Valley of Fire (5 page)

“I don't think we'll be getting off at the next water stop, Mister Bishop,” she said.

I got her meaning. Leaning the Winchester against the wall, slinging the shell belt over my shoulder, I pulled hard on the door.

They'd locked the damned thing.

Lordy, I slammed the stock of Fenn's Winchester as hard as I could against them wooden planks in that door. The Sister backed away from me like I had lost my mind, and, looking back on it, maybe I had. After all, I had been locked in a pen in Las Vegas that wasn't fit for a man. Now I was in a car full of bleating goats and cackling chickens and . . .

“Horses.” I whispered the word, lowered the rifle, finally letting it drop on the hay and dirt. I rubbed my hands, sore from all the pounding I'd done.

“Horses,” I said again, louder and made a beeline for the stoutest of them two bays.

Taking halter and rope, I led a gelding away from the hay. Sister Geneviève said nothing, just stood in the shadows, watching. I moved the horse close to the door, turned him around, and swept off my hat, tossing it toward the nun.

“Sister, take my hat. Walk over to the door. Stand on one side of this hoss, and start waving the hat over his tail.”

“What?”

I repeated those instructions, and she done what I asked, though I could tell she didn't care much for my genius. When she started waving the hat, I tugged down on the lead rope, clucked a bit, and finally the bay kicked.

You should have heard the string of cusses the nun dished out. She was lying on the floor to the left of the horse, scrambling away from the gelding. The cusses, of course, was directed at me. Never occurred to me that nuns didn't know that horses kick at things that are behind them.

“Reckon I should have warned you,” I said. Would have been laughing, if I hadn't been so worried about getting hung.

She found her feet, brushed off the strands of hay and dust, and it's probably a good thing I couldn't see her face all that good, because I warrant she was giving me the evil eye.

“Again,” I said.

“What?”

“Again. Wave the hat. Watch her legs.”

“I'm not getting my head stoved in, Mister Bishop.”

“We don't get that door open,” I reminded her, “there's a mighty good chance we'll both be heading back to Las Vegas . . . where Felipe Hernandez won't be happy with you at all.”

She bent over, picked up my hat, and slammed the dust off it against the rocking side of the car.

The whistle blew.

A moment later, the horse kicked again, the hooves slamming angrily against the door. Sister Geneviève dropped the hat.

“Again.”

Three more times, I got that gelding to kick. The last time, the nun had almost gotten her hand smashed. Figuring she needed a rest spell, I dropped the halter rope, eased the horse away from the door, and walked to check on any damage. I was mindful not to get behind that big bay.

“Always give a horse a wide berth walking behind it.” I decided I should give the nun a lesson in horses. I'd known folks to get their brains knocked out being careless around a horse, even a gentle one. “Or keep your hand on the horse when you walk around it. That's what I do when I'm saddling one.”

“Enlightening.” She didn't mean it.

One of the planks was busted, and I managed to pry it off, bending back the nails. I tossed the chunk to the rear and reached through. The air was cool. I couldn't see, so I turned up the lantern, then tried again.

“Can't . . . reach . . . that . . . bar.” I pulled my hand inside, found the nun, and told her, “Couple more kicks should be all we need. Grab my hat, and we'll do her again.”

“No.”

“Sister . . .”

“You hold your own hat, Mister Bishop. Let her kick at your head.”

“Ain't a
her
,” I corrected. “It's a boy horse. An unfortunate boy horse.” I had to laugh at that

I brung back the horse, handed the rope to the nun, picked up my hat, and got on the gelding's side. It taken awhile before the legs came up. I stepped quickly to the side, keeping my battered old hat from getting battered some more. The hooves against the wood sounded like a cannon shot. The bay snorted and shook his head in anger, jerking Geneviève around a bit.

I inched closer to the gelding again, started waving that old hat. He didn't take long before he kicked again, and finally, wood splintered.

“Once more,” I said.

After the third kick, I told the sister to pull the horse toward them goats, and I yanked off another bit of broken wood. I found the bar in the lock, pulled it out, and dropped it along the rails.

A moment later, the door was open, the air was blasting, and the horn was tooting.

“Damnation!” I said. “Are we already that close to Bernal?”

'Course, it was still pitch black. Couldn't see nothing outside. I turned down the lantern, picked up the rifle and cartridge belt. “Quick, Sister. We're going on top.”

“What?”

“I'll climb to the roof then I'll pull you up behind me.”

“Are you loco?”

With a sigh, I done some explaining. Nuns knowed all about goodness, about God and commandments and Heaven and Hell. But they didn't know much outside of missions and churches and monasteries.

