Navarro

Chapter 4

Navarro driving, Amado following on his buckskin and leading Ky Tryon’s horse, the Bar-V wagon raced through the descending night, following the deep-scored wagon trail into the high country where the saguaros thinned and cottonwoods began appearing in swales, with cedars, sedge, and broomgrass growing thick along the benches.

The Bar-V sat in a high valley that, from the granite crests looming over it, resembled two giant hands cupped together at the heart of a long, bulky mountain. The sky was lit up like a Mexican Christmas tree when the wagon thundered through the yard’s wooden portal, whipped past the corrals and blacksmith shop, and squawked up to the bunkhouse, Navarro sawing back on the reins and bellowing, “Hoah now . . . hoooo-ahhhh!”

The bunkhouse door had opened as the wagon passed under the portal, and several silhouetted figures stood on the porch, hatless, cigarette smoke billowing around their heads in the still night air.

“Why you boys so late?” asked Dallas Tixier, stepping off the porch with several others. “I was beginning to think the senoritas had talked you into staying another night.”

Navarro wrapped the reins around the brake handle. “A coupla you men help Ky inside. He’s got a bullet in his left thigh. Someone tell Joe to break out his medical kit and put water to boil.”

In Apache country, bullet and arrow wounds were as commonplace as horse throwings or saddle galls. Without any to-do, three men helped Tryon out of the wagon and inside, one of the men saying, “Ah, Christ, Ky, I seen whores’ hickies worse than that.”

When the kid was inside and the stove had been fired up for water, the wagon driven up to the back of the main house for unloading, Tixier turned to Navarro. “What happened, Tommy?”

Navarro curled his lip. “Bushwacked in Arrowhead Canyon.”

“Apaches?”

Navarro shook his head. “Some younker fancied himself the next William Bonnie.”

“You put him down?”

“Like a chicken-thievin’ hound.”

Tixier returned his long black cigar to his teeth and lowered his gaze to Navarro’s left arm. “Looks like you need some attention there, your ownself.”

Navarro glanced at the torn sleeve and dried blood. He hadn’t realized he’d been grazed until after he’d killed the man in buckskins and was helping Tryon onto his horse.

“Just a scratch.” Navarro turned away, looked westward toward the open range capped in stars.

Tixier blew a long stream of smoke. “What’re you thinkin’?”

“I’m thinkin’ I’m feelin’ restless. Might need to move on again soon. Maybe a horse ranch up in Montana.” Tom turned to Tixier, the half-Mexican, half-Pima he’d scouted with out of Fort Bowie, fighting Apaches before they had tired of army ways and had taken up the ranching life. “Would you come with me?”

“It’s cold up there, ain’t it?” Tixier said around the cigar in his teeth.

“I’ll get you a fat Indian woman.”

Tixier shifted the cigar and grinned. “Then, hell, I’d think about it.”

Navarro retrieved his saddle, which he’d wrestled off the dead paint, and hefted it onto his left shoulder. “I’m goin’ to bed.”

He’d started away from the bunkhouse, heading for his own cabin near the creek, but Tixier’s voice stopped him. “Trouble up to the house tonight.” He inclined his head to indicate the sprawling adobe fronted with shrubbery and a wide front veranda, several windows sprouting lantern light.

“What kinda trouble?”

“The senorita and Don Vannorsdell,” Tixier said conspiratorially. Light from the window flanking him glistened off his gold eye tooth. “Her vaquero came to say hasta luego.”

Navarro looked toward the house, sighed deeply, shifted the saddle on his shoulder, and walked eastward across the yard. He crossed a narrow arroyo and tramped through the chaparral to the shack that had been here long before Vannorsdell had moved to the valley—a squat, boxlike adobe with a sagging brush arbor silver limned by starlight.

He mounted the porch and reached for the door latch. The motion was stillborn.

Wheeling left, he dropped his saddle, saddlebags, and rifle boot and snapped his horn-handled .44 from his holster. Thumbing back the hammer, he extended the gun to the hammock hanging beneath the arbor and in which a shadowy figure lay.

