The Fire of Greed (16 page)

Chapter 28

MAKING HER ROUNDS OF DAILY ERRANDS, NICOLETTE DE
la Gravière left the general merchandise emporium with a new skillet for the Refugio del Viajero under her arm. After spending yesterday afternoon touring the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe construction headquarters, and the evening dining with Ezra Waldron and his colleagues under the stars, she was back to her routine, her apron, and her duties at the restaurant.

She wondered whether her evenings spent with this railroad man yet constituted her entertaining him as a “suitor,” as her mother was eager for her to do. She did admit that he
was
a gentleman, with all the qualities of politeness and cordiality that accompanied the term. He was not condescending, as men so often were, when she spoke of her own affairs, and she greatly appreciated that.

As much as she was growing fond of Mr. Waldron, however, nothing about him had yet manifested itself as that intangible something that would make her feel an exhilaration in his presence. The sight of him did not bring a flush to her cheeks or, in Shakespeare's words, “bewitch her bosom.”

It was the unnamed cowboy who had “stolen the impression of her fantasy.”

Of course, as her mother pointed out, in the
long term
, it was a gentleman who was a provider who would furnish a lady with a future of security and contentment. A drifting cowboy might inflame her passions and cause her heart to soar, but in the
long term
, a drifting cowboy provided only disappointment, loneliness, and heartache.

The sad thing was that Nicolette knew her mother was probably right.

As it happened, the route of her return from errands took her past the offices of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Was this, she might have wondered, by chance or by subconscious design? Perhaps there
was
a bewitching in her bosom, consciously repressed, at the thought of Ezra Waldron.

In any event, the route that took her past the offices of the railroad naturally led to a glance inside, and when he happened to be there, and their eyes met, she
did
feel a flush come to her cheeks.

In an instant, she was faced with the quandary—should she stop in for a quick hello?

Would that be too forward—or would the impoliteness of
not
stopping in for a quick hello be a greater
faux pas
.

Not being a shy girl, for no one who waits tables in a popular restaurant can long be timid in personal interactions, she opened the door and entered.

Almost immediately, Nicolette wished she had decided otherwise.

It quickly became evident that Waldron and his colleague, Joseph Ames, were in the midst of an argument.

“I'm sorry for intruding, gentlemen,” she said, making the most of the choice she had made. “I don't mean to interrupt, I was just passing, and did not want to be so rude as to not convey a greeting . . . so having said hello, I shall continue . . .”

“It's fine,” Waldron said. “We were just discussing railroad business . . .”

“Which as you might imagine, Miss de la Gravière, is none of your concern,” Ames said.

“Of course,” she said, opening the door. “Good day, gentlemen.”

“You needn't be curt with the lady,” Waldron interjected.

“I was not being curt, I was stating the obvious.”

“Your choice of words represents poor judgment.”

“When it comes to poor judgment, I believe that
yours
in the affairs of this road is an extreme example of this,” Ames said as Nicolette closed the door behind her.

* * *

“YOU MISSED THAT VAQUERO LAST NIGHT,” DOLORES HERRERA MENTIONED CASUALLY AS SHE AND NICOLETTE SET
the tables for the evening meal at the Refugio del Viajero.

“What
vaquero
?”

“That one who so enchanted you when he dined here a week or so before.”

What
vaquero
? Nicolette wondered. Suddenly she felt her face go red.
That
vaquero
.
That
cowboy.

“He was
here
?”

“Last night,” Dolores said with a nod. “I waited on his table. He tipped very good.”

Nicolette swallowed hard.

She would say no more, at least until she had a chance to speak to her mother alone.

“You didn't tell me he was here,” Nicolette said pointedly.

“Who was here?”

“The cowboy, Mama . . .
the
cowboy . . . last night.”

“Oh that's right,” Therese recalled. “He was.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Slipped my mind . . . You're not truly interested, are you?”

“You said he would never come back, Mama,” Nicolette replied. “You were
so
sure that he would drift away and never be seen again.”

“It's just by chance . . . a coincidence.”