Chances are, Sean Fenn had said there was a notorious outlaw in the livestock car. Knowing Fenn, he said that bad man-killer, Micah Bishop, was holding a nun hostage. When the train stopped for water at Bernal, the conductor, brakeman, and anybody else they could hornswoggle would be standing outside, demanding my surrender. Or, maybe, Fenn had kept his trap shut, but those railroad boys would get suspicious. Or they'd want to check on the goats and chickens and horses. Any other similar notion might lead somebody to open that door.

I said, “Bernal or Rowe or Lamy. Eventually, somebody's gonna open that door. And I don't want to be inside here when they do. They get us trapped inside this car, there ain't no way out. On the roof, we got a chance.”

“What chance?”

“I don't fancy being locked up inside. In a jail. Or in a boxcar. You coming?”

“Why don't we just jump off? Walk back to Romero?”

“Because I don't fancy getting my neck broke, neither.”

“Nor do I, Mister Bishop.”

“I won't drop you.”

She didn't move.

“Do you want to get to the Valley of Fire or not?”

Not that I really wanted to go down south, but I couldn't very well leave this nun in the boxcar. I'd played my hand. The door was busted and open. Certain-sure, them railroad boys would be looking inside. And if they found a nun . . . well, then the nun would start talking and pointing, and I'd be hogtied and headed back to Felipe Hernandez and the gallows tree.

That persuaded her. She moved past the gelding, and soon stood, holding onto the wall, the air blowing the hood down and making the hairs on her head fly every which way.

“I'll go up first,” I said. “You hand me the Winchester and shell belt then I'll help you up.”

Even in the dark, I could tell how pale she was getting.

“I've done this a thousand times,” I said. “There's nothing to it.”

I'd done it, maybe, twenty times. Never in the dead of night. And never . . . “Son of a bitch.”

It had started raining.

Lots of folks think it never rains in New Mexico Territory, but it does. Summer months bring in the monsoons, and them thunderheads can dump a river of water on a body in just a short time. But monsoons usually strike in late afternoon, not around midnight. This was one of those rare nighttime showers, slow, steady, cold, and making an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe boxcar dangersome and slippery.

Well, I'd started the ball. After jamming my hat on my head, I got a good hold on the wood, and swung myself into the night, into the rain. Wind and rain blasted me considerable, but I didn't mind. Fact is, it felt kinda cleansing, washing off the stink of dead rats, the stink of that Las Vegas cell, the stink of goat pee. Wasn't no trouble for me to climb right up those slats like I was on a ladder. I found a hold on the roof and just pulled myself up. Easy as pie.

I slid around, leaned over the top, yelled down at the nun that it was her turn.

Her head—the hood was back up—appeared like a timid mouse.

Then a notion struck me. “Sister, you need to turn down that lantern.”

“But then I won't be able to see a thing.”

That took some studying. The brakeman and the conductor knowed there was a lantern in here, but it had been turned down when they hauled away Sean Fenn. Now it was turned up. Maybe they wouldn't recollect. On the other hand, that could suspicion them some.

Hell's fire, the door had been locked, and I didn't reckon they'd be dumb enough to think the horse had gotten loose, wandered over, kicked open the door, which somehow managed to slide open. Oh, yeah, and knock the coffin out, too. Nah, they'd figure some friends of Sean Fenn was in here and them boys had gotten the door open and leaped out when the train had slowed.

Or . . . they might think them friends of Sean Fenn planned on helping him escape—which would mean they'd search every inch of the train, roofs and all.

Or...

“The hell with it,” I decided. A body could think hisself to death. “Give me your hand.”

Immediately, my mind figured something else out.

“No, hand me the Winchester first.”

She disappeared just for a second, then pointed the rifle's barrel at my direction.

“Get your finger out of the trigger guard,” I told her.

“What?”

I had to shout, for the wind had turned into a gale. Smoke stung my eyes, and the rain didn't do much to dampen the cinders blowing in my general direction.

“Take your finger off the trigger! I don't fancy getting my head blowed off. Accidental-like or on purpose.”

“Oh.” Funny. That nun had acted like she had plenty of experience holding that little .22 pepperbox, but the rifle seemed foreign to her.

She took her hand out of the lever, grabbed the stock, and hoisted it up. As I reached for the barrel, the train rounded a curve, the boxcar tilted, the wheels screeched, and the Winchester disappeared.

I would have cussed my miserable luck. Didn't hear the rifle bouncing along the tracks, but I did hear Sister Geneviève scream for God's mercy. That's what stopped me from cussing.

I almost slid off the roof, but I managed to grab the nun's hand before she went falling into the night. My right hand gripped her wrist, the other held tightly onto my hold on the roof, which was getting wetter and slipperier. The train finished rounding the curve, the car straightened, and the nun slammed against the car.

