MacKinnon

by Johnny D. Boggs

  He pulled the trigger.

  And laughed at the look on Jace Martin’s face when the hammer snapped on an empty chamber.

  * * * * *

  Katie Callahan was breathing again, and her heart started to slow down. She kissed MacKinnon’s hand before letting Bookbinder help her to her feet. The doctor continued to work on MacKinnon’s chest.

  “This baseball contest is postponed,” Maginnis said. “At least for the time being. I’m deputizing you Roswell boys to get this cur to the jail. You Engle boys, round up all the equipment and leave it at the feedstore. We’ll figure out when we can resume this game.”

  “Fetch a wagon,” Pres Lewis said without looking up. “Some blankets. Let’s find a place to take this young man.”

  “Come on, Miss Callahan,” Nelson Bookbinder said as he led her away. “We best find your brother and sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The door opened, and Sam MacKinnon watched Nelson Bookbinder, hat in hand, step inside the first-floor room at the Holland House. The lawman looked around, laid his hat, crown down, atop a dresser, and pulled up a chair beside the bed where MacKinnon lay.

  “How you feel?” Bookbinder asked.

  MacKinnon rolled his eyes.

  “Well, it’s your own fault. You should’ve left Jace Martin to me.”

  “How do you feel?” MacKinnon asked.

  The lawman touched the white bandage that wrapped his head where Martin had tried to dent his head. With a grin, he rolled his eyes. “Nice of them to put you on the ground floor,” Bookbinder said, just to fill the silence.

  MacKinnon managed a shrug.

  “Town chipped in,” Bookbinder said. “Room’s paid for. For you and the girl and her siblings. Doctor’s paid for. A local rancher even bought Miss Katie a new wagon … John Wesley Pringle’s outfit. I guess you rode for that brand, too, MacKinnon.” Bookbinder looked at the floor, one way, then the other, and finally found the cuspidor. He dragged it closer, sent a stream of tobacco juice into it, and straightened. “Course, we had to tell her all of those things were bought from the reward you got for capturing Jace Martin.”

  MacKinnon’s mouth cracked open.

  “Miss Callahan won’t take any charity, you know.”

  MacKinnon smiled.

  “And here’s something you might find interesting. Pres Lewis said he would donate a tombstone to Miss Katie’s mother. Even bring the body back, plant her in the cemetery, but do you know what that girl said?” Bookbinder chuckled. “She said moving her ma to a graveyard might be proper, but the tombstone you carved, that’s what she wanted over the grave. And her sister and her brother, they backed up that spunky girl.” Bookbinder laughed again. “Girl. That’s some woman.”

  The clock ticked on the dresser. Bookbinder shifted the chewing tobacco to his other cheek, and said: “No sign of Chico or those two other fellows who helped rob Charley the Trey’s place in Bonito City.”

  “How about the fifth man?” MacKinnon asked, staring at the curtains in the window.

  “Well, you heard what Mort and Davis said. That fellow’s dead in some hole in the mountains.”

  MacKinnon nodded.

  Bookbinder worked his tobacco. “And, yeah, I heard what Jace Martin said.” His head bobbed. “I expect, he’ll say it again in court. Under oath.”

  “Yeah,” MacKinnon said. He drew in a breath, let it out, and turned to look at the lawman. “Bookbinder, you know good and well …”

  Nelson Bookbinder raised his right hand, fingers extended, to silence MacKinnon.

  “MacKinnon, I am an officer of the court. Sworn to uphold the law, so you let me speak my piece before you go saying something you might regret.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin, fingered the bandage on his head.

  “Now, Judge Quinliven, he’s a real hard rock. Not one to miss much. Wants to do things real thorough. Less chance of having one of his decisions overturned or tossed out, you see. So I’d imagine that if he heard Jace Martin point a finger at some other man, and heard a couple of deputies say that the real culprit was dead, he’d want to make sure. He’d send a bunch of miners and lawmen with picks and shovels and a coffin to bring back the dead robber’s remains. And if that body wasn’t found … well, that would mean more witnesses had to be called, more affidavits signed, things like that. Right cumbersome. Time consuming. A pain in the arse for a lawman.”

