The Man from Stone Creek (6 page)

Sure enough, Mungo's sons came outside a moment later.

“Where'd he go?” one of them asked the other.

“Maybe the outhouse,” the other replied.

Sam waited. If they bothered his horse, he'd have to deal with them, but they were either drunk or just plain stupid, maybe both, and headed for the privy at the far side of the dooryard.

He watched as one of them slammed at the outhouse wall with the butt of his gun and bellowed, “You in there, mister?”

The second brother tried the door, pulling on the wire hook outside, and it swung open with a squeal of rusted hinges.

“Hey!” the first brother yelled, putting his head through the opening.

Sam eased out of his hiding place.

Both the Donaghers stepped into the outhouse.

Sam shut the door on them and fastened the sturdy wire hook around the twisted nail so they'd be a while getting out again.

A roar sounded from inside and the whole privy rocked on the hard-packed dirt. Sam grinned, mounted his horse and rode for the church to meet Vierra.

He could still hear the Donagher brothers yelling when he got where he was going. The graveyard was enclosed behind a high rock wall, and there was no gate in evidence, so he stood in the saddle and vaulted over, landing on his feet.

He took a moment to assess his surroundings, as he had in Rosita's room over the cantina, and spotted the red glow of Vierra's cheroot about a hundred yards away, beneath a towering cottonwood.

He approached, one hand resting on the handle of his Colt, just in case.

Vierra's grin flashed white and he solidified from a shadow to a man, ground out the cheroot with the toe of one boot. “There is some trouble at the cantina?” he asked, inclining his head in that direction. The sound of splintering wood, mingled with bellowed curses, swelled in the otherwise peaceful night.

Good thing I didn't leave my horse behind, Sam thought. They might have shot him out of pure spite.

He shrugged. “Just a couple of cowpokes breaking out of the privy,” he said. “I reckon they would either have jumped me or followed me here, if I hadn't corralled them for a few minutes.”

Vierra laughed. “The Donaghers,” he said.

Sam nodded, took another look around. It was a typical cemetery, full of stone monuments and crude wooden crosses. He recalled the crucifix on Rosita's wall, and it sobered him. “What do you have to tell me here that you couldn't have said last night in Haven?” he asked.

Vierra reached into his vest and produced a thick fold of papers. “These are the places where the
banditos
have struck on this side of the border.” He crouched, spreading a large hand-drawn map on the ground, and Sam joined him to have a look. “Here, at Rancho Los Cruces, “Vierra said, placing a gloved fingertip on the spot, “they stole some two hundred head of cattle and left four
vaqueros
dead. Here, in the canyon, they robbed a train.”

Sam listened intently, committing the map to memory, just in case Vierra wasn't inclined to part with it.

“They used dynamite to cause an avalanche,” Vierra explained, lingering at the place marked as Reoso Canyon. “The train, of course, was forced to stop. They took a shipment of gold, and the wife and young daughter of a
patron
were captured, as well. The wife was found later—” Vierra stopped, and his throat worked. “She had been raped and dragged to death behind a horse. There has been no word of the girl.”

“Christ,” Sam rasped, closing his eyes for a moment.

Vierra was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was flat. “I was told that you would give me a map corresponding to this one. Showing all the places this gang has struck on your side of the border.”

Sam nodded, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and handed over a careful copy of the drawing the major had given him. “Except for the woman and the girl,” he said as Vierra unfolded the paper to examine it in a shaft of moonlight, “it's a version of what you just showed me. Rustling. Train robberies. They cleaned out a couple of banks, too, and killed a freight wagon driver.”

“Our superiors,” Vierra observed, his gaze fixed on Sam's map, “they believe we are dealing with the same band of men. Do you know why?”

Sam knew it wasn't a question. It was a prompt. “Yes,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “They leave a mark.”

Vierra folded Sam's map carefully and tucked it away inside his vest. “A stake, driven into the ground, always with a bit of blood-soaked cloth attached.”

Bile rose in the back of Sam's throat. He'd seen the signature several times, and just the recollection of it turned his stomach. He nodded, took another moment before he spoke. “I suppose you've considered that it might be the Donaghers,” he said. That was Major Black-stone's theory, and, since his conversation with Terran Chancelor that afternoon, regarding the Debney shooting, the possibility had stuck in his mind like a burr.

