Valley of Fire (13 page)

I dragged myself across the rocks and cactus till I reached the spot where that little stone had disappeared. Behind me, I heard the Sister's footsteps. I dipped my hand inside that hole, not caring, not even thinking about the possibility of rattlesnakes, but couldn't touch no water.

My hand came up, and somehow, weak, thirsty as I was, I got to my knees, bent down, and grabbed this good size, tabletop rock that partly, I hoped, covered the hole. I grunted and cussed and strained. Next thing I knowed, Sister Geneviève was beside me, her hands underneath the sharp edge. Well, we couldn't flip that thing over, but somehow we managed to slide that rock a bit in the dirt, revealing a hole maybe six inches wide. The one canteen we had left had a diameter of seven inches. The damned thing wouldn't fit.

So we started digging and scooping, shoveling sand and dirt and small rocks like two dogs digging for a bone. Finally, we got the opening wide enough, and with scarred, bleeding hands, I shoved the canteen in the hole, gripping the canvas strap for dear life.

I shoved my arm all the way to the shoulder. Could see the nun kneeling beside me, swollen, chapped lips moving in silent prayer. When I couldn't get my arm down any farther, I almost bawled like a newborn. “It's not long enough.”

I slowly withdrew the canteen, placing it on the rock. The strap to the canteen was a tad under two feet. Quickly, I took a pebble, dropped it down the hole. It splashed.

“How deep . . . is it?” Geneviève's voice was strained.

“I don't know. Can't be much farther.”

Talk about pathetic, about hopelessness. Here we are, dying of thirst, and there's water maybe a foot, maybe only two or three inches out of our reach.

“Your sash!” It struck me quick, and I turned to the nun, and felt my heart break again.

“I . . . I . . .” Her fingers fell to the waist of her free-flowing dead man's shirt.

The sash was gone. She either lost it, or just chucked it. Dead weight and all. Remember?

Without no shyness, no discomfort, she said, “Here!” and pulled that dirty piece of cotton over her head and arms, practically flinging it to me, and just knelt there, topless, and dropped onto her hands, staring into that small, dark hole, as my tired, battered fingers tied one sleeve to the apex—I think that's the word—of the canteen's canvas strap. Tied it good. Then holding the other sleeve, I lowered the canteen through the hole. I felt the canteen hit water, and sighed.

Waiting . . . then . . . heartbreak.

“What is it?” Sister Geneviève must have read the devastation in my face.

Hurriedly, I brought up the canteen, placed it between the nun and me. I could see the water on the canteen's edges, could see Sister Geneviève running a swollen tongue over her chapped lips.

“Take some,” I told her, and she did, running her fingers over the drops of water, then across her lips, her tongue.

I got busy untying my bandanna.

“It won't go under,” I told her. “Not heavy enough.”

After unrolling the bandanna and laying the frayed silk square on that rock, I found a fair-sized stone nearby, and set it in the center of the bandanna. Brung the ends of the bandanna up, wrapping the rock, tying it, then affixed the bandanna to the strap with some tight knots. The nun greedily snatched another finger of water before I lowered the canteen again. Didn't blame her none at all.

The canteen hit with a splash, and immediately, I heard the gurgling as the rock sank the canteen, and water, precious water, began filling it. The weight of the water strained my muscles.

“Don't let go,” the nun pleaded.

“Not on your life,” I told her, but I done another loop of the shirt around my palm and wrist, just to make certain-sure.

“Exactly,” she said, then added, “Our lives.”

Carefully, I drew up the canteen and the rock, heard the water dripping off the sides into that pool. The canteen appeared, got lodged for a second because of the bandanna-wrapped rock, and Sister grabbed one side of the strap and me the other, and we pulled that beautiful baby up.

Both of us started, quickly stopped, kinda looked at each other sheepishly.

I wet my lips. Tried to, anyhow. “You first.”

“No, I had some,” she said.

You know, here's the funny thing. She's standing there, practically inches from me, and her top is naked, skin all pale in contrast to her sunburned face and throat and hands, all perfect, but I didn't notice nothing. Not then.

“You go,” I insisted.

She didn't need no more inducement. She reached for the canteen, dragging the shirt behind her.

