She was glad to be away from the choked confines of Saber Creek, the tavern, and her owly, alcoholic grandfather.She felt a sense of freedom riding into the misty blue distances of southern Sonora toward an outlaw hideout known to the Americans as Junction Rock with the infamous, heart-wrenchingly handsome Jack Considine and his notorious Thunder Riders.
From there, Jack had promised, they would make their way to the coast and set sail for Cuba-just him and Anjanette-where Considine had often dreamed of buying his own sugar plantation.
As they rode, the men of the gang smoked and talked in desultory tones, one man chuckling at a joke. Another was cleaning the rifle resting across his saddlebow. The only other female in the gang, Toots, rode with one leg hooked around her saddle horn. She was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the nails of her pudgy, curled toes with a pocketknife.
The group crested the mesa and their horses continued through the scrub, pa.s.sing a small adobe shrine along the trail and scaring up an armadillo. The mesa spread before them-a table surrounded by layers of distant blue mountains and high purple clouds between which golden sunlight angled.
A couple of hundred yards beyond, what looked like a modest-sized hacienda sat in the middle of the mesa, sheathed in green high-desert scrub and surrounded by ruined stone buildings and brush corrals. Smoke gushed from the stone chimney on the near end of the house.
Considine turned to Anjanette. "You will have a soft bed tonight, Chiquita. O"Toole keeps the best roadhouse in Sonora."
She smiled, her tapered cheeks dimpling. "We will have a soft bed tonight, my love." She leaned toward him, wrapped her left hand around his neck, and was about to kiss his cheek when the black mustang, sensing the rider"s distraction, suddenly put his head down and kicked his back legs out, snorting like a mule, trying to unseat his rider. will have a soft bed tonight, my love." She leaned toward him, wrapped her left hand around his neck, and was about to kiss his cheek when the black mustang, sensing the rider"s distraction, suddenly put his head down and kicked his back legs out, snorting like a mule, trying to unseat his rider.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n beast!" Considine shouted as the horse leapt suddenly, sunfishing.
Wolf"s hooves. .h.i.t the ground. He half turned and, throwing his head forward, bucked savagely again.
Considine had wrapped one hand around the saddle horn, but he hadn"t been prepared for the viciousness of the horse"s pitch. His b.u.t.t rose high out of the saddle, and his boots shot out of the stirrups. Flying over the horse"s lunging left shoulder, he turned a somersault before hitting the gravelly ground left of the trail on his back.
"Jack!" Anjanette dropped out of her saddle.
"Woo-hooooah, boy!" shouted Considine"s partner, Mad Dog McKenna, gigging his own mount up and reaching for the pitching black"s reins. boy!" shouted Considine"s partner, Mad Dog McKenna, gigging his own mount up and reaching for the pitching black"s reins.
Wolf jerked his head away, and the reins slipped out of Mad Dog"s reach. McKenna cursed. Wolf bounded off his back hooves and galloped forward and right of the trail, tracing a broad circle to head back the way they"d come.
"Git after him, boys!" McKenna shouted. McKenna shouted.
As a half dozen of the other riders booted their mounts after the fleeing black, trying to cut him off, Anjanette dropped to one knee beside Considine. The desperado winced and lifted his head from the ground, his thick auburn hair in his eyes, mustache caked with sand.
"You okay?" Anjanette asked, one hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you better lie there a minute."
Considine shook his head as if to clear it, then sat up, lowering his head and ma.s.saging the back of his neck. "Somebody catch that d.a.m.n beast!"
Mad Dog McKenna chuckled. "Hey, Jack, you want me to ride that black from now on? Maybe he"s too much horse for you, amigo."
Considine told his scarred, earring-wearing partner to do something physically impossible to himself.
Toots checked her own mount down closest to Considine and dropped out of her saddle with a grace odd for a woman her size. "Or maybe me, huh, Jack?" She smiled as she knelt on the other side of the desperado leader from Anjanette, snuggling close and ma.s.saging the inside of his thigh with her hand. "I can always ride a stud!"
She laughed, locking stares with Anjanette.
Turning to Considine, who was still rubbing his neck as if to work some knots out, Toots softened her voice. "You okay, good-lookin"?"
Considine was grumbling and cursing as he pushed away from both women and stiffly gained his feet. "I"ll be just fine when I get my hands on that G.o.dd.a.m.n horse!"
