the gossip. Gold, to humans, is nectar to bees.”

“Where you goin' to get all this gold?” Gale asked.

“Won't take much. And we have some we can lay our hands on. Ollie will get the word.”

“That ain't goin' to work, John,” Ben said.

“Why not?”

“Ollie ain't a hard-rock miner. He steals the gold.”

“I know. That's where Gale can help us, if she will.”

“You'll have to explain,” she said.

“We'll need a little shack put up near the mine, with a clear field of fire. We'll let the assay office know that we're using cyanide. We'll buy some in town, other equipment, and tell them we're handling the ore ourselves, turning it into gold, keeping it to ourselves.”

“Hmm,” Gale said. “It's getting more interesting. Go on.”

“We'll have a smokestack, burn oil and wood in it during the day, so people can see it. We'll get the word out that we've struck a huge vein, the mother lode, maybe. Ollie won't be able to resist. He'll come after that gold he thinks is there.”

“It'll take some time to set up, do all that you want to do,” she said.

“A month or so, maybe.”

“Hell, John, Ollie will see you go in to town, know it was you at the assayer's. He'll smell the fish.”

“It won't be me,” John said.

“Then, who?”

“I'm hoping Gale will be the one to take the raw ore in that we salted. She's known hereabouts. People probably trust her. They'll think she's been prospecting all these years and fall for it.”

Ben let out a low whistle.

“Might work at that.”

“If I agree to do that for you,” Gale said.

“I'm hoping you will.”

“How soon,” she said.

“As soon as we find that old mine and buy it or stake claim to it.”

“There are a few old mines around Tucson, up in the hills, the mountains. Silver, mostly, that petered out. But some that were blasted for gold. They could be bought cheap or claimed, as you say. I'll give it some thought.”

“Would you?” John said.

“Consider it done. I'll do some checking in town. About time I rode in and got some supplies anyway.”

“Ben and I will have to lay low until we find such a mine,” John said.

“You can stay here long as you like.”

“I'll pay your men for the work they do.”

“Oh, we can get men to do the job if you pay them. Won't take much probably.”

“I'll pay them well,” John said.

The three of them talked long into the night, going over every inch of John's plan.

“I like your idea, John. It so happens that my husband was once a hard-rock miner. What's more, we still own the mine. He took silver out of it and was sure there was gold somewhere in the mountain. But before he could blast deeper into his tunnel, the cave collapsed and killed two men. He couldn't go on, and he never got over it.”

“Close to Tucson?”

“Very close,” she said.

“We can make it work, maybe.”

“What's more, John,” and there was a flicker of a smile on her lips, “we had a laboratory on the property. Everything is still there, just as it was. A little cleaning, some dusting, and you'll have a lab that will smelt silver, separate gold from ore. There should still be cyanide in there.”

“Your husband must have found some gold, then,” John said.

“He did. Just beyond a vein of silver, he knocked out a chunk of rock that was laced with gold. He thought there might be a mother lode somewhere under that mountain.”

Ben slapped his knee.

“By golly, it just might work, Johnny. You got a mine, a lab, and we got the gold to salt it with.”

“What happened to that chunk of rock your husband dug out?” John asked. “He ever get it assayed?”

“No. He didn't have the heart. I still have it, in fact. It's in my bedroom. Kind of a nest egg for a rainy day, I guess.”

“That's a start,” John said, “if you'll let me use it. That'll get the ball rolling.”

“It's yours,” she said. “I really hope this works. I want to see Hobart pay for what he did to your family and get that girl back unharmed.”

“Can you take us to the old mine tomorrow?” John asked.

“Bright and early.”

John and Gale shook hands and said good night. Ben talked all the way to the bunkhouse, as excited as a kid with a new toy. John kept silent, going over his plans in his mind, anxious to set a trap for Hobart, bring him to his gun sights, and end, finally, the long bloody hunt. By the time Ben and John got to the bunkhouse, it was after midnight and the coyotes were singing, the sheepdogs barking.

John slept fitfully that night, awakening several times in the middle of disturbing dreams, dreams that made sense while he was dreaming, but flew away in confusion when he opened his eyes to the darkness. He dreamed of defective pistols that would not load, would not shoot. He dreamed of young mahogany women in dim-lit saloons, with shadowy figures looming over them. He dreamed of dogs chasing him across a desolate landscape and stars raining silver and gold into a burning lake where he was flailing in the flames, unable to swim, his throat parched so raw he was unable to scream.

One of the Mexican sheepherders in the bunkhouse shook him awake very early.

“Es la madrugada,”
the man said.

It was dawn, but the sun was not yet up and, outside, the sky was a pale ember in the east, golden and pink along the horizon. Far off, he heard the bleating of sheep as he wiped grit from his eyes and shivered against the chill. He woke up Ben and they both smelled coffee on the currents that threaded the still air, errant tendrils of tiny zephyrs that blew off the mountains and died in the caverns of their nostrils.

Lamps glowed inside Gale's home, orange and yellow light pouring feebly through the windows, signs of life in a land of shadows. Ben sniffed as they walked to the pump next to a watering trough behind the house.

“Smells like breakfast,” he said. “My belly has done heard the call.”