A Coffin for Santa Rosa (13 page)

It was dusk when they got back to town. Paying off the wranglers, they took a room for the night at the Commercial Hotel. This time the pompous desk clerk made no discriminating slurs about Raven being a half-breed; in fact, he treated her with ingratiating respect, asking her if she wanted perfumed soap and bath water brought up to her room. Raven smiled graciously. That would be nice, she said. She nudged Gabriel, whispering that he could use a bath too.

Ignoring her, he accepted a Mexican cheroot from the desk clerk, flared a match on one of the lobby’s cowhide lampshades and went across the street for a drink at
Los Gatos
. The little adobe cantina was crowded and noisy and Gabriel had to elbow his way up to the bar.

The barkeep greeted him cheerfully. But when Gabriel went to pay for his whiskey and beer chaser, the chubby mustachioed Mexican shook his balding head. ‘Your money no good,
señor
.
Sheriff Cobb say he pay.’

‘That’s mighty charitable of him,’ Gabriel said. He gulped down his whiskey and prepared to drink his beer, when out the corner of his eye, between all the men lined along the bar he saw a familiar, unwelcome figure enter.

He didn’t know why, but the sight of Latigo Rawlins disturbed him. He wasn’t afraid of the handsome little gunfighter – he feared no man – but he did feel as if an icy hand had just gripped his jugular.

Meanwhile Latigo, who’d paused by the bat-wing doors long enough for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dimly lit cantina, now squeezed his way up to Gabriel.

‘Heard you were in town,’ he said amiably.

‘From who?’

‘Sheriff Cobb. I ran into him an’ that nephew deputy of his outside the Baker Hotel. Said you and the young gal you run with had ridden off to set some broomtails free.’

‘I don’t “run” with her. I look after her.’

‘Sure, sure, it’s all legal. I understand. No offense meant.’ Latigo signaled for a drink. While he waited for it, he rubbed a speck of dirt from his sleeve. ‘I hear she inherited a heap of money.’

‘Why would that interest you?’

‘Everything concernin’ you interests me,
amigo
.’

‘Funny. Nothin’ about you interests me.’

‘You tryin’ to rile me, Gabe?’

‘Was about to ask you the same thing, “
amigo
”.’

Latigo smiled, his teeth animal-white against his tanned skin, but under his long blond lashes his amber eyes grew hard as marbles. Waiting until the barkeep had set a bottle of rye and a glass before him, he carefully blew into the shot glass and wiped the inside clean with the tip of his yellow bandana. Then he poured himself a drink and raised the glass in toast.

‘To soft saddles an’ softer women,’ he said. He downed the
rye, held the empty glass up to his eye and studied Gabriel through it. ‘I got to thinkin’ the other day. You an’ me, amigo, we’re all that’s left. Everyone else like us has been gunned down or, like Earp, rode west to California. We’re dinosaurs, just like Sheriff Cobb says—’

‘Rawlins,’ Gabriel said bluntly, ‘either button it or tell me what the hell you want.’

‘To bend an elbow with an ol’ pal, what else?’

‘Bull!’

The word exploded from Gabriel and men all around them jumped back from the bar in alarm, fearing gunplay would follow.

‘You’n me, bounty hunter, we were never pals.’

‘No,’ Latigo said softly, ‘now you mention it, reckon we weren’t.’

‘So why you crowdin’ me?’

Latigo turned and faced Gabriel, hands dangling near his ivory-handled six-guns.

‘Fella has to earn a livin’,
amigo
.’

The icy hand on Gabriel’s jugular gripped tighter.

‘The reward,’ he said disgustedly. ‘I should’ve guessed.’

‘A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars.’

The cantina went quiet. Customers ducked fearfully behind tables and chairs. All eyes were riveted on the two gunmen.

‘
Por favor, señors
,’ began the fat-faced barkeep.

‘Shut up!’ Latigo snapped.

‘
Sí
, señor. I shut my face.’ Fearful, the barkeep crawled out from behind the bar and ran to the door, only to find his exit blocked by Sheriff Cobb and his shotgun-toting deputy.

‘Appears I got here just in time, gents.’

‘Stay out of this,’ Latigo told him. ‘Gabe an’ me, we’re about to settle some old business.’

‘Not here. Not now,’ Sheriff Cobb said. He stepped aside and two more deputies also carrying scatterguns entered.

