IT WAS NOT always possible for Marianne DeWinter to travel everywhere with Villa, nor was it the case that the rebel leader wished she could. The overpowering attraction he had felt towards this Anglo-Saxon beauty—an attraction strengthened by the knowledge that she was an actress, that her face and body had been admired and lusted after by thousands of other men who had never been able to possess her—was beginning to wane. Not that he desired her any the less. In fact, as they spent more and more time together, she grew wilder and franker. Her lovemaking showed a knowledge of pleasure which was all the more thrilling for its being unexpected. Who would have thought that someone as grand, as seemingly untouchable, would have been as open and as ready as Marianne?
What tired Villa was the way in which she would want to celebrate her beauty at all times, the fact that she wished to be at the center of everything, as if the entire descent towards Mexico City were a film taking place around her and she was the most important single person, the star.
As for Pancho Villa, he was the leading man—for now.
For this picture only, his contract not necessarily renewable.
Villa did not like that; he did not take to it easily. Nor did he take to the manner in which Marianne showed an increasing interest in the way the revolution was being fought. Why are we heading for this town and not that one? How many federal troops do you expect to find here? What happens if there are no fresh horses at such and such a point? How much fuel is there for the engines once these hundred miles have been travelled?
Where?
How many?
How soon?
Villa’s hand slapped hard across Marianne DeWinter’s beautiful face and her head jolted back; he had acted out of impulse, one question too many driving him too far. As soon as he heard the crack of knuckles against flesh and saw the beautiful head swing backwards inside a spray of fine white hair, his stomach clenched. He expected the bones of her cheek to shatter as a brittle bird’s might, but instead there was a hardness and resilience that took him by surprise and when he saw her face, steadied now, the marks of his fingers showed clearly on the white of her skin, accusing him.
Her eyes accused him.
Her voice said nothing—wasn’t she a silent actress?
Slowly, not releasing Villa from her gaze, Marianne got up from the camp bed and pulled her robe about her shoulders; she slipped on her shoes and stepped outside the flap of the tent. Villa watched her go, his emotions torn; so much of him was pleased that he had acted, annoyed by her probing, her senseless questioning, yet at the same time he was reluctant to see her walk out on him. It gave her the right to do that, to act independently. She was still the star and he was yet the leading man. He was the one who remained; she the one who went.
As the tent flap was still moving, he drove his mind to think of other things, more important things. Wasn’t there a war to win? What did it matter where the woman went? Damn her!
Already damned but not yet knowing it, Marianne DeWinter moved through the early morning mist which spread between tents and makeshift shelters. Here and there fires smoldered; a few people were already moving around. Men and women parting wordlessly after sharing a night’s clumsy warmth. She stepped between them as if they were unreal and she was the only reality which existed: so far from the truth.
The Englishman, Quincy, watched her go. He saw the departure from Villa’s tent and his first instinct was to hurry over and confront her, comfort her, offer her his assistance. Perhaps, if Villa had turned her out, she would come to him. He hesitated until it was too late; there was too much in the way she moved that kept him back.
Instead he pushed at the straggling hairs of his once neat mustache and moved them from the edge of his mouth. With his left hand he pulled his soiled white shirt towards him. At the touch of it something almost buried inside him shuddered. How was a gentleman supposed to remain looking like one in conditions such as this? If only he had chosen the other war, the Great War being fought in Europe, instead of this barbaric affair—then things might have been different. There would have been proper officer’s quarters and he would have had his uniform made in Saville Row and sent to the front. There would have been a batman to dress him and shave his face each morning while his coffee was brewing and the infantrymen under his command were waking to the scuffling of rats and the stench of decomposing bodies and the certain knowledge that most of them were about to die.
When he turned his head, Marianne DeWinter was nowhere in sight. At first Jamie didn’t think the smooth fingers tracing the contours of his face were real; it was a strange and wonderful dream in which a beautiful woman whose face was like Mary’s came to him in the night and ...
But the Mary was not ...
The fingers too firm to be a dream ...
His eyes opened and he saw her and remembered those earlier times before Villa had taken her for his own. She touched the good side of his face, the handsome side, the skin that was still firm and unblemished and young. Then she let her fingertips run softly over the leather of the mask, knowing what grotesque sight lay hidden underneath and not caring. She had looked at him and she had not betrayed the least distaste or fear. Somehow, despite everything else, he had always loved her for that.
