Haxan (5 page)

I thought about Marshal Breggmann. “Hm. Big ranches like the Lazy X?”

Patch Wallet rolled his thick shoulders in a careful shrug. “Can’t say for right certain ’bout that. It’s not like he’s blood kin to me or anything.”

“Where does Rand stay when he’s in town?”

“Who knows? This is Haxan. He drifts.”

“The two men with Rand. Can you describe them?”

“Not so good, Marshal. They kept down the street and had the sun behind them before they all left out.”

I drained my coffee. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Wallet. You gave me more to work on than I had five minutes ago.”

“Don’t go, Marshal. I can’t describe the men, but I can describe their horses.”

I faced back around. “How’s that?”

“I’ve got an eye for horses, Marshal, even when the sun’s against me. One of the men rode a bay with three black points. The other sat a sorrel mare.”

I stayed for a second cup of coffee but Patch didn’t remember anything else of importance. Before leaving I checked on my horse and made arrangements to stable and feed him.

“I want him exercised every day.”

“I’ll take care of him, Marshal.” Patch cast an experienced eye along the lines of the blue roan. He brushed his rough, broken-knuckled hand along the horse’s withers. “Fine animal. If you’re looking to sell I’ll pay you top dollar.”

“Not looking to sell.”

Patch shook his head at the lost opportunity. “Can’t say I blame you. That’s a top piece of horseflesh, that is.”

I left the livery stable and rounded the plaza on foot. The saloons were raucous and busy. Lights splashed out on the boardwalks and street corners. Spanish guitar trickled out of a cantina and climbed into the night with a woman’s laughter in tow. I checked all the horses at the tie rails out front, but I didn’t spot a three-point bay or a sorrel mare.

As I searched I couldn’t stop thinking about Shiner Larsen and what he said before he died. It wasn’t unusual someone like him had called someone like me into the maelstrom.

All of the places we protect are like that. They spin like a huge storm in time and space, warping reality and sucking people in. Sometimes people disappear forever. Sometimes I make them disappear.

Now I was here in Haxan, alone and called to service, but this time by a dead man. The only connection I had left with Larsen was his daughter, and there were men who wanted to kill her, too.

I would not let that happen. By my life, I would not.

I strolled through tent city. The air was filled with flying wood smoke. There was horse dung and offal between the tents. Men passed bowls of raw whiskey across a crackling fire. I found two miners who tied an old Navajo to a cottonwood tree. They traded shots at a bottle on his head while betting who could come closest without killing him. I cuffed one and the second swung a haymaker at me. I beat the barrel of my Colt Dragoon across his face and opened his nose down to the bone. He fell, whiffling like a baby while blood ran between his fingers. His friend tried to run. I hooked my boot around his ankle and brought him down in a mess of pear cactus.

After this they decided they didn’t want to fight. I put them under arrest and told the Navajo, “Go home, old grandfather. They won’t hurt you again.”

The white-haired man clutched a threadbare blanket around his naked shoulders. His legs poked through his britches like knobby sticks. “Are you Long Blood?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go home.”

I shoved my two prisoners toward town. After I locked them up I stopped by a two-storey frame house on the dog end of Calle de Santiago, a tree-lined dirt street running perpendicular to the plaza. Outside, a white shingle swung from a brass rod:

T
HE
T
OPSY
T
UMBLE

G
ENTLEMEN
C
ALLERS
W
ELCOME

A
DELE
B
OUVIER,
P
ROP.

A skinny, elfin girl, with chestnut hair in drooping sausage curls and a green choker with a silver buckle, met me at the door. She was in full war paint. Her pupils were unnaturally large—many girls swallowed belladonna to get the special effect of “bedroom eyes.”

Inside the richly appointed entrance hall stood a red leather sofa and green satin chairs. The walls were panelled in alternating oak and mahogany. In each corner of the hallway stood a white marble pedestal topped with a potted green plant.

The place exuded a quiet air of sex, discretion, and high money.

“Help you, mister?” She was chewing licorice. Her pale yellow chemise was off one brown shoulder. She adjusted the chemise but it slipped off again.

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Bertha.”

“Who runs this house, Bertha?”

