Haxan (6 page)

The second man was out for the count but the first wanted to open me up. He yanked a hunting knife from his boot and lunged. I took hold of his wrist and used his momentum to slam him into the bar with all my strength. The crash shook the flimsy walls of the saloon. He crumpled and I kicked the knife from his hand. He reached for a Colt Pocket Model inside his coat and found himself with the bore of my Colt Dragoon pressed against his nose so hard it made his eyes water.

I rolled the hammer back so he could hear the click through his drunken haze. He soiled himself and dropped the gun. I confiscated their guns, fined them each fifty dollars, and kicked them out of town after Doc Toland patched them up with iodine and plaster.

“It’s been steady all night long, Marshal,” he said.

“Glad I could accommodate you, Doc.”

“You look beat, John. Best get some sleep.”

“Headed that way after I make one more round of the town and finish some paperwork.”

An hour later I checked on my prisoners and locked the office up tight. I headed back to the Haxan Hotel at the end of the road. It had been a long day and an even longer night. I was bone-tired. I hoped to snatch a couple hours sleep before riding out where Shiner Larsen was killed. I still wanted to cut those tracks and run that wagon and those horses down.

“Marshal!”

A redheaded boy, eight or nine years old and dressed in drab homespun, ran up the wooden sidewalk toward me. He had to pause and catch his breath. “Mayor Polgar told me to find you, Marshal. There’s a fire out at the edge of town. Two men are dead. Mr. Polgar says you’d better get out there fast.”

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Davie Peake.” He threw out his narrow chest. “My friends call me Piebald seeing as how I got this marking on my—”

“Run to the livery stable and get my horse saddled, Piebald. Bring him back to my office.”

“You mean Old Sheriff Cawley’s place? The one by the feed store?”

“That’s right.”

“Won’t take me long, Marshal. I can run a hole in the wind when I want to.”

“Then let’s see you do it.”

“Yes, sir.” He disappeared in a flurry of kicking feet.

I went to the stockroom in the hotel. Magra was asleep. She had turned her Union coat backward, using it as a blanket.

I woke her up.

“Magra. Someone has been out to your place tonight. They burned your house to the ground and killed two men.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know for sure. I’m headed out there now. Here’s your shotgun. You stay awake until I get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I told you, out to Gila Creek. You stay inside my office. Here’s the key so you can lock yourself inside. There are prisoners in back, but they won’t harm you. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

After seeing Magra safely away I met Piebald outside with my saddled horse. I swung into the saddle and kicked for Shiner Larsen’s place.

W
hen I rounded the bend I saw three men watching the last of the night breeze scatter the remaining embers and sparks from the house fire. Polgar met me as I drew rein, his face creased with worry.

“Good thing you brought that girl back to town last night, John. Whoever did this,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder, “was looking for her.”

“Where are the two dead men?”

“Down in that ravine. Shot through the heart, their throats cut like butchered hogs.”

“You recognize them, Frank?”

Polgar shook his head. “People always drift through Haxan. Sometimes they don’t leave.”

“Who found them?”

An older man and his teenage son came forward. “Marshal, we were rounding up stray calves in a slot canyon to the west when we saw the glow of a big fire. We found them two dead men and rode in to tell the mayor there.”

Polgar studied the smouldering debris. “They trampled the corn and shot Larsen’s pig. Why would a person do a thing like that, John?”

I dismounted and scraped my boot heel across parallel lines in the dirt.

“Buckboard.” I scrambled down the crumbling bank of the ravine. I turned the men over and examined their faces.

“Frank.”

He slid down the ravine by my side. Loose dirt piled around our boots. “Yeah?”

“These men were dead long before they were shot.”

“How do you know?” Polgar asked.

“There’s not enough blood on their shirts, even though their throats were cut. Their clothes are burned and singed in one spot from the hot powder of a gun. Which means they were also shot point-blank. I want you to take these bodies back to Doc Toland so he can do an autopsy right away.”

“Rex Toland?” Polgar snorted. “Have to sober him up first.”

“I’ve already talked to him about that,” I snapped. I took my hat off and ran my fingers through my hair. “Sorry, Frank. I want to know what killed them, that’s all.”

I stood over the bodies. There was an unusual, yet familiar, odour coming from them. I couldn’t place it because the morning air was filled with dust and swirling wood smoke that stung my eyes.

I frowned, my mind working like a lathe while I listened to the doves cooing on the morning air.

“What’s wrong, John?”

“These men aren’t hired killers.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I ran these two buffalo hunters out of Haxan early this morning. They aren’t the kind of men who would nail another man to a tree.”

“I don’t see—”

“These men were killed to throw us off the scent. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got cut short. That’s all.”

“What are you saying?”

