Haxan (9 page)

W
e found more coyote tracks riding in. There were bigger prints, too. Jake examined them. “Wolves,” he said.

He thought they were concentrated in the area because of the available water.

“I have never seen so many in my life,” he confessed. “The ground is covered with scat.”

“They are like any other animal that feeds off death, Jake. They smell when an easy killing is to be had.”

We hitched our horses outside the jailhouse. “That was an awful hot ride coming back,” Jake said, “and it’s half past noon already.”

“I’ll buy you a beer first. Then we can find Magra and have dinner.”

“That sounds like a fine idea. Especially about the beer.” He used his hat to knock dust off his pants. “Yes, sir, that was some hot ride.”

We went into the Texas Bluebonnet. While we were finishing our beers one of the men at the end of the bar approached us. His shirt was stiff with trail dust and caked with rings of dried sweat. He wore batwing chaps and smoke-coloured buckskin gauntlets with dyed porcupine quills on the back. Tall and hard, he was the kind of man who carried the dust and sun with him his whole life.

“You the law in this burg?” he asked.

“I am. Marshal Marwood.”

“Glad to meet you. My name is Gideon Short.” He shucked one of the gauntlets and we shook hands. Despite the protection of his heavy glove he had rein burns on his wrist.

“Blacksmith said I’d recognize you. Claimed you always wore a grey duster and carried a Colt Dragoon holstered crossways.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Short?”

“I’m trail boss for a Texas herd we’re pushing toward Denver.”

“We’ve got good cattle agents right here in Haxan, Mr. Short. They’ll give you a fair price.”

“I’ve got a buyer waiting in Colorado, Marshal. I thank you, though.”

“How big’s your herd?”

“A little under four thousand head. I’ve got them camped six miles back on waist-high grama grass. Here’s the thing, Marshal. We hit town early this morning. I want to let you know my boys are going to kick their heels a bit tonight before we push north.”

“We’ve got new laws here in Haxan, Mr. Short.”

“I’ve heard. My cowboys aren’t much for pistols, Marshal, unless it’s killing rattlesnakes and antelope for camp meat.” His smile came bright in his weathered face. One of his front teeth was chipped. “They’re just good men who are more interested in salt pork and sundown, but they want to see the elephant before we push on north.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Short. By the way, have you a man named Connie Rand working for your outfit?” Since I was asking everyone I met about Rand I thought I might as well keep the trend going. Maybe someday I would get lucky. “I’m looking for him and I hear he drifts. Thought he might have hooked up with your outfit.”

“Funny you should say,” Short replied. “There was one drifter who tagged with us from El Paso way. He worked for grub and was good with a handgun. Never saw one better. He dropped out five days ago and rode on for a big spread by the Gila. Lazy X, I think he called it.”

“That a fact? What was his name?”

“Called himself Ben Tack. Sounded like a summer name, but I didn’t push it. Long as a man does his job I don’t ask too many questions.”

I felt my hands go cold. “Ben Tack.”

“You know him, Mr. Marwood?” Jake asked.

“Uh, no, Jake. I don’t think so. Anyway, he might not be the same man.”

“He carried a Navy sixer,” Short kept on. “Beautiful silver-plated gun with a diamond set and pearl handle. Funny thing, he soaped his holster for a faster draw and had the front sight filed down so it wouldn’t snag leather. He even shaved the hammer for an easy trigger pull. Always looking for an edge, a way to get that extra fraction of a second on his draw. Didn’t need it. Could hit a bumblebee on the wing and never break stride.”

Gideon Short tipped his hat. “Well, gentlemen, nice talking to you. Thanks for your time.” He returned to the bar and ordered a bottle of rye.

Jake studied me closely. “Mr. Marwood, are you sure you don’t know that man he was talking about?”

“I honestly don’t know, Jake.” Last I heard Ben Tack was in Pueblo. We had a history that went back a lot further than that, however.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s find Magra and have dinner.”

We entered the cool lobby of the Haxan Hotel. A woman I took to be Hew’s wife, Alma Jean, was working behind the reception desk. She had a mean, pinched face. She was a buxom older woman with hazel-brown eyes, brittle red hair, and a wasp waist.

