Country of the Bad Wolfes (20 page)

Enrique screamed.

John Roger, braced on his elbow, turned and saw the boy raising a pistol at him. Saw him cock the hammer.

There was a gunblast—and Enrique's head jerked sideways and his hat flew off together with fragments of bloody skull and his pistol discharged into the rim of the fountain and the ball ricocheted into the night as he collapsed in a lifeless heap.

John Roger looked up to the balcony to see Elizabeth Anne standing there, the smoking Dragoon gripped in both hands. And he keeled into unconsciousness.

He woke in his bed. The window ashen with imminent dawn. His head and arm ponderous with bandages and pulsing with pain.

Elizabeth Anne dozed in a chair at his side. He stared at her and she came awake. He smiled. “Hello, darling. It appears I'm still among the quick.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she leaned forward and placed her cheek on his chest with her face turned away from him and he felt the soft heaves of her weeping. He caressed her shoulder. “I'm all right, Lizzie.” And then believed he understood her true distress and said, “I know. I know how you must feel. It was an awful thing to have to do, but if you hadn't shot—”

“
No
!” she cried, turning her head to look at him. “That's not—oh, God, no, don't you see? If I hadn't been so damned afraid I—”

“Shush, darling, it's all right, it's—”

“No, no it's not all right! What a worthless . . .
ninny
I was. I knew something wasn't right, I knew it by your face and your voice. I'd never known you to look that way. I ran upstairs without even knowing why and then I just . . .
stood
there for the longest time, not knowing what to do or think or anything. And then I heard the swords—I
heard
them, Johnny, and I was terrified. And that's when I thought to get the gun. But dear Jesus I couldn't find it. I was crying and throwing everything out of the wardrobe and the trunk and I was furious that I couldn't find it and that I had to keep wiping my eyes and. . . .” She paused for breath and better control of her voice. “And then there it
was
. And I grabbed it and ran to the balcony and I saw . . . oh God, I saw the blood on your face, all the dark blood, and then you ducked down and he was bending over you and I couldn't see what was happening and you were so close together I was afraid of shooting
you
, but then he fell over and I knew he was dead, the way he fell, I knew it, but then that other one screamed and I saw his gun and I didn't even think, I just . . . did it.”

“It was some shot, Lizzie.”

“But don't you see! If I hadn't been so afraid and crying like such a child I could have found the gun immediately and I could have shot them
both
before you were wounded. But I was so afraid and you're hurt because of it and you might have been. . . .” She put her head on his chest, facing away so he couldn't see her tears.

He stroked her hair. And couldn't suppress his small laugh.

She turned to him in red-eyed confusion. “
What
?”

“You're not at fault for my wounds, Lizzie. And they will heal.”

“I am at fault! As soon as. . . .
why
are you smiling?”

“Because of my extreme good fortune in a wife. Or maybe I'm delirious. A kiss might help to restore my wit.”

She gaped. Then smiled too, and being careful of his wounds, kissed him.

The light at the window paled as she laved his face with a damp cloth and told how she'd sent Beto as fast as he could hobble to fetch Nurse Beckett and Chief Mendoza and Charles Patterson. She put John Samuel in the care of a maid who took him to her room to sleep, and with the help of Josefina—who had witnessed the fight from the little window of her quarters—she stanched the bleeding from John Roger's arm. She was alarmed by his head wound but Josefina assured her it was not really very bad, that scalp cuts always bled profusely and often looked worse than they were. Then Nurse Beckett arrived with a surgeon she'd roused and the doctor applied a tourniquet to the wounded arm and the four of them carried John Roger to his bed. The surgeon was still suturing his wounds with Josefina's assistance when Captain Mendoza arrived at the courtyard gate with two subordinates, and as Elizabeth Anne went out to speak with him, Patterson showed up. Their immediate concern was John Roger's condition and they were relieved when she told them the surgeon's optimistic prognosis. Both police captain and consul seemed less troubled by the fact of the dead Montenegros than impressed by the state of them. When she
explained that she'd shot one of them from the balcony, they gave her odd looks, as if suddenly unsure who she was—and then both men smiled and Mendoza told her she had done very well.

Mendoza deemed both killings clear cases of self-defense and then searched the dead men and laughed at his good luck in finding just enough money on them to cover the cost of his investigation. He sent for some men who came with a burro cart and he had them help Beto wash the blood from the patio stones before they bore away the bodies. Patterson offered to assign one of his best clerks to the Trade Wind office to take care of business during John Roger's recuperation, and Elizabeth Anne gratefully accepted. “I hope you approve,” she said to John Roger. “I didn't know what else to do.”

