Deadly Is the Night (22 page)

“I won't forget how Maria blushed when I said, “He needs to see me. I will bathe and get him to wash me.”

“Not near as much as my face heated up when you asked me to do that.”

“Oh, I knew it was bold. But what the
hey.
It worked.”

It turned out to be a great night. And after breakfast the following morning, they took Fred Brown to the mercantile and bought him two new shirts, two pairs of jeans, underwear, a jumper, and a pair of cowboy boots.

“If you are riding with me, you need to look as good as my other men.”

When the boy didn't answer him, Chet looked over at him. “I never asked. Can you ride a horse?”

Tears streamed down his face. “Chet, I can't help it. They're just running 'cause I never had any new clothes in my life.”

“Good way to start a new life. You need a haircut.”

“I can do that at the house for him,” she said.

“She's your barber I guess. Get a tight-fitting hat. One you like.”

Fred tried on a gray one. “How does it look?”

“Good.” Chet put the hat on the stack. “Tell Ben I was by and didn't need anything from him.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Chet, I will tell him, sir.”

“Let's go to the ranch,” he said to them. His things in a roll, Chet stuck the hat on the boy's head.

Fred and his wardrobe secure in the back of the buckboard, they drove to the ranch.

At the house they introduced him to a stern-faced Monica as the new man on the ranch.

“Nice to meet you, Fred. We eat breakfast at six a.m., lunch at noon, and supper at six. You miss them you starve.”

“Yes, ma'am. I can do that.”

“I thought you could.”

“Fred, there is a bathtub upstairs. There's hot and cold water. Mix them to suit. Wash with soap and rinse. Then scrub your head twice and dry it on a towel. When you come downstairs I will cut your hair. Those hand-me-downs you wear need to be thrown away.”

“I could—”

“No. Men who ride with my husband don't wear rags even if they are clean.”

“I understand.”

“Fred, I know this day is hard for you, but I believe you will survive.”

“Thank you, missus.”

“It's Liz or Elizabeth.”

“I will try.”

“No, Fred, you will prevail.”

“What is that word?”

“Says you will succeed.”

“Thank you.”

“You do not have to say thank you every time. Just nod is enough over small things. Change up your words. Say I appreciate you doing that. Even say that was good. Mix your speech up. Makes you sound stronger. Listen to Chet. Don't use his expressions. Find your own.”

“Liz, thank you. I will learn.”

Chet heard it all and smiled. She had a student.

His bushy hair, cut and plastered down, changed him somehow. To Chet he looked very serious. He hoped the boy would make it.

In the morning, after breakfast, Chet told Fred to find Miguel at his
casa
. “Shake his hand, give him your name, and tell him you are the new man on our team.”

“I can do that. He will know looking at my clothes I am new I am sure.”

Monica and Liz snickered and agreed with him.

“Tell him anyhow. Bring him here and you can learn how to drive a team and a buckboard today. Be careful. At noon, be here, wash up for lunch, and then hitch a new team and drive them until time for supper.”

“Thanks, Chet. I always wanted to do that.”

“Good luck.”

“Yes.”

Fred returned with Miguel in a few minutes.

“Miguel, you need to show Fred how to harness a team and teach him to drive a buckboard. After lunch he will harness another team and you shall observe him. When he gets good enough at that, take him to the firing range and teach him how to load and shoot a pistol safely. Then a rifle. Fred has lots to learn.”

“Let's go, Fred,” Miguel said.

“I'm coming.”

In the next week, their new man learned how to harness and drive a team. Chet read the wire from the marshal in El Paso. The warrant for the man Ralph Sutter came from Llano County Court, Llano, Texas. His crimes, found by the grand jury, were bank embezzlement, falsifications of document, and fraud. He was last seen in El Paso, but the marshal could not locate him before he left. The rewards on him are valid by authorities in Llano for a sum of a thousand dollars. The wire was signed by Chief U.S. Marshal Tom Brooks.

“Salty lied to me about the reward or they may have raised it. I will ride down to Horse Thief Basin and find him.”

“With your men?”

“Of course.”

“Is Fred ready to go along?”

“He may as well. He has to learn. He can hold the horses and help Jesus cook.”

She nodded. “He will come back from there six feet tall.”

“He's not lied to us about one thing. He can harness and drive a team, shoot a rifle, and a pistol. He needs one—”

“He could handle mine. I shall loan it to him.”

“That is fine with me.”

“You be careful.”

“Of course.”

They took two packhorses. Chet found a smaller saddle for the boy, selected a roan horse that Liz rode, and they left early. Fred led the packhorses and took some teasing. They took the back way going by the Iron Mountain Camp. Since mining operations were spread all over the Bradshaw Mountains, they'd have a tough time finding Sutter if he was even in the area. The picture wasn't great, but they had an idea what he looked like and if he was with the woman, they might be easier to find.

