The Mission War (9 page)

Maria reached down, found his shaft, toyed with it, her legs spreading slightly and then lifting as she wriggled onto him. Her breath began to come in short gasps, her body responding with a rush of liquid.

Ki drew her to the side of the bed without losing her. He knelt on the floor beside the bed as Maria locked her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders. Her full, round breasts flattened themselves against his chest.

Ki stroked the woman with his knowing hands, touching her ears, tracing them, moving slowly across the nape of her neck to her spine where his fingers trailed downward skillfully. Then with a sudden, powerful grip, he clutched at her ass with both hands and lifted her onto him as Maria gasped.

Ki reached beneath her, spreading her still more, stroking her, feeling the sweet dampness there, feeling the pulsing of Maria's body, the increasing urgency of her kisses, her warm, moist breath against his cheek and ear.

Maria's legs, locked around his waist, clenched him as if she would squeeze him in half. Ki paid no attention to that. He had begun to move against her—slowly, deftly, letting his body find each fold and tender button of Maria's trembling body.

He held her to him, looking into her eyes, eyes that revealed the depth of her pleasure.

“Harder, Ki. Please. Now a little slower.”

Ki smiled and did as she asked, sometimes plunging his shaft into the hilt and lifting her from the edge of the bed with the power of his strokes. At other times he moved gently, almost teasingly, with slow care, driving inward a bare inch at a time.

Maria made small sounds deep in her throat, small hungry sounds. She still spoke to Ki, but the words made no sense. Half of them were in Spanish, half in the language of passion.

Then her body spoke very clearly as she, arching her back and reaching down with one hand to find where Ki entered her, trembled and let loose a torrent. Maria cried out loudly, bit at her wrist, and settled to a deep, constant trembling.

Now Ki began to sway in rhythm, a slow, deeply thrusting rhythm that caused his own thighs to tremble, that lifted his own desire to need, that brought his need to a gushing climax.

Maria cried out again with pleasured satisfaction and held Ki's shaft as he finished, throbbing and spasming within her.

“Lie with me,” she said finally, and shaking, she pulled herself back onto the bed. Ki followed without slipping from her. He followed and lay beside her, letting her touch his shoulders, chest, and hard thighs with a kind of primitive wonder until the Mexican girl fell off to a contented sleep, her mouth slightly parted to reveal her teeth. Her long lashes now and then moved and once opened to reveal dark, deeply satisfied eyes.

Ki let her fall into a sound, lasting sleep and then he rose. The
bandidos
were still out there somewhere and he couldn't afford the luxury of a night's sleep. He went out quietly, stood beneath the stars, watched the silky river run, and listened to the night sounds of insects and frogs and night predators.

They still had Jessica Starbuck.

They had her and that could not be allowed. Ki frowned. He had effected his own escape, but that might or might not have been to Jessie's advantage. Would they now bind her more tightly, increase the guard, chain her ... or worse?

The head of Jessica Starbuck would still bring a huge reward from the cartel, from Don Alejandro as Kurt Brecht had taken to calling himself.

Something moved in the darkness and Ki crouched, his muscles bunching, his hands positioning themselves. The night held something, someone. Ki could feel it, but he could see nothing. The frogs still croaked in the cattails; the crickets still chirped as if whatever was out there moved invisibly, without a whisper of sound.

The feeling lingered for a time and then passed and Ki gradually relaxed. For another three hours he kept his silent watch. An hour or so before dawn, Maria, yawning, came to the door of the goatherd's shack. She came to him, put her arms around his waist, and rested her head on his chest.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“I think so. Yes.” Ki didn't explain about the silent thing in the willows.

“What will you do now?” Maria's dark questioning eyes met Ki's.

“I will free Jessica Starbuck,” Ki answered. He shrugged and kissed Maria's forehead lightly.

She didn't smile in answer. “How, Ki?” she asked. “How do you plan to free her from Mono's
bandidos?”

“Now,” Ki replied, “you have asked the difficult question. I don't know how I will do it.”

“If I can help you...”

“You can't go back into San Ignacio, not now. They know you helped me.”

Maria's temper flared briefly. “Do you think I am a coward, Ki?”

“No, I think nothing of the sort.”

“Then I will help you.”

Ki held her for a minute. The air was damp and cool, the river a whispering thing moving past them. To the East the sky was graying. Birds were beginning to stir in the willows.

“We have to find out what they are doing, where they have Jessica,” Ki said thinking out loud.

“It will be daylight soon.”

“That might be a disadvantage. On the other hand, the nearer it gets to dawn the more the
bandidos
will have drunk and the more likely they will be to fall asleep or at least be off their guard.”

“I have many friends and family in San Ignacio,” Maria said. “Some of them might help.”

“I don't want help just now.”

“Maybe you need some,” Maria said. She bit her lip thoughtfully.

“You have something in mind?” Ki asked.

“Clothing. What you wear is too obvious. A peon costume, a serape. You are just dark enough if someone doesn't look too closely.”

The woman was right. It wasn't a bad idea at all to try disguising Ki. The moment he was spotted, Mono's people would try to kill him. Perhaps the moment of recognition could be delayed with a disguise.

“My cousin Fernando is not quite as tall as you, but nearly. And, he is a barber,” Maria said with sudden inspiration.

Ki frowned. “What has that to do with this?”

“You will see. Let's go now. Fernando is on the far side of town. We can follow the river without being seen.”

Ki was dubious, but he had no better idea. He was ready to accept any help that was offered just now.

They moved along the bank as the first colors of sunrise began to streak the sky. The river absorbed the colors and reflected them darkly. Ki stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” Maria asked, her eyes widening. She crouched a little as Ki was doing and looked around.

