Devil's Creek Massacre (16 page)

He refilled his glass and took another gulp, because he wanted to escape his mind. The ex-acolyte took no pleasure in cutting a man, and always felt sick when the excitement was over. He guzzled mescal, wanting to blot out the memory of Johnny Pinto bleeding and weeping, Johnny's arms immobilized by skillfully aimed slashes. How can I do these things? Duane asked himself. Why don't I back off from trouble?

“You all right, Kid?” asked Cochrane.

Duane didn't feel like talking, and everybody in the cantina was looking at him. He felt like a celebrity as he took another swallow of mescal. If anybody deserved to get the shit beat out of him, it was Johnny Pinto, he determined. I won the fight, but here I am carrying on as if I lost. Johnny Pinto shot a man, and maybe I was God's own instrument of divine justice, although every atrocity had come from people who thought God was whispering special announcements into their ears.

The mescal glowed warm in his belly, he was starting to relax, and the cramped cantina took on a golden glow. A pretty Mexican waitress in a short dress placed a platter of food in front of him, and he gazed at cheese and beef enchiladas, chili stew, beans, and a
salad of avocado pears. He picked up the knife and fork and began to dine. His stomach felt as if he were starving, and brightly colored lights popped inside his eyeballs. He often experienced hallucinations and strange visions when drinking mescal, so he refilled his glass and enjoyed a few more swallows. To the victor belongs the spoils, he concluded as word spread throughout Ceballos Rios that the Pecos Kid was in town.

Johnny Pinto lay on a cot in a small room. Both arms throbbed with pain, he was suffering the worst headache of his life, his kidneys felt as if iron spikes had been driven into them, and his lower lip had been split wide open. He'd never been beaten so badly in his life.

Afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, and someone sat beside him. “Who's there?” he asked thickly.

“Jim Walsh. How're you feelin', Johnny?”

“You can see fer yerself, cain't you?” Johnny gritted his teeth, the pain was so bad. “You got somethin' to drink?”

“Mescal.”

The smooth cool mouth of the bottle touched Johnny's battered lips, encrusted with dried blood. Johnny swallowed as much as he could, then dropped back onto the pillow. Never had he taken such a pounding. He couldn't breathe through his nose, and it felt as if his jaw had been dislocated. He'd always believed that he was one rough hombre, but Duane Braddock had kicked his ass royally, no two ways about it. Johnny could make no excuses.

“I'll leave the mescal with you,” Walsh said. “You'll be all right, Johnny. You just fucked with the wrong cowboy, that's all.”

Walsh walked out of the room, and his footsteps receded down the corridor. Johnny was a solitary invalid in a Comanchero hotel, while the others were having a party at the cantina. The fall from grace had been merciless, and Johnny was stunned by its velocity. But Johnny's greatest hurt wasn't his shattered nose or torn forearm ligaments. Before, men had groveled before him, whereas now they rejoiced behind his back.
Probably got what was coming to him
, they said.

Johnny didn't know if he could ever hold his head up again. It galled him to admit that Duane Braddock was a better fighter, relegating Johnny to the second-class position again, as when he'd lived with his crazy old bookworm father, laughingstock of the neighborhood.

As a child, Johnny Pinto had thrown tantrums until his weak-willed parents gave in to him. He'd developed a hateful, spiteful, envious view of the world, perhaps because his father preferred books to the company of his son, and his mother was a frightened child herself. But whatever the reason, and maybe there was no real reason, Johnny Pinto was an extraordinarily dangerous entity as he lay suffering in a Comanchero hotel.

He bit his lower lip in an effort to fight the pain. Both arms felt submerged in molten iron, his ribs ached increasingly, and he believed that his kidneys would never be the same. He ground his teeth together angrily, setting off jabs of pain inside his skull. He wished he could pass out, but somehow remained fully conscious. He didn't have strength to raise the bottle of
mescal to his lips. Wherever Johnny went, there'd be somebody who'd seen him get his ass whipped by Duane Braddock.

Johnny cringed beneath his light blanket. He didn't like folks to see his weaknesses, because that would give them advantages. He suspected enemies and threats everywhere, and believed most people were against him because they were jealous. That's why a man had to be strong and not tolerate horseshit.