I reached out to take the canteen, felt the coolness of the water on my fingers.

Taken all the courage I could muster not to snatch the damned thing from her hands.

Instead, I managed, “Not too much. Just a little. All right?”

She lowered the canteen, just so I could see her eyes twinkling. “All right,” she said, and started to bring the canteen to her lips.

Just like that, she lowered it.

“What if... ?” Her eyes got concerned. Couldn't say nothing else.

“Poison?” I shrugged. “It don't really matter. Not now.”

Her eyes twinkled again, and she drank. I feared I'd have to stop her. You know how crazy a body gets when dying of thirst. No, most likely, you don't know. So you gotta trust me.

But she was strong, real strong. She taken a little swallow, then another, then poured some into her hands, and brought it to her face.

She didn't moan. Didn't smack her lips. Just rubbed her fingers gently over her lips. After that, she passed the canteen to me.

Tasted like the best Irish whiskey I ever had. Better even than that expensive Scotch from that highfalutin place in Denver when I started a row at a poker table, and while the bouncer and beer-jerker hurried to toss me out, Big Tim Pruett reached across the bar, snatched a bottle of something called Glenlivet, and hid it inside his coat. The saloon thugs tossed me out into the mud. Big Tim followed, grinning, and helped me up, and we wandered to the wagon yard where we was sleeping, and emptied the bottle into our empty bellies.

“Tastes like iron,” she said.

“Iron ain't arsenic,” I told her.

“Can I drink some more?”

“Just a swallow.”

We each taken another small swallow, then I handed her the canteen, and after I nodded my approval, she emptied it over her head. Like to doubled over then, moaning, then laughing, tossing me the empty canteen, then rising up, water spilling down her dirty brown locks, over her face, over her breasts. That's when I noticed them. That's when I noticed her.

“Oh, my,” I said, and taken that canteen, turned around, put that canteen down the hole, filled it up with water again, brought it up, took another swallow, then emptied the water over my head.

I imagined you could see smoke coming from my hair 'cause it sure seemed that I could feel the fire in my brains getting put out by that cool, glorious water after being baked by that blazing sun.

Again, I lowered the canteen, again it filled, but this time, I corked it, and untied her wet shirtsleeve. That took some doing, sore and aching as my fingers was, tight and wet as that knot was. After I handed her the shirt, our eyes met. Swear to God, she smiled a little bit mischievously, taken the shirt, pulled it over her head and arms, and them perfect breasts disappeared.

“What now?” she asked.

I pointed. “Let's find some shade. We'll wait here, drink our fill, get our strength back.” Already, I could feel some improvement in my aching, sun-cooked body. I mean, I spoken all them words, didn't hurt none, my mouth didn't ache, and they sounded plain as day to me.

Once I managed to stand, with the nun's help, I carried the canteen. Sister Geneviève put her arms around me, and we made it to what passed as some shade on the side of an arroyo. My brain wasn't so addled that I even found that purple mesa in the distance, which didn't look so far away anymore.

I sat beside the nun and handed her the canteen. “Remember, not too much.”

She took a sip and handed it back to me. I swallowed a mouthful, and run my wet fingers over them ugly lips.

Again, our eyes met, and we gave a short little laugh.

“What, er, what made you become a nun?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Fate. A calling. God's will.”

“You like it?”

Even with them lips and her sunburned face, her smile made her beautiful. “Do you enjoy being a . . . a . . .”

I finished for her. “A miserable old reprobate?”

Her laugh was giddy, probably from the insanity that was slowly passing out of our heads. “You are not
old
, Mr. Bishop.”

“You ain't, neither.”

She reached out, and them long, lovely fingers, touched my chin. That coarse stubble of mine must have pricked her sore fingertips like needles from a jumping cholla. But she didn't show no pain. Slowly, she lifted my head. Our eyes met.

“Is that why you are staring at my breasts?”

Well, wasn't much I could do but stutter or stammer. Reckon I had been staring. 'Course, she was all properly covered now with the green and white checked shirt. Must have been remembering.

“I don't show them for every man . . .” Then she done something different, unexpected. “Micah.” She called me by my given name, and she said it so softly, so lovely. 'Course, I was already smitten by her by that time. Had been. I wrote that down already.