A muscle bunched in Vierra's jaw.
“Sí,”
he said. “But there is no proof.”

Sam waited.

“The
patrons
who hired me, they want the right men. No mistakes,” Vierra went on. “And I do not have the option, as you do, of shooting them through the heart and bringing them in draped over their saddles. The
patrons
want them alive. The streets of a certain village, a day or two south of here, will run with their blood.”

A chill trickled down Sam's spine. He had no love for these murdering bastards, and would just as soon draw on them as take his next breath, but the law was the law. Unless one or more of them forced his hand, they would stand trial, in an American court, their fate decided by a judge and jury. He didn't give a damn what happened to them after that, but by God, he'd get them that far, whether Vierra got in his way or not. “I guess it all depends on who catches up to them first,” he said moderately.

Both men rose to their feet. Vierra surrendered the map he'd brought with him. “There is a train making its way north in ten days,” he said. “I have told a few people that there will be a fortune in
oro federale
aboard. We will see if the rumor reaches the right ears.”

Federal gold, Sam reflected. Cheese in a mousetrap.

“And you've got a pretty good idea where they'll try to intercept the train,” he ventured, recalling Vierra's map in perfect detail. “That railroad trestle downriver from here.”

Vierra smiled. “I am impressed,” he said. “The new schoolmaster has paid attention to the lesson.”

“Y
OU WANT ME
to do
what?
” Maddie gaped at Sam O'Ballivan's copper bathtub, ensconced squarely in front of the schoolhouse stove. Terran had left the store early that morning, of his own volition, and she'd barely recovered from her brother's change of heart when back he came, breathless from running all the way.

“Mr. O'Ballivan says to come quick, if you wouldn't mind!” he'd cried.

Maddie had frowned, concerned. Elias James, the town banker and, for all practical intents and purposes, her employer, since he oversaw Mungo's investments, expected the mercantile door to be unlocked by nine o'clock sharp, and in the six years she'd been running the general store, she'd never failed to do that. It was now eight forty-five. “Is there some emergency?” she'd asked, already untying the apron strings she'd just tied a moment before.

“He says it's important,” Terran had insisted.

And here she was, standing in the schoolhouse, staring in consternation at Sam O'Ballivan and the bathtub she'd sold him herself.

“I want you,” Sam repeated patiently, “to show Violet Perkins how to take a bath.”

Maddie knew Violet, of course, and had sympathy for her. The poor child hung around the store sometimes, when school was out, hoping for a hard-boiled egg from the crock next to the counter, or a piece of penny candy. She mooned over the few ready-made dresses Maddie carried—most women sewed their children's garments at home, as well as their own—and huddled by the stove for hours when it was cold or rainy outside. Maddie often indulged her with a plate of leftovers from her own larder at the rear of the store, pretending the food would go to waste if Violet didn't eat it.

“Here?”
she asked, noting that Sam had set out the bar of French-milled soap and the towel he'd purchased with the bathtub. “In the schoolhouse?”

“What better place?” Sam reasoned. He'd been sitting behind his desk, wearing spectacles and poring over a thick volume when she burst in. At Maddie's appearance, he'd set aside the glasses and stood. “A school is a place to learn, isn't it? And Violet needs to know how to take a bath.”

Flummoxed, Maddie spread her hands. “What about the other students?” she asked. “You can't expect the child to undress in front of the boys—”

Sam smiled. “Of course not. The girls can stay—I suspect some of them could do with a demonstration. I'll take the boys down to the river for their lesson.” He held up the cake of yellow soap from yesterday's marketing. “I've noticed that Violet is generally the first to raise her hand. Let her think she's volunteering.”

Maddie glanced at the schoolhouse clock, torn. It was nine o'clock, straight-up, and the mercantile was still closed. At that very moment Mr. James was probably looking out his office window, the bank being kitty-corner from the store, wondering why the customers couldn't get in to buy things and whipping up a temper because of it.

“Why me?” she asked.

Sam smiled again. “You're the only woman I know in Haven besides Bird of Paradise over at the Rattlesnake Saloon. I don't guess it would be fitting to bring her in to teach bathing, though she'd probably agree if I asked her.”