He stood tensely, gun extended, staring.

“Go ahead and shoot,” Karla said, her voice small and brittle.

Navarro tipped the Navy’s barrel up and depressed the hammer with a ratcheting click. “Know how close I just came to perforating your fool hide?”

“I don’t want to live anymore, Tommy.”

Navarro sighed and holstered the weapon. He stooped to pick up his saddle, straightened, and threw open the door. “You’ll get over it . . . him.”

He walked into the dark cabin that smelled of mesquite smoke, tanning grease, and dry adobe. He dropped the saddle on the floor behind the door, lighted the hurricane lamp on the table, walked back out to the porch, and gathered up his rifle boot and saddlebags. He carried the tack into the dimly lit, rough-hewn cabin, dropped it on the single cot against the left wall, beneath a small crucifix that had hung there when he had moved in, and removed his cartridge belt.

Bootheels thudded softly. He looked up to see Karla moving through the door, an Indian blanket wrapped loosely about her shoulders, her light brown hair hanging free. Her tan heart-shaped face was drawn, sun-bleached brows furled.

“You heard?”

Navarro nodded, dropped the gun belt on the cot, and threw his hat on top of it.

“The old bastard drove him off,” Karla said.

Navarro grabbed the red-rimmed washbasin off the table and left the cabin through the back door. He filled the basin at the well pump, having to work the squeaky handle several times before the water came up, then stooped to let the chill stream douse his head. Blowing water from his lips and rubbing it out of his close-cropped hair, he straightened, returned to the cabin, kicked the door closed, and set the basin on the table.

He sat heavily down in one of the two spool-back, cane-bottom chairs, which creaked under his weight. The water felt good, running down his head and under his shirt, soothing his sweaty sunburned neck. The girl stood by the door, her back to the wall, watching him as though waiting for him to say something.

“You didn’t really think he was going to let it go anywhere, did you?” Navarro asked, jerking his shirt out of his dusty denims and beginning to unbutton his left cuff.

“It’s not up to him. It’s up to me and Juan.” Working on the buttons, Navarro glanced at her from beneath his gunmetal brows. “Karla, you’ve been out here nearly three years now. You know better.”

She pursed her lips and spoked her eyes, making her voice hard. “I love Juan. If my grandfather loved me, that would mean something to him.”

Navarro unbuttoned his shirtfront, removed the shirt, and tossed it over his hat and tack on the cot. He took a knife from a scabbard lying under a yellowed illustrated newspaper on the table, and began cutting away the bloody sleeve of his long underwear shirt.

“What happened?” Karla asked.

“Some younker reminded me why I like to stay to home.”

When he’d cut through the sleeve above the elbow, he winced as he pulled the blood-soaked cotton away from the graze. He set the sleeve aside and inspected the burn—a half-inch gash along the outside of the arm, about halfway between the elbow and shoulder. The blood had gelled, nearly dried.

Karla moved away from the wall and slumped into the chair across from Navarro. “Did any of our men get hurt besides you?”

“Tryon took a bullet in the leg. Went all the way through. Didn’t hit the bone.” He winced as he dabbed at the cut with a damp cloth. “Damn lucky.”

“Did you kill them?”

“Yep.” Navarro glanced at her. “Bring me that roll of bandages from my war bag, will you?”

Karla got up, retrieved the torn cloth wrapped around a stout cottonwood stick, and set it on the table. Then she turned to the cupboards against the back wall, and produced a bottle. She set the bottle on the table beside Navarro, then turned back to the cupboards.

“All my bellyachin’,” she said guiltily. “And you and Ky were shot.”

Hearing her rummage through his airtights stacked neatly in the cupboard above his larder box, Navarro popped the cork from the bottle, held his arm over the bloody water in the basin, and doused the cut with whiskey. He winced and sucked air through his teeth as he lifted the bottle to his mouth, took a long pull, then set it on the table and began wrapping a bandage around his arm, closing it firmly around the cut.

