Twisted Hills, page 13
“Yes, I will, Joe,” she said. She stepped away from Andre and over to where Sam sat. She picked up a thick candle from the floor and lit it from a flame in the small fire. “When I return, I will continue to take good care of you . . . if you will allow me to, Joe.” She gazed down at him in the flicker of firelight.
There it was again. Something he’d seen in her dark eyes, some slightest suggestion in her words. . . .
“Obliged,” he’d said, not about to say more right then, lest he find himself mistaken.
He watched as she led the horse away, and continued watching as the glow of candlelight moved away, out of sight along a stone corridor, and disappeared ahead of a soft echoing click of hooves.
• • •
The following day, some of his soreness gone and his body felt more rested and recuperated from his ordeal. Sam pulled on his shirt and boots and ventured along deeper into the mountainside. The woman had told him there were other paths to the outside world should they need them. He decided it would be a good idea to learn where they were ahead of time. He checked the small pepperbox pistol and stuck it down behind his belt. Using a long walking stick he found leaning against the chiseled stone wall, he set out walking stiffly, the glowing lantern swaying in hand.
He traveled down the stone corridor, seeing now and again the flickering light passing across ancient drawings on either side and looming on the soot-smudged ceiling overhead. Like a scholar walking the hall of some ancient museum exhibit, he witnessed layer over layer of time recorded and passed forward one generation to the next. When the exhibit fell away and the drawings spaced out less and less and finally ran out altogether, he stopped at another wide-floored cavern and looked at three black holes—pathways exiting on the other side of the mountain.
As he walked toward the three exits, he felt a rumble deep down in the earth’s belly. And he felt his feet shift back and forth like a drunkard’s on the stone floor. Yet, before he could even brace himself against it, the world beneath him seemed to drop an inch and the rumble stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
He stood still for a moment with his hand and walking stick pressed against the wall. He moved his hand when he felt a slight stream of dust sprinkle down from the ceiling. But when he looked up, he saw no place for the dust to have come from, no small crevice, no tiny crack in the stone artwork. Only crudely drawn moonlike faces with mouths and eyes agape stared down at him. Obscured in torch smudge from centuries past, stick figures danced around licking flames, wielding spear shafts above ornate and feathered heads.
Time to go, Sam told himself.
From the three corridors facing him, he chose to follow the one that had a footpath that appeared the most worn down in the center. Reasoning this exit to be the closest and for that purpose the most used, he walked into it with the lantern held before him. When he’d walked no more than a hundred feet and rounded a turn, he felt a difference in the freshness of the air around him. In the distant blackness he saw a jagged slash of light as slim as a needle. Yet, upon following the slash of light, he watched it grow into a doorway wide enough for man and horse.
Moments later he stood in a shaft of afternoon sunlight and looked across more ruins. He saw more piles of fallen weathered stone, and tangles of vines, some as old and thick as trees. A remaining tracing of stone outlined what he decided could have been a public marketplace complete with a tiled floor somewhere down there beneath the encroached moss, earth and fauna.
Across Sam’s perceived and long-abandoned marketplace stood a wall ten feet high. The wall, interlocked in itself as if by wizardry, tipped forward at a deep angle from the pressing back of cast-off mountain stones that had tumbled down and gathered there behind it. Vines and thorns like a shredded flowered curtain draped from the wall’s edge to the ground. In the moss and shadow behind the curtain lay a pool of water, a thin stream still trickling into it.
As he stood looking up, Sam saw the panther stand up atop the wall in a rustle of dried brush weed and stare down at him from thirty feet away. The panther Lilith had warned him about?
Probably, he told himself.
But it didn’t matter. The cat was there, staring him down, growling, poised low in its front shoulders.
Easy. now.
Sam took a slow step backward, raising the small gun from behind his belt. He cocked it. He knew the pepperbox was useless at this distance. More than likely, it would be useless even if he were closer. But it might scare the animal away, distract it long enough for him to duck into the cavern and get out of sight. But even as he thought it, he saw the cat spring down from the wall in a flash of fur and the whip of its tail land facing him—less than twenty yards away now, he reminded himself.
He prepared to back up another step, out of the shaft of sunlight back into the mountain, his finger on the trigger, ready to pull it, for all the good it would do him. But as he started his slow, cautious step, the cat only stepped forward with him.
“Now what?” Sam whispered to himself. He didn’t want to shoot the animal and send it off wounded. Especially now, he thought, suddenly noting two rows of dark sagging milk teats lining the cat’s underbelly.
Seeing the cat drop lower, he tensed his fist around the pepperbox, ready to fire.
Please don’t . . . , he thought, staring into the cat’s determined eyes.
He backed one more step, yet still the cat came forward, dipping farther, ready to launch itself into him.
“Here goes,” he whispered aloud. He saw the cat ready to pounce. It was coming, gun or no gun. He tightened his fist around the gun, squeezing the trigger.
But before he got the shot off, he felt another rumble rise in the ground beneath his feet. The cat felt it too, he could tell.
The animal swung its head back and forth, not knowing what to make of the world trembling beneath it. The big mother cat looked back at Sam, but he could see any idea of lunging at him was gone, overshadowed by a much greater threat, that of the world coming apart around her.