“You looking for trouble?” She smiled, her lips red with grease. Some was on her teeth. “Because we got lots of that.”

M
y name is John Marwood.” I showed her the badge.

“I seen them things before,” Bertha said.

“I’m a federal officer on official business.”

She sobered up fast. “Oh, a federal man. You’ll want Miss Bouvier. I’ll find her for you. Chair’s over there if your legs get tired standing or somethin’.”

She flounced and disappeared like pale smoke through a green velvet curtain fringed with gold balls.

I didn’t wait long. Adele Bouvier unlocked a door at the distant end of the hallway and bustled through with a practiced, and perfected, smile pinned to her face. Her ink-black hair had a streak of silver and was done up with an expensive jade comb. Her black and beige business suit was immaculate. Her nails were long, cut square, and heavily lacquered. She smelled faintly of attar of roses and stale cigar smoke.

“You must be Marshal Marwood,” she said in a lilting accent with a lot of Mississippi mud in the vowels. “I’ve heard ’bout you. One of my girls was in the Texas Star earlier tonight. I’m Adele Bouvier. Friends call me Miss Addie.”

I shook her hand. She leaned close so I could feel her warmth. She let her languid hand linger in mine so I could marvel at how soft and helpless it felt. Like she would be in a four-poster bed inside of a minute if that’s what I wanted.

“I’m here on business,” I reminded her.

“Oh, too bad.”

“I don’t want any misunderstanding, Adele. You may remain open long as your girls stay clean and there’s no hint of robbery or blackmail with the customers. No girls on the street, either, unless they work the tents. Keep it inside. Get the word out to the other madams. I don’t know them, you do. We’ll see about setting up a safe district so you ladies can stay together and feel protected, if that’s what you want.”

She wasn’t affronted in the least by my open talk about sex. She knew the give and take with the law, and the wink and the nod with city elders, that went with her business.

“My girls are clean, Marshal. They’re checked every month by a doctor. I have a very profitable enterprise here. I have no interest in doing anything to undermine that.”

Her hand remained on my arm, as if she had forgotten all about it.

“But you must understand those cowboys can get rowdy, Marshal. I have to bust heads if they hurt my girls. You understand.”

“You employ a bouncer?”

“Red Sam—a black foreman off my father’s plantation in Natchez. He keeps everything nice and orderly.” She flipped a dismissive hand. “He has his own little farm on Crooked Stick Creek and a very nice family. He does this for extra pay.”

“Long as we see eye to eye, Adele, I have no problem with that.”

“You want your sin money paid every week? Or would you rather take it out in trade?”

“Neither. I’m trusting you to do the right thing. Keep paying your license fee and the commission won’t bother you too much. If you have any trouble, aside from the usual bedroom brawl, you let the law handle it.”

She viewed me with growing wonder. “I’ve never met a lawman who didn’t want sin money or skin trade in return. Okay, Marshal, we’ll try it your way. On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You call me Addie, like I said.”

I grinned. “All right.” I had a brain wave. “Come to think of it, perhaps you can help me after all, Addie. I’m looking for a man.”

She laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

“His name is Connie Rand.” I gave her the description.

“He wanted for outlawry?”

“I want to question him.”

“I’m asking because we get our fair share of spoilers. No, Marshal, I haven’t heard of Rand. I think I can trust you. Leastways, as much as I trust any man. If I see this Connie Rand I’ll let you know.”

“Keep this between us, Addie.” She was pure mercenary and I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to sell Rand or myself out if the chance presented itself and the profit margin was high enough. I still thought it was worth a gamble. Whores had eyes where no lawman ever did.

“Sure, Marshal. I know how to keep a confidence. Part of my work.”

“Then I’ll say good night to you.”

She followed me to the door. “Marshal, you ever want to come by and have coffee and cinnamon cake, you’re more than welcome. I don’t get many nice gentlemen callers.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the invitation.”

Her hand rested on the gold doorknob. The lamplight was full on her face; there were lines around her mouth and her eyes, but she was a handsome woman. She wasn’t one of those rail-thin consumptive women you often see working the line. She had womanly curves a man could appreciate, and she knew how to carry herself in regal fashion.

She touched my hand, holding me back.