“Did he ask after me?”

“
Nicolette
,” Therese exclaimed sarcastically. “Certainly you don't think that every man who catches your eye is going to take a fancy to
you
?”

“He
might
.”

“What about Monsieur Waldron? I thought that
he
was courting you.”

“We just went to the theater . . .
one time
,” Nicolette replied. “Is
that
courting?”

“And to the Governor's Palace for a reception for . . . what was his name?”

“Mr. Schurz . . . Mr. Carl Schurz.”

“
Mais qui
,” Therese said, wrinkling her brow.
“L'homme Allemand.”

“He's not German anymore,” Nicolette corrected her mother, who disliked
all
Germans, even though the Franco-Prussian War had been over for more than ten years. “He's American . . . he's in Mr. Hayes's cabinet. He lived here during the war . . . so did
you
.”

“So I did,” Therese said and nodded, unconvinced of her daughter's logic. “But you changed the subject. I was speaking of Monsieur Waldron and his intentions. What would Mr. Waldron think if he knew that you were longing for a cowboy while you were keeping company with him?”

“It would be none of his business,” Nicolette said defiantly. “I
do
like Mr. Waldron, but I am not
married
to him. I may think about who I please.”

“It displeases your mother to see you pining after a broken heart.”

“Mama.”

“I'm sure that Monsieur Cole has more important things to concern himself with than a
jeune fille
who once served him
carne asada
.”

“And I'm sure that I am not a
young girl
,” Nicolette insisted. “And how do you know his name?”

“I did not mean to mention it . . .” Therese said, sorry indeed that she had mentioned Cole's name.

“
Why?
” Nicolette demanded.

“Because he's a
bounty hunter
, my girl,” Therese admitted. “Because he is
the
bounty hunter who was written about in the newspaper.”

“You mean the railroad robbery?” Nicolette asked, flabbergasted. “
He
is the man who brought the railroad bandits to justice?”

“I mean that this man, Bladen Cole, is not merely a drifting cowboy,” Therese said sternly. “He is a man of exceptional violence, and
not
a man I wish to have associated with
my
daughter.”

Chapter 29

BEN MURIDAY RODE INTO SANTA FE ARMED WITH A
slightly used .45-caliber Colt and a determined aspiration to exact vengeance on the man who had cheated him of the glory for which he longed. He imagined that the bounty hunter Bladen Cole was drinking and womanizing and enjoying himself in the territorial capital. He imagined this poser basking in glory, and enjoying the touch of tender female flesh, which
rightfully
belonged to Ben Muriday.

He checked into a fleabag hotel, knowing that lodgings more commensurate with this image of himself awaited him when he had found the bounty hunter and taken the reward money he rightly deserved.

There were still gold eagles in his pocket, but having paid too much, in his desperation, for shoes and a weapon, he was conserving his resources. This was only temporary, of course; he intended to be flush as soon as he caught and killed this damnable bounty hunter.

Muriday blamed the man for cheating him of a reward that was rightfully his, and he blamed the bounty hunter for attacking the camp and killing Simon Lynch. He assumed that Cole's arrival and the ambush at the campsite by the two Indians from the trading post had been somehow coordinated, when these events were merely coincidental.

Muriday had ridden with Lynch for the past two years. They had engaged in mischief, had made some modest scores, and having learned of the Dutchman's gold, they had planned to become fabulously wealthy—that is, until Muriday came up with the plan that they should rehabilitate their reputations and become heroes by turning in a pair of robbers.

Now Lynch had paid with his life for Muriday's crazy notion. It wasn't the first time that Muriday had lost a partner in a gunfight. There was that time down in Silver City about ten years back. They were drinking in a bar and got into an argument with a couple of hotheaded cowboys. Muriday had shot one and had gotten away, but his partner left the bar feet first.

Since then, he looked at partnering up with somebody as a business arrangement. Getting friendly was always secondary to getting the job done. He was sorry to see Lynch get himself killed, but Muriday kept his eye on the plan. He considered the avenging of Lynch's demise to be a mere by-product of finding and killing the bounty hunter to get the reward money.

