Doubtful Canon (19 page)

“It’s ready!” Jasmine yelled. “But don’t you forget to send that rope back down for me.”

Brocious’s laugh came up short when he gave the rope a tug. Grunting, grimacing, he strained as he and Ringo pulled, tugged, then shouted: “Help us!” Whitey Grey dashed forward, and Ian Spencer Henry and I started, but Miss Giddings grabbed our shoulders, keeping us near her.

They pulled. Pulled. Ringo let go, fell back on his knees and reached inside with both hands. “Just a few…more…got it!” He fell on his stomach. “Keep pulling, you fools! Don’t drop it! Pull!”

Dust-coated, worn leather came through, the bags bulging, buckles broken. Miss Giddings relaxed her grip, and we all gathered around the saddlebags, watching Whitey Grey brush dirt off the dried leather until the faint tracing of a brand burned into the hide became legible: J J G.

Softly Miss Giddings repeated her father’s name.

“Hey!” Jasmine called out. “Get me out of here!”

Brocious started to gather the rope, but Ringo stopped him.

“Don’t bother,” he said in a wild whisper, and, straining, pulled open one of the bags and dumped out its contents.

A deafening, savage curse exploded from Dutch Johnny Ringo’s mouth, and he jerked the Thunderer from its holster, slamming the barrel against the back of the white-skinned man’s head. Whitey Grey, who had crawled forward to stare at his treasure, pitched forward, planting his face in the pile of rocks.

“You idiot!” Ringo roared, kicking at the old man, aiming the revolver at the albino’s back, thumbing the hammer, shaking his head, cursing again. “Twenty years!” he yelled. “For this?” The pistol boomed, its report echoing in the approaching darkness, spitting sand into Whitey Grey’s open mouth. The albino sat up, clutching a chunk of granite in each hand, staring blindly, blinking, mouth open, blood running down the back of his head, sticking to that flowing mane of white hair. “Fool!” Ringo said, and started to pull the trigger again. “Rocks! Rocks! Nothing but rocks. You idiot!”

Curly Bill Brocious just stared, bewildered, and finally let out a little groan.

“What’s going on?” Jasmine’s voice called from inside the pit. “Don’t you leave me here. I want to get out! Throw me the rope! What’s going on up there?”

Ringo laughed coarsely, kicked the pile of rocks, shoved the revolver into its holster. “Twenty years, you’ve waited, Grey. Twenty years…for dirt. Which is what you are, old man. Dirt. You’re as worthless as these rocks.” He spit, pushed back his hat, and swore again. “And I’m just as worthless for hitching my team to your wagon. Idiots!”

The granite slipped from the albino’s hands. Pale eyes fluttering, he just sat there as the blood flowed.

“Maybe….” Curly Bill ripped open the other bag. “Maybe….” He reached in, pulled out….

“Yeah, Curly.” Ringo turned away, shaking his head, his lips tight, knowing what his partner would find in the other pouch.

Brocious picked up the saddlebags, dumped out more dust, rocks, and filth, then, swearing, he flung the ancient leather at Miss Giddings’s feet. “I told you, Dutch…,” he began.

“Shut up, Curly. Shut up, or I’ll fill your gut with lead.” Ringo laughed again, his voice hoarse.

Silence returned for a minute, broken by Whitey Grey’s snickers. “Mister Giddings,” he said, nodding with respect. “Man had a belly full of gumption. Come all this way with bags full of rocks. Rocks. By jingo, I must’ve had rocks in my head.”

“That gold could be anywhere,” Brocious said numbly.

“Don’t think it ever left Texas,” the white-skinned man said. “Not with Mister Giddings nohow. Reckon we was a decoy. Mister Butterfield and ’em Overland boys probably had other arrangements. But…”—he grinned at Miss Giddings—“your pappy had sand, lady. He wouldn’t turn back, wouldn’t shirk no duty. He died for the Overland. Sure played me for a fool. He….” He turned toward the noise.

Ringo heard it, too, filling both of his hands with revolvers.

“Horses,” Brocious whispered urgently. “Might be the Army. If they find them colored boys in that wagon….” He started down the hill, calling over his shoulder: “The game’s up, Dutch! Come on!” Muttering an oath when Ringo refused to budge, Brocious stopped at the bottom of the hill. “We got one horse, that Army horse, Dutch! Unless you want to take that wagon through Doubtful! Come on, will you! The pickings have got to be easier in Tombstone!”

Whitey Grey kept laughing, and Ringo began making his way down the hill, but on a whim he stopped, whirled, and aimed the Remington at my chest.

“They ain’t worth it, Dutch!” Brocious gave up, running for the maze.

The wind had started again, not as violent as before, as I looked down the barrel of that heavy .44.

“Ringo!” Miss Giddings gasped.

His face looked dead, and he cocked the hammer. I closed my eyes. A body stepped in front of me, and, when I pried my eyelids open, I stared at the bloody back of Whitey Grey’s head. “Ain’t you a big man, Ringy,” I heard the white-skinned man say. “Killin’ a kid. Ain’t I more your size?”