“I’m sincere, Marshal. Most lawmen would have barged in and ordered me around. You didn’t push at all. You treated me like I was somebody and not a rag cowboys wipe their peckers on. You don’t know how that makes me feel.” She gave my arm a final squeeze. “My offer of coffee and cake stands.”

“I won’t forget. You don’t forget what I said, either. Good night.”

“Good night, Marshal.”

As I turned down the lane I looked back. Her slim figure was silhouetted in the rectangular light of the doorway.

I pulled my pocket watch and flipped the dust cover open. Going on eleven. The biggest saloons and dance halls would stay open all night. One last stop, then I would head to the office and start on paperwork for my two prisoners.

I crossed the plaza and turned into the Quarter Moon. I gave the usual talk, abbreviated, because the word was out and my speech had lost a lot of its punch.

August Wicker, who was also a founding member of the Haxan Peace Commission, owned the establishment. He hustled me aside.

“I wish you would shoot a hole in my ceiling, Marshal,” he pleaded. He was a pear-shaped man with a smooth voice like croton oil. His side-whiskers were combed out and his eyebrows were thick and heavy, like coal smudged on wrinkled paper. His hair was so full of pomade it looked painted on.

“Maybe I can carve my initials in that piano over there.”

“I’m not joking, Marshal. Jonah Hake sold more whiskey tonight than he has in a month. That’s hardly fair to me.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Jonah. If I catch any crooked games I’ll shut you down, Wicker.”

His lips were wide and rubbery. His eyes were kind of slanted like that of a hungry catfish.

“Marshal, there’s no call for that. Look around you. My place is the biggest and the fanciest in town. That diamond-dust mirror cost over a thousand dollars. The oil painting above the bar, the one of the bull snorting flames from his nostrils and the naked girl sleeping on his back? That was commissioned from New York. We’ve got nice rooms upstairs for the girls. The Quarter Moon isn’t like those other horse-traps. Okay, the Sassy Sage has girls swinging over the bar and a parrot that barks like a dog, and meows like a cat. I concede that’s a real attraction. But my place has class. You can’t buy class.”

I watched a roach on the floor nibbling beer-soaked breadcrumbs.

“I can see that,” I said.

“Best pay-out roulette tables in town, too. Guaranteed winners. Any game you want I got. Dice, faro, roulette, chuck-a-luck. You name it, we’ve got it.”

“Same rules go for you, Wicker. No special favours.”

“Why, Marshal, that’s what the commission wants so that’s what I want.” He quickly changed the subject. “How about a beer? On the house, to commemorate your first night on the job.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“Dave, a draft of our finest for our new marshal.”

“Coming right up, Mr. Wicker,” one of the bartenders replied. He wore a crisp white shirt with a celluloid collar and starched apron. Red garters were snug around each arm. He served the foaming beer with a proud flourish.

Wicker watched me take a drink. “What did I tell you, Marshal? We ice our beer down. We don’t put it in a water barrel like those other horse-traps. You get quality service in the Quarter Moon. I pay my saloon girls proper and hardly have to knock them around. Why—”

“I been looking for you all night, lawdog.”

You get so you recognize the inflection.

Sometimes they make it clear outright and you have to pull your gun and spin and shoot, leaving your life to chance. This voice wasn’t like that. It had the timbre of a man who wanted to seal his reputation, yes. He was standing on the edge of a razor, waiting to see which way he might fall. There are men like that. They work up enough nerve until they push themselves to the brink where they call someone, even a stranger, out.

The really craven ones back-shoot a drunk on the street, or cut the throat of a stray dog at night. Then they pretend they were upholding some semblance of honour. This voice wasn’t like that, either. It was just a man who, at this point in life, thought it would be a fine idea to call a U.S. Marshal out. Hell, he might get lucky and kill me. In his mind he associated that luck with fame.

In other words, he didn’t give a damn what happened to either of us. These were the most dangerous kind of killers because they were careless with their lives, and the lives of others.

I set my beer down and turned around, slow. People had already moved aside and cleared a path between us. The smart ones ducked through the bat-wing doors and fled outside.