Her free hand locked on my wrist like a vise.

Unfortunately, the shell belt had been draped over that shoulder, and when she reached up to grab my wrist, the belt dropped alongside the tracks. Well, those were .44-40 cartridges, and since the rifle was long gone, and since I had no weapon, and the nun only had that little pepperbox, it wasn't like that was a major catastrophe.

She swung back and forth like the pendulum on a clock, into space and banging against the door. One of the horses snorted. The goats sang out. Oddly, enough, them hens stayed quiet.

Finally, the train began to slow down. I turned my head toward my hold on the roof, grunted, groaned, strained, and somehow managed to pull the nun up alongside me. When I had caught my breath, I turned to her and said, “Like I told you, Sister, there's nothing—”

“One more word from you, Mister Bishop,” she warned.

I couldn't see her face. Didn't have to. I inched away from her, then noticed something.

The train was slowing, the horn was blasting, and we was stopping.

“Lay flat,” I told her. “Don't talk. Don't move. Don't breathe.”

We had reached the water stop at Bernal.

I could make out the glow of the brakeman's lantern as he made his way from the caboose. I could hear the commotion as they filled up with water ahead of us. Naturally, the brakeman stopped by the boxcar on which we was riding.

“That's odd.”

I recognized the brakeman's voice.

“What's that?”

He wasn't alone, but it wasn't the German conductor talking.

“You locked this door, didn't you? Back when we hauled that slippery gent off at Romero?”

“Yeah.” He must have seen the open door.
“Yeah.”

After they climbed inside, I heard them moving around noisily right below us, leading the gelding to the other end, tethering her to the picket rope.

A minute or so later, they was back outside in the rain.

“Must have gotten loose.” The fellow who wasn't the brakeman had to shout because the wind wailed like singing coyotes and the rain fell harder. Cold. Downright icy. Miserable weather to be in.

“Yeah,” agreed the brakeman, who had shown such savvy and coolness when he had captured Sean Fenn. “And got angry, kicked the door, knocked out the bolt.”

“Horses is a wonder.”

“Let's get out of this rain.”

A moment later, they was gone. They hadn't noticed the coffin was missing. They hadn't asked how the horse managed to slide open that door. They hadn't even questioned the lantern that was lit. Nor had they turned down the light.

I had expected them to figure out everything, shout out a warning, but they acted practically stupid. Must have been the rain.

The train started moving, slowly at first, then picking up speed.

Sister Geneviève was speaking to me again. “Are we getting off here?”

I had done some more figuring. “No. We'll ride a spell.”

“Outside. In the rain.” She wasn't happy.

“Rowe is two stops down. After Fulton. They'll stop for water. We'll get off a little before we reach Rowe.”

“And break our necks.”

My head shook, not just to disagree with her lack of a positive attitude, but to get the rain off the brim of my hat and out of my eyes. “The train will be climbing by then. We'll slow to a crawl.”

“And then? Backtrack to Romero? Follow that road you said down to—”

My head was shaking, but she couldn't see me. “No. Sean Fenn would suspect that.”

“But we don't have to worry about Fenn anymore.”

“I always worry about Sean Fenn. He ain't one to stay caught. Besides, Felipe Hernandez and the law will be after me, and that'll be one of the roads they'll be studying hard.”

“Then why did you suggest it to begin with?”

“In case you haven't figured me out yet, I ain't one for planning. I make things up as I go.”

Sister Geneviève shocked me then. She laughed.

 

 

So, we rode in the rain. In the cold. In the night.

I studied on how to get the nun to the Valley of Fire. I also tried to figure out a plan to be shun of her, and go my own way, out of the territory and as far away from Sean Fenn and Felipe Hernandez as possible. Also, I tried to come up with something that made sense about why Sister Rocío would tell folks that I could lead them to the Valley of Fire. And why people wanted to go to that burnt-over patch of black rocks in some of the most miserable country you'd find in New Mexico.

I only got wetter.

Then, after a couple miles or more, I got smarter.

I sat up and faced Sister Geneviève. “What the hell are we laying out in the rain for?”

“You said—”

“I know what I said. But I misjudged them fellows running this train. Thought they was smarter.”

“That is something to which I can relate.”

Smoke blew in my eyes. Coughing, I shook my head and told the nun, “We'll just crawl back down, get inside the car, dry ourselves off. Then leap off the train when we're near the water tower at Rowe.”

