Payback at Morning Peak (30 page)

First, he considered he would have to dispose of his make-believe uncle’s skinny sodbuster son, Jubal Young.

Jubal Young, Terror of the West.
He had to admit it had a certain ring to it. Cybil’s sense of humor always seemed based in her own reality.
Does she really think of me as a terror?
Jubal smiled, it made him feel good to reminisce about her. Why she enjoyed his company, he didn’t really know—it wasn’t as if they had shared a great deal of time together.

He walked next to Frisk, his right hand looped casually into her bridle. It had been three long days since they’d left Cripple Creek, the both of them hoofing it in order to lighten the load. The soft earth made it difficult for Frisk to pull the heavy wagon.

Ed Thompson remained quiet, calling out occasionally for a break to relieve himself. But all in all, he was fairly well behaved.

Jubal’s attitude toward his pursuit of the gang members had changed over the last couple of days. Instead of the fiery, energetic passion that had consumed him early
on, he now felt more contained, as if it were his life’s work, and worthy of the patience, to do it right. Patience. A word that would have been at the end of a long list of things he hadn’t possessed several months ago. But he was determined to try. Like the ever-patient Count of Monte Cristo, Dantès had spent fourteen years in prison. Once he constructed his escape, he persevered and found his treasure.
Of course, mine is a mere pittance. But I will become resolute.

Each day started the same, his first thoughts being of Pru, ma, and pa. Then the slow realization that they were gone and that part of his life was over. This would be followed by a brief summary of the Tauson episode in the saloon, sometimes the memory of Ty Blake, then Bob’s funeral and the Ed Thompson story. Only then would he allow himself to think of the good things in his life—Cybil, her parents—notwithstanding the Mrs., who didn’t seem to cotton to him. And lastly his nugget. He was anxious to have someone assess it, tell him what it was worth. It had certainly come at an opportune time, this chunk of gold.

They headed east, closer to the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. “The Blood of Christ.” The legend had it that each evening as the sun set the Sangres would turn briefly red in order to show respect for the sacrifice of Christ, the flash of light reflecting off the array of piñon and aspen, or in the winter the snow turning a vivid pink across the mountainous expanse.

Jubal would stand on a rock pinnacle, gazing east to the range as the sun set behind him. A brief moment in the fading light, every night. Although he did carry his
mother’s Bible, Jubal had never considered himself religious, but there was always something sacred about that small piece of the day.

Pru had called it “God’s painting.”

“God plays with turning the evergreens just slightly red or pink each evening, taking a look at it, trying to decide when She should make a decision. Do you think people would even notice, Jube?”

Jubal and his chained prisoner stopped overnight in the shade of some cottonwoods. A small stream wound its way east toward the Rio Grande.

“How about releasing me so I can stretch my crippled leg, pard?”

Jubal continued to fix their meager supper. “You’re just fine the way you are, Mr. Thompson.”

“Hell’s fire. You don’t have to call me ‘mister,’ son. ‘Ed’ is good enough.

“I meant it in a facetious way, Thompson.”

Ed picked up the long length of chain and rattled it against the tailgate of the wagon. “What’s that mean, ‘fish-us’?”

Jubal considered this. “It was mostly meant to belittle the fact that you could be called a ‘mister,’ after all that you did.” Jubal paused. “So I facetiously refer to you as ‘mister.’ It’s one of those things one doesn’t really mean. One says it in jest.”

“You mean like an insult?”

“Yeah, kind of like that.”

Ed Thompson continued to pace, twenty feet out from the wagon, then twenty feet back, the chain rattling a
dull clunking sound in the dirt. “Shoot, I thought we was getting to be friends, the two of us.”

Jubal scooped a portion of the soup into a tin bowl and walked it over to the wagon. “When I referred to you as ‘mister,’ what I am really saying is ‘asshole.’ I am making fun of the fact that a grown man could be persuaded to participate in the taking of three innocent lives.… You want this soup or not?”

“Yeah, thanks. As I said to you a couple times already, it were Pete Wetherford that did all the dirty stuff.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Stop Petey, boy? Not a chance. Look what he did to me. For no damn reason at all, shot the living daylights outta me up there in the mountains.… My hip is paining me something terrible.”

