Adam Steele 34, page 12
Steele nodded and absently fingered through the fabric of his reach-me-down shirt the scar tissue of the bullet wound in his upper right chest as he lowered into a cross-legged attitude in front of his meal. Said:
‘I don’t recall it, but I reckon I lost my appetite the only time I thought I saw a ghost, Rosa. But it was definitely dead.’
She sighed and shook her head slowly. ‘It was the way he was dressed, Adam. He had the build that was similar, but many men I have seen since the asesinato of Claudio … since he was murdered, have been similar to him in such a way. But not since I came with Esteban away from the vecindad … the area of De Raza Hacienda have I seen anybody who is dressed with such elegancia.’ She sighed again, and gazed into the middle distance as she went on. ‘At home, when the work of the day was done, everybody who comes to the house must have on the clean clothes. And be clean themselves.’
She realized abruptly that she was speaking aloud the kind of wishful thoughts she had indulged when she gazed after the rider who had gone from sight. Glanced with a hint of embarrassment at the Virginian, and discovered that he, too, seemed to be lost in thoughts that had little bearing on the here and now – if the oddly empty expression on his heavily bristled, sweat beaded face meant anything.
In fact, his mind had remained only briefly in that part of his memory where were stored the events leading up to his getting shot. And now as he ate the spartan meal and listened with half an ear to what Rosa Canales was saying, he reflected upon what had seemed to be such an irrational fear he experienced in the wake of the unknown man being so violently shot to death. And, just a moment after she paused to look at him, reached the conclusion that it was not as irrational as he had initially considered it to be. It was simply an apprehensive respect for an element in this violent episode that he did not understand.
The mystery rider in the muted toned but unquestionably dudish outfit was no longer some phantasmagorical figure that came and went on the outer limits of actual existence. Momentarily glimpsed at such a distance that a man could not be entirely certain he had seen anything – until sign in the dust proved he had. Maybe heard in the cold and dark night – in the form of a far off crack of a rifle shot. With the picked clean bones of the victim to provide the proof. When not briefly in sight or within earshot, the presence of the mystery rider sensed by the Virginian who set such store by his ability to feel when he was under surveillance.
But now the man had been seen at close quarters. In the immediate wake of yet another incident which appeared staged to show that he meant no harm to Adam Steele and Rosa Canales. Yet, at the same time, was carried out in such a way that the man was taunting the couple with the fact that he had the undoubted capability to harm them if it suited him.
And the Virginian could think of no reason why the man should need to convey this – short of sheer arrogant pride or, and this factor was the cause of his healthy concern, a desire to prove himself better than the man who at the moment had five thousand dollars’ worth of woman in his safe keeping. Prove himself for as long as it pleased him to do so, until he tired of the cat and mouse game or the time for the money to be paid came close. When he would…
Goddamnit, the mystery man had to be an old enemy of Adam Steele. He even mocked him in the style of his garb – attired in the kind of high-priced, high-class tailored clothing that at the best of times was favored by the Virginian.
Rosa Canales caught her breath and even flinched in her cross-legged posture on the floor when the vacant look was abruptly swept from the face of the man opposite her by a scowl of evil rage. But then Steele regained his composure – and was impassive again on the outside as he held in check the white heat of temper that in years gone by had proved uncontrollable.
‘Adam, I am sorry if—’ the woman began.
‘You didn’t do anything, Rosa,’ he cut in on her evenly as he doused the final flames of a fury that would have been as illogical as his trepidation had been a few minutes earlier. ‘Be grateful if you tell the rest of it.’
‘I swear I know nothing of the man who did—’
‘Esteban Chevez, Rosa. What happened after he told you Claudio Ruiz was dead?’
‘Sí … yes. It is nearly all told now, Adam,’ she answered quickly, pleased that she had not caused his anger and eager to do what he asked so that he would not direct his perhaps still volatile ill-humor at her. ‘I am devastated by what he tells me. Inconsolable … you say much the same I think?’
