Dorothy Garlock (31 page)

“Who . . . in the world?” Johanna gasped.

Burr jerked his head toward the end of the room. In the semidarkness a brown bundle, much like a discarded rag doll, lay on the floor. Going a step closer, Johanna saw the ragged buckskin dress and the long matted hair of an Indian woman. She lay slumped against the wall where the bullet had slammed her.

Old Mack’s gasps were loud in the eerie quiet of the room. Johanna went back to the bed. The old man’s eyes were open and bright and he stared up at Burr accusingly.

“Goddamn dog-eatin’ bitch! How’d she get in here?”

“Who is she?” Burr demanded.

“Goddamn dog-eatin’ bitch!”

“Why did she come here?”

“You goin’ to stand there and . . . let me bleed to death . . . you bastard?”

“Why did that woman come here?” Burr ground out, his voice filled with anger and frustration.

“It ain’t no . . . goddamn business of yours!”

“You knew her. She came to find you. Why? Is she Bucko’s mother?”

“Aye,” old Mack whispered hoarsely. “The bitch whelped the cripple . . . bastard!”

Burr straightened and looked at Johanna. His eyes told her nothing, but her eyes revealed the fact that she had looked death in the face, and not recovered from the sight. He placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Get towels and whiskey,” he barked.

Ben stood in the doorway, and Johanna brushed by him on her way to the kitchen. She could hear the pounding of heels on the stone outside the house and the excited murmurs of the men. She grabbed towels and the teakettle from the stove and hurried back to Mack’s room.

Burr cut open the old man’s shirt and moved aside to make room for Johanna. She willed herself not to faint at the sight of the warm, sticky blood welling up from the hole in the hairy chest. Her anxious eyes sought out Ben’s and he shook his head slightly. She looked down again to see the old man staring up at her.

“Ain’t no bastards goin’ to have my valley. I . . . seen to it, didn’t I, missy?” His eyes closed and a bloody froth came out of his parted lips.

Johanna placed the towels against the wound, then covered them with a long cloth and tucked the ends under his back. She saw Burr pull Ben back from the bed.

“Did you hear what he said about Bucko, Ben?” he asked anxiously.

“I heard. Does that relieve your mind, son?”

“More than you know,” Burr said intensely, squeezing Ben’s shoulder and looking him straight in the eye.

“There’s not much we can do for him.” Ben nodded toward the bed.

“I know, but do what you can.”

The doorway was crowded with men drawn by the sound of the shot, and Mooney squeezed his way into the room.

“The men say there’s nothin’ out there, Burr,” he said in hushed tones.

“Didn’t think there would be. She sneaked in here alone, but how in the hell did she do it?” Burr motioned for the men to move back into the hall, and he followed them out. “Is Codger still with Bucko?”

“Sittin’ on him like a mama hen,” Mooney said. “He won’t let one of them redskins get in smellin’ distance. He’s got a shotgun on his lap.”

“Mack’s done for, there’s no question about that, but we’ve got to think about what to do with the woman.”

“Who’d’a thought an Injun woman could’a come in here and done such a thing.”

“Apaches have a heap of pride, Mooney. She was a woman wronged. Indian ways are different from ours. She couldn’t rest until she had her revenge. Probably she was cast out by her family and made a slave after Mack ruined her. He admitted that she’s Bucko’s mother.”

“The poor little ol’ thing,” Mooney said sadly.

Not a flicker of surprise showed on the faces of the men when they heard that Bucko was old Mack’s son, although they had all firmly believed that Burr was his father. Schooled in keeping their thoughts to themselves, they only nodded in agreement at Mooney’s pitying words.

“Ben and Johanna will do what they can for Mack. Will someone go down and get Luis? I hate to disturb him on his wedding night, but this is something he should know about.” Burr ran his fingertips over his tired eyes. “I think someone should go out and tell the sentries what happened and tell them to keep their eyes peeled for the rest of the night, just to be on the safe side.”

“Me, I can do it, señor.” A young Mexican boy edged his way to Burr and Burr put his hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Ramon. But be careful and call out before you get too close. I don’t want one of them to shoot you, thinking you’re an Apache. Mooney, wrap the woman in a blanket and get her out of there. I’m sure her being there is upsetting to Johanna.”

