Valley of Fire (23 page)

Corbin give me a friendly nod and motioned at the long-barreled Colt in his right hand. The Pockmarked Man spit tobacco juice at one of them colorful frogs. He was holding a rifle.

“Hello, Bishop.” Sean Fenn had Sister Rocío right in front of him, pressing a revolver's barrel against her temple.

“Pitch that gun you're holding back into the pit.” I done what he said. That Remington was empty anyhow, so it wasn't going to do me no good.

“Is the gold down there?” Fenn asked.

My head shook. “Just three dead men.”

He grinned wider. “Well, I'm sure they'll have company.” His eyes darted over to Geneviève. “Nice to see you, honey.” He didn't mean it.

Back to me, he said, “Who's in the cave?”

“Felipe Hernandez and two cousins.”

“Hernandez.” It taken him a while to recollect. “From Las Vegas?”

I nodded.

He laughed. “Well, I'm sure glad he hadn't forgotten you. The boys and I were riding toward San Antonio when we heard the gunfire. Decided there was a good chance you would be involved in any shooting. Lucky us, eh?”

All I did was shrug.

“Where's the gold?”

When I didn't answer soon enough for his liking, which was immediate, he pressed the revolver tighter across the old nun's noggin, bending her head back, and causing her to groan.

“Sean . . .” Geneviève pleaded.

“Shut up!” Fenn roared.

“It's behind you,” I said. “About two hundred, three hundred yards.”

Fenn eased off with the Colt, but he didn't turn around. The Pockmarked Man did, though. Corbin just grinned.

“Talk,” Fenn said.

So I talked. “Sister Rocío was jerked over the edge when all the mules—”

“Burros,” the blind nun corrected.

“When all the . . . when most of the burros slipped on the ice—which means they had to be traveling on a trail.” I nodded behind him. “That trail is as good as any I've seen going north-south.”

“All right.” That's all Fenn said.

So I recited him the poem.

I had to explain the poem on the Cross of Lorraine that Geneviève had kept on her person all that time. It caused Fenn's face to crimson something considerable, but he ground his teeth, and kept that temper of his in check.

“So that's Mount Ararat behind me?” Fenn said with a snort.

“If you look at it from where I am, you can see the Ark,” I said, studying it. “Coming over the trail, or looking at it from the north, you don't see it. But those burros toting the nuns and gold back in forty-eight had fallen off on this side. Rocío was looking up this way, looking north, not south.”

The Pockmarked Man sprayed a lava rock with tobacco juice. “By golly, Fenn, I reckon you could say them boulders up on that hill resemble a ship of some kind.”

Fenn chewed on his lip, and maybe his head titled slightly like he was conceding my point. But all he said was, “So we've climbed down from Mount Ararat. Where's the gold then?”

“That ain't how I figure it, Sean,” I said. “Sister Rocío was already in the canyon, so she'd already climbed off Ararat. She went into one of the side canyons.”

Fenn give me that point, too. Then he made me repeat the poem, which I did, with some help from Rocío.

“Beside the King's crown?” he asked.

“My guess is it's a rock that looks like a crown. That's the canyon we need to enter.”

“All right,” Fenn said. “Let's find that canyon.”

“Well, the problem there is that almost forty years have passed since she buried the nuns and the ingots,” I said, feeling smart all of a sudden. “Flash floods. Lightning. Wind. Hail. That rock marking the canyon could be long gone by now.”

“It's the first canyon,” Rocío then told us. “Heading east. I couldn't carry gold and bodies very far, now could I?”

“Well, why in hell didn't you just write to take the first canyon?” The Pockmarked Man said, all haughty and inconsiderate.

“I do not question Lord Byron's choice of words,” Rocío said. “Nor Longfellow's.”

Corbin laughed. The Pockmarked Man picked his ear quickly, then brought that hand back down to the Winchester.

“‘Where black meets the red,'” Fenn repeated. “What's that about? Darkies and redskins?”

“Red and black lava,” Corbin said, and I knowed right then that Corbin was getting tired of Sean Fenn. So was I.

“Well,” Fenn said. “I guess we should try to find it before nightfall. Lead the way, Bishop.”

Problem was, I couldn't lead the way. They'd see that Dean and Adams tucked in the back of my waistband, and that pistol was the only chance I had to get out of this pickle alive. 'Course, I didn't recollect how many shots I had left in that old gun. I thought only two. But Fenn had lowered his .44-40. Oh, he still held it, but the barrel was aiming at the sandstone dust, and Sister Rocío was standing in front of him. Corbin was staring at the country and the Ark. It really did look like a boat what with the sun sinking and the light fading and the sandstone rising above the black rocks and me standing in a puddle after that big rain shower.

