Milo Talon (9 page)

Who was he? How did he fit into the pattern and how did he happen to know my name? Why should my name have upset him?

When I reached the restaurant, he was gone.

Dropping into a chair, I ordered something to eat and after a bit German Schafer came out. “I seen him.” His tone was grim. “I don’t know what the tarnation is goin’ on, but when he comes around—”

“Who?”

“Hovey. That Pride Hovey was in here. He et here. Right over yonder.”

“Did he see you, German?”

“No, he never. Don’t know’s he’d know me anyhow. That there was a long time ago but we should have hung him then.”

“Nobody was sure if he was the fifth man. You can’t hang a man without evidence.”

“He’s done enough since to hang him a dozen times over. I never knew a man deserved hangin’ so much.”

“The way I hear it there was never any evidence. What I want to know is what he’s doing here?”

“He smells money. You know and I know that Hovey never turned a hand that didn’t promise money.”

“What was the straight of that fifth man story, German? I’ve heard it a half dozen times but from nobody as close as you.”

“I was there. At least I was there when that Apache talked. That payroll wagon went out with a driver and
three guards to it. They were carrying sixty thousand in gold coins.

“An eastbound wagon found them. The driver and the guards were dead, the wagon burned, and the gold gone. They buried the dead men and came into town with the story. Couple of weeks later, we caught ourselves an Apache.

“Sure, he knew all about the fight, only they had, this here Injun claimed, been driven off. Those five men put up a heavy fire and there were too few Injuns so he claimed they just give up and rode off. Now you know and I know that no Injun is going to get hisself killed for nothing.

“Five
men, he claimed. Four soldiers and the big man they were chasing when they found the wagon. That Apache, he claimed they killed nobody but they lost one themselves and had two wounded. That Apache, he claimed he knew the man they chased, but that night the Apache killed himself or was killed by somebody who then threw the gun into the cell with him.”

“I remember the talk.”

“There was a-plenty of it. Hovey had come in, wounded in the arm, with a story of bein’ chased by Apaches.

“Trouble was, when those teamsters came back through town and was asked about it, they said those soldiers must have been killed after being taken because three of them were shot in the back.

“You know what was said. Some figured Hovey had done it but when the mob was goin’ to hang him, that lawyer … Dickman? Yeah, that was his name. He showed up and talked ’em out of it. There were some
said Hovey got to Dickman first and put him up to it. Anyway, Dickman left right after, went to the coast, and set hisself up in fine fashion, with whose money I dunno.”

“I remember the talk. Some said that Hovey rode up to them hunting help and after the Indians were driven off, he opened fire on the soldiers and killed three of them while they were lyin’ on the ground watchin’ for Injuns, then swapped shots with the last man and got himself wounded.”

“When he come back a few years later most of the old crowd were gone. The Army had moved their men out and others had gone off to the mines, so he stuck around, mixin’ in a lot of shady stuff.”

“What happened to the money?”

“Good question. Some folks believe he only brought a part of it back and most of that went to Dickman. Nobody ever did see any new gold coins about and there’s some as believe Hovey buried most of that gold out in the hills and has never been back for it.”

“Isn’t likely.”

“It is, though. The Apaches ride that country all the time. Nobody but a durned fool would go down there for any reason at all. That gold, the most of it, might still be there.”

We sat quiet for a little while, each busy with his own thoughts. Pride Hovey had a hand in a lot of shady doings, folks suspected, but they’d never caught him at anything.

He bought and sold cattle, made a few deals for mining claims, occasionally bought stock or whatever from Mexicans who came up from below the border.
The word was that he dealt in cattle stolen down Sonora way.

Over the past six or seven years his enemies had a way of disappearing, just dropping from sight, unexpected like, and he got the reputation of being a bad man with whom to have trouble.

Now he was here, asking questions of Molly Fletcher, and furious to know that I was involved.