‘I got a legal right to collect the governor’s reward,’ Latigo said angrily. ‘An’ I intend to do it.’

‘’Mean you’ll try,’ Gabriel corrected.

‘Move aside, Mr Moonlight,’ Sheriff Cobb warned. ‘I don’t want you getting shot full of holes when this rooster tries to slap leather.’ As if on a hidden signal, the deputies cocked their shotguns. The metallic click-click of their hammers sounded thunderous in the silent cantina.

Latigo Rawlins knew when to fold. Reluctantly lifting his hands from his guns, he tucked his thumbs in his gunbelt and kept his eyes fixed on Gabriel as he backed toward the door.

‘I can wait, Sheriff,’ he said mockingly. ‘You can’t protect him once he leaves Deming.’

‘Protect me from what?’ Gabriel said. ‘You want to eat my lead, Rawlins, I’ll be happy to oblige you.’

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Sheriff Cobb said hurriedly. ‘If you boys are so anxious to face off, then by God let’s make a show of it.’

‘Meanin’?’

‘Play it like all the dudes back East think it takes place – a showdown. Main Street. Noon. I’ll see it’s fair an’ legal. Hell,’ he said as an idea struck him, ‘I’ll even get Pete Weyborne to bring along his shutter-box so he can record everything for history.’

Gabriel grinned mirthlessly. ‘Still promotin’ your memoirs, huh?’

‘Why not?’ Sheriff Cobb said shamelessly. ‘The Earps and Clantons put Tombstone on the map. You two could do the same for Deming. It’s no skin off your nose an’ it’ll make my rockin’-chair days more comfortable.’

‘And at the same time do every lawman in New Mexico a service,’ Latigo said, ‘that the way you see it?’

‘Won’t deny that crossed my mind,’ Sheriff Cobb said. ‘But like I’ve told you boys all along. Your day’s played out. Territory’s growing up. It’s got no use for mavericks like you anymore. By staying alive all you’re doin’ is standing in the way of progress.’

Latigo grinned at Gabriel. ‘Has a way with words, our sheriff, don’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ Gabriel said grimly. ‘Way he paints it, us shootin’ one another is pure downright noble.’

‘Inevitable, not noble,’ Sheriff Cobb said. ‘Let’s face it. Neither of you will grow old. Or die in bed. Only a matter of time ’fore some punk hoping to be another Charley Ford shoots you in the back. You know that well as I do. Only choice you got is how and where it happens.’

There was a long pause. No one in the cantina moved.

‘Well?’ Sheriff Cobb said finally. ‘What’s it going to be, gents?’

Latigo Rawlins cocked a questioning eyebrow at Gabriel, who shrugged.

‘Noon’s fine,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Gabe, no!’

Everyone turned as Raven, in her yellow gingham
church-dress
and matching hat and shoes, pushed through the batwing doors and ran up to Gabriel.

‘You can’t! You promised Momma you’d take care of me.’

‘An’ I aim to,’ Gabriel said.

‘How? By shootin’ it out with him? Maybe getting killed?’

Gabriel turned to the sheriff. ‘Get her out of here, Cobb. Have one of your deputies take her back to the hotel.’

‘Anybody touches me,’ Raven warned, ‘they’re gonna get bit!’

Sheriff Cobb said, ‘Now, now, girl, there’ll be none of that. You just walk yourself out of here like Mr Moonlight says.’

‘I’m not moving,’ she said stubbornly. Then to Gabriel, ‘Being a man means being responsible. Ain’t that what you told me?’

‘Don’t matter what he told you,’ Latigo said before Gabriel could answer. ‘I’m calling him out and unless he’s a yeller dog, he’ll face me.’

Everyone held their breath.

All the air seemed to be sucked out of the cantina.

Gabriel smiled, wolfishly. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said to Latigo. ‘On Silver … in front of the hotel.’ Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed Raven by the arm and marched her outside.

As they crossed the busy dirt street to their hotel, avoiding buckboards, riders and freight-wagons, Raven begged Gabriel to change his mind.

‘I can’t,’ he said grimly. ‘Not even if I wanted to.’

‘Why not?’

‘You heard him.’

‘So he called you yellow. So what? Words … that’s all they are.’

‘Some words you can’t walk away from.’

