Between Hell and Texas (10 page)

As they spoke, Henry Snead came back in and walked up beside Lematte, rolling his shirt sleeves down. “That didn’t take long, did it?” he said with a cruel, flat smile.

“You didn’t really dunk him in the horse trough, did you?” asked Lematte with a bemused expression.

“Naw,” said Henry Snead with a swipe of a thick hand. “I could’ve, but the shape he was in, I figured why bother? Fact is, I even shoved him up onto his horse and slapped its rump to give him a send-off.”

“How humane!” said Lematte, in feigned admiration.

“Did you happen to take his gun?” asked Nolly with a trace of warning in his voice.

“Naw,” said Snead, brushing the question aside. “Oh!” Snead snapped his fingers. “Before I forget it—” He reached a thick hand into his trousers, took
out the roll of money he’d lifted from Dawson’s shirt pocket, and handed it to Lematte. “Here’s your change. I thought you might want it back.”

Lematte gave a dark little chuckle and said sidelong to Karl Nolly. “Do you see this, Karl? He brought me
change
.”

Cray Dawson had never experienced pain as severe and unrelenting in his life. It had left him helpless and broken. As the big bay carried him away from Somos Santos, he lay slumped forward, barely able to keep himself in the saddle. When the bay stopped out front of the shack, Dawson slid himself down the horse’s side and limped inside, bowed at the waist. He dropped his gun belt and boots on the floor and lay in agony on the hard, flat bed, too tortured to sleep, too drained and exhausted to even undress himself. Come dawn he stood up in a half-conscious stupor, the pain having lessened only slightly during the night.

“Oh, God, Rosa,” he moaned. Then, realizing he had called her name aloud and chastising himself for doing such a thing, he took a deep breath and forced himself to the front porch, where a half-filled bucket of water had sat since the day before. It took all of his strength to raise the bucket and pour it over his bowed head. He dropped the bucket and blew water from his lips, and stared blurry-eyed at the bay who’d spent the night in the yard still wearing its bridle and saddle. “Damn it, Stony, I’m sorry,” he said in a raspy voice. Shoving his hand into his shirt
pocket, he realized for the first time that his money was gone. He rubbed his hands up and down his face, drying himself. Then he walked inside, put on his boots, looped his gun belt over his shoulder, and made his way painfully to the front yard.

Picking his hat up from the dirt where it had fallen the night before, he dusted it against his leg and looked off along the trail leading toward Shaw’s
hacienda
, where he knew Rosa’s sister, Carmelita, still waited for Lawrence Shaw to return to her. “I said I’d tell her,” he told the horse, as if the horse understood. He picked up the reins hanging in the dirt and struggled upward onto the horse’s back. With a touch of his heels he sent the bay forward toward the Old Spanish Trail.

The ride should have taken less than an hour, yet by the time he topped the crest of a rise and looked down onto the house, the mid-morning sun beat down on him without mercy. Stopping the horse he waited for a moment, trying to force himself to sit straight up in his saddle. But, seeing the woman watch him from where she stood at the clothesline to the right of the house, Dawson adjusted the gun belt hanging from his shoulder and rode closer. When he stopped again he was no more than twenty yards from her. He did not hear her whisper, “Lawrence?” to herself. Nor could he see the look of disappointment appear, then disappear from her dark eyes when she realized it was only him. “Are you hurt?” she called out, using her hand as a visor against the sun’s glare.

Feeling his voice was too weak to reach her, he nudged the bay forward, then stopped again fifteen feet from her. “He said to tell you he won’t be coming
back for a long while,” Dawson said, his voice still sounding pained and shaky to himself.

“I did not think he would,” she said flatly. She shrugged, holding a wicker basket of damp clothes resting against her hip.

“He might not be back at all,” Dawson said.

“So?” she said, lowering her hand from over her eyes.

“So, I wanted you to know,” Dawson said. His hand went to his stomach as he spoke.

“Are you hurt?” she asked again.

