17
They made it to the pass but not by sunup.
Sister Angelina collapsed as they were climbing through the last of the timber. Dalila hollered Fargo’s name and he reined around to find the nun on the ground. She had fallen off her horse. He hurried to help her. She couldn’t stand without aid, and wasn’t strong enough to ride on her own. He gave the horse’s reins to Paloma and rode double with Sister Angelina, her in front, him behind holding her on.
Once out of the trees the slopes were open. The pass was half a mile above. Fargo tried not to think of Yago and his spyglass. All he could do was mentally cross his fingers.
Sister Angelina had slumped forward but now she roused and raised her head and said softly, “I am sorry, senor, to be such a burden.”
“You’re light as a feather,” Fargo said.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Sister Angelina turned her head and gave him her serene smile. “You’ve been a godsend.”
“Godsend and a randy goat? That takes some doing.”
Sister Angelina chuckled, and coughed. “Please do not make me laugh. It hurts when I do.”
She sobered and clasped his sleeve. “No matter what happens to me, do I have your word that you will get Paloma to the convent?”
“She’s determined to get there.”
“Your word, Senor Fargo? I have learned many things about you since we met, and one of them is that you never break it.”
“I’ll get her there if she lets me,” Fargo said. “And Dalila?”
“You already know the answer. She must return home. I wish I could talk to her mother and explain so her mother won’t be spiteful but I won’t live that long.”
“You never know,” Fargo said.
“Yes,” Sister Angelina responded, “I do.”
After that they didn’t talk until they reached the pass. Fargo carefully placed Sister Angelina on a blanket. She closed her eyes and was immediately out.
Paloma, downcast, was at his elbow. “How bad is she?” “Bad,” Fargo said.
“This is your fault. If you had eluded the banditos and the Apaches, she would not have worn herself out.”
“Want to blame me for winter, too?”
Paloma’s feelings toward him were as flinty as the hard glint to her eyes. “You’re saying it couldn’t be helped. That you have done the best you can. But your best hasn’t been good enough, has it? And now the sweetest woman in the world will die.”
“And the biggest bitch will become a nun,” Fargo said.
“I hate you, senor.”
“I’ll try not to lose sleep over it.” Fargo walked to where he could gaze down the mountain at the valley. Dalila was already there. A line of riders were filing up the lowest slope. Even at that distance he could see that the last of them was leading the Ovaro.
“They saw us, didn’t they?” Dalila said forlornly.
“Yes.”
“What now? Do we ride for our lives? Sister Angelina wouldn’t last long.”
“We stay here for as long as she lasts.”
“Can you fight them off?”
“I’ll sure as hell try.” Fargo had rounds left in the Henry, and Yago’s Colt. The rest of his ammunition was in his saddlebags so he would have to make each shot tell. He also had the advantage of the open ground between the timber and the pass.
“I will make coffee,” Dalila said. “I found some in the saddlebags on the bandito’s horse.”
“With rocks for firewood?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
She had thrown everything except the coffee out of the saddlebags, and as they were climbing through the trees, she’d broken off low limbs and jammed them in the saddlebags to use later. “I was thinking ahead. I did good, yes?”
“You did real good.”
“There is a canteen on the palomino. My sister told me it is half full. Can we use it or must we save it?”
“Make the coffee,” Fargo said. He needed it to help stay awake.
After that there was little to do but sit and wait. Fargo went through the saddlebags on the other two horses and discovered cartridges for the Colt.
The aroma of the coffee roused Sister Angelina. She asked Dalila’s help in sitting up and sat sipping quietly. The sisters hovered by her, eager to attend to her every need.
Fargo perched on a flat boulder watching the bandits. It would be hours yet before they reached the pass. A long notch high atop a mountain, it was about a hundred feet from end to end.
“Senor Fargo!” Dalila called. “Mother Superior would like to speak to us.”
The nun’s complexion reminded Fargo of a bedsheet. She patted the ground and he sat and she took his hand in both of hers.
“We never know the time or place, do we? I always thought it would be in my bed with the other Sisters around me.” Angelina gazed longingly in the direction of the faraway convent, and sighed. “But enough of that. I have a few things to say to each of you. Dalila, be patient with your mother. She will come to understand this was for the best but it might take her a while. Paloma, be the best nun you can be. Don’t be so judgmental of others. Thou shalt not judge, remember?” She raised Fargo’s hand to her lips, and kissed it. “Gracias, senor, for all you have done, and all you will yet do. I am sorry I cannot see this through.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Dalila said. “You’re not dead, yet.”
“Yes, child,” Sister Angelina replied softly. “I am.” She smiled and closed her eyes and sagged.
Fargo held her. He felt her wrist for a pulse and shook his head. Dalila sobbed. Paloma got up, turned her back on them, and moved off, her body rigid. Fargo laid Sister Angelina down and folded her hands on her chest. He didn’t have anything to dig with so he gathered rocks, big rocks, small rocks, every rock he could find, and covered her. He was almost done when Paloma came back.
“What is this, you fool? Take those off her. We must put her on her mule and get her body to the convent.”
“We’ll come back for it later,” Fargo said. He didn’t add, “Provided we live long enough.”
“Come back?” Paloma said. “We’re going somewhere?” Fargo nodded. “We’re riding like hell for Santa Fe.” They had enough of a lead on the bandits that he was confident he could get the girls to safety.
“But you said you were going to make a fight of it here,” Paloma said. “Your very words.”
“That was when I had Sister Angelina to protect,” Fargo patiently explained. “Now that she’s gone we can go.”
“And leave her body untended? I won’t permit that.”