Metal
clicked,
leather
creaked,
and Ringo’s voice called out with a dry laugh and low whisper: “Curly’s right! You ain’t worth it.”

With that, he was gone, racing down the hill, across the opening, and through the rocks.

Whitey Grey loosened his bandanna and placed the sour-smelling rag against the gash in his head, sat down, and sighed. Hoofs thundered, followed by a scattering of shots, more hoof beats, shouts. Miss Giddings took off toward the old Overland road, lifting her voice, yelling for help. My knees buckled, and I sank onto the earth, Ian Spencer Henry dropping beside me, his hand steadying my shoulder.

“You all right, Jack?” he asked. “I thought you was dead, for sure.”

From the pit beneath us, Jasmine cried: “If you don’t get me out of this hole, you’re gonna be real sorry!”

I made myself move, needed to work, to get the image of Ringo’s pistol out of my head, so Ian Spencer Henry and I grabbed the rope and dropped one end into the black hole while Whitey Grey started singing some old song, stanching the flow of blood with that rag, rocking, laughing, talking to himself. We pulled, Jasmine shouting her instructions, and finally her right hand shot out of the hole. I knelt forward, grabbed it, and we lifted her back into the dusk, hugging her.

“What happened?” she asked.

I started to answer, but a woman’s high-pitched voice stopped me.

“Jasmine!” We spun around, watched in stunned silence as Berit Ann Allison charged forward, lifting the hems of her calico dress, tears of joy flowing down her face. “Jasmine! My love!”

Jasmine blinked, dropped the rope in the dust, and took a tentative step forward. “Mom?” she said.

More faces and figures appeared in the maze, led by Miss Giddings, who pointed up the hillside toward us. Mr. Shankin came through, and many others. One man in a tan, sack coat stumbled, tossed aside a Sharps rifle, and pulled himself up. “Ian!” he hollered. “Boy?”

“Pa!” Ian Spencer Henry showed no hesitation. He raced down the hill, slid to a stop, charged back up, and grabbed the canvas war bag that carried the old Army Colt. Then he hurried back down the hill, and sprinted for his father. Jasmine got her legs to work, and, tears welling in her eyes, she ran into her mother’s waiting embrace. I stared at the opening, searching the faces, and staggered beside Whitey Grey, squatting beside him.

I didn’t see my father.

Well…I hadn’t expected to. Not really. I mean…. What did I mean? A tear broke free, rolled down my cheek. Then another. And another. Until I made them stop.

Whitey Grey’s callused hand patted my knee. He had stopped singing. “You’re a good boy, Jack Dunivan,” he said. “A mighty fine pard!”

Sniffing, I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and watched Mr. Shankin climb up the hill, out of breath, followed by several other men from Shakespeare, miners and merchants, some that I knew, many more that I didn’t.

“You gave us all quite a start…,” Mr. Shankin began. He knelt beside me. “You all right? You look as if….”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Rough hands jerked Whitey Grey to his feet, started shoving him down the hill. “This is the one we want,” a voice said. And another: “The fiend!” Still another: “Fetch that rope!”

I wiped my eyes again, oblivious to the tumult around me. “How’d you find us?” I asked.

“Those two men from Lordsburg,” he said. “And we found those railroad cars at Stein’s Peak. It wasn’t….”

“Hang him!” another voice cried out. “Child stealer. Thief! String him up the way we did Cornwall Dan…!”

The shout died, and I looked in time to see the man’s head drop. Others stared uncomfortably at Berit Ann Allison and her daughter, but they didn’t seem to hear or notice, just wrapped themselves together, sobbing in joy.

“Come on, Jack.” Mr. Shankin held out his hand, and I took it, letting him pull me up. For some reason, I grabbed the old saddlebags, lighter now, but still spilling dust, and followed the mercantile owner down the hill. Two more figures emerged from the maze, Trooper Muller and Corporal Merchant, the former holding a wet cloth on the back of his head, the corporal rubbing his wrists where the bindings had chaffed the skin.

“Curly Bill and Ringo?” I asked.

“Who?” Mr. Shankin said. “You mean the two…?” His head shook. “Got away. Didn’t know who they were. We would have gone after them, but they were riding deeper into the cañon, and then this woman said…well…we wanted you, to find you.”

“Where’s a tree!” someone yelled.

“Let’s just shoot him. Here’s a half-dug grave we can use.”

“He don’t need to get buried, not the likes of him!”

Another voice came, this one softer, and I looked, my knees buckling, the tears coming again. This time I made no effort to stop crying.

“Pa!” I yelled, dropping the empty saddlebags.

And ran for my father.

He had stayed behind to help the soldiers in the wagon, maybe dreading what he would find, fearing me dead. I buried my face in his chest, felt his strong arms squeeze me, heard him crying as well. I didn’t smell liquor, only dust and sweat. I didn’t feel chagrined, only love.