“Micah,” Geneviève whispered, “don't.”

You see, she saw my hand reaching behind my back. It was a good feeling, I thought, her caring for me. I was about to die, and she didn't want me to, and I thought that if hers was the last voice I ever heard on this earth, that wouldn't be a bad way to go to my maker.

But it wouldn't be the last voice I heard, because I had to say something right then and there. “Sister Rocío. Ka-boom!”

Bless her heart, she remembered what I'd told her up on that ridge. Instantly, she went belly-first to the ground, and the Dean and Adams was in my hand. I saw Sean Fenn raising his Colt and thumbing back the hammer, but I didn't have no hammer to thumb back. All I had to do was pull the trigger, which I done. The bullet didn't pull right or left. I knowed because I saw blood spurt from Fenn's throat.

Scratch shot. I damned near missed him all together.

But the bullet must've broke his neck, because he went down without a word and the Colt he had been holding went disappearing down a crack in the black rocks.

I had a choice to make, and I figured I could only kill one of them, if I was lucky. It just struck me that Corbin might not hurt Rocío or Geneviève, but The Pockmarked Man would likely kill them both. So I aimed at The Pockmarked Man, who had already brought up his Winchester and was about to kill me.

Pulled the trigger, I did, and heard that percussion cap go snap, which ain't what I wanted to hear. A misfire meant I was dead since I wouldn't have time to pull the trigger again. Even if I had, it wouldn't have helped because the Dean and Adams was empty.

A gun roared, and I jerked, but didn't feel nothing, didn't see the puff of smoke from the Winchester. The rifle hadn't fired so I hadn't gotten shot, but The Pockmarked Man had. Blood and gore just sprayed out of his head, and he toppled over and landed like a ton of bricks is always landing.

When my ears stopped ringing and I quit shaking, I heard thunder way off in the distance where the clouds was dumping rain on some other part of the Tularosa Valley. And I heard Sister Rocío praying.

Geneviève stepped beside me, and she even put her arm around me, and we slowly turned to face Corbin together. I guess we figured he would shoot both of us dead, but that would be all right because we'd die together in each other's arms.

Corbin had holstered his Colt.

He pointed toward the spot that looked like it might have been a crack in the black rocks, which must have been the first canyon Sister Rocío had said was there. “Let's find that gold.”

So we followed him . . . into the canyon that might have once been beside something resembling a king's crown . . . and saw black and red lava, or maybe the red was pink sandstone. Didn't matter. It was another canyon, a box canyon, and we went there.

Certain-sure, we walked with pain—which come natural for Rocío, old as she was—and me and Geneviève, battered as we was. Even Corbin, whose high-heeled boots wasn't made for walking, especially over sandstone and cactus and lava rocks, walked with pain.

Until we could touch the Cross of Lorraine.

There it was. A two-barred cross made of rocks in the sand, undisturbed after almost forty years.

“Sister,” I asked Rocío, “does the top of the cross point to the grave?”

“Yes.” She sounded like a teenage girl. “Have you found it?”

Geneviève said, “I think so. I really think we have.”

So . . . we dug.

Well, not immediate, because it was dark by then. We slept on the wet ground in the duds we had on, didn't eat no supper, just drunk some water.

Night turned cool after all that rain, and Geneviève come up to me, like she'd done in the burning desert when we'd both come so close to dying and before we ever got the chance to send Sean Fenn to Hell.

She snuggled up real close to me, and I put my arm around her belly.

“I'm not sorry,” she whispered.

“About what?” I asked.

“Sean Fenn.”

I wasn't either. Fact was, if she hadn't been around, I probably would have done something fairly degrading to his body. Then again, we hadn't buried him or The Pockmarked Man. Hadn't even dumped him into the cave with Felipe Hernandez and his cousins—which was pretty degrading when you consider things.

That colonel fellow put none of that in his half-dime novel
Valley of Fire
. Instead, he had Corbin and the nuns and me fighting off about a thousand Modoc Indians, which I ain't never seen or knowed to even visit New Mexico Territory.

“Oh, Micah.” She looped her fingers in mine and squeezed.

Since my lips was so close, and her hair smelled like fresh rain, and her neck was right there, I kissed it, and she giggled. I figured I'd tickled her, and decided against kissing her neck.

Till she told me, softly, “Do that again.”

I obeyed.

“Let's run off to Mexico,” I said.

