Chapter 6

Antonia entered the glass-enclosed portal at the back of the house from shadows of the yard, closed the door, pressed her face to glass, staring but into the night. In the front rooms beyond several bedrooms, a kitchen and dining room, she heard music and the loud rhythms of a Spanish guitar. Jimby and his stereo! she thought. She'd noticed a glow from star-lit scrub and pinon trees, that disgusting mound of wrecked cars, as she'd moved silently through them to the light from the glass-enclosed room Scott had built for Rosabel.

The room was moistly warm, heavy with the scent of flowers hung in wooden baskets, a rack of African violets sleeping in rays from fluorescent bars. As she bent over the violets, the roar of a gun rattled the glass sections and, body stiffening, she jerked around to stare out into the night again. Will it never stop? Oh, God, please make it stop!! She knew it must be her brothers harassing that poor Mister Lambert. As she strode angrily to a door, shoved it open, through a dark kitchen into a long hallway dimly lighted, along it past bedrooms to a living room, she heard someone laughing and noise from the stereo grew louder.

She stared at Jimby dancing by himself in the middle of the room. "Where are Hilario and Valentine?"

The boy did not seem to hear, continued wiggling his body to the twang of a guitar. Antonia walked to the stereo cabinet switched off the tape. "I said, where are Hilario and Valentine? Where is Scott?"

Large black eyes glared at her as Jimby stopped dancing. "You're not allowed to mess around with my stereo. You shouldn't have done that, Antonia, it makes me mad. I'll tell Mama."

Swiveling him around, she shook him roughly. "Where did they go?"

"Mama won't like you pounding on me." He pushed her aside, ran for the front door; as he jerked it open, Jimby turned around to glower at her. "You stay in here, there's trouble outside," and he ducked out the door into shadows.

She walked along the hallway, paused at an open bedroom door, spoke in Spanish, "Where is Mama?"

Nemecio lay propped up by pillows in a big canopied bed, light from a pink-shaded lamp flooding his gnarled features. He said in Spanish, from pages of a newspaper he was reading, "That is none of your concern, daughter. Go back to your flowers." His small black eyes peered at her behind grimy glasses. "It's that fool Anglo's fault," and he laughed, choked on phlegm, spat into a Kleenex from a box on the bedside table. "Your brothers are taking care of him!"

Being a proper Spanish daughter, Antonia did not dare question him further but moved slowly into the room. "Did you hear a shot a moment ago?"

The old man cackled. "You think I'm deaf or something? Of course I heard a shot!" He slid lower in the bed, raised the newspaper. "The Holy Virgin has answered my prayer."

Antonia strode quickly from the room, walked into the dark kitchen. Where is Scott? Lighting an overhead globular shade of white plastic, she crossed to the stove, turned up the gas under a mottled-blue coffee pat, took a cup and saucer from a shelf. Holding them, she moved to the kitchen window, pressed her face to the cold glass, then heard the roar of a truck's motor. Headlights beamed into her eyes, swerved, and a car drove at high speed past the house.

Again the terrified thought surged in her mind.

Where is Scott?

Dropping the cup and saucer on a table, she raced along the hallway to the glass-enclosed portal room, slipped through a side door; now the night seemed blacker than before. She knew the rutted road too well to fear stumbling, walked quickly along it and the barbed-wire fence; ahead, she saw light in the trailer windows. Eyes concentrating on the light she stumbled over something in the road, gasped. Kneeling, she felt blindly, touched wet matter and shattered bone; although she could not see a face she knew it was Scott not Evan Lambert.

Valentine said, "He's coming around," shifted Evan's head on his shoulder, stared at his brother's grim face. "Like I said, if he'd croaked, you'd get the chair."

Hilario kept his eyes on the road sweeping towards the truck and under its wheels. "Don't scare me none. In case you've forgotten, there's no death penalty in this state." He laughed. "Don't have to remind you neither what Papa's instructions would be or what you gotta do, follow?"

