The Savage Trail (7 page)

“Yeah. I'll walk around and maybe them bones in my butt will soften up some. You get some shut-eye and ponder all this talk.”

John smiled.

“You know, Ben, for an old bird, you're pretty smart sometimes.”

“Aw, Johnny. I was just talkin'. Nothin' I said you need to take to heart.”

“I'm not so sure, Ben.”

John laid out his bedroll, unhitched his gunbelt, and rolled it up, setting it within easy reach. He loosened the pistol in its holster and set the holster at an angle where he could pull the gun out fast if need be.

Ben stood up and flexed his legs, twisted his body at the waist, and rolled his shoulders up and down. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard and began to walk away from the camp. He started his circle within sight of John and the smoking fire. He stopped every so often to look and listen. In the distance, he heard a coyote yap and then there was only a deep silence.

The moon sailed ever higher in the sky, and small, thin clouds floated between it and the earth, glowing ghostly as they drifted among the distant stars.

He thought of John Savage and his questions. He saw that as a good sign. Maybe he wouldn't be so quick with that gun of his from now on. Maybe he would begin to take death as seriously as Ben did and give up trying to avenge the death of his parents.

But he knew that wasn't true. John might question death in a philosophical sense, but his hatred for Ollie Hobart was stronger than any words of discouragement he might hear. No, Johnny was bound and determined to rub out Ollie Hobart, sending him back to eternity or straight to hell.

10

Ollie and rosa rode into the outskirts of cheyenne shortly before noon. They were both weary, horses and clothes coveredwith a patina of reddish dust, both reeking with sweat. Rosa began patting her hair and combing it with her fingers, trying to draw back the dangling strands that strayed downwardfrom beneath her hat.

“You've got some of the afternoon, Rosa, to clean up, buy yourself some duds, and sleep on a soft bed. We'll leave Cheyenne before nightfall.”

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

“There's a hotel and saloon right up the street where I alwaysstay. I'll get us a room and then meet up with you later.”

“What are you going to do, Ollie?”

“Feller I want to see at the Frontier, right next to the hotel.”

“Are you not going to rest? Surely, we will take a lunch together.Does the hotel have a dining room?”

“No, you'll have to eat by yourself. Yes, there's a dining room in the Excelsior. Just don't eat any of their pork.”

“I do not like pork.
Puercos. Animales susios.
”

Ollie laughed and they turned up a small street, then up another,the first nearly deserted, the second lined with small shops. Indians sat in front of some of the stores, surrounded by woven blankets, beaded bracelets, necklaces, and clay pottery.

At the end of the street, a clapboard hotel with the name Excelsior painted on its high front loomed taller than the other buildings. Next door to it was the Frontier Saloon, with the name Roscoe Bender, prop., painted beneath it.

“Not the Brown Palace,” Rosa remarked, fluffing her dusty black hair hanging down the back of her neck.

Ollie chuckled. “This ain't Denver, neither. Smell the cowshit,Rosa?”

She sniffed and laughed. “I smell it.”

They pulled up in front of the hotel, dismounted, and looped their reins around the hitchrail out front.

Four moonfaced Indian children rushed out into the street from the shadows between the buildings, their hands outstretchedand their faces dirty. The two girls wore shabby dresses made from burlap, while the boys had on torn trousers that appeared to have been sewn together from scraps of cloth. All were barefooted.

“Dinero, dinero,”
they chorused. Both boys and girls flashed gap-toothed smiles.

“Give them some money, Ollie,” Rosa said, smiling at the children.

“Goddamned beggars,” Ollie said. “Get out of here, you kids. Shoo.”

He stepped toward them in a menacing manner and the children scattered like quail, scurrying away from the big man.

Rosa frowned. “You could have given them each a penny,” she said.

“I hate beggars, Rosa. 'Specially Injun ones.”

“They are poor,” she said.

“I got no use for poor Injuns ner beggars. They was old enough to work.”