“All right. I'll be Esther.”

“I'll be your king.”

“It'll be the Feast of Purim every day.”

We laughed.

The colonel didn't put none of that in his book, neither. And that's all I'm saying about that night. Geneviève was a fine woman. She was a real lady. Bet she'll turn out to be a Mother Superior somewhere down the line.

Next morning, we didn't eat no breakfast. Corbin went back to fetch horses—his and The Pockmarked Man's and Sean Fenn's since they had come along the good trail, and ours, since we told him where ours was picketed—figuring we'd need all the animals we could find to pack that gold out of the valley.

We didn't get started on moving boulders and rocks and dirt till right before noon. By dusk, we'd gotten some of the stones moved away, but not many.

Corbin's hands was bloody, blistered, and dirty, and mine wasn't no better. Geneviève had tore a gash in her right first finger, which she'd wrapped up with a strip from her already threadbare and ripped to shreds green and white checked shirt. We drunk hot coffee and ate fried salt pork and beans—Corbin and Fenn and The Pockmarked Man hadn't been skinflints when it come to their suppers and all—at the fire that night.

Corbin looked at Sister Rocío and said, like he couldn't believe it, “How did you get those boulders down by yourself?”

“With a machete,” she said innocently.

“A machete?”

“Its blade was bent,” she added, like that helped. Then she grinned. “But the Lord was with me.”

Geneviève didn't come to me that night. Well, it had been a warm day and all.

Next morning, Corbin rode off for Carrizozo to bring back supplies. Honest, I thought he might have come back with some more fellows to kill me and take the gold for themselves, but Corbin wasn't that big of a fool. He wasn't gonna share with more than he had to. Besides, while he as gone, either getting the horses and mules, or bringing back tools and the likes, he was having an easy day while me and Geneviève was tearing our hands and fingers to pieces.

I couldn't be angry at Corbin, not yet. Not after he saved my life by killing The Pockmarked Man. He come back that afternoon with not only rope and picks and shovels, but he come back with a buckboard, too, pulled by two big draft horses that could certainly haul, we figured, $750,000 in gold ingots.

“Where'd you get the money to buy all this plunder?” I asked him.

“From Sean Fenn's billfold,” he said like I was the dumbest fool this side of Texas. “Where else?”

After grabbing me a pickax, I followed Corbin and Geneviève over to our spot. Before I could swing, Corbin had unwrapped some brown paper and tossed something in my direction. It hit my chest, fell, and bounced off the ground. “You might want to put those on.”

Good, comfortable deerskin gloves.

Things went better after that. Oh, it wasn't like a winning streak shooting craps, but hard work. We'd loosen a boulder, then it taken all the elbow grease Corbin and me and Geneviève could muster to roll the stone away. All the while, Sister Rocío sat in the shade, saying prayers, humming, and asking what she could do to help, God bless her soul.

Finally, there was a hole. I could reach in, but felt nothing. We dug with more purpose after that, then got to the point where Geneviève, tiny as she was, could squeeze through. She got in, turned herself around, stuck her hand out, and I handed her a candle while Corbin lighted the wick.

Smart fellow, Corbin. He'd bought candles and matches at the mercantile in Carrizozo, though me and Geneviève still had a box of matches, so we could've saved him two cents off his bill. We held our breath, and Geneviève, protecting the candle with the palm of her left hand, disappeared in the dark.

“Oh, my God!” was the first words out of her mouth.

The candle come out first. I taken it, tossed it aside, grabbed Geneviève's hand, and eased her out of the hole.

Sister Rocío stopped singing. She eased her way closer to us.

“You all right, ma'am?” Corbin asked.

“They're. . . .” Geneviève was shaken, like somebody had just stepped on her grave. “They're mummified.” She crossed herself. “The nuns.”

Made sense, of course, when you take into account how dry this country is and that the bodies had been sealed in that cave for close to four decades. Not many bugs would make it down there, so, sure, bodies would mummify a bit in country like we was in. Most certain. I figured it out and I ain't never set in on one of the Sisters of Charity's lectures.

“I have blankets in the buckboard,” Corbin said. “We can lay the bodies of the nuns in one, wrap it up, load it in the wagon.”

But that won't leave much room for the gold,
I was thinking.

“That will be fine, Señor Corbin,” Rocío said. “Thank you.”

“
De nada
,” Corbin said, then poked me with the handle of his shovel. “Let's widen this some more.”

We done that in no time, since we was all greedy.

“Please,” Rocío said before we entered, “bring the bodies out. They have been denied consecrated soil for far too long.”

