Valley of Fire (21 page)

“Some lecture you got there,” I told her.

Rocío grinned. “Actually, I preferred the salty-tongued rapscallion who had known Kit Carson.”

Pointing south, I start speaking to Geneviève. “We haven't crossed the road that leads to Carrizozo. I think we need to find it. That's where she buried those nuns and the gold.”

“What makes you think that?” Geneviève asked.

“Because an Army patrol found her, took her east to Socorro.” I felt good. I mean, when you feel smart, you feel good. Usually, I'm dumber than a fence post, but in a poker game—providing I hadn't drunk too much whiskey or just wasn't playing smart cards—and out in the open country when my life depended on things, I did have a brain that worked halfway decent.

“They'd be following a trail. On horseback. Wouldn't want to cross this valley except on a trail.” I motioned toward Rocío. “She'd just hacked off her arm and was suffering from exposure. She couldn't have wandered too far.”

Geneviève smiled, nodded, and eased her horse south, pulling Rocío's mule behind her. I tugged on the other mule's lead rope, and felt good and smart and lucky.

Till I looked behind me.

I didn't tell Geneviève or Rocío about the dust I'd spied off to the northeast. No need in getting them all scared and concerned and fearful that Sean Fenn was heading our way. Way I figured things, I was scared and concerned and fearful enough for us all. Besides, that dust could have come from a herd of cattle, or some peaceable cowhand headed up to White Oaks, or just a dust devil blowed up by the wind. Could've been anything.

'Course, deep down, I knowed better.

We rode down the trail, smelling creosote and dust, that black lava rising higher and higher. I'd rein up, ease down, and climb afoot up the rocks, looking around for Mount Ararat.

Nothing that I could see resembled them drawings I pictured in my head.

Back in the saddle, I kicked the bay into a walk, tugging the mule behind me, and called out to the blind woman, “Sister Rocío, I need some help.”

“Yes, son, I know,” she said, all friendly, but it prompted a chuckle that Geneviève couldn't stifle.

I give her my meanest stare, which made her laugh even more.

“Well, yes, ma'am, don't we all,” said I, “but, what I mean is, this is big country. Better than a hundred sections. There are lots of little hills here and there. Could take us months to search for that hill you call Ararat, and we ain't got months.”

Thinking, but not saying,
Probably ain't got more than a day
.

“What do you remember?” I reined up, turned, and waited. Geneviève stopped the claybank, and Rocío sat on the mule.

“Close your eyes, Sister Rocío,” I told her, just like she'd done to me, hypnotic and all. “Think back.”

She snorted. “Micah, I am blind. I don't need to close my eyes to picture anything.”

Geneviève looked back at me, but I give her the look that dared her to laugh. Besides, the old woman did close her eyes. So there.

“It was winter,” she said. “The land was covered in snow and ice, but I do remember . . . a bat.”

“Bat?” I asked.

Her empty eyes opened. “Yes. Bat. It looked like a rabbit.”

Her mind's gone,
I told myself again.

“You know,” she said. “Long ears?”

“Don't bats migrate?” Geneviève asked.

“Not the one I saw,” she said. “It was dead. But these bats do not migrate, either. They live here. Cortez, the guide, told me this.” Her head bobbed at some ancient memory. “Now, I remember. Cortez said the bats were common along the Tularosa Valley. We had found some guano and the dead bat. How is that?”

“Fine,” I said, and couldn't hide my irritation. “Now all I got to look for is a pile of bat dung, and a skeleton of a big-eared bat.”

“Exactly,” Rocío said.

She wasn't been sarcastic, like me. She was dead serious.

“A big-eared bat,” she said. “That's what it is called. Thomas's big-eared . . . no, that isn't it. Thompson's, no Townsend's. A Townsend's big-eared bat. They roost alone. They have really big ears, and their fur, usually brown or gray, protects them while they hibernate. And they do not migrate. So they are usually around this country, even during the winter.”

My mouth was open. So was Geneviève's. You don't expect to hear so much from a nun about bats, which I'd always been taught was critters of Satan.

