The Widow's Revenge (8 page)

MOON STALKED
into the ranch headquarters parlor, mumbled an incoherent greeting to Sarah and Daisy, and headed upstairs—as his aunt would later say, “stomping snakes all the way.”

The women stared at the empty space in his wake, flinched at the slam of his office door.

Sarah’s unwrinkled brow came very near furrowing.
I’ve never seen Charlie so upset. Well, except for that time Aunt Daisy got him so mad about . . .
But such unhappy incidents were best forgotten.

Daisy Perika glared.
I bet one of his precious cows fell over and died.
But she knew how remarkably resilient her nephew was, and what a potent cure delicious food could be for a man who was out of sorts.
When we sit down to try that green chili pork posole that me and Sarah cooked up, he’ll feel lots better and tell us all about his troubles.

Charlie Moon was not in the mood for pork.

But, as it happened, the meaty issue was academic. He would not come downstairs on that Saturday evening. Not even for supper.

WHICH IS WHAT CHARLIE MOON WAS SUFFERING FROM. ALSO
. . .
GUILT.

About two hours before dawn, the restless man finally gave up, rolled out of bed, and dressed from his heels to the crown of his head. He stepped quietly out of his upstairs bedroom and onto the hardwood-floored hallway, made his way just as softly down the carpeted stairway, and eased himself out the front door without (he hoped) disturbing the ladies whom (he believed) were fast asleep in their downstairs bedrooms.

Both were wide awake, worrying about the most important man in their lives.

Tired of lying on her back, Daisy turned onto her right side.
I’ve never seen Charlie so down in the mouth that he went into hiding and wouldn’t even come out for supper. And now he’s sneaked out of his own house.
The old woman turned onto her left side and sighed.
One of his friends must’ve died.
But who? And then it came to her:
Maybe something bad happened to Loyola.

Sarah Frank stared at the beamed ceiling.
I wonder where he’s off to?
Salty tears filled her eyes.
If Charlie loved me even a little bit, he’d tell me about his troubles.

Outside in the chilly night, Moon was trolling the depths of his dismal thoughts.
I should’ve realized right away that Loyola was in serious trouble.
He fixed his gaze on a thin sliver of silvery moon.
Once upon a time, I was a halfway decent cop.
His dark face was set like flint.
But those days are gone.
The tribal investigator’s fingers found the gold shield that was still pinned to his white shirt.
I don’t deserve to wear this.
He knew what he had to do.
I’ll drive down to Ignacio tomorrow and toss this badge on the tribal chairman’s desk
. But wait a minute.
This
is
tomorrow.
It wouldn’t be long before morning would dawn over the highlands.
The chairman wouldn’t be in his office today. . . .
But I’ll find Oscar Sweetwater, wherever he is—and turn in my badge.

He slipped into his Expedition, shut the door with as little noise as possible, and eased the Columbine flagship over the Too Late Creek bridge slowly so that the rattling of redwood planks would not disturb anyone’s slumbers. An ailing Dolly Bushman especially needed her rest, and the foreman’s residence was just on the other side of the bridge.

The drive south to the reservation would take the Ute through Granite Creek, where most of the population would still be asleep. It would also take him through one of the finest stretches of God’s creation, which was just what he needed. Breakfast would also be good for what ailed him and steaming-hot coffee would sure hit the spot, but a stone-quiet early-morning drive with blue-gray granite mountains soaring heavenward at every direction is a tonic that tends to clear a man’s head of musty cobwebs and other debris. Mile by mile, the troublesome stirrings in Moon’s mind gradually subsided. Halfway to town, he began to feel tolerably better.
What I need is some useful work to do.
Like getting a line on Loyola’s grandson.
If I could track Wallace Montoya down, he might be able to tell us something about those so-called witches.

By the time Moon passed the Granite Creek city-limits sign, first light was beginning to glow over the mountains and the lean fellow who had skipped supper last night was beginning to feel a dim glimmering of appetite.
I’ll stop at Chicky’s Daylight Bakery for coffee and doughnuts.
But it has been said, and truly, that men do not live by bread alone; Moon needed nourishment for his soul. Feeling the deep ache of that hunger, the Ute realized that this was the dawn of a Sunday morning. After refreshment at Chicky’s, the lifelong Catholic would attend early-morning Mass at St. Anthony’s, which was about six blocks from the doughnut dispensary.

CHIEF OF
Police Scott Parris was also feeling a deep ache, but this one was of a purely physiological nature. A dull throb in his left arm was troubling his sleep. As if reeled in by the persistent pain, the ardent angler drifted ever so slowly upward from the muck of a deep, murky river.
Just above his buoyant spirit, warm sunlight glistened invitingly on a rippled surface. There, the dreamer would be freed from dark fantasies to encounter a new day.

