City of Widows (19 page)

“It happened in my room over the Orient,” she went on. “It was Saturday night, the place was noisy. No one heard the shot. I went down the back stairs and bled all the way to the doctor's office, where I got my scalp sewn back together. I said I fell. Doc Sullivan was no idiot—he'd patched me up before after Frank and I had words—but he didn't say anything. He gave me something to make me sleep, but I poured it out when he wasn't looking. His wife gave me some old clothes to wear back to my room and they left me alone to change. I let myself out the window. I never stole a horse before, but I was sure I'd be hunted for a murderess. I caught up with the train in San Marcial and rode it to El Paso.”

“He told me he hurt his back when a horse threw him.”

“Would you expect him to say a woman shot him?”

“Why did you come back to New Mexico?”

“By the time Junior Harper came to town to buy fixtures for the Princess, I'd heard Frank had recovered, which meant I wasn't wanted since he'd never admit what happened. ‘Unknown assailant,' the wire reports said. My run was going sour and I had just enough capital left to take Junior up on his offer to buy in. You could argue that I was just swimming back into the same net, but it was a net I knew. You don't always have choices. You almost never have choices.”

“You didn't put up an argument when I suggested cutting the sheriff in on the Princess.”

“His money spends just like anyone else's. And I was curious to know if getting shot by me had changed his outlook.”

“Risky.”

She moved a shoulder. “That's why they call it gambling.”

“Not when you throw someone like Junior into the pot. Then it's called something else.”

“We both did that, Page.”

I said nothing, agreeing.

She turned her head slightly, reading me like a deck. “You love him, don't you?”

“We go back.”

“Maybe he'll turn around when he sobers up.”

“He never has.”

“What are you going to do when you get to Socorro City?”

“What I should have done the first day I saw the place.” I had turned and was thumbing cartridges out of a Union Metallic box into the empty loops on my gun belt. “Vote the sheriff out of office.”

19

F
OR A MILE
under the creeping crimson in the east, my route and Marshal Ortiz's were the same, and we rode together. He sat a well-fed gray with a brand I didn't recognize and his sack of provisions knotted unceremoniously to the horn of a Mexican cavalry saddle. The saddle's fenders had been trimmed and pared many times for leather to make repairs. A brass-framed Henry rifle hung from the ring.

If we hadn't been the only things stirring in town when we encountered each other in front of the livery, I wouldn't have known him. He'd traded his overalls for faded cavalry breeches with a stripe up the side and a knitted blue pullover of a type I hadn't seen since my last skirmish with the guerrillas in Missouri. The greasy somberero was gone, replaced by a slouch hat with all the nap worn off the brim in front where he gripped it to tug it down over his eyes, and on top of the cavalry coat he wore crossed bandoliers crammed with .44 cartridges with only their blunt lead noses showing so as not to catch the sun on the brass. The curved butt of a Schofield .44 fitted with black walnut grips showed above a plain holster worn in front like an Elizabethan codpiece. With his high-topped riding boots sporting long jingly Mexican spurs, he looked taller and fitter in the outfit than he had at any time previously, and more a part of the land; one with the snakes and scorpions and lean rangy beasts of prey that slunk among the shadows carved by the rocks in the desert.

“That rig hasn't been sitting in any trunk since Cerro Gordo,” I said by way of greeting.

“I scouted for Colonel MacKenzie in 1874.” He handed the sleepy stable boy a coin and took charge of the gray.

“You fought Quanah Parker?”

“He was just Quanah then. Parker came with the reservation.”

I had been riding the line at the Harper Ranch with Junior when the news came of Ranald MacKenzie's defeat of the Comanche Nation in Palo Duro Canyon in 1874. It had brought a sudden end to more than thirty years of fighting in Texas. Nearly everyone involved in the engagement had been decorated for valor. On the road he made a coarse noise when I asked him about the battle.

“It was a slaughter of horses. I do not talk about it.”

Where the road forked we drew rein. I told him again I'd see him near Socorro City and offered my hand. He hesitated, then took it.

“I hope
Señor
Harper is all right.”