My stomach writhed like a ball of snakes. “This was a dodge to get me out here. Connie Rand is going after Magra.”

When I reached Haxan I knew the worst had happened. The street outside my office milled with excited people. I rode in among them.

They watched me with stoic faces.

“What happened?” I asked.

An elderly man in the crowd took it upon himself to answer. “They grabbed that little boy, Piebald, and held a Barlow to his throat. Said if Magra didn’t come out they would kill the kid. She laid down her gun and then they tried to take her away.”

I sat upright in my saddle as if a bolt had gone through me. “What do you mean, ‘tried’?”

“This here cowboy pulled his pistol and started firing over their heads.” A few hands in the crowd tried to push the man in question out front, but he was reticent. The older man continued telling his story. “They let the little boy loose when everyone started running out of their houses to see what the commotion was about.”

“What man are you talking about?”

“I guess’n he means me, Marshal.” He stood back in the crowd, wearing striped pants and green suspenders. He held his crumpled sombrero between his hands like a penitent schoolboy.

“I was sleeping behind that cantina over yonder because I didn’t have money for a bunk,” he explained. “I was washing my face in a trough when I saw them grab that little boy. I didn’t know what was happening, so I unloaded over their heads from behind a clump of chaparral. Spooked one of their horses, I guess. The little boy picked up a stone and smacked one of the horses in the flank so it started kicking. The men got scared and rode off when people started coming into the street.”

“Maybe they thought they were in a crossfire,” another man said. “Sounded like it, what with the echoes bouncing off these false fronts.”

The man who fired at Rand pointed down the street. “They rode away down Front Street. I don’t know where they turned but they might have gone south toward Las Cruces or Mesilla.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I know you from last night, don’t I?”

“That’s sure, Marshal. I’m Jake Strop. I was Fancer Bell’s pard.”

“Were his pard, Mr. Strop?”

“He’s headed back to Texas. He’s had enough of Haxan. I don’t have money so I’m stuck here for now.”

“Where’s Magra Snowberry, Mr. Strop? And Piebald?”

“Once’t those outlaws let her go, the Indian girl, she carried Piebald up to Doc’s. He had a bad cut on his neck. Lost blood. I guess they left ’bout five minutes ago.”

“While this was going on, what were the rest of you doing?” I swept my eyes over the gathering.

Their empty faces stared back.

“Why should we take a bullet for a half-breed squaw?” another man remarked. “She ain’t kin to us. Anyway, her father was crazy, so it more ’n likely runs in her blood, too.”

I swung out of my saddle and walked up on him. The crowd pulled away to give us elbowroom. He did his level best to hold my stare.

“I’m not armed, Marshal.” He swallowed audibly. “I got no truck with you.”

One of the women put a hand to her breast. “Look at his eyes,” she whispered to a friend.

I turned my back in disgust. “Which way did they ride, Mr. Strop?”

“Like I said, they tore hell for leather down Front Street. Didn’t see after that.”

“They have a buckboard with them? With two men riding a three-point bay and a sorrel mare?”

“Yes, sir, and well-armed. Marshal, I’m no hero like these people make out. When they heard the bullets whizzing over their heads from behind they lit out like scalded cats is all.”

“Strop, you’ve just been deputized for as long as you want the position. I’ll see you get paid for this job of work, come what may.”

He scratched his head. “I won’t lie I could use a job. What do you want me to do?”

“Pick three men and meet Mayor Polgar. He’s riding in from Shiner Larsen’s shack with a couple of dead buffalo hunters. I want Doc Toland to autopsy them.”

“I can do that, Marshal.”

I swung into my saddle and took the reins. I leaned over the pommel and glared down at the crowd.

“Don’t let me down again,” I told them. “Not ever again.”

Several men and all the women dropped their eyes. A couple of hard-noses mumbled under their breath, but no one bucked me outright.

“We’ll do like you say, Marshal,” Strop promised.

“After I see Magra and Piebald and grab some sleep, you stop by my office, Strop. We’ll talk about your new appointment.”

“I’ll be there, Marshal. People call me Jake. Mostly, they do.”

“All right, Jake, have it your way. There are two drunks in the right hand cells. Jail key is in the top desk drawer. They’ve paid their fines. Give them breakfast and let them go after you see Mayor Polgar.”

“Yes, sir.”

I kicked my horse into a canter down the street and ran up the stairs to Doc Toland’s office. Magra stood alongside Piebald in the surgery. Doc was bent over the boy, his long face intent.

“Magra.”

She turned around. “Hi, John.” She stopped, perhaps wondering if it was right to use my given name under the circumstances. When she found she didn’t mind how it sounded on her lips, she pressed ahead with a slight, relieved smile.

