City of Widows (11 page)

Not that dying from a lance thrust instead of a bullet makes much difference beyond what they carve on the headstone.

*   *   *

Desert heat doesn't follow any of the standard rules. You'd expect it to be worst when the sun is straight up, but a hat will protect you from it then. When the only shade for miles is on the wrong side of the shrubbery you're using for cover, there is no hiding from that afternoon slant. I turned up my collar and unfastened my cuffs and pulled them down over the backs of my hands, but I could feel my skin turning red and shrinking under the fabric. Pinheads of sweat marched along the edge of my leather hatband and tracked down into my eyes, stinging like fire ants. The water in the canteen tasted like hot metal. I wanted the Montana snow, blue as the veins in Colleen Bower's throat with the mountain runoff coursing black through it carrying shards of white ice. All this time the two Indians sat their ponies, as motionless as buttes and just as easy to reason with. I was just something to break up the day, that and a horse and a long and a short gun to bring the two braves with lances into the nineteenth century.

I thumbed a fresh cartridge into the magazine to replace the one I'd fired and took another shot at the man with the carbine. There was no reason for it other than to spook his horse and spoil his mood. For all the reaction the pinto showed I might as well have waved my hat and sung Dixie. I guessed I was becoming addled by the heat and worry.

A rifle cracked. I swore it was behind me, but that country was full of distortions and I wasn't thinking right to begin with. I did know that the Indian with the carbine hadn't moved and there was no smoke in his direction. I rolled over, reversed ends, and squinted through the ground haze to the west at a rider coming hard my way. I swept a sleeve across my eyes to clear away the sweat, polished them with the heels of my hands, but he was still there, and closer. His horse's hoofbeats reached me then, hollowed out by distance and warped by heatwaves. I worked the Winchester's lever and settled the iron sight in the middle of the shimmering bulk. Either the man they'd sent to shut the back door had a long gun I didn't know about or a fourth had joined the fracas. I fired. I will still testify that I saw the bullet leave the barrel and find its mark. Fear and sunstroke are like peyote. You will see things.

What counted was my target heeled over and struck the ground with a grunt that was real enough. After a couple of seconds it separated into two pieces, one smaller than the other, and when the smaller piece rose from a crawl to a crouch I knew I'd deprived the rider of his horse. I racked in another shell and took aim on the man.

“Mother of God, don't shoot
me!”

I knew there were Christian Indians and had met one or two, but rarely enough to make me hesitate with my finger on the trigger this time. That was sufficient time to see that this was no Apache. He ran like a white man for one thing, long strides with his toes pointed out, and his high boots and striped trousers and white shirt were store-bought. In another second I recognized the flat-brimmed Stetson and the rifle he carried, ready to raise against me if I failed to lower the Winchester.

“Jubilo, is that you?”

“Murdock?”

I said it was. The deputy sheriff of Socorro sprinted the rest of the distance and dived headfirst into the shallow depression, holding up the Creedmoor to keep sand out of the action. He crawled forward to face me. “I just shot a damn Apache off a horse for you. If I knew you was fixing to shoot
my
horse I'd of caught his.”

“Next time raise a yell. I didn't know you from Geronimo.”

“See if I come help a white man out of a hole next time.” The expression on his half-caste face was unreadable. “Did you even know you had a red bastard climbing your back fence?”

“Knew it. Couldn't fix it. Care to see what's up front?” Without waiting for an answer I rolled over and slithered back up to the shrub line. He joined me a second later.

“Shit, I'd of thought Satan's Sixgun was more than a fight for two little
mimbreños.
”

“Three. And I didn't write that book.”

“They'll be getting restless in a minute. They're thinking their pard should be on you by now.”

“Maybe they'll come in range to investigate.”

“Why wait?” He rolled back the Creedmoor's Remington block, removed the long cartridge, blew inside, and replaced the cartridge. He rolled the block forward.

“You any good with that competition rifle?” I asked.