“Good morning, Marshal,” she greeted us. “Mr. Strop, congratulations on your appointment as deputy. I’ve always said we need more law in Haxan. What can I do special for you two gentlemen today?”

“Is Hew around?” I asked.

“He’s away to Las Cruces on business. Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Magra Snowberry. Thought we might have dinner together.”

Alma Jean’s face shut down with the finality of a guillotine on a gourd. “Miss Snowberry is in the stockroom. That’s where she sleeps.” A pale tongue darted and licked her thin lips. “Marshal, how much longer is that half-breed going to sleep in my hotel?”

I held her eyes with mine. The air was thick between us.

“As long as she needs to, Mrs. Clay. I made a deal with your husband.”

“I know all about the deal you made with my husband, Marshal Marwood. However, this hotel was contracted by the War Department to provide room and board for a federal lawman, not a dirty squaw who had her shack burned out by outlaws.”

“First of all, you wouldn’t call her that if you knew what the word meant. No woman would.”

“Indians is Indians, Marshal, never you mind about that.”

I took a calming breath. I had just met the woman but Alma Jean had a way of getting under your skin like bull nettle.

“You’re making her sleep in the stockroom, so you’re not out any upstairs bed. Plus, I’m paying for all her meals. You haven’t lost one penny in room and board.”

“That ain’t the point, Marshal. That ain’t the point at all.” Alma Jean tapped a sharp fingernail against the walnut counter. “I run a respectable establishment. What will my customers think, seeing a Navajo girl running around like she owns the place? And dressing, pretty as you please, in clean calico like she’s white.”

“Would you be happier if she was dressed in buckskin and leggings?”

“Don’t get smart with me, Marshal.”

“Mrs. Clay, that girl is under official protection. She’s a witness to her father’s death.” That wasn’t true, but I needed an edge against this unwelcome woman. “The men who killed her father might come after her again.”

“They already tried once, Mrs. Clay,” Jake said.

“More the reason she needs to be out of my hotel, Mr. Strop. I’m sorry about what happened to her father, but I won’t risk losing clientele over a breed who doesn’t know her place.”

I’d had enough. With everything else happening I didn’t need this, too.

“Don’t buck me, Alma. I haven’t been in Haxan long, but I expect you already heard about my reputation. You know the kind of man I am.”

I knew it was a mistake the moment I said it. She would take it as an article of war, and nothing else. I couldn’t help myself. She was nettle, pure and through.

I hadn’t liked what she called Magra.

Alma Jean’s tight mouth frowned in a sour moue of distaste. “I’m not skeered of you, Marshal. I’m a woman, not a man. You can’t push me around like the drunken cowhands who blow through town.”

Her smirk deepened. “My brother-in-law
and
my uncle both live in Washington. I have considerable influence with the federal government, never you mind.”

“Maybe you can find out why the War Department hasn’t paid me my back wages.”

“All I have to do is telegraph them and you and that Indian girl will be out on tomorrow’s train.”

“Until that happens, I’m still Marshal of this town, this county, and the territory of New Mexico. So, Alma Jean Clay, if you will fetch Miss Magra Snowberry so I, and my deputy, may dine with her, I’d appreciate it.”

“Are you asking me?”

“No, that’s more along the lines of an order.” I was going to show her I could push, too.

“You would order me in my own hotel, Marshal?”

“Just as pretty as you please.”

She rocked back on her heels. “You’re going to get yours one day, Marshal Marwood. Never you mind. You’re going to get what’s coming to you. I only hope I’m there to witness it.”

She spun and stalked stiff-legged from the lobby.

Jake watched her go with a low whistle. “My stars, that’s the most unpleasant woman I’ve ever seen. I’m afraid you’ve met your match, Mr. Marwood. She won’t budge an inch.”

“Alma Jean obviously feels she has the reins against me with Hew away in Las Cruces. Dammit, I was afraid this might happen.”

“I don’t know why she has it in for Miss Magra.”

“Don’t you, Jake?”

He mulled it over. “You mean, maybe because Miss Magra is kindly pretty? Compared to Alma Jean, so to speak. But Miss Magra would never set herself up against Alma Jean that way.”

