Devil's Creek Massacre (17 page)

She heard a footstep behind her and spun around. It was McCabe, her bodyguard, his jaw unshaven. “You'd better sleep with a gun under your pillow tonight, ma'am, if you don't mind me suggesting it. I was just talkin' to the Indian scouts, and they said that Comanches've been follerin' us all day.”

Vanessa recalled the smoke signal she'd seen earlier. “Surely we're in no danger, or are we?”

“Depends, and don't believe what they say about Injuns not attackin' at night. An Injun will attack anytime it damn well suits him. So be on yer guard.”

He returned to his tent while Vanessa gazed at the vast mysterious desert. For all she knew, there were a hundred Comanches out there, heavily armed, creeping closer. She shivered, but not from the cool night air, as she crawled into her tent. Then she sat on the ground, took off her boots, held the derringer in her hand, and pulled the blanket over her.

She didn't like sleeping in her clothes, but didn't dare get naked with wild Comanches on the warpath. I'll definitely save the last bullet for myself, she thought. No Comanches will ever rape me to death.

She searched for a comfortable spot on the bare ground, and finally was forced to lie flat on her back, with her head cushioned by a pillow made from clothes stuffed inside a pillowcase. She felt exhausted
by the constant strain of travel and trying to make conversation with officers' wives.

Why can't I be a normal woman? she asked herself. Sometimes she wondered if she'd gone bonkers on the night they'd burned old Dixie down. Then, in the stillness of night, she heard a faint, low guttural female moan. A blush came to her features, because apparently an officer and his wife were going at it.

Vanessa felt desolate as she imagined others making love. It reminded her of burning nights with Duane Braddock not so long ago. She wished Duane were there, but she was alone on the open sage, with strange soldiers and Comanches on the warpath. “Please come back to me soon, Duane,” she whispered softly into the night. “Don't you know how much I need you?”

Lopez led Duane to a ramshackle two-story building not far from the cantina. Lights shone in windows, and the sound of a guitar could be heard from within. Steady streams of men ascended and descended the stairs, and nobody had to tell Duane that it a whorehouse. Smoke emanated from the chimney, and it looked like the devil's lair.

Lopez opened the front door, and they entered a gaudy parlor with red drapes, white walls, and illustrations of naked women in artistic poses on the walls. There was a bar to the left, a fair scattering of patrons, and the featured attractions, the girls themselves, painted like harlots, wandering around in corsets, bloomers, and other bizarre undergarments.

Duane was struck by how young they were, and a few were winking at him, touching their tongues to the
tops of their lips, or taking seductive poses. A middle-aged Mexican woman made her way toward Lopez. She wore her gray hair in a bun behind her head, was fully dressed, and looked like a mother superior approaching the pope.

“Tell Maria Dolores that I have found her a gentleman,” Lopez said. “Señora, this is the Pecos Kid.”

An expression of astonishment came over her face. “Him?”

A glass of mescal materialized in Duane's hand, placed there by a prostitute in white frilly pantaloons. “Maria is a pretty leetle girl,” she said, “but I am a real woman, if you know what a real woman is.”

She was tall and lean as Vanessa Fontaine, but with long black hair and eyes slanted almost like an Oriental. I can have her, Duane thought. Just like that. Or any other woman in this place.

He let his eyes roll over their figures and caught a glimpse of heaven. Is this what it's like to be an Arab sheikh? he wondered. Billy-goat lust came over him; he'd been without a woman for a long time, he wanted them all, but Brother Paolo whispered in his left ear,
They're all poor girls who've chosen this profession rather than starve to death.

Meanwhile, the ghost of Clyde Butterfield, his professor of the shootist arts, murmured into his other ear,
He's right, they're all poor girls, and it's your sacred duty to patronize them so that they won't starve to death.

Lopez touched the back of his hand to Duane's shoulder. “By the way, I have been meaning to ask you something. Are you related to Joe Braddock, the outlaw from up by the Pecos River?”

Duane caught his breath. “He was my father. Did you know him?”

Lopez nodded. “We did business together a few times.”

“I don't know much about him, and I'd appreciate anything you could tell me.”

“We were not exactly
compa
ñ
eros,
and I did not know him well. He was an honest man as far as I knew, although I had heard many bad things about him. You look something like him, except he had a mustachio.”

Duane gazed into the eyes that had once focused upon his father, and felt a strange spectral connection with his heritage. In the corner of the room, half-hidden by shadows, he saw a broad-shouldered cowboy with a thick black mustache, his wide-brimmed hat slanted low over his eyes, talking with a prostitute. Duane wondered if his father had slept with Mexican prostitutes, but was ashamed to ask such a question.