“I was Lincoln County champion two years in a row. One thing they like to do in Lincoln is shoot.” He unfolded the sight, locked it into place, looked through it at the waiting Apaches, adjusted the slide, looked through it again, and stretched out full length, finding a comfortable spot to rest his cheek. The Indians were straining their necks to see past the junipers. They didn't appear agitated. They knew they were well outside the Winchester's reach.

Jubilo pressed the trigger. The gun roared, backing up against his shoulder. Far away across the plain the Apache with the carbine, still craning for a good look, threw back his arms and slid over sideways. While he was still falling Jubilo opened the block, plucked out the hot shell, poked in a fresh cartridge, slammed home the action, and took aim again. But the other Apache was already moving, wheeling his horse and slapping its rump. Jubilo fired again.

“Miss.”

“Maybe.” He extracted the casing and reloaded. “The sons of bitches are like antelope and will run forty miles with the top of their heart blowed to hell.”

But he didn't fire the third cartridge. The Indian now was out of range of even the big rolling-block and moving fast. Jubilo glanced at the sun. “We'll wait here till dark. No telling how close his other friends are and this is the only cover for miles. Such as it is.”

The Apache he'd shot wasn't moving. His horse had bolted when he fell. I calculated the distance at right around four hundred yards.

“The sheriff said you were an artist,” I said.

“I am when it comes to drawing a bead.” He sat up and brushed sand off his cheek. “What you doing way out here? I thought you went back to San Sábado a week ago.”

“I had business up north. What are you?”

“Sheriff sent me your way to pick up a prisoner. I'm just on my way back.”

“Where's the prisoner?” I had almost forgotten about Abel Freestone.

“Dead as Andy Jackson. When that hand swoll up and turned black he wouldn't let the sawbones take it off and he was gone the next day.”

“Hard luck.”

“Not so bad. I had to bring back some papers anyway.”

I watched him wiping dust off the Creedmoor with his bandanna. He had slender hands for a Mexican and appeared to be fussy about the nails. That was an old story among gun men. It started with taking care of your weapon, spread to your hands, and before you knew it you were wearing red velvet coats and perfume in your hair like Hickok. “How long have you been working with Frank Baronet?”

“Just since last fall as deputy. I come back up from Mexico after he got elected.”

“I mean since before that.”

“Two years. I knew his brother Ross and we all hired on to regulate for the Dolan-Murphy combine. We had us some times, Frank and Ross and me, till that carpetbagger Wallace took over and brung in the army. There was a stir over this cow thief that got killed, him and his whore wife, and Ross and me went down to Chihuahua. He had a ball in his hip and died of mortification there.”

“Were you with him then?”

“No, we split up and I only heard about it when I come back here. I scouted some before Lincoln County. Before that I worked for Juárez.”

“You fought in the revolution?”

“The last part. I was just a yonker. This old one-eyed colonel stuck a Jaeger needle gun in my hands and showed me which end to point and which end to pull on and before I knew it I was knocking down
federales
like apples. Turned out I had a gift for it. Then the war went and ended.”

“What does a sharpshooter do in peacetime?”

“You'd never guess. Growing up on the border I had as much English as I had Spanish, so they gave me a job collecting taxes in El Paso del Norte.” He shook his head. “Gawd Almighty, don't them butchers and barbers hate to pay their share. I shot one by accident and that's when I decided to come north the first time. The revolution had went to hell anyway by then. Juárez didn't turn out to be no better than what we had before.”

“That why you threw in with the Baronets?”

“You're just down on Frank on account of he buffaloed you that time. That weren't nothing. If he didn't like you they'd of scooped up your brains with the horseshit.”

“That's no answer.”

“I guess not. Someone told me they got this fancy notion back East about always mounting a horse from the left. I figure they don't ride much. Out here it don't matter which side you climb up on. They're both of them just as bad.” He watched me peering between bushes. “Don't expect him back. Moving at night's just smart in case there are other parties out haring around. They ain't cowards, mind. That ain't the reason he lit out. Those lazy sons of bitches get ants when something starts to look like work. I'm Comanche on my father's side and I guess I know them.”