Maddie sniffed. “It certainly
wouldn't
be fitting,” she said, wondering how Sam O'Ballivan had come to make the woman's acquaintance.
Damned
if she'd ask him, even if her life depended on it. She approached the tub and peered inside, already unfastening her cuff buttons to roll up her sleeves. “We will need water, Mr. O'Ballivan.”

“I've got some heating in the back room,” he said. “No sense in lugging it in here and pouring it into the tub if you weren't going to agree.”

She sighed. “What about the store?”

“Well, I figured, as the owner, you could—”

Maddie flushed. “I am
not
the owner. I manage it for someone else, and I am accountable to Mr. James, at the bank, who serves as trustee.”

Sam frowned. “Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” Maddie confirmed. “
Oh.
By now, there are probably people standing three-deep on the sidewalk, complaining because they can't get in to buy salt and tobacco and kitchen matches.”

Sam brightened. “I think I have a solution,” he said. “I'll take the boys to the river another day. In the meantime, they can learn how a mercantile operates. We'll make a morning of it.”

“
You
intend to take over
my
store?” Maddie asked, affronted. “Do you think it's so easy that any idiot can do it?”

The schoolmaster smiled. “I don't regard myself as an idiot, as a general rule. How hard can it be, filling flour bags and measuring cloth off a bolt?”

Maddie came to an instant simmer, but before she could tell the man what she thought of his blithe and patently arrogant assumption that keeping a thriving mercantile was something he could do one-handed, the pupils began to straggle in. She swallowed her outrage and stood as circumspectly as she could, letting her gaze bore into Sam O'Ballivan like a pointy stick.

When everyone was settled in their seats, Sam announced his plan. The boys would help him tend the mercantile, the girls would remain at the schoolhouse for a “hygiene” lesson.

The boys cheered and stomped their feet, and rushed for the door at an offhand signal from Sam. The girls sat, wide-eyed, waiting for enlightenment. Maddie would have bet not a one of them could have defined the word
hygiene,
but they
had
noticed the bathtub. They were all agog at the spectacle.

“Miss Chancelor will give the demonstration,” Sam went on, looking worriedly from face to face. “But we'll need a volunteer to get into the tub.”

Sure enough, Violet's hand shot up. “I'll do it, Mr. SOB,” she cried.

“Mr. O'Ballivan,” Sam countered easily. “That's good, Violet. I appreciate your willingness to take the initiative.”

Violet beamed. “Can I go to the privy first?”

The other girls giggled and Sam silenced them with a ponderous sweep of his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “You do that.”

While Violet was gone to the privy, he brought in four buckets of hot water and emptied them into the tub. The remaining girls watched, barely able to suppress their amusement.

When he'd set aside the last bucket, Sam turned to address them. “If even one of you makes fun of Violet,” he said, “you'll find yourself writing ‘I will not bully smaller children' one hundred times on the blackboard. Is that clear to everyone?”

The girls nodded, subdued.

Sam dusted his hands together. “Good,” he said, and turned to Maddie. “Now, Miss Chancelor, if I might have the key to the mercantile—”

She surrendered it, slapping it down into his palm with a little more force than strictly necessary.

“Thank you,” he said, tossing the large brass key once and catching it with an aplomb that made Maddie grit her teeth.

And so it was that Maddie came to illustrate the finer points of taking a bath, using Violet Perkins as a model.

 

M
ADDIE HAD BEEN RIGHT
, Sam thought as he opened the mercantile for the day's commerce. There were eight women waiting on the sidewalk, shopping baskets in hand, tapping their toes in impatience. He greeted them with a nod and made his crew of boys wait until the ladies had swept inside.

It was the contrary nature of folks, he reckoned, that on this particular morning, everybody in town wanted to get their marketing done. Had Maddie followed her usual routine, there most likely wouldn't have been so much urgency.

He set the boys to sweeping and dusting canned goods while the female population of Haven made their various selections.

“Where,” demanded a narrow-faced old biddy with hooded, hawklike eyes and a nose to match, “is Maddie?”

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get a word out, Terran cut him off. “She's over to the schoolhouse, giving Violet Perkins a bath!” he crowed.