“One of our lecturers,” Rocío explained, “called himself a chiropterologist. Oh, I guess that was five or six years ago. He was on his way to Carlsbad, the deep cave there, to study the bats that call it home during certain times of the year. I forget the exact species. Anyway, he planned to stop in the Tularosa Valley to study the Townsend's big-eared bat. He gave a most inspired talk. Very passionate about ‘the order Chiroptera,' as he called it.”

Geneviève said, “A chi . . . uh, chiro . . . a . . .”

“Chiropterologist,” Rocío completed.

“Too bad he ain't here with us.” I stood in the saddle, looked back northeast, but didn't see no dust—which didn't mean a damned thing. “He might be able to tell us where to find a dead bat that was here about thirty-eight years ago.”

“You are being silly, Micah. We do not look for a bat skeleton. But near a cave. When I saw the dead bat and its giant ears—poor creature, he must have frozen to death—poor Lorraine, she feared it was an omen. That bats were instruments of the Devil. Those French, they have some strange notions. But Cortez said they were common here, and he pointed south and west. He said the big-eared bats often migrated in a cave. He said we would soon be near the cave, and suggested that we hide there from the banditos. Alas, we never made it there. But I remember—” She paused, thinking back. “But we were near there. We must've been.”

“Crockett's Cave,” I said.

“What?” Geneviève asked.

“Yes,” Rocío said. “That was the name Cortez used. Crockett's Cave.”

“You know of it?” Geneviève asked.

I nodded. I'd hid in that thing, dodging them boys from White Oaks. Didn't know its name till I got found.

“We need to go west some,” I said. “And south a bit.”

Nudging the bay into a walk, I tried to find a way to cut through the massive black wall of lava. It would take some doing, but I was already doing some figuring, and remembering. Through my head, that poem ran over and over again.

I tried to recollect something near that cave that fit that description. And then I started swearing under my breath.

Like she read my thoughts, my mind, Sister Rocío said, “Purgatory is suffering.”

And we was about to suffer.

 

 

Oh, I reckon we got farther than I really expected us to get on horseback in that country, winding this way, then that, coming to a dead-end, doubling back, finding another trail . . . till the trails played out. After checking the sun to determine the best direction, I dropped to the sandstone grit, and began unsaddling the bay. “We walk.”

“What about the horses and mules?” Geneviève asked.

There was grass and some shade. I mean, it wasn't like that livery stable in Dodge City where Big Tim Pruett and I once spent three weeks—I mean to tell you, that stable was better than some hotels we'd hung our hats in—but considering where we was, it was right respectable for two horses and a couple mules.

“We'll water them before we leave, tether them. They should be all right. If we ain't gone too long.”

She moved closer to me, Geneviève did, put a hand on my arm as I was taking off the bridle, and said in a whisper, “And what about Rocío?”

With a shrug, I answered, “She comes with us.”

“Micah.” Her head titled back to that mountain of black. “Over that?”

“We ain't got much choice,” I told her. I mean, if we headed back north, then cut west, we'd likely run into that dust I'd seen. This way, Sean Fenn would have to come looking for us. Given the size of the Valley of Fire and just how many nooks and crannies we'd already uncovered, well, it might take him a passable amount of time.

Once I got the horses on a picket rope, giving them plenty of room to graze and all, I taken the canteens, a sack of jerky, and biscuits. “We find the place first,” I told Geneviève. “Then we come back for the horses, the gold—”

“And the bodies of Lorraine and our other Sisters,” Rocío said, her ears just as sharp as they'd been during lessons.

“Yes, ma'am,” I told her, and moved over, put my arm over her shoulder. Being all encouraging and the like, I said, “Sister, I'll need you to hold my hand. Don't fret. We got to climb, find a good trail up this hill of lava. I'll tell you where to step, what to avoid, things like that. And I won't drop you. Won't let go of your hand, no matter what. Think you can do it?”

“Of course, my son. Our Father, our Blessed Mother, will guide my way.”

I led her past the horses and on toward Geneviève, who was looking at me like I was out of my mind. As I passed her, I had to remind her, “I didn't drop you from that train, did I?”