“I'm glad you happened along. Dealing with them alone might have cost me another day.”

“Not to mention your hair and both ears. Apaches are partial to ears. They string them around their necks so they can listen to the other side.”

I reloaded the Winchester's magazine. “I heard the same thing about the Sioux. Also the Nez Percé and the Cheyenne and the Blackfoot. I've fought them all and a few others whose names I can't pronounce and I never saw an ear necklace on one of them.”

“Well, if it ain't true it ought to be. You can make a case for them tribes you mentioned defending their land and all. Patch got nothing to defend. Nobody wants this here desert country but him. There's nothing meaner than an Apache brave, unless it's an Apache squaw. Neither one will eat snake. They say it's because of their religion. I say it's professional courtesy.”

“I'm starting to understand. You don't like them.”

“The other tribes don't like them any better than me. That's why they drove them out of every place worth living in.”

“Going just by that,” I said, “you're just as wicked as they are.”

He smiled for only the second time since we'd met. “Well, hell's bells. I never said I wasn't.”

That was the end of conversation. We settled in to wait for darkness. I didn't want any more talk in any case. I was on the edge of liking him, and it would just get in the way when the time came to kill him.

11

W
HICHEVER GOD LOOKS
after snipers and saloonkeepers was on duty that night, and we stole away under a rustlers' moon bright enough to show prairie dog holes but not us. Jubilo's horse, a blaze-face roan fifteen years old, was cold when we stopped to strip it of as much gear as we could carry. The claybank didn't encourage being loaded down with two full-grown men and their necessaries, but it seemed to sense how close it had come to sharing the roan's fate and didn't become obnoxious. We entered San Sábado at first light, iron shoes chiming against the empty hardpack street. In front of the livery we stepped down and I kicked the door until the Yaquí came out to take the reins. He wasn't long coming and was fully dressed. I don't know when he slept.

He led the claybank to a stall and brought out a bay mare for Jubilo's inspection. The deputy checked its teeth and fetlocks and looked in its ears.

“Hundred,” he said.

“Doscientos,”
said the Indian.

“It's too early to dicker. Hundred and twenty-five.”

“Doscientos,”
said the Indian.

“She's twelve if she's a day. If she was a woman I wouldn't pay more than fifty cents for all night.”

“Doscientos,”
said the Indian.

Jubilo looked at me. “That the only Spanish he knows?”

“You're the Indian expert.”

“Hundred and fifty. Now, that's the limit.”

“Doscientos,”
said the Indian.

“Shit. I'll give you a county marker.”

The Indian shook his head. “Cash money.”

He said shit again, unbuttoned his shirt, and unwrapped a money belt from around his waist. Thick white scars curled around his brown hairless torso from behind in a pattern familiar to me. I wondered whose lash it had been, Maximilian's or Juárez's.

He gave the Yaquí another dollar to feed and rub down the bay and we walked out carrying our gear. “You can bunk in my room,” I said. “I guess I owe you a roof.”

“I'll spread my roll uptrail.”

“I'm told I don't snore.”

“It ain't that, it's the being shut in. I got me a little room off the cells in Socorro but I don't use it much.”

We divided without a word in front of the Apache Princess. I didn't know if we'd see each other again except through our sights.

I caught two hours' sleep and was shaving over the basin in the room when the door opened from the outside stairs. Ford Harper's only son grinned at me sloppily past the barrel of the Deane-Adams. He had on his sheepskin over the paisley vest and was carrying a bundle under one arm. “Put it up, son,” he said. “I didn't steal that much while you were gone.”

I returned the revolver to the belt hanging from the bedpost. “You've been around these townies too long, Junior. In the old days it was knock or get shot.”

“Knock on what? I've went through more doors to see you in the past month than I did all the time we punched cows. How was Laramie?”