A Coffin for Santa Rosa (3 page)

They ate at the
Oro Fino
, a timbered, family-owned restaurant on Railroad Avenue opposite the Union Depot. The food was simple and wholesome, the portions huge, and the prices much lower than meals at the Harvey House or one of the hotels. Though packed with cattlemen, miners and railroad employees, Gabriel and Raven managed to get a table by one of the two windows facing the railroad tracks and the dark scrubland beyond.

They ate heartily, wolfing down steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy and greens that left their stomachs groaning but somehow still found room for homemade pecan pie. Gabriel then bought two Mexican-made cheroots and smoked one of them as they headed back to their hotel. Though it was dark, street lights lit their way and showed their reflections in store windows.

Raven stopped in front of one and made funny faces at herself.

Gabriel paused and watched her. Her antics made him chuckle. Encouraged, she danced around and then curtsied as if before an audience.

‘Hear them, Gabe?’ she said, cupping one hand behind her ear. ‘Everyone in the theater’s clapping and cheering. They love me.’

He wanted to say that he loved her too, that with her mother gone she was now the joy making his life worthwhile, but as usual he couldn’t find the words. Angry at himself for not being able to express his emotions, he said curtly, ‘C’mon … it’s too cold
to be monkeyin’ around.’

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. All the happiness fled from her face. ‘Oh, you,’ she grumbled, falling in beside him. ‘Why do you have to be such a grump?’

Her words cut deep. Stopping, he did the only thing he could think of to show he cared: he bear-hugged her, lifting her clear off her feet and twirling her around so that her legs swung out like Maypole ribbons.

‘L-L-Leggo,’ she gasped finally. ‘I c-c-an’t breathe.’

Gabriel quickly set her down and apologized.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Raven said. ‘I love it when you hold me. Makes me feel all warm and happy inside, like I did when Dad was alive.’

He smiled, silently pleased, and offered her his hand. She grasped it and together they walked to the corner. A tumbleweed came bouncing up the street. They dodged it, laughing, and crossed over. The buildings were spaced farther apart now, exposing them to a cold wind blowing in off the desert. It tugged at Raven’s hair, threatened to blow Gabriel’s hat off and swirled dust around them. The lightweight wool coat her mother had bought her in Old Calico wasn’t much protection. She shivered and cuddled close to him as they continued on.

‘I’ll be glad to get back to California, won’t you? Least there it’s warm most of the time.’

Before Gabriel could reply, a man stepped out from a dark doorway and confronted them, a pearl-handled, nickel-plated pistol in either hand. Telling Gabriel to raise his hands and warning him not to move, he added: ‘So much as twitch an’ I’ll gun you down.’

‘Do I know you, mister?’

‘No, but I know you.’ Under the brim of the little man’s gray plantation hat his narrow-set eyes were rat-mean. ‘You’re Mesquite Jennings, the outlaw.’

‘No, no, he’s not,’ Raven said quickly. ‘He just looks like him. Everybody says that, don’t they, Pa?’

‘Shut up,’ the little man snapped.

‘Tell him, Pa,’ Raven urged. ‘Tell him who are. Tell him you’re my father, Sven Bjorkman.’

‘Hush,’ Gabriel said, deadly soft.

‘Pa-aa,’ began Raven.

‘I told you to shut it,’ the little man said. He turned to Gabriel: ‘I recognized you soon as you entered the cantina. Would’ve braced you then but I figured you might have partners in there.’

‘So you hid in the dark like the yellow-gutted weasel you are,’ Gabriel taunted.

The little man grinned. ‘Sticks an’ stones, mister. Can insult me all you like, it don’t fret me none. Catchin’ you is like kissing a rainbow. I’ll be famous. Folks will point at me an’ say “Look, that’s the man who caught Mesquite Jennings”.’ He thumbed the hammers back on both pistols. ‘Now, drop your gunbelt. Easy,’ he warned as Gabriel reached for his belt buckle. ‘Reward says alive or dead.’

