C
HAPTER
N
INE
It wasn't big. Pressed thin, it probably didn't weigh more than six ounces, but, damn, it was beautiful.
Sister Geneviève held it reverently, even seemed to be holding her breath, then she extended her hands, balancing the ingot on her fingertips.
There was all sorts of delicate designs on the top, including a square stamp on the left end, with a small
o
above a large capital
M
. Next, you could see what appeared to be a crown, a fancy
V
and some pretty and peculiar designs. The ends was curved. Demyan Blanco's eyes glazed over. The farmer's lips parted. I kept waiting for him to drool.
“Is that . . . ?” The horse trader couldn't finish.
I started to touch it, but the Sister handed it to the farmer, who gripped it in them sweaty hams he called hands, and he staggered back against the corral post.
“It is a gold ingot, most likely assayed and minted during the reign of Philip IV.”
“How much is it worth?” Blanco asked.
Sister Geneviève pointed at the
V
with her index finger. Demyan Blanco moved closer.
“That symbol is the Roman numeral five, which means it equals five Spanish ounces. An old Spanish ounce is slightly larger than how we measure an ounce today, but not much. So I'd say you'd be safe in saying this weighs almost six ounces.”
Señor de la Cruz tested the weight of the ingot, lifting it up, lowering it, lifting it, his head bobbing all the while.
“Now,” Sister Geneviève said, “as a nun, I do not know what the current price of gold isâ”
“Eighteen dollars and ninety-four cents,” I said.
They all looked at me.
I shrugged. “You play poker, you know them kinds of things,” I said, but hell, the price of gold hadn't changed much in thirty years.
“Eighteen ninety-four an ounce,” Blanco repeated.
“A troy ounce,” the nun corrected.
“
SÃ
,”
he said, as if he had any idea what a troy ounce meant.
“Which,” Sister Geneviève said, “would convert this piece to a hundred and thirteen dollars and sixty-four cents . . . if you were measuring it by its weight alone.”
She'd done that ciphering in her head, too. Didn't even have to slow down to think on it any.
“But this”âshe plucked the ingot from the farmer's hand, and the gold bar disappeared inside her habitâ“an ingot minted more than two hundred years ago, must be worth three or four times its weight.”
“
SÃ
,”
the farmer and horse trader harmonized.
“Would you . . .” With great hesitation and deliberation, the ingot reappeared in her hands, and she held it out, letting the farmer pick it up once more. “I hate to ask. I'm not sure I should. But would you be willing to take this for the horses, mule, and tack?” She asked that awful timidly.
“But of course.” Demyan Blanco jerked the ingot from de la Cruz's fingertips. It slid into the rear pocket of his duck trousers. “If you step inside my office, I will give you bills of sale for the animals, and Jorge will be happy to saddle the animals for you. Please. Come with me. I believe I have a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.”
His tune had changed, and pretty soon we were sitting on his portal, while he filled in the bills of sale, sipped coffee, and made polite conversation.
Polite conversation my arse. He was fishing.
“Sister, may I ask where you happened to acquire such a wonderful relic from our past?”
The nun give him the dumb look, and I mean to tell you it was perfect. I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing. When Blanco looked up, he saw that expression, and explained, “The ingot?”
“Oh.” Sister Geneviève smiled. “I am so ignorant. It was a gift from a dear friend.”
“You have no more?”
“We Sisters of Charity have little need for gold ingots, señor.”
“That is true. So how did you happen to have this one?”
“As I said, it was given to me by a dear friend.”
“Another Sister of Charity?”
“In fact, she is.”
He began working on the next receipt. “Do you know where she got it?”
“Alas, I cannot say.”
“I do not mean to pry, Sister. It is just”âhe looked up, shrugged, signed his name, and rose to bring us the receiptsâ“such a piece of history, so unique, such a beautiful treasure.”
“Yes.” She sipped her coffee. “I am glad you now possess it, for carrying such an item of value made me uncomfortable.”