"Sure I follow, and I dig your stupid hatred of Anglos, too. I don't agree with you and Mama. Is that why you despise me?"

Switching his black eyes to stare at his brother for a moment then back to the road Hilario muttered. "I don't despise you, just think you're stupid and weak, conned by the Anglos into believing what they claim."

"And what is that?"

"Don't put me on, man! They think they're superior to anyone with skin a darker color than theirs!"

Valentine stared at him. "Mama and I have the same skin, lighter than yours and Antonia's. Does that mean we're aliens, according to your theory?" Cursing loudly, Hilario gripped the wheel, spun it, turning the truck onto a dirt road. "I'm head of the family and you do as I tell you. I'll not hurt the Goddamn Anglo any more than necessary. I give you my word on it, okay?"

Pine and pinon trees close to the road formed a solid wall of darkness as the truck bounded over deep mud furrows; headlights swerved, illuminating the startled body of a deer. The animal raced off through the trees, scattering snow from branches. Slowing, Hilario guided the truck along a narrower road, pine boughs scratching the car top and whipping snow against the windshield. Evan moaned, shifted his body on the seat, opened his eyes.

Valentine said to him, "Take it easy, Mister Lambert, we're almost there. How's your head feel?"

He touched his forehead and the wet bruise, stared at snow outside a window. His skull was numb but not painful and he couldn't seem to think about where he was nor with whom. "Where we going, fellows?" Evan muttered.

Hilario laughed. "Me and my brother are taking you to our Pecos cabin." He switched a grinning face to stare at Evan. "Don't you remember shooting Scott in the head?"

Valentine said, "Shut up, Hil. You didn't shoot him, Mister Lambert. We don't know who did. My brother's lying."

As he shook his head, brain matter seemed to rattle in his skull; a peculiar whistling noise filled his ears. The peyote? He tried to fit the pieces together... Let's see. I left the trailer and...? All that remained of the previous hours was whirling nebulae of stars, spinning planets, a gaseous spiral of universes. Evan wondered, vaguely, who these two men were, couldn't seem to recall names or what his relationship to them might be. A name sprang into his head. Jimby. Frowning, he considered the name and it appeared to mean nothing.

Misty veils in his mind seem to shift, alter, become less blurred, and moving towards him is a tall, lithe, boyish figure which reminds him of someone he knows.

At narrow hips, skin is the color of pale almonds, but the color changes to bronze on the naked torso and well-formed, muscular thighs, the slim ankles and feet. A twisted mouth and red lips that hang open smile at him crazily; black eyes stare at him vacantly as if not seeing him. Trying to indicate he is a friend, he moves closer to the boy.

A tiny cock hung between naked thighs rises as he stares at it. The boy looks down as if fascinated by this object, lips still hanging open stupidly, saliva drooling from them. He does not seem to understand why the small prick jerks and slowly hardens, looks at it from blank, lusterless eyes.

He moves to place an arm around the boy's shoulders, embraces him, feeling the sweat on bronzed skin, sharp tips of erect nipples, downy hairs on the boyish chest. Then, sliding the palm of his hand over a flat damp belly, he fingers wet pubes, touches the cock with fingertips, stares at those black, empty eyes. The boy grins foolishly, glances down at the hand on his cock, giggles.

He says, almost screaming the words, "Jimby oh, God, Jimby."

Sinking to his knees before that beautiful body, he stares up at a contorted face and empty black eyes, moans, "Oh, God!" as he crushes his mouth to a boyish belly, clamps his arms tightly around loved hips and cheeks of an ass, moans again, "No... oh, God, no!"

Jimby stands impassive, unreacting, emotionless. Only his blank eyes yield to a brief glitter of recognition as he mutters, "Leave my Goddamn dick alone." The voice in Evan's eyes, not the voice he loves, is old, guttural.

Frantically, he tries by embracing the slim body to bring the boy back, return that dull mind, grips the small, flaccid cock in his hand, caresses it gently, eyes still on the boy's face above him. "What are you doing?" the dull, guttural voice demands, and Jimby jerks his hand away, stares at it wonderingly. "You eat gism?" He adds, "Shall I jerk off?"

