The Eye of the Hunter (10 page)

“Well, when you do meet her, she'll ask you four times a minute what church you go to!” And the general laughed. “Sad, though. When we lost our home to that double-dealing cardsharp, Humboldt Parrish, she began to fail. But, hell, that's water under the bridge.”

Suddenly the general leaned forward and peered into Henry's face, leaned back and laughed. “Judging by your complexion,” he said, “you saw a bit of the Cuban campaign. What was your outfit?”

“Teddy's own. Armorer.”

“Found yourself a nice, safe spot, didn't you? Hiding in a tent! Damn these armchair cavalrymen!” Still grinning, chomping on the crooked cigar, trying to get Henry's goat now, he waited for his response.

Henry said, “I also climbed trees and let them shoot at me.”

“That's more like it. Too bad you didn't shoot that mosquito that drilled you, since you say you can take the ash off one's cigarette. The latest theory is that malaria is caused by the sting of certain mosquitoes.”

“Is that a fact?”

Stockard leaned over to spit into a cuspidor. “Personally,” he said, “I think it's rubbish. I've been bit by every kind of insect in the Western Hemisphere, and never had a fever. In fact, I've never been sick a day in my life. Don't touch medicine, either, though I take certain Indian remedies that keep my bowels regular and my kidneys flushed out.”

“There's no medicine for accidents, though, is there?” Henry said. “I suppose some woman clawed your eye out, since it certainly wasn't man nor beast.” He wanted to find out whether the general's explanation of his eye patch tallied with that of the Grand Army men.

Stockard lazily waved at a rack of guns above a desk, a mere series of pegs set into the adobe wall. Above them hung a yellow-and-black pennant, apparently the general's old headquarters guidon. “My own damned fault,” he said with a sigh. “I was changing the load in a smokeless shell so's I could use the Remington up there without blowing my head off. I like a .50-caliber express shell for lions—870 grains of lead.”

Henry raised his brows, got up and took the rifle from the pegs on the plastered wall. He puffed the dust from it and looked it over. The rifle was a Remington #3 Long Range, .40-110 caliber. A .40 wasn't .50 even in Arizona, and besides—amused, he looked at Stockard.

“This is .4O-caliber,” he said.

Stockard shrugged. “Forty, .50, what's the difference? Since I had to give up shooting—” He spat in the cuspidor.

“But why in thunder do you need such a fistful of lead for lions?”

Bridling, Stockard curled his upper lip back from his teeth. “Lion or Apache, trooper, the order is to take your game down. What do you use for lions?”

“A saucer of milk,” Henry said. “Hell, mountain lions won't bother you! Just stand your ground and say, ‘Here, kitty, kitty!'” And he colored his laugh with a slightly jeering note.

He heard Stockard muttering, and, content that he had stung him, replaced the rifle on the pegs and lifted down a second, a '92 Winchester .22. Under the dust it was an unremarkable piece; he was surprised that the general would own a small-caliber plinking gun. He balanced it on its pegs again and put his palm under the third. And knew in a flash that it was Stockard's favorite gun.

An 1885 Winchester, it was a .45 target rifle, and its condition was the first indication of its status—like the favored horse in a livery stable that always shone with grooming. No dust dulled the blued steel, discolored from the heat of long target sessions, nor the rich, oiled walnut of the stock. The piece was heavy, its thirty-inch octagonal barrel the heaviest Winchester made. The sidewalls were high and thick. When he worked the loading lever, the falling block dropped with an oily whisper to expose the chamber. The barrel had been tapped for a telescope sight, and he saw the leather case of a full-length scope resting on wall pegs.

“Very nice gun,” he said. “Army-issue?”

“Single-shot? No, no.”

The question had been automatic, because his fingertip had just encountered a rough spot in the metal, where the flaming pot of ordnance would be. “Of course.” Henry squinted and saw the letters
BB
and a tiny date. He knew what it meant but did not comment. However, his little finger slipped into the chamber, like an officer's on inspection, and he found where the Browning brothers, of Ogden, Utah, had transformed the .45-caliber to .50. But a little farther down, it narrowed to .45 again. It now took bottlenose ammunition. He had no idea why the change had been made, but it was the target rifle of a man who took his shooting seriously.

