The Fire of Greed (2 page)

Chapter 1

“FINE DAY, SEÑOR DOCTOR,” THE YOUNG MAN IN THE VIRTUALLY SPOTLESS WHITE SHIRT SAID WITH A SMILE, AS HE
entered the low-ceilinged adobe building a short distance from the Plaza in the center of Santa Fe.

“That it is, lad,” said the older man with his boots resting comfortably on his desk. “That it is. I 'spect we'll be getting a bit of heat this afternoon, though.”

“
Sí
, señor doctor, I 'spect you are right.”

“Let me compliment you on your rapidly expanding English skills,” the older man said.

“
Muchas gracias . . .
um . . . Thank you very much, señor doctor.”

As the teenager took out a broom and began sweeping the office of the coroner of New Mexico's territorial capital, Amos Richardson turned his attention back to the pages of the
Santa Fe New Mexican
, the newspaper that rightfully boasted of being the oldest English-language daily between the Mississippi River and the Pacific coast.

Today, as for most days the past year, the news was dominated by the coming of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Building westward from Atchison, Kansas, the road had put “Santa Fe” in its name as a goal, but it had taken a dozen years and a full-blown war of intrigue, chicanery, and bloodshed against the rival Denver & Rio Grande Western up in Colorado in order for it finally to come close to its namesake.

It was 1880, and the great tide of civilization was stretching its tendrils far into the West, and these were the steel tendrils of the railroads. By now, the westward spread of that tide had more or less tamed places such as Denver and Cheyenne, linking them to Chicago or Omaha by a matter of days, rather than weeks or months.

Now it was the turn of Santa Fe to be joined to the nation by these arteries of steel. When Richardson had first come to New Mexico Territory on the Santa Fe Trail, it took around two months for a wagon train to get out here from Kansas City. With the railroad, the same trip could be completed in a few days.

Ironically, for reasons best understood by the civil engineers who surveyed the route, the railroad didn't actually pass through Santa Fe, but through the town of Lamy, a dozen miles south. However, even as the branch line into the city was still being built, Santa Fe was starting to feel the full effect of its connection to the rest of the country.

“Domingo, the railroad will change everything,” the coroner said with a burst of civic pride.

“
Sí
, doctor.” The boy smiled. The blank look in his cheerful eyes revealed that he had no idea what Richardson meant. In all his life, he had not been farther than a day's ride from where he now stood. Nor had he ever seen a railroad or a locomotive, except as a line illustration in the pages of the
Santa Fe New Mexican
. Nevertheless, he knew that the railroad was something that pleased his boss, so it was something that pleased him as well.

Amos Richardson took pride in his adopted city. He had long been one of Santa Fe's prominent men, a far cry from the refugee he had been when he arrived after the war. A military man who had served in a losing army, he had left a place where he knew he had no future to seek a fresh future in the ambiguous West, a place whose vastness promised much, but
almost always
delivered on the promise of a fresh start.

Richardson had found his own fresh start here in this long-established island of civilization at the intersection of the Santa Fe Trail and the old Spanish trail coming north from Mexico. Santa Fe was already the capital of Nuevo Mexico when the Pilgrims were still struggling in the wilderness in what was not yet Massachusetts. By its nature as a crossroads with a history stretching back for a quarter of a millennium, Santa Fe had always been a city of immigrants and drifters. Some came as wanderers and continued their wandering. Some came as wanderers and stayed on. Dr. Amos Richardson came, and he stayed.

The turnover in doctors provided opportunities, but irregular income. The turnover in coroners provided a
dependable
income, and a place of prominence in the political hierarchy of the city and the territory. The onetime refugee physician was now the sort of prominent citizen who could honestly welcome a connection to the nation that had defeated his own nation in the war.

He was no stranger to the inner circle, and occasionally the poker table, of Governor Lew Wallace, who had worn general's stars and a blue uniform at the same time that Richardson was wearing gray. Such was the nature of the melting pot of dissolved past affiliations that was Santa Fe.

“Dr. Richardson, señor.” Domingo interrupted, stepping into his boss's office. “There's a gringo. . . umm. . . a man who wants to see you.”

Richardson glanced out the window. He could make out a rider on horseback. He made a mental note to have Domingo fetch a pail of water and wash the windows.

He rose from his chair and stepped out onto the street.

“You must be the coroner,” the stranger asserted.

“You would be correct in that assumption, sir,” Richardson replied, both refreshed and taken aback by the man's directness. This man's eyes were alert and piercing, but otherwise, his appearance was that of a disheveled vagabond who had seen neither razor nor bathwater in a week.

“I've got a couple of customers for you,” the man explained, nodding to the two horses he led. The clouds of flies that swarmed about the bundle tied to each of the saddles told the coroner that the contents of the canvas-wrapped parcels had once been animate.

“Domingo, could you lend a hand?” Richardson said, stepping close to inspect the stranger's cargo.

The man dismounted, secured the horses to the nearest hitchrail, and helped Richardson and his assistant carry the bodies inside to the coroner's workroom.

“Domingo, you'd better go for some ice,” Richardson said as he directed the stranger to help him place one of the parcels on a specialized table that had obviously been the interim resting place for innumerable such objects before.

Richardson gave a cursory glance at the bullet wound to the chest, and probed it with a long, shiny metal tool.

“Won't need an autopsy to determine cause of death,” the coroner said casually. “How did you come to be in possession of Mr. Doe here?”

“His name is Griffith,” the stranger said, handing Richardson a folded piece of paper.

“So I see,” Richardson said, comparing the picture and description on the wanted poster to the man lying on his table. “Healed scar in the shape of a V on the left cheek . . . receding hairline. Yes, this is Mr. Griffith.”