Didn't drop old Rocío, neither, though it did get kinda ticklish there.

First off, there weren't no trail up the lava. Had to climb a good twenty, twenty-two feet. I got a hand hold, felt my way up a bit. Reached down, taken Sister Rocío's hand, told her what to do. She got up just fine. On the other hand, Geneviève had mountain goat in her veins. She scurried up one way, then t'other, leaning forward, leaping. She made it to the top and called down to ask if she should toss down a rope. 'Cause she'd taken the pack of supplies (biscuits, jerky, rope) up with her.

“We'll make out fine, Sister,” I told her. No way she could pull either Rocío or me up, thin as she was.

I seen a yucca over some sharp rocks a ways up, so I told Rocío, “Sister, this is gonna be like a dance of some kind. I'm gonna slide up a bit, then you slide up beside me. I'll have your hand the whole time. Ready?”

She nodded, and I ripped my pants. Damned embarrassing, but nothing could be done. She slid up easy. Then we done it again. And again.

“This is hard on one's buttocks,” she said when we rested by the yucca.

“Too bad you never had no buttocktologist lecture at one of your meetings,” I told her.

“You never were very funny, Micah,” she said.

Up we went.

She slipped once, but I didn't drop her. We swung over a deep crevasse. I put my other arm around her to steady her, then squeezed her shoulder.

“I was almost flying like an angel,” she said, and grinned. “This is exhilarating.”

“It scares the Jesus out of me,” I told her.

She would've skinned my head with her knuckles, but I held her hand. Instead, she told me to say ten Hail Marys, which I done on the last leg up the hill.

'Course, up top, I seen a real problem. We was sky-lining the country. Sister Rocío wore black, which would make it hard for even a person with spyglasses to see, but me and Geneviève had on light-colored duds.

“All right, Sister,” I said, finding a canyon. “Now we go back down.”

They didn't question me. Seemed to accept that I knowed what I was doing, where we was going, none of which was true.

“There's a jumping cholla about ten feet to your left, Sister,” I said as I eased her down. “Other way. Other way!” I had to swing her, lessen she get a mouthful of cholla spines. She hit hard. Geneviève gasped. I almost let go of the blind woman's hand.

“Are you all right?” me and Geneviève yelled at the same time.

First, she tried to cross herself, but couldn't on account that I gripped her one hand with all the muscle I had left in me. She made the motions with the stub of her other arm, shook her habit, which had gotten kinda askew from bounding off lava, and said, “I will be, if Micah ever learns the difference between right and left.”

Well, we made it down into that canyon, with Rocío getting three, four more bruises, and me with ripped pants. We moved through that trail, climbed up again, and kept right on going.

We climbed up a hill, not Ararat or nothing like that, and looked west. All you could see below was black, broken by juts of piñon and yucca and cholla. It appeared to stretch all the way to the Rio Grande, but I knowed it didn't.

“The, uh, Crockett's Cave”—I pointed—“is off that ways a bit.”

We rested. I opened the bag of biscuits, handed the two ladies some water. Sister Rocío went off to nature's call. Even nuns have to potty here and there.

“Micah.” Geneviève's voice was quiet.

“Yeah.” I was looking at all that awful country, trying to figure out where the hell Crockett's Cave was. Hell, I hadn't been near that hole in the ground for better than half my life.

“I didn't want to mention this, didn't want to scare you or Rocío, but . . . well . . . earlier . . . I saw dust.”

“Yeah.” I was resigned. Seemed to have become more Calvinistic or Presbyterian in my thinking. What happened, happened. A sinner and mortal like me couldn't stop it.

“You saw it, too?”

“Yeah.” I looked north. No dust. Just more black.

“Micah.”

I looked at Geneviève. She pointed east. “I saw dust . . . that way.”

That could've been what I saw. I mean, Sean Fenn could have kept riding. Geneviève had spied the dust long after I'd seen it off to the northeast.

“When did you see that dust?” I asked.

She might have answered, but the only thing I heard was the gunshot.