Free California Bloodstock by Terry McDonell Page B

like a fine and violent lace.
    He had left Zorro in a deserted Worm-Eater camp near the Mission San Antonio de Padua, which was now for sale. The old hero had insisted on keeping track of prospective buyers, hoping no doubt to run into some old ghosts. It was the ghosts that had started to trouble Peach. Zorro was always talkingabout them; and worse, talking to them. Was that where
duende
led? Duende, that mysterious and ineffable charm of the good outlaw that Zorro more than anyone else had once defined. You sure as hell couldn’t spend duende, couldn’t even buy an old broken-down mission with it. Poor Zorro, he should have planned ahead. Shit, Peach thought, and here I am in this shit hole. To improve his mood, he went looking to get laid.
    —
    Interesting, how all living things seem to suffer postcoital depression, a sadness that sneaks in even after the most brightly colored of screws. Old T. D. Slant made a note of it. He was poised on all fours in his suite at Cargo West, once again squinting through his favorite peephole.
    In the room below he could see Joaquin Peach stretched out across the bed like some deposed prince of love. Less than an hour earlier the roto had stomped into Cargo West like a conquistadore just returned from El Dorado with the loot. He had swaggered up to the bar and bellowed intentions to satisfy his various and wide-ranging carnal needs in every imaginable rut. It was then that old T. D. had bought him a drink of encouragement and hurried eagerly to his vantage points on the floor above. What a disappointment.
    After less than an hour of undistinguished diddling with a perfectly capable and enterprising young Worm Eater, Joaquin Peach was deep in a funk. He was down, way down, but not because he had performed poorly. For the satisfaction of theWorm Eater he cared zero. Let her go squat on an anthill. What bothered him was something, shall we say, more universal. He had not been doing well in California so far and this weighed heavily upon him now that his balls were empty. What would Pizarro have done? Joaquin Peach rose from the bed. He dressed slowly, covering his body and, he hoped, his doubts with the care of a matador about to enter the ring. Then he smiled sadly at the Worm Eater and, pants billowing, went back to the bar.
    Old T. D. Slant was about to call it a night himself when another man eased into the room. A tall man with a close-clipped beard and nervous hands poking out of stiff-boiled cuffs. Slant recognized him with hand-rubbing relish. It was Brannan.
    The Mormon captain examined the sad-eyed little Worm Eater on the bed with clinical thoroughness. He traced and probed his way over her body from top to bottom. He turned her over on her stomach and kneaded her smooth round ass. He turned her over on her back once again and, taking hold of her ankles, spread her legs.
    Old T. D. could no longer see Brannan’s face. The Mormon had dropped to his knees at the foot of the bed and was groaning between the Worm Eater’s thighs. Old T. D. was beside himself with the possibilities. His mind churned in syncopation with Brannan’s bobbing head. By chance his eyes wandered up to the Worm Eater’s face. It was a mistake. Her eyes grew wider and moved across the ceiling. She locked on Slant’s peephole like a timid animal frozen by a torch in the night.
    Slant was pinned. He felt tied to all women like the tail of a falling kite.
39
Taya
    Dwarf shrubforms clustered here and there in tight packs on the grey underslope of the Tehachapi Mountains. In the moonlight their shadows seemed almost human, apelike, an army of monkeys or midgets standing guard in the night. Taya’s mind was a cold garden. She dreamed of growing things, shapes and textures pushing and sliding against each other, trying to break free. And all around her she felt the large movements of men and horses. When they began looking for her she woke up.
    She looked across the dying fire at T. D. Jr. He was wide awake,