“Did you ever sit and talk about life with him, by any chance?” asked Duane.

“Life?” Lopez appeared shocked by the question. “What for? No, we just talked business. As I said, we were not friends. All I can tell you is he used to drink like a man, or maybe two men.”

The madam approached, a smile playing over her features. “Maria Dolores is waiting for you, señor. I have told her how famous you are, and she is very happy that you will see her. But she is a little shy, because she is so young, you know how it is. But she knows....”

The madam let her sentence trail off, but Duane got the picture. What an unbelievably squalid situation, thought the ex-acolyte. Or maybe it's all a put-up job, and she's been a prostitute for twenty years. “You can be sure that I'll be careful with her feelings. Where is she?”

“The room at the end of the hall on the right.”

Duane headed for the stairs, and all eyes were on the notorious Pecos Kid. They knew where he was going, every man envied him, and each prostitute tried to catch his eye. But he paid no attention, curiosity leading him up the stairs. He walked down the hallway to the door at the end, raised his knuckles, and paused a moment. What the hell am I doing here?

The door opened two inches, and he saw a big brown eye level with his chest. “Are you the one?” she asked.

“Afraid so.” Duane removed his black wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

She looked like a little girl in a ball gown, except she really wasn't a little girl. He followed her into the room, observed her narrow waist and round buttocks, and noticed that her posture was proud. She turned around suddenly, and he saw her innocent eyes, upturned nose, broad face, pretty mouth. She was a sixteen-year-old doll, poised between girlhood and womanhood, exquisite in every way. She pulled back a long lock of straight black hair that had fallen over the middle of her face, and made an unsteady smile. “I am Maria Dolores.”

“I'm Duane,” he replied, “but I'm not what you think, so calm down. You don't have to sleep with me or anybody else if you don't want to. I'll take care of you—don't worry.”

“But . . .”

“I know it sounds strange, but how much money do you need to get out of here?”

She appeared puzzled. “What are you talking about, señor?”

“I'm trying to save you, Maria Dolores. You don't
have to stay here any longer. Lopez told me you needed money because you're in trouble. How much?”

She shrugged. “In American money—twenty thousand dollars.”

It was more than he'd imagined, and he'd never earned that much in his life. “How come you need twenty thousand dollars?”

“It is my father, but I do not want to talk about it.”

She appeared a well-bred Mexican girl, and her father probably had gambling debts or was an embezzler, and the bank would put him in jail if he didn't return the sum.

“Axe you all right, señor?” she asked.

Duane dropped into the chair, demoralized by the tragedy of her life. There was no way he could come up with twenty thousand dollars. “You don't have any relatives .. . ?”

“If I did, I would not be here. But why are we talking about these things? Don't you want to go to bed with me?”

She was absolutely adorable, a rare desert flower, sweet as mountain honey. “Not like this,” he said. “Listen, I'm here with some of my friends, and maybe we can bust you out of this place.”

“Lopez would track me down and kill me, and my father would land in the calaboose. I thought we were going to bed together and have some fun. I would rather you do it than some old ugly man. Are you a bandito?”

“Not really, although I ride with them.”

She rubbed her arms, appeared agitated, and peered into his eyes. “Do you think I am ugly?”

“Of course not,” replied Duane nervously. “But I've got to be in love.”

She looked as if she were going to cry, and Duane
realized that he should never have gone there. He looked for an avenue of escape, but what would the irregulars say if he ran like a frightened child out of her bedroom?

“You don't like me,” she said sadly.

“It's not that at all, but we hardly know each other. It takes a long time for love to grow.”

“We do not have a long time, Duane. There is only tonight, and if it is not you, the next hombre might be a monster with a big belly and scars all over his face. I would rather have a famous man to remember for my first time.”

She thinks like a child, he acknowledged, but there's a certain logic to what she's saying. Yet, on the other hand, I don't want to be the rotten skunk who takes her virginity. “I don't know what to do,” he confessed.

“If you do not know what to do, and I do not know what to do, then what will we do?” she asked in a pleading voice.

They stared at each other in silence, then started laughing. The circumstance was so odd, it took on comical proportions in their teenage minds. She sat on the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands while her tiny body quaked with mirth. He figured she wasn't more than five feet and one or two inches tall, and that unruly strand of hair kept falling down over the middle of her child's face as she looked up at him. “I have thought about this for a long time,” she said. “It is something all women learn sooner or later. With the prices Lopez is charging, I will be out of here in six months, and no one knows anything when I return to my town.”

