Chapter Twenty-three
Jacob O’Brien and Vasily Petrov crossed the Pecos a few miles east of Hurrado Mesa, riding through a day that was slowly shading into evening. To the north, shadows gouged the El Barro Peaks and dark blue light pooled among the pines.
The tracks left by the Mexicans were plain to follow. Jacob led the way through a vast, empty, wooded land that smelled of timber and the first of the summer wildflowers. After three miles, the tracks made an abrupt turn to the east then looped back toward the river.
“They’ve headed west again,” Jacob said. “It seems like Álvaro Castillo has no intention of running.”
“Then we follow them,” Petrov said.
“Yeah, we follow them.”
But night was coming down fast and already a few stars hung like lanterns in the pink sky. Wakened by the growing dark, hunting coyotes yipped among the hills and a solitary quail called out in alarm.
Jacob pushed them as long as he could, but by the time he regained the Pecos the darkness crowded close. “We’ll make camp here, Vasily,” he said, drawing rein. “And take to the trail tomorrow at first light.”
“Maybe dark good time to free Patrick.”
“Yeah, maybe. But Castillo could’ve crossed the river anywhere. I lost his tracks about a mile back, so he figured he’s being followed and decided to cover his trail.”
“We find him in the morning, goddamn,” Petrov said.
“Yes, Vasily, in the morning.” Jacob felt oddly weary, as though all the life had been drained out of him.
Later, as he and Petrov sat around a hatful of fire and ate the roast beef sandwiches the Bookends had packed, the Russian said, “I have heard you play the piano, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Call me Jake. Everybody else does.”
“You play with soul, like a Russian.”
Jacob managed a small smile. “I play Chopin a lot, and he was Polish.”
“He was a Slav. He shares some of the Russian spirit.” Petrov had a thick mane of blond hair and his eyes were the color of the sky on a morning in the dead of winter. “I’ve heard you play the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.”
Jacob nodded. “His First Piano Concerto is a work of genius.”
“He is a complex man.”
“Yeah, I guess he is.”
“But there is darkness in him. Sometimes the Russian soul is dark as night.” Petrov sighed. “One day Pyotr will kill himself.”
Jacob stared at the Russian, the hollows of his eyes masked with shadow. “I won’t kill myself, Vasily.”
“No, Jake, you won’t. But the darkness will. If you let it.”
“It’s a black dog that waits its chance to attack me.”
“Or a wolf. And on a night like this the wolf always seems larger than he is and the darkness in a man’s soul grows even darker.”
“Don’t you get melancholy, Vasily? You’re a Russian after all.”
Petrov smiled. “No, never. And do you know why?”
“No, tell me.”
“Because the iron lifts my spirit. Iron is not male, Jake. It is female. She can go from a red-hot heat to icy cold in the space of a moment. She sings with the voice of an angel, a high ringing peal that’s a delight to the ear, but she can hiss like the devil when a man quenches her fire. Yes, my friend, iron is a woman.”
Jacob smiled. “Maybe I should look for a wife.”
Petrov shook his head. “I have the iron, you have your music. Neither of us needs a wife. Better to sleep with a paid woman who comes and goes and makes no demands. A woman’s love is a heavy responsibility for any man.”
Jacob passed the bottle of wine he’d found in the supplies and Petrov drank then wiped his mouth with a hand the size of a bear paw. “Let the melancholy go, Jake. Do not nurture it and make it your best friend.”
“You’re a wise man, Vasily.”
“For a blacksmith,” Petrov said, smiling.
“For anybody.”
“I will go down to the river and wash,” Petrov said.
“You mean all over?” Jacob asked.
“Yes, all over.”
“Why? You’re a blacksmith. You’ll just get dirty again.”
“If tomorrow is the last day of my life, I will spare the women the task of washing my body,” the Russian said. “I do not wish to impose upon them.”
Jacob smiled. “Now who is melancholy?”
“No melancholy in Vasily this night. He merely wishes to meet his God clean.”
“Vasily, for heaven’s sake, you’re making me a-feared. You’re not going to die tomorrow. Neither of us is going to die tomorrow, or the next day come to that.”
The big Russian said nothing, but rose to his feet and walked toward the Pecos. He stopped, and then said over his shoulder, “We will see, my friend. We will see.”
Jacob and Petrov scoured both banks of the Pecos where Castillo could have crossed, but found no tracks.
“He’s rode up or downstream a ways,” Jacob said. “We could spend days scouting this area and find nothing.”
“Then now what do we do?” Petrov asked.
“Head back to Dromore and let the Mexican come to us. My pa would call that fighting on our own ground.”
“Maybe Castillo will return to Mexico.”
“No. As long as he has Patrick as a bargaining chip he’ll stick around.”
They sat their horses in the river as the shallow water fussed and flurried around them. Jays quarreled in the juniper and the cool morning air was coming in laundered. On the opposite bank, a flock of quail exploded from the brush and immediately the flat statement of a rifle crashed through the quiet.
Vasily Petrov reeled in the saddle as his chest fountained a scarlet gout of blood. The big Russian fell from the saddle and splashed mightily into the river.
Jacob drew, saw a target, and fired.
The Mexican in the brush was hit hard and he jerked erect, his rifle spinning away from him. Jacob fired again and the man went down, rolled, and lay still.
One glance at Petrov floating facedown in the water told Jacob the man was dead. He had time only for a quick pang of regret before he kicked his horse into a gallop, splashing across the river then climbing the bank.
The Mexican lay on his back, dead as he was ever going to be, but there was no other living thing in sight except for the man’s horse tethered a distance away.
Jacob swore bitterly. Castillo had spread men out along the riverbank in the hope of a picking off his pursuers. So the man had known all along that he and Petrov were on his trail.
Cursing his own carelessness, Jacob again rode into the Pecos, dismounted, and dragged the Russian’s huge body to the bank. Vasily Petrov was dead and a long way from home.
Jacob had admired the man’s strength, his wisdom, and his quiet dignity. All that had been destroyed in an instant on the orders of an ignorant savage who killed only for profit.
Jacob gritted his teeth, his rage flaring as he made a vow to kill Álvaro Castillo, to shoot him in the belly where it hurt most and prolonged the dying.
Samuel and Shawn O’Brien were in the study when they saw Jacob slowly draw near Dromore leading two horses, one with a dead man on its back. They stepped out of the house and waited in silence until he drew rein.
“Vasily is dead. He was killed on the Pecos, shot from ambush.”
“Damn. He was a fine blacksmith.” For a moment, Shawn looked stricken, then he said, “That was a callous thing to say.”
“As good an epitaph for a man as any. Vasily Petrov bathed in the river last night and he’s met his God clean. The women don’t need to wash his body.” Jacob swung stiffly out of the saddle, his dismount more ungraceful than usual. “Castillo posted a bushwhacker back at the Pecos. He got Vasily with his first shot.”
“And Patrick?” Samuel asked.
Jacob’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know where Patrick is.”