“You did . . . very well.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, then shut his eyes and was asleep again.

During the next three days he grew feverish and the wounded arm became so darkly and malodorously swollen that the surgeon saw no alternative but to amputate just below the shoulder.

It was an exemplary surgery. There was but minor infection and the fever soon gave way. In a week he was up and about the house, though yet in much pain, and began to learn the ways of a one-armed man.

In the first few days he tended to lean slightly sideways to offset a real or imagined sense of imbalance. He was mystified by the itching in a limb no longer extant. When the bandage came off his head, he fretted that the hair might not grow back where the surgeon had sewn the wound, but the doctor assured him the hair around the scar would grow out and cover it. Elizabeth Anne sewed the left arms of all his shirts and coats in a high fold. Dressing himself was not so hard, though she had to fasten his cuff button and knot his ties. When she first cut his meat for him at the table he made a joke about his need of John Samuel's former highchair. He would permit such assistance from her only when they ate by themselves at home. In days to come when they dined in public or among friends, he would eat nothing other than what he could manage with spoon or fork. It vexed him that he would no longer be able to do such things as load a gun or handle a rifle, saddle his own horse or properly pack his calabash. But he could still shoot a pistol and could mount up and ride and could light his own cigars. He could still shave himself but not as closely. He could still do most of the things he'd always enjoyed, albeit many of them required modification of technique, from the way he held a book or a dance partner to the way he rode a horse to the way he and Elizabeth Anne made love. Some of the standard positions were lost to them, some were not, and their experimentation with new configurations was nothing less than joy.

He was still in convalescence when Guillermo Demarco came calling. Elizabeth Anne led the broker into the drawing room, where John Roger greeted him with no more than a silent nod. They sat on facing armchairs and Demarco placed a valise on the low table between them and got directly to the point. He had made a careful review of his records and found that John Roger—whom he addressed throughout this meeting as Don Juan—had been right. There
had
been bookkeeping errors in his invoices to the Trade Wind Company. The mistakes of an incompetent clerk in his employ, who Don Juan could be sure had been both excoriated and dismissed. Demarco opened the valise and withdrew a small cloth sack and untied it and emptied a chittering rush of gold coins onto the table. He said there were five other such sacks in the valise for a total worth equal to the amount of the Trade Wind's bill of restitution plus five percent annual interest on that amount for six years. He hoped Don Juan found it satisfactory. John Roger said it seemed fair enough to him.

Yes, very well, yes, the broker said. But made no move to go. He wanted something more but did not know how to say it. John Roger guessed what it was. Proof of having settled the matter. Don't forget to have me sign a receipt, Mr Demarco, he said. You and I know a receipt is unnecessary between men of honor, but business has its rules, after all. Records are important.

Demarco's relief was evident. Yes, yes, he said, thank you for reminding me. A mere formality, of course, but, as you say. . . . His gesture bespoke the bothersome nature of such mundane detail. He withdrew the prepared paper from his coat and spread it on the table. John Roger signed it and Demarco put it back in his coat and then consulted his fob watch and expressed surprise at the hour. He apologized for his rudeness in departing in such haste, but he was late for an appointment and he anyway knew Don Juan was a busy man. Please don't get up, he said—though John Roger had made no move to rise—I can make my way out. And then was gone. In the entirety of the visit, he had met John Roger's eyes only in the briefest glances and had not once looked at his empty sleeve.

At dinner that evening, as she cut his beefsteak, Elizabeth Anne asked, “What did that oily little man want with you?”

“To clear up an overdue account.”

She gave him an arch look. “I believe you have acquired a rather formidable reputation, Mr Wolfe. He was terrified of you.”

He returned her look in kind. “How do you know it was
I
he was terrified of, Mrs Wolfe? I'm sure I'm not the only one in this house who has acquired something of a formidable reputation.”

She blushed through her smile and stoppered his chuckle with a piece of beef on the end of her fork.

He wrote to Richard Davison to tell him what happened and assure him the office was in good hands, and concluded with the news of Demarco's reimbursement. The sum was sizable and he asked Richard if he wanted him to send it to New
Orleans via the consulate's courier service. In his answering letter, Richard wrote, “Dont think about getting back to work till youre all healed up good. Are you getting proper doctoring? They say theres American doctors to be found in Mexico City. Im truly heartsore about your arm Johnny but my hats off to you for making the son of a bitch pay the full freight. And sounds to me like you mightve scared Demarco enough to make him partly honest. Keep the money he gave you son, youve earned it.”