Why it should matter, I could not guess. Here and there I’d had a few difficulties, but so far as I could recall I’d never stepped on his toes.

Pride Hovey was not the kind of trouble I wanted. To find a lost girl was one thing, but too many fingers were trying to get into the pot, and I didn’t like it. I’d taken Jefferson Henry’s money so I’d best find his girl and get out … fast.

The sun had set when I returned to the street. A lone buckboard drawn by a team of paint horses was trotting out of town, going west. Two cowboys were sitting on the bench in front of the Red Dog Saloon, drinking beer. It was supper time in town and most of the townspeople were either already eating or washing up for it.

It was a time of night when a man feels the lonesomes all wistful inside. It was time I went home. Ma was getting no younger and it was a big ranch she had. I thought with longing of the great old mansion my father had built, probably the largest house in that part of the country at the time, but he was building for the woman he loved and he was a builder. He had worked with timber all his life and it was like him that he built the best for her.

Only the clerk was in the lobby but I crossed to the
desk and turned the register around to read the names. “Expecting somebody?” he asked.

“Curious,” I said. “Just wondering who’s in town.”

“It’s a slack time,” he said, “half the rooms are empty.”

Hovey’s name was not on the register. My own name was the last on the list.

Where was he then? Did he have a friend in town?

When I was in the room with the chair propped under the knob, I got the suitcase from under the bed and opened it.

Placing the letters, notebook, and painting to one side, I checked the pockets of the suit. On closer examination it proved more worn than I’d at first believed, but I found nothing.

Despite that, the suit disturbed me. I checked to see if anything was concealed in the lining, turned the lapels back, but found nothing.

In the distance there was a roll of thunder. Rain coming and the country could use it, but that meant any tracks left on the prairie would be washed out. Another chance probably gone.

Still, I’d take a ride tomorrow if the rain had stopped. Another talk with Pablo might pay off. There was a brief spatter of rain against the windows, then a rushing downpour. Footsteps passed in the hall and I waited, listening, until they had gone on by.

What was I so spooky about? Was it because I’d seen the Arkansawyer? Or Hovey? Returning the suit, shirts, and other clothing to the suitcase, I closed it and put it aside. Then, with pillows propped against my back, I sat on the bed and began checking the letters.

All seemed to be addressed to Stacy Henry. Most of them seemed to be the kind of life, death, and burial letters such as women write to each other. Someone was having a baby, and they were planning a shower. Another girl was getting married, and somebody’s father had died, such a nice man.

And then …

Suddenly excited, I put the letter down and got to my feet. Harkin’s was, of course, Larkin’s where I had just been. “A place in the mountains” sounded like a lead.

Staring down at the street, I felt an odd stirring of some memory, something scarcely tangible, yet—

No. It would not come. I’d return to the letters and the notebook.

G
ETTING UP FROM the bed, I walked to the side of the window and looked down into the street. All was dark and silent, only a little light from the windows.

What
was
it that haunted me so? Some vague memory, perhaps, or some conversation only half remembered.

There was a growing irritation in me. This was not the life I was used to. I’d spent most of my life so far out on the plains, in the desert or the mountains, and there was where I was most at home. Yet I knew that much of my problem lay right here in town.

My thoughts went back to Jefferson Henry’s private car sidetracked near the water-tank for several days. I agreed with the cowhands in the saloon, it was no place to be. It was hot, windy, and miserable out there when a man could be any place he wished.

Why there? Obviously, to meet with someone. Who? Why? Did he have others searching for his granddaughter? And the scream in the night? The scream of a man in agony.

When morning came I’d better saddle up and ride out there. Another talk with Pablo might help as he might have recalled something not mentioned before.
That Mexican was a good, solid man and I liked him. He was my kind of people.

Returning to the bed, I opened the second envelope. It contained no letter, only two recent newspaper clippings.

The second clipping, dated only a few days later, was equally brief. The item was buried among local news and advertisements.