Her arms lowered. And we just looked into each other's eyes.

“I . . . I reckon not.” My voice sounded foreign, not on account of the sand I'd been eating and my tongue slowly reducing to its normal size. “I mean . . . you being . . . a nun . . . and all.”

Her hand dropped into her lap. “Yes,” was all she said, and she looked away.

“Sister—”

“Please call me Geneviève. Or Gen if you like.” She laughed again. “Geneviève is a handle.”

“It's right pretty. Like . . .” Well, I didn't finish.

Her hand reached up to one of them shiny buttons. I thought, likely hoped, she was about to unbutton it, but the fingers trembled, lowered, and she said, “I must have lost my crucifix.”

“Sorry I broke it.”

She begun working on them dead man's undergarments, and she pulled up the muslin cloth, revealing her calf. She had lost the bandage where me and de la Cruz, back when the big farmer had acted nice and not crazy for gold, had doctored her up. The horsehair stitches still held,

I taken the canteen, give it to her, told her to go ahead and wash it. “Don't want it . . . getting infected . . . and all,” I said.

“I don't want to waste water.”

“We gots plenty to spare. Now.”

She undid her boots, pulled off the filthy sock, and poured water onto that limb of hers. I watched.

“Take another drink,” I told her, and she did. Then I did.

I remembered something then. “Here.” I started unbuttoning my own shirt, just the top, since it was one of those pullover boiled numbers, too.

“Micah . . . ?” she asked, kind of nervous, like she feared I was gonna bare my chest for her, same as she'd done earlier.

My right hand found the mescal beads, and I withdrew the heavy necklace over my cooling head. “Here.” I handed her the silver cross.

She taken it in her hands, which seemed to be trembling.

“Sometimes I forget I have it on,” I told her. “It's a cross of Lorraine. Not a crucifix, I reckon. Not Catholic, I guess, but maybe it'll comfort you.”

She felt the warm silver, looked at the inscription on the back. “How long have you had this?”

With a shrug, I told her, “Reckon half my life. Sister Rocío give it to me. Then I run off. Must've been fifteen, sixteen.”

“What's the inscription mean?”

“Oh, I couldn't tell you,” I lied. “Bunch of nonsense.” I stopped quickly. “I didn't mean that. I mean, nonsense and all. I mean, I kept it all these years.”

“Maybe you aren't quite the heathen you think you are.” She handed it back to me. “I can't accept this, Micah.”

“Sure you can. Fits you better than me, anyhow.”

Again, our eyes met, held for the longest time, and I swear, tears welled in them soft brown eyes. She put the necklace over her head, slid the heavy silver four-armed cross inside that green and white checked shirt. I didn't get no glimpse of her breasts when she done that.

“Thank you, Micah.” She leaned over, and kissed my cheek. “God bless you.”

Then she laid down, her head on my lap, and went to sleep.

For two days, we stayed like that. I mean, not with her asleep with her head on my lap, and me leaning against that arroyo wall, running my fingers through her wet hair as it dried and thinking of things that would have landed me in a confessional with a million Hail Marys for penance had I not been such a scoundrel and heathen and lapsed Catholic who had never actually been confirmed because I'd been taken by the wanderlust when I was a teen.

I guess I couldn't actually call myself Catholic, lapsed or otherwise.

We kept refilling that canteen and drinking the water, slowly building back our strength.

I cleaned up the Dean and Adams, reloaded the chambers, put fresh caps on the nipples, and then God delivered us a rabbit.

It wasn't like I had been praying for one, though maybe Gen had—I'd taken to calling her that, dropping the
Sister
, as she'd stopped using the
Mister
—her having a better relationship with the Almighty and Mary, Mother of Jesus, than me. I had left Gen by the water hole, and walked along the arroyo and dried playas, just trying to get the lay of the land, see what this country looked like, and figure out what the best way to Gran Quivira would be.

From the looks of things, Mesa de Los Jumanos, which most folks had always considered the southern end of the Estancia Valley, appeared only six or so miles south. We could start climbing out of this furnace, likely find some water there, and then come into the Liberty Valley and make our way to Gran Quivira.

