Mojave (16 page)

“I ain't dead,” I said, which got him to notice that I wasn't dead but was awake.

“Not yet,” he said, and capped the flask, which went right back into his pants pocket.

“What happened?” I asked.

“What is the last thing you remember?” he asked.

First thing I thought of was Jingfei's snakehead coming right at my face, but that wasn't it. That had been God trying to tell me something. I said, “Buster's eye.”

He tapped one of his own blue beauties. “Yes, it was a very fine shot indeed.”

“Second fellow I knowed to get shot right through the eye,” I said, trying to make myself remember to thank Peach Fuzz for saving my sorry hide.

John Milton shook his head. “No, that is not what happened, dear Micah,” he said. “The bullet struck Buster here.” He tapped the left side of his head. “From my vast experience, I would say the leaden bullet passed through the brain, causing massive cerebral hemorrhage, before exiting here.” He poked the other side of his head. “Yet as said leaden bullet tore through the late Buster's skull it built up enough pressure to blow Buster's remaining eye right out of the socket.” He pointed at his pretty blue eye.

“Oh.”

I didn't want to think about even a cutthroat like Buster getting his eye blowed out like that. Something else seemed more pressing to me.

“How come I ain't dead?”

He tried to explain. “The deal Miss Crutchfield made was that if one of you shot Buster dead, all of you could live. Candy Crutchfield is a man of her word.”

My head nodded a bit as though I understood.

“What about the palace or castle or whatever it was that was . . . ?”

Now he started to give me a look that suggested that I belonged in a house for the insane, but I shook my head a mite, and said, “No, that was a nightmare I was having. Where are we?”

“Cornfield Spring,” he said, and hooked a thumb. “Other side of Providence.”

“Rhode Island?” I asked, and have no idea where or when I'd ever heard of Providence, Rhode Island, because I've never been east of Sedalia, Missouri. Then again, I couldn't recollect ever reading John Milton except for that poem that Sister Rocío had recited all them years ago back in Santa Fe. Now, I will have you know that the lady from the fancy society has read some from
Paradise Lost,
and I recognized a lot of them words from my dream, but Folsom prison come later. Time I'm telling about, I was in the Mojave Desert. So God was speaking to me, I guess, in that dream. And John Milton was here, only not blind, and talking to me in a camp at Cornfield Spring.

He laughed. “The Providence Mountains.” He handed me a gourd. “The mountains are not much, and the spring is not much, but it is water and it is wet, and I am fresh out of gin.”

He was lying about the liquor, but not about the water. I drunk some.

When I handed the gourd back to him, I saw some folks approaching our fire. Just shadows at first. John Milton taken a swallow from the gourd, and set it on the dirt. “With your permission, kind sir, I will take your leave so that I might interview our chef and try to persuade him into allowing you to sample his extraordinary soup.”

“Thank you, Mister Milton,” I said.

He give me a real curious look. “The name is not Milton,” he said. “It is Kent. Franklin Kent, M.D.”

Then he was gone, heading toward another fire, and the shadows appeared, and one of the shadows was Peach Fuzz.

“Thanks for shooting Buster for me,” I told him.

Peach Fuzz's expression must have been a lot like the one Doc Kent had just give me. “I didn't kill that giant,” Peach Fuzz said, and nodded to his left. “She did.”

Her
changyi
was gone, replaced by a real fancy outfit, a silky copper-colored blouse—
moiré,
was what the cloth was called, which ain't Chinese but French (Doc Milton would inform me about all that the next morning over breakfast)—and black buttons down the front, puffed sleeves that tapered down to the wrist, the waist tied in the back to show off her slim waist, which then accented her small, firm breasts, which I recalled so fondly from my dream (not the one when she got her head chopped off, but the other one, the good one).

The skirt matched, too, and she wore black boots that must have taken hours to button.

I didn't see Whip's Winchester. Looked back to Peach Fuzz and didn't see his—
my
—Spiller & Burr .36, belt, holster, and pouches, neither.

