Dillinger - Jack Higgins [41]
He continued, 'This is what we must do. Chato and Cochin, go for those of our brothers who would join us in this thing. Ride to the north pasture, break down the fences and slaughter some of the cattle. You will not harm the herdsman. He must be spared to carry the news to Rivera.'
He turned to the third man. 'You, Kata, get as many rifles as we have hidden and come back here to me.'
They moved to do his bidding and within a few minutes he was alone listening to the sound of them vanishing into the dusk.
He stood for a while, thinking, then picked up a handful of dust and tossed it into the fire. In his veins, he felt the fire of vengeance.
10
As he drove, Dillinger was lecturing Rojas. 'When I was a kid,' he said, 'I learned that some people have big fists and small brains. Other guys have lots of brains but their fists are useless. And some have brains and fists and know how to use them both. I've been trying to pigeonhole you, Rojas, and I figure you for the first kind, big fists, small brains.'
'Gringo, I will get you to the Federalistas, sooner or later, just as Senor Rivera wants.'
Dillinger applied his right foot to the brakes so hard Rojas went flying into the windshield, hurting his nose and forehead. 'Sorry,' Dillinger said. 'I thought I saw a snake in the road.'
'You drive this car like a crazy madman.'
'Then I guess you'd better just get out,' Dillinger said, waving Rojas's gun at him. 'Out!'
'You can't make me get out here. Take me to the hacienda.'
'I can take you back to town, how about that?'
'No.'
'Well, that's where I'm going, Rojas. Out!'
'Suppose no one comes by?' Rojas, said, getting out of the convertible.
'Somone'll come by. If it ain't people, it'll be your own kind, vultures, coyotes, somebody,' Dillinger said, laughing, as he swung the car around, sending up a cloud of dust to envelop Rojas.
A couple of miles towards town Dillinger spotted some desert wild flowers growing out of an outcropping of rock not too far from the road. He stopped the Chevvy and picked an even dozen of the flowers, put them carefully on the back seat.
The town seemed deserted.
Inside the hotel saloon, Chavasse greeted him with a wave.
'Rose upstairs?'
Chavasse nodded. Dillinger didn't see any reaction of jealousy in Chavasse's face. Wouldn't he have been if ...?
Upstairs, he knocked on her door, keeping the bunch of wild flowers behind his back.
'Who is it?' her voice said. Amazing how just her voice could get him going.
'Your favourite outlaw,' he said, touching his moustache with his free hand.
She opened the door, wearing a dark green kimono with silver and gold bands around the sleeves. With one hand she clasped the front of the kimono closed, but the top of one breast showed just a smidgin. It was enough. He remembered when the girl before Billie Frechette would sometimes greet him at the door with nothing on top. This woman was different. His feeling was different.
'I thought you were being turned over to the authorities?' she said.
'You sound like an authority to me. Can I come in?' he whipped the flowers around, startling her.
'Oh, they're beautiful,' she said, turning to find something to put them in. She used a pitcher as a vase. 'Your face looks better from your fight with Rojas,' she said.
'Your face looks better to me all the time, too,' he said.
And then he puts his arms around her. 'You'd better close the door,' he said. 'It's all right. I'm on good behaviour.' But his heart was beating like a tight drum.
Fallon, waking, gave a long, shuddering sigh, rubbed his knuckles into his bloodshot eyes and pushed himself up. After a while he swung his legs to the floor and padded across to the window. In the grey light of dawn the mountains seemed forbidding, and in the village great balls of tumbleweed crawled along unpaved road, pushed by the wind.
He shivered, aware of the coldness, of the bad taste in his mouth. He was getting old, that was the