‘Please, mister,’ Raven begged. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake. If you don’t believe me ask the station agent, Mr Dunbar. He’ll tell you. We just came here from Old Calico to bury Momma and he’s lookin’ after the coffin. It’s in the shed there,’ she pointed toward the train depot.

For an infinitesimal moment the little man’s eyes followed her finger – and in that moment Gabriel, gunbelt now unbuckled, lashed out with it. It struck the man across his face, the weight of the heavy Colt in the holster stunning him so that he staggered and fell to his knees. Gabriel quickly swung the belt back the other way, this time striking him on the temple. He went sprawling on his face.

Gabriel was on him instantly. Face black with rage he began pistol-whipping the unconscious little man.

Raven flung herself on Gabriel, both hands grasping his flailing wrist, begging him to stop. ‘P-Please, please,’ she cried out when he ignored her, ‘No more, Gabe! Stop it. Please! You’ll kill him!’

It took a few moments but finally Gabriel stopped. He stood there, chest heaving, eyes afire, hands trembling, until his rage gradually faded. Then with his toe he rolled the little man onto his back. Though inert and bleeding, he was still breathing.

‘Reckon now you know why I didn’t want to bring you,’ Gabriel said. ‘Low-down jaspers like him, they’re hiding around every corner just waitin’ for the chance to pick up their blood money. Been lucky so far. But luck can’t last forever. Next time, who knows? Might be my last.’

‘Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!’

‘Denyin’ it won’t change the truth. Won’t change who I am, either. Why’d you stop me anyway?’ he asked.

‘’Cause you might’ve killed him. Then you’d be a murderer.’

‘Most folks think I’m that now.’

‘I don’t care what most folks think. You’re no murderer. You may have shot men, even killed them, but they always had a gun in their hand, didn’t they? Didn’t they?’ she repeated when he didn’t answer.

‘Reckon.’

‘That’s the difference.’ She waited for him to buckle on his gunbelt before adding: ‘I couldn’t love you, Gabe, if you were a murderer. Momma couldn’t have either.’

Gabriel shot her a sidelong glance then picked up the two shiny, pearl-handled six-guns, looked at them contemptuously and heaved them into the middle of Railroad Avenue.

‘Know what?’ Raven said. ‘When I first saw this fella, I thought he was that gunman you don’t like, the one who stopped at our farm to water his horse, remember? Man you said was so fast on the draw?’

‘Latigo Rawlins.’

‘That’s him!’

‘Me, too,’ Gabriel admitted, ‘till I saw his pistol grips weren’t ivory.’ He spat, disgustedly. ‘Latigo’s many things, most of ’em on the devil’s list. But he’s no pansy. He wouldn’t be caught dead packin’ pearl-handled iron.’ Taking her hand, he led her along Silver Avenue to the Commercial Hotel.

Gabriel stayed awake that night. While Raven slept in the bed, he sat in a chair, blanket draped around him, gun in hand, ready to shoot anyone who tried to break in.

Next morning, before the first rooster crowed, they loaded the coffin into the wagon and drove out of Deming.

The sun hadn’t yet cleared the distant, silhouetted peaks of the Cooke’s Range. In the gray light before dawn the desert looked bleak and desolate; unfriendly. A cold gusting wind out of Mexico cut through the passes in the Florida Mountains and came moaning across the scrub-covered wasteland, chilling their cheeks and blowing sand into their eyes, making them water.

Behind them the town grew distant, the man-made forest of water towers and windmills finally disappearing behind a graveyard of rocky outcrops. Soon there was nothing but them and the empty desert, the creak and rattle of the old wagon and the steady, rhythmic thudding of the horses’ hoofs the only sounds disturbing their thoughts.

Never a talkative man, Gabriel was quieter than Boot Hill before his morning coffee. Today was no different. Mind switching back and forth from Ingrid to Latigo Rawlins, he remained quietly vigilant in case some other bounty hunter
decided to try to bushwhack him for the reward.