Duane wondered what the real Jesus would say, the one who'd befriended the prostitute Mary Magdalene. This girl is in deep trouble, no two ways about it, just
as I was earlier this evening. I carved up Johnny Pinto out of necessity, and she's going to sleep with men out of necessity. In a sense, we're brother and sister.

“I haven't felt well lately,” admitted Duane. “I've drunk a lot of mescal tonight, and I'd like to relax for a while. Look.” He unbuttoned his shirt and showed the scars. “Apaches.”

He didn't have to explain, because Mexicans knew the Apaches well. She turned down the covers of the bed as he pulled off his boots. “You are not going to get under the covers with your clothes on, are you?” she asked.

“Guess not,” replied Duane, “but I'm awful tired. I'll probably go right to sleep.”

“Go ahead, if that is what you want. You are the guest here, señor.”

“Would you mind turning off the lamp.”

She turned the lever, and the room was plunged into darkness. He turned his back to her, removed his clothes, crawled quickly into bed, and rolled onto his back. Her garments rustled as she removed them, and Duane couldn't help feeling aroused. She was as lovely as Lopez had described, the exact opposite of Miss Vanessa Fontaine, but Duane was discomforted by moral implications. “Do you have anything to drink?” he asked in the darkness.

“Do you need to get drunk?”

“I don't feel right about this.”

“Please do not feel obliged to do me any favors. Maybe my next customer will be even more handsome than you, but I do not think so.”

She crawled into bed, brought her face closer, and touched her lips to his cheek. “Please do not speak anymore,
querido mio.
Let me do everything, at my
own time. Maybe God has sent you to me, or maybe the devil, who can say? I will be a woman tomorrow morning, and we might as well have some fun while we are at it, no?”

Y
OU CAN MOVE BACK TO THE
bunkhouse, Johnny,” said Dr. Montgomery, washing his hands in the tin basin, “but Captain Cochrane wants to speak with you first.”

They'd returned to Lost Canyon two weeks ago, and Johnny Pinto had recovered limited use of his arms. He winced as he pulled on his boots, folded the cot, and placed it in the corner. “Thanks for all you've done for me, sir. I really do appreciate it.”

Dr. Montgomery was baffled by Johnny's recent change of demeanor. Johnny appeared genuinely humbled by his fight with Duane Braddock, as if he'd finally seen the light. “Glad to help you, Johnny. Keep up the good work.”

Johnny limped across the clearing, headed for Cochrane's cabin. He'd been kind and polite since Ceballos Rios, but his new role required unremitting effort against his natural tendencies. He could dress
himself and get around, but his nose would never be the same, and two teeth had departed forever. He felt twinges in his kidneys as he knocked on the door of Cochrane's cabin; a voice within bade him enter.

Cochrane sat at the kitchen table, studying his map. “The doctor told me you were up and around, Johnny, and I thought we'd better have a talk. Take a seat.”

Johnny sat meekly and flinched at continual wrenching in both arms. Cochrane rolled up the map, then sat on the other side of the kitchen table, with a small cotton bag between them. “I'm afraid you can't ride with us, Johnny,” began Cochrane. “You placed us in danger when you fought with that Comanchero in Ceballos Rios, and we can't afford you anymore. When you're well enough to ride, you've got to leave here.” Cochrane leaned forward, and the scar on his cheek looked like the Snake River gorge. “If you ever betray us, make sure we're all killed, otherwise we'll hunt you down like a dog. You can go to San Francisco or New York, but you'll have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. Do I make myself clear?”

Johnny smiled and tried to raise his hand. “But sir—”

“Let me tell you something else while we're at it,” Cochrane continued. “The men held a vote, and the overwhelming majority wanted a firing squad. That's how seriously they take your little escapade. But you've served us well till now, and I've decided to overrule their verdict. We'll let you take your weapons, personal belongings, two horses, and five hundred dollars in gold”—Cochrane pointed to the cotton bag— “for services rendered.”

Johnny smiled, widening his eyes innocently. “Can I say somethin', sir?”

“Make it fast.”

Johnny bowed his head submissively. “I want to apologize fer all the bad I done, sir. Hell, that pore greaser weren't hurtin' nobody. I deserved to get the shit beat out of me, and I don't blame you fer not wantin' me here. I was tryin' to show what a big man I was, but Duane Braddock sure cut me down to size.”

Cochrane stared in disbelief at Johnny Pinto. “I've always been suspicious of sudden conversions, young man.”