As long as Braddock is alive, I'm a joke, realized Johnny Pinto as a tear dripped out of the corner of his eye. I'll pay Duane Braddock back for this no matter what it takes. He's not getting away with it, but I can't just walk up to him straight-on, because the same thing'll happen. No, next time I'll set everything up in advance. It won't be easy, but I'll act like a new man, and be friendly around Braddock, to put him off his guard. I could even apologize for being a rotten son of a bitch. If I have to lie, I'll be the best liar in the world. If I have to kiss somebody's dirty boots, I'll turn it into a game. I'll smile when I'm mad and be nice to old ladies and babies, though I don't give a shit about them at all. I'm going to nail Duane Braddock, so help me God. It won't be tomorrow, and not the next day either. But in a few weeks, when I can move my arms again, Duane Braddock will be a-goin' to a funeral—his own.

Johnny Pinto felt a trickle of new strength as revenge took shape in his convoluted mind. I'll come up behind him and put a chunk of lead into his dome. Or maybe I'll hide a charge of dynamite under his bunk. There are many ways to kill a man, and rat poison ain't a bad idea either. I'll be so nice, I won't even recognize myself, and then, when he least expects it . . .

An army stagecoach rumbled west of San Antone, sending up a long plume of dust. It was surrounded by a military escort of ten troopers on horseback and followed by a wagon containing guns and ammunition for Fort Clark.

In the cab, Vanessa Fontaine sat among three officers' wives conversing merrily while McCabe was silent and withdrawn as usual. The steady rattle and clank of weapons and equipment could be heard, the air was sweet and clean, and two soldiers rode shotgun atop the cab.

Vanessa's companions exchanged thoughts about children, recipes, family matters, etc., matters of little interest to the Charleston Nightingale. But she listened politely anyway, made an occasional remark, and gazed out the window at cholla and nopal extending to scatterings of bluish-gray mountains in the distance. The land appeared inhospitable, yet a herd of cattle grazed peacefully not far away.

She recalled Duane talking about the cattle business during their brief weeks together. Barren rocky west Texas had fascinated him, and he'd planned to buy his own ranch soon as he saved the money. It was the dream of every hard-drinking cowboy, and perhaps one in a thousand made it come true. Vanessa had considered Duane too young, naive, and confused to get ahead in a world dominated by ruthless business interests.

Business seemed unspeakably vulgar to the former belle, and far beneath the high standards she had established for her mind. She recalled how her father had spent long hours at his desk, trying to keep the plantation afloat, but then Sherman's army happened
along. Now, almost seven years later, she was traveling through Texas with an escort of Sherman's soldiers, and felt like a traitor to the Cause.

“Too bad we never had the opportunity to hear you sing while we were in town,” said Mrs. Dolly Bumstead, wife of Lieutenant Ambrose Bumstead. “Weren't you afraid of the drunkards?”

Vanessa pulled up the side of her dress and yanked the derringer out of its garter holster. “Don't you ladies carry these?”

“Heavens no,” replied Mrs. Bessie Crawford, wife of Captain Dexter Crawford. “I'd probably shoot my toe off.”

“What would you do if Comanches attacked this detachment, wiped out the men, and then came for you?”

“I doubt that such a thing could ever happen,” Mrs. Bumstead said nervously.

“My departed husband,” explained Vanessa, “advised me to save the last round for myself.”

“I could never do such a thing in all my days.”

The officers' wives were eager to steer the conversation back toward more congenial territory, and Vanessa didn't object. Instead she leaned back on her seat, lowered her eyes to half-mast, and peered out the window at cavalry soldiers riding alongside the carriage. It appeared that a puff of smoke was arising from atop a mountain in the distance, but it might be a hazy cloud. Only three more days to Fort Clark, and Duane Braddock may be there, for all I know, thought Vanessa. Oh Lord, wherever you are, please bring him back to me.

Duane polished off his last tortilla; the saloon had become jam-packed during the course of his meal, and everybody was still looking at him. He wanted to get away, but paradoxically, the attention was pleasing him.

His head expanded with mescal, victory, and the adulation of the crowd. He wondered if he should run for the Texas State Senate, although he was wanted by the authorities in the Lone Star State, or become the bishop of Ceballos Rios, despite the embarrassing fact that he'd just nearly killed a man.