She said something in Spanish under her breath about his parentage. Ollie ignored her, as she knew he would. He did not know much Spanish, mostly the curse words, the blasphemies,and those words that got him what he wanted. She knew he was not a very nice man, and the remark about Indianscaused a twinge in her heart.

She had Indian blood in her veins, Yaqui, and she knew the low status Mexicans held in the United States. Still, she cared for Ollie in a way she would have found hard to explain to anyone. She was drawn to him because of the power he held, the power over life and death, and the animal way he pursued money. She could understand the latter trait because she bore it herself. But the savagery of the man drew her to him like a fluttering moth to a flame. Perhaps, she thought, it was the animalin herself that made him attractive. Ollie lived with death, and her people knew death firsthand. The Mexican soil was soaked in it, and in her village in Jalisco, a man with blood on his hands stood taller than any other.

“I'll give you some money now, Rosa,” Ollie said. “And get you a room. Then I got to tend to the horses, give 'em some water and feed, and see the man who owns the Frontier. Fifty dollars be enough?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice tight with a controlled rage. She felt like a whore at that moment. She had left her cantina with no money, no clothes, and he was treating her like the beggars he said that he hated. He had money on him, she knew, much more than the amount he stole from those pilgrims they had killed north of Fort Collins. Yes, he was a savage, and so was she. She had the sudden desire to see a priest and confess all her sins, but she knew that she would not. If she did, she would have to take up residence in the confessional for many hours.

Ollie reached in his pocket and withdrew some bills. He peeled off five sawbucks and handed them to her. Then he strode toward the hotel with Rosa in his wake.

After he checked Rosa in and asked if someone could rub down their horses and give them grain and water, he watched her walk back to the room with her key.

“I want the horses saddled and back at that hitchrail out front in two hours,” he told the clerk. “Think you can manage that?”

“Yes, sir, we have a reliable stable boy who can take care of all that.”

“How much?”

“Three dollars ought to do it.”

He gave the clerk three dollars, knowing most of it would go in his pocket. The stable boy would be lucky to get fifty cents of that money.

He walked out of the hotel and next door to the Frontier Saloon. There were no boardwalks on that street, but swampers, store owners, urchins, maybe, kept the dirt swept down. He stomped his boots to shake off some of the dust and entered the saloon, pushing aside the bat-wings, then stepping to one side until his eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight pouring through the entryway. Ollie's eyes narrowed and his right hand fell within reach of his pistol.

You just never know,
he thought as he scanned the bar, the tables, watching for any odd movement or change of expressionon any of the faces. Hardly anyone noticed him except the barkeep, who, while he had seen his share of hard cases over the years, recognized Hobart the moment he stepped through the swinging doors. Ollie's gaze swept the room twice, then settled on Sam Rafer, who nodded to him from behindthe bar.

Ollie strode over to the very end of the dogleg and stood next to the wall. From there he could see the front door and the back hallways that led to Roscoe's office and out to the back alley.

“Ollie,” Rafer said, striding to the end of the bar.

“Sam. Roscoe here?”

“Yeah, he's smokin' cigars and countin' his money back in the office. He'll be out directly.”

There were three men and an older woman at the other end of the bar. Two men flanked the woman, who looked as if she had opened the saloon early that morning. Her eyes were bleary; she had too much rouge on her cheeks and too much red lipstick on her lips. She wore a tattered hat that had seen better days and her facial wrinkles were covered with a whitish powder that almost matched her hair. The two men on either side of her were nearly as old, and both looked worn out. The rouge on their cheeks was painted there by hard rotgut liquor and the veins in their noses looked like baby-bluerunners frozen in putty.

Basque and Mexican sheepherders sat at the tables drinkingcheap tequila and beer, their voices liquid with rapid Spanish, their gesticulating hands carving arabesques in the air like fluttering birds attached to brawny, brown-skinned arms.

“You got a lot of road on you, Ollie,” Rafer said, looking at Hobart and the dust on his forehead and shirt.