“I knows how you feel, sir, but look at Paul in the Bible. He persecuted the Christians, then become a Christian hisself. God has punished me for my evil ways, but it's a blessin' in disguise. Now I can change, and as fer the five hundred dollars, you can donate it to the Cause, because one day the South will rise again, with men like you to lead her. If you've nothin' more to say, sir, I'll go back to the bunkhouse.”

Cochrane was flabbergasted by Johnny's declaration and didn't know what to make of it. “Dismissed.”

Johnny limped to the door, all his swagger gone, and he appeared truly broken by his experiences. Is this what redemption looks like? Cochrane wondered.

“I think he is lying,” said Juanita's voice on the far side of the room, after Johnny was gone. “I would not trust that rat-faced sum of a beetch as far as I could throw him.”

“He seemed sincere to me,” Cochrane replied. “Don't you believe people can have a change of heart?”

She stood beside the stove, her arms crossed beneath her ample bosom. “A leopard does not change his spots.”

“You state opinions as if they were facts, but you don't know whether Johnny's lying or not, or do you?”

“I would never take my eyes off that one, after what he has done. He is bad to the bone.”

“But people can renew themselves....”

“Not that one,” she said stubbornly.

Cochrane's university logic crumbled before her Aztec intuition, and sometimes he thought she had magical powers. “I believe in the possibility of change,” Cochrane insisted, “because I've changed so much myself since I've known you. I think we should at least give him the chance to prove himself. Maybe Braddock pounded some sense into his head.”

“Johnny's head is too thick,” she replied, “but he is very brave, and that is all you care about. I guess you will let him back into the gang before long, because you are not so smart as you think. But mark my words, one day he will make trouble again, and you will have no one to blame but yourself.”

Stoop-shouldered in shame, knees bent beneath the weight of his misery, Johnny Pinto entered the bunkhouse. The usual crowd was gathered around the table, but Duane Braddock wasn't among them. Johnny shuffled toward Sergeant Beasley and said, in a respectful voice, “Can I speak with you, sir?”

Beasley scowled suspiciously. “What's on your mind, Pinto?”

Johnny bowed his head and fixed his vision on a chicken bone lying on the floor. “I want to ‘pologize to you and the others fer all the trouble I've made. You prob'ly don't believe me, but I just thought I should say so.”

His left leg dragged behind him as he made his way to his bunk, where he painfully reclined. His

mouth tasted like ashes and he'd nearly gagged a few times, because he really wasn't sorry for anything. It was his long-range homespun revenge plot, but the black bile of repressed rage rose in his craw and his heart beat rapidly. Johnny Pinto was proud; it hurt him to grovel ignominiously, but he maintained his goal before his eyes: a clear shot at Duane Braddock's back. He tried to calm himself now that victory was within grasp.

The door opened and the bunkhouse fell silent. Johnny laboriously turned his head and saw Duane Braddock enter. Johnny's most difficult humiliation lay ahead, but he had to go through with it. He arose from his bunk, made his arduous way past the table, and then stumbled toward Duane Braddock's bunk.

Duane moved his hand toward his Colt as he watched Johnny Pinto draw closer. He was shaken by Johnny's appearance; the young outlaw seemed ten years older, and his old cocky swagger had been weakened by loss of blood. Duane arose from his bunk, examining welts and cuts on Johnny's face.

Johnny came to a stop in front of Duane, gazed into his eyes sincerely, and said, “You beat me fair and square, but I just want to say I'm sorry fer the mean things I did, and I'll probably burn in hell ferever fer killin' that Comanchero, but I'll never do it again. You taught me a good lesson, sir, and I thank you for it.”

Johnny teetered toward his bunk, and Duane gawked at his back in undisguised bewilderment. He wanted to believe Johnny, but something told him that the outlaw was a sick snake and he'd bite somebody again soon. I've got to watch him closely, Duane warned himself. He killed that Comanchero like it was nothing.

The stagecoach rolled through a valley filled with grotesque rock formations and thorny clumps of cactus. It was morning, next water hole straight ahead.

Major Marcus Tyler had joined the ladies in the carriage and was rhapsodizing about Texas. “I know it looks like hell's frying pan out there,” he said, gesticulating toward the window with his cigar, “but it's not as dry as it looks. One day, when we get the Indians under control, there'll be ranches and farms all over this land, with schools, churches, and army forts too.”

Vanessa examined the stark landscape, trying to capture the officer's vision, but it was difficult to imagine civilization on the inhospitable land. Maybe five hundred years from now, she thought.