He cut the bandage from the roll, took one end in his teeth, set the knife on the table, and tied the knot one-handed.

“Does your grandfather know where you are?”

She was opening a can of tomatoes with a rusty bowie knife. “He thinks I’m in my room.”

“He wouldn’t like you bein’ here.”

“Why wouldn’t he? You don’t have any bean-eater blood, do you, Tommy?”

“Don’t get sassy. Your place isn’t here, with me and my kangaroo rats. It’s up at the big house with your grandfather.”

She set a tin plate on the table beside the whiskey bottle. It was filled with canned tomatoes, crackers, and chunks of roasted venison from the buck he’d brought down from the high country last week. “I’d make you something proper at the house, but I’d just as soon not go near the place again.”

“You don’t have to cook for me, girl. I work for you, remember?”

Karla took the basin off the table and dumped it in the backyard. Navarro was eating the food she’d prepared while hearing the pump squawk as she ran water over the basin. When she came back in, she returned the basin to the table and took two water glasses from the cupboard. She set them on the table, slumped back down across from him, and poured two fingers of whiskey into each.

“You’re drinkin’?” he said, raising his eyebrows as he picked up one of the glasses.

“I learned it from you, remember?” She smiled, knocked her glass against his, and took a sip. She smacked her lips and sighed. “Just like you taught me how to ride, how to track, and how to shoot—you taught me how to drink.”

“That was beer.”

“Grandfather doesn’t have any beer around the house. Just rye whiskey, and cognac and port for visitors.”

“Christ.” Navarro threw back half his whiskey, set the glass on the table, and cut off a chunk of venison with his fork. “You’re gonna get me fired.”

She sipped her whiskey, leaned forward on her elbows, and propped her drawn face in her right hand. “We’ve talked a lot about horses and shooting and such, but you’ve never told me if you’ve ever been in love before.”

Navarro chewed, swallowed, and indicated her glass with his fork. “That’s the whiskey talkin’.”

“Have you?”

He paused, a fork of tomato and meat halfway to his mouth. He stared at the food for two seconds, then shoveled it into his mouth. Chewing, he nodded. “Christ, I’m fifty years old. Of course I’ve been in love, a time or two.”

“What happened?”

“First woman died durin’ the War, while I was off fightin’ it. The second . . .” He paused again, wiped a hand on his jeans, took a sip of the whiskey, and set the glass down. He forked the last bit of meat, frowning, his heavy brow ridged. “The second . . . well, I should’ve known better.” He jabbed the meat into his mouth and chewed.

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I sense drama. A little Shakespearean tragedy in the life of Taos Tommy Navarro?”

Avoiding her eyes, Tom ate a cracker soaked in tomato juice and shook his head. “Just the common old tragedy visited on every one of us, we live long enough.”

She splashed more whiskey into his glass, then into hers. Her voice thickened a little, and she pooched her lips out. “Come on, Tommy, tell me. I’m heartbroke.”

Navarro tossed the fork onto his empty plate, leaned back in his chair, cleared his throat, and probed his teeth with his tongue. “She was the widow of the second man I killed—outside of the War, that was.”

“Gosh,” Karla said. “Go on.”

“The man was town marshal of Pueblo, in the Colorado Territory. He was planning to kill a friend of mine in cold blood. I shot him in a fair fight. In his pockets, I found a picture of a pretty, innocent-eyed girl. I paid her a visit, to explain my side of it.”

“And you fell in love?”

Navarro nodded.

“What happened?”

“We were together for a couple months when her dead husband’s brother, the marshal’s deputy, got wind of who I was. He pulled a gun on me, in a Denver eatery. Cordelia got between us, took a bullet in the neck. She died in my arms.”

Karla ran a slender index finger around the rim of her glass as she studied it. “What a romantic tragedy.”

