“We are,” he said, “for the moment. The Mother Mountains are not so kind as the Blessed Virgin.”
“Will McCready be taking this route?”
“I think not. There are others easier on horses, but which take them farther out of the way.”
I remembered that around noon, when the bay started favoring its left forehoof and with no knife handy I had to use my belt buckle to pry a mesquite thorn from the fetlock. Putting the cavalry farther behind us was a fair trade for the hazards of rough country.
We rested oftener than I liked, despite the advantage. Joseph never complained, but when I saw him list in his seat I reached over to touch his elbow and we dismounted so he could stretch out in the shade and gather strength. He’d started out pale under the brown of his race, and had taken on a yellowish tinge that disturbed me, and his skin glistened with more than just the sweat of effort. But in each case he recovered, or professed to have recovered, in less time than I would have in his condition, and what he knew of the fruits of his native land more than made up for the delay. The roots we ate were edible, however a St. Louis chef might scorn them for their bitter taste and toughness, and he had a botanist’s knowledge of which plants flourished in the arid season because of the water they stored in their bulbous roots.
At dark we camped in a horseshoe-shaped depression gouged in passing by the heel of a glacier a million years before Solomon. He scraped the dirt off an albino hunk of twisted vegetation, broke it in two, and handed me half. We crunched and chewed and sat admiring a view New York millionaires shipped themselves first-class to Switzerland to see: thousands of acres of two-hundred-foot pines descending in rows like seats in an opera house to flat white sand—brief as a cuticle seen from that height—and beyond it the empty sky that hung over the blue Pacific.
He tipped back his head and spread his nostrils. They were as wide as shotgun bores. “I smell rain. At the first drop, we climb out of this hole fast as we can manage. I had a cousin who lay down in a dry riverbed to sleep off a bag of wine and woke up drowned to death.”
“A puma would have got him sooner or later.”
“One did. They are not always partial to live prey.”
I laughed like an idiot. The joke wasn’t that good, but it seemed I hadn’t felt the urge since Helena. He stared at me for most of a minute, then dropped his jaw and let fly with the kind of hooting laughter you never saw in dime-novel Indians. I’d spent enough time with them to know they were gifted clowns, every last one, but it had been so long since I’d been in one’s presence when he was in the mood I laughed harder yet, until I choked on my root and he slapped me on my back until I coughed it out.
If a man can love another man without inviting cruel whispers, I loved this one. I never knew what became of him. Three days later, spent crunching through scrub, picking our way across acres of rock, and trotting too briefly along stretches of level road, we came upon the Ghost, standing just as we’d left it, with the tree that had blocked it waiting to be removed, as calm as any great beast at rest, and after I traded my stolen gear for my good saddle and bridle from the stock car we parted company. Joseph assured me that my three-hundred-year-old map would get me to Cabo Falso–Cabo Infierno, Cape Hell, whatever you wanted to call it. I’d been there and back without ever seeing the place that sought the honor.
I patted the pocket containing Oscar Childress’ last will and testament. It would be evidence enough for the United States to press the Mexican government to lay siege to the late major’s plantation; with the usual contingent of U.S. troops serving in an “advisory capacity.” That was how we’d taken the Southwestern states from Mexico in the first place.
“In Cabo Falso, where there is law to protect law, you may wire Los Estados Unidos and arrange your transportation back to the Montana Territory. Even Captain McCready would not attempt an action there that would place his dead master’s grand plan at risk. They haven’t everything yet in place; that much I overheard in my sickbed.”
“You won’t come with me?”
He shook his head. The sallowness was gone from his face, and it seemed to me it had started to take on flesh; although how those blasted roots could contribute to that I couldn’t imagine. After forty years I wake from a dream of Mexico with that sharp taste on my tongue.
“I said I wish to be the first of my tribe to drive a train across the length of the Sierra Madre,” he said. “What has happened since to make you think I would change my mind?”
“You haven’t anything to defend it.” I unshipped the Deane-Adams and held it out, butt-first.
One of his rare grins cracked his face, blinding white against the brown. “You will need it more than I, if you are to make your way back to your home. Have we not heard our pursuers, resolute even as of this morning? I have a weapon far more efectivo.” He slapped the Ghost’s cowcatcher. It resonated like a great iron bell. At times I hear it still.
Books by Loren D. Estleman
AMOS WALKER MYSTERIES
Motor City Blue
Angel Eyes
The Midnight Man
The Glass Highway
Sugartown
Every Brilliant Eye
Lady Yesterday
Downriver
Silent Thunder
Sweet Women Lie
Never Street
The Witchfinder
The Hours of the Virgin
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger
Sinister Heights
Poison Blonde*
Retro*
Nicotine Kiss*
American Detective*
The Left-Handed Dollar*
Infernal Angels*
Burning Midnight*
Don’t Look for Me*
You Know Who Killed Me*
Sundown Speech*
VALENTINO, FILM DETECTIVE
Frames*
Alone*
Alive!*
Shoot*
DETROIT CRIME
Whiskey River
Motown
King of the Corner
Edsel
Stress
Jitterbug*
Thunder City*
PETER MACKLIN
Kill Zone
Roses Are Dead
Any Man’s Death
Something Borrowed, Something Black*
Little Black Dress*
OTHER FICTION
The Oklahoma Punk
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
Peeper
Gas City*
Journey of the Dead*
The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association*
Roy & Lillie: A Love Story*
The Confessions of Al Capone*
PAGE MURDOCK SERIES
The High Rocks*
Stamping Ground*
Murdock’s Law*
The Stranglers
City of Widows*
White Desert*
Port Hazard*
The Book of Murdock*
Cape Hell*
WESTERNS
The Hider
Aces & Eights*
The Wolfer
Mister St. John
Gun Man
Bloody Season
Sudden Country
Billy Gashade*
The Master Executioner*
Black Powder, White Smoke*
The Undertaker’s Wife*
The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion*
The Branch and the Scaffold*
Ragtime Cowboys*
The Long High Noon*
NONFICTION
The Wister Trace
Writing the Popular Novel
*Published by Tom Doherty Associates
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Loren D. Estleman has written more than seventy books, including historical novels, mysteries, and Westerns. Winner of four Shamus Awards, five Spur Awards, and three Western Heritage Awards, he lives in central Michigan with
his wife, author Deborah Morgan. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
I. The Ghost
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
II. The Mother Mountains
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
III. Cape Hell
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Books by Loren D. Estleman
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CAPE HELL
Copyright © 2016 by Loren D. Estleman
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Michael Koelsch
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-8352-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-9210-1 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466892101
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First Edition: May 2016