“I've got papers on the other one too,” the stranger confirmed.

“I have no doubt you do.” Richardson nodded. “You still haven't told me how you came by these gentlemen, although by my observation of that weapon on your hip, I could venture a guess.”

“I have papers on that as well,” the stranger said.

“Of that I have no doubt.” The coroner chuckled as the man handed him a warrant. He needed only to glance at the papers to see that they authorized one Bladen Cole to apprehend the two men and return them to Durango, Colorado—dead or alive.

“This warrant's been issued up in Colorado,” Richardson said, handing the warrant back to Cole. “Why did you bring them here?”

“Would you want to be spending four days on the trail in this heat with this rotten cargo?” Cole asked, obviously stifling a grin. “A signed and notarized death certificate is the next best thing. And it saves the authorities up in Durango the cost and aggravation of putting 'em in the ground.”

“You know the law, Mr. Cole,” Richardson said, kneeling to take a look at the face of the second man and to compare his observations to the picture on the second wanted poster. The missing front teeth and the long-healed scar tissue left no doubt.

“Used to wear a badge,” Cole said, in reply to the coroner's observation.

“And now you ply the trade of a bounty hunter.”

“Don't like being too long in one place.”

“What was her name?” Richardson asked with a smile.

“Sally Lovelace,” Cole answered with a startled expression. “How'd you know about . . . ?”

“Been around a bit, sir. Lots of men wander and some settle down. When a man who's settled . . . in a lawman's job for instance . . . starts wandering again, nine times out of ten, there's a woman involved.”

By now, Domingo had returned with a wheelbarrow full of ice, and he helped Richardson slide the two corpses through a trapdoor and down a wooden slide which led to a cool subterranean cellar. The younger man then disappeared with the wheelbarrow through a door at the end of the room. Cole could hear the sounds far below of ice being dumped into a metal tub as Richardson slammed the trapdoor.

“Miss Lovelace is none of my business,” Richardson said as he pumped some water into a large metal sink and rinsed his hands. Without asking, he filled a metal cup with water and handed it to Cole. There was no need to ask.

Nor was there need for Cole to ask as he handed the cup back to the coroner for a refill.

When Domingo reappeared, Richardson sent him to fetch the justice of the peace, and invited Cole into his office.

“Have a seat while I fill out the death forms on these two,” he said as he rustled in a desk drawer. “We'll get the J.P. over here to view the deceased and sign off, and you'll have what you need to go over yonder to the county clerk to get your death certificates.”

“Feels good to sit down in something other than a saddle,” Cole said, removing his hat and wiping his brow with his bandanna.

“I can't help but detect a trace of the Old Dominion in your accent, Mr. Cole,” Richardson said, glancing up from his paperwork.

“I had you pegged for a Virginian yourself, Doc,” Cole replied.

“Fauquier County,” the coroner nodded.

“Caroline County.”

“Were you in the war?” Richardson asked.

“Too young, really,” Cole explained. At the time, he had longed to be old enough to wear gray and fight for Virginia, but over time, his perspective had changed, as it might be expected to change the more one meets men who are making do with one arm, one leg, or other battle damage. “I rode in a couple of raids, but not until it was almost over. I didn't turn seventeen till '65. My brother enlisted in '64. I rode with him a few times, but I was never in uniform. What about you?”

“Yes, I was.” The older man nodded. “I was a doctor at the time, practicing in Warrenton. Virginia needed doctors. I volunteered. Served as the surgeon with the 7th Virginia Cavalry. Company A, the Fauquier Mountain Rangers. Served under Turner Ashby.”

“That's a well-known name.” Cole nodded, recognizing the celebrated Virginia cavalry commander.

“I was with him when he died at Harrisonburg,” Richardson nodded. “At his side . . . couldn't do anything. He was too far gone.”

“Been out West long?” Cole asked.

“Came out in late '65.” The coroner nodded. “There just wasn't any future in Virginia.”

“What was her name?” Cole smiled.

Richardson looked stunned for a split second, then he too smiled.

“Touché, Mr. Cole,” he said, glancing back at the paperwork that he was filling out.

“Did those gentlemen put up much of a fight?” Richardson asked, changing the subject.

“That was their intention,” Cole confirmed. “One of 'em drew his gun. The other had hold of a Mexican girl so I had to aim a little more carefully.”

“I have to commend you, Mr. Cole.”

“How so?”

“Single kill shot to each,” Richardson said, nodding in the general direction of his cellar morgue. “You certainly know your trade. As you can imagine, I see a great many gunfight deaths crossing my table. Bloody mess, most of 'em.”

“Only takes one shot to kill a man.” Cole nodded. “I don't care to do more than is necessary. Truth be told, I wanted to take 'em alive. I caught up to 'em at Pagosa Springs, but figured it would be a helluva shootout, so I let 'em calm down and waited until Arroyo Blanco. Oh well . . . at least nobody else got hurt.”

“What about the Mexican girl?”

“She got a fright she won't soon forget.” Cole shrugged. “But she had nary a scratch otherwise.”

“You work clean,” Richardson commented. “Sign of professionalism, I 'spect.”

Cole just shrugged.

“I knew a bounty hunter a few years back who favored the use of a shotgun,” Richardson continued.

“Reckon that's what you mean by messy.”

“Not like what I saw in the war, but often a helluva mess.”

“Shotgun's exceptional for intimidation,” Cole replied. “It'll scare the bejesus out of somebody. Also good if you aren't a good shot, or if you don't care which innocent parties might catch some stray buckshot. Otherwise the only thing a bird gun is good for is hunting birds.”