I shrugged my own ignorance. “I don’t know. People have all kinds of stupid reasons they dislike one another.” I was thinking about Nichols and Danby.

Jake waggled his head. “Seems an awful thin reach to hate someone.”

“Hate doesn’t need a reason, Jake. It might look that way to you because of where you’re from and how you were raised.”

I had been lots of places. So many they were jumbled in my mind like lathes of silver. It was hard not to think of them sometimes. What little I could remember. But it was not remembering, knowing there was more to my past than I could ever recall, that nagged the most.

“Mr. Marwood, I’m from Texas. Not much there but starved cattle and chiggers.” He blew a few sneezing laughs through his nose. “They say Texas is hard on women and dogs. I can promise it ain’t no easier for men and cattle.”

He continued to laugh at his own joke, pulling his sparse chin whiskers between thumb and forefinger. “No, sir, there’s something else behind Alma Jean’s meanness, I’ll warrant. I’ll continue to study on it and let you know what I come up with.”

“You do that.” I had already forgotten Alma Jean. “Here comes Magra.”

After dinner Jake excused himself. Magra and I were at our usual table in the corner, talking low over coffee.

“I’ve caused you trouble again, John,” she sighed. “You just say the word and I’ll go back to the agency.”

“You do and I’ll fetch you right back, Magra Snowberry.”

I paid for the meal and we walked back to the office.

Magra lifted her hands and let them fall against the stiff front of her calico skirt. “Well, I can’t go back to Papa’s place. It’s all burned out and I don’t have money to rebuild.”

“We’ll think of something.” I tried to keep my voice light.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble over me, John. You’ve already taken your fair share of knocks for me, by my count.”

“That’s my worry.”

She stopped, disconcerted. “That’s where you’re wrong. No, now you listen to me, John Marwood.” Her waist-length black hair shone in the sun. Her broad face watched mine as her red-brown hands picked at her white apron. “John, what happens if you have to go against someone, and because of the weight of me on your mind, your gun hand slows down?”

The sky was deep blue. It pressed down on me like a fresh branding iron.

The heavy Sharps rifle was cradled in the crook of my arm. “Belike I’ll do what I need to, Magra. I always have before.”

“You’re like Papa before he died. Single-minded to a fault. That’s not necessarily a desirable trait in a man.”

I grunted. “I guess this is my day for women to point out my limitations.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

“It’s nothing important.”

We turned together and walked side by side, our boots and shoes clopping against the weathered boardwalk.

“My father carried something around with him, too, John. He told me parts of it. I never understood everything, but I believed he thought it was real. I guess I do, too. Mostly.”

We go where we’re sent. We have names and we stand against that which must be faced.

I was one. Ben Tack was another.

“I did learn one thing about my father, though,” Magra continued. “Sometimes a man carries a hurt around until he has to give it voice. I think that hurt somehow killed Papa. You’re the same kind of man, John, but in a deeper way than Papa ever was. I think it will kill you, too. One day.”

I didn’t have anything to say. There was a lot of truth in what she said.

The trick in life, any life, was staying alive long enough to beat the odds. Some men were better at it than others.

People like me. Other people like Ben Tack.

We all have different names. I had mine, and Ben had his. His name was deeper. It carried more fire than mine did.

I don’t know why he had come to Haxan, but whatever the reason, I knew I was going to have to stand in front of it.

Or die in the attempt.

T
he red and green parrot barked like a dog when I walked through the swing doors of the Sassy Sage.

“Hell and damnation. I was for sure that bird would meow that time,” groused a six-foot bullwhacker with a flaming red beard and a long ragged coat. “That’s five dollars I owe, right?”

“That’s the tally,” the man at the bar said. He was lean and spare with a profile cut from sheet metal. His eyebrows were long and straight, and his hair razored short. He wore a Navy six leathered high on his hip. Despite what the dime novelists like Ned Buntline say, it’s the high gun that gives the faster draw, not iron strapped low on your thigh.

“How about we go double or nothing?” the bullwhacker suggested. He gripped his Colt Peacemaker and glared at the parrot bobbing up and down on a metal perch. “If that damned bird doesn’t meow I’ll drop a hammer on him.”