Rowe was a little more than a water stop. Back when they was laying tracks, a bunch of folks from the settlement of Las Ruedas had built a pipeline from the Pecos River to the railroad, and Rowe was born. It was a railroad town, although it wasn't much of a town. Nothing like Las Vegas or even Lamy, but most folks had stayed in Rowe after the rails were finished, and few had gone back to Las Ruedas. Rowe was all right. A person could find a little whiskey and something to eat. I could borrow a good horse and light a shuck for Arizona Territory. Rowe was practically civilized, and most of the folks living there were Catholic. They'd know what to do with a nun. Better than I knowed.

“What if they check on the livestock when we stop for water at”—she had to remember the name—“Fulton?”

“We can climb back up before then. Same as we just done. We're getting handy at that kind of thing.”

I mean, we was up here. We'd lost a rifle and a shell belt, but I hadn't dropped the nun.

“They shut the door, Mister Bishop,” the Sister said.

“But they didn't lock it,” I said, arrogance in my tone. “They couldn't have locked it. We'll climb down between cars. Then I'll crawl out, push the door open, and help you get inside.”

“Like you helped me get up here.”

“I didn't drop you.” Nuns was supposed to be forgiving, especially them from the Sisters of Charity.

Her shadow stayed nailed to the roof.

“Suit yourself,” I told her, “but it's a shorter drop from the inside of a car to the ground, than it is from up here.”

I stepped around her, with the wind and rain to my back, and realized there was only one car beyond the boxcar, and that was the caboose. Too close. I turned around, walking into the rain, into the wind, toward the next boxcar. Kept my arms out for balance.

The whistle blowed. The train rocked some more. She was huffing, heaving, groaning—the engine—beginning the climb into the mountains. She'd be climbing a lot harder in a few miles. I could make out the glow from the lantern the fools hadn't bothered to turn down inside the livestock car. It looked warm. Couldn't wait to get inside, providing I didn't break my neck trying to open that door.

Behind me, Sister Geneviève called out, “Wait, Mister Bishop!”

I waited. Even turned around. I could make out her figure as she rose, taking tentative steps toward me. I held out my hand to help her.

A second later, the train rocked, and the nun slipped. Her shape disappeared. She screamed.

I let out an oath. Called out for her.

“I'm all right!” she cried out.

I walked toward her voice. My boots slipped, and this time it was me screaming.

And sliding.

Right off the damned boxcar.

Somehow, my right hand grabbed hold of something, kept me from going straight into the pits of hell, slowed my fall, and gave me a chance to get a better hold. Oh, I went over the side, but somehow caught the top slats. My knees banged into the side of the boxcar. The goats started yelling again. My fingers gripped them slats tight. That left me still a passenger on the train, but I didn't know for how long.

“Mister Bishop!”

I looked up, could just make out the Sister's face from the glow of the lantern inside.

“I'm still with you, ma'am.”

Her hand slammed into my face, prompting a few more offensive words.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's all right.” I spit out rainwater.

“Grab my hand.”

“Sister, you stay put. For now.”

“Grab my hand.”

“If I grab your hand, I'll pull you off the roof.”

Realizing the logic in that, she withdrew her hand. I moved down the side of the car. Still gripping the slats with my hands, I found the door and pushed with my leg. Get that door open, just a bit, just a little hole, and I could swing inside the car to my friends the goats and chickens and rooster and two geldings. Inside, I could open the door again and figure out a way to get the nun inside without killing her.

My left foot found a hold between the slats. My right leg stretched out and pushed at the door.

“What are you doing?” the nun called down to me.

“Trying to get this door open.”

I pushed harder with my leg.

She said something, but the whistle and the wind and the rain and the clicking and the goats made it impossible for me to comprehend what she said. I ignored her, just pushed. Tightened my grip. Pressed harder with my foot stuck between two slats.

That was something I shouldn't have done.

I guess the gelding had also cracked the slat my foot was on. Loosened it, anyhow. Because it snapped. All my weight was on that piece of wood, so when it broke, I was falling.

The nun, bless her, screamed out my name—that, I heard—and grabbed my flailing hand, but she should have done what I had told her to do. Stay put.

She would have had a long, wet, but safe, ride into Rowe, and maybe on to Lamy . . . instead of falling into the darkness, into what seemed like eternity, with me.

The AT&SF rumbled on by. The lantern from the boxcar quickly disappeared, and we fell, our screams mingling together. We should have hit the ground by then, but, no, we kept on dropping.

It was like one of those dreams, where you're falling and falling. What's that I'd been told? If you hit the ground in your dream, you was dead.

I felt dead. Knowed I was dead.

We must have fallen off a bridge. That's what struck me first. What struck me next knocked the breath out of me, then everything disappeared, and I was freezing. And swallowing water. Cold, icy water. Then I understood. We'd fallen off a bridge, only not one over hard-rock earth. One over the Pecos River.