“You don’t have any damn say. We head out in two minutes.” Fargo went to the overlook to check on the bandits. The sun glinted off what might be Yago’s spyglass, and he raised an arm and waved. Suddenly there was a sharp yell from the pass, and the pound of hooves. He whirled. Two of the horses were already in flight and Paloma was smacking a rock against the last’s flank. She hit it so hard she drew blood, and the startled horse galloped off.
“What the hell?” Fargo blurted, and ran toward her.
Paloma threw the rock after the horses and cackled with glee.
In a fury, Fargo seized her wrist and shook her and she laughed in his face. It was rare for him to hit a woman but he came close to hitting her. He shoved, and she sprawled at his feet.
Disbelief writ on her features, Dalila rushed over. “God in heaven, sister! What have you done?”
“I told him!” Paloma crowed. “I told him we can’t abandon her.”
“Mother Superior is dead,” Dalila cried.
“We can’t abandon her body. Don’t you see? We must do all we can to safeguard it.” Paloma jabbed a finger at Fargo. “He wanted to go off and leave her. Now he can’t. Now he must stay and protect her the same as if she were alive.”
“No, no, no,” Dalila said, staring in horror at the horses as they disappeared out the far end of the notch. “They were our only hope.”
Fargo was struggling to control his temper. The girl had put him in the worst possible situation.
“Trust in God,” Paloma was saying as she rose and swatted dust from her dress. “That is what Mother Superior would say.”
“You pitiful fool,” Dalila said.
“No need to be insulting.” Paloma drew herself up to her full height. “But then, I keep forgetting you didn’t think as highly of her as I did.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it? Which one of us will spend the rest of her days as a Sister of Apostolic Grace? And which of us ruined her chance by parting her legs for this disgusting gringo?”
Fargo slugged her. He held back, not because he wanted to but because if he hit her with all his strength he would have broken her jaw and shattered her teeth. She went down like a poled cow, in a heap.
“Oh, senor,” Dalila said.
“She had it coming.”
“For many years, yes. She has always been like this. She does what she wishes and the rest of the world be damned.” Dalila stooped and tenderly touched Paloma’s cheek. “But she is still mi hermana pequeña, my littler sister, and I love her.”
Fargo jogged toward the end of the pass. He had a hunch what he would find and his hunch proved right; the horses were well down the other side of the mountain and showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. “Damn her,” he said, and started back.
The extra ammunition for the Colt was gone. All he had were the cartridges around his waist. That wouldn’t stop the bandits for long once the Henry went empty. If he was really the bastard Paloma thought, he’d chuck her off a cliff. The only consolation, and it was no consolation at all, was that she had put herself in the same danger. If the bandits got their hands on her, she would suffer dearly for her mistake. “Damn her,” he said again.
Paloma was still out. Fargo stepped over her and went to see how high Fermin Terreros and company had climbed. They were pushing their mounts. By noon they would be within rifle range.
Dalila was glumly regarding the banditos. “I take it our horses, as you gringos say, are long gone?”
“Thank your sister,” Fargo said.
“For a short time I dared to hope we would make it out of this nightmare alive,” Dalila said. “Now I know better.”
“You never know.” Fargo chose a suitable boulder and wearily sank down.
“They have many rifles and pistolas.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“If your sister comes around, hit her with a rock.”
Dalila laughed but there was no mirth in it. “I should have watched her more closely. She has always been unpredictable. When she was little she caused a lot of trouble for our parents. Once she beat a cat to death for peeing on her blanket. Another time my mother slapped her and she slapped my mother back.”
“A nun in the making,” Fargo said.
“You are too cínico, yes? Cynical—is that the word?”
“You should leave,” Fargo said. “Down the other side of the mountain. In case they get past me.”
“We both know I wouldn’t get far, as tired as I am. Then there is Paloma. She won’t leave Mother Superior.”
“Forget her. You’re more important.”
Dalila smiled. “What a sweet thing to say. But I couldn’t live with myself. I must stay as much for her as for you.” She glanced into the pass. “Oh, look. She is sitting up. I should see if she is all right.”
Fargo went along. He wouldn’t mind an excuse to slug the bitch again.
Paloma had her elbows on her knees and her head was in her hands. She regarded Fargo as a rattlesnake might regard prey. “You hurt me, senor.”
“Not bad enough,” Fargo said.
“I will never forgive you. Not for hitting me, not for letting the Mother Superior die, not for my sister.”
“What I have done does not concern you,” Dalila said.
“On the contrary. You have shamed our family. Mother has told everyone that you were going off to join the convent. Now everyone will wonder, and people will talk, and before long everyone will know you are a slut.”
Dalila balled her fists. “Watch that tongue of yours, hermana .”
Paloma sneered at her. “If I am not afraid of the banditos and I am not afraid of the big oaf next to you, do you honestly think I would be afraid of you? You are upset because the truth hurts.”
“Making love to a man does not make a woman a whore.”
“Not in your eyes, perhaps. But in my eyes there are only two kinds of women in this world. Saints like the Mother Superior and sinful cows like our mother.”
“You are sick,” Dalila said.
Paloma proudly raised her head. “I am the one who is still a virgin.”
“All these years, I never suspected how twisted you are. You’re the opposite of the Mother Superior. She loved everyone. You hate everyone. She was kind. You are cruel. You no more deserve to wear a habit than I do.”
“You’re just jealous because I am a better person than you. I have stayed pure where you have not.”
Fargo had had enough of Paloma’s bile. He poured the last of the coffee into his cup, returned to the flat boulder, and marked time as the bandits doggedly climbed. The sun was at its zenith when they emerged from the last belt of timber and drew rein. He made no attempt to hide. Bartolo pointed, and all their faces swung toward him. Setting down the cup, he stood and moved to the opening in the notch.
Fargo raised the Henry.
Dying time was here.