Dillinger - Jack Higgins [31]
'He certainly has a sense of humour,' Dillinger said.
There was a pause as she looked at him steadily and then she said, 'We must go back to the hotel. Supper will be ready.'
Dillinger took her arm as they left the camp. 'How old is he?'
'No one can be sure, but he rode with Victorio and Geronimo, that much is certain.'
'He must have been a great warrior.'
They paused on a little hill beside the ruined adobe wall and Rose said, 'In 1881 Old Nana raided into Arizona with fifteen braves. He was then aged eighty. Nachita was one of the braves. In less than two months they covered a thousand miles, defeated the Americans eight times and returned to Mexico safely, despite the fact that more than a thousand soldiers and hundreds of civilians were after them. That is the kind of warrior Nachita was.'
'Yet in the end the Apache were defeated, as they were bound to be.'
'To continue fighting when defeat is inevitable, this requires the greatest courage of all,' she said simply.
Funny she should say that. He'd imagined himself one day coming into a bank he'd cased but not too well and finding himself in a trap, every teller a G-man waiting with a gun instead of a wad of bills. He'd imagined himself backing out of the bank, shooting machine guns from both hips, knocking out the G-men like ducks in a gallery. He'd walked out of three movies where he could tell that the gangster was going to get killed in the end.
After supper Dillinger went into the bar and joined Fallon, who was sitting with Chavasse at a small table in the corner. Fallon produced a pack of cards from his pocket and shuffled them expertly.
'How about joining us for a hand of poker?'
'Suits me.' Dillinger pulled forward a chair and grinned at the Frenchman. 'Shouldn't you be working?'
Rose arrived, carrying bottles of beer and glasses on a tray. 'My manager is permitted to mingle with special guests,' she said.
'As always, your devoted slave,' Chavasse said dramatically, grabbing her hand and kissing it with pretended passion.
She ruffled his hair and disappeared into the kitchen.
Dillinger felt a sting of jealousy. He said, 'She just introduced me to old Nachita. Quite a guy.'
Chavasse said, 'Everything that's best in a great people. He taught me more than anyone else about the Apache.'
'Fallon tells me you're quite an expert on the subject.'
The Frenchman shrugged. 'I studied anthropology at the Sorbonne. I decided to do my field work for my thesis as far away from home as I could get. I meant to stay six months. But where in Paris could I get a job like this?' He laughed. 'And such a nice boss.'
Dillinger felt the sting again, wondered if there was some kind of a relationship between the Frenchman and Rose. She had ruffled his hair as if it was nothing.
When they had finished their beer Dillinger took some of Rivera's pesos from his pocket and slapped them on the table. 'How about another round?' he said to Fallon.
'With pleasure,' the old man replied.
Dillinger lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. 'This man we met on the road today, the one they call Diablo? Juan Ortiz. What do you make of him?'
'I honestly don't know. When he was younger, he had a bad reputation. They say he killed at least three men. Knife fights, things like that. There isn't much law in the mountains. I think in the old days he'd have made a name for himself, but that was before the Jesuits at Nacozari got their hands on him.'
'And you really think he's changed?'
'What was your impression?'
Dillinger frowned, thinking about it. 'I got the feeling he was trying to provoke Rivera in some strange way. It was almost as if he was inviting him to lose control.'
'But why would he do that?' Chavasse asked.
'I don't know. Maybe to give him the excuse to strike back.'
'This is a country saturated in blood. First the Aztecs, then the conquistadores. In four hundred years, nothing but slaughter.'
'Yet you stay.'
'I stay.'
As Fallon returned with the beer, Dillinger spied Rivera sitting down at