Territory (50 page)

Jesse nodded back toward the office. “You don’t trust him?”

“I trust him to be unnecessarily interested in my personal life. Best possible motives, of course.”

He studied her out of the corner of his eye. Her cheeks were pink, and she seemed deeply involved in pulling on her gloves. “Did the whatever-they-weres survive?”

“If they were fragile, I wouldn’t have used them.”

“Oh,” said Jesse. No other response seemed worthy.

“Where were we? So you blame Crane?”

“I suspect him. If I can get to him before someone else does, I may be able to find out if he did it, and if he did it on his own.”

Mildred walked in silence for a moment, her eyes on the view of the Dragoons at the end of the street. “Do you know why one can’t take the law into one’s own hands?”

“Why?” he said warily. She didn’t sound as if she was changing the subject.

“Because the law is too big to fit in one pair of hands. So if you feel you’ve got a comfortable grip on whatever you’re holding, you can be pretty sure it’s not the law.” She looked into his face. “If you find Crane, what will you do?”

“Bring him in. He’ll hang for the two killings in the stage holdup.”

“And possibly for killing the Haslett brothers and another man in Hachita.” Jesse missed his footing on the sidewalk. She nodded. “You must have been out of town. It was revenge, they say, and that might even be true; the Hasletts killed Head and Leonard.”

The avalanche of death turned Jesse’s stomach. “I guess I’d better find him soon.”

“If he were easy to find, it would have been done.” Mildred stopped at the frontage of a vacant lot. It had been cleared after the fire, but a pile of new-sawn pine was its only occupant. “There was another man who took part in that holdup.”

“Your paper said Holliday—”

“Not Dr. Holliday.” She gazed up and down the street, as if admiring the scenery, of which there was precious little. “I overheard Kate Holliday say that Morgan Earp was there.”

He drew breath to ask if she thought it was true. But she wouldn’t have told him if she didn’t. “The Earps won’t want Crane tried. How far would they go to prevent it?”

Mildred shook her head. “You said that Crane is bound to hang. But what if he agrees to name the last robber?” She met his eyes again. “Do you want him tried, or dead? Because you should remember they may not be the same thing.”

If Crane bargained for his life—No, surely he couldn’t. He was accused of five murders; six, counting Lung’s. But how good was the case against Crane in those deaths? “Until I find out if he pulled the trigger, I don’t want him one or the other.”

She was troubled, and he couldn’t blame her. Did he want Lung’s murderer dead? It was right to want it. Lung himself had said there was a balance. Did he want it so much that he’d do the job himself, if he had to?

Lung had asked him if he would kill in cold blood if that was what it took to right a wrong. He’d said no. That was the person he was. Wasn’t it?

“Who would know where Crane’s gone to ground?”

Mildred closed her eyes and rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “Even if you asked all his bosom friends, why would they tell you?”

“That’s for me to worry about.”

“John Gray, possibly—Crane was sighted at Gray’s ranch at the beginning
of last month. Rumor put him with the rustlers on the border a few weeks ago, which might mean John Ringo and William Brocius. I wouldn’t count on that, though. The moment anyone steals anything from anybody in Cochise County, the credit goes to those two and the latest bogeyman. I’m waiting for the story that joins Ringo, Brocius, and Geronimo.” She spoke fast, and her voice was hard, a shell over her emotions. “They all have land over the New Mexico line, in the Bootheel around Cloverdale. Gray, Ringo, the Clantons, Crane before he went on the run. It’s good land. Good for cattle.” She pressed one hand to her mouth, as if she were afraid of the words that might follow.

“My compliments on your news-gathering. That’s where I’ll look.”

“He could be anywhere. You can’t just—”

Jesse took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Even through his gloves, he could feel … what was it? Strength, fear, anger, resignation, all tumbled like stones in swift water. He thought she’d pull away, but she didn’t. “I think I can. I mean to try, at least.” He smiled, and wished she would smile back. “It may work to my advantage that Earp and Ringo and … whoever else is out there can’t be sure I know what I’m doing.”

She glared and pushed his hand away. “Do you?”

“Depends on what I’m doing.”

Mildred sighed. “Just remember that the Earps have an interest in this. Be prepared to duck if they act on it.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Shouldn’t I be?” She looked swiftly away; then she turned back and laid her hand on his wrist. “Yes.” She pressed her lips together, and her hand slipped off his arm. “The
Nugget
has plenty of material as it is. Don’t give us any more to write about.”

At Crabtree’s Livery, Jesse stuffed supplies into his saddlebags, aware that Chu was watching. It wasn’t until he tucked a box of cartridges in the top of each bag that Chu spoke.

“You pack plenty stupid. Too heavy, put on top.”

Jesse decided not to say that things on the top could be got at quickly. Chu talked to Mildred, after all. “When I get back, we’ll work on your verbs.”

“I know plenty goddamn English!”

Jesse grinned. “Maybe even too much.”

Chu checked the fit of Sam’s bridle, though the buckles were fastened on the usual holes. “You go long?”

“It depends on how long it takes to find what I’m after.”

Chu sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him, which gave the boy an unobstructed view of Jesse’s face. Why did everyone feel they had to catch his every expression?

“Sumbitch kill Chow Lung,” Chu said calmly.

“Pardon?”

“Who you go find.”

Jesse fastened the bags, aware that stalling for time was cowardly. “What makes you think so?”

Chu shrugged. “I go with. Watch you back.”

There was no heat in Chu’s face, no anger or outrage, only an implacable steadiness. Jesse swallowed through a tight throat. A child shouldn’t know how to look like that. “You’re better off here.”