She paused for him to reply, he said nothing as he swallowed some food and she shrugged before she continued: ‘But I know Claudio is in error in fearing that my father will do bad things to me. And Esteban, he knows this, too. He tell me this. But he also tells me I should go away with him. As I had planned with Claudio to leave De Raza Hacienda. Not to become the matrimonio … not to be the husband and wife. Esteban, he knows I do not love him as I loved Claudio. But he is ready to risk the murderous anger of my father. To take me away and hope that perhaps my compasivo … my feeling for him will change.
‘And this is what I do, Adam. My aborrecimiento … my odio … the way I have hatred for my father on that night – I agree to leave with Esteban. And it is as I tell you before. We have just the one horse that is Esteban’s and we have poco dinero … not much money. And at the town of Phoenix the money it runs out, and we have to sell the horse and some other things to buy the burros and are cheated—’
Steele uncrossed his legs and got to his feet, shaking his head as he rose. Until Rosa Canales became aware of his negative gestures and tilted back her head to peer questioningly up at him, genuinely concerned again about what she could have said or done wrong.
‘Adam?’ she posed, so obviously genuine in her puzzlement that he believed her.
‘No, Rosa,’ he said evenly as he swung up a leg and eased smoothly out of the window with the blood spattered sill. And, once standing outside the building, looked squarely at her so that she was able to see his expression matched his tone when he augmented: ‘I reckon you think that’s what you told me before. But what you said was that Esteban was your true love. You planned to run off with him. Your father had him beaten up and you had to leave home without him. You had arrangements to meet up in San Fran—’
‘Dios!’ she exclaimed. ‘Adam, I—’
‘Sure, Rosa, you had a good reason, I reckon,’ he cut in. And ducked down out of her sight to check over the dead man as thoroughly as he had examined his horse.
‘Now I remember,’ she continued after a pause of several seconds. ‘In my mind I am mixing up the truth with what I feel I must tell you at first. I was very much asustado … very frightened after you free me from the savages. I tell the complete truth now and I think you will understand?’
‘Whichever way you want to tell it, Rosa,’ he said into the pause that followed her obvious request, while he worked methodically and with no display of squeamishness at searching the clothing of the corpse – that was already beginning to smell cloyingly sweet in the desert heat.
‘Esteban and I, we travel together on the same horse. From De Raza Hacienda to Phoenix. This is true. And from Phoenix to the Rio Colorado we ride the burros for which we have paid too much money. For much of the time, we avoid going into the towns. For we know my father will search for us. And the fewer people who see us, there are less to tell him or his men in which way we are going.
‘To Phoenix we had to go. And to the town of Fort Curry after we reach this place where we are now. Or else we starve or we die of the thirst. You find out anything, Adam?’
Steele had come erect, into her sight again, and now reentered the former way station. Told the woman: ‘Seems his name was Erskine Lomax and he’s got a brother back in Topeka Kansas who wrote to him in Santa Fe New Mexico. He doesn’t have a cent on him. Fifty-five years old, maybe. Who didn’t do anything with his life – or if he did, it doesn’t show to me. Reckon he was just passing through and resting up here when he got caught up in somebody else’s business.’
‘Much as you were passing through a place when you became meterse en the business not of your making, Adam?’
‘I’m still alive and hopeful of collecting five thousand dollars, Rosa,’ Steele answered as he gestured for her to pack up the gear they had used during the meal. ‘He’s had half his head shot away and if he was promised money instead of threatened with a gun, I reckon it was a lot less than that. You put the bullet in Esteban’s belly at the river crossing, Rosa?’
She had begun to do as he asked, already taking care to be neat with the chore. But now she pointedly kept her head bent so that she avoided meeting his steady gaze. And swallowed hard before she replied:
‘I swear to tell the truth, and so I tell it, Adam. For long time – since before we reach Fort Curry. Perhaps back to Phoenix, when the money becomes less and the travelling is hard, we both have the pensandolo … how you say – the second thoughts, no?’
