Payback at Morning Peak (19 page)

“What?”

“Shave. You know, run a blade over your face to take off whiskers. Snip, prune, trim. Shave.”

Jubal hadn’t really thought much about his appearance for some time.

Bob pulled back on Duke until the two riders were side by side. “You’ve got what looks to be peach fuzz scattered about your face.”

“What are you thinking? We need to change our looks?”

“Yep. What if we clean you up around your cheeks and shave a goatee into that young face? We could darken it with walnut stain. Same with your hair. Cut it short, kinda neat. It’ll put some maturity on you. What do you say?”

“I’m game only if you are.” Jubal needed convincing.

“What you mean?”

“That old boy Pete Wetherford has never met up with you, but Tauson has. You say you worked for him. Fair is fair, Ginger.”

“Ah, hell. Me and my big mouth. Damnation.” Bob fiddled with his beard.

They devoted the night before arriving in Poverty Gulch to barbering. Bob looked ten years younger with his
ginger-colored beard shorn. He saved a mite of whisker over his upper lip and, with the help of the polished bottom of a tin cup to see his reflection, trimmed it into a neat mustache. Bob’s scissors made good work of Jubal’s locks. It had been a long time since he’d felt a breeze on the back of his neck. As promised, Bob also darkened the few wisps of Jubal’s sparse facial hair with the juice from crushed walnut hulls.

“You look like a desperado with that goatee, son. Here, let’s rub a little of that juice into your hair and let it dry.”

Jubal went to sleep anxious to see himself, not in the bottom of a polished tin but in a proper mirror.

“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Jubal said as they approached the community. Dozens of shacks and tents dotted the hills, most of them scattered in haphazard fashion along the trail heading into town.

“How long have you had that hat?”

“It was Pa’s. Started wearing it right after the raid.”

“It’s fairly noticeable with those feathers coming out the brim.”

Jubal took off the hat and pushed the bright feathers down under the wide band. A brooch of his mother’s that he had taken from the remains of the fire came to mind, and he dug it out of his pack. Silver, with several greenish blue stones and small stars carved into the crescent form. He smoothed the brim and bent the front of it up flush with the crown and secured it with the brooch.

“You look like a real hell-raiser, son.” Bob eyed him closely. “Yep, a desperado.”

“Speaking of hats, Mr. Mountain Man, I can’t
imagine anything more distinctive than that animal sitting on top of your head. Lordy.”

Bob grabbed the coonskin by the tail and pulled it off his head, cramming it into his saddlebag. He scratched his shiny dome vigorously, then took his sweaty neckerchief and wrapped it Indian-style around his head. “Satisfied?” He grinned like a fool.

“Satisfied.”

They pushed on to the center of town, where a group of people and their animals milled about in front of the claims office.

“What do you think, Bob? Should we find a place to bed down?”

The big fellow glanced around, then called out to a man in a fancy suit. “Excuse, sir. Could you direct my friend and me to a hotel or boardinghouse?”

“I could direct you, but it wouldn’t do you any good. The town is chockablock full.” He rubbed his hands gleefully and continued on his way.

Bob looked at Jubal. “He probably owns a brothel.”

Jubal stood high in his stirrups. “Just beyond that row of houses on the street opposite, I can see a row of tents. Let’s drift on out that way. What do you think?”

They found a spot near a small stream, made their camp, then walked back into town. The atmosphere was charged with people scurrying about buying supplies and peddlers selling a variety of items on the street. They waited in line at the office for nearly an hour.

“Yes, sir. How can I help?” The man behind the caged portal took a moment to suck on his smelly cigar.

“Just some information, if you please.” Bob adopted a
countrified presence. “My friend and I was curious on how to go about making a right proper way to start prospecting. You know, staking a claim—”

“You got to do just that, my man, stake it out right proper,” the man interrupted. “The government says you can work twenty acres, but you got to have a map like the one behind me.”

The two greenhorns gawked at the wall-sized map displayed behind the man.

“And it’s gotta coincide with our chart to be valid. Do you have a location for your claim?”