Now, he understands. The boy has escaped to some cloudy place where he'll never be able to rescue him from, stares horrified at that vacant face, the dangling cock, is shoved roughly as Jimby snarls again, "Leave my Goddamn dick alone, cocksucker."

Horror forced him to open his eyelids, which had not been shut his eyes merely blinded by the images in his mind. Jerking his head from side to side, he stared at a profile on his right, a face on his left. "Who are you?"

"Jesus!" Valentine breathed in a panicky voice, "you turned this dude into a Goddamn zombie, Hil." He leaned forward to stare into Evan's eyes.

"Don't you know who I am, Mister Lambert?"

The voice seemed familiar. "Uh..." he tried, feeling rather stupid, "I suppose I do." He stopped speaking. God, what's happening to me? Sweat dampened his forehead and, like a blinding light, another name appeared. "Rosabel," he said blankly.

Breath rasping from dry lips, Antonia ran to the trailer, around to the door, flung open the screen. Shiny new black-and-white tiles reflected light in her eyes and, moaning, she stepped inside, walked to a small bedroom; a tensor lamp glowed from a shelf above a rumpled bed but the bedroom, like the bath, was empty. Returning to the kitchen section, she glanced down at a Formica-topped table. Scott's gold Ronson lighter lay next to two perforated cans of beer.

As she ran back along the rutted road toward the house, she kept repeating in her mind, He's not dead, not dead! meaning the Anglo, not Scott Michaels; there'd been no possible doubt about her husband being quite dead. Sounds of the stereo swirled from the house as she ran into the cluttered yard, jerked open the door. There were two people in the room with Jimby, who danced to the music as before, completely absorbed by his own body's sensuous movements. A taunting voice said, "So, Antonia, you killed him at last."

At the far end of the large living room, Merlinda sat in the window seat. She smiled as Antonia stared at her, shifted her eyes to Rosabel sitting in a high-backed chair. "She killed him, didn't she, Mother? Tell her she killed him."

"Silence!" The word exploded in the room. Rosabel glanced at her daughter from half-closed eyelids. "It is finished."

The coldly aristocratic face did not alter, remained impassive. "You will say nothing, Antonia. Your husband was murdered by the Anglo." She swiveled in the chair to stare at Merlinda. "But I'll not have you telling me what I must do. Now..." and her black, shrewd eyes returned to Antonia, "when the police come, you will say what I instruct you to say. Is that clear?"

Moving swiftly to the high-backed chair, Antonia gripped her hands, jerked the older woman from the chair roughly. "What is Hilario doing to him? Answer me!"

The black eyes stared up into her face venomously. "The Bible tells us to take a tooth for a tooth. Hilario will force a confession of guilt from the Anglo, call the police." Rosabel glanced at Jimby, now motionless and listening, wrenched her hands from Antonia's grasp, walked to him.

"Do not be frightened, Jaime Bernardo," she murmured as she hugged him. "I will never let them harm you, child."

Antonia said in a low voice as she moved towards them, "What do you mean, Mama?"

"Leave the boy alone!" Rosabel commanded, kissed Jimby's startled face, murmuring once more, "I will never let them hurt you, child."

Antonia's face became pale as she turned to stare at Merlinda Maes in the window seat. "You know... just as Mama knows... Mister Lambert didn't kill Scott!" Her eyes returned to stare at her brother; Jimby cowered, whimpering under those blazing eyes. "Which of you killed him?" Antonia hissed and, hearing her mother gasp, advanced on the boy and woman holding him protectively in her arms.

They dragged him between them along a snow-covered path, a bridge spanning a small stream, to a cabin. As they held him upright, the other unlocked a door with a key, reached inside to switch on lights. They pushed him inside, closed the door.