‘Jamie!’
She breathed his name softly and sank her body down on top of him. The morning air seeped under the bottom of the tent and made him cold; he was aware of the rough hardness of the ground beneath him.
‘Jamie!’
She set her face against his and her hands moved over his body. She was wearing so little and it came away so easily. Her beautiful white face smiled down at him, luminous in the half-light. Her white fingers stroked and touched and encouraged. She was above him, straddling him, the whiteness of her thighs on either side of his strong young body.
Jamie clenched his teeth and clung to the knowledge of what he had to do. The instructions he had received from Onslow. Instructions he would obey when—
‘Jamie!’ She screamed his name and collapsed on top of him, her body quivering.
He moved fast, turning himself on top of her, legs pushing up, knees hard down onto her arms. His left hand clamped across her mouth, stifling a scream, and his right held a small, sharp-bladed knife which was absolutely steady and no more than six inches from the quivering white of her throat.
Jamie Durham checked the load in his Colt Thunderer and slipped it down into the holster strapped to his right hip. The knife was held between his teeth and his eyes kept Marianne DeWinter crouched at the far side of the tent, fear stalking the whiteness of her face.
‘Outside!’ Jamie snapped and pointed to the tent flap.
Her head began to shake sideways, her eyes started to beg pity but she was wasting her talents on the wrong man.
‘Out!’
The knife, back in Jamie’s hand, threatened her flawless skin: it was enough.
‘Let’s go see Pancho, tell him what you told me.’
She trembled and Jamie laughed; the pair of them went out into the redness of dawn. Men fresh from their bedrolls turned and stared and a few of them let their hands stray close to their weapons, but no more. They were not about to interfere—not when they had no knowledge of what was at stake.
Only Quincy was more determined. He pulled his pistol from his webbed belt and made half a dozen quick steps, positioning himself at an angle between Jamie and his objective.
‘Stop there!’
Marianne faltered another pace, then ceased walking. Jamie grinned and carried on until he was close behind her, until she was protecting him from a direct line of fire. Yet he could still see the Englishman’s face clearly—that and the Webley and Scott .455 Automatic which he held away from his body, chest turned partly round, arm extended.
‘Let her go!’
‘Go to hell!’
‘Let the woman go!’
Jamie grinned and drew his pistol. He could see Quincy’s face and his right arm beyond Marianne’s shoulder; he could see part of his chest and the side of his head. He could see that Marianne was beginning to shiver, but possibly that was due to the morning cold.
Men were closing in on them now, moving slowly as if not wanting to be responsible for the situation exploding. Ahead, the flap of Villa’s tent was thrown back and Villa himself bent and straightened, stood with one hand resting on the cartridge belts crossed over his sloping chest, the other holding a half-smoked cigar by his side. His mustache was heavy, his chin stubbled; his eyes looked bleary and tired. The buttons at the bottom of his shirt strained against the spread of his flesh; his belt hung down below his belly. His sombrero was hanging at his back from the cord around his neck.
He said nothing, made no move to interfere: simply watched.
Marianne shivered all the more visibly and Jamie was instantly struck by the notion that she was putting on a performance for the assembled crowd. Not only for them, perhaps for her own life.
He placed the flat of his left hand against the small of her back and was surprised to feel some of the warmth of her body immediately pulsing through his hand.
‘Move,’ he hissed into her ear.
She took three, four faltering steps. Quincy’s body angled itself more sharply and Jamie knew that the Webley was aiming directly at his head. He could see Quincy, clear-eyed, squinting along the pistol barrel, his fingers starting to squeeze back on the trigger.
‘Villa!’
Jamie’s voice rang out loud and clear and in front of him Marianne came to a halt once more. He saw Quincy’s tongue edge along the line of his lower lip. Villa gave no obvious response to Jamie’s shout, other than to bite down on the end of his cigar. A wraith of smoke drifted upwards from his nostrils and etched itself on the clear air. Off to the east the sun was spreading itself in both directions, a golden river with banks of deepest purple.
Jamie had no present interest in the beauties of the sunrise.
‘Villa, listen to her. Make her talk the way she talked to me. I think you’ll find it interesting.’