Back to Jingfei, she must have washed her hair. Well, we were at Cornfield Spring, so there was water to be wasted on such luxuries, and her face looked clean and shiny. Her eyes, however, remained hard, even as she tried to smile at me.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said, which was a lie as my ribs ached and my arm hurt. “Thanks to you.”

She looked down.

“You find the rest of the girls?” I asked.

Her head lifted, and she nodded slightly. “They are well. Bonnie Little.” Which got a sheepish grin from Peach Fuzz. “Adina Freberg. Donna Shaw. Betsan Priddy. And the twins, Caireann and Caoilainn Lannon.”

With a groan, I managed to sit up, but kept my eyes shut tight because it still hurt to move. “Let me guess,” I said. “The twins have red hair.”

My eyes opened to find Peach Fuzz giving me the damnedest look.

“How the hell did you know that?” he sang out. “You ain't never laid eyes on them gals afore. Come all the way from Savannah, Georgia, they did. Boyhowdy!”

Jingfei wasn't there. I didn't see her standing beside Peach Fuzz no more. Then I smelled yucca and jerked my head to see her kneeling right beside me. Her face seemed to be full of fear, and she was reaching toward me before I jerked my head around. That startled her, and she retreated a mite.

“You were in pain,” she said, and the hand reached for me again. I didn't make no sudden motions. She found my bruised right arm, then tugged up my shirt, and looked at those ribs, those bruises.

“I'm all right.” Jutted my head toward where the doc had disappeared. “John Milton yonder says I just have fat hematomas. Nothing busted, inside or out.” But I still ached.

Peach Fuzz looked behind me at the main campfire. “I thought his name was Franklin Kent,” he said.

I didn't respond. Because Jingfei had put those slim fingers under my chin, and brought my head up so she could stare, real mesmerizing, into my eyes. I didn't hurt so much. Her hair smelled of yucca.

“You are a brave man,” she whispered. “I was wrong about you.” The fingers moved up to my cheek, then slid across that stubble I had, and pushed a lock of sweaty, dirty hair out of my head. The hand fell to her side, and she stared at me.

“My Ben Wong does fine work as a barber, is it not so?”

My heart sank, but I managed not to sigh. “Does right well,” I said, running my own fingers through my locks, even though it hurt just moving. “You should see where he lives and works.”

She smiled, but her face—especially those eyes—hardened again, and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “We have escaped Whip Watson, but Candy Crutchfield is no better.”

I puffed up my chest some, and ground my teeth so I wouldn't cry out in all the pain that act of buffoonery or bravery caused. “Well,” I said when I thought I could speak, “we'll just have to escape here, too.”

“You were right,” she said.

Which ain't something I hear often.

“There are twenty-four other girls with this Crutchfield crone.”

I liked how she said
crone.
Made me beam. The smile didn't last long, however, because I started doing some ciphering. “Did the fellows who ambushed Whip come in?”

Her head shook.

Peach Fuzz got bored trying to eavesdrop on all we was discussing, so he come over and sat right beside me.

“Damn,” he said, “that's one nasty looking bruise on your arm.”

I pulled down my sleeve. “It's a big fat hematoma,” I told him. “That's Doc Milton's verdict.” Back to Jingfei. “Nobody come?”

Her head shook. “No bandits. And none of the other girls.”

Done some remembering then. The boys Candy Crutchfield had sent to wipe out Whip and his crew was supposed to head on to Calico. Get things ready for Crutchfield. Least, that's what I thought she'd told us. I reckoned how that could mean that Candy's boys was supposed to haul the girls to Calico with them. But someone was supposed to bring word of their success to Candy Crutchfield.

“So Verne hasn't showed up yet?”

Both Jingfei and Peach Fuzz shaken their heads.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long,” Jingfei said. “After I shot that evil ruffian through his head, they took our guns. They threw you into the back of the wagon—”

“Let me drive!” Peach Fuzz chimed in.