“Chow Lung live, he go with you. You come get, I bet.”

“If Chow Lung were alive, I wouldn’t be going.” His voice was harsh, which he hadn’t intended. It was true; he would have ridden straight to Lung. They would have set out with a half-formed and improbable plan that they would change in midstream without needing to consult over it. They would likely have gotten on the bad side of everyone involved and had to leave town.

But Lung was dead, and this was nothing like the trouble they used to get into.

Jesse crouched next to Chu. “Lung probably taught you a lot. But he didn’t teach you enough for this. It’s dangerous.”

Chu snorted. “How much
you
know?”

“Nothing like you and Mrs. Benjamin to build a fellow up,” Jesse grumbled. He stood and picked up the saddlebags. “This isn’t going to be about … knowledge. Not that kind.”

“Stupid. About magic always. You see pretty soon.”

“I’ll tell you if it is.” He strapped the bags behind the saddle cantle and tied his bedroll and slicker across them. “If I don’t come back, go to Mrs. Benjamin. She’ll help you.” He felt reasonably comfortable committing Mildred to that. He stroked Sam’s neck and swung into the saddle.

Chu took hold of Sam’s reins. “Not do stupid thing.”

“I thought I couldn’t help that.” He smiled, though his throat was tight again.

“Not do
big
stupid thing.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll try.”

Chu stepped aside, and Jesse rode out into the sun.

Animas was a scramble of wood and adobe buildings, a country village that served the surrounding ranches. Hachita, ten miles away, had ambitions; from the looks of it, Animas had no plans to be more than it was right now.

Jesse drew rein at a squat building with “HOTEL” painted on the front. He sat in the saddle, bracing himself with both hands on the swell, and trying to look as if he was studying the street. But staying where he was wouldn’t make him any less weary. Besides, it was time to get his weight off Sam’s back and legs. The horse had worked hard enough.

He stumbled when his feet touched the ground, and half fell against Sam. Sam threw up his head and sidled away. Jesse landed on his hands and knees in the dirt of the street.

Water, sounding like his own blood in his ears—lots of it not far from the surface. Tombstone’s bones were silver, but water was the flesh and bone of this place, feeding the grass and filling the creeks that ran in clefts between the hills. He tasted silver here, too, but fleeting and faint across his tongue.

Jesse gasped and shook his head, and the knowledge let go of him. He staggered to his feet.

He wasn’t weak anymore. His first frightened thought was that he’d stolen from Sam when he stumbled against him. Then he remembered his fingers in the dirt. He’d pulled strength as well as knowledge out of the earth. Not as much strength as a good dinner and a full night’s sleep, but enough to keep him upright.

Jesse stabled Sam and took possession of a small room with stained and faded wallpaper and a suspiciously trough-shaped bed. Unpromising as it was, it called him strongly. No, dinner first.

He found it across the street by the smell of onions and bacon fat coming from a whitewashed adobe. The inside was low-ceilinged and dark as a casket, but it offered dinners as well as home-brewed beer, a dozen varieties of alcohol, and a locally made peach liqueur the bartender described as “like a pretty whore with brass knuckles.” Jesse got the beer and a plate of mixed fry with biscuits and sat down at the nearest of three tables.

He was halfway through the food and done with the beer when a familiar-looking man came in. His curly hair and pointed beard showed dusty red when he passed through the light of a lamp. He crossed the room to the counter like a regular. “Tom Collins whiskey,” he ordered. “Make it rye, none of that hog feed corn shit you got.”

As the bartender squeezed a lemon, the man turned to scan the room. His eyes met Jesse’s, and he frowned. “Don’t I know you?”

“I’ve met you somewhere,” Jesse acknowledged.

The man smirked. “Likely so. There’s plenty around here who count me in when they need a steady hand.”

Something about the words brought it back. “You were in the Oriental Saloon when the Ortega boy was brought in shot.”

The red-haired man peered at him, and his face cleared. “You’re the fellow with the horse! Sure, I remember you.” His eyebrows lowered again. “Not your name, though.”

“Jesse Fox.”

“Ike Clanton. You’re a ways from Tombstone.”

Clanton was one of the men on Mildred’s list of Bootheel ranchers. Jesse lifted his empty glass. “And it’s a dry trip. May I buy you that whiskey, as long as I’m getting another?”

Clanton’s eyes opened wider, and he smiled. “Can’t turn that down.”

From the look of him, Jesse thought that was truer than Clanton meant it. He got himself another beer.

Clanton tipped half the drink down his throat and said, “That boy died, I hear.”

Jesse sighed. “Not what I’d intended.”

“Law make a fuss?”

Jesse stole a glance at Clanton as he lifted his glass. Should he say yes? But it was easy to disprove. “Not a bit. Seems wrong, that a man should die and nobody care about it.”

Clanton shook his head. “Territory’s a hard place. You got to be hard to get by.” He drained his whiskey.

Jesse flagged the bartender for another before he said, “You have to be hard just to get across it. I swear I’ve ridden every foot of ground between the Tombstone Hills and here in the last few days.”

“What for?”

“Looking for someone.”

“Who?”

Jesse gave Clanton an arrested look. “I suppose if you’re pretty well connected around here, you might know the man. He used to have land north of here. Jim Crane?”

Clanton coughed, and covered it with a swallow of his fresh drink. “Crane’s place was south of here, by Cloverdale. Hell, I guess it’s still his, but it’s the last place you’ll find him, account of his being a wanted man.” Clanton grinned. “Guess you want him, too. What for?”