“Someone’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 toward town Dillinger spotted some desert wild flowers growing out of an outcropping of rock not too far from the road. He stopped the Chevy, picked an even dozen of the flowers, put them carefully in 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 if…?
Upstairs, he knocked on Rose’s door, keeping the bunch of wild flowers behind his back.
“Who is it?” came her voice. Amazing how just her voice could get him going.
“Your favorite outlaw,” he said, touching his mustache with his free hand.
Wearing a dark green kimono, with silver and gold bands around the sleeves, she opened the door. With one hand she clasped closed the front of the kimono, but the top of one breast showed just a smidgen. It was enough. He remembered how 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 put his arms around her. “You’d better close the door,” he said. “It’s all right. I’m on good behavior.” 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 gray light of dawn the mountains seemed forbidding, and in the village great balls of tumbleweed crawled along the 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 trouble. If you had to hide out in a place like this, at least it could be for doing something worthwhile, like Johnny, instead of the petty junk he’d gotten into trouble for.
They’d stopped work at the mine last night just before midnight because no one had the strength to continue. They should have used dynamite the way Dillinger had said. It would have long been over, one way or t’other. Rivera had sentenced them to death to save his damn gold.
Now the Indians at the mine knew something he didn’t know. That was always the case when they whispered among each other.
Fallon pulled on his hat and coat, opened the door, and went outside onto the porch. It was still and cold, the only sound the wind whistling through the scrub, and a strange air of desolation hung over everything. It was as if he had stumbled upon some ancient workings long since abandoned. He frowned and went up the slope.
The ore shed was empty. Usually by this time it was filled with Indians crouched together against the wall, waiting for the first shift to start. The old steam engine was cold, something that was never supposed to happen. One of the watchman’s regular duties was to keep it stoked during the night.
He returned to the cabin, led his horse from the shed at the rear, and saddled it quickly. The first thing he noticed as he went down into the village was the absolute stillness. No smoke lifted into the sky from early-morning cooking fires, and there was a complete absence of life. Not so much as a dog crossed the street as he rode up to the well and dismounted.
He opened the nearest door and peered inside. The room was bare-even the cooking pots had gone-and when he touched the hearth, it was cold.