‘Sure you can. You know you ain’t yellow. I know you ain’t yellow. So does everyone else – includin’ Mr Rawlins. That’s all that matters.’ When he didn’t reply, she added: ‘Remember what Momma told you?’

‘’Bout what?’

‘Posturing. How men had this silly gunfighter code they thought they had to follow, even if it meant dyin’ for it. Remember that?’

He did but he didn’t want to talk about it, so instead he said, ‘How long were you listenin’ outside?’

‘Long enough to hear Sheriff Cobb say your ways are over. That men like you’n Mr Rawlins are standing in the way of progress and how sooner or later some dirty coward like Charley Ford would shoot you in the back.’

Gabriel didn’t say anything. They had reached the opposite
planked sidewalk now and, without breaking stride, he led her into the hotel and up to their room.

There, he stood silently looking out the window at the street below. Frustrated, Raven joined him.

‘What’re you doin’, looking for a place to die?’

Angered by her sarcasm, he whirled and raised his hand as if to strike her. But as he looked into her upturned face, her large, expressive, dark eyes moist with tears, all his anger faded and he gently wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him.

‘Oh, G-Gabe,’ she wept, ‘I’m so scared. If something was to happen to you I … I don’t know what I’d do. I really don’t.’

‘Nothing’s goin’ to happen to me,’ he assured her.

‘But he’s so fast … you said so yourself.’

‘I’m fast too.’

‘I know, but … what if he’s faster?’

‘That’s somethin’ I’m not worried about. You shouldn’t be either. Tomorrow we got a train to catch to California. And after that, schoolin’ and then … you got a hotel to buy an’ me a rockin’ chair, so I can sit an’ spit all day … remember?’

Raven nodded and smiled through her tears. ‘And a spittoon,’ she said. ‘So you don’t mess up my front porch.’ Suddenly she was sobbing.

Gabriel held her tightly, stroking her hair and trying to soothe her. But even as he spoke he felt the same icy hand gripping his jugular and deep inside himself he knew doubt for the first time.

What if Raven was right? What if he wasn’t as fast as Latigo? But he was. Yes, but what if he wasn’t? What if he really wasn’t? What then?

Christ, there’s a hell of a thought.
What then?

Though it was two hours past midnight, Latigo Rawlins was still sitting with his boots propped up on the window ledge, drinking rye from a bottle he’d bought at the cantina, so the knock on his hotel room door didn’t wake him.

But it did rattle him some. Grabbing one of his ivory-handled Colts, he went to the door and quietly asked who it was.

‘It’s me – Raven.’

‘Who?’

‘Raven Bjorkman. Open up, Mr Rawlins. I want to talk to you.’

Surprised, and wondering if it was some kind of trick, the diminutive handsome gunfighter stood to one side of the door then opened it slightly.

Sure enough, Raven stood alone in the hall. In a plaid shirt hanging outside her Levi’s, knee-high buckskin moccasins and with her short black hair blown wild by a night wind, she looked like an orphan Apache.

Yet there was something very appealing about her and Latigo decided not to turn her away. ‘Little late for house calls, ain’t it?’

‘I had to wait till Gabe was asleep.’ When Latigo continued to look suspiciously at her, she said: ‘Surely a famous shootist like you isn’t afraid of one little girl?’

He grinned, amused by her sass, and let her in. ‘If Gabe sent you to beg for his life, missy, you’re flat wastin’ your time.’

‘Why would he do that? Darn fool, he can’t wait for tomorrow to come so he can gun you down in front of everybody.’

It wasn’t the answer he expected. ‘You sayin’ Gabe doesn’t
know you’re here?’

‘’Course not. He’d whip silly me if he did. That’s why I couldn’t come earlier.’

‘If you’re not here to beg, then what—?’ Latigo broke off as it suddenly hit him why Raven had come. ‘Why you little vixen. You know Gabe can’t win tomorrow so you came here to flirt with me … to get me to take you in. That’s it, isn’t it?’

He went to touch her, only to jerk his hand back as she whipped out Gabriel’s bone-handled skinning knife from under her shirt and flashed it at him.

‘Try that again,’ she warned, ‘an’ I’ll gut you neck to gizzard.’

More surprised than alarmed, Latigo laughed and withdrew his hand.

‘Forgive me, Miss Bjorkman. Obviously I misinterpreted your intentions.’ Still amused, he holstered his six-gun, returned to his chair and took a swig of whiskey. ‘Now whyn’t you tell me why you’re here.’