I could tell that Demyan Blanco had no problems with that hunk of metal in his rear pocket.
We finished our coffee, shook hands with the swindler, then mounted our horses, me holding the rope to lead the pack mule, and rode back to Abercrombie's. The clerk at the store said we could bunk in the stable, or the priest would be delighted to give us shelter for the night, what with Geneviève being a woman of the cloth and all, but the nun said we had some ground to cover.
It was blacker than the ace of spades when we left Anton Chico. We rode, following the road that paralleled the Pecos River, like we was bound for Puerto de Luna and Fort Sumner, then easing off the road, and splashing through one of the little tributaries or ditches.
We kept riding till there wasn't no more water, but we still followed the dry stream bed, twisting around and about like some miserable sidewinder, the hoofs of the horses and mule clanking on the rocks, our stomachs growling, the wind blowing. When the arroyo split, we turned left, heading south and west. We didn't stop till it was nigh midnight.
While the nun massaged her feet and rumpâriding and walking were things she hadn't done much ofâI picketed the livestock, grained them, and scooped out a hole in the moist ground till water started seeping in, giving them something to drink. I rolled out the Sister's bedroll, left mine on a rock, then climbed up a slope to study our back trail.
“I would dearly love some coffee, Mister Bishop,” she said.
“No coffee,” I said. “No fire. Just water and jerky. Or you can have a tortilla and some of that goat meat.”
“Would you care for a tortilla and some
cabrito
?”
“I'd rather have that .45-70 Winchester.”
I could hear her chewing and swallowing.
“You don't think they would follow us, do you, Mister Bishop?”
“Yes, ma'am, I do.”
“Why?”
“It's what I'd do.”
She snorted. “I said I have no more ancient ingots.”
“I heard you. So did they.”
“You don't believe me?”
I climbed back down, helped myself to a cold supper. Couldn't see a damned thing what with all the clouds and no moon. Sound carried too far out in this country. I didn't want Sister Geneviève talking too loud.
“Where did you get that ingot?
She swallowed and uncorked her canteen. Didn't answer me.
“Would have been smarter to let me borrow them horses, Sister.”
“You have forgotten the Eighth Commandment.”
“No, ma'am, I ain't. Thou shalt not steal.”
She looked impressed. She looked amazed when I next told her, “You would have done better if you'd recollected the one right after that. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
“I did not lie.”
I considered that for a spell. “That's the only ingot you got?”
“It is.” She went back to massaging her feet.
“They'll come after us,” I said.
Her hand stopped.
“Just to make sure. You should have bought that Winchester. Your Ladies Companion ain't gonna help us much. Well, it ain't gonna help you, anyhow.”
I wolfed down my supper, washed it down with water, and headed to the piebald.
“I mean to thank you for buying this horse for me, Sister.” I threw the blanket back on its back. “Most cowboys in these parts frown upon paint horses. Think only Indians ride them. But I ain't that particular. Especially now.”
“Mister Bishop.” There wasn't no panic in her voice, which partly surprised me, but mostly didn't. “Do you plan on leaving me in this wilderness? Alone?”
“You can get back to Anton Chico,” I told her. “Just follow the canyon back to the road.”
Behind me, the hammer clicked on her pepperbox. I kept right on with the saddle, tossing the stirrup up, and reaching for the cinch. I could hear her standing up, moving closer.
“I wouldn't shoot me, ma'am. Like as not, you'll have need of all five rounds in that little popgun when Blanco and de la Cruz show up. Them guns have a peculiar habit of shooting all five chambers at once. Wouldn't want you to blow off some of your fingers.”
“And if I blow off your head?”
“Then you'd be breaking the seventh commandment,” I told her.
“Sixth.”
I turned around.
“It's the sixth,” the Sister said. “That's âThou shalt not kill.' The seventh I have no intention of committing. Not with you, sir.”
A grin stretched across my beard stubble. “Oh, yeah. The seventh's that one. Not that it matters. I ain't married, and unless the Catholic church gotten mighty free-spirited since last I heard, you ain't, neither.”