“And,” Jingfei continued, “brought us across the desert, through a pass in the Providence Mountains, to this place.”

Cornfield Spring. Though I doubted, come morning, if I' d find any fields of corn, this being the Mojave and not Missouri.

“The doctor . . .”

“John Milton.” It was my turn to interrupt.

“I swear he told us his name was Franklin Kent,” Peach Fuzz said.

Professional card player that I am, I read Jingfei's face, which told me she was tired of getting interrupted by what she considered worthless bandying of words.

“Go on,” I told her. Then ordered Peach Fuzz: “Let Jingfei talk.”

“The doctor treated you,” she said. “They let me help. In Manchuria, we have learned many ways to treat injuries such as those you sustained.”

“Thank you.” Didn't let on that I still hurt like hell, but she must have knowed that from all the groans and gasps I'd let out when I sat up.

She looked at the sky, and I lifted my head. God Almighty, the stars. They was brilliant. Not a cloud in the sky, just stars lighting up the desert evening. Almost as beautiful as Jingfei herself.

“We arrived at this camp shortly after nightfall. It is now two in the morning.”

She could tell time from the stars and blow out a one-eyed man's eyeball by shooting him through his temples. Yes, Jingfei was a hell of a woman.

“Crutchfield show any concern?” I asked. “With no Verne? No word from her bushwhackers?”

“She cares not,” Jingfei answered. “At least, that is how she tries to act. But our girls, and her girls, are not guarded. Not to the extent that Whip Watson guarded us. She has several men posted as sentries. Only Candy Crutchfield, Doctor Milton or Franklin, and six others remain in camp.”

“How many guards then?” I asked. Because I think I'd have to count them as being in camp, too.

“Seventeen.”

Which seemed to be real good counting.

“All right,” I said, which didn't mean nothing.

Then Jingfei touched my shoulder, which didn't hurt at all, and stared deeply into my eyes. Her eyes weren't hard, her face wasn't concerned, she just spoke easily, like she trusted me. The only problem was what she said reminded me of what I'd told her, and what I'd told her had allowed me and Peach Fuzz to climb into that Columbus carriage and get ourselves into our current situation.

“So,” Jingfei asked, “what is your plan?”

I tried not to give her the dumb look.

“How do we get out of here? With Bonnie and the twins and the others? And with the women who Candy Crutchfield wants to turn into slaves?”

 

 

I got saved by Candy Crutchfield. Saved from having to tell Jingfei the truth—that there wasn't no way anybody, even Whip Watson or the late Big Tim Pruett, who could get thirty (thirty-one if you counted Jingfei herself) girls out of a camp guarded by seventeen men who'd likely be situated all in them rocks around Cornfield Spring and in the Providence Mountains. Especially since I didn't know where we'd go if, by some miracle, we managed to get out. The Mojave's a real big desert, and the only town I knowed of was Calico.

Candy come real quiet for a bawdy woman who cussed and burped a lot. Sent tobacco juice into the fire, which sizzled, and knelt beside me and Jingfei, her joints cracking like the log Peach Fuzz had tossed into the flames.

“Mad Dog told me you was awake.” She hooked her thumb toward the sawbones who might have been knowed as Franklin Kent but was the spitting image of John Milton from my dreams. He held a tin mug of soup in his hands.

Pushing the brim of her hat up, Candy Crutchfield inched closer to the fire.

“How you like them purty duds I got for you, honey?” She wasn't talking to me.

“They are nice,” Jingfei said, but I could tell she didn't think too much of that real nice-looking outfit.

“Good.” She cackled, rocking on her heels. “Can't have my Celestial Queen dressed in a robe all the time. You got to be fancy, look real fine, when we bring all y'all to Calico.”

She stopped rocking long enough to move the tobacco to her other cheek, spit, and nodded toward the main camp. “You two get back yonder. So Zeke can keep an eye on y'all.”

Peach Fuzz shot up, helped Jingfei to her feet. Both of them looked at me.

