The Winter Family (31 page)

Austin looked up at Tom with an awed expression on his face, but Matt cut him off.

“Sheriff, you do me a favor,” Matt said. “Hold off on the deputization. All right? It was a little bit against my better judgment even bringing him here.”

“Okay, we’ll hold the tin star,” Tom said. “Matt, go check on Dick. Turn that goddamn store inside and out. Keep an eye on things, and if they start to get hot you get back here and let me know. Austin, you stay with me. I might need you to go run some errands.”

“No dangerous errands,” Matt said. “You save those for me. All right?”

“Why don’t you just let me be a man?” Austin said.

“Well, isn’t that adorable,” Matt said, pinching his brother’s cheek. Austin rolled his shoulder and jerked his face away.

Matt stood up and stretched, all six foot something of him, the two pistols dangling at his hips. A dangerous looseness was about him. Outside he tipped his hat to the patient sentry across the road, who never blinked.

Deputy Dick Moore sat on his horse outside of the confectioner’s home, watching through the windows as the mob smashed the place up, ripping up the floorboards with pry bars and throwing the furniture around. Every now and then Dick would eject a thin brown stream out of the corner of his mouth. At the sound of hoofbeats he turned his head and saw the middle Shakespeare boy riding up the street. Then he frowned and looked away.

“Evening, Dick,” Matt said.

“Sheriff’s holed up, huh.”

“You always were a sharp one.”

“They ain’t found shit.”

“I don’t reckon they will. Do you? Our Mister De Plessey always struck me as the meticulous type.”

“You’d better hope they find something.”

“Maybe they brought their own evidence. A set of undergarments, perhaps. That’s what I’d have done.”

“It’s a shame not everyone in this town is clever like you, Shakespeare.”

“That’s what I think to myself,” Matt said, “every day.”

Matt took a tin out of his pocket. Inside there were a number of small, withered Indian hemp cigarettes. Some had already been smoked into little nubs, and it was one of these he put in his mouth and lit with a wooden match while his horse paced back and forth at the ruckus going on in the house.

“And so,” Matt said, once he had the cigarette going. “I don’t suppose it crossed your mind to head inside and ensure that they aren’t bringing their own evidence. Since you disapprove of the practice.”

Dick had been a deputy sheriff in Phoenix for ten years and a lawman in Kansas before that. The lines in his face looked carved in wood, but his chin was fat. His hair was receding and what little he had stood straight up when he took off his hat to wipe his brow.

“Well, I’m here, ain’t I?”

“You are indeed.”

“That’s more than can be said for some of the deputies in this town, ain’t it?”

“For two, to be precise.”

“And I think that’s saying something. Because this is an exercise in damn foolery.”

“I don’t know why you think you have to tell me.”

“Well then maybe you can tell it to the sheriff.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

“Maybe he’ll listen to you. Because he’s your pal, ain’t he? Your keeper more like. He thinks he’s reformed you. You can try to roll off
all your devilry on Lukas, but those of us as have been in this town awhile know a little different. And after the next election you’ll be shipped out, I think.”

“You’re all quick to bring up my brother when you want to take me down a peg or two,” Matt said. “Only, where were you all when he was running this town? Hmm? Where were you then, my fat friend?”

Dick spat.

“Election’s a long ways off, Dick. You’d do well to keep that in mind.”

Matt swung his leg over the cantle of his saddle and dropped to the ground. He looked up at Dick.

“You coming?”

The foyer had been demolished. Coats and boots were scattered everywhere. The furniture had been sliced open and the vases from the mantel smashed. The men who were still searching were sullen and hostile.

Matt and Dick climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. Four-post bed, rich velvet sheets, curtains hanging down. The air was full of feathers, drifting this way and that on the little indoor movements of air, as Hank Proudfoot attacked the mattress and the pillows with an enormous knife.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Hank snarled.

“Just come to see how you boys are coming along, see if we can lend a hand.”

“Yeah?” Hank said. He squinted at Shakespeare and threw the mattress down and came over. Matt was hit by the overpowering odor of crème de menthe. Liberated from Mr. De Plessey, no doubt. “Well, how are we coming along, Shakespeare?”