Sweet Mary, blessed Father, we might just make it out of this place alive.

From the old ruins, we could easily pick up a trail, make our way east to Whiskey Jim Greathouse's place, where I was sure we could outfit ourselves with horses and grub and clean duds. Whiskey Jim had been dead a few years, but the folks who'd taken over his ranch, like Whiskey Jim, had no love for the law, but respected ladies, especially ones who looked as lovely as Gen. Yep, they'd grubstake us.

Then . . . either go after that gold in the Valley of Fire, or just forget the whole damned thing, and maybe Gen and me could head down to Mexico, live on the beach, eat shrimp all day and night, drink tequila, and live happily ever after.

That's what I was thinking.

I wasn't hunting. Wasn't expecting nothing.

And this jackrabbit hopped out of some chamisa.

At first, I mistaken him for a rangy ol' coyot'. That's how big he was. He stopped, started chewing something in the shade, and didn't even see me.

Well, I had to be no more than ten yards from him, standing in the arroyo. My knees started buckling as I slowly pulled that old pistol from my waistband and my hands got all sweaty, all clammy. That gun was just shaking in my right hand, so I had to steady it with my left.

The rabbit just waited.

With my left thumb, I reached up to thumb back the hammer, and that's when I recollected a Dean and Adams has a spurless hammer. Ain't no external one to thumb back. It's a double-action pistol, meaning all a body's got to do is pull the trigger. The cylinder rotates, the hammer strikes the cap, the cap ignites the powder, and the powder sends the ball after the target. Pretty simple. Means you can fire a whole lot faster.

'Course, I'm old-fashioned when it comes to revolvers. I like the single action, the ones you cock with your thumb, then pull the trigger. See, Big Tim Pruett once told me, right after he killed Long Dick Watson in El Paso, that double-action guns tend to pull to the right. Or maybe it was the left. I don't rightly remember all the particulars on account that when he told me, we was hightailing it toward the Mexican border to get away from Long Dick's kinfolk, of which there was a considerable number.

Anyway, the gun pulls one way or the other, 'cause you're pulling the trigger. A single-shot ain't likely to do that as you've already cocked the hammer with your thumb and just gots to squeeze slowly.

Well, I tried to keep that barrel steady, but couldn't. It was like I had a bad case of buck fever, shaking, nervous, just froze in stock, and it wasn't no deer or elk or pronghorn I was trying to kill, just a raggedy-ass jackrabbit.

But he waited, the rabbit did, and I squeezed the trigger, the British gun kicked, liked to have knocked me to my hindquarters, and . . .well . . . I don't know. Seemed to me that the rabbit jumped into the .436 ball. Got him right in the head, and he plopped dead in the sand.

Smoke stung my eyes. I shoved the revolver back into my waistband, then cussed good and long, jerking the gun out, dropping it into the sand, and calling myself an idiot because that barrel had been hotter than it was in this frying pan.

“Micah!” Gen screamed my name.

“It's all right!” I shouted back, picked up the Dean and Adams with my left hand, the rabbit's long legs with my right, and started running back for camp, and her.

“It's all right!” I told her again.

“What was that shot?”

“Supper!”

 

 

Cooking it was another thing. Oh, I skinned and gutted it. Was so hungry, I almost tried eating it raw. You should've seen the look on Gen's face. Well, maybe you shouldn't have. I did, and meekly laid the rabbit on a hot rock, and scooped up the entrails and skin, taken them to the edge of the arroyo, buried 'em, then come back to her, where she held out the canteen and ordered me to wash my hands.

Which I done. That's a great feeling, you know, having water to spare for such annoyances as washing.

We gathered dead grass, easy to find in that wasteland, made a pile on top a flat rock at the edge of the arroyo away from the wind, and I sprinkled gunpowder from the flask over the grass. I pulled another copper cap from the tin, gently laid it down, then taken the Dean and Adams by the barrel, which had cooled by then, and gripping it tightly, like a hammer, slammed the curved grip down.

And missed.

That's how nervous I was.