Mooney brought a blanket and laid the pathetically thin body of the Indian woman on it. He shook his head sadly when he saw the torture marks on her thin arms and how thin the skin was over the bones of her face. He wrapped her in the blanket and carried her down the hall to the sitting room, then returned with rags and water to mop up the blood.

Old Mack’s face was deathly white now and his breathing laborious. Johanna and Ben had managed to stop the flow of blood and to get several spoonfuls of whiskey down his throat. He opened his eyes and looked into Johanna’s face.

“Juanita,” he whispered. “Why’d you have to go and do that for?” He stared at Johanna for a long moment, then wearily closed his eyes.

“Who is Juanita?” she whispered to Ben.

“Luis’s mother,” Ben said in hushed tones. “She might have been the only person in the world that Mack cared a whit for. She was a sweet, young, beautiful girl, and Mack ruined her just as he did my Anna and that poor Indian girl.” For the first time Johanna heard a bitter note creep into Ben’s voice.

Old Mack’s head lifted off the pillow. “You shouldn’t’a let the dirty greasers touch you! You . . . slut, bitch . . . whore! You was mine . . .” His breathing was hard, but there was rage in his voice.

Ben shook his head sadly. “He’d never admit, even to himself, that Luis is his son.”

“Juanita!” old Mack shouted in his delirium. “Come back here!”

“Oh, Ben, how awful.”

Ben reached for Johanna’s hand. “When Mack discovered that Juanita was in the family way, he turned on her,” Ben said. “He put her in a crumbling old adobe shack down were Luis has his house now, and forbade anyone to go near her. No one dared even to speak to her, but me. Not that she wanted anyone; she was so ashamed that she shrank from contact with anyone. I gradually won her confidence and when it was time for Luis to be born I was with her.”

Mack reared up. “Don’t go, little pretty thing,” he cried hoarsely. Ben eased him back down onto the bed. He looked up at Ben with an expression of pure hatred on his face. “You goddamn greasy bastard!” he snarled. After that he closed his eyes and lay still. Ben sat down.

Johanna wanted to cry for Juanita, for the poor Indian woman, for Anna and Ben, and for all the people whose lives had been been affected by Mack Macklin’s ruthlessness.

“He must have cared for Juanita,” Ben said in wonder. “She once told me that Mack would sit his horse, off in the distance, and watch her. He didn’t go near the house, but the sight of him scared her half to death. Luis was her life, and she lived in constant fear that Mack would harm him. He despised the boy and heaped insults on him whenever he got the chance. When I told Juanita my plans for Burr, I asked her to allow me to adopt Luis. She gave me a letter to present to the court at the same time I presented Anna’s letter, so I adopted both boys.”

“How awful it must have been for them to live here, and how fortunate they were to have you, Ben,” Johanna said.

“I was the fortunate one. After Anna died, I had Burr to think about, and then Luis. The two of them have given me something to live for.”

“Does Luis ever come to the house?”

“As far as I know, he has never been inside the house. Mack doesn’t recognize that he even exists. After Juanita died I thought sure he’d kill Mack, but he had promised her he wouldn’t kill him unless he was defending himself.”

“How old was Luis when Juanita died?”

“He was a stripling, but well able to take care of himself. Mack didn’t know Juanita was dead until after we buried her. Then he went storming down to her house and stayed there, roaring drunk, for three or four days. Luis hid out in the corrals until he left. I thought sure he’d kill Mack, but he had promised his mother he wouldn’t kill him except in self-defense. A week after she died he rode out of the valley. He came back from time to time to see us. He and Burr were close even as children. Then both boys went to the war and afterward they met in El Paso and came home together. I’ll never forget the day Paco came riding in to tell me the boys were down at the shack where Juanita used to live, and they were home to stay. All the years I’d put up with Mack’s cussedness paid off. My boys had come home.” Ben’s faded eyes came alive, and he clasped Johanna’s hand with surprising strength.

It took Mack several hours to die. Although blood continued to ooze out of him, his tough old body clung to life. He continued to mutter, but the words now were inaudible.

Burr came in and stood beside Ben.

“Luis came up and we’re going to look around. Mooney will be here with you.” He glanced down at old Mack, a blank expression on his face. “I bet it doesn’t sit well on his mind knowing he’s been done in by a woman who was little more than a bag of bones.” His voice was surprisingly free of bitterness.

“Mack lived a hard, unloved life, but that was the way he wanted it,” Ben said.