‘Yeah, Rosa.’
‘Sí,’ I now realize it was the mistake to leave with Esteban. And Esteban, he comes to see me as a woman to … codiciar … as with the savages … for the expending of the lust, you know?’
‘I see, Rosa,’ Steele told her, and ushered her out of the way station, taking the cups from her. ‘And when you were camped somewhere close to the river crossing, he made a pass at you? That means he tried to scr—’
‘I know what it means. And yes, you are correct. Esteban attempted to do as the savages would have done had you not prevented it, Adam. But I was not the prisoner as they made me. First I try to tell him to leave me be. To take me back to my home and I will tell my father he has found me and …’ She shrugged as she broke off and watched Steele place most of their gear on the back of the burro. ‘He would not listen. So I get his rifle and I warn him. But he does not believe I will shoot him. So I shoot him.’
He completed the transfer of equipment and signaled that Rosa should mount the neglected stallion of the dead Erskine Lomax. Then, with the reins of the burro in one hand, he swung up into the saddle on the horse of another dead man. ‘You knew he wasn’t dead, Rosa?’
He asked this over his shoulder as he heeled the better horse into movement, leading the burro. She quickly mounted the other stallion and then was cautious with her new ride as she urged him up alongside that of Steele. Only then answered:
‘I did not know nor care. He had been like an animal as he tried to mate with me. I knew just that he was unable to try to prevent me from leaving him. With San Francisco as my destino … my destination. Hating Esteban more now than I had hated my father.’
She had been spitting out the words venomously as she relived the experience of shooting Esteban Chevez with his own rifle. But now she moderated her tone and showed an expression of deep remorse before she donned the blanket, mantilla like again, to throw a shadow over her face.
‘It was my intencion to go to the city of San Francisco and to remain there for as long as I was able. Before I communicate with my father … send him the message. After he has had much time to be anxious for me. Which was very estupido of me, no? With just the two burros and a few dollars? And no experiencia of such country as I must cross. Except when I am safe in the hunting party with my father.’ She sighed and shrugged. ‘And so I am made captive by the savages. I am lucky they do not kill me right away. Or have their way with me and then kill me. More lucky when you are my Salvador … you save me. And now I am aver-gonzado … I feel shamed by the mentiroso I am … maldita sea! I am ashamed of the lies I tell you to make you want to help me.’
‘Your father really is rich, Rosa?’ the Virginian asked evenly.
‘Sí, perhaps the richest man in all of Chihuahua!’
‘And it wasn’t horseshit you told me – that your father’s put up five thousand dollars for your safe return?’
‘It is what Gregario Garrido told me, I swear it,’ she assured him earnestly.
‘So let’s get the lead out, Rosa.’
‘Adam, I do not underst—’
‘Sooner we get you home the better?’
‘Sí, but—’
‘And I reckon it’s true that a fool and his money are soon parted.’
Chapter Thirteen
ROSA CANALES MADE to urge her mistreated horse to a faster pace, then realized Steele had no intention of making better time. At first was puzzled as she reflected that she may have misunderstood him. Then she glimpsed the trace of a fleeting smile on his profile and recalled in a different frame of mind their final exchange. And scowled as she demanded: ‘You make another joke, gringo!’
‘Did I?’ he answered, not interrupting his routine watch on their surroundings.
‘A expensa de mi padre … at the expense of my father?’
‘If he’s so rich, he can afford a little expense, I—’
‘I wish no more to discuss anything with you if you cannot be cortes … be civil about …’
‘That’s fine with me, Rosa,’ he told her evenly. ‘I’m happy I know enough.’
And for a long time – perhaps more than an hour – they rode through the desert heat of the afternoon without a word passing between them. While Steele watched for a movement on the encircling horizon blurred by the shimmering heat haze, and the woman stared straight ahead. He with a mind that was open to admit any line of thought and was host to none: she obviously concentrating very hard – on one line, on many or maybe at barring all.