The cantina blurred, and he was drunk at the center of a hallucinatory carousel flashing bright colors, with Comancheros riding gaily colored wooden horses around him. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, for the beating he'd administered to Johnny Pinto had been exceedingly brutal, in retrospect. One wrong move and I would've killed him, Duane admitted.

A figure emerged from globules of color pulsating around Duane, and it was Lopez, the Comanchero leader, smiling as usual, sitting at the table. He leaned toward Duane, and Duane couldn't help wondering what heinous deeds the Comanchero leader had committed to become boss of Ceballos Rios.

“How are you doing, my friend?” asked Lopez, a diamond flashing on one of his incisors. Is it time yet for a fine young señorita?”

Duane felt a rise of lust attached to Catholic guilt, shame, and remorse. “Feel awful tired,” replied Duane. “Got shot up by Apaches a few weeks back, and still ain't right yet.”

Duane laughed at himself talking like a tough gun-fighter. He was having fun, better to be a winner than a loser, and the primordial passion of blood victory brought a flush to his cheeks.

Lopez twirled his mustache as he sat at the far side of the table. “Too bad, because I have a true virgin for you. Only sixteen years old, as pure as new cotton, for you, my friend, because you are one helluva hombre.” Lopez unbuttoned his shirt and showed a thick gnarled scar running diagonally across his chest. “I have seen a lot of fights in my day, and been in a few myself as you can see, but you are fast as a mountain lion.”

Duane was struck by what Lopez said, because he'd been named
Lion
by an Apache medicine man during his sojourn among the People. It seemed an odd coincidence while Lopez continued to praise him. “You are a great fighter, and now I
comprendo
why you are famous in your country. But victory is meaningless without a woman, no? I know you are tired, but surely not too tired for a sixteen-year-old virgin. She will wake you up right quick, my friend. You take one good look at this girl, you will be amaze.”

He's lying, thought Duane. Sixteen-year-old virgins don't become prostitutes, do they?

“You do not believe me?” asked Lopez. “Ask her yourself. I was saving her for a certain wealthy customer from your country, and I would charge
one thousand dollars
for little Maria Dolores, but I thought perhaps you have won her. Consider it a small token of my respect for an hombre with cojones, and if you want a more practical answer, it is smart to be on cordial terms with an pistolero like you, no?”

Duane was feeling perky, so he placed his elbows on the table, leaned toward Lopez, and asked, “Why is this sixteen-year-old virgin selling herself?”

Lopez appeared surprised by the question. “She needs the money—what else?”

“Why don't you give her the damned money?”

“I did not get where I am today by giving money to every poor unhappy Mexican girl who comes along. If you don't believe what I am telling you, I'll bring her to you, and you can ask her yourself. It is difficult to understand why you turn down such a juicy plum. Sometimes I have thought of paying her the money and having her myself, but my wife would keel me if she found out. You know how it is.”

Every man at the table nodded solemnly. They all knew how it was. Cochrane turned to Duane. “She sounds like a gem to me, and just the thing to take your mind off Juanita, who's engaged to me.”

Lopez continued to smile. “You should at least
look
at her, señor. She is a work of art all in herself. And a nice girl, too. She goes to Mass whenever the priest comes to town.”

Duane wrinkled his forehead in thought. Who's this poor desperate Catholic kid, and maybe I can help her. “What the hell—all right,” he said. “Where is she?”

The stagecoach parked by a stream for the night; tents had been pitched in the vicinity, and weary travelers were preparing for bed as fragrant fires of cottonwood and mesquite wafted across the campsite.

Vanessa and the other wives bathed in the stream together, guarded by soldiers ordered to look the other way, but occasionally, out of mad desperation, they broke the rules, catching distant glimpses of four women with skin like white marble bobbing up and down in the water, and the hot news spread gleefully throughout the enlisted ranks.

After bathing, the ladies returned to the campsite.
Vanessa said good night to the others, then stood in front of her tent and looked at the cloudless night sky.

Great constellations spun above her; the heavens were ablaze with light, and an owl hooted in a juniper tree. She wondered if Duane Braddock was looking at the same moon at that moment, or whether he was lying cold and stiff in a grave.