“Just this.” Ki pointed it out. A footprint in the sand, a very fresh footprint. It had to have been made during the night. “So,” Ki said, “he is not a phantom after all.”

“What are you saying, Ki?” Maria asked nervously. “What does this mean? Does Mono know where we are?”

“No, this was not one of Mono's
bandidos.
You see, this was made by a moccasin.”

“There are no Indians around here,” the Mexican girl said.

“There is,” Ki corrected, “at least one.” One who had come a long way, following them from the Canon del Dios in Arizona, one who had killed Carlos back at Tinaja Caliente. Ki stood and looked around carefully, his eyes—eyes used to searching, to careful watching—still failing to find anyone, anything. There was only the single track in the sand as if in a careless moment this phantom had become a creature of flesh, blood, and bone and formed it in his passing.

“I don't like this, Ki,” Maria said. She hunched her shoulders as if a sudden chill had crept over her.

“No,” Ki answered, “neither do I. Let's go on to your cousin's house before the sun rises.”

They went on, hurriedly now, Ki with the strange feeling that there were eyes watching his back, dark eyes that waited, wanting what?

The golden rim of the sun had crept above the dark line of the desert horizon before they reached Fernando's house.

It was a small adobe with a red tile roof, shuttered windows, and a door which was firmly barred. It might have been abandoned, but Ki could smell cooking within the house. Maria pounded on the door with the side of her fist.

“Femando, Alicia! Open the door. It's me, Maria Sanchez.”

“Who is that with you?” a voice answered after a long interval.

“A friend.”

“What friend?” the challenging male voice wanted to know.

“Someone you don't know, Fernando. I'll explain inside, but for the sake of Our Lady, let us in now, please!”

The door opened hesitantly and then swung wide. Maria hurried inside, Ki on her heels. A tall Mexican in longjohns waited, watching. Five sets of dark, children's eyes watched from across the room where Fernando's children clustered around the large, sheltering figure of his wife.

“Now what is this?
Madre de Dios,”
Fernando said, running a hand across his rumpled hair. “To come to a man's house at this time of the morning at a time like this!”

“We need your help, Fernando,” Maria said.

“My help? You can't stay here. No, if Mono—”

“We don't want to stay,” Maria said a little scornfully. “My friend Ki here is going to fight Mono and you will help him.”

“Me fight Mono!” Fernando made violently negative gestures with his hands. “No, I have the children, I have my wife—”

“She doesn't mean that I want you actually to fight the
bandidos,”
Ki said. Maria had begun to enjoy taunting her cousin. “She only wants you to lend me some clothes.”

“And a little something else,” Maria said. “Anyway, why won't you fight? Yoa men of San Ignacio!” she spat. “Whose town is this anyway, yours or Mono's?”

“It is ours when Mono is away,” Fernando said. “But when he comes, it is his. Everything is his. He comes, takes what he wants, does what he wants, and then after a little while, if we are patient, he goes away.”

“Leaving pain and destruction behind.”

“He breaks a few things. Steals a little—”

“Beats a few men, kills some, rapes your wives and your daughters!” Maria went on with savage mockery.

“We survive!” Fernando said, growing angry now. “Mono is a killer, a pig. He has killed many men; all of them have. They have destroyed towns when they were not pleased. What good does it do my children to have their house burned down around them, to have their father killed, to have the crops destroyed?”

Ki said, “Maria, we have business.”

“Yes.” Maria looked at her cousin for a long while. Her expression softened and at last she smiled, hugging Fernando. “I am sorry. Everything is so hard. You are doing the right thing.”

“I am doing all I can,” Fernando said, still defensive.

“Yes,” Maria replied. “Now do one more thing. Let this man Ki wear some of your clothes.”

Fernando was reluctant to do even that it seemed, but under Maria's scathing gaze he agreed. The peon costume nearly fit Ki, though it was a bit short all around. With a pair of sandals and a red and black serape, Ki's disguise was complete.

Or so he thought. Maria had other ideas.
“Bueno,”
she said, looking Ki up and down. “Now we go into Fernando's shop, eh?”

“My shop, but why?” Fernando asked.

“Come on, come on. Also, find a sombrero, Alicia,
por favor.”
She took Ki by the arm and guided him to the inner door, which Fernando, muttering, opened and entered. Beyond was the barber shop. Maria, looking around, spied the box where the sweepings were kept. She fished around, found what she wanted as the two men exchanged an uneasy glance, and turned with her trophy.

“Now,” she said, holding up a hank of dark hair, “a little resin ...” She walked to Ki, held the clippings up under his nose, and nodded. “It will do for a mustache. After it is stuck on, Fernando will trim it for you.”

Ki didn't think much of the idea, but he had to admit after the hair was gummed on and trimmed that it disguised him effectively.

“This isn't going to come off, is it?” Ki asked Fernando, who was giving the mustache a final snip.

“You will be lucky,
señor,”
the barber said, “if that ever comes off your lip.”

Maria stood watching, arms folded beneath her breasts and quite pleased with herself.

Ki examined himself again in a hand mirror Fernando gave him, shook his head, and said, “And now the simple part is over. Now it is up to me to use this disguise.”

“Señor,”
Fernando said, “you are really going to fight Mono?”

“I hope not,” Ki said honestly. “I hope I do not have to fight anyone to free my friend Jessica Starbuck. There are too many of them and they're too eager to kill. But I will get her out of there—no matter what it takes.”

Fernando put his scissors and mirror away, shaking his head in wonder. There are many madmen in this world. It seemed that he had just met one, for any man who would try to stand against Mono the killer was mad.

“Now,” Ki said, standing and placing the straw sombrero on his head, “we will see exactly what can be done.” Ki started toward the door then, and in the mirror he saw Fernando silently cross himself.

A last prayer for a madman.