It was dark, but I could tell she was pointing that pepperbox in my general direction. As I rose to tighten the cinch, I told her, “But if you fire that gun, you'll have more problems than I'll never know.” I threaded the latigo through the loop, pulled, did it again. “Your roan and the mule ain't tethered no more. They hear a shot, they won't stop till they're drinking water in Demyan Blanco's trough.”
The hammer eased down. I moved around the horse.
“So you plan to leave me here. In the wilderness.” She wasn't asking, she was telling. I didn't say nothing, but that was exactly my intention.
“Sticking around here ain't my idea of a good plan, Sister.” I tugged on the horn, and the saddle felt good, though I'd tighten the cinch again before I mounted. “I got Felipe Hernandez to worry about, and I figure I can make it to Texas or Colorado if I get lucky. Now, thanks to you and that nugget, I'll have to dodge Blanco and de la Cruz, too. There ain't nothing here for me.”
“There's that ingot,” she said.
“Which you ain't got no more.” I looked into the shadow I assumed was her. “Or you was lying?”
“No.” Her voice seemed resigned. “No, that was the only ingot Sister RocÃo gave me.”
I had the reins in my hand, and was ready to lead the paint horse a few rods before I swung into the saddle. My brain told me to start walking, but my legs didn't obey.
“RocÃo?” I blinked.
“She gave me the ingot.”
I thought about this for a spell, then laughed. My legs obeyed, and I was walking away. “Sister, I always knew that blind, one-armed crone was older than dirt, but she wasn't around two hundred years ago.”
“She wasn't. But she knows where the rest are.” I stopped, turned, ran my hand over my beard stubble. “The Valley of Fire.” I wasn't asking, either. It made sense.
“Yes.”
“She told you that.”
“She did.”
“She said I knowed how to find it?”
“She said you were the one who could find it.”
This I considered, then shook my head. “She's lost her reason.” I was walking again. “Crazy as a loon. I don't know what she's talking about.”
“She can tell you herself.”
“No, thank you, ma'am.” I eased into the saddle. Have to admit, I kept expecting her to fire that pepperbox, to see that I'd lied, as was my habit, and hadn't bothered with the tethers to the mule and her roan. “I'm not going back to that orphanage in Santa Fe.”
“That's too bad. Then we must go to Gran Quivira.”
My hand held the horn and reins. All I had to do was tug on the reins, kick the piebald's side, and light a shuck for parts unknown. But I stared into the darkness at Sister Geneviève's voice.
“Gran Quivira?” Maybe she nodded, though I couldn't tell. I just assumed the nun wasn't lying to me. “There ain't been nobody at them ruins in ages.”
“If we hurry,” she said, “we should find help there.”
“Help? Your help or mine?”
“Ours.”
“I don'tâ” I caught myself, figuring out that she was correcting my grammar, which made me angrier. If a body kept correcting my speaking, I'd never get nothing said. “Who's there? RocÃo?”
“RocÃo? I certainly hope not.”
“Your friends? Or Sean Fenn's?”
“Friends of the faith.”
I done some more studying. Finally, I shook my head. “It's a long ride to Gran Quivira, but you might make it. Then it's another ungodly ride to the Valley of Fire. You might find some water north of Rattlesnake Hill, but don't drink it. Salt water. It'll kill you.”
The piebald was tired, didn't want to leave his companions in the middle of the night, but he moved deliberately, like me. I had gone ten yards, when Sister Geneviève called my name. She added a few words, too, words that caused me to rein up.
“How you gonna make this worth my while?”
“There were twenty mules carrying ingots like that one I used at Anton Chico,” she said. “Do you know how many six-ounce ingots twenty mules can carry?”
Ten minutes later, the piebald was unsaddled, tethered, and happy, and I was wolfing down more cabrito wrapped in a tortilla, massaging my own smelly feet. Sister Geneviève was sitting across from me. “Sister RocÃo told me that it happened something like this....