“No, I’m all right.” A silence passed. “Yes, I am hurt,” he corrected himself. “I’m healing from a wound…a bad one,” he said. “It won’t quit hurting.”

Carmelita nodded and only stared at him.

“I better go,” he said. Yet he continued to sit the horse, gazing off for a moment, then back at her.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t been eating. That is, I haven’t wanted to.” He shook his head and said quietly, “I mean, no, I’m not hungry.”

She stared in silence.

“I never blamed you and Shaw for what you done that night,” he blurted out.

“Oh? What night was this?” she asked.

“The night you slept together when he came home to visit Rosa’s grave,” Dawson said.

Carmelita shifted the wicker basket slightly on her hip. “I do not care whether you blamed me or not,” she said.

“I didn’t, anyway,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Well, I better go,” he said. Still he made no effort to do so. Instead he nudged the bay forward a step
and looked at her, seeing how much she resembled Rosa—her hair, her eyes, the turn of her mouth when she spoke. Seeing her, he could almost smell Rosa’s scent, almost taste Rosa’s mouth. He felt a sudden dull ache inside him that was as real, if not as intense, as the pain in his tender, healing stomach. Seeing Carmelita look at him curiously, he shoved his hand down slightly into his waist belt and said, “It hurts something awful.”

“
Si
,” she said, “I understand.”

He wasn’t sure what it was she understood, whether she referred to the apparent pain he felt in his wounded stomach, or to some deeper pain she sensed in his spirit. But looking into her dark eyes he realized that she did indeed understand things about him, things that he would never even have to mention. Looking away from her he asked quickly, as if to hesitate a second longer would keep him from asking at all, “Can I stay here with you?”

A silence seemed to engulf the land as he waited for her answer. After a moment of thoughtful pause, Carmelita said, “There is plenty of room.
Si
, you can stay here.”

“No,” he said, I mean
with you
. Can I stay here
with you?
”

Carmelita gazed off along the Old Spanish Trail as if considering it further. A hot breeze swept a strand of dark hair across her face. She pushed it back with her fingertips. “
Si
,” she said at length, “You can stay here…
with me
.”

After the incident with Cray Dawson in the Silver Seven Saloon, Henry Snead spent the next week recounting the story for anyone who would still listen.
Martin Lematte had given the bartender a nod, letting him know that Snead’s drinks were on the house. Having Snead around telling his fight story was good for business, Lematte thought, whether Karl Nolly agreed with him or not. Lematte and Nolly noted that the story had changed some over the past few days. Now Henry had actually found a way to make it sound like Dawson had made the first move. No one could dispute Snead’s version, not even the ones who had been there the night it happened. It had happened so quickly, the only one who could give the details was Henry himself. And with Lematte backing his every word, Snead’s story became more and more daring each time he repeated it.

“I can’t listen to any more of this,” Nolly said to Lematte, the two of them standing at the bar only a few feet away from Snead and a gathering of thirsty miners.

“Stick around,” Lematte chuckled, rolling the black cigar in his mouth, taking a long draw on it. “He’s getting to the part where he saw Dawson going for his gun, but he knocked it out of his hand before he could get it cocked and aimed.”

“No, thanks,” said Nolly. “I’ve got better things to do than listen to a rooster crowing over his own comb.”

“The trouble with you, Nolly,” said Lematte, grinning, “is that you never look at the full line of possibilities life has to offer.”

“I look at things for what they are,” said Nolly, half turning from the bar as he tossed back his drink and set the empty glass on the bar top. Nodding toward Henry Snead, he said to Lematte in a lowered
voice, “That thick-headed fool better hope Cray Dawson doesn’t come back here and make him eat all his lies one word at a time.” He gave Lematte a quick look up and down, saying, “And you better hope Dawson doesn’t connect us to what happened here. I ain’t writing the man off. It wasn’t no small thing he did taking down the Talbert Gang. He ain’t to be taken lightly.”

“You’re worrying too much, Nolly,” said Lematte with confidence, puffing his cigar. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll send out a couple of the boys to check on him. Word has it he’s staying at a shack north of here…the place used to belong to his family.”