He stood twenty feet away beside a roulette table. I pegged him as a boy off the farm. Early twenties, with fuzz on his face that he wished would pass for man-whiskers. He wore pants torn at one knee, a sleeveless shirt of coarse homespun, and a white planter’s hat with a snap-brim. He didn’t sport a rig. He wore his gun, a rusty Navy Colt, thrust through the belt of his pants.

He had probably practiced with it all of one afternoon after hearing there was a new marshal in town. The body of a federal lawman would cement his reputation like nothing else could.

It would make him somebody, instead of a nameless farm-hand who hated and feared life and everyone around him.

August Wicker started forward. “My good man, there is no gunplay allowed in this establishment. Why don’t you—”

I grabbed Wicker’s collar and shoved him aside. “Shut up and get out of the way, Wicker,” I growled. Few things made gunfights more dangerous than idiot bystanders who stumbled in your way. They interrupted the rhythm of the challenge and made muscles twitch before they were meant to twitch.

Idiots like that were more dangerous than the man you had to face.

Wicker gawped at me, his fat mouth opening and closing like a fish that couldn’t get oxygen.

I kicked my grey duster back with one hand, revealing the bone handle of my Colt Dragoon. “You called me out, boy?”

The air inside the saloon froze into a block of ice. Nobody moved or breathed. Movement meant death. Beer dribbled from an open tap into a metal basin. Even Wicker’s rubbery mouth stopped gulping for air.

“I guess I did.” The boy swallowed, squared his shoulders. “I’m going to roll a hammer on you, Marshal.”

That’s when I heard something else deep in his voice. A tiny note of creeping doubt. A shadow scream coiled somewhere inside his brain telling him that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. But he had pushed things too far along and had to be taught this wasn’t a game. Despite what the sainted philosophers say, living has always been a man’s one real trade.

If he moved wrong he was going to die, and he knew it.

“Trust me, son,” I said slow. “You don’t want this distinction.”

“What distinction might that be?”

“Of being the first man I kill in Haxan.”

I let him chew that for ten seconds. It dug into him and set a hook in his lower gut.

“But if dying is what you crave, then killing you will serve no great hardship on me.”

“Sweet Mary,” a card dealer whispered from the crowd, “it’s like he doesn’t care if he kills that boy or not.”

The kid heard it, too. My voice. Not the words, but the meaning they carried. He looked inside me and came face to face with his own mortality.

It’s always that way between two men about to cross guns. You become close. You reach an understanding. You become brothers because you’re living together in that single moment in time no one can share, and you just might die together in a combined roar of fire and acrid smoke. So you might as well face each other like brothers in the last second you have left in the world.

He glanced down at the crooked gun butt protruding from his belt. He removed it and laid it on a card table. Then he turned and walked through the swing doors and into the warm night.

I picked up the gun from the table and broke the cylinder open. He had loaded it incorrectly. The hammer would have fallen on an empty chamber with his first shot.

August Wicker approached, his round face pale as Blue John milk. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Aren’t you going to arrest him, Marshal?”

“What for? He’s a kid drunk on popskull whiskey and witless to boot. With luck he had sense scared into him tonight.” I unloaded the Navy Colt and handed it to Wicker, butt first. “A memento. Hang it over the bar and charge an extra ten cents so patrons can see the famous gun.”

Before he could reply I turned on my heel and left. I’d had quite enough of Wicker, and Haxan, for one night.

Outside, the boy sat slumped on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, head buried in his hands. He might have been crying.

“Go home, son,” I told him. “No matter how bad it is living is always preferable to dying.”

I didn’t wait for him to speak. This was a decision he had to make himself. No man could do that for him.

We all grow up in different ways.

The rest of the night wasn’t too bad. I broke up several fights, collected more fines, and arrested two more men for public drunkenness. One had his head submerged in a water trough. He had passed out and liked to drowned if I hadn’t stopped by in time. The other christened my jail cell by vomiting his supper on the floor.

Later that night, as the saloons were winding down and a glimmer of red appeared on the eastern horizon, two buffalo hunters pulled six-guns on each other in the Double Eagle. They popped a couple of shots at one another, but were too drunk to hit anything. I slammed the barrel of my rifle across the back of one’s legs. When he went down it cleared the way for my rifle stock to smash the other’s blunt, heavily whiskered face.