Gen taken the gun from my hand, which was throbbing 'cause I'd slammed the revolver so hard. With a smile, she raised the Dean and Adams, brought it down, the grip's bottom striking the cap, which exploded, the powder burst into smelly fire, and the grass started burning.

Carefully, we added small sticks to the blaze, and as they built up, we put on more sticks, larger ones, till that fire was burning hot enough to add some good big dead cholla arms, and other driftwood. Funny thing about driftwood. You'll find wood even in a treeless expanse like the hell we was in. Well, we was in an arroyo. I reckon some of them trees could have been washed down from long about the beginning of the Manzano Mountains.

Gen quickly set up a roasting stick, skewered the rabbit, and then we was turning that thing ever so gently, smelling the grease as it dripped into the fire, us both laughing.

It probably wasn't even full done when we ripped it from the fire, and I tore the rabbit in two, giving her half, and me wolfing down the meat, then sucking the bones.

Tasted better than rustled beefsteak at Panhandle Pete's place in Tascosa.

I feared we might get sick, but we didn't. Wasn't that much meat to that rabbit after all, and it wasn't wormy or nothing. After wiping my greasy fingers on my filthy trousers, I leaned back, and added another log to the fire.

“Why didn't you think of this?” Gen motioned at the fire. “Before now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Starting a fire with the powder and revolver.”

I shrugged. “Didn't strike me till now. Didn't have no need to do it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “These past few nights have been rather cold.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “Well, the powder was dry and the revolver was all fouled after that frog strangler.”

She looked perplexed. “Frog what?”

“Flash flood,” I translated.

She wasn't looking at me with beady eyes no more. She smiled. “I thought you just liked hugging me in the night.”

Them manly notions started forming again. I crossed my legs. “Well . . .”

She crawled over to me, our backs against the arroyo, and leaned her head on my shoulder. “You were warmer than any fire, Micah.”

Slowly, I tossed away the leg bone I'd been fingering, and moved my arm over her shoulder. The sun was down by then, birds was out chasing bugs, there weren't no coyot's howling, and the wind had died down. The fire smelled good. The smoke didn't even follow me and irritate my eyes as smoke normally done around campfires.

She lifted her head, and I turned slightly, moved my arm some to get more comfortable, and we just looked at each other. The campfire reflected off her face, and her eyes sparkled. I wanted to cross my legs again, and kinda slide up some, but her left leg was over my right, and them cotton shirt and flimsy undergarments wasn't holding much back. I wasn't sure I was breathing no more, but I knowed I wasn't dead because my heart was pounding fierce, and that wasn't the only part of me that was pounding. She reached up and brushed a lock of my dirty hair off my forehead, and her finger traced a scar, the one I'd gotten when—hell, now I done forgot how I got that thing.

My hand dropped some more, and she moved her body some, and the fire was warm, and it had gotten dark, and she wet her lips, and said my name softly, and I couldn't say nothing.

Then she said, “Micah, your hand is on my breast.”

I jerked that thing away like it was hot, but it hadn't been hot. Kinda firm. I apologized profusely, and tried to sit up, but I couldn't move on account that she was kinda pinning me down, despite her not weighing a whole lot.

Soon her hands was on my face, exploring me, and I was running my fingers through her beautiful dark locks, and then touching her shoulders, and then squeezing them, and soon she was just inches from my face, and it was beautiful. Her face. The night. Everything. Our lips was almost together, and, damnation, I really wanted to just pull her to me and . . . well, that could have been the best night I'd ever had.

“It's all right,” she whispered.

But even though I'd never been confirmed, I just found it hard to keep on. I mean, she was a young nun, and I surely didn't want to be the cause of her burning in Hell or condemned to Purgatory or excommunicated or stoned to death.

Her eyes closed, and she got even closer to me. I knowed my hand wasn't on her breast no more, but I'd managed to put it inside her shirt, and was rubbing the soft skin on her stomach. My eyes was closed, and we was so close to mortal sin.

Still, that was a night I'd remember forever, but not because of me and Gen.

It was because just as I was about to kiss her, a voice sent the beautiful woman diving off me, and me reaching for my gun, but never getting it.

“This is quite the pretty picture, isn't it, Vern? An amorous couple in this savage emptiness, and they are kind enough to invite us to join them.”