“A man told me you were reloading black-powder shells to smokeless when you—lost your eye,” he said. “Maybe it was just as well you didn't finish. This gun won't handle smokeless powder very long. Might've blown your head off.”

“Don't believe all they tell you in armorer's school.”

Henry worked the loading lever again. “Which is your lion gun?”

“The Remington.”

Henry looked at him. “You don't mean to say you push 870 grains of lead in that?”

“No! That's another gun—it's at home.” Stockard barked a laugh. “Never argue with an armorer! Mouth like a damned encyclopedia. Since the accident I can't shoot, anyway. So what the hell.”

Then the general rather ceremoniously set fire to a fresh cigar, with the born commander's implied air of demanding attention, finally sitting on the edge of the desk and focusing his eyes on Henry until he was satisfied he had his man. He said solemnly: “There is something I have to tell you, Henry. It never went into the reports after your father's death, and only a few other men and I know about it. I didn't believe your mother should know, and I'm grateful to have the chance to tell you now.”

Henry replaced the Winchester and waited.

“When I stood in the ashes of that barn, trying to distinguish one of my cremated troopers from another, I said to my first sergeant, ‘We will take five Apache lives for each life the Apache took here. I will not retire until the job is done.' And, Henry—I succeeded! Your father's life was paid for to the last Apache hide! Forty heathen Indians! One here, a couple of others there ...”

Stricken, Henry stared into the parched old face. “You're not serious.”

“You bet I am!” He clapped Henry's shoulder.

Henry stood up. “How in God's name did you know who committed the massacre? That was Yaqui country as well as Apache. Not to mention outlaws! The treasure was never found, and Indians didn't give a damn for money. My God, General, do you understand what you've done?”

Stockard opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and suddenly snatched the cigar from his mouth. He looked at it and hurled it at Henry. It struck his chest, leaving ash on his clean white shirt.

“Understand?” he roared. “I understand, but you don't! You haven't seen the dead and tortured men and women! You haven't risked your life to put those savages in the corrals where they belonged. Ranchers are safe here now, and the Indian respects us. Not because of mollycoddles like you, but because men like me and Crook and Miles put our lives on the line!”

The little bell over the door tinkled and Ben Ambrose entered.

The editor halted in the doorway and glowered at Henry. He made his twisted cigar fume, his lips emitting little puffs of smoke. His face was as brown and dry as jerked beef, and Henry thought of a mummy he had seen in a museum.

“You miserable son of a pariah dog!” Ambrose said.

Henry studied him like some curious creature he did not recognize: a wheeled lizard, a flying dog. And he shook his head in wonder.

“Listen to yourself, man! That's terrible talk. Isn't this the country where a man can get shot for opening his mouth? I thought I let you down very easy.”

Ambrose threw his cigar at the cuspidor, dropped behind his desk, and glared on in a bitter silence.

Henry sighed. “Ambrose,” he said, “I've been trying to understand something, and I think maybe I've got it. You've had things your way so long, people think you're dangerous. You make noises like a bull canary, and people think they'd better give you room. Then a man like me comes along and you insult him, and he doesn't know he's supposed to grin and do a barnyard shuffle. You see? Well, I'm sorry about ruining that big gold apple of yours , but I had to let people know I'm not the braggart you said I was. You put me in a tough spot. Don't you see?”

Ambrose tensed, leaning forward. “I see that you've put
me
in one now ... it's not over. It's just started.”

The general said roughly, “Forget it, Ben. You blundered, and you paid for it. Let's get down to business. Get the maps.”

From a rack Ambrose brought a sheaf of maps hanging like drying bed sheets. His face sullen, he brushed away some paste pots and litter on a composing table and flopped the maps down, then went to stand and stare out the window into the street.

General Stockard rustled impatiently through the maps, found the one he wanted, and banged down slugs of type to anchor the corners. “Stand here, where you can see. Now, pay attention....”

The map bore the proud emblem of the U.S. Army Topographic Command and covered the area of the Mexican border from the Huachuca Mountains twenty miles east of Nogales to the Pajarito Mountains about the same distance west. Southward, the world appeared to end at Nogales, for below the border all was white paper. Curious to see where he had been, where he was, and where he was going, Henry leaned over the map. Stockard jabbed a finger at a grid intersection.