‘To make you an offer – a thousand dollars if you’ll ride out tonight.’

Latigo smirked. ‘Buyin’ me off, that it?’

‘Call it what you like, Mr Rawlins. It’s the same amount as the reward, only this way you don’t have to fret about gettin’ killed.’

‘No chance of that happenin’. If there was you wouldn’t be here, now would you?’

‘I’m here,’ Raven said, irked by his mocking tone, ‘’cause I don’t want to see Gabe or you killed.’

‘You’re here,’ Latigo corrected, ‘’cause you know – just like Gabe knows – I’m faster than him. Not by much. Maybe just a fraction of a second. But that fraction will determine the difference between who lives and who ends up face down in the dirt.’

‘If you take my money, no one ends up in the dirt.’

‘Sorry. Not interested.’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘A thousand’s a thousand. What
difference does it make who pays you, Mr Rawlins?’

‘Right now, plenty. This is somethin’ that should’ve been settled a long time ago. You and Gabe are leaving town tomorrow. I don’t take him down now, hell, I mightn’t get another chance. Then no one will ever know for sure who’s fastest.’

‘Is that so important?’

‘Damn right it is.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cause that’s how history will remember me.’

‘History?’

‘Yeah. As Sheriff Cobb keeps sayin’, gunmen like Gabe an’ me, we’re the last of our kind. Once we’re gone, the breed’s extinct. That means folks are goin’ to remember us. An’ I don’t want to be remembered as some fancy-dressed, sawed-off bounty hunter or killer, but as the fastest gun in the territory. Maybe the fastest anywhere.’

She saw how determined he was and that scared her. ‘Please, Mr Rawlins, I’m begging you—’

He cut her off with an impatient wave. ‘Save your breath, missy. We’re done here.’ Rising, he held the door open for her. ‘Sweet dreams.’

Desperate, Raven said: ‘What if I made it two thousand? Would you ride out then?’

‘Not for five thousand.’

Raven sighed, defeated. ‘I hope you rot in hell,’ she said and stormed off.

‘That,’ Latigo called out after her, ‘is a foregone conclusion.’

Gabriel was sitting on the bed, smoking in the dark, when she quietly opened the door of their hotel room and tiptoed inside. She saw him instantly and stopped, frozen, desperately trying to think of what to say.

‘Did he agree?’ Gabriel asked, not looking at her.

Startled by his question, Raven decided not to make things worse by lying and said, ‘No.’

‘Reckoned as much.’

‘How’d you know where I went?’

He didn’t answer. She watched the ash on his cigarette glow bright orange as he inhaled, then said, ‘Are you awful angry with me?’

‘Not angry so much as disappointed.’

‘I only did it ’cause I love you. Don’t want to lose you.’

‘I know.’

Tinkling music from an upright saloon piano wafted in through the open window; followed by men and women laughing. Raven stood there, eyes downcast, utterly miserable.

‘C’mere.’ Gabriel patted the bed. Then as she sat beside him. ‘I know you were just tryin’ to help. But what you don’t understand is by beggin’ Latigo not to kill me, you proved you got no faith in me – me, the man your mother chose to look after you, to help you get all growed up. That’s a hard pill to swallow.’

‘But that’s not true! I do have faith in you, Gabe. Lots an’ lots of faith. Honest. And I know you’ll always take good care of me.’

Again, the ash glowed brightly in the darkness.

‘It’s just that … I got to thinking … worrying about how somethin’ might go wrong. I mean it could, you know. Things go wrong all the time. Someone could yell an’ distract you just as you started to draw … or dirt could fly in your eye … you could even suddenly sneeze or get the hiccups … anything. An’ then, no matter how fast you are, that’d give Mr Rawlins an edge and—’

‘Latigo don’t need an edge.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He can clear leather faster than me.’

Horrified, she said, ‘Then how can you beat him?’

‘By shootin’ straighter. Killing a man ain’t just a matter of
quick reflexes. Anyone who thinks that is already feet up. What’s most important is makin’ sure that your first shot counts; that the other fella’s dead before he can get off a second shot an’ this time maybe kill you.’

‘B-But what if … the other fella’s faster
and
he can shoot straight?’

‘Then you never have to question yourself again.’