Toots picked up Considine"s hat, dusted it off, and held it out to him. Considine turned toward the large dust cloud down the trail a good fifty yards, where three desperadoes had their riatas looped around the stallion"s neck and were trying to lead him back.
When the men finally got him turned, with English Cooper slapping his quirt against the black"s a.s.s, they put their mounts into gallops, heading toward Considine. Wolf galloped reluctantly, head up and snorting, eyes flashing small lightning bolts of fury.
Considine donned the hat and stepped forward, shucking his pearl-gripped Remy from his holster. "Only thing for a horse like that"s a bullet."
Anjanette caught up to him, put her hand on the gun, pressing it down. "Don"t shoot the horse, Jack."
Considine eyed her suspiciously. "Why not?"
Anjanette hesitated. "Think of the money you"ll make on him at Junction Rock."
Considine snorted as the three riders reined up before him, swinging sideways while holding their lariats taut. The black stopped a good twenty yards away, hanging its head, its black eyes sharp with fury.
"The girl"s got a point, Jack." Mad Dog McKenna came up beside Anjanette, hitching his threadbare cavalry breeches higher on his hips, the silver hoop rings dangling from his sun-black ears. "That horse"ll bring five, six hundred dollars at Junction Rock. Now, I know we got the gold, but you know how long we all can hold on to a poke." Considine"s partner chuckled and dropped his eyes to Anjanette"s prominent bosom. "Never know when you"re gonna have to exchange the horse for a woman."
"A real real woman," said Toots, grinning up at Considine. woman," said Toots, grinning up at Considine.
"He"s got a woman," Anjanette snarled. "But you can never have too much money-isn"t that right, my love?"
Considine walked up to the black, grabbed the dangling reins. "I"m not gonna kill him. My anger"s done pa.s.sed." Suddenly, he raised his pistol and swung it down hard against the horse"s fine black snout, raking the front sight along the side of his nose.
As the horse jerked his head up, then lowered it, Considine raked the gun barrel across the other side of Wolf"s snout, carving a thin line from which bright red blood oozed.
"Remember that that next time you decide to throw me, you hammerheaded, snake-eyed son of a next time you decide to throw me, you hammerheaded, snake-eyed son of a b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h!"
Holding tight to the reins, just beneath the bridle and glaring into the horse"s dark eyes, Considine holstered the revolver. Wolf"s nostrils opened and closed. He chuffed and snorted angrily against the ropes, twitching his ears and rippling his withers.
"Now, then," Considine said, easing around the horse and reaching for the horn. "We gonna be pards?"
As Considine swung into the saddle, Anjanette stepped forward, raising a gentle hand to the long cut along the horse"s snout.
"Leave him," Considine ordered. He glanced at the others. "Let"s go. I need a drink."
When the column was again moving toward the large adobe casa growing above the chaparral before them, Considine turned to Anjanette, showing his perfect white teeth in a grin. "He"s behavin" right fine now." He patted the black"s right shoulder. "I reckon we"re friends!"
Anjanette didn"t turn toward him but continued riding stiffly beside him, facing straight ahead.
He frowned. "You know who owns this hammer-head?"
Anjanette glanced at Wolf, looked away, then pooched out her lips to hide her pensive expression. "I never saw him before."
As they rounded a bend, the thatch-roofed adobe barn and log corrals slid back to the left, revealing an ancient windmill with a large stone tank. Water streamed into the tank with a steady metallic murmur. Around the tank stood ten or so rurales, in their customary dove gray uniforms, Springfield rifles hanging down their backs-a dusty, unshaven lot with pinched eyes and evil sneers.
They held the reins of their horses, most of which were drawing water from the tank, though a couple lifted their heads toward the approaching desperadoes, swishing their tails nervously. A cream Arab with a silver-mounted saddle jerked its head up from the trough and whinnied.
The rurales turned their heads slowly to watch the gang heading toward the roadhouse. One of them spoke quietly to the man standing beside him-a rangy Mex carrying his Colt revolvers in a double rig across his chest.
Considine grinned and threw a hand up. "Howdy, boys!"
The rurales didn"t say anything. Several of the desperadoes behind Considine chuckled. The lone black man in the group, Ben Towers, grumbled, "The only truck I got with Mexico is all the greasers."
"Especially those in uniform," added Mad Dog McKenna, riding directly behind Considine.
"And them with their hands out," said Latigo Hayes, loosening his Buntline Special in its oiled holster and swinging his sawed-off shotgun around to hang down his chest.