It was way too early for either Bob or Jubal to be interested in staking out a title. Jubal stepped in and asked the man about others who had made claims. “Sir, if I gave you a couple of names, Tauson, for instance, and Wetherford, could you—”

“Son, you’d have to see the manager about that. I can’t give out no personal business. Next.”

The two stepped outside. They decided Bob would stay back to try to get a word with the manager while Jubal scouted out the town. Bob didn’t think he’d have much luck prying information, but it would be worth a try, so they agreed to meet back in camp later in the afternoon.

Jubal cocked his thumb back and fired a shot at Bob with his index finger. Bob faked a shot to the heart, then Jubal proceeded up the street, only to be stopped with a shout. The mountain man caught up to him and held one hand to the side of his mouth as if he were about to impart a secret. “Listen, pardner. A-ah,” he stammered. “You’re not ashamed of me, are you?”

“Ashamed, why? What about?” Jubal frowned.

He paused, then blurted, “Ah, well, shoot. You know, all that palaver about my time in the war, how I hightailed it to greener pastures, you know all that kid’s nonsense.”

“Forget it. You did what you thought was right.” Jubal stuck out his hand, they shook, and Bob proceeded back toward the claims office. He turned once again, hands over his heart as if wounded from Jubal’s previous mock gunplay. Jubal had to smile at the big guy’s sense of humor. He also thought in some ways he knew exactly what Bob had gone through. There had been a number of times at Morning Peak when he had wanted to drop everything and run for his life.

Jubal passed the local post office on Main Street, a building with a high
U.S. MAIL
facade and an American flag waving off the porch. Thin vertical bars encased the windows from inside, and the building sat alone as if it were grander and more proud than the other wood structures on the street. Jubal wondered if it would be possible to send a note to Judge Wickham. Stepping inside the building, he noticed a wall of small wood boxes with tiny windows. Jubal figured it was so mail would be easily visible. “Excuse me, sir. I wonder if you could help me.”

“I can probably help you with anything relating to the mail, but I don’t lend money and I don’t have a daughter you can marry, so what’s your pleasure?”

“Sir. I need to send a note to someone in Cerro Vista, New Mexico. I wonder how I go about that.”

The kindly postmaster smiled. “Do you have the note with you?”

“No, sir. I haven’t written it yet.”

“Well, cowboy, once you’ve written the note you simply give it to me. I’ll sell you a stamp, you lick it, stick it on the envelope, and I mail it for you. Simple, huh?”

For a second, Jubal wondered how to continue.

The older man chuckled. “You don’t have a piece of paper, do you? Or an envelope? How about a pencil or pen?” The postmaster lowered his voice. “Can you write?”

Jubal quickly said, “Ah, yes, sir, I write quite well.”

The clerk reached under the counter and produced several sheets of paper, an envelope, and a pencil. “You can stand there by the
WANTED
posters and write ‘til sundown.”

Jubal moved along the oak counter until he was standing beneath several notices proclaiming several hundred dollars’ reward for information about a certain Jack Stanton and another for the dead-or-alive capture of a desperado named Miguel Cavallo.

Jubal had a tough time concentrating with these outlaws staring down at him.

Judge Wickham,

I hope this note finds you in good health. When last I saw you, your color was the shade of this paper. I hope your health has improved.

As for me, I disobeyed your wishes to stay close by in Cerro Vista. Sir, I am not asking for a pardon or sympathy but simply understanding.

I was doing okay until your shooting. Some
thing about the gracious supper earlier in the evening, the company and your welcome, that, simply put, overwhelmed me after your wounding.

I am, sir, not much of a scholar, so please forgive this poor attempt, but I will try to do whatever it takes to apprehend the villains who shot you and bring them to justice.

Regards to your family.

I remain your loyal servant,
Jubal Young

Jubal slid the envelope, paper, and pencil back to the center of the counter.

“How did you do, youngster? Everything hunky-dory?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you going to address the envelope?”

“Ah, yessir, I forgot.” As Jubal wrote the address of the Wicks Hotel, he asked the clerk, “Sir, if someone wanted to send a letter to me, how would they do that?”

“Well, son, you put a return address on the envelope. You have an address, don’t you?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I’m just sort of wandering about in these parts.”