Raven, seated on the wagon-box beside him, was used to his moody silence and left him alone. Coat collar pulled up around her ears, hands stuffed in her pockets, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about how much she missed her mother.

Occasionally, she turned her head to check on the Morgan striding freely alongside the wagon. At first when she realized Gabriel wasn’t going to tie Brandy to the wagon, she’d protested, arguing that something might scare the temperamental stallion, perhaps even chase him off into the desert where he could get lost. But she was talking to a deaf ear.

‘My luck ain’t that good,’ Gabriel told her sourly, and refused to discuss the matter further.

Gradually the sun came up, streaking the mauve sky with pastel pinks and yellows. And with the sun came the relentless heat.

For the first six miles the trail followed the old Butterfield Stage Line route to Las Cruces. The ground was hard and rutted by years of stagecoach wheels, and the jolting ride soon made their buttocks sore. But neither man nor girl complained, preferring to bury themselves in their grief as they tried to understand why the woman they’d both loved in their own individual way had so suddenly and senselessly been snatched from them.

After two hours or so, Gabriel pulled off the trail and stopped in the shade of some rocks. Building a fire, he heated a pot of coffee, sliced up a hunk of bacon and fried the strips in a pan. Next he took his last six eggs from a padded cigar box and cracked them into the hot sputtering grease. He spooned the grease over them till the whites were crispy brown; then when they were cooked to his liking, he wiped the pan clean with three buttermilk biscuits that had been wrapped in a kerchief and shared the food with Raven.

She eyed the biscuits suspiciously. ‘How long you been
carrying ’em around?’

‘No more’n a month.’

‘Hah! You didn’t buy ’em on the train so you must’ve brought them with you from Old Calico.’

‘Either way, they won’t break more’n a few teeth an’ you got teeth to spare.’

‘I intend on keeping ’em too, thank you.’ Raven broke off a piece of biscuit, slipped it into her slingshot and fired at a nearby cactus. Her aim was true and a spiky limb broke off. ‘Well, reckon now I don’t have to worry about fillin’ my pockets with stones.’

Gabriel ignored her and dunked a biscuit into his coffee. It took a few moments before the biscuit was soft enough to eat; then he slowly munched on it, savoring each morsel.

Curious, Raven did the same with her biscuit. It didn’t crumble and fall into the coffee like soft biscuits did and tasted better than she expected.

‘Well?’

‘Tolerable,’ she admitted.

He grinned inwardly, knowing how much it irked her to admit he was right, and went on eating as if she hadn’t spoken. It pained him to talk so much, but he knew it was keeping her mind off her mother’s death and that made it worth the effort. Trouble was he was running out of things to say.

Sopping up the last of the egg yolk with his last bite of biscuit, he chewed contentedly before finally swallowing it.

‘Mm-mmm … nothin’ better than the taste of buttermilk biscuits.’

‘That’s what you said about the berry pie I made you. Remember? When Momma invited you to dinner? Said it was the best tasting—’ she broke off, the thought of her mother bringing tears to her eyes.

Hoping to cheer her up, Gabriel said: ‘Folks say the Good Lord labored six days makin’ the universe an’ rested on the
seventh. But I’m here to tell you it ain’t so. On Sunday He created buttermilk biscuits.’

‘That’s sacrilegious.’

‘Not accordin’ to the Mescaleros.’

‘What’s Apaches got to do with it?’

‘Some bucks were goin’ to skin me alive once till I cooked up a batch. Liked ’em so much they made me a blood brother instead.’

‘You are such a liar.’

‘Make up your mind. First sacrilegious, now liar. You’re a varyin’ woman, scout.’

‘And you talk too dang much,’ she said, exasperated. ‘I liked you a whole sight better when I first met you and you hardly ever spoke.’

‘Had a bullet hole in me then,’ he said without thinking.

The memory of how she and her mother had rescued him from the desert, where he lay almost dead, reminded her about the coffin in the wagon and again she got teary-eyed.

Angered by his slip, Gabriel forced himself to grin. ‘Yessiree … buttermilk biscuits … way to a man’s heart, if it’s his heart you’re after.’

