Streets of Laredo: A Novel (16 page)

"I doubt Wesley Hardin has killed that many people yet," Call said. "And Wesley Hardin is a bad one." Near the livery stable, where Call had encountered Sheriff Jekyll, a large log had been rolled into the shade, to make a sitting place. Two old men with only a few teeth between them were sitting on it, whittling with small pocketknives. Call went over and sat on the log too. He was annoyed with himself for not having taken the casualty figures more seriously, sooner. The numbers had been available, but numbers were usually exaggerated. He had fought several fierce battles, with both Indians and Mexicans, in which no one was killed on either side. Usually there were wounds, but fighting men were not easily killed. In the War, of course, the great engagements had left hundreds or even thousands dead, but frontier fighting was of a different order.

In the worst Indian fight he had engaged in, he had only been able to say positively that two Indians were killed--he buried the two himself.

Call rarely saw a newspaper and had not followed the Garza boy's murdering that closely.

He had assumed that the figures were exaggerated.

Let one or two people get killed in a feud or a ruckus, and as the story went up and down the trail, the figure would swell until it became twenty or thirty. Before the Garza boy showed up, the most notorious outlaw in the West was Billy the Kid, who was said to have killed a man for every year of his life, when he was nineteen. But Dish Boggett, the gifted Hat Creek cowboy who was now selling hardware in Lincoln County, New Mexico, where the troubles occurred, assured Call that the boy had only killed four or five men. Goodnight, who had been in Lincoln County while the range war was going on, agreed with that figure.

If the information in the telegrams was true, Joey Garza had quickly eclipsed Billy the Kid as a killer.

In his conversation with Sheriff Jekyll, Call had asked if anyone knew how the Garza boy got the trains to stop. One man working without a gang, would have to be inventive to stop a train.

"He piles rocks on the tracks," Sheriff Jekyll said. "He ain't lazy. He works in the night, piling up rocks, till he gets a kind of wall." "But a locomotive going full speed could bust through a pile of rocks, surely," Call said.

"Maybe, but the train might derail, and then you'd be in a pickle," the sheriff replied.

"If Joey Garza's after you, you're in a pickle anyway," a lanky deputy named Ted Plunkert observed.

"If it was me, and I was driving the dern train and I seen a pile of rocks and thought Joey Garza had piled it up, I'd pour on the steam," the deputy added.

Sheriff Jekyll looked startled and embarrassed by his deputy's remark. It had never occurred to him that Ted Plunkert would venture an opinion of any kind, in the presence of the great Captain Call. Ted Plunkert had not made a comment of such length and complexity since Jekyll had hired him. What could have prompted him to wag his tongue for five minutes when he, the sheriff, was discussing serious matters with Captain Woodrow Call?

"Ted, you were not consulted," Sheriff Jekyll said bluntly.

"I'll consult him--he's making better sense than you are," Call said, no less bluntly. He didn't like Jekyll's manner, which was fawning yet superior. Many young lawmen took a similar tone with him, nowadays.

Sheriff Jekyll blushed scarlet. Call thought the man might have a seizure, he was so embarrassed.

"Well, the engineer can plow on, if he wants to risk it," the sheriff said.

"It's run or fight, if you're dealing with Joey," Deputy Plunkert said. "I doubt I'd be ashamed to run, if he had the drop on me." "Are you employed steady, or would you consider accompanying me?" Call asked. He liked the deputy's dry manner and matter-of-fact outlook.

"It's steady, but it's warm," the deputy said.

"I wouldn't mind going to higher country, where there might be a breeze once a month or so." "Now, Plunkert, who asked you into this conversation?" Sheriff Jekyll said. He considered it damn unneighborly of the Captain to try and hire his deputy. He didn't much care for Ted Plunkert, but if he left, there would be no one but himself to sweep out the jail.

Call sat on the log, by the toothless old men, and considered the situation.