However, getting the cash wasn't the only thing on his mind. Muriday's plan was also frustrated by the riddle of how he might redress that other wrong he had suffered and secure for himself the notoriety the bounty hunter had stolen from him, the notoriety accorded to this Bladen Cole in the pages of the
Santa Fe New Mexican
.

After many days of camping in the mountains and deserts, a new shirt and a bath in a real bathtub can do wonders for a man's disposition, and they did wonders for the temperament of Ben Muriday.

He was in so good a mood, in fact, that he hardly noticed when the man at the Chinese laundry gave him a strange double take. It was as though the man
knew
him, but so what? This man was merely a Chinaman.

With these chores behind him, Muriday set out upon his quest. Where better to learn the affairs of the day, Muriday thought, than that nexus of all rumor, gossip, and talk of the town, the nearest saloon?

“Sure could use a whiskey,” he said, placing a coin on the bar.

As the bartender fussed at his back bar, getting down a bottle for his first sale of the morning, Muriday eyed the decorations above the mirror that rose behind the bar. There was a line of figurines, each about a foot tall, made out of cottonwood sticks, pieces of cloth, and animal fur. Some of them had feathers and animal teeth attached. They all had dreadful faces painted on them, each one competing for ferocity and eeriness with the one beside it.

“What's all them about?” he asked.

“Kachinas,” the man said. “The Indians out at the pueblos make them.”

“What the hell for?” Muriday asked with disgust. “They're ugly as sin . . . look like devils.”

“They're for some kind of magic . . . according to the man that sold 'em to me.”

“Where'd he get 'em?”

“Out at the pueblos, I reckon.”

“They supposed to be for good luck?”

“Reckon not.”

“Why?”

“Feller who sold 'em to me got hisself shot just after he sold 'em to me.”

“Damn,” Muriday said. “Ain't you scared of havin' 'em?”

“Don't much believe in magic,” the man said as he returned to the bar with an open bottle.

“Much obliged,” Muriday said as two welcome fingers of amber magic flowed into a glass set on the bar before him.

“Sure been readin' a lot about those train robbers lately,” he said as the bartender placed his change on the bar.

“Folks been talkin' about little else,” the bartender said. It being early in the day, there were few customers in the place, and he was in the mood for discourse. “Been articles in the paper for the last couple days.”

“When they gonna put 'em on trial?” Muriday asked, making conversation. He really did not care when the trial happened, or what happened to Gabe Stanton and Jasper Gardner.

“Don't reckon I know,” the bartender said thoughtfully. “I figure that as soon as they bring 'em to Santa Fe, they'll get 'em before a judge to be arraigned.”

“Bring 'em to Santa Fe?” Muriday asked. “Thought they was
already
in jail.”

“They got 'em down by Lamy at the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe camp,” the bartender said. “The railroad's got theirselves a brig down there.”

“Why are they there and not in jail?”

“That's where the bounty hunter brought 'em. It was the railroad and not the law that offered the reward. They're gonna be there until the sheriff can go down and get 'em on up here.”

“What's keepin' him?”

“With all that publicity, there'd be a lot of gawkers gettin' in the way. He needs to put together a posse to ride herd on 'em coming up here. It's the better part of a day's ride.”

“I see,” Muriday said thoughtfully. “Speaking of that bounty hunter,” he added after a thoughtful pause. “I s'pose he's been livin' it up in town lately.”

“Never saw him in
here
,” the bartender said. “Guess he was drinkin' somewhere else. Folks did see him around, though. He was eatin' over at the Refugio del Viajero the other night. Last I heard, he's gone. He rode out yesterday . . . according to what I heard.”

“Where you reckon he's off to?”

“Reckon he's off to spend his money somewhere besides around here.”

“Where's he from?”

“I've heard Colorado . . . but somebody said something about him coming from down Silver City way.”

* * *

“WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH?”

“Come to see the sheriff,” Muriday told the deputy.