Jubal walked back to the soup pot and stared at it briefly while Ed slurped away at the thin broth. For some reason, this angered him. Jubal moved to his saddlebag and retrieved his father’s pistol, then turned toward Ed.

“She was fourteen years old, my sister.” He fired into the ground close to Ed’s feet.

“Jesus, save me! What’re you doing?”

“She was the finest, most innocent person I’ve ever met.” Jubal fired again, splintering a chunk of wood from the sideboard close to Mr. Ed Thompson’s hand. “She wanted to study and marry and have children, you bastard.” Jubal emptied the pistol in the air around Ed’s crouched form. “I should just kill you right here, but you know what, you rotten son of a bitch? She’s going to save your miserable life.”

Ed held his hands in front of his face.

“She would have said, ‘He can be redeemed.’ For what? I can’t imagine. But I’ll obey what I know she would have pleaded for. Climb back into that wagon and don’t let me hear anything else from you. You hear?”

Ed shuffled his way to the tailgate and crawled into his nest with nary a word.

Each day seemed much like the last. Jubal spotted the old water tank where Bob Patterson had waited for him. It seemed a hundred years had passed since then. They were close to Antonito now, the mountains to the east looking the same as the day Jubal passed through Bob’s old stomping grounds. He knew he would have to stop and speak to Anne.

A number of horses were tied to the restaurant’s hitching post. Jubal pulled the wagon around to the back of the modest frame building.

“We gonna have us some store-bought vittles for breakfast?” Ed Thompson rattled his chain as he moved in the back of the wagon.

Jubal dismounted the buckboard and stretched. “I’ll see. Depends on how my storytelling goes.” It surprised him how nervous he felt going into the eatery. A half dozen ranchers sat spread out in the restaurant, so Jubal chose a table tucked in a corner of the room.

He waited patiently for Anne, wondering how he would tell her about Bob. She finally came from the kitchen, humming and joking with the patrons. She settled her plates and scanned the room, finally spying Jubal alone in the corner. Her broad welcoming smile slowly faded as she made her way between the tables.

“You came to bad-news me, didn’t you?”

Jubal had trouble meeting her intent gaze. “I’m afraid so, Anne. I don’t rightly know how to begin.”

“What’ll you have?”

“What do you mean?”

“For eats. The last time you were here, you had hotcakes and coffee. You left me a quarter. What’ll it be, the same?” She stood erect, a small pad from her apron pocket poised below her pencil.

Her stoicism confused Jubal. “Yes, the same, please.” She walked back toward the kitchen, and it wasn’t more than thirty seconds before loud thundering sounds of pans falling or being thrown came from the rear of the restaurant. One of the men sitting at the counter slipped through the kitchen’s swinging doors to offer help. Jubal stood, not knowing what to do. The man who had gone to the kitchen returned and addressed the group of diners.

“Everything’s fine. Anne said she just took a header. Said coffee’s on the house.” He took a tall pot of coffee and proceeded around the room, filling cups. He got to Jubal. “Anne says to take your story elsewhere. She don’t want to hear it.”

Jubal drifted outside and sat on the wooden sidewalk while the restaurant emptied. Soon, the
CLOSED
sign had been put on the front door, probably by the coffee man. Jubal tried the door and found it unlocked. The place was empty and he took his original seat in the corner.

Anne was still in back. He listened for any sound from her. Silence first, then a small noise—the scraping of a dish or a piece of silverware being tossed into a tub of water. An occasional sniffle, an exclamation of anger.

She finally came out of the kitchen, a plate of hotcakes slathered with butter and syrup balanced on her right hand, in her left a pot of steaming coffee. She slid the plate in front of Jubal and pulled out a chair opposite him.

“Don’t mind me. Eat, Slim.”

Jubal dabbed at his food. “I don’t really know how to begin.”

“Did he suffer?”

“It was fairly quick. No, I don’t think he suffered.” His eyes welled.

“Who?”

Jubal stirred the syrup with his fork, the butter melting into a yellow stream blending into the maple concoction. “A gent Bob used to work for, named William F. Tauson.” Jubal tried to drink the coffee, but it wouldn’t go down. “Originally, Bob told me he’d had trouble with Tauson, and that he wanted to settle up with him. We ran into him at a saloon in Cripple Creek, Colorado.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

“When Bob left here, he said to me that you were a troubled youngster and that he wanted to help you. I knew Bob.” She paused, trying to control her breathing.

