Chapter 33

The sudden wash of the cold water against his face was unexpected. So was the feeling of being further clamped and moved in the water. He debated continuing to hold his breath and concluded that drowning himself would be better than being eaten alive by a shark. He breathed out as forcefully as he could—and then his face broke the surface and into the air. He took in a loud, gasping breath. The head of a black man bobbed next to him, somehow familiar.

“Shhh!” The man whispered directly into his ear, “Quiet, they’ll hear. I’ll get’cha to where you can stand.”

The man pulled his unwieldy burden as he swam silently toward the shore. Malik could feel his weighted feet begin to drag in the mud. After another few seconds, he felt a more solid footing. “Here,” the black man whispered.

He released Malik and lowered himself underwater, and Malik could feel the release as rope and canvas were severed. As the last of the material came loose, Malik felt the chains fall from around his ankles—and he suddenly realized where he’d seen his rescuer before.

The black-faced man resurfaced. Malik whispered, “Are you in disguise, Cowboy?”

“Long story. Can you swim over to the boat?”

Malik turned in the direction Cowboy was looking and could see the Lenore silhouetted against the starlit sky, about twenty yards upstream, the glow of lamps illuminating its cabin windows.

“If I can push off from this mud.”

He felt Cowboy pressing the grip of a hunting knife into his hand. “It’s my extra,” Cowboy whispered.

They heard a muffled scream.

Cowboy said, “They’ve taken her into the cabin. They’re all in there. We’ll have to go over the rail on each side at the same time to keep from rocking the boat. Let’s swim to the stern and we’ll start a count.” As children, Malik and Cowboy taught themselves to count in exact cadence so they could coordinate their “pirate” attacks. Cowboy even whispered, “It’ll be just like sailing the Manuela Sea again.”

There was another, albeit male-timbre scream, and Malik started swimming, Cowboy keeping pace. A minute later they were hanging onto the struts of the paddle wheel.

Malik said, “We should climb on just back a’ the steam engine, I think. Start a slow lift on a fifty count. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...”

Cowboy was counting with him to coordinate the pace. At “ten” they separated and began swimming, far enough from the boat to be able to see the top of the smoke stack in order to locate the steam engine.

At “forty eight” Malik reached up for the gunwale. At “fifty” he began to slowly lift himself out of the water. As his head cleared the gunwale, he could see Cowboy in mirror image. Each swung a leg over the gunwale at the same time, then brought their other leg aboard, rolled under the rope rail, and cautiously rose to their feet.

Malik pulled the knife from where he’d tucked it under his belt in the small of his back. Cowboy waved him over to the steam engine.

“It looks like it’s just one large cabin,” he whispered in Malik’s ear. “I’ll go in this side, you go in the other. Take a look through the porthole just before you open the door. On twenty. One, two, three...” Again, they separated at “ten.”

At “eighteen,” Malik moved carefully to look through the door’s porthole.

Ranford, in shirtsleeves, was in a chair holding a bloodied towel to his nose.

Banks, still clothed, was bent into a fetal curl on the floor, his hands between his legs, grasping his privates through his trousers.

Gabriela, naked, nose bloody, was lying face-down on a bed, with Macready on top of her.

Gabriela was struggling, but could not get loose from the hulking bodyguard. Macready had his whole weight pinning her, his left elbow pressed between her shoulder blades while his left hand grasped her chin and neck, pulling back, choking her. His right hand held both of her hands together and shoved high behind her back. At the same time he had wedged his knees between her legs and was slowly pushing them apart. With an uncharacteristic smile on his face, Macready, still wearing his hunting coat, was naked from the waist down. He displayed a very red, erect penis, which he was pressing down between Gabriela’s pale buttocks.

Malik pulled open the door and was on Macready before any of them even realized he was in the room. He leapt on the bodyguard, pulled back on a fistful of his hair, and sawed the knife deep across Macready’s taut throat. Malik rode the man with his own weight, bearing down on the bodyguard while Macready scrabbled futilely to reach him.

Gabriela’s lower body was bathed in Macready’s blood, but she had stopped struggling and had rolled over, a smile on her face as she turned to watch as Macready, draped over the footboard, hands clasping his neck, quickly bled out.

Cowboy, meanwhile, had simply picked up a pistol from a table near the door and held it, pointed at the floor.

“Who the hell are you?” Ranford directed at the wet buckskin-clad, black-faced Cowboy.

Sheriff Banks rolled over at the commotion and said, “Who the—?” Then, realization dawning, he exclaimed, “It’s that goddamn Injun from down in Sonora County. How the hell did he find us here?”

Ranford looked at Malik, and with a disdainful grimace, said, “What good do you think this will do? You’ve just murdered a man in front of witnesses.”

Malik said, “I thought you might answer some questions.”

“Go to hell. You’ll be dangling from a rope before the week is out.”

Gabriela sat up and put her feet on the floor. Cowboy tossed her a clean towel from a stack on a shelf under the table. She began wiping Macready’s blood from her buttocks and legs. “I’d answer his questions, if I were you,” she warned Ranford. “He can be very persuasive.”

“I’m a United States Senator. You don’t frighten me.”

Banks started to get up. Malik said “Just stay on the floor there, Sheriff. Put your back to the wall.”

Gabriela stood, pulled a bloody sheet from the bed, and wrapped herself in it. Then she went to Macready’s body and found her gun and Malik’s knife in his coat pocket. She gave Malik his knife and went back to sit on the bed, facing Ranford, who looked defiant.

Malik said, “Ah, well. Looks like it’s the hard way, again. Have to teach ‘em, just like we did Williams and Lestly and the rest of that bunch. Those two snipers, same thing. Nobody ever wants to answer questions the easy way.”

Cowboy said, “Let’s not forget the two explosive experts. They insisted on the hard way, too.”

Banks said, “I knew it was you two cocksuckers.”

Ranford said, “You can stick your ‘hard way’ up your ass. No way you’re coming out of this without a death penalty.”

“I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Senator. Time for a demonstration.” Then, to Cowboy and Gabriela, “You two got these, uh, public servants covered? I need to get something.”

Gabriela said, “If the Senator moves, I’ll geld him.” She pointed the gun toward Ranford’s crotch.

“We got ‘em,” Cowboy said.

“Back in a minute,” Malik said as he went out the door.

He walked quickly to the boiler and opened the firebox. He took a shovel from an adjoining rack and scooped it full of the burning, red embers. He set that on the deck, then threw a half dozen pieces of cord wood into the firebox and shut the door. He carried the scoop of glowing embers back into the cabin, and walked directly over to Banks—where he dumped the hot coals in the sheriff’s lap. As Banks went to jump to his feet, Malik swung the shovel back and then hit Banks square in the face with it. The sheriff slumped, unconscious, among the glowing coals, blood dripping from his flattened nose, hissing when the drops fell among the hot embers. There, between his thighs, his clothes and flesh began to smolder and give off smoke.

Ranford, who’d contributed a “What the holy hell?” when Malik dumped the embers on Banks, now looked very bewildered.

Malik said, “Keep in mind, Senator, that I didn’t even ask him any questions.”

Ranford looked at Banks, then at Macready’s body, then at Malik. “What do you want?”

“Tell me about your scheme for back home.”

After a brief hesitation, Ranford’s face showed his defeat. Shaking his head, he said, “It should’ve been easy.” The Senator, now looking noticeably older, rambled on, describing a somewhat loose plan to effect the very land takeover that Granger Lestly had described. His attempt to close the Sonora reservation had failed when the appropriations bill, to which he’d attached his amendment, was defeated. He was about to attach it to a land use bill but hadn’t yet.