“I don’t want to live anymore, Tommy.”
Navarro sighed and holstered the weapon. He stooped to pick up his saddle, straightened, and threw open the door. “You’ll get over it . . . him.”
He walked into the dark cabin that smelled of mesquite smoke, tanning grease, and dry adobe. He dropped the saddle on the floor behind the door, lighted the hurricane lamp on the table, walked back out to the porch, and gathered up his rifle boot and saddlebags. He carried the tack into the dimly lit, rough-hewn cabin, dropped it on the single cot against the left wall, beneath a small crucifix that had hung there when he had moved in, and removed his cartridge belt.
Bootheels thudded softly. He looked up to see Karla moving through the door, an Indian blanket wrapped loosely about her shoulders, her light brown hair hanging free. Her tan heart-shaped face was drawn, sun-bleached brows furled.
“You heard?”
Navarro nodded, dropped the gun belt on the cot, and threw his hat on top of it.
“The old bastard drove him off,” Karla said.
Navarro grabbed the red-rimmed washbasin off the table and left the cabin through the back door. He filled the basin at the well pump, having to work the squeaky handle several times before the water came up, then stooped to let the chill stream douse his head. Blowing water from his lips and rubbing it out of his close-cropped hair, he straightened, returned to the cabin, kicked the door closed, and set the basin on the table.
He sat heavily down in one of the two spool-back, cane-bottom chairs, which creaked under his weight. The water felt good, running down his head and under his shirt, soothing his sweaty sunburned neck. The girl stood by the door, her back to the wall, watching him as though waiting for him to say something.
“You didn’t really think he was going to let it go anywhere, did you?” Navarro asked, jerking his shirt out of his dusty denims and beginning to unbutton his left cuff.
“It’s not up to him. It’s up to me and Juan.” Working on the buttons, Navarro glanced at her from beneath his gunmetal brows. “Karla, you’ve been out here nearly three years now. You know better.”
She pursed her lips and spoked her eyes, making her voice hard. “I love Juan. If my grandfather loved me, that would mean something to him.”
Navarro unbuttoned his shirtfront, removed the shirt, and tossed it over his hat and tack on the cot. He took a knife from a scabbard lying under a yellowed illustrated newspaper on the table, and began cutting away the bloody sleeve of his long underwear shirt.
“What happened?” Karla asked.
“Some younker reminded me why I like to stay to home.”
When he’d cut through the sleeve above the elbow, he winced as he pulled the blood-soaked cotton away from the graze. He set the sleeve aside and inspected the burn—a half-inch gash along the outside of the arm, about halfway between the elbow and shoulder. The blood had gelled, nearly dried.
Karla moved away from the wall and slumped into the chair across from Navarro. “Did any of our men get hurt besides you?”
“Tryon took a bullet in the leg. Went all the way through. Didn’t hit the bone.” He winced as he dabbed at the cut with a damp cloth. “Damn lucky.”
“Did you kill them?”
“Yep.” Navarro glanced at her. “Bring me that roll of bandages from my war bag, will you?”
Karla got up, retrieved the torn cloth wrapped around a stout cottonwood stick, and set it on the table. Then she turned to the cupboards against the back wall, and produced a bottle. She set the bottle on the table beside Navarro, then turned back to the cupboards.
“All my bellyachin’,” she said guiltily. “And you and Ky were shot.”
Hearing her rummage through his airtights stacked neatly in the cupboard above his larder box, Navarro popped the cork from the bottle, held his arm over the bloody water in the basin, and doused the cut with whiskey. He winced and sucked air through his teeth as he lifted the bottle to his mouth, took a long pull, then set it on the table and began wrapping a bandage around his arm, closing it firmly around the cut.
He cut the bandage from the roll, took one end in his teeth, set the knife on the table, and tied the knot one-handed.
“Does your grandfather know where you are?”
She was opening a can of tomatoes with a rusty bowie knife. “He thinks I’m in my room.”
“He wouldn’t like you bein’ here.”
“Why wouldn’t he? You don’t have any bean-eater blood, do you, Tommy?”
“Don’t get sassy. Your place isn’t here, with me and my kangaroo rats. It’s up at the big house with your grandfather.”
She set a tin plate on the table beside the whiskey bottle. It was filled with canned tomatoes, crackers, and chunks of roasted venison from the buck he’d brought down from the high country last week. “I’d make you something proper at the house, but I’d just as soon not go near the place again.”
“You don’t have to cook for me, girl. I work for you, remember?”
Karla took the basin off the table and dumped it in the backyard. Navarro was eating the food she’d prepared while hearing the pump squawk as she ran water over the basin. When she came back in, she returned the basin to the table and took two water glasses from the cupboard. She set them on the table, slumped back down across from him, and poured two fingers of whiskey into each.
“You’re drinkin’?” he said, raising his eyebrows as he picked up one of the glasses.
“I learned it from you, remember?” She smiled, knocked her glass against his, and took a sip. She smacked her lips and sighed. “Just like you taught me how to ride, how to track, and how to shoot—you taught me how to drink.”
“That was beer.”
“Grandfather doesn’t have any beer around the house. Just rye whiskey, and cognac and port for visitors.”
“Christ.” Navarro threw back half his whiskey, set the glass on the table, and cut off a chunk of venison with his fork. “You’re gonna get me fired.”
She sipped her whiskey, leaned forward on her elbows, and propped her drawn face in her right hand. “We’ve talked a lot about horses and shooting and such, but you’ve never told me if you’ve ever been in love before.”
Navarro chewed, swallowed, and indicated her glass with his fork. “That’s the whiskey talkin’.”
“Have you?”
He paused, a fork of tomato and meat halfway to his mouth. He stared at the food for two seconds, then shoveled it into his mouth. Chewing, he nodded. “Christ, I’m fifty years old. Of course I’ve been in love, a time or two.”
“What happened?”
“First woman died durin’ the War, while I was off fightin’ it. The second . . .” He paused again, wiped a hand on his jeans, took a sip of the whiskey, and set the glass down. He forked the last bit of meat, frowning, his heavy brow ridged. “The second . . . well, I should’ve known better.” He jabbed the meat into his mouth and chewed.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“I sense drama. A little Shakespearean tragedy in the life of Taos Tommy Navarro?”
Avoiding her eyes, Tom ate a cracker soaked in tomato juice and shook his head. “Just the common old tragedy visited on every one of us, we live long enough.”
She splashed more whiskey into his glass, then into hers. Her voice thickened a little, and she pooched her lips out. “Come on, Tommy, tell me. I’m heartbroke.”
Navarro tossed the fork onto his empty plate, leaned back in his chair, cleared his throat, and probed his teeth with his tongue. “She was the widow of the second man I killed—outside of the War, that was.”
“Gosh,” Karla said. “Go on.”
“The man was town marshal of Pueblo, in the Colorado Territory. He was planning to kill a friend of mine in cold blood. I shot him in a fair fight. In his pockets, I found a picture of a pretty, innocent-eyed girl. I paid her a visit, to explain my side of it.”