“Will he harm Juanita?” Rose asked.
“Not until he gets what he wants.”
“And that is… ?”
Nachita nodded toward Rojas, who was approaching with his patron.
“Would he harm her after he got what he wanted?” Rose asked.
“To a man like Ortiz, the wife of an enemy is a piece of the enemy. That is why he killed Donna Clara. The child of an enemy is the same. He has not killed her because she is the meat, the goat tied to the stake that makes the mountain lion come within range of his gunshot.”
Dillinger, who had been silent, now spoke. “I hope to hell you’ve got a good plan.”
“In my many moons,” Nachita replied, “I have learned that a plan that succeeds is a good one, and a plan that fails is a bad one. This one seems to depend on whether we can trick Ortiz, or whether, as he plans, he can trick us.”
Thirteen
They were making last-minute plans to leave Hermosa. Nachita was to be on the lead horse, with Villa, who also knew the territory, immediately behind him. Then Rivera and Rojas, Fallon and Chavasse, all of them armed. Rose offered Dillinger one of her horses, a gentle mare, for the ride into the desert.
“I don’t care how gentle the goddamn horse is,” Dillinger said, “I can’t ride.”
Rose said, “I can’t believe there is something you can’t do, Johnny.”
“I never said I was perfect. How about joining me for the ride in the Chevy.”
For Rose, who had learned to ride when she was very young, sitting on a horse was second nature. “I don’t know,” she said.
“The car smells better than a horse,” he said..
“Not to me. I hate the smell of gasoline.”
“Don’t you drive?”
“No,” she said.
“You’ve never driven?” he repeated unbelievingly.
“Never.”
“Then we’re even. Come on, I promise not to try to talk you into the back seat, so help me Hannah.” He held up his right hand as if taking an oath.
Up ahead, she could see that the others were getting restless.
“All right,” she said, tying up her horse and sliding into the passenger side. “I don’t know how far you will get with this up the mountain.”
“Far enough.” He’d checked everything that was checkable on the car to make sure it was in as good running condition as it could be. He’d cleaned the air filter. He’d vented the gas cans in the trunk so there’d be less danger of an explosion. He’d put in a jerry can of spare water, remembering when he hadn’t had any. Though he loved to ride with the top down, he prudently raised it because of the heat and because they might be observed from above and he didn’t want Ortiz to know how many people were in the automobile.
“Let them get a head start,” Dillinger said. “We’ll catch up easily.”
“Are you afraid?” Rose asked.
“Afraid of what?”
“I guess that answers my question.”
“Sure, I’m afraid of getting bullet holes in this beauty. I haven’t seen a body shop since arriving in Mexico.”
“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about a bullet in one of those cans you’re carrying back there?”
“A bullet hits one of those, you and I don’t have to worry one bit. Would you rather take your horse?”
“I’ll stay where I am.”
“Even in this dangerous, gas-carrying heap?”
Rose laughed. “You have such an expression on your face. What are you thinking? What are you wishing?”
“I wish we were setting out to rob a bank,” he said.
The night sky was clear, and the moon bathed the desert in a hard white light, making it easy for Nachita to follow the tracks that Ortiz’s band had made in the dust and sand of the valley floor.
They pressed on without a halt, pushing their mounts hard. Just after midnight the trail turned into the foothills of the mountains. Nachita halted them for a rest, and Dillinger got out of the Chevrolet and walked across to a slight rise.
The view was spectacular. The desert stretched to the horizon, and its hollows and canyons were dark and forbidding, thrown into relief by the white moonlight which picked out the higher stretches of ground.