“Hackberry Spring—then straight up the river. Two hours' ride. My land—whoops, Parrish's land!—starts there, right at the river, some of the old Baca Land Grant. Runs west through twenty miles of hellish canyons, mesquite jungles, mesas, and rattlesnake dens, and rims out at the Tres Amigos Mountains. Water, water everywhere—except at the ranch house, where you have to carry it by bucket from a
pozo
up on the mesa. I was doing beautifully, Logan ...”

The general's finger roved the map, here and there and back again, sausagelike, rigid as a stick, the finger of an old farmer.

“I got the Engineers to do me an irrigation plan and build me a bunkhouse like a barracks—and the house! Oh, you'll see it, the woman will take you through it, proud as a peahen! My wife planted the things she loves, peonies, roses, wisteria—I told you her mind's going—never been the same since she had to pack and leave so that foul gambler could move in! My dream—I've had to scale it down a bit—is to have Emily die in her own home. In the four-poster bed I brought from Vermont.”

Henry said, “Were you thinking of her when you bet your ranch in a crap game?”

Ambrose turned to shout, “His partner lost it for him! The damned fool was going to Denver to buy cattle! Why don't you shut up and listen?”

Henry smiled. “That's different. You just gave him the deed—and let him hop a rattler, with the ranch in his pocket.”

“He had power of attorney to borrow on it,” Stockard said. “As much as he needed to buy the cattle. He's never been seen in the Territory since. But that's neither here nor there. I've decided to buy the ranch back. I'll pay you to act as my agent.”

He took an envelope and tossed it before Henry. Smiled and bobbed his head. Henry left it there. Stockard pushed it toward him.

“I'm not trying to hoodwink her,” he said. “But I can't persuade her—she won't listen to me. Just give her that envelope. Make damned sure she reads what's in it. It lays everything out so that even a female can understand it.

“There's a hundred for you if she accepts,” he added.

“Why should she listen to me?”

Stockard leaned forward, confidentially. “The woman's alone, Henry! It's not natural for a woman not to have a man around to keep her mind straight. Mrs. Parrish desperately needs somebody to tell her what to do. And she feels it! Give her a couple of days and she'll be asking you which skirt she should wear, how to fix the pump, and whether to sell the ranch.”

Ambrose snorted. “And then she'll wear a different skirt and tell you the pump's all right now. And she's decided to keep the ranch.”

“She won't keep it long,” said the general. “She owes everybody in the county. As soon as Rip is declared legally dead, they can sue and not look bad. What do you say?”

“Nothing. I happen to think her husband may still be alive. When I find him, or his body, I'm through here.”

Ambrose showed his long yellow teeth. “That should be a snap, Logan. Just sift the sands of Sonora until you find where the
bandidos
left the carcass.”

“Something like that. Everybody knows he's dead. Well, everybody but our whispering buffoon of a sheriff.” He stormed toward some smudged galley proofs hanging from hooks on the wall. “Read this! I'm running the story tomorrow.”

He yanked loose a long galley proof and shoved it at Henry. “This is how the town feels! The whole Rip Parrish picture is right there.”

Henry laid the galleys atop the map.

RECALL MOVE GROWS!

Angry Nogalenos held a meeting Tuesday night to consider legal steps to remove Sheriff George “Whispering George” Bannock from office.

Sheriff Bannock, recently reelected to a third term, was invited to attend the meeting but failed to appear. Citizens of Santa Cruz County had hoped to hear his explanation of why he has not taken steps to declare Richard I. Parrish legally dead.

Henry dropped the galleys. “He could be in Mexico City,” he said. “San Francisco, Denver, El Paso. Wherever there's a poker game going on. Declaring him dead isn't exactly like making a weather prediction.”

Stockard bobbed his bald head. “Maybe you're right. Maybe it's best that you go out there and look things over—see the mess he left her. If you agree with me that a woman can't handle a ranch where border hoppers, treasure hunters, and Mexican cow thieves come and go like it was a hotel, then for God's sake persuade her to sell!”