“Me too.”

Once we parted I began paying special attention to the irregularities in the landscape, rock piles and buttes and thickets that held so much appeal for hostiles who didn't wish to be observed. By midday, however, the absence of Apaches had begun to become obvious, and when eight hours later I made camp I felt certain I was alone. Well, Geronimo and his band had been headed somewhere when Axtaca and the vaqueros and I encountered them below the border, and there were rumors that the Apaches were concentrating on Arizona. That placed them in General Crook's wheelhouse, which was good enough for me. There was a strong case to be made in favor of all the tribes but that one. If they were alone on the planet they'd have picked a fight with the moon.

On the ridge overlooking the county seat I paused to gaze down at the teeming sprawl at my feet. Hammering and sawing, the heartbeat and respiration of civilization birthing in the wilderness. While it was going on, life glowed. When it stopped, decay set in. Only sometimes the rot was present in the fresh lumber, growing unheeded during the construction, spreading to the healthy timbers and eating away at the joints and pegs, so that six months or even six weeks later the entire structure collapsed, taking lives with it. Often that rot was human. Sometimes it wore a badge.

I conferred with my dented pocket watch, the posthumous gift of a Confederate captain. Unless Frank Baronet had altered his routine, he would be dealing faro at the Orient about now, leaving Jubilo No-Last-Name in charge of the jail. It seemed a likely place to start.

*   *   *

The gate leading inside the board fence that enclosed the gallows and surrounding courtyard was latched as simply as possible, with a piece of lath secured by a nail. I'd been counting on that, breaking into jail not being as popular a practice as breaking out. On the other side, the scaffold threw a shadow that clasped the back of my neck like a clammy hand. The back door to the building was solid oak, set flush to the frame, and probably bolted and padlocked inside, but that wasn't how I was planning to get in so I ignored it. The single barred window on that side of the building, designed to allow light into the cells rather than to let the residents see outside, was nearly seven feet from the ground. I grasped the brick sill in both hands and chinned myself up.

No lamps burned inside and the sun was coming in at a flat angle. In the murky light I couldn't tell if any of the cots in the cells were occupied. I tried tapping on the thick glass.

“You won't find him in there.”

I didn't turn my head at the sound of the voice behind me. I let go of the sill and spun when I landed, gripping the butt of the Deane-Adams.

I didn't take it out. The tunnel I was looking down belonged to Jubilo's Creedmoor. Its owner was standing at the other end with the butt against his shoulder and his finger on the trigger. The gallows rose gaunt and empty at his back.

“Well, toss it over.”

I slid the five-shot out of its holster between thumb and forefinger and gave it a low flip so that it landed gently at his feet. He lowered the rifle but kept it balanced along his forearm as he crouched to pick up the revolver. He found the catch and thumbed the cylinder around, tipping the cartridges out onto the ground. His eyes remained on me. They were almond-shaped after his Indian ancestors. The face under the flat brim of the Stetson, with darts of black whisker at the corners of the wide mouth, was unreadable. He handled the long-barreled rifle in one hand as easily as a sidearm. So far I had never seen him make use of the Russian on his hip, and I decided it was an ornament of office.

“Always keep a live round under the hammer?” he asked.

“Empty chambers attract drafts. I catch cold easy.”

“Shoot your dick off someday.”

“That's what everyone says. But it's still there and I'm still here.”

He tossed it back. I caught it. “I guess you know where the gate is.”

The rifle was resting on his shoulder now. I blew dust out of the pistol's action, returned it to its holster, and preceded him into the alley. Behind me he paused to set the latch on the gate.

On the street we walked side by side to the end of the block. He carried the rifle with the muzzle angled down. He stopped in front of a new brick building, opened the door, and held it. The lettering on the plate glass show window read:

P. JOHNS & SON

UNDERTAKERS

It was a dark, heavy room, thickly carpeted and swaddled in wine-colored velvet and black oak. A mahogany casket with brass handles lay open on a padded dais with a bald-headed geezer propped up inside wearing a morning coat and a stiff collar. Another one, nearly as old and dressed similarly but more lively looking, with a rubber face and small bright eyes like shirt studs, bustled out of a back room at the sound of the entry bell, buttoning his vest. Jubilo pointed at the curtains the man had just come through and kept walking. I accompanied him.