It was a large, rough beamed room with a fieldstone fireplace at an end, animal skins on walls, a wrought-iron chandelier in a high ceiling; he gazed around like a child. (How did I got here?) The taller of the two men muttered words to the other men, moved to the far side of the room and a bar under a wooden balcony. Evan heard the clatter of glass, something being poured, stood there waiting, watched as the other man (the one with nicer eyes... What is his name?) ambled to him, a glass in his hand. "Drink this, Mister Lambert." The taste was unfamiliar, odd, but he assumed it was liquor; the sting of ice on his tongue was refreshing. (What do these guys want?) Strangely, there was no feeling of fear in the numbness of his head, his only tension the threat of the intangible. He thought about that for a moment, gave up trying to fathom this mystery, smiled at the one with nice eyes who'd handed him the glass.

The brown eyes staring back at him seemed to hold, he thought, a hidden entreaty, as if tying to say something to him. He stared at a dome of balding hair, also light-brown, and a name surfaced in his clouded brain. "What are you doing here, Valentine?"

The one behind the bar said, "Well, at least he remembers who you are," and Evan heard a barking sound which might have been laughter. "We'll keep him here in the cabin until he gets over whatever ails him, make him sign the paper, okay?"

The balding man muttered, "God, but you're heartless! Can't you see the poor bastard's out of his fucking head?"

"Like hell he is!" the second voice scoffed. "What do ya wanta bet he's putting us on?" The voice came nearer as it added, "Right, Lambert? You can hear and understand every word I'm saying? Answer me, you Goddamn pervert." (That filthy word! he reacted furiously, raised the glass as if to throw it at that grinning, evil face, as he thought: He's the one you hate! But, instead of doing anything, he lowered the glass again, felt foolish.)

Howling with laughter, Hilario grinned at his brother. "See what I mean? So you're a pushover for cocksuckers, aren't you?" He drained his glass, returned to the bar, refilled it. "Now, you listen to me," the voice continued, "I'm going through with our plan and I don't give a damn what you do! The Anglo will sign this paper if I have to cut off his balls to make him!"

The voice nearer Evan, "I'll not stand for any torture, get that through your thick head I agreed to help you get him up here to the cabin, but damned if I'll stand by and watch you hurt him!"

"Just try to stop me." The man strode from behind the bar and the smell of a hot breath and garlic came close to Evan's face. "Don't you count on my weak-ass brother helping you, pervert!"

"Hey stop tugging at my clothes! What are you doing, for chrissakes? No... I said, NO!"

Smashing the glass at that evil, grinning face, he jumped back, whirled on the other man, put space between them. Like a curtain parting, synapses in his brain closed, flashing: You are in danger? And with the sudden clearing of his mind, he knew where he was, who these men were, what they intended. Eyes swiveling from one to the other, he shouted, "Away from me, you Goddamn Mexican bastards."

A fist at the end of a muscular bare arm clouted the side of his head; the pleasant numb feeling took him once more.

Two, or -- he isn't certain -- perhaps three naked bodies lie beside him on a bed. Wherever this place is, smells of sex permeate a room -- or is it a room?

Slowly raising, he stares down. Alex, of his manuscript, looks up at him with deep-blue eyes. The nameless boy, shaggy curled blond hair veiling a face, smiles. The third naked body appears featureless, and, as he leans closer, wondering if the third body is Jimby's, he jerks back his head. Hilario rolls over, grins up at him.

The Spanish-American rises massively, his enormous chest black with wet hair, belly slick and sweaty, pubes glued around the base of a huge dark-skinned cock. The other two lie watching as he stands over them, hips jutting forward in a macho stance, hairy thighs, tensed cheeks of an ass, quivering. He glares down at Alex and the unnamed boy, kicks them brutally with a bare foot, and, laughing, turns his eyes to Evan, hawks spit, spews it out at his face. The glob splatters his eyes, and, as he claws at them, he starts to crawl to his knees.

Quickly, Hilario mounts his ass, forcing his face to the surface under them, grips his hips in thick fingers, and hot breath fans the nape of his neck as the man leans in savagely. Teeth bite skin on his neck; shuddering, he tries to free himself from the slippery body holding him, as hands reach under his spread asscheeks, grip hanging balls, squeeze roughly. A thick, rock-hard object is plunged into his asshole.