Hank was squat and ugly and he had an enormous head with a nose that curved down sharply like a beak. It was generally agreed that he was smarter than his brother, but that this increased intelligence only served to make him less industrious.

“Looks to me like you’re being real thorough,” Matt said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“What do you think we’ve found?” Hank asked.

“I don’t know, Hank.”

“Guess, then.”

Matt glanced around the shattered room. He saw clothes thrown on the floor, broken bottles of rose water and laudanum, scattered books and papers.

“Nothing.”

“We ain’t found a goddamn thing,” Hank said, as if Matt had not spoken. “Now what do you make of that?”

Matt had the sense not to suggest that Mr. De Plessey might be innocent.

“Look, what do you want, Hank? We’ll work something out. Don’t lose that temper of yours. That never does anyone any good.”

“Work something out?” Hank said. “Work out what? Jesus. This can only go two fucking ways, Shakespeare. You’re going to give him to us, or you ain’t.”

Hank shoved his face up against Matt’s, who smiled humorlessly and said, “That’s bothering me, Hank.”

“Is it now, boy,” Hank said. But he pulled his head back all the same.

“Thank you kindly.”

“I can’t fucking believe you’re in here, telling me the law. You of all people, you fucking criminal. There ain’t shit in here. Does that mean that murderer gets to go free?”

“Keep on looking,” Matt said. “You just keep looking.”

Outside, Dick said, “Hell.”

“How long do you think we’ve got?” Matt asked as they retrieved their horses.

“They’ll get tired of searching soon. Question is whether they’ll head right over or start drinking first. I’d say drinking but Hank is wired tighter than a snare drum. I don’t even want to think how Bobby’s doing.”

“Fuck,” Matt said, rubbing the lower half of his face. He looked at Dick questioningly.

“You’re the smart one, Shakespeare,” Dick said. “You tell me.”

“Okay. You run on up and see how Bobby is doing. I reckon he won’t want to see me.”

“He won’t want to see me either.”

“He’ll want to see you a good deal more than he wants to see me.
See if you can get him drinking instead of charging straight in. I’ll work on the sheriff.”

“See that you do.”

“All right. But I’m curious. How is it that you all think I’m some sort of born criminal but you also think that our sheriff’s unyielding principles are all my doing, at the same time?”

“Because you’re trouble, Matt Shakespeare,” Dick said. “That’s all you are.”

Matt grinned and pulled himself back up onto his horse.

The sun had set and the sheriff’s office was almost completely dark. Matt closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust until he made out the dim forms of two men in De Plessey’s cell.

“That you, Matt?” Tom called.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Where’s my brother?”

“I sent him for the horses.”

“Ah,” Matt said, a helpless sound. He walked into the darkness of the cell and saw that Tom had shackled Homer’s hands behind his back.

“You shouldn’t be in here alone with him,” Matt said.

“Where’s he gonna go? I’m the only friend he’s got.”

“I’m reminded of the story of the scorpion and the frog. Things aren’t going well out there. They haven’t found anything.”

“I’m innocent,” Homer said suddenly, in his rich, courtroom voice.

“Yeah, okay, sunshine,” Matt said. “Sheriff, if Austin brings horses here we’re going to get shot.”

“He’s not bringing them here,” Tom said. “I’m going to sneak out the back, get in one of the old canals, and meet your brother south of town. I’m going to make a run for Tucson.”

“Tucson,” Matt said. “Well, no one will ever say you lack for ambition, Sheriff.”

“I need you to stay here and hold them off. See if you can’t misdirect them a little too.”

“Sheriff, what is this all for?”

“I can’t just hand him over to them to be hung,” Tom said. “All right? I can’t.”

“Why not? He killed a little girl.”

“I didn’t—” Homer started.

Matt moved as quickly as a trap springing shut. He drew the revolver from his right holster and pressed the barrel into Homer’s jaw, pushing his face away.

“You just keep your mouth shut,” Matt said.

“Leave him alone,” Tom said.

Matt holstered his pistol.

“Look, here’s the long and the short of it,” Tom said. “I would rather die than let them take him out and string him up from a tree. All right? It’s my decision. It’s only my life. You said you were with me. Are you?”