Chet rode side by side with Fred for a while. “In case of trouble, try to keep your head down, hold the horses, but when things get hot find cover. We can get more horses, but finding a new boy may be a big problem for us.”

Fred nodded. “I savvy.”

“Until you've been in a few shooting scraps, I don't want you shot. Most people we arrest will shoot back if given a chance. One group of rustlers fought till they all were dead rather than go to prison again. So, until you get some experience, lay low. Jesus and Miguel are experienced at this business. Any time things get tougher than you can stand, then bow out.”

“Chet—I been on my own for two years. I been begging and doing odd jobs to survive—this chance you gave me I won't squander—that's the word, ain't it?”

“Yes. A good one. Where did your parents go?”

“Dad got drunk one night. They say he fell in a creek and drowned. I think they drowned him. Six months later, my mother threw me out. Said I was big enough to shift for myself, so she got on a stage to go become a whore in Tombstone where she said they paid in real gold.”

“You never heard from her again?”

“No. I was fourteen when she left. I'd been doing errands, swept the boardwalks for nickels and dimes. Sold newspapers. Went and got folks horses. Worked in gardens for my food. Shoveled horse shit out of small stables and caught stinky pigs. I did it all. But I never stole anything or did anyone harm. There's some tough kids around town; they beat me up a couple of times. Gangs of them hang together. I got a bat-size club and settled with them. They never picked on me again.”

Chet nodded as he rode beside him climbing the steep mountain road. “I think we see your side of things. I know how tough it must have been.”

“I'm sorry. I ain't a crybaby, but I thought that night in Preskitt—I thought you needed a slave. I would have been one had you needed one, but all night my belly cramped. Then you and her took and bought me new clothes, brought me to your house, gave me a bath. She cut my hair and let me sleep under your roof in a real bed. Eat real food at your table—I ain't feeling sorry for myself. I got over that years ago. I just can't believe what you done for me—that's why I cry sometimes.”

Jesus had dropped back to ride on the other side. “You have a tough story. Tougher than my own, but, Fred, you are among
amigos
here. We care for each other.

“You met Miguel's wife, Lisa?”

Fred nodded and smiled.

“An outlaw was holding her in bondage when we ran them down. A rich man's son turned outlaw. She went through hell. Like he did you, Chet brought her to the house and his wife helped her overcome all she went through. She was not as pretty as she is now. She trusted no one and she swore a lot, but Elizabeth showed her a better way to live. She went back to church. This
vaquero
that rides with us, he courted her. You've seen her. She's a lady now.”

“I know I am lucky to be riding with you three, and I am so glad that sometimes I get sad at my good fortune.”

“Oh, you will be fine and cussing the days we have to be out looking for criminals,” Chet said.

“Isn't he close to the age of your nephew Heck?” Jesus asked. “I never met him but Hampt told me that sad story.”

Chet nodded. “One of the saddest days in my life. I had bought the Quarter Circle Z. Fought to take it back from a crooked foreman. Heck was along with me because he was giving grief to his mother, May, now Hampt's wife. We were going back to Texas where my family had been in a bloody feud, and my plans were to bring everyone out here from Texas. We were on the Black Canyon Stage headed for Hayden's Ferry at night and were held up and robbed. They did not recognize me in the dark or I am certain they'd have killed me. They took my nephew as a prisoner so as not to be followed.

“I took the stage guard's rifle and then took out a team horse and I rode him bareback after them. I don't think he'd ever been rode before, but we got along.

“I rode all night and found them in a camp thinking they'd eluded everyone. I took them on and shot them until only one was standing. He gave up. I tortured him to tell where that boy was. He finally said, ‘We cut his throat aways back and threw him off the mountain.'

“I was so mad, I must have shot him five times. A couple hours later I found Heck's body down in a canyon. I carried him up to the road. The posse came by and I told them the outlaws were all dead and the loot was up on the mountain in their camp.

“I went back to the stage robbery site with his body. I was lost about what to do next. A woman, Marge, who later became my first wife, had come down there in her buggy. I think she heard about it on her way into town and rushed to my rescue.

“I don't think I would have survived except she took charge and arranged everything, funeral and all. That boy had made great changes in his life on that trip. It was a damn shame.

“I had told Marge that I was promised to a woman in Texas. Didn't matter. She got me through those black days. I went back to Texas and the lady I had promised to marry could not leave there because her father's health was too bad for her to move him.

“I brought my entire family out here by a wagon train. Marge was there to greet me and I told her I was single. It never changed her stride; she went on taking care of me—until I felt so guilty I married her.”