  He paused and leaned. He spit. He wiped his mouth.

  “But the judge, he’s practical, too. I mean, after all, it’s Jace Martin who would be on trial, and not some dead man, or a man who ain’t dead. So if that fellow that had been accused was nowhere to be found in the territory, and seeing that the man doing the accusing was bound to be sentenced to hard time … well, I don’t think anything would come of Jace Martin’s accusations. Providing, of course, that this fellow who had been accused wasn’t to show up in New Mexico Territory till the good judge had retired. But, well, he’d have to be out of the territory, out of my jurisdiction, you see.”

  MacKinnon turned and studied the lawman.

  “Now.” Bookbinder leaned forward in his chair. “I’ve been doing me some thinking. Ran it by Nikita, and he’s in no hurry to get back to the reservation. We decided that maybe there’s something to this game of baseball that you interrupted. So we’re going to stay here, rest up, and take in that stump match. It got delayed, you know. Postponed, I guess is what they call it. On account of that interruption you and Jace Martin begun. And that little ballist and cowboy from Engle. What’s the boy’s name?”

  “Gene,” MacKinnon answered. “Gene Rhodes”

  “Right. Anyway, this is Sunday. Can’t play a ball game on the Sabbath, and they said they’d like to play it tomorrow, but I said they couldn’t do that. It’s likely to rain tomorrow. So everyone’s agreed that the game will be resumed on Tuesday. Two o’clock in the afternoon. That’ll get more folks time to come out and take in the show. And for the Río Hondo to get some more kegs of beer hauled over from Ruidoso.”

  Tobacco juice pinged against the side of the cuspidor.

  “That means I wouldn’t be leaving Roswell for Lincoln till Wednesday, first light. And I’d have to stop at Bonito City to see if Charley the Trey or any of the other witnesses to the robbery there could positively identify Jace Martin as one of the hooligans who perpetrated that crime. So I could get an indictment.”

  He nodded. “Now that’s about a two, three days’ ride. Preliminary hearing wouldn’t be able to convene till … I’d reckon, a week from tomorrow. Maybe even later, depending on how busy the judge, and I, happen to be.”

  He pushed himself to his feet, bent to move the cuspidor back where he had found it, and turned to find his hat. With his back to MacKinnon, he said: “You and Miss Callahan did not make good time in those two weeks you were leading her to Roswell. I trust you could move things along if you had half a mind to help her get to Texas.”

  “Texas?” MacKinnon’s brow knotted.

  “Yeah.” Bookbinder nodded out the window. “That young woman, her sister, and baby brother are heading out today.”

  “What?” MacKinnon grimaced.

  “Easy, bub. Don’t bust your ribs any more than you’ve already done.” Bookbinder wiped his mouth and said: “I don’t know where Miss Callahan got the notion to head off to Texas, but you know women. Or at least one woman. Yes, sir, MacKinnon, she and her siblings are bound for Texas. Today. Folks tried to talk them out of it, but she’s as muleheaded as you are. Three or four eligible bachelors asked to assist her, but she said no. Doesn’t have one notion where she’s bound for, other than she’s heading to Texas. And from there? Who knows? Hard to figure a girl like that, but I figure … mind you, this is just my opinion … that if you and that sorrel of yours was to volunteer, she’d say yes. In a heartbeat.”

  Gently, Bookbinder set his hat on
his head, carefully pulling it just to the top of the white bandage.

  “Ninety miles east is Texas,” Bookbinder said. “My appointment as a deputy marshal is for this territory only. Least, that’s the way I see it. You could be there by the time Jace Martin’s spitting out his flapdoodle to Judge Quinliven. And if you rode south, just followed the Pecos, it’s a tad longer, but the water’s good, and I don’t think anybody would suspect to look for some fellow accused of a crime taking that long way. Wouldn’t make a lick of sense. Wouldn’t make sense for that gent to keep moseying with that young lady and her two siblings all the way to Fort Davis. Davis Mountains, if you ask me, that’s the prettiest piece of Texas there is. Only part of Texas worth living in. And there’s a rancher I know, Clay Mundy, runs the Rafter Nine. He’s always looking for a good cowpuncher. They’ve got an Army post there, so there’s plenty of jobs to be found for a young lady with plenty of sand. And a school. For a redheaded sister and a brother who’s just cute as a button. And this Mundy I was telling you about, well, he’s even been known to help out a cowboy, stake him to some cattle, let him file a homestead claim. Understand, he does this so he has more land for his cattle. Deeded land. But it’s something to think about. Especially if that cowboy was wanting to get married.”