Matt rocked back on his heels a bit and stretched his neck left and right. It made an audible cracking noise.

“Well shit, Sheriff. You know me. I’ll lend you a hand.”

“Fine,” Tom said.

They led Homer to the back of the building, where Matt lifted up a trapdoor.

“Send my brother home, will you?” Matt said. “Don’t send him back here.”

“You bet,” Tom said.

Homer went out the trapdoor first, moving awkwardly with his hands behind his back. Matt kicked him in the buttocks to speed him on his way. The sheriff went next, and Matt closed the door behind them and waited for the storm.

The Winter Family gathered in a dark group in the evening desert, as ill-omened as an unkindness of ravens. They had found the scalpless corpses of the Mexican bounty hunter and Reginald Keller, their faces all loose and baggy, the sand around them starched with blood.

The Mexican had only joined the Family a few months earlier,
but Reggie had been with them since the very beginning. He and Winter had been close. Now his body was drenched in molasses and lying on top of a kicked-over anthill. He’d been stripped naked, and his hands were tied behind his back. The ants, big and red with wide pincers, crawled all over him. Dusty was stung while he was retrieving Reggie’s body, and he swore and cried out.

“Fucking savages,” Foxglove said. “Left him to be eaten alive by ants.”

“Ants don’t eat people, you idiot,” Hugh Mantel said.

“No,” Quentin said. “I rather think it was the gunshot that killed him. I’m sure he was stung dreadfully, though.”

“You got that right,” Dusty muttered while sucking his hand.

Winter poked the body with his polished cane. Ants everywhere. Marching over Reggie’s tongue, his eyes, in and out of his ears.

“Shall we bury them?” Dusty asked.

“No,” Winter said. “I don’t want that slick son of a bitch slipping away on us again, or getting picked up by the army. We ain’t but a few hours’ ride from Tucson.”

“It’s dark, Winter,” Bill Bread said.

“With this moon, and these tracks?” Winter said. “We ain’t going to lose them.”

“It’s not just that,” Bill said. “They could lay another ambush.”

To this, Winter did not reply. He just walked back to his horse and pulled himself into the saddle. The other men glanced at one another briefly. Galloping into the dark? Through the desert? After two men had already been killed in an ambush?

Still, they feared the ambush less than they feared Winter.

They rode on.

Homer poked his head out from underneath the building into the desert night and then wriggled out on his belly, grinding the dust of the road into his fine suit. Tom followed just behind and hauled Homer up to his feet like a sack. They ran across the street, ducked between houses, and crossed one road after another until they were out in the open desert. Then they sprinted, exposed, toward one of
the ancient canals that had been left by the Hohokam a thousand years before.

“Get down,” Tom said, as they dropped into the canal. “Get down.”

They were silent except for the sound of their breath, coming one gasp at a time. The desert was quiet. No birds, no crickets, nothing. Tom lifted his head above the canal and looked the way they had come, but he didn’t see anything.

“Stay low,” Tom said. “Go south. Head south.”

The canal was ten feet wide and about six feet deep and ran vaguely southeast for almost a mile. Homer had to stoop to keep his head hidden. Except for a little trickle of water between their feet the canal was dry. The ground was baked mud with sparse grass and small cacti. It was hard running among the loose stones and the ground made uneven by ancient movements of water. Above them the sky was turning a dark purple and the stars were starting to light up, one at a time.

Eventually the canal came to an abrupt end as the soil caved in from both sides in a mess of rocks and scrabbling plants. Austin Shakespeare was waiting there, holding three horses.

“I want you to understand something, Mister De Plessey,” Tom panted. “You’re my prisoner. I’m taking you to Tucson to stand trial.”

Homer’s face was slick with sweat, but when he spoke he was not in the least out of breath.

“You’re doing the right thing, Sheriff. I’m an innocent man. I’d never hurt a soul.”

Tom climbed onto one horse and watched as Austin helped Homer mount another. Then Austin passed Tom the reins to Homer’s horse.

“Thank you kindly,” Tom said.

“I’m coming with you,” the boy said.

“No, you’re not.”

“You need someone to help you watch him.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re crazy,” Austin said. “He’s a murderer and it’s a hundred miles to Tucson. You can’t possibly watch him the whole time.”