As the desperado leader put his horse up to the hitchrack, a face appeared just over the top of the roadhouse"s batwing doors. It was a square, pale face with short gray whiskers. The light blue eyes caught the afternoon light and flickered humorously.
The man chuckled, pushed through the batwings, and said in a heavy Irish accent, "Well, I be d.a.m.ned. Chacon was right-you boys were were headed this way, sure enough!" headed this way, sure enough!"
"Mick," Considine said by way of greeting, then turned his head to glance at the rurales around the windmill. "We got a welcoming party, I see."
"How in the h.e.l.l Chacon knows you"re coming, I"ll never know!" Mick said, planting his small, freckled hands on his hips as he stood before the doors, running his gaze up and down the group flanking Considine, Anjanette, and Mad Dog McKenna.
The roadhouse proprietor wore a buckskin tunic and a bloodstained ap.r.o.n around his considerable paunch. A .36-caliber revolver was wedged behind the ap.r.o.n. His eyes settled on Anjanette for a time, the corners of his small mouth rising slightly as he said, "I see you gotta new woman."
"Anjanette, meet Mick O"Toole. Came to fight the French and stayed to run a wh.o.r.ehouse. Mick . . . Anjanette."
Mick nodded, his eyes brazen.
"The pleasure"s mine," Anjanette murmured, the man"s gaze making her aware of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushing out from behind the flannel shirt and fringed leather vest.
"My old friend inside?" Considine asked Mick.
Mick tore his gaze from Anjanette"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Sure."
Considine and Mad Dog shared a meaningful glance. "Boys," Considine said, lifting his voice so the others could hear, "why don"t you water the horses?"
He glanced at Anjanette. She was studying him, her fine black brows furrowed.
"You can stay out here where it"s safe," Considine told her, swinging down from his saddle. "But the adventure"s inside."
Mick chuckled, adjusted the pistol in his pants, turned through the batwings, and disappeared into the roadhouse.
Anjanette threw her hair back from her shoulders, swung down from her saddle, and tossed her reins over the hitchrack. "Well, then, I reckon I"m going inside."
"I kinda figured you would." Considine grabbed her shoulders and kissed her.
"Break it up, lovebirds," Mad Dog said, mounting the porch steps. "We got business."
Considine chuckled and turned through the saloon doors behind his partner. Anjanette followed Considine, squinting against the hazy light and the wafting blue woodsmoke rife with the smell of roasting pig and harsh Mexican tobacco.
Considine and Mad Dog stopped a few feet inside the door, and Anjanette squeezed in between them. The three shuttled their gazes around the large stone-floored room and the makeshift bar on the right.
Mick had taken his place behind the bar, grinning, fists on the bar"s rough-sawn planks. Several wizened peasants in serapes and frayed sombreros were playing dice on the floor in a corner, a scrawny, spotted cur gnawing a knucklebone nearby.
A couple of fat wh.o.r.es in sack dresses and heavy rouge were hunched over stone mugs and playing cards at a table close to the bar. One had a cigar snugged in a corner of her mouth. They glanced at the newcomers with interest, but when their gazes fell across Anjanette, hope leached from their eyes and they returned to their drinks and poker.
Considine"s eyes were on the table at the far end of the room, near the narrow stone steps rising toward the roadhouse"s second floor. Two men in rurale uniforms, jackets unb.u.t.toned, sat at the table, plates and bowls before them.
The man on the left-short, round-faced, and curly-haired-sat back in his chair, ankles crossed, thumbs hooked inside the bandoliers crossed on his chest. Seeds and dust matted his tight black curls.
He was grinning at the other man, Captain Chacon, a grossly fat mestizo with long silver-streaked hair hanging down both sides of his broad, fat face, and silver-streaked mustaches hanging down both corners of his mouth.
A young girl, no more than eighteen, straddled the captain"s right knee, facing the table. She had full lips and wide-set light brown eyes, with a faint mole on the nub of her right cheek.
She was topless, and the captain was flicking the brown nipple of her right nubbin breast with his index finger, laughing and glancing back and forth between the girl and the curly-haired man, Lieutenant Miguel Pascal Ferraro, as if the jostling nipple were the funniest thing he"d seen in a long time. The girl stared down at the table, bored.
Considine turned to look past Anjanette at Mad Dog, then sauntered forward. Heading toward the captain"s table, he called to Mick for a bottle.