“You could rent a post office box for a dollar a month or if you don’t expect a lot of mail you could just say on the envelope, ‘care of general delivery.’ How’s that?”

“Fine and thank you, sir.” Jubal started to leave.

“Are you forgetting something, sonny?”

“Ah, yes, sorry, what do I owe you?”

“Penny for the stamp and I’d have to charge you another penny for the paper and envelope. Fair enough?”

“Yes, sir. More than fair, thank you… and the use of the pencil?”

“Just consider that courtesy of the U.S. government.”

Jubal felt good having gotten the burden of a guilty conscience off his chest. He hoped Judge Wickham would accept his apology and explanation in the tone and manner in which he intended.

By the end of the day, Jubal felt he knew nearly all of the various dwellings in the immediate vicinity. He’d made a rough mental sketch of the places where he had seen people and where they camped. Trying to keep track of a bunch of prospectors became a tiresome job, but the idea that he could best the raiders of the farm kept him going.

After a long day, Jubal and Bob were at last back at their campsite, a number of fires glowing throughout the surrounding woods. They stirred their vegetable stew and spoke of their endeavors.

“The claims man wouldn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot. He didn’t really want to say anything. Went on about claims being private. I did a bit of weepy storytelling about my brother and a death in the family. He finally looked it up but couldn’t find anything on Tauson, William F., or Wetherford, Peter. You say you had a good look around and didn’t see any signs of them, right?”

“Right.” Jubal stirred the stew with a long stick. “Let’s drift back into town tonight, late. See if those devils are sticking close to what they know, boozing and trouble-making.”

Around ten-thirty that night, Jubal and Bob walked into town to find a group of men raising a fuss outside the
Good Chance Saloon. As they approached, Jubal saw two of them rolling on the ground, throwing wild fists, while bystanders shouted encouragement. Neither man seemed very fit and the fight didn’t look as if it would lead to anything. Bob and Jubal stepped around the panting figures.

Inside the music hall, merrymakers crowded the grimy floor and lined a second-story balcony. A piano man, being generally ignored, struggled with his songs. Jubal and Bob skirted along the walls of the large room, trying to see as much as they could without being seen.

“I’ll stand you to a beer, son. Wait here.” Bob elbowed his way through the drunks and soon-to-be drunks to get to the bar, his bald head bobbing above the throng.

As Jubal waited, a woman approached him. “New in town?”

Jubal nodded.

“Uh-huh. You looking for a good time, handsome?”

“Good time, sure, I’m having a—oh, you mean… No. Sorry.”

She drifted away, calling over her shoulder, “Your mustache is weeping, sonny.”

Jubal’s hand flew to his upper lip, coming away with a dark smudge. He felt an urgent need to get a look at himself. On the far wall between two pillars hung an ornate mirror tilted to one side. Jubal made his way through the room and stared at his clouded image. A faint walnut stain colored his upper lip. He wet it with his tongue, then scrubbed it with a finger.

“What’s you doing, fella? Come in here to drink with the men, or are you some kinda dandy what comes in to just use the mirror?”

Jubal turned to see a young man about his own age holding a foaming glass of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other, his cattleman’s hat towering above Jubal.

“I asked you a question, cowboy,” he said. “Are you looking for trouble?”

His sudden temper surprised Jubal, like he was looking for a fight. “Looking for trouble?” Jubal responded. “No, why would I do that?”

The stranger looked around to make sure his buddies were behind him, hearing every word. “Don’t smart me. I’ll rip off that girlish pin on your hat and fix it onto your goateed face, you hear?”

Jubal waved him off and moved away through the crowd. He could hear the young man bellowing and the chorus of catcalls coming from his friends. It was difficult to do, to walk away, but he certainly didn’t want to draw attention to himself. He reached up, touched the brooch on his hat, and smiled.

“Where you been, Jubal? Was looking for you.” Bob handed him his beer.

“Oh, I just took a gander at myself in the mirror. I thought my disguise was slipping.” They clinked glasses, Jubal taking a sip of the warm liquid. It tasted good, mysterious, filling his mouth with sensation. As he swallowed, there came a light need to cough, but the fluid coated his throat. He started to feel a strange relaxation. “It’s good, I’m surprised.”