“If 1 were you,” Major Tyler said to Vanessa, “I'd invest my money in west Texas right now. Between San Antone and El Paso the land is pretty much up for grabs. You could become a cattle queen, and if they ever build a railroad to San Antone, you could multiply your investments by a factor of ten.”

The prospect of so much money dazzled Vanessa. “But this land is a desert.”

“It might not look like much, but it grows nutritious grass for cattle and horses. There'll be a ranch on this very spot one day, mark my words, and it can belong to you, Mrs. Dawes. Can't you see the poetry in this vast empty space?”

Major Tyler had begun his next sentence when an arrow pierced his throat just above his blue collar and pinned him to the back wall of the carriage like a butterfly in a display case. Vanessa blinked—it was another bad dream—while the other women screamed
hysterically, shots were fired, and a war whoop erupted nearby. The stagecoach gathered speed. Vanessa dived to the floor with the other women, Major Tyler's bleeding corpse sagged on top of them, and McCabe aimed his sawed-off shotgun out the window.

Hordes of painted Comanches charged toward the stagecoach; soldiers fired back steadily, but they'd been taken by surprise. A Comanche warrior broke through the defensive line and rode straight toward McCabe, a lance poised in his arms. McCabe took aim, pulled both triggers, and the powerful kick jolted him backward as the Indian was blown off his charging war pony.

“Keep your heads down!” McCabe bellowed, as he reloaded the shotgun with steady hands.

Vanessa cowered on the floor with other women and the dead soggy former cavalry major. Somebody hollered atop the cab—perhaps the driver getting hit. McCabe could cover one window, but the other was wide open. Vanessa saw the emergency; she was terrorized, but didn't want to die without fighting back. She gathered her courage, uttered a prayer, gritted her teeth, and raised her head. “Give me your revolver,” she said to McCabe.

“Keep down, ma'am,” McCabe replied, as he aimed at another Comanche who'd broken through the cavalry escort. McCabe pulled both triggers, there was a terrific explosion, and the Indian leaned crazily to the side, red dots covering his chest as he toppled to the ground.

Vanessa yanked the Spiller 8c Burr out of McCabe's holster, thumbed back the hammer, and saw a Comanche approaching the far window. She lunged toward the opening and fired wildly. To her amazement,
the Comanche fell off his horse and bounced a few times, performing macabre somersaults. Her face drained of color; she'd killed for the first time, and a sergeant raced alongside the stagecoach, a Colt. 44 New Army revolver in his right hand. “What happened to Major Tyler?” he roared.

“He's dead!”

The sergeant veered away from the stagecoach while calling Captain Crawford's name. Somebody crashed into Vanessa, knocking her over. She turned around, and her eyes widened at McCabe, an arrow through his skull, dead as a mackerel. Vanessa raised her hands to her ears and screeched along with the other women. Blood was everywhere, guns fired close by, and an arrow missed her nose by two inches, ramming into the wall of the stagecoach. She dived to the floor, certain that death was imminent, and then something unbelievably horrible happened.

The stagecoach lurched, collapsed sideways, and threatened to turn over. Vanessa and the other women yelled their tonsils out and jumbled against each other as the vehicle tipped to its side. McCabe's corpse landed on the bottom, the women fell atop him, and the dead major landed on top, as the stagecoach slowed to a stop.

Vanessa was tangled in the arms and legs of McCabe, Major Tyler, and the other women. She fought herself loose, found McCabe's shotgun in the melee, climbed to the window, and poked the weapon outside.

Her heart nearly stopped as a Comanche warrior galloped toward her, aiming his rusty old pistol into the cab. She pulled both triggers of the shotgun, although she'd never fired one before. It blasted, she
hadn't braced herself adequately, and was thrown back into the cab as the Comanche was riddled with tiny pellets. A moan escaped his lips as he eased off the bare back of his war pony and collapsed in a pile before the stagecoach.

Vanessa didn't know how to reload the shotgun, so she drew the Spiller & Burr. The Comanche lay still, limbs twisted, in front of the stagecoach. It was him or me, reasoned Vanessa, and it damned sure wasn't going to be me.

The cavalry soldiers took positions around the stagecoach while painted savages rode in a circle, brandishing their weapons and singing war songs. Meanwhile, dismounted Comanches fired bows and arrows from a distance, but the massed disciplined shooting of the soldiers was keeping them at bay. The bewildered and blood-bespattered women climbed out of the stagecoach, and Mrs. Marcus Tyler appeared in a state of shock. Vanessa forced her to kneel in the lee of the stagecoach as arrows and bullets zipped through the air over their heads. Mrs. Bumstead had recovered Major Tyler's service revolver and was looking at it curiously.