“As far as I’m concerned, send them on,” said Nolly. “I’d like to know what his moves are before he makes them. Just tell whoever you send not to go stirring things up any more than they already are.”

“Consider it done,” said Lematte, dismissing the subject with the toss of a hand.

“Good.” Nolly stepped away. As he raised his hat to put it on, he saw three men in black linen suits walk into the saloon and look around at the gambling and drinking with an expression of disgust. “Here comes the town council again,” he said sidelong to Lematte.

“Yes, I see them. Let me handle them. It’s time I crack the whip on this bunch of
town
sheep…show them who’s running things now.”

“Yeah,” said Nolly, settling back beside Lematte now that it looked like they might have some business to attend to. “I’ll just hang around here in case they decide to get hardheaded.”

The three men stopped a few feet back from the
bar as if coming any closer might distract them from their task at hand. “Sheriff Lematte, we need to talk to you,” said a tall, thin councilman with bushy gray hair and a wide handlebar mustache.

“Well, of course, Councilman Freedman,” said Lematte with a broad smile, taking his time. He nodded at the other two councilmen, saying, “Howdy Councilman Deavers…Councilman Tinsdale. Step up to the bar, let me buy you gentlemen a drink.”

“Naw-sir,” said Councilman Freedman, “we didn’t come here to socialize. We came here to straighten a few things out.”

“Really now?” said Lematte, his smile fading, his expression turning harsh. “And just what things are there that need to be
straightened out
?” Lematte looked around the large saloon, spotting two of his deputies.

“There’s plenty that has to be talked about,” said Alex Freedman. “This town is being turned into a cesspool of gambling, whoring and crime! You were elected to uphold the laws of this town…not twist them into a way of fleecing honest citizens and keeping our modest womenfolk too frightened and ashamed to walk the streets!”

“Is that so?” Lematte asked absently.

“Damn right, that’s so!” said the enraged councilman. “And that’s just the half of it! I’ve found out about you, about what you tried to pull in Hide City! You didn’t get away with it there and you’re not getting away with it here! You’re not taking over Somos Santos!”

“Is that a fact?” said Lematte, appearing a bit stung by the councilman’s words. “Let me get you to repeat all that to my deputies.” He raised a hand
and drew three of his deputies toward the bar from amid the gambling crowd.

One of the deputies, a young Arkansan named Joe Poole, carried a long black bullwhip coiled on his shoulder. A crooked cigarette dangled from his lips. On his wrists he wore leather riding gauntlets trimmed with silver studs. “What’s the problem, Sheriff?” Poole asked Lematte.

“No problem, Deputy,” Lematte answered Poole, staring into the councilman’s eyes. “But hand me that whip and stand by. The good councilman here wants to tell you and
everybody
else what I
can
and
can’t
do in Somos Santos.” He gave Freedman a tight scowl, then said to Poole, “I might have some cleanup work that needs doing later.”

“Sure thing,” said Poole, slipping the whip from his shoulder and pitching it onto the bar near Lematte’s right arm.

“Now see here, Sheriff!” said Councilman Freedman. “I won’t be frightened off by you and your monkeys!”

“Who you calling a monkey?” said Poole, adjusting the gauntlets on his wrists, taking a step toward Freedman.

“Take it easy, Deputy,” said Lematte, picking up the bullwhip and letting it uncoil down to the floor. “I’m certain our good Councilman Freedman meant no offense. He’s simply gotten himself caught up in the fervor of the moment…wanting to reveal my failings in Hide City.” He shook the whip out loosely, giving the councilmen a flat, menacing grin. “Isn’t that right, Freedman?”

“Well, I—” Freedman’s words cut short as he glanced around and saw the other two councilmen
shy back away from him, leaving him standing on a small clearing of floor as a crowd began to gather around. “I did hear some things…” He swallowed a knot in his throat and continued, his voice having lost most of its strength and determination. “Enough to know that we won’t tolerate such a thing happening here.”