Navarro lowered his head and ran a rough hand over his damp hair. “Not so romantic. Just a tragedy.”

“And the deputy?”

“Killed him on the spot. It was self-defense, but that doesn’t matter when you kill a lawman. So I ran out. Left her there. Never been back to Colorado.”

“There wasn’t anything you could have done.” He sat stiffly, hands on his thighs, staring at the table. Finally, he grabbed his glass, threw the whiskey back, and stood. “I’ve had a hard day, and I’m goin’ to bed.”

“Oh, please, Tommy. Don’t kick me out. I don’t want to go back to the house tonight. I don’t want to be alone!”

“You can’t stay here.” He picked up his plate and tossed it into the wreck pan on the range.

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Navarro turned to her, drawing his mouth wide to speak. She gazed up at him with such heartbreak and beseeching that he let the objection die in his throat.

He sighed. “All right. You can have the cot. I’ll sleep in the hammock.” He pointed an authoritative finger at her. “But you’re out of here at sunrise. This ain’t proper, and if the old man finds out, he’ll likely have me tarred and feathered and run out of the country!”

Tarred and feathered, hell. Men were strung up for lesser offenses than sharing sleeping quarters with young women. He’d get her up at first cock crow, send her back to the house. She’d have calmed down by then.

Later, after he’d been lying in the hammock for an hour, unable to sleep and thinking about Cordelia, he heard a click. He reached for the gun beneath his pillow, but stopped. The click came from the door, which opened slowly. Karla stepped out.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Can’t sleep.” Before he knew what she was doing, she’d rolled over him and, distributing her weight evenly, snuggled up against his shoulder.

“Hey, what in the hell are you doing?”

“I’m lonely and I want to sleep on your shoulder.”

Navarro didn’t say anything. He lay there awkwardly, wrapping one arm around her shoulders because he didn’t know what else to do with it. His muscles tensed. She didn’t say anything, either, but her chest rose and fell as she breathed. Her shoulders quivered, and he felt a wetness on his chest, where her face lay against it. She sniffed back tears.

“I’m sorry, Karla.”

“I’m going to ride out and find him tomorrow. I’m going to bring him back and I’m going to tell my grandfather that if he doesn’t let us marry, I’m leaving.”

“Where would you go?”

“Anywhere Juan wants to go.”

“Juan’s a vaquero. He rides from job to job, just like the rest of us saddle tramps.”

“He’s not just a saddle tramp. He writes poetry.”

Navarro sighed.

They lay there for a long time. Finally, she quit crying and rested her head against his cheek. He felt the brush of her eyelashes against his face as she blinked. Her breath was a faint rasp through her parted lips. Her breasts pushed against his side. Smelling the lilac water she’d washed with, the faint pumpkin aroma of her hair, he ran his hand down her back, feeling the womanly curve of her.

A discomfiting warmth rose within him.

“I can’t sleep all shut in like this,” he grumbled, dropping his right foot to the floor.

As he slid out from beneath her, she said, “Where you going?”

“Inside. And you’re going home.”

“Tommy . . .”

“You heard me.” His voice was stern. “Git!”

She sat up and looked at him defiantly. “I won’t ever go back there.”

“You don’t have anywhere else to go. Now git!”

She struggled to her feet, wrapped her blanket around her shoulders, and stalked off the porch in a huff. “You’re a bastard, Tommy!”

“Yes, I am.” With that, he went into the cabin and slammed the door behind him.

It took him another hour to fall asleep. He didn’t know how much time had passed before boots thumped on the porch. Someone pounded on the door.

“Tommy!” Dallas Tixier called.

Navarro lifted his head from the pillow, groggily glanced around the shack. Golden light poured through the sashed windows, winking off the bottle and empty glasses on the table. For the first time in years, he’d slept past dawn.

“What is it?” Navarro growled.

“It’s the senorita,” Tixier said. He threw open the door and peered in, his bushy black brows knit beneath the brim of his high-peaked sombrero. “She’s flown the coop.”