He sobbed. “I…promised…made a vow…I said if you weren’t killed…I’d never…never…I’d never touch whiskey again.” He hugged me tighter. “I’m sorry, Son. I…I’m….”

“I’m sorry, Pa,” I said.

Other voices grew louder, and I pulled myself away from my father’s embrace, fisted the tears from my eyes, sniffing, making myself stand and face these men bent on lynch law.

“Leave him be!” I yelled, surprised to hear Ian Spencer Henry echo my own orders. He joined me as we marched toward Whitey Grey, his hands now bound behind his back, a rope around his neck.

“He saved us!” Ian Spencer Henry said. “He stood in front of Jack, wouldn’t let Ringo kill him. Stopped Ringo from killing Jasmine, too. He saved us all!”

It was a stretch, perhaps. Or maybe not.

“Let him go!” This time my father barked the order. “You hang this man, you harm him, I will print every last one of your names in my newspaper. In every paper in the territory. You’ll be branded as murderers, just as you should have been branded when you took the law in your hands before, when you hanged Cornwall Dan and Harley King. There will be no lynching here. Let him be!”

With muffled voices, they stared.

“Let him go,” Berit Ann Allison said.

Even Miss Giddings stepped forward, demanding the release of the white-skinned man.

“Here.” Mr. Shankin pulled a handful of crumpled bills from his vest pocket. “Here’s fifty dollars, mister. Take it and be gone. Get out of our sight, out of New Mexico Territory. Turn him loose, boys.”

The rope came off, as did the bonds around his wrists, and Whitey Grey dusted himself off, pulled on his hat, and grabbed the money before Mr. Shankin or anyone could change his mind. He shoved the greenbacks into his pocket, came to Ian Spencer Henry and me, and patted our heads. “You’s good pards,” he said.

“Start walking!” one of the miners thundered.

The albino winked, and told us in a whisper, “Don’t y’all fret none. I knows where ’em centipede cars be. I’ll be fine, pards. Look me up sometime.” His eyes found the saddlebags and he picked them up, started to toss them over his shoulder. “Reckon I spent twenty years huntin’ this. So I deserve it.” He looked inside one of the pouches, squinting, pursing his lips, and reached inside. He pulled out something small, dusty—I couldn’t make it out—studying it, and then, throwing the saddlebags over his shoulder, walked to Miss Giddings and handed the battered daguerreotype to her.

“Warrant your pappy didn’t want this to fall in no Cherry Cow hands, neither,” he said. “Can’t blame ’im none. She be a right handsome woman. Takes after you.”

Tears formed in Eleora Giddings’s eyes as she stared at the faded picture.

“Mama,” she whispered as Whitey Grey, whistling some bawdy tune, walked into the desert.

We camped that night in Doubtful Cañon. Well, the bulk of the posse headed out, some opting for a grog shop over in the San Simon, most riding back to Lordsburg or Shakespeare. The two soldiers, Mr. Shankin, and our parents stayed in the rocky fort, figuring it was just as safe as the rock house, and the soldiers, their heads throbbing, were in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Well, that’s the reasons everyone gave anyway. Mostly I think they wanted to give Miss Eleora Giddings time at her father’s grave.

She stayed with us, too.

We told our story. Our parents explained how they had found us. The men Whitey Grey had waylaid along the Southern Pacific tracks had tipped them off. No one had ever found the note I had planted. They hadn’t even thought about looking in the Lady Macbeth Mine—so much for my genius, I figured. Instead of thinking we were running away for El Paso, they had believed that this crazed albino seen in the town’s saloons had kidnapped us, and the posse had left Shakespeare, vowing vengeance.

I felt weak. Our foolishness had almost gotten several people killed—including us. Even Whitey Grey had almost been lynched, which, many people in Shakespeare would later say, he should have been.

“Well,” Mrs. Allison remarked over the campfire. “No harm done.”

“Yeah,” my father agreed. So did Ian Spencer Henry’s.

Lucky we were. Under other circumstances, all of our hides would have been tanned for such transgressions.

We supped on hardtack, biscuits, beans, bacon, and salt pork, slept well, and rose early. Mr. Shankin started frying bacon and boiling coffee, while Ian Spencer Henry’s dad recounted the story we had told him, shaking his head, scoffing at our youthful stupidity for chasing gold.

“Buried treasure,” he said with a snort. “I hope you have learned your lesson.”

“Pack of lies,” Mr. Shankin agreed. “I told you as much back in my store, Jack.”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed.

“Well….” Jasmine pressed her lips together, and began nervously playing with her fingers. She kept glancing back to the pit, then at her feet. Finally with a heavy sigh, she unlaced her left shoe, pulled it off, and reached inside. What she removed sparkled in the morning sun.

Mr. Henry let out an oath, and, embarrassed, quickly apologized.

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone.” Jasmine looked at Ian Spencer Henry and me. “Except you. Later. Thought we might come back….”