He almost made it.

Poor fellow apparently got snagged on something or other. The sinister, irresistible undertow pulled him away toward one of those epochs labeled “Way Back When.”

The summer of 1877.

But where? In this instance, a location where justice was dispensed with a lusty vengeance. Granite Creek, Colorado.

Episode Two
The Holiday

It was his dream, and U.S. Marshal Scott Parris was the center of attention again. But even for a man with more than a fair share of ego, being center stage was not particularly gratifying. Local citizens who had never seen a lawman hanged had arrived in a great swarm, like green-flies that had picked up the scent of dead flesh.

Almost three hundred curious spectators had arrived on foot, half again as many on horseback, and several dozen had shown up in heavy mule-drawn wagons or fine carriages hitched to high-stepping horses.

The crowd had gathered in front of the courthouse to witness his execution at the Hanging Tree—a hideously deformed old cottonwood. To facilitate the day’s big event, a stout lower branch had been sawed off to a sturdy six-foot projection, which the hangman had notched with a hatchet to receive the rope.

The fact that he was seated backward on a white, pink-eyed mule, with his hands tied behind his back, made it difficult for the prisoner to retain even a semblance of dignity. But Scott Parris did his level best. The cold-eyed U.S. marshal sneered at the offer of a last cigarette. Ditto for a stiff shot of rye whiskey. If the hanging judge had been within range, Parris would have spat in his eye.

As the hangman mounted a shaky stepladder to slip a noose around Parris’s neck, a Methodist parson approached with the Good Book in his
hand. “Marshal, do you have anything you wish to say before sentence is carried out?”

Parris glared at the kindly man. “Damn right I do!” he bellowed at those citizens who had gathered to watch the show. “What was it I did?”

There was no response from the suddenly hushed congregation.

The hangman, who had another appointment in Leadville, tightened the noose.

The condemned man had another question, which he dared not utter for fear of what the answer might be:
Where’s my buddy—where’s ol’ Charlie Moon?

Judge “Pug” Bullet nodded at the hangman, who gave the albino mule a good slap on the flank.

Off went the startled creature, scattering the holiday crowd.

His body dangling heavily from the hemp rope, Scott Parris gasped. Choked. Was still for a few final heartbeats, then—

As if attempting a macabre ballet, his muscular torso twisted. Twitched.

The dancer’s swollen, grape-purple face gaped blindly at his entranced audience.

One last spine-wrenching twist. A final spasmodic twitch.

Somewhere in the audience, an appreciative viewer applauded.

A wasted effort.

There would be—could be—no encore.

The performance was over.

The actor’s corpse hung silent, still . . . turned slowly on the corded hemp.

Hovering above the thinning congregation of flesh-and-blood gawkers, Marshal Parris’s disembodied self scowled at his hideous corpse. He murmured to no one in particular, “I’m sure glad my sainted mother never lived to see her little Scotty end up as a damned . . .” He choked on the western expression for hanged outlaws, then spat it out—“A damned cottonwood blossom!” The heavy weight of anger and humiliation was almost too much for a spirit to bear.

MERCIFULLY—OR
so it seemed—the undertow of Sleep’s dark stream released Parris’s soul to the embrace of a wet, gray dawn, which in itself was not a bad thing; rain is a great blessing in the arid high country west of the Front Range. The pesky fly fouling this cloudy pie-in-the-sky? Only this: When
actual
horrors come to call, they must be confronted face-to-face. Waking up is not an option.

The Granite Creek chief of police rolled onto his back, gasped, hacked a painful series of strangling coughs.
Oooohh . . . my throat hurts like hell.

Rubbing his eyes, he recalled something about a big crowd and a soft-spoken man with a Bible in his hand.
Must’ve had a weird dream.
Most of the unlikely melodrama had already slipped away, and by the time Scott Parris’s feet were on the floor, the morbid spectators and kindly minister had concealed themselves in some dark closet of his memory.

COUNTING CHARLIE MOON, THERE WERE TWELVE WORSHIPERS AT THE
early-morning mass, which—as it began—was not noticeably different from thousands of others that the lifelong Catholic had attended.

The priest’s deep voice reverberated off the beamed ceiling and paneled walls: “In the name of the Father—” all present crossed themselves, “and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The hushed
amens
might have been the wings of a dozen unseen doves fluttering about in the twilight heights of the sanctuary.

The celebrant continued, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

Unheard beneath the other voices, Moon responded in a whisper, “And also with you.”

“As we prepare to celebrate the mystery of Christ’s love, let us acknowledge our failures and ask the Lord for pardon and strength.”

The congregation joined with the priest: “I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts, and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do. . . .”