“You’ve got a bet.” He was dressed in black jeans and blue shirt that matched the burning intensity of his eyes. His boots were polished to a high shine, with fancy Spanish heels. He wore a black Spanish hat with a low flat crown. He had no rings on his fingers, or gloves. Gunmen like him never do. They want full palm contact with the butt of the gun because the weapon itself becomes an extension of their reach, their sense of self.

The parrot was perched on a metal T-bar in the corner of the barroom. He hopped back and forth on both feet, ducked his head, ruffled his feathers, and barked.

“Blast that bird to hell.” The bullwhacker grudgingly dug through his leather
mochilla
and paid up what he owed. “Well, that cleans me out. Gawd, busted out by a damn bird. I’ll never live this down if my partners hear about it.”

The other man at his side laughed in an easy, relaxed way. “Hang around. I hear the girls start smoking cigarettes and swing over the bar when the sun goes down.” There were two big wooden hoop swings festooned with bright, gay ribbons hanging over the expansive bar. “I’ll buy you a drink while we wait.”

“I’d like to see that view, mister, especially from down here at this angle. I have to catch the night stage to Albuquerque. Thanks for the offer.” The bullwhacker quit the saloon, cutting daggers with his eyes at the parrot.

The parrot flapped its wings and meowed at his passing.

“Hell and damnation,” the bullwhacker thundered as he left the saloon.

“Is that all that parrot does?” I asked. I was standing in the doorway with the light streaming behind.

The man with the sheet-metal profile turned. His smile faded when he saw me. Then it returned with intensity.

“Hello, John. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Ben. Heard you were in town.”

“Have a drink?”

“Let’s get a table first.”

He motioned ahead. “One over there.” The table he picked was flush against the wall and farthest from any window.

“Sure.”

He reached the table first, lowering his lean body into a chair so his gun hand was unencumbered. I had to take the opposite side with my gun hand restricted between the wall and table.

It was a neat trick on his part. He hadn’t done it on purpose—these tactics were instinctual with him, like breathing.

“I see you’re still carrying that bull cannon,” he remarked.

I shrugged. “I can hit with it.”

“How about that drink, John?”

“Beer is good enough for me.”

“Bartender,” he shouted, “two beers. Make them cold this time.”

“Right up, Mr. Tack.”

Ben swung his attention back on me. “How have you been, John? Long time since we’ve seen one another.”

“Going on ten years, my reckoning.”

“By other reckonings, even longer,” he said.

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do.” There was no apparent malice in his voice. He was merely stating fact. By other reckonings it had been longer than a decade. Whole lifetimes.

The bartender served our drinks and retreated to wipe down tables on the far side of the room. I picked up the beer with my left hand and took a pull. Ben followed suit.

His right gun hand rested casually on the lip of the table, ready to drop like a hawk with folded wings out of the sky. The pearl handle of his gun was set a quarter turn out of the holster.

“I see you’re still being careful,” I said.

He brushed aside the observation. “Clumsy men don’t live long in this world or any other. How have you been getting by, John?”

“You know how it is, Ben.”

We were tiptoeing, mindful of the bear traps half-hidden under thin straw, their gleaming jaws ready to snap shut.

Ben cracked a wide smile, crinkling his eyes and wrinkling the bridge of his nose. “I sure do.”

“What happened to you after Sand Creek?” I sipped my beer, watching him over the bevelled glass rim. “You dropped out of sight.”

“Thought it best to keep low so I hid out in the Nations.”

This was territory north where the Five Civilized Tribes were quartered. The Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Chickasaw were all from southeastern states. They had been forced by federal mandate to relocate. It was also a refuge for outlaws and people who wanted to disappear. The federal government had no legal authority, and no way to extradite a man, from the Nations. Those lawmen foolish enough to enter Indian Territory got no help whatsoever from the Indian tribes imprisoned there.

In the Nations, everyone hated the United States government. The rule of law was an unknown concept in that raw and brutal territory.

“You lived in the Nations ten years?” I asked in disbelief.

“No. I kicked around some. Went down to New Orleans and took a steamer up the Mississippi to Cairo. Bounced around and did some gambling.”