Johanna looked up to see Burr’s eyes on her.
What is going through his mind?
she thought.
Does he see himself in this same position when he’s old: dying and unloved?
It seemed an eternity, but no more than ten seconds passed while their eyes clung. For a fleeting instant Johanna thought there was a flicker of tenderness in his eyes as he gazed at her. But when he spoke his voice was dry and impersonal.

“I dumped some coffee in the pot if you want some.” He turned and left the room.

The stone house that the old man had built in his younger days was quiet except for the slight rumble of the tin roof as the wind passed over it. Mooney moved quietly up and down the hall or stood on the porch outside the door, his steps a muffled acknowledgment that death was near. Johanna left the bedside to stoke the cookstove and put a kettle of fresh water on to boil. She returned and sat down beside Ben. Together they waited for the inevitable.

Old Mack died as he had lived—violently. He reared up in bed, his eyes wild, and blood gushed from his mouth. When he fell back he was dead. Ben stood, and after a few minutes had passed he closed the staring eyes with his fingertip.

“It’s over, Johanna. Go to the kitchen. Mooney and I will take care of things here.”

Someone had just filled the cookstove with wood and laid fresh logs in the fireplace. Johanna didn’t realize how cold she was until she felt the warmth of the room. After she had added additional water to the coffeepot and set it over the blaze, she eased herself down into a chair and stared wearily into the fire. She couldn’t bring herself to be sorry that the old man was dead. She was sorry, though, that a man like Mack Macklin could live so many years, and accomplish as much as he had here in the valley, and still die without a single person to mourn him.

Johanna was drained of emotion. So much had happened so fast on this, her wedding day. She went over the scene in her mind—how old Mack had cursed the Indian woman, and then admitted that she was the mother of
his
child. So, Bucko was half-brother to Burr and Luis. How could it be that Burr didn’t know this? Why was he so insistent that old Mack admit Bucko was his son? She wondered what effect the old man’s passing would have on the valley, and on Burr. Would Burr simply slip into the mold of tyrant and raise another generation to live in constant turmoil in Macklin Valley? “Oh, dear God,” she prayed. “Please don’t let that be my fate.”

Ben came in and she made a move to get up.

“Sit still, lass. I’ll get a cup of coffee and join you.”

“Ben,” Johanna said when he’d sat down opposite her. “What do you suppose happened in Mr. Macklin’s life to make him so mean?”

Ben answered slowly. “This seems to be the night for telling stories, lass. Things happen that affect people differently. I knew Mack for years and it wasn’t until Willard Risewick came to the valley that I understood some of the reasons for his bitterness. I’m making no excuses, mind. And I shouldn’t say unkind things about the dead—but Mack was a man totally without conscience. He never felt the slightest twinge of remorse for any of his cruelties, whether it was taking a woman against her will or forcing the Mexicans to work harder by depriving them of food to feed their children, or killing a man. Whatever Mack did, he did because he wanted to do it, regardless of the consequences.”

“I don’t see how he could have lived with himself. It’s no wonder he was eaten up inside with hatred.”

“When Risewick came to the valley, he came on the pretext of buying land. Oh, he would have bought it, if he could,” Ben added hastily. “But his main reason for coming was to find out as much about Mack as he could. Mack has a half-brother back East, the son of his father’s Spanish mistress. His father was never able to marry the woman he loved because his wife went into a mental decline just after Mack was born. She died many years later, hopelessly insane. The poor man was tied to her for as long as she lived.”

Johanna made a pitying sound.

Ben continued, “Mack’s father found love with the Spanish woman from Mexico City. She bore him a son, and tried to win Mack’s affection, but he was venomously against her and her son, and eventually his father. His father was a good businessman, and wanted both his sons to take over his iron foundry, but Mack refused to have anything to do with it if the bastard son was included. The father stood firm, and after a row that left the old man battered and bleeding, Mack left home, never to return.

“Rafael Macklin, Mack’s half-brother, is without family. Mack was his only blood relative as far as he knew. He sent Risewick out to get the lay of the land, to find out if perhaps the years had mellowed Mack. He wanted some idea of what kind of reception he would receive if he came out for a visit. Of course, Risewick knew right away that any reconciliation was impossible, but he was able to take back to Rafael the news that he had nephews who would one day welcome him. It seems that possibility is now closer to happening than we expected.”