Then Steele signaled a halt so that he could dismount and move off the trail to a clump of stunted mesquite. Enclosed in her private world of deep thought – or its opposite – Rosa Canales was once more puzzled. But then, when Steele halted and, only partially hidden by the mesquite, obviously urinated, she vented an unladylike grunt of comprehension. And, when the Virginian was back in his saddle and they were moving once more at an energy conserving walk, the woman uttered a similar, but louder sound.
‘You want to say something, Rosa?’ he asked.
He glanced directly at her and saw that she compressed her lips – as if to emphasize that she intended to keep them sealed. But a half minute later, she changed her mind.
‘I think that you have said my father is a fool.’
‘I did?’
‘For offering to pay money to have his punetera of a daughter back.’
‘Punetera mean what I think it does. Rosa?’
‘Bitch! It means the bitch.’
Steele nodded, like he was acknowledging her reply to his direct question. But then said: ‘If it’s what you think you are, maybe you can start doing something to change it.’
‘And live happily ever after, gringo?’ she suggested scornfully.
Now the Virginian shook his head and, at the completion of the gesture, peered fixedly along the arrow-straight trail. While he said, absently: ‘That only happens in stories, Rosa. There never are any happy endings in real life. Because everybody who lives has to die in the end. And there’s nothing happy about dying.’
‘Claudio and I would have had much happiness before we …’ She recognized the change that had come over Adam Steele and broke off to peer eastward, too. But failed to see anything different about the arid, sparsely featured terrain from when she had last looked across its parched surface – albeit with a total lack of interest in the vista. ‘There is new danger?’ she demanded, looking at his unmoving profile now: her anger at him of a few moments ago washed away by a surge of fear.
‘Maybe, or maybe not. Which means I don’t have any idea. Which is a waste of words. But they ‘re plentiful enough, even out in the desert.’
He began to rake his gaze in other directions now and after a few moments most of the woman’s tension drained out of her. But she saw that he paid most attention to the horizon immediately ahead of them. And she maintained a careful watch to the east, too. Said, after a brief pause:
‘I think perhaps, you tell me that I am wasting the words if I try to make the excuses for what I am?’
‘You don’t have to make excuses to me, Rosa. Far as I’m concerned, you’ve said enough. Reckon that’s what I was trying to say when—’
‘Adam!’
‘Now there’s something you don’t see plenty of in the desert,’ he continued, speaking in the same easy tone as before she shrilled his name. The woman seeing, as did he, the momentary flash of reflected daylight. ‘Nature never did put anything in the desert that glints like that. Ring any bells?’
‘Que?’
Steele narrowed his eyes, struggling to see into the distant heat haze and confirm what he thought he had seen. And he did not respond to her counter query for perhaps two minutes. By which time they had covered enough ground for the range of low ridges to show clearly.
‘Some hills where the trail came out on to this stretch of desert, Rosa. Best part of a day’s ride from the way station where you and Chevez headed down the spur toward Fort Curry.’
She nodded several times while he was speaking and was quick to supply as he finished: ‘Sí, me mal no me acuerdo … if I remember correctly, Adam, they are called the Gila Bend Mountains. Esteban and I were told—’
‘Fine, Rosa. When you and he came out of the hills, did you pass through a town or by a house, another way station … anything like that? With glass windows?’
There was another glint of sunlight reflected off a man-made object as he finished the question. And she gasped and needed to swallow hard before she could reply:
‘No, nothing. Not in those mountains. On the trail. You think … ?’
‘I know.’
‘What is causing it?’
‘No, Rosa.’
‘But you said …’
‘I know that worrying about what’s causing it won’t serve any purpose.’
‘That is easy to say.’ She dragged her gaze away from the line of hills that now showed dark and clear against the heat shimmer. But felt drawn to look back at them, and shuddered as she added ‘But much harder to do.’