Chacon and Ferraro jerked their heads up and around at Considine"s voice. Chacon spread a grin. He was missing both his eyeteeth, and it gave his fat, savage face a strange, rabbitlike look.
"Ah, Senor Considine and Senor McKenna!" the captain said, removing his hand from the girl"s breast but keeping his arm wrapped around her shoulders. "It is an honor and a privilege to see you both again!"
Considine sighed. "I"d like to say the feeling"s mutual, but I never tell lies in Mexico. Too many Catholics."
"Ain"t it funny," McKenna said, "how you always seem to know when we cross the border."
While Ferraro remained staring cow-eyed at the three newcomers, as if the English were too fast for him, Chacon threw his head back on his shoulders and laughed from his belly, shaking the girl sitting on his knee so that her long, dark brown hair fluttered on her shoulders.
When the captain"s laugh had settled to a slow boil, he said, "It would indeed be a strange coincidence if it were not for the fact that I watch the border so closely closely and have three Yaqui amongst my border guards. They, as they themselves boast, can smell a gringo from as far away as the last full moon!" and have three Yaqui amongst my border guards. They, as they themselves boast, can smell a gringo from as far away as the last full moon!"
Again, he threw his head back and laughed.
Ferraro glanced at his superior, skeptically amused, and his thick upper lip curled slightly.
"Yaqui, huh?" Considine said, hooking his thumbs behind his cartridge belt. "Well, I"ll be d.a.m.ned. That"s almost like cheatin"!"
"Reckon you gotta watch them snake-eaters pretty close, don"t ya?" said Mad Dog. "I mean, I"ve heard they"d as soon cut a rurale"s throat as look at him."
The captain"s laughter stopped abruptly, and he absently brushed his fingers across the wh.o.r.e"s nipple, making it twitch. "My men respect me, Senor McKenna. Even the Indios." His gaze strayed to Anjanette, and turned smoky. "I see you have, uh, found a new companion, Senor." Again his left hand lightly caressed the young puta puta"s tender breast. "An especially fine one, if you don"t mind my saying so, Senorita."
He cupped the wh.o.r.e"s breast with his hand, rubbing it, while staring lewdly into Anjanette"s eyes.
Anjanette returned his stare coldly, saying nothing. Considine laughed and wrapped a proprietary arm around her neck, drawing her toward him and kissing her cheek. "Captain Chacon . . . Lieutenant Ferraro . . . let me introduce the lovely Anjanette."
The lieutenant"s drunken gaze flickered up and down Anjanette"s curvy body, a deep flush rising in his broad, dark cheeks. The captain closed his hand around the young wh.o.r.e"s breast and gave a courtly nod. "They are getting more lovely every trip, Senor Considine. My compliments. If only I could find one as lovely as she in this G.o.dforsaken country."
He shifted his gaze to the desperado leader, slitting one eye. "What will you take for her?"
Anjanette"s back tensed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Considine gripped her more tightly and laughed, "She"s not for sale, Captain. Not this trip, anyway!" He laughed again, nuzzled Anjanette"s stiff neck, and muttered in her ear as he glanced toward the bar. "Mick"s lookin" lonely over there, Chiquita."
Meeting the captain"s l.u.s.ty, gla.s.sy gaze with a hard one of her own, Anjanette turned slowly. "Reckon I better buy him a drink." She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her long wool skirt, and strolled over toward the bar.
When Anjanette had gone, Considine glanced at Mad Dog, then kicked a chair out and sat down. During the introductions, Mick had brought two stone mugs and a bottle of the pulque that he brewed himself and mixed with tequila-a heady, gut-wrenching combo.
"Well," said Considine, leaning forward on the table and popping the cork from the bottle. "I reckon you"re lookin" for what you"re usually lookin" for."
"Our border pa.s.s," said Mad Dog, removing his hat and sweeping a hand through his long, greasy hair, jingling the hoops hanging from his ears. "Me and Jack been wantin" to talk to you about that, Captain."
Chacon exchanged glances with Ferraro. The girl sat on the captain"s knee, seemingly oblivious of her exposed b.r.e.a.s.t.s, staring into s.p.a.ce.
Considine said, "We work hard for our living-me and Mad Dog. Stealin" gold from stagecoaches and banks and trains-s.h.i.t, that takes a lot out of a man. And me and Mad Dog ain"t gettin" any younger." He glanced at his partner. "Ain"t that right, Mad Dog?"