Survivors of the robberies claimed there was no gang. A single blond Mexican boy, well mounted, showed up and took their finer possessions.

Though some of the passengers were armed, something in the boy's manner kept them from using their arms in their own defense. The lost payrolls had come to almost a million dollars in cash. Dozens of watches and rings and jewels had been taken, and the people killed had not been offering any resistance. The boy stopped trains carrying a score or more passengers, robbed them, killed a few, and left, only to strike again, far away, when it suited him.

In Call's experience, it was unusual for criminals to have such confidence. One reason they ran in packs was because confidence was one quality they seemed to lack. It was also unusual for criminals to have much ability. When they succeeded, it was usually because they had circumstance on their side. It might be that the Garza boy was an exception--a criminal with real ability.

Brookshire was so upset that he could not keep still. He saw Captain Call sitting on the log with the two old men. Obviously, the Captain was thinking matters over. Brookshire tried to allow him his privacy, but it was hard.

Another telegram could arrive from Colonel Terry at any moment, informing them that they were both fired. The Colonel had never been loath to change help.

Brookshire found himself edging a little closer to the log where the Captain sat. If only they could get started, he might feel a little better.

"Ain't we gonna start soon?" he asked.

"Joey Garza could be getting farther and farther away." "That's just a guess, though," Call said.

"He might be headed back down the river toward us, for all we know." "What are we going to do?" Brookshire asked. "The Colonel won't sit still for much more of this." "Nobody's asking him to sit still," Call said. "He can catch the next train and come out here and catch the boy himself, if he's impatient." "Oh, but he won't want to," Brookshire assured him. "The Colonel don't like to leave New York--he's too attached to Miss Cora, for one thing." "Do you still want to go with me?" Call asked. He had taken a liking to Brookshire.

The man was incompetent, and he usually despised incompetence, but for some reason, Brookshire's incompetence made him likable. There was something brave in it. For a man who could neither ride nor shoot, to be willing to travel over some of the roughest stretches of the West in pursuit of a young killer who had already accounted for nearly forty lives, took guts.

"I have to go with you," Brookshire said.

"I've been ordered." "Suppose you didn't have to go, though," Call said. "Suppose you could choose." "But Captain, I can't choose," Brookshire reminded him. "I work for Colonel Terry. I can't choose. I don't think I've ever chosen. I wouldn't know how." Captain Call just looked at him.

Brookshire was so taken aback, by the question and the look, that he didn't know what to say. Why ask him what he would do if he could choose? He had never chosen. He had taken the only job he had been offered, married the only woman who would agree to marriage. He was just a husband and a salaried man. Choice didn't play any part in his life. His choices were made for him, by people who were smarter than he was: Colonel Terry and Katie, to name two. Captain Call was also smarter than he was, Brookshire felt sure. Why had he asked such a question?

Call was wondering if the man would survive.

There was no answer to the question, of course, but it was a matter he always pondered, when he led men into danger. It was also a question he could as well ask of himself. If the years had taught him anything, it was that survival was a matter that could not be predicted with any accuracy. Time and again, on the frontier, men who were well experienced and well equipped rode off one day and got killed.

Gus McCrae, his old partner, was as competent as any man he had ever known, and yet, Gus had ridden off on a kind of frolic, in Montana, and ended up dead. None of the Hat Creek cowboys had been as competent as Gus, or Deets--the black man who had served him so well for so long--yet, Gus and Deets were dead, and some of the least competent--Soupy, for example, or Jasper Fant--were still alive and flourishing. There was no degree of competence that would assure anyone of survival, and no scale that would tell a commander which man would live and which man would die. If you added it all up reasonably, then Brookshire would be the first to fall, if there was a fight; and most people would expect that he himself would be the last. But it might not happen that way. Joey Garza was said to have a fine rifle, with a telescope sight. Several cowboys had turned up dead, on the Pecos ranches, shot while riding alone, far from their headquarters. It might be that Joey Garza was killing people who never saw him, never suspected that he was anywhere near. Instinct, however well honed, could not necessarily warn one that a young killer, hidden behind a rock four hundred yards away, with the sun at his back, was looking through a telescope sight, about to squeeze the trigger.

