Haxan (10 page)

W
ork had piled on my desk. Like all government jobs paperwork was the great equalizer. It took most of my afternoon to wade through it. After I posted my last letter I tugged on my hat and mounted the stairs to Doc Toland’s office.

“Doc, you get those autopsies finished on those buffalo hunters?”

He was boiling instruments in a pan of water. He used tongs to retrieve them and place them, gleaming, on a white towel.

“Yes, I have, but I can’t submit an official report until all the tests are complete.”

This stopped me cold. “I thought it was pretty simple, Doc. Their throats were cut like hogs and they were shot point-blank.”

“Yes, John, their throats were cut, but that’s not what killed them, as you yourself pointed out. They didn’t bleed to death because they were already dead.”

“Correct. So what killed them, Doc?”

“When I cut them open I discovered an unknown substance inside their stomachs and their lungs. It wasn’t water or whiskey. I sent samples to Santa Fe for further analysis. It may take a while, John. That stuff was mixed with stomach acids, which may affect results.”

He noticed the disappointment on my face. “I’m sorry, Marshal. I know you want this to stay official. I can’t render a professional judgement on what killed those men until I get the results back.”

“Do you do believe they were poisoned?”

“I’d bet on it, but it’s not a poison I’m familiar with. Not an alkaloid, which you see a lot in this country. They didn’t have any of the usual symptoms associated with that.”

I gave a sigh of disappointment. “All right, Doc. Thanks for your help.”

He saw me to the door. “I hope to have those test results within a couple of weeks, John, if we’re lucky. Santa Fe is notoriously slow when it comes to scientific work like this. In fact, they may not have the proper resources to determine the exact nature of the poison. They might send it forward to experts in Denver or Chicago. We may not get word for a month, or more.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t hang my hat on this.”

“Not if you’re looking for a conviction.”

“Thanks, Doc. I know you did your best.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, John. I really am.”

As I descended the steps I felt as if I was reaching my last chance to figure out who killed Shiner Larsen. I hadn’t any clue where Connie Rand was, or if he was even involved in Larsen’s murder or Magra’s attempted kidnapping. I was working with shadow and supposition. Not a smart combination for scientific police work, or a watertight case to nail a ruthless killer.

Certainly nothing I could approach a circuit court judge like Samuel Creighton with.

Some lawman I was. I had three murders on my hands and not a single clue who was behind them all. Not to mention a range war about to blow up in my face.

I made plans with Jake to do the rounds that night and ordered a slice of pie in a Mexican cantina calling itself the Cactus Rose. A hand-painted sign above the door read “
S
opaipillas
.” You could smell them frying in lard through the Indian blanket that served as the kitchen door. It was dark inside, and blessedly quiet. I preferred it to the raucous places with their jangling piano music, clink of money, and drunken shrieks of laughter.

I took a table beside a window framed with drying racks of red chili peppers. I was far enough back to keep an eye on things outside without being seen.

“You will come to the paseo tomorrow night, Marshal?” a dark-skinned Mexican girl asked as she set the pie down with my coffee. She had blue-black hair and smoke-dark eyes. Her wine-red skirt brushed the table.

“Paseo?”

“
Sì
. An old custom. Men and women, they walk in circles different to one another in the plaza.” She drew opposite circles in the air with her slim fingers. “It is a way for a young lady to show how pretty she is, dressed in her finery, and a man to show he is much interested. You will come, yes?”

“I might.” Maybe I could bring Magra.

After washing the pie down with black piñon coffee I crossed the plaza to the Haxan Hotel. The sun was falling behind the mountains. Only their crowns were lighted. The whole sky was aglow with orange fire and jagged bands of red and pink.

I was relieved to see Hew Clay behind the desk.

“Hew. How was your trip to Las Cruces?”

“Profitable, Marshal. Very profitable. I made a great deal on new bedroom furniture from New Orleans. Real fancy iron-lacework. How was your day?”

“Fair.” I decided not to tell him about the run in I had had with his wife. There was nothing he could do anyway. “Have you seen Magra around?”

“Not since I got back. She left north on foot. Said she had family business to attend to. I didn’t think it was my place to stop her. Anything wrong, Marshal?”

“Not sure.” I had a pretty good idea where she was headed. I would be able to catch up to her if she was on foot. “Pate Nichols still have a room here?”

“Yes, sir. Paid up through tonight.”

“What room is he in?”

“Sixteen. It’s a suite, end of the first hallway and to the right.” His face went pale. “There’s not going to be trouble in my hotel, is there, Marshal?”

“I hope not but stay here just in case.”

He watched me climb the narrow wooden steps, my hand on my gun. I found the right door and thumped it with my fist. Nichols answered.

He was alone in the room. His Remington revolver hung on a wooden peg beside the mirror.

“Marshal. Come in. Saves me the trouble of trying to scare you up.”

“You leaving, Nichols?”

“In the morning. I’d like for you to ride back with me so you can see what I’ve been putting up with at the ranch.”

A hot breeze stirred the fancy curtains at his window.

“Mr. Nichols, you may not be leaving after all. I’m here on official business. Did you hire a gunman by the name of Ben Tack?”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “Not sure I understand.”

“It’s clear enough. A gunman by that name was seen riding to your place five days ago. Since then, fences have been cut and Danby’s livestock killed. In all that time, you’ve been sitting in this hotel room like a guilty man working on an alibi.”

He became ruffled. “What are you trying to say, Marshal?”

“I’m saying it, Nichols, only you’re not listening. It’s awfully suspicious a cowman worried about his thirsty livestock would sit in a hotel room instead of being where he can watch everything.”

“Perhaps you can tell me my reason?”

“Like I said, you’re cementing an alibi for whatever might happen to Coffer Danby.”

His face became hard. The skin across his cheekbones was so tight you could see tiny blood vessels.