He was deliberately vague. “How about you, John? I heard you had trouble with John Chivington after Sand Creek.”

“A few of his supporters hired two gunmen. They said I had sullied his good name and they wanted to teach me a lesson.”

Ben laughed. “Since you’re sitting in front of me I won’t ask you what happened to those gunmen.” He paused. “Someone told me you got an honourable discharge. Something must have worked out right in your favour.”

“When Chivington discovered I couldn’t be buffaloed he didn’t have many options left. Yeah, I got an honourable discharge. I don’t miss the Army, though. After I left I never looked back. That’s when I started lawing.”

The memory of Sand Creek was an open wound in my recent past that had never healed. Ben, dredging it all up again, brought it back afresh.

Ten years ago, Colonel John Chivington, commander of the Third Colorado Volunteers, ordered a surprise attack on Cheyenne women and children in Sand Creek at the behest of the governor.

I was a lieutenant at the time. Chivington ordered four howitzers to fire upon the sleeping village. Soldiers raped and shot women, scalped children, and cut the throats of newborn babies. During the confusion I found the peace chief, Black Kettle, and helped him escape.

What I had accomplished didn’t mean anything in the long run. Four years later, Black Kettle and his wife were shot in the back by Custer on the Washita River.

There was talk of a court-martial following Sand Creek. Not Chivington’s, mine. Congress got involved and the investigation knocked a lot of starch out of Chivington. No one liked what I had done, but they understood my motives, if not my actions. To sweep everything under the rug I was given an honourable discharge and Chivington got his wrist slapped.

But Chivington’s political supporters hadn’t liked the fact I had acted so brazenly. They scraped enough money together and hired a pair of ex-Pinkertons out of San Francisco.

The two men never made it back to California. Chivington’s backers didn’t have the grit, or the remaining funds, to mount another assassination attempt.

Sometimes, when we stand, we not only stand for ourselves, but for others. People like Black Kettle and Shiner Larsen.

Or Magra Snowberry.

We have no choice but to go where we are called. It is the pact we make. We stand against that which must be faced.

People like me. People like Ben.

“Chivington was a bastard,” Ben proclaimed. “I remember in Fort Lyon when you tried to persuade him not to attack the next morning. Remember what he said? ‘Nits make lice.’ I near liked to have shot him myself right there.”

“Yet you participated in the attack,” I said. “How many women and children did you kill that day, Ben?”

He gave me a long look bristling with needles. “Still high-minded as ever, aren’t you?”

“I call it being practical.”

“Best watch yourself, John.” His smile was thin enough to cut paper. “One day that practicality will be your downfall.”

“When I took this job I made up my mind I was going to die from it someday.”

He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak. Maybe he wanted to ask me about my marshalling job. Or maybe he knew I was talking about something else entirely.

We were knife fighters looking for an opening that never presented itself.

“Why are you here, Ben?” I asked.

“Same as you. I go where I’m sent.”

“And you’ve been sent to Haxan.”

He didn’t say anything. That was response enough.

“You sure someone didn’t buy your gun?”

“If he did I wouldn’t tell you, John.” His smile widened, showing teeth, but no warmth.

“I don’t want trouble, Ben. You start trouble and I’m apt to forget we were ever friends.”

“Why would I want you to forget that, John?” he asked without rancour. “Haxan is the new boom town on the
frontera
. A smart man can make his mark in a place like this.”

“Is that what you aim to do, Ben? Make your mark?”

“Haven’t I always?” He rose up from the table in one liquid move. He was whipcord lean. The sun pouring through the window nailed his stark shadow to a nearby plaster wall.

“Don’t crowd me, John,” he said evenly. “I’ll take so much crowding from any man. Even you.”

“That supposed to be a friendly warning?”

“It’s the only one you’ll ever get from me, friendly or not.” He began to leave. “By the way, don’t go thinking we were ever friends. I wouldn’t want to see a look of disappointment on your face if we crossed guns and you thought us being friends would save your life.” He touched the brim of his hat in a mock salute. “Be seeing you soon, Marshal.”

He knocked through the bat-wing doors and strode into the bright desert sunshine.