  MacKinnon grimaced but managed to sit up in his bed. “Marry?” he said, and wrapped his arm around his ribs.

  “I’m just thinking out loud, son.”

  “Marshal, I’m practically old enough to be her pa.”

  “But you ain’t her pa, MacKinnon. And my pa was twenty-nine years older than my ma. They loved one another, though. That’s what mattered.”

  “Love?” MacKinnon shook his head. “I’m a thirty-a-month-and-found saddle tramp.”

  “You’re a good man,” Bookbinder said, and laughed. “Good Sam MacKinnon.” His head nodded. “You said that in your sleep. I liked it.” He shifted to spit. “Son, it might not take … you and her together. Hell, boy, y’all haven’t known each other but a few days. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Sometimes, it don’t work out. But some things are worth trying. Some things, you just have to give a whirl.”

  “Bookbinder, if you know all the mistakes I’ve made …”

  “I’ve made more than you, Good Sam MacKinnon. Course, I’m older than you. We all make fool choices. We all do foolish things. Some mistakes we forget. Most we learn from. But then there’s some mistakes—like trying to rob a saloon, or something like that, something criminal—that most people have to pay for. There’s no getting over that kind of mistake. Then it’s too late. And even worse, there’s the mistake countless folks make. They let somebody get away from them. And then it’s too late. For both of them.”

  He nodded, turned, and pulled open the door. “That’s a mistake I wouldn’t want to live with for the rest of my life.”

  The door closed behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The horses stood in front of the hitching rail at Peñalos’ Feed and Grain. Nelson Bookbinder sat on the front bench, whittling. Beside him sat Nikita, hat brim pulled down over his eyes.

  The knife stopped moving, and Bookbinder leaned forward. “Well,” he said, “that old boy’s got sense after all.”

  Nikita pushed up his hat, and stared across the street.

  They watched as the redheaded sister took the sorrel and tied it behind the wagon, on the left side. On the right, they had already tied up that blind mule. Then all three—Florrie, Gary, and Katie—helped MacKinnon as he used a cane to ease his way out of The Holland House, onto the street, and into the new wagon. He sat on the tailgate, legs and boots dangling, and the boy jumped up beside him. The kid must have said something, because they could hear Sam MacKinnon laugh as he reached out to massage his ribs, and then brought his hand up to tousle the kid’s hair.

  Giggling, the boy handed MacKinnon a Beadle & Adams novel. MacKinnon looked, shook his head, opened the book, and started reading. It was one of those crazy adventures about a marshal named Bookbinder and an Apache scout with a Russian name. Bookbinder had bought it at the mercantile, then gave it to Gary as a present.

  The two girls came to the front of the wagon, and climbed into the driver’s box. Two big Percherons, wearing the brand of John Wesley Pringle’s outfit, pulled the new wagon onto the dusty main street of Roswell. A few people stepped out of the buildings along both sides of the street, waving their hats or hands, some of them calling out fond farewells.

  “The girl’s driving?” Nikita said.

  “That’s a woman, Nikita. Not a girl. And women can drive a team,” Bookbinder told him. He started to whittle again, but had to look up, and watch the family … yeah, that was the word he wanted … leave Roswell.

  They rode east, but when they reached the banner at the end of town that proclaimed the engle versus roswell—annual stump match, the wagon turned south.

  “Pecos River,” Nikita said.

  “I didn’t hear you.” Nelson Bookbinder stood, stretched, closed the blade of the pocket knife, and slipped it into his vest pocket.