She bared her fangs in a silent hiss. She spun in a flash and shot back across the ground and leaped atop the wall, all in what appeared to be one single seamless move. Sam swayed with the rumbling earth and steadied himself. In seconds the earth settled and he found himself standing alone, a small gun pointed aimlessly across the ruins. Weeds, brush and vines trembled in place and settled as if swept by some strange passing breeze.
Sam lowered the pepperbox but continued to stand for a moment, listening closely to the earth beneath his feet. He looked around at the stone pathway leading into the belly of the mountain, questioning the safety of going back inside.
As he wondered, he heard the tumbling, thrashing, tree-splitting sound of a mammoth boulder that had broken loose from its seating higher up atop a sloping bed of scree and rolled, bounced, lunged and finally plowed its way through a talus ledge and launched out off the mountainside. The earth rumbled again when the boulder landed farther down.
All right, he thought, nodding to himself, taking some sort of solace in the fragility of life. Yet instead of walking back inside, he walked out and across the open space and found a long, narrow, weathered stone ledge standing knee high to him. He sat down to rest on the narrow ledge, noting how his backside extended out inches beyond it. Curious, he turned and looked down into a deep overgrown trench running in a straight line behind the ledge.
“What the . . . ?”
He stood up and dusted his seat, realizing he had perched himself on some ancient public privy. Standing, he looked all around as if to make certain no one had been watching him.
“Enough for one day,” he whispered. Satisfied that he had not been seen by anyone in the present, he shook his head, smiled wryly to himself, embarrassed somehow, and limped across the ruins and back inside the mountain, as if leaving thousands of ghosts there in the marketplace to scratch their heads in wonder.
Chapter 14
On the morning of the third day, the woman returned, finding Sam seated on a stone slab out in front of the entrance to the deep cavern. The walking stick leaned against a low broken stone wall; a pot of coffee boiled on a bed of coals and low flames in front of him. He sat with a tin cup of coffee in hand, a blanket around his shoulders, another blanket piled on the wide stone slab beside him. The knapsack lay off to the side.
Leading Andre into the ruins from the place where she’d left the wagon hidden, she looked around, seeing the blankets, the knapsack, the campfire.
“You have moved out,” she said. “Was it the darkness or the loneliness?”
“Neither,” Sam said. “It was an earthquake.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I felt it in Agua Fría. There were windows broken. Some livery horses spooked and broke through the corral rails.”
“No one hurt, I hope,” he said.
“No one injured,” she said. “There was only the surprise of it.” She stopped Andre a few feet from the fire and looped his lead rope around a spur of rock.
“I met the she-panther you told me about,” Sam said.
“Ah, and what did you think of her?” Lilith asked.
“She’s pushy,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has cubs nearby.”
“She is pushy . . . and she always has cubs nearby,” Lilith said. She smiled at Sam and said, “Speaking of surprises, I have one for you.”
“Oh?” said Sam.
“Wait here. I’ll only be a moment,” she said.
Sam watched as she walked away in the direction from which she’d come. In a moment she reappeared out of the surrounding vines and foliage leading his dun by its reins.
Sam set the cup down and stood up.
“How in the world . . . ?” he said, at a loss for words.
“It was easy,” she said. “I told the hostler you sent me for your horse. I paid him, had this fellow saddled up and I led him away.”
“No one tried to stop you?” Sam said.
“No one even saw me,” she replied, “and believe me, I checked all the time on my way here, to make sure I wasn’t followed.”
Sam took the dun’s reins and rubbed its muzzle. The dun chuffed and sawed its head a little as if glad to see him.
“But wait,” said Lilith. “I have more.”
Sam watched her step back, open a saddlebag flap and pull out his Colt and the two guns he’d taken from the scalp hunters, Ollie McCool and Bo Roden.
“Well, well,” Sam said, taking his Colt in one hand, the two extra guns in his other, “I wasn’t even going to ask if you managed to get a rifle. These three sidearms are going to do just fine.”
“Oh, but I did get a rifle. A French rifle. It’s in the wagon,” she said, smiling proudly. “And a bandoleer of cartridges for it. I also found a second horse for the wagon. Andre is delighted.”
Sam looked impressed.
“You’ve had a really good trip,” he said.
He checked the guns over good and found his Colt loaded. He shoved it down into the waist of his pants.
“Yes, I have,” she said, watching him intently. “Now that you have guns, and your horse, what will you do when you leave here?” she asked almost warily.
“I’m not going to lie, Lilith,” Sam said. “I’m going after the men who did this to me.”
That much was true, he reminded himself. He’d tried working his way into the gang and he’d failed. His next move would be to fight his way through the gunmen, get to Segert and Madson and take them both down. He realized a large part of it was now personal—vengeance for what had been done to him. But it was still his job. Now that he was getting over his last round with the gunmen, the next round was waiting to be fought.
She looked concerned for him.
“But, Joe, this time they will kill you,” she said. “You are lucky to be alive right now, after what they did to you.”
“I know,” Sam said. “But I can’t let it go, Lilith,” he said, realizing he couldn’t tell her why.