As he slumps forward under the brutal weight, cruel hands hold his ass pressed tightly to plunging thighs; he hears grunting noises, and hot breath shivers across his shoulders. Head dangling forward, he opens his eyes; agony in his ass with that mammoth object fucking him has caused them to water, and he looks blearily down to see Alex lying under him, cock rigid from a naked belly, its head dripping milky come. Hilario rams hard, pushes with a violent shove and Evan's face, dangling lower, touches the cock and hot come. As it does, the cock erupts again with a stream of gism.

Hands jerk his body up high, and, fucking him rapidly, Hilario buries the cock deep, lifts him until his head hangs above Alex. Now, the unnamed boy crawls in, tongue extended, licks at milky come splattered on Alex's belly; then he turns to grin up at Evan, who hears Alex's moan as Hilario reaches under Evan's spread ass to grab the dark-haired man's dripping dick, wrench it ferociously. The unnamed boy laughs.

Jerking Evan erect, but still fucking his ass, the Spanish-American forces him to take the boy's cock as he stands in front of them; fingers pry his lips open and the cock is rammed into his mouth; the plunging movements of both bodies explode in his ears as they squash him between them.

Alex seems to surround the three struggling bodies, like flame; Evan glows incandescently, alight with body heat which consumes him. Sweat, coursing over the four naked bodies, pools around his knees; he hears Hilario's loud laugh, the unnamed boy's giggle, and Alex grunts, then moans again, as gism spurts from his cock.

They roll together, that enormous cock still plunged in Evan's ass, his mouth plugged with another, his lips straining on the thick cockshaft, its taste smoky, fetid, sour with gism. He imagines he is screaming, but that would be impossible with the mammoth cock which blocks his throat and hairy balls muffling his mouth.

The rod fucking him burrows further, touches his prostate, and, hips spasming, he jerks back to meet the punishing thrusts as Hilario's breath, hotly moist on the nape of his neck, seems to burn his skin. He hears low growling noises, grunts and moans. The hips beating against his ass work faster as grunts and growling noises increase, become snarled roars. The cock in his mouth expands as hands tear roughly at his body; he hears a moan from Alex, a giggle from the unnamed boy, and the four become a throbbing mass of twisted legs and arms, faces contorted and dripping with sweat, mouths sucking, teeth biting.

With a loud roar, Hilario plunges forward; the cock deep in his ass explodes in a wave of thick, mucousy gism that seems to fill every crevice of his body; the convulsing member in his throat shoots a stream of come into him. He is buried under three stinking bodies, sinks further, then loses consciousness.

The highway from the city to the Pecos mountains was more crowded. Cars, roaring along four lanes in both directions, carried home-bound citizens oblivious to the dangers of careless driving.

Antonia, a skilled driver, drove cautiously but at traffic pace, and paid little attention to her mother's commands for more speed, although rather astonished by Rosabel's concern over what might be happening to the Anglo. Merlinda sat mutely on the back seat of the Pontiac, had said nothing since they'd dragged her from the house and into the car. Now, a dry, flat voice spoke from darkness behind them as flashing car headlights lit their faces, "May I inform you two, if you are worried about my version of Scott's death to the police, you have very good reason? I cannot condone murder no matter who did it, do you hear me?"

A small black cigar in her lips, smoke trailing from her nostrils, Rosabel said in a low, even voice, "You will do no such thing, Merlinda. You will keep that foolish mouth of yours shut as I command you to do. I will talk with the police."

As Antonia swerved the car into a rutted dirt road, ground on either side heaped with snow, she said, "Then who killed him?"

"Scott was an accident, his death unavoidable, and, if anything has happened to the Anglo in the Pecos cabin, that too, will have been accidental."

The aristocratic, Spanish face smiled grimly, eyes straight ahead on a curving track through dense growths of snow-covered pine trees. Rosabel nodded her head. "That is the way it will end."