“You didn't tell him that she had first paid all your bills including at the bathhouse so you could stay in town that first time.” Jesus laughed.

“I had to tell her it was not my way to take money or let someone pay for me. Paid her back for all that. She wanted me to settle there. After we were married, we had a son Adam and then she was killed in a horse-jumping accident.”

“Lucky thing huh for me that you're still here? Guys I am ten feet tall riding with you. Thanks for the history lesson. I will try to live up to the ways you three do things best I can.”

“Don't try too hard. You will fit in,” Chet said.

There were some false front stores and large tents set up for business in the community of Iron Mountain. Some were bars, others offered gambling, and two had scanty-dressed women who came out in the street and offered their services openly to Chet and his men.

Chet noticed Fred got a little red faced at their bawdy offers. He told them no and the four rode on to an open place with ropes for hitch rails between pines.

“Fred, watch our horses. We are going to split up and see if our man is around here. Jesus, you take the far tents and Miguel and I will start from this end.”

They left Fred, and Chet and Jesus walked to the nearest gambling tent. There were several filthy miners inside with shaggy unkempt beards and soiled clothes gambling at cards and the faro wheels.

“What can I do for you gents?” A young woman in a low-cut dress confronted the two of them.

“I am looking for a guy. Ralph Sutter, you know him?”

“I might. How much will you pay me?” She shifted her hip at him and pursed her mouth.

“I have a ten-dollar bill. I'm going to tear it in half and give you one half. If I find him on your information I will give you the other half and ten more.”

She looked around and quietly said, “Come out back. I can't talk in here.” Then she raised her voice. “Why sure, mister, I can take care of both of you. Right this way. Bargain prices in the middle of the week.”

She led them out of the tent to another. Once in her canvas-partitioned room with a bed and two trunks she swept her hair back from her face. “I need four dollars to split with my boss for turning a trick with you. Your man Sutter should be dealing cards in the Crazy Horse Saloon in Horse Thief Basin.”

She held her hand out for the four dollars.

Chet paid her and gave her two twenties besides the other four.

“You mean you trusted me?” She blinked her blue eyes in the subdued light in the tent.

“You said it all straight faced. Thanks.”

She cast her look to the ground. “Sure you don't need my services for all this money.”

“No. We're lawmen looking for him. You probably saved us a week of looking.”

“Well, mister, go out the back way from here, so they think I did you both a favor in my bed. And thanks. Come back again. I never caught your name?”

“Chet Byrnes. He's Miguel Costa. We live at Preskitt.”

“Oh, I've heard lots about you, sir. Nice meeting you, sir.”

“Thanks for the information.”

She shook her head and waved the money at him. “Best trick I've turned in weeks.”

Outside the back way, he sent Miguel, laughing, to find Jesus. They had a good lead. Her cheap perfume was still in his nose. It sure didn't smell like hay. How did girls like her get locked up in that trade? Like Bonnie and others had been, they wanted wild times to celebrate and have money. Oh, well, he couldn't worry about them all.

He found Fred seated on the ground rocking on his butt. “You find out where he was at?”

“Yes, Miguel went to find Jesus. Our man is at a saloon in Horse Thief Basin, dealing cards.”

Fred got to his feet and brushed off the seat of his pants. “That's easy, huh?”

“May have saved us a week looking for him.”

“Who told you?”

“A lady of the night for a few dollars.”

“You didn't?”

Chet laughed. “No. She was willing but I don't mess around.”

“I thought not.”

“Here comes Jesus and Miguel. Let's mount up. I don't want him getting word we're looking for him.”

Fred agreed and handed the reins out to the men.

“Boy, you got lucky,” Jesus said about the information.

“Yes. Let's trot some. We can eat some of Monica's food on our way.”

The sun was down by the time they reached Horse Thief Basin. The saloons were perched on the hillside side by side with a hundred steps to climb to reach the porch and the swinging doors.

Crazy Horse was the noisy second one. The racks were crowded in front with hipshot horses.

“String a lariat between two pine trees across this street, Fred, and we will use it for a hitch rack.”

“Yes, sir. I got it.”

The horses hitched, the three checked their pistols turning the cylinders to the light shining from the businesses upstairs.

“I have the horses secure.”

“We'll be back. Preferably with him.”

Chet crossed the dirt road and scaled the stairs to the saloon, his two men watching all around them. They paused at the top and stood for a moment before the swinging doors. Chet strode inside and adjusted his eyes to the brighter lights in the sour-smelling smoke-filled barroom.

There were several tables of players, and like he figured, his man would be facing the front door. He noticed the scar on the man's cheek as he dealt cards two tables back.