“I got a lot of road in my throat, too, Sam. Need to wash some of it down.”

“I got some Old Taylor. You want some water with it?”

“Naw, just a shot of Old Taylor. I've tasted your water before.”

Rafer laughed and took a bottle from the well. He snatched a shot glass from the back counter on his way over, set it in front of Hobart. He poured the glass full.

“Want me to leave the bottle, Ollie?”

“Nope. This'll do me.”

“Two bits.”

Ollie put a quarter on the counter. He watched Sam put the bottle back in the well, then drank half of his whiskey, sucking it into his mouth, wallowing it over his teeth before swallowing.Rafer returned and stood opposite Ollie.

“Seen any of my boys around, Sam?”

“Nary. That bad?”

“No, that's good.”

“You got something cooking?”

“Nope. But I'm gatherin' firewood.”

Sam laughed. Just then they heard a door open, then the clump of boots on hardwood. A moment later, Roscoe Bender, a cigar stuffed in his jowly face, entered the saloon from the hallway. He wore a Colt Bisley on his belt, up high, and the holster was snugged up next to a long, skinny knife with a hole drilled in the handle that was threaded with a thong. Ollie knew that Roscoe usually had that Arkansas toothpick danglingdown his back, within easy reach if he got into a brawl. He was surprised to see it hanging from his belt in plain sight.

“Here comes Roscoe now,” Sam said, and moved away towardthe sodden patrons at the other end of the bar.

Bender came up next to Ollie, looked him over with jaded, rheumy eyes set back behind high cheekbones like those of some feral animal's. He puffed on his cigar and blue smoke formed a cloud just over his head.

“Ollie, long time.”

“Yeah.”

“I heard you run into some gold.”

“Some bigmouth tell you that?”

“Birds fly back and forth, from north to south.”

“Roscoe, I got a job for you. Pays in paper or gold.”

“Either way. Spends about the same. Ain't none of your boys around to do it?”

“Not many of my boys left, and none of 'em here.”

“What you got, Ollie?”

“You're going to need more than that puny Bisley on your belt.”

Roscoe didn't glance down at his pistol. He blew a plume of smoke out of the side of his mouth.

“This is my bar gun,” he said. “It's more of a persuader and does real good up close.”

“Two men on my trail, Roscoe. An old guy and a young whippersnapper. I don't want them to get any farther than Cheyenne. You'll have to meet 'em on the trail from Denver.”

“I got two men can do the job.”

“You got to be one of 'em. It's right important.”

Ollie swallowed the rest of his whiskey.

“You sound real serious, Ollie.”

“I'm serious. The boy's a fair shot with a Colt. He's rubbed out some of my boys.”

“What's your offer, Ollie?”

“A hundred now, and I'll give you another two hundred when you give me the pistol that young feller's carryin'. I want proof.”

“Hell, I could just give you a piece of hardware and tell you I done it.”

“This boy's got a special pistol. Ain't no other like it. I want it.”

“Sure, Ollie. You're payin' more'n anybody around here for a killin'. Hell, for twenty bucks, I could get burials for four men.”

Ollie dug into his pocket and peeled off five twenty-dollar bills. He slipped them to Roscoe below the counter. Bender put the money in his pocket.

“They might be real close behind me, Roscoe,” Ollie said.

“You be around?”

“Goin' to Fort Laramie. Be here till about four. If you bring me the pistol before then, I'll pay you off.”

“You want me to go check the trail right now?”

“Right now, Roscoe.”

“All right, Ollie. Another drink?”

Ollie shook his head.

“And you ain't got time to jaw with me, Roscoe. Take the longest rifle you got is my advice.”

“You ain't scared, are you, Ollie? And this ain't the law on your tail?”

“No, I'm not scared and there's no law on my tail. Just that damned kid and the old geezer. I want their lamps put out permanent.”

“Sure, Ollie. Make like it's already done.”

Ollie snorted.

“Just bring back that pistol and keep it in the safe for me, Roscoe.”