“But it seems so senseless—” she said, not getting her words all the way out before he cut her off.
“It’s something I don’t want to talk about,” he said. “I’m going and that’s all there is to it.”
She stepped in and stood closer to him, only inches away. “Have you thought about me while I was gone?” she asked with a cool level gaze.
Sam caught the look and the meaning right away.
“Yes, I have,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, then said quietly, “I have to be honest with you, Lilith. . . .” He stopped, finding himself stuck for words. He was not going to be honest with her and he knew it. For just a second he felt tempted to reveal his true identity. But then he caught himself. No, he couldn’t do that. Deceit was a part of the job he was on. He knew that coming in. There was no changing it now.
“What is it, Joe?” she asked, seeing the look of regret on his face. “You can tell me.”
Huh-uh, don’t do it, he told himself.
“You were right about me. I am a gunman. I’m not better than the rest. You don’t want to pin any hopes on me.”
“Yet you’re honest enough to tell me,” she said, defending him from his own accusations.
“Stop it, Lilith,” he said softly. “You deserve better. Don’t mislead yourself.”
She seemed to consider it for a moment and take a breath.
“All right, Joe,” she said. “If we stop here, we are only two people who have helped each other, and now it is time we go our own way.”
“Yes,” Sam said, gently, yet firmly. “I think that’s best.” He watched her walk to the stone slab, sit atop it and look into the low fire.
“You are much better now, I see,” she said, without looking at him. “Tonight I am tired from the trail. But in the morning I will leave.”
“You don’t have to leave,” Sam said.
“No,” she said. “I have a long, hot ride ahead of me to San Carlo. It is best—”
“San Carlo?” Sam said, cutting her off. “That’s straight up the middle of the Blood Mountain Range—right through the Apache stronghold. You can’t go there alone.”
“Yes, I can,” she said. “I can, and I must.” Her eyes turned up from the fire to his as he walked over and sat down beside her.
“What’s so important about you going to San Carlo?” he asked.
She looked back into the fire for a silent moment.
“Every year my father and I go there to pay tribute my father owes to a great Mexican don who holds title to the land we live on, who even owns the wagon I drive.” Sam saw her eyes well up; he saw a tear spill down her cheek. “My father is gone, but his debts are not forgiven. It is my duty to go.”
“But you can’t go alone, Lilith,” Sam insisted.
She turned her gaze to his.
“How else can I go, Joe?” she said. “I am now a woman on her own. I must do what it takes to live here.”
“But it’s too dangerous. They’ll kill you. It makes no sense to do something that’s going to get you killed.”
“Oh . . . ?” She gave him a knowing look.
“It’s different,” Sam said, realizing her point. “I have to go after these men.”
“And I have to pay the tribute owed to Don Marco for the land on which I live, and the wagon which I use to make my living.” She paused, then said, “Whose journey makes more sense? Which is more important?”
Sam considered it for a moment. He knew where Madson and Segert were. He knew they would be there. It would be a week’s ride to San Carlo, another week back. Settling with these gunmen would have to wait. The woman had risked her life taking him in.
“I want to ride to San Carlo with you,” he said.
“It is a long ride,” she said. “Are you sure you are up to it? You can stay here and rest and mend awhile longer.”
Sam gave a wry smile.
“I’m one of those people who heal better when I keep moving,” he said.
“What about going after the men who did this to you?” she asked him quietly.
“Forget them,” Sam said. “I’ve had a change of heart. This is more important to me.”
She reached over and took his hand.
“See?” she said. “You tell me you are a bad man, yet I see so much good in you.”
Sam held her hand in return.
“Don’t go seeing too much good in me, Lilith,” he cautioned her quietly. “One thing I’ve learned about life is there’s a surprise around every turn.”
“Yes, I know,” she replied quietly. “Living here in the Twisted Hills, I have learned that very thing myself.”
• • •
It had been two days since Kelso and the Hooke brothers had their honest discussion about the stolen bank money they were searching for. Kelso had finally told them the truth about the money, how he’d gone off and left it with Curtis Rudabell—for safekeeping, he’d explained. Since their honest talk, they had scoured the desert floor along the bottom of the Twisted Hill line, turning over every rock that lay near the trail where Kelso and Rudabell had split up when the lawman had gotten too close on their trail.
“Split up, ha!” said Hazerat, recounting what Kelso had told them. He and Charlie Ray sat slumped in their saddles, watching Preston Kelso from horseback in the blazing afternoon sun. Kelso had walked ten yards down a rise of loose sand and turned over a large stone. “First gunshot, I bet Preston lit out like a streak. Left ol’ Curtis out here to die alone.”
“Yeah, I can see it that way myself,” Charlie Ray said, without taking his eyes off Kelso. “We best be careful he doesn’t leave us the same way.”
“He tries, he’d better know we’ll kill him,” said Hazerat. He turned his head to the side and tried to spit in contempt. But in that arid furnace, all his spitting amounted to was a gesture and a dry puff of air. Dust stirred from his mustache. He didn’t even bother swiping a hand across his dry lips. “I’m on a tempted urge to kill him anyway,” he added.