The back room was nearly as large as the parlor but made no pretense at ornamentation. Large windows set near the ceiling allowed sunlight to pour in onto a bare plank floor strewn with packing material, a long oilcloth-covered workbench at the back, and sawhorses. Two of the sawhorses supported a plain pine box without a lid. The air was thick with ammonia and formaldehyde.

Jubilo hung behind while I stepped forward and looked down inside the box. The undertaker had done little more than wash his face. There was dust in the creases of his Prince Albert and fancy vest—he hadn't bothered to change clothes for the long ride—and a couple of stitches had been taken in the hole in the silk where the bullet had either gone in or come out, but nothing had been done about the bigger hole in his left sock where two of his long sharp-nailed toes stuck through. His dark hair was plastered back with water, accentuating the narrowness of his skull, the caverns in his cheeks, the long treadle jaw and the bulbous eyes, barely closed, resting like billiard balls in their sockets. Those eyes had never warmed the air with their moist glow. That face had never slid off-kilter to illuminate a room with its crooked grin. His skin had the gray translucence of paraffin.

“Two questions.” My own voice sounded hollow, like someone else speaking in a room at the end of the house.

“Me,” Jubilo said. “He was standing in the street in front of the Orient, waving a Spencer and calling the sheriff every kind of a son of a bitch. That made him a public menace. I shot him from a window on the second floor of the Chicago House. I couldn't wait for him to turn around. I guess that's the second question.”

“Did Baronet even get up from his table?”

“Hell, he wasn't even in town. He's off collecting taxes. I hated to do it, if it means anything. I liked the little guy right off when we met in San Sábado. He didn't make no secret what he thought of Frank even when he was asking him for a loan.”

I turned to face him. “How far out is Baronet's ranch?”

After a pause he showed his eyeteeth.

“Well, all he told me was to say he's out collecting taxes. He didn't say nothing about anyone guessing. Head straight east for a day. Keep Chupader Mesa square in front and you can't miss it. It's a thousand acres. I won't ask who told you about it.”

“The White Lion of Chihuahua.”

His face didn't change. “You do get around,” he said. “Might could be there is something to this Satan's Sixgun business after all.”

“What happens now? Am I under arrest?”

“What for, trespassing on public property? Go back to the Widow City, Murdock. Socorro County will bury your friend.”

“Tell the undertaker to put him in the icehouse. I'll be back for him.”

“Don't go after him, amigo.”

His tone made me turn back. “How many guns does Ross have?”

“Ross is dead.”

“That train pulled out a long time ago, Jubilo.”

“Habit.” He moved his shoulders. “A dozen. More, maybe. They drift in and out. Not all as good as those two you killed in San Sábado, but good enough to side the Baronets is good enough for anyone, and they know the ground. But they are not Ross's guns. They answer to Frank. Always did. Ross never pulled up his britches but that Frank gave him leave.”

“Don't read over me just yet. I should have been dead twenty years ago and a hundred times since. Others keep taking my place.”

“I just hope it isn't me kills you,” he said. “It wouldn't be the first time I done it to someone I liked. I can do without what comes after.”

“Did you like the Spooners?”

Light dawned. Absently, he nodded. “That's what this is about. I wondered. What was Dave Spooner to you?”

“To me, nothing.” I told him about Judge Blackthorne, Sergeant Uriah Spooner, and the siege of Monterrey. He nodded again.

“I was there when Dave and Vespa got it,” he said. “I didn't pull the trigger. Ross done that. It was Frank sent us out there. A lot of Chisum's men looked up to Dave. Frank thought if we killed both of them the rest would see Dolan meant business.”

“Did they?”

“It never works that way. Dolan got mad as hell. He didn't order it or know about it until it was over and done with. He said if there was ever a chance of Wallace not bringing in the army and spoiling everything, that chance went into the ground with Dave and Vespa Spooner.”