“Davie is going to be all right,” she said. “Doc says he lost some blood and must rest, but he’s going to make out fine.”

I looked down at Piebald’s white face. “How you feeling, boy?”

“Tell this croaker to let me go, Marshal. I was gonna go fishing today with Smarty Coker after I ditched school.”

“Doc, we have a very brave boy here,” I said, gravely. “He helped save this young woman’s life, and that’s fact. I’d be proud to pay the medical bill for his family, personal like.”

Doc Toland finished cleaning and bandaging the neck wound. He wiped his hands on a towel. “That won’t be necessary, Marshal. He’s suffering from shock more than anything else. I’ll keep him here. I know his parents well. I’ll get word to them.”

“My deputy is bringing in two dead men from Gila Creek, Doc. Can you autopsy them when you have time?”

“Deputy? You have been busy, Marshal.”

“Man goes by the name of Jake Strop. He’s not a genius, but he’s honest.”

“That would be a most welcome trait in Haxan. All right, but I’ve been up all night, no thanks to you. Tell your deputy put the bodies in the dead house. I’ll cut them up when I can.”

“Fair enough.”

I took Magra’s hand and led her aside. “How are you feeling? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m sorry,” she began in a fluster, “I didn’t want them to harm that boy, so I surrendered Papa’s shotgun. I know I shouldn’t have. I heard shots and there was a lot of pushing and shoving and then Piebald threw that rock. When I had the chance I kicked where Mother told me to kick a man before they could bundle me into that wagon.”

“Did you see their faces?”

“They wore bandanas.”

I slapped my hat against my leg in frustration. “That figures.” It would help if I could pin Connie Rand’s description to the bunch that tried to kidnap her. That would be enough to get a dodger out on Rand.

“Did you ride out to Papa’s shack?” she asked.

“They burned it all down, Magra. I’m sorry. Killed the hog and trampled the crop. There’s nothing left but ashes.” Her face was stricken. “You can always rebuild.”

She sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”

“Neither do I.” This whole mystery made very little sense to me as well. People didn’t go around causing this kind of death and destruction because they believed a man and his daughter were witches. This was the nineteenth century. Haxan was nothing more than a cattle town in the Territory of New Mexico. It wasn’t Salem, Massachusetts, and it wasn’t 1692.

There was a deeper hate at work here. A calculating male-volence.

There was nothing supernatural at the core of this problem, that much I knew. Whoever was behind this was all too human. That made him even more dangerous.

The worst kinds of monsters are
always
human.

“John, I want to see Papa’s grave before I return to the reservation.”

“Not by yourself, you’re not.”

“Then you will have to come with me. But I am going.”

She was a stubborn woman. “Let’s check on Piebald and have breakfast first. We’ll rent you a horse down at Patch Wallet’s stable.”

“I can’t afford any horse.”

“I’ll loan you the money.”

“No, John.” She put her hand on my arm. “You’ve done enough. Anyway, you need sleep. You’re dead on your feet. You can hardly keep your eyes open. We’ll ride out together on your horse. I like him. Does he have a name?”

People in the west didn’t always name their animals, especially their horses. That was the stuff of dime novels.

“I’ll tell you about it someday,” I said. “Come on, I’m too tired to argue.”

At breakfast Magra ordered buckwheat cakes and sorghum. After filling myself with side meat, peppers fried in oil, corn tortillas, and black coffee, I collapsed in bed for five solid hours. When I awoke I felt most human, except for a headache stabbing like a white-hot poker behind my right eye.

I sought out Magra and we rode for the hackberry tree. She rested her chin on my shoulder. At one point she asked me to stop so she could pick purple sage and Indian paintbrushes for her father’s grave.

The blistering sun was high overhead by the time we reached the tree. Magra slipped off my saddle and knelt beside her father’s grave. She laid the flowers down while I stood with my hat in my hands. She lifted her palms and sang something in Navajo. It was a soul-shattering wail that filled the desert and open sky.

When she finished the death song she put her ear to the ground. When she stood she brushed herself off and turned around so I couldn’t read her troubled face.

I watched her slender back, not saying a word. I figured she needed time alone. She didn’t make a sound as she wrestled with her grief. She stared at the expansive desert, the high grass in Larsen Valley burned yellow by the sun, the silver curve of Broken Bow River miles away, and the blue buttes and red mesas rising like giant chess pieces to the north.

For all its brutality and raw violence, Sangre County was also wild and beautiful, free and open country.

Magra faced back around. I saw she accepted the unavoidable fact her father was gone forever. She was a strong girl. I found myself wishing I had known both her parents. I think I would have liked them.

“My heart is on the ground but you picked a good place to bury my father, John. Even though a very bad thing happened here.”