Jubal watched as she massaged her throat, trying to rub away the lump of grief. “He wouldn’t have confronted this Tauson. He would have thought about it, oh, hell, yeah. Dreamt about it, maybe told the world what he would do to the man. But I know Bob… knew Bob. He was talk unadulterated, sweet Jesus. Talk, and that’s all.” She covered her face. “The poor big dummy.” Her hands
moved to her eyes. “He hooks up with a sad-faced snot, trying to be the big man, and gets hisself, what, pistoled? Stabbed?”

“He was shot.” He could barely get out the words. “Died real quick.”

“He deserted from the army, got the holy bejeezus scared outta him.” She pounded her small fist into her opposite palm.

“He told me.” Then Jubal waited for her to speak.

“He must have liked you, kid. I guess that says something about you. Bob was a sensitive soul. Fact he would open up to you is surprising.”

“We were riding one day, him talking about sleeping outside, then all of a sudden he started weeping. Went on about scooting for home, hiding out.… I held the shooter Tauson ‘til the sheriff came and hauled him away. Justice—”

“So you held the guy ‘til the law came. Why didn’t you shoot the bastard? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear your crap about what you did and what someone else did. Bob’s dead. Did you bury him?”

“Yes, ma’am. I sure did. Gave him a decent funeral.”

“There’s nothing decent about a funeral.” She broke down and cried into her folded arms on the table. “I loved him. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, ma’am. Is there someone I could get to stay with you, a relative or such?”

She didn’t answer, just pointed toward the door.

At the exit, Jubal turned and tried to comfort her. “I really liked—”

“Did you get the watch I gave him?”

He paused. “No, ma’am, in the confusion and all…” She silently waved him out the door.

Jubal suffered some after his meeting with Anne. He knew Bob didn’t have the gumption for the kind of confrontation that Billy Tauson posed. He should have convinced Bob to go back to Antonito, his life of washing dishes and his relationship with Anne. She’d been tough, pegged him pretty well, he had to admit. He felt she was aware of him laying it on about Bob’s former relationship with Tauson, and especially the question about the watch. Why, he asked himself, didn’t he tell her the truth?

Pure truth, like pure gold, needs refining.

Pa had said that to him one day. “It’s like when you tell a white lie, Jube. You stay as close to the gospel as possible, but you shave a little off here, and you add a little something there. Before you know it, you’ve got yourself a whopping good tale. Don’t get me wrong, son, I’m not advocating you tell lies, but to make them stick, stay near to the gospel as possible.”

He loved his dad, but the man did have some peculiar notions.

In the case of Anne, Jubal thought he’d done the right thing, even though she threw him out. He’d conveyed the news in the only way he knew. But he still felt bad. He’d lied when he didn’t really have to.

The thing about guilt, Jubal reasoned, is it doesn’t let up. Hunger, pain, happiness… one can control those things. But guilt is unrelenting, ever-present.

He continued to push ahead, trying to understand why he had lied to Anne about the watch. Why couldn’t
he have simply said he didn’t have enough money to bury ole Bob so he had to sell his watch to help with the expense of it?

Maybe, he thought, doing the “hock” thing would have been better. At least that way he might have redeemed the timepiece later.

They had been on the road near to two hours. When Jubal turned the wagon, Ed woke from his nap.

“What’s going on there, son? Feels like we’re headed back around.”

“We are. I forgot something back in Antonito.”

“Yeah, like my breakfast?”

Jubal drove on without answering. What he had forgotten, he finally figured out, were his manners and common sense.

By the time Jubal returned to Anne’s Good Eats, the lunch crowd had dispersed. Once again, the
CLOSED
sign sat tilted in the window. Jubal knocked and then tried the door—locked. The rear of the building had a small shed attached, where Anne sat in the doorway on a short stool, a large pot full of potatoes between her legs.

Peeling knife in hand, Anne looked up at Jubal with red-rimmed eyes.

“You’re too late for lunch. Grill’s all cleaned and shut down. I banked the fire and hauled out the garbage. What was it you wanted? Forgiveness?”