“Marshal, you can’t prove your allegations. Not one lick. If Danby is stupid enough to get himself in a gunfight with a stranger that ain’t my blame.”

“It is if you hired Ben Tack to kill him.”

“That would be hard proving, Marshal. Mighty hard proving.”

“Maybe.” I still wanted to hit him, but standing alone with Nichols and his deeply haunted eyes forced me to put a few ideas together.

“Nichols, Tack was seen by another trail boss riding out to your place. Danby started losing livestock. Your cattle are being driven off from water. You see the connection?”

His eyebrows came together. “I’m not sure how you mean.”

“Maybe Tack is playing you for a fool. Might be he wants the same thing you’re after.”

“What might that be?”

“Rose Danby.”

Nichols got mad but brought himself under control with immense effort. Then he did something unexpected: he collapsed on the side of the bed and lowered his clasped hands between his knees.

When he looked up again his eyes were more haunted, more cavernous, than ever before. With the light from the lamp his whole face possessed a scarred and ravaged look.

“Did Rose tell you that?” he asked, blinking with nervous tension.

“She hinted she rebuffed your advances. That’s why Danby is really out to kill you, isn’t it? He knows you’ve been sniffing after his wife.” I could tell from his reaction I was right.

“Rose is a fine woman,” he said in a hoarse whisper. The knuckles of his clenched hands were bone-white. “I can give her better than Coffer. Better than any man can.”

“Belike she loves her husband, or she would have already left him,” I suggested. “She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who dilly-dallies about such decisions. Unless you know something I don’t.”

Nichols didn’t respond. At first, I thought the possibility of Rose loving her husband more than Nichols jarred him. But that didn’t make sense. A man like Pate Nichols, rich and land powerful, wouldn’t be afraid of losing Rose’s affection. If she could be trusted, her affection was something Nichols never had in the first place.

So why was he moping about something that was never his to begin with?

“Nichols. I thought this animosity between you and Danby was over water. It goes deeper, doesn’t it? Deeper than you loving Rose and her not loving you in return.”

Nichols drew in a ragged breath. The bed springs squeaked as he pushed himself back to his feet. He stood before the room mirror hanging on a wire over the dresser.

“I look at myself, and I don’t recognize who I am,” he said. It was the loneliest voice in the world.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “You never knew me before you came to Haxan, Marshal. I used to carry a lot more weight on my frame. My face was filled out. These days I can’t hardly walk I’m so tired. I’m going downhill fast and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.”

I recollected watching him climb the stairs to Doc Toland’s office the morning before.

“You bad sick?”

He nodded. “Cancer in the bones. Got another year, Doc Toland says, if I’m real lucky. That’s why I want Rose as my wife, Marshal. I want a son to leave what I’ve built with these two hands.”

He gave a single, ironic laugh. “These hands. Look at them. Sometimes I can’t stop the shaking. Marshal, I don’t want what I’ve built to disappear in the wind, and me never remembered by anyone.”

“Nichols, there are lots of women who would be proud to carry on your legacy. Rose Danby isn’t the only woman in the territory.”

“No, but she’s the best. I always thought so.”

He propped one elbow on top of the polished dresser and cupped his chin in his palm. “You know how it is, when you see something and it digs straight to your heart, and you have to possess it, or die trying. Well, I’m dying. I figure I might as well do everything I can to get what I want in the few months I have left. I’ve got plenty of money—why not use it to my advantage? That is, I felt this way until you walked in here and told me Rose might be playing me false. Even so, when you’ve walked the road of death as far as I have, you have to see a thing through, or you don’t feel straight up a man.”

His hand dropped with a light thump on top of the dresser. “If that means killing Coffer Danby that’s what it will come out to be. There ain’t no stopping it, Marshal. Rose or no Rose.”

“Nichols, this is your final warning. If you hired Ben Tack to do murder I’ll throw you in jail. I won’t have you, or anyone else, deciding the law in Haxan.”

Despite everything else, he was shaken Ben Tack might have manoeuvred unseen behind his back. A proud man like Pate Nichols would never stand to be made a fool of.

If nothing else I had given him something to think about. Maybe it would be enough to save a few lives in the bargain.

“Nichols? Are you listening to me?”

“You’re straightforward enough, Marshal. You may not believe this, but I am grateful you stopped by to tell me these things.”

He caught me at the door. “Oh, one more thing, Marshal,” he said. “My foreman rides into town every afternoon. He keeps me apprised how things are out at the ranch. He said this man Connie Rand has hired with us off and on over the last three months. Jenks, that’s my foreman, he claims Rand is a good worker but has a mean streak. He cut up a man in the bunkhouse over a card game ’bout a month ago. The boys said the guy had it coming because he was dealing seconds off the bottom.”

“Tells me something about how Rand reacts. Is he out at the Lazy X now?”

“No. Jenks hasn’t seen Rand since he left our employ. He’s known to partner with another drifter name of Silas Foote. Jenks heard Foote fell into trouble with the law in Kansas. We get a lot of men like that. You know this country. Long as a man does his work, and don’t cause too much trouble, we don’t ask questions about his past.”

“What does Silas Foote look like?”

“Average-sized gomer with straggly black, greasy hair. The bones of his face look like glass pushing through lambskin. Got a strawberry red birthmark on his neck. Good line rider, though. One of the best. Likes his solitude.”

“A line rider would have to. Any idea where I can find these men?”

“Foote had to ride into Haxan for a toothache a couple or three weeks ago, Jenks heard. My foreman doesn’t know any more than that.”

“All right, Nichols, thanks for the information. Any way I can talk to this foreman myself?”

“You ride out to my place with me tomorrow and you can see him. That’s where I’ll be, Marshal.”

Nichols paused with significance. “I’m going home to die.”