‘Not me,’ Raven said.

‘Don’t aim on gettin’ hitched, that it?’

‘Nope. Never.’

‘Wise decision.’

‘Not ’cause nobody will want to marry me, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Did cross my mind.’

‘Reason I’m not getting wedded is I’ll be too busy gettin’ rich.’

‘’Cording to that fancy-pants lawyer worked for your uncle, you’re already rich.’

‘Rich-er, then.’ Her boyishly pretty face wrinkled into a frown as she visualized her future. ‘Know what I’m going to do with my inheritance?’

‘Mean after you finish your book learnin’?’

‘’Course! I promised Momma I’d go to school and I intend to keep my word.’

‘Brains is the way.’

‘What?’

‘You sure weren’t standin’ behind the barn when they gave ’em out.’

She realized in his quirky, off-beat way he was complimenting her. It pleased her. But she had no intention of letting him know that.

‘Be serious, will you?’ she scolded. ‘I’m talking about after I’m educated. After I finish school and I’m all growed up.’

‘Ah-huh. Reckon I wasn’t lookin’ that far ahead.’

‘Well, I am. I have to. My dad told me, to be successful you got to plan your future. Start young, he said. Set goals. Have ambition.’

Noticing that her tears had dried up, Gabriel kept silent.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘soon as I’m old enough I’m going to buy a big hotel on the waterfront in Sacramento or maybe even San Francisco. One with a saloon and a casino and my name painted on the front in big gold letters. Then everyone will know who I am. You wait and see. I’ll be more famous than Lily Langtry.’

She waited for him to respond. But he seemed more interested in cleaning his nails with the point of his skinning knife.

‘And you know what else,’ she said, marveling how the stallion’s coat gleamed like wet tar in the morning sun. ‘I’m going to divide all my money in half and give one half to you.’

Hiding his surprise he sheathed the knife, took out a cigar, bit off the tip, struck a match on his heel and lit up. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘’Cause then you’ll be rich too and won’t ever have to worry about being wanted by the law again or becoming one of them
sorry-lookin’ old-timers who spend their days sitting around, chewin’ and spittin’.’

‘That’s mighty charitable of you.’

She searched his face but couldn’t tell if he was serious or teasing.

‘Truth is, scout, I never figured on bein’ rich. Never figured on bein’ a sorry-lookin’ old-timer either. But I did figure on spending my sunset years chewin’ and spittin’.’

‘I reckon that last part’s all right,’ Raven said. ‘Just so long as you use a spittoon, not my porch. Don’t want any of my guests tracking tobacco juice into the lobby.’

‘Seems reasonable. What’s more, I appreciate you offering to take care of me when it comes time to put my teeth in a glass at night.’

She sensed beneath his teasing he was serious and felt embarrassed.

‘No need to make a big fuss about it.
Jumpin’ Judas
! I’m just trying to pay you back for looking after me now.’

‘I appreciate that, too. Gives a fella peace of mind knowin’ he won’t be thrown to the wolves. Now,’ Gabriel indicated the wagon, ‘unless you got to go pee behind them rocks, climb aboard an’ let’s ride.’

After another butt-aching, spine-jarring hour in the sun they approached a high-walled canyon. Ahead, the trail split, one way leading to Las Cruces and the other southeast through the canyon toward the town of Santa Rosa.

Gabriel guided the team into the canyon. The sand was softer here. Noticing a crushed cigarette butt in one of several hoof prints they passed, he reined up and told Raven to tie Brandy to the wagon. Knowing he never did anything without a reason, she asked him why.

‘Comin’ into broomtail territory.’

‘Really? How can you tell?’

He pointed to his nose.

‘You can smell wild horses?’

‘When the wind’s right.’

She sniffed several times. ‘Can’t smell a dang thing.’

‘It’s a skill takes some gettin’ used to.’ Eyes shaded by the flat brim of his hat he glanced about them, searching for any glint of steel among the rocks above them. ‘Most likely they’ll avoid us. But I don’t want to risk Brandy gettin’ tore up by some jealous mustang tryin’ to protect its mares.’