There was a backdrop of conversation from the assembled men; women moving now into the edges of the crowd. Villa’s face showed his indecision. Rare for him, he was worried about losing face in front of his troops. Yet genuinely he did not know what to do. If the woman were shot, if the gringo kid lost his life, even the Englishman—what was that to him? And yet the English officer had brought much discipline and planning to his army; Jamie Durham was the best man with explosives he had ever found; and Marianne DeWinter—she was simply the most beautiful woman he had ever touched or lain with. ‘Villa, we’re coming through.’
Jamie urged the woman on and stood a little more to the left, narrowing Quincy’s angle still further.
‘Stop hiding behind the lady’s skirts, damn you!’
Jamie ignored him until he shifted his position, trying for a better aim.
‘How about it, Villa? You want to hear what she’s got to say or not? You want to hear who she’s been sneakin, off and tellin’ her spyin’ stories to, or not?’
Villa tossed the cigar away into the dirt and took a pace forward; his eyes were brightening with anger. ‘Spying,’ he said. ‘You accuse the woman of being a spy?’
Jamie nodded, kept slowly going forward. ‘That’s right.’ They were less than thirty yards away from Villa’s tent now and still the Englishman had not fired. It was obvious that Villa wanted to hear what the gringo was talking about and if he interfered at this point he would be throwing himself in with Marianne; that was putting himself on her side in sight of the rest. And if there were anything in the kid’s accusation ...
Quincy held his finger against the cold metal of the trigger and waited. Marianne came to a halt before Pancho Villa and stared into his swarthy face. Her skin glowed with an almost unearthly shine, as if she were reflecting the light of the moon despite the sun’s presence.
Jamie’s Colt Thunderer pressed lightly against the skin at the base of her neck. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘who you met in Durango.’
He felt her tense against the muzzle of the gun and although he could not see her expression, he could read it in Villa’s reaction.
‘Tell him!’
Marianne shuddered and Jamie realized that she was throwing a faint. He caught her with his left arm and held her slumping body as she folded expertly across him.
‘You will tell me!’ said Villa and there was no denying him when he spoke with such authority.
Jamie gave him a brief summary of what Marianne had told him: the meetings with Hiram Bender, the questions he had told her to ask about Villa’s strength and movements, the little she had gleaned from conversations with him about Bender’s own intentions. Villa listened to all this and was sick to the pit of his stomach. All those nights she had been in his bed and he had been striving to give her pleasure, thinking that she admired him, loved him even and it had been on another man’s orders. Promises of money and fame. A return to the United States in triumph. And for this she had deceived Pancho Villa and betrayed the cause of the revolution.
‘Lift her up,’ said Villa firmly, evidently struggling to control his temper.
Jamie pulled Marianne and she half-swooned once more.
Villa reached forward and grasped her white hair and hauled it upwards, so that she had no alternative other than to follow; a scream tore from her mouth and she struck out towards Villa with flailing fingers. He ducked his head back and thrust it forward again and this time he pursed his lips and spat straight into her face.
Marianne froze like ice. A thick stream of spittle ran down her forehead and divided about her nose, falling onto her perfectly shaped mouth.
Quincy stifled a shout of protest, his blood fierce at the sight of a lady being humiliated in such a way. A creature of such beauty. So fine. To be humbled by such a one as Villa, great fighter that he was.
‘Tell me the truth,’ said Villa, taking hold of her shoulders with both hands. ‘Tell me the truth, bitch!’
He shook her relentlessly, shook her like a rat caught between a dog’s teeth. It was like shaking a beautiful doll—one which could not talk.
Jamie slipped the Colt back down into its holster and drew his knife. ‘Let me,’ he said, stepping alongside Villa.
The blade glinted in the coming sun, dazzling Marianne so that she was forced to blink away from it. But the knife followed her movement, came to rest, keenly, against the soft white of her throat.
‘Tell him,’ said Jamie, ‘tell him what you told me, or this lovely neck of yours, this beautiful face will be wrecked beyond repair.’
She looked back at him, lips light together.
‘All right,’ said Jamie with a slight smile, ‘you want to look like me? You want to wear a mask for the rest of your life?’
Marianne gasped and shivered and the movement against the point of the knife brought forth a single pearl of blood. Fascinated, Villa stared as it descended, a scarlet tear, onto her breast. Quincy turned and walked slowly away as Marianne began to say her lines, tonelessly, quivering slightly, announcing her treachery as if she were speaking words she had learnt and which were nothing to do with herself.
Villa stopped her with his hand in front of her face. ‘Take her inside,’ he snapped to Jamie and then followed the two of them into his tent.