“Go on,” I told them, like I was bossing things here.

They left. Doc Milton just stood like an oaf, holding that mug of my soup.

When they was out of earshot, I looked at Candy Crutchfield, who appeared even dirtier now. The log Peach Fuzz had added to our fire was burning good, and I could see the specks of tobacco between her brown, crooked teeth. “So . . .” I tried to make some polite conversation. “You got a Zeke riding with you, too.”

“What the hell are you yackin' 'bout?”

“Zeke,” I said, but she didn't give me no chance to explain.

“I'm a man of my word,” she says, which was something everyone said about that woman. “Said if one of y'all kilt ol' Buster, I'd let y'all live.” She snorted, the spit into the fire. “Course, I hadn't counted on my Celestial Princess killin' ol' Buster, but hell, that's the way the bullets blow folks' brains out. So you and that young whippersnapper with an eye for one of my gals deserted Whip Watson. Eh?”

“That's right.” It was truthful. Sort of.

“You'll notice that I run things a mite different than Whip Watson.” She tilted her head toward the main camp. “Whip, now he's what you might call a tyrant or a martinet. I'm more easygoin'. And I don't want my gals to feel no pressure. Puts stress on 'em. And if they's stressful, they don't look so fine. Causes warts it will, anxiety will. Which is why we've been campin' here. Letting them get washed and curried and feel all fine. Put some good clothes on their backs. I'll keep 'em out of the sun, much as possible in this pit of Hades where we're at. Take it easy. No anxiety. Pret' soon, we'll be ridin' down the streets of Calico.”

I stared.

“Verne ain't back yet.” She spit. “Which might mean somethin'. Might mean nothin'. I'm kina hopin' what it means is that he got kilt, and the rest of the boys I sent with 'im ain't got old coffee grounds for brains, so maybe after they'd kilt Whip and all his boys, they just done like I tol' 'em to do, make for Calico, but don't go to the town yet. Wait in one of 'em canyons outside of the digs. Till I gets there.”

I said, for no good reason, “You think that's what happened?”

She shrugged.

I said, for no good reason, “You think you could keep your boys in a canyon when there's plenty of whiskey to be had in Calico?”

She answered with a pretty good reason. “If they've got Whip Watson's eighteen survivin' brides to entertain 'em, yep, I surely do.”

Which made me sick.

“Seventeen,” I corrected, just to be a smart aleck. “Jingfei's with us.”

“Lucky her,” Candy said.

Which made me even sicker thinking about those poor girls I'd never met, never even seen.

“I trust you, Micah Bishop,” she said, and before I could thank her for the sentiment and ask her about my Colt or even my Spiller & Burr, which I'd loaned Peach Fuzz, she added: “'bout as far as I could throw you.”

She knelt forward to spit into the fire. Wiped her lips, straightened, said as if she'd read my mind, “I'll let you have your shootin' irons when I knows for sure. That I can really trust you.” She turned, staring at the main campfire. “You like that China doll, don't you?”

I shrugged. “She's all right. She ain't Geneviève.”

“Who's that?”

Another shrug. “A girl I knowed.” Didn't like the smirk she was giving me, so I added, truthfully, “A nun.”

“Yeah, I bet she was a slice of heaven. Same as that Chinese gal's gonna be.”

It was my turn to point down to the wagons and the folks around the campfire. “Whip Watson was bringing in twenty-four mail-order brides,” I said.

“So am I.” She grinned her ugly teeth at me. “Only I got thirty now. No, thirty-one.”

My head started hurting worser than my arm with the big fat hematoma and the ribs what was bruised considerable but not busted and the back that didn't have no hernia. I pinched the bridge of my nose, shook my head, tried to shake off them aches, which was now throbbing like a bunch of kicking, wild, rank mustangs inside my skull.

“You had a contract with that
shadchan,
too, didn't you?”

“Who?”

“Ronen Kanievsky,” I said, then shook my hurting head. “I mean Rogers Canfield.”