Raven sniffed again. But all she could smell was the sweat of the lathered horses pulling the wagon.

‘Use the halter back there,’ Gabriel added, thumbing behind them. ‘An’ try to get to it ’fore Christmas rolls around.’

Grudgingly, Raven climbed over the seat into the back of the wagon, picked up the rope halter and clucked her tongue at the Morgan. The stallion came trotting up. She slipped the halter over his head, tied a rope to it and knotted her end to a ring fastened to the side of the wagon.

Gabriel slapped the reins across the backs of the two big horses. Both threw their shoulders against the harness and plodded on without complaint.

Raven returned to the wagon-box. ‘Someday will you teach me how to smell wild horses?’

Before he could answer he saw a rifle glinting between some rocks ahead. Instantly he threw himself sideways, knocking Raven from the seat.

As both went sprawling onto the ground they heard a rifle shot.

‘Get under the wagon!’ he barked.

His words were drowned out by gunfire. Bullets ricocheted off the wagon and kicked up little spurts of dust all around them.

Making sure Raven was unhurt, he crawled behind the nearest wheel, aimed at where he’d last seen the rifle glinting
and fired two quick shots.

More return rifle fire pinned them down.

The shots came from different directions and Gabriel counted three maybe four men hiding in among the rocks ahead of them.

‘Can you see who it is?’ Raven hissed.

Gabriel shook his head.

‘Why’re they shooting at us? Think someone recognized you in Deming and told the sheriff?’

Instead of answering her, he took off his hat and tossed it to his right. Instantly, a hail of gunfire followed as the bushwhackers all fired together.

Gabriel took quick aim and fired twice.

Raven heard a scream, and even as the sound echoed off the canyon walls, she saw a small red-haired man tumble down from the rocks ahead.

‘That’s him!’ she pointed. ‘One of the wranglers at the station who asked if Brandy was for sale.’

‘Reckon they decided stealing was cheaper than buyin’,’ Gabriel said. Reloading his Colt, he gave it to her. ‘Keep ’em busy while I get my rifle.’

Before she could argue he moved to the rear of the wagon, pulled the lock-pins free and slowly lowered the tail-gate.

‘Aim at their smoke,’ he told her, and climbed into the wagon.

At once the men hiding in the rocks opened fire. Bullets chewed at the wood around Gabriel. A few hit the coffin, angering him.

Raven, both hands clasping the big heavy Colt, did as she was told and fired at the puffs of rifle smoke.

Gabriel, meanwhile, crawled alongside the coffin and grabbed the Winchester lying behind the seat. Levering a shell into the chamber, he fired round after round at the rocks where he’d last seen the bushwhackers.

All shooting stopped.

No one moved.

Time froze.

‘Hey, you at the wagon,’ a voice yelled. ‘All we want is the horse. Turn him loose an’ you can go on your way.’

Gabriel judged where the voice was coming from, looked in that direction and caught a glimpse of red shirt between some rocks. He rested the rifle atop the wagon and fired rapidly. The bullets ricocheted off the rocks in all directions, one of them nailing the owner of the red shirt.

There was a sudden, painful cry.

A gaunt dark-bearded man staggered to his feet, dropped his rifle and collapsed. His body came flip-flopping down from rock to rock and landed on the canyon floor.

Immediately, a prolonged hail of bullets pinned Gabriel down in the wagon. Unharmed but covered in splinters, he lay there until the shooting stopped.

‘Scout, you OK?’

‘Fine.’ Raven raised her head and squinted at the rocky canyon walls. ‘How many, y’think?’

‘Two less’n before.’

Silence.

High overhead a soaring hawk screeched in the wind.

Presently, they heard horses galloping off.

‘Don’t move,’ Gabriel warned her. ‘Could be a trap.’

They waited anxiously for several minutes. Then he crawled to the rear, jumped off and dived under the wagon next to Raven.