“Teaching a hygiene lesson,” Sam corrected quietly.

“Well,” huffed the Hawk Woman, “it's about time somebody look that child in hand.”

“Yes,” Sam said, opening the cash register drawer to tally the funds on hand. “It
is
about time.”

The woman blinked.

Sam silently congratulated himself on a bull's-eye.

By ten-thirty, he'd taken in four dollars and forty-eight cents, and made careful note of every transaction, so Maddie couldn't say he'd fouled up her books. Then, figuring the hygiene lesson ought to be over, and Violet decent again, he dispatched Terran and young Ben Donagher to the schoolhouse to find out.

When they came back, Maddie was with them, the front of her dress sodden and her hair moist around her face. He couldn't rightly tell if that sparkle in her whiskey eyes was temper or satisfaction with a job well done.

“I see my store is still standing,” she remarked.

Sam grinned. “I trust my school has fared as well,” he parried, reaching for his hat.

“You'll have to empty the bathtub yourself,” Maddie said, taking her storekeeper's apron down off a peg and donning it. “Violet fairly gleams with cleanliness. One of the other girls aired out her dress while she was soaking.”

Sam sent the boys trooping back to the schoolhouse, lingering to take out his wallet. “Next time Violet comes in the store,” he said, laying a bill down on the counter, “you outfit her with a new one. Say there was a drawing and she won.”

Maddie regarded him solemnly. He still couldn't tell whether she was pleased with him or wanted to peel off a strip of his hide. “You lie very easily, Mr. O'Ballivan,” she said.

Well, that answered
one
of his questions. “Kids like Violet run into more than their fair share of humiliation, it seems to me,” he replied. “If a lie can spare them embarrassment, then I'm all for it.”

She had the good grace to blush.

He waited until he'd reached the doorway before putting on his hat. “We're due at the Donaghers's supper table at seven o'clock,” he reminded her. “Best have Terran hitch up that buckboard you use for deliveries unless you want to ride two to a horse.”

Maddie put the bill he'd left on the counter into the cash register and headed for a display of calico dresses, probably to choose one for Violet. “We'll take the buckboard,” she said without looking at him.

Sam smiled to himself as he closed the door behind him.

Damn, he thought. It would have been a fine thing to share a saddle with Miss Maddie Chancelor. A fine thing indeed.

 

S
CHOOL HAD LET OUT
for the day and Sam was seated at his desk, going over the map Vierra had given him the night before, when a small, impossibly thin woman stepped shyly over the threshold. She wore a bonnet and a faded cotton dress, and he knew who she was before she introduced herself.

He refolded the map, set a paper weight on top of it, and stood. “Sam O'Ballivan,” he said by way of introduction, and added a cordial nod.

“Mrs. John Perkins,” Violet's mother responded, lingering just inside the open door.

“Come in,” Sam urged when she didn't show any signs of moving.

She hesitated another moment, then thrust herself into motion. He noticed then, as she approached, that she was carrying a basket over one arm, filled with brown eggs. She set the whole works on his desk, straightened her spine, and looked up at him.

“I guess my Violet had a bath today at school,” she said.

Sam waited. She'd brought him eggs, which might be construed as a peaceful gesture, but you never knew with women. They could be crafty as all get-out. Most of the time, when they said one thing, they meant another. They expected a man to learn their language and converse in it like a native.

Mrs. Perkins drew herself up to her full, unremarkable height, the top of her head barely reaching Sam's shirt pocket. Under the brim of that bonnet, her eyes spoke eloquently of her discouragement and her fierce pride. “I came to thank you for making a lesson of it,” she said. “Violet's real pleased that she was chosen for an example.”

“Violet,” Sam said honestly, “is a fine girl.”

Tears brimmed along the woman's lower lashes and her pointed little chin jutted out. “It's been so hard since John was killed. I love my Violet, I truly do, but betwixt keepin' food on the table and a roof over our heads, I fear I've let some things go.”

Sam wanted to lay a hand on Mrs. Perkins's bony shoulder, but it would be a familiar gesture, so he refrained. “Any time you want the use of my bathtub,” he said awkwardly, “you just say the word. I'll fill it with hot water and make myself scarce.”