It wasn't bad, I reckon. I mean, as long as we didn't look at the bodies too long and got them covered up with the blankets as soon as we laid their bodies on one. I didn't have no nightmares.

Corbin and me played pallbearers while Geneviève and Rocío sat in the shade and talked. They crossed themselves as each corpse was brung out, wrapped up, and taken to the buckboard.

When all the dead nuns was taken care of, Sister Rocío had us bow our heads. We taken off our hats, Corbin and me, and let Rocío pray.

“Thank you,” Rocío told us. “Now, Sister Geneviève and I will be on our way.”

“Ma'am?” Corbin said.

“To the mission at San Elizario. Near El Paso. That is where Lorraine and her comrades were going. That was to be their home. We shall bury those poor, young nuns. It is where they would want to rest. That has been my dream for thirty-eight years. Then we will return to Santa Fe.”

“But . . .” I wasn't thinking about the gold no more. I was thinking about me and Geneviève. “But Geneviève . . .”

“Micah,” she said, and her eyes was just dancing, “it's not too late. Rocío says it's not too late. She says that I can still become a nun. Isn't it wonderful?”

“It is never too late for anyone,” Rocío said. “Even you, Micah Bishop.”

“Yeah.” Corbin's dander was getting ruffled. “But what about the gold?”

Rocío's face got all sheepish, or as sheepish as a seventy-three-year old nun's face can get. “I am truly sorry, Señor Corbin, but there is no gold. The bandits stole it thirty-eight years ago . . . except for an ingot or two that they dropped after they left. They must have thought I was dead.”

“You lied?” I said.

She shrugged. “I didn't really lie. At least, I tried not to. I just let you . . . interpret things. I said I never saw the bandits. Because I was unconscious. Things like that.”

I sat down. Corbin dropped with me.

“You see,” Rocío said. “It was the only way I could think of to save Micah from the gallows, and finally put Lorraine and our sweet, holy comrades in consecrated soil before I die. Sí, I guess one would say that I lied. A very bad falsehood. I am sure I will have a very stiff penance after my next confession.”

Well, I reckon you know the rest of the story already.

We taken Geneviève and Rocío to Socorro after—you're damned right—me and Corbin went through that cave till we knowed for sure there wasn't no gold in there. We caught the train there for El Paso and seen the dead nuns planted in holy ground at San Elizario near that jail where, turned out, Corbin had once spent some time in, too. It was a beautiful ceremony. They didn't let me and Corbin take communion. After that, we brung Geneviève and Rocío back to the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Santa Fe, where both of them kissed me. Rocío on my cheek. Geneviève full on my lips.

Once they was back inside, Corbin suggested that we head to the nearest saloon to get roostered, but before we got there, he drawed his Colt and put the barrel against my spine. “You know, there is a fifty dollar reward for you in Las Vegas.”

The double-crossing son of a bitch is why I'm writing this down in this dungeon. I knowed I should have killed him. Next time, I won't regret having to do it.

The law said that my first trial wasn't legal, but more of a miner's court, so they give me another one. A fair one. For the murder of Gomez since nobody actually knowed what had become of his cousin, Felipe Hernandez. I didn't think the second trial was fair, and I reckon, since Felipe Hernandez was dead in Crockett's Cave and couldn't drum up a big turnout to see his cousin's death avenged, nobody got word to the Sisters of Charity down in Santa Fe. It ain't like nuns read newspapers, or penny-dreadfuls that are published because that colonel what's-his-name had happened to be in Las Vegas when I was getting tried. The book come out about the time some judge said that my trial and sentence was legit, and I was to die.

Well, I reckon that's about all there is. I—

Just got time for some fast writing.

Moment ago, Evers come in and said, “There's a nun here to see you, Bishop.”

“Is she young and beautiful?”

Evers said, “Not by a damned sight.” He touched his head, which is still sporting a bandage. “I done learnt my lesson. This one is older than dirt, blind, and got only one arm.” He snorted. “Calls herself... Esther.”

“Esther?” I asked.

“Yep. Says she's here for the Feast of Purim, whatever the hell that is. I don't hold with none of that Catholic stuff. My ma was a hard-shell Baptist.”

He mustn't have seen me grin, 'cause I knowed Geneviève was with Rocío, probably had a horse saddled for me out on the street. Guess word of my impending execution finally reached a Santa Fe orphanage and hospital run by nuns. Reckon I won't get my neck stretched after all.

God love the Sisters of Charity.

“Hell, Evers. Send her in.”