In Muriday's mind, the idea of recapturing the elusive esteem associated with bringing the thieves to justice had moved to the forefront of his list of objectives.

There was no better way to achieve this, he decided, than to include himself as a member of the posse that brought Stanton and Gardner to Santa Fe. It was not that this, in itself, would provide the desired renown, but his being part of the posse would provide him with the
opportunity
to distinguish himself for all to notice.

“What business do you have with the sheriff?” the deputy asked.

“Wanna be on that posse what's gonna bring in the train robbers,” Muriday said proudly.

“I see,” the man said with a tone that explained that Muriday was far from being the first man to volunteer for this duty.

The man finished what he was doing, then stood and walked toward a door that led to an inner office.

“Wait here,” he said.

Muriday waited, listening to the monotonous
click-clunk
of the wall clock and watching several other people transacting other business.

Finally, the deputy returned with a tall man wearing a five-pointed silver star.

“Sheriff Reuben Sandoval,” the man said extending his hand.

“Muriday . . Ben Muriday. I wanna be on that posse they say you're raising to fetch them fellas up from down at Lamy.”

“You from around here?” Sandoval asked.

“Nope. Just passin' through.”

“Where you from?”

“All around.”

“Where mostly?”

“Been down in Lincoln County for the past year,” Muriday said. “Before that in Grant County for a while and over around Parker County, Texas.”

“You get around some, then,” the sheriff observed.

“That I do.”

“What sort of work do you do?”

“Cowboying mainly,” Muriday said. “Whatever needs doin.'”

“What interests you in being on this posse?” Sandoval asked.

“Reckon I wanna be a part of being on the side of bringing these bad men to justice.”

“That's very commendable, Mr. Muriday,” the sheriff said. “But I already got as many men as I am going to need for the posse. If you could leave your name and how to get hold of you with the deputy here, I'll get in touch with you if there's anyone who can't make it. Thanks a lot for takin' the interest though.”

“Thank you for takin' the time, sir,” Muriday said, disappointment in his voice as he took the sheriff's extended hand.

* * *

“MR. MURIDAY,” CAME A VOICE BEHIND HIM AS HE CROSSED
the street from the sheriff's office. He turned to see one of the men he had seen inside.

“Mr. Muriday, my name is Nathaniel Siward,” he said, extending his hand. “Couldn't help overhearing you generously volunteering to join the posse.”

“Was you aiming to get on the posse yourself?”

“No. I just happened to hear you.”

“Good thing you ain't lookin' to get on the posse,” Muriday said. “Seems like he's got all the men he needs for the job. Ain't hirin' nobody else.”

“How'd you like to be on the posse?”

“Like to be, but if he ain't hirin', he ain't hirin'.”

“He's not the
only
one getting up a posse,” Siward said.

“How's that?”

“I work for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and as you can imagine, we've
also
got us an interest in seeing these men brought to justice.”

“So?”

“We need a man of our own to ride along to support the sheriff's posse and make sure that nothing happens,” Siward explained. “I'd like to hire you to ride as part of the railroad posse.”

“That's an idea, all right,” Muriday said.

“Pay you in gold,” Siward said with a smile. “The sheriff's volunteers are just getting expense money. We're paying a gold eagle for a day's work.”

“Well, I reckon that suits me fine,” Muriday said. “I'm your man.”

“Welcome to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe,” Siward said, shaking Muriday's hand again. “You just get yourself down to Lamy by dawn the day after tomorrow, and you're riding with us. If you wanna get down tomorrow night, look for me and we'll feed you supper and breakfast and give you a place to bunk, so you're fresh-faced when we ride out.”

Ben Muriday could not believe his good fortune. Luck was obviously riding with him to put him in the sheriff's office at the right time to be overhead by Nathaniel Siward. Being hired on by the railroad was better that riding with the sheriff. There was the gold, certainly, but it was with the railroad, not the law, where the bounty hunter had gotten his reward
and
his recognition.

If he was lucky, Muriday thought, he might even get some information from the railroad men as to where he could go to find that damned Bladen Cole.