If Joey Garza happened to see him and Brookshire riding along, which would he shoot first, the Ranger or the dude?

"You can come with me," Call said. "But it's up to you to keep up. I might not be able to stop and help you. You've got to try and keep up." "Captain, I'll keep up--I'm a grown man," Brookshire said, a little insulted.

Call stood up and handed Brookshire the telegrams.

"We need one more man," he said. "I think I'll hire that lanky deputy." "Oh, the tall fellow?" Brookshire asked, surprised.

"Yes," Call said. "You did say I could hire a man to make up for Pea Eye, didn't you?" "Why, yes, provided he's not too expensive," Brookshire said. "How do you know he'll go? He has a job right here in town." "The man looked restless," Call replied.

"I expect he'll come."

Doobie Plunkert cried so hard she ran completely out of breath. She stood in her own kitchen, gasping like a fish, her mouth open, trying to suck in air but mainly pouring out tears. Ted stood behind her, timidly patting her on the back, as if she were a baby who needed to burp.

The timid way Ted patted her was beginning to make Doobie angry. When Ted walked in and announced that he was going to El Paso, or possibly farther, to help some old lawman she had never heard of catch a bandit Ted had no business chasing, Doobie had been stricken to the heart. How could he, when she was already four months pregnant with their baby, a little boy, she hoped!

She planned to name him Edward, after his father, but they would just call him Eddie, and he would be the light of their life.

Doobie had never, in her short married life of almost eight months, supposed that Ted Plunkert would leave her for any reason whatsoever; not leave her overnight, that is. So far, she and Ted had slept together every single night of their marriage. Of course, Doobie understood that accidents might happen; the milk cow might get loose, or one of the horses run away.

In that event, Ted would have to go looking for them, and might not get back just when she wanted to go to bed.

He might even be gone as late as midnight, as he was on the nights when he was required to watch the jail until all the saloons closed and all the drunks and bullies were rounded up.

Not having Ted beside her until around midnight was just one of those things you had to put up with if you married a lawman. Doobie was sixteen years old and married to a deputy sheriff; she expected to do her duty, even when she was lonely and could think of nothing but how happy it would make her if Ted would only get home, take his boots off, take his socks off, take his pants off and his shirt off, and get into bed and hug her tight.

The truth was, Doobie needed a lot of tight hugging. She had grown up poor; her mother had died when she was four, and the aunt and uncle who raised her were too poor and too busy to pay much attention to her. When Ted Plunkert began to pay attention to her, it was like a miracle sent from heaven--like the coming true of the best dream she had ever dreamed. He was just the sweetest man, willing to hold her tight all night long, except maybe for a few nights in July and August, when it was really too hot to hold anyone tight for very long.

Now Ted was leaving, after only eight months with her. It was the end of all her dreams, and she told Ted so, just before she burst into tears and cried so hard she lost her breath.

"Stop, honey. Stop, honey," Ted kept saying as he patted her timidly in various places. "We're just going after Joey Garza, that's all. Soon as the Captain catches up with him I'm coming right back here, to my darling." But neither Ted's words nor his pats had any power to soothe Doobie. Ted was going away. He was going to leave her alone all night; maybe weeks and weeks of nights. It was the end of her happiness, the only true happiness she had ever known, and it was all happening because the old lawman had butted in where he wasn't wanted and persuaded Ted to go with him.

The thing that hurt the most, after the fact that Ted wouldn't be there to hug her tight for many, many nights, was that Ted hadn't even asked if he could go. One of the nicest things about Ted was that in all matters involving their domestic life, he let her be boss. Even before they married, he let her boss, and in fact, even offered formally to let her boss.