  “Let’s go, Nikita.”

  “Go?” The Apache stared in disbelief. “Go where?”

  “Home.” Bookbinder went to his horse, gathered the reins, found the stirrup, and stepped into the saddle.

  “What about him?” The Apache pointed at the tails of the blind mule and the sorrel mare before both disappeared behind Florencio’s Café. “What about Martin?”

  After settling into the saddle, Nelson Bookbinder found his newly purchased plug of chewing tobacco. He peeled back the paper, and bit off a substantial chaw. “I’ll send a deputy to fetch Jace Martin to Lincoln,” Bookbinder said. “In a week or two.”

  The lawman turned his horse, kicked it gently, and rode down the dusty street toward the sinking sun.

  Sighing, Nikita ducked underneath the hitching rail, grabbed his hackamore, and pulled the horse into the street. He looked over his shoulder. People disappeared inside their businesses, while a few kids gathered up the bunting that had blown down, and stuffed that into wheat sacks. The banners that stretched across the street popped in the wind.

  Bringing both hands to his mouth as a cup, Nikita called out to the lawman: “Bookbinder! Aren’t we going to stay for that baseball game?”

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  While I was writing drafts of the last few chapters of this novel, the editor of Pasatiempo, the Friday arts supplement of the New Mexican, Santa Fe’s daily newspaper, asked if I would contribute to a special project. Pasatiempo was running a feature that would consist of short vignettes about New Mexico authors written by New Mexico authors. In short, the editor wanted a New Mexico writer to contribute an essay of between one hundred and fifty and three hundred words about another New Mexico writer’s work and why that writer and work inspired and influenced that particular New Mexico writer.

  A lot of writers were being sought out for the project, but let’s face it—a lot of New Mexico writers are inspired and influenced by many of the same writers and works: Edward Abbey (The Brave Cowboy), Rudolph Anaya (Bless Me, Ultima), Richard Bradford (Red Sky at Morning), Max Evans (The Hi Lo Country), T.T. Flynn (The Man from Laramie), Erna Fergusson (Dancing Gods), Fred Grove (The Great Horse Race), Tony Hillerman (any of his Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo mysteries—Dance Hall of the Dead remains my favorite), Paul Horgan (A Distant Trumpet), Paul Andrew Hutton (The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, The Apache Kid and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History), Oliver La Farge (Laughing Boy), Cormac McCarthy (The Road), N. Scott Momaday (House Made of Dawn), John Nichols (The Milagro Beanfield War), Ernie Pyle (Brave Men), Conrad Richter (The Sea of Grass), Luke Short (Blood on the Moon), Marc Simmons (Kit Carson and his Three Wives: A Family History), Frank Waters (The Man Who Killed the Deer), Norman Zollinger (Meridian), and many others, including Willa Cather. She’s mo
stly regarded as a Nebraska author, but one would have to include her Death Comes for the Archbishop when considering great New Mexico–set works.

  Who do you pick?

  The editor had a recommendation, asking if I might be willing to tackle Eugene Manlove Rhodes.

  What a break! Actually, I replied, I was already considering him as my choice. It was a fortuitous suggestion. MacKinnon was inspired by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, or, more specifically, the novella the section editor wanted me to write about.

  Many years ago, my literary agent, the late Jon Tuska, mailed me a videocassette of Four Faces West, a 1948 Western starring Joel McCrea. Tuska knew of my interest in film, and whenever he had duplicates or was upgrading from VHS to DVD, he would send me what he no longer needed. One night, I plugged in the tape.

  Four Faces West was based upon a novella by Rhodes, Pasó Por Aqui, originally serialized in 1926 in the Saturday Evening Post.

  I already knew of Rhodes. After all, C.L. Sonnichsen, the great historian of the Southwest, had dedicated an entire chapter to Rhodes in his 1960 book Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West.

  (I suppose you could include Doc Sonnichsen in your list of New Mexico literary greats. Although he was born in Minnesota and spent most of his writing life at the University of Texas at El Paso and at the Arizona Journal of History in Tucson, he did write a lot about New Mexico.)