He tucked the thick, woven Indian blanket around him as the chill of the damp air drifted up from the river and invaded his frail bones. He was lonely, he was still suffering a little from his last chew of Peyote, and Margaret was in San Antonio visiting friends and gathering valuable information. He needed a drinking companion. He picked up a small brass bell that sat by his empty glass and dirty supper plate and gently rang it. Within seconds, Miguel, his Mexican servant, appeared and refilled the wine glass silently – something he was allowed to do only when Frank Vagg was dining alone – and removed the empty plate, asking, ‘Is there anything else, señor?’
‘A fresh cigar, Miguel, and find Mr Temple. Bring another glass and fetch him here for me.’ His voice was softly tinged with a southern accent adopted from his young years spent in Virginia.
The servant returned moments later, poured a fresh glass of wine and said, ‘Mr Temple is on his way over, señor. He will be here en un momento.’
Vagg nodded and rolled the cigar between his finger and thumb before lighting it with a waxed taper fired by the oil-fuelled table lamp.
‘You wanted me, Mr Vagg?’
Jack Temple was a tall man, dressed from head to toe in black. He looked ageless, his years difficult to discern. Vagg had always assumed him to be around sixty years old, but it was hard to tell. The man’s hair was still full and dark with just a touch of grey at the temples. His face was very much wrinkle-free and clean-shaven but for the full drooping moustache, and his voice was like Vagg’s: distinctly southern and only a little above a whisper. Vagg had never known the man to raise it more. He wore a patch over his right eye and the jet-black left eye twinkled in the flickering light of the lamp. He was one of the only two men he really trusted and did trust daily with his well-being. Temple watched his back and kept him company on long evenings when Margaret was away in San Antonio, which was often. The only other man of any real intellect on the payroll was the albino, Val Lefranc, and Lefranc’s main concern was for the twenty-four hour safety of Margaret Vagg. In fact, he fulfilled exactly the same function for her as Temple did for him. The pale-eyed, white-skinned man with his mane of long white hair was a lean one; rail thin, but like the rattler that some called him, he could pull his head back and be at an assailant’s throat in a heartbeat. With his strong hands, a knife or a gun, Lefranc was a man to walk around.
‘Sit down, Jack. Take the weight off and have a glass of wine. Help yourself to a cigar if would like one.’
Temple declined the smoke, taking out the makings from his vest pocket and preferring to roll his own.
‘How’s Jimmy?’ Vagg asked quietly.
‘I’ve never seen an angrier man in my life, but he will be OK.’
‘Good. His hearing affected?’
‘Apart from a temporary ringing, I do not believe so. The shooter was good and only took off the fleshy part of the ear.’
‘This shooter, Jack, we know anything about him?’
‘No, sir. Seems Jimmy picked on the man and chose the wrong man to pick on. It happens.’
‘Willy Jones brought him home. Says the man calls himself the Peaceful River Kid. You ever heard of him?’
Temple smiled, ‘No, sir, and I am not sure he calls himself by that name, either. It seems he signed the hotel register as Louis Bassett of Wichita, and Kansas is some long ways away from the Peaceful River.’
‘Where did it come from then?’
‘It would appear our sheriff has a flier on such an outlaw with a similar appearance, but as with any sobriquet. . . . You know how these things are, how they grow.’
‘Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, but he may need watching if he is not riding through.’
‘My feeling is he is just a drifter, possibly on the dodge and hoping to lose himself along the border like so many others, but I can have a word with him if you like.’ The inference was not lost on Vagg, but he chose to ignore it.
‘Keep your ear to the ground, Jack, but hold off for the moment. I don’t want to call attention to us at this precise moment, and please pass that on to the men. I don’t want any more gunplay. Worst comes to the worst, I’ll send Monroe to have a word with him. He must be quite handy with a Colt, though, to take down Jimmy with such ease as to place a round through his fucking ear.’
Vagg was not usually given to profanity and Temple noticed the concern in the elderly man’s tone.
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
Vagg was quiet for a long moment, rolling the cigar between thumb and forefinger as he blew tiny smoke rings out into the still air. ‘No, not really, Jack. You handle the business side and my security very well, but I look around and I think we need to bring in a man to run the roughnecks. The Mex we hire, they seem to sit around most of the day doing very little.’
‘You did not hire them as cattlemen, sir.’
‘True, but you get the feeling things are a little lax around here. It needs considering. . . . Maybe this drifter would be interested in a job; he seems to know how to handle trouble. Who knows, eh, Jack, who knows?’
‘Could be, Mr Vagg.’
‘I’ll study on it some and let you know. Margaret will be home shortly. We’ll see what she has learned from that loose-tongued banker she flirts with.’
‘And in the meantime. . . ?’
‘Sit awhile, will you, Jack? Finish your wine. Have another if you have a mind to, and pass the word: I want no repercussions from last evening.’ Then, adding as an afterthought, ‘You might also mention I heard a raven today, so one must be close by. Tell them I’ve upped the bounty by four bits.’
Temple nodded, finished his drink, then poured another and sat quietly beside Vagg long into the cool evening.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Henrietta Larsson
The rain came late into the evening and cooled the unpredictably warm air enough for me to strip to the waist, lie back on the hard mattress, turn down the oil lamp and enjoy the scent of the wet night as it drifted in through the open window. South Texas: one evening you are freezing and the next baking. I was listening to the rhythm of the falling rain beating on the upper half-closed window glass, relaxing. Deciding to stay indoors, I was pulling off a boot, but the gentle tap on my door was an unwanted intrusion. I got up from the bed with a groan, my back still a little stiff from the long Overland stage’s bone-shaking ride. I pulled my hideaway .45 Derringer from my discarded boot and opened the door onto the dimly lit hall.
She was a tall, lean, indiscernible shadow against the flickering lamp. She looked down at the pistol and then straight back to me. ‘Are you pleased to see me or what?’
I sensed lightness in her tone and felt a little foolish standing there with one boot on and gun in my hand. ‘Henri Larsson, I presume,’ was all I could think of to say.
‘My, you really are a detective aren’t you, Kid?’
It wasn’t really a question, so I ignored it.
‘Kid?’ I said, stepping back and widening the opening so that she could get inside without brushing against me.
‘You are the infamous Peaceful River Kid, are you not?’
She turned to face me as I closed the door and went to the bedside to turn up the lamp a little. A tad taller than me, straight and slim without a loss of shape. Dark hair, raven black it looked to be. Her face, at least in the half-light, appeared to be slightly masculine with a firm chin, a gentle mouth and laughing eyes – laughing at me, I thought. I kicked off my remaining boot, set the gun on the table and drew the curtains before returning my attention to her directly. ‘There is no such person; it’s a made-up name I found to be useful a couple of times, and I would prefer you did not make reference to it again.’
‘Oh, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?’
‘Romeo and Juliet,’ I said, ‘and not very original.’
‘I heard you were well read. You always come to the door half-dressed and with your pistol in your hand?’
I felt that she was laug
hing at me, but it did not seem to matter; I have been laughed at before. I dug a clean and very rumpled faded red shirt out of my warbag and put it on. Her eyes seemed to follow my every move. Unnerving.
‘That tattoo on your shoulder, is that a crow?’ Then, answering her own question, ‘Why a crow?’
‘It’s not a crow; it’s a raven. Bigger than a crow, meaner, smarter.’
‘Tattoos are not that common out here.’
‘And neither are ravens, apparently.’
‘Our man Frank Vagg has a bounty on them.’
‘You’ve seen a lot of half-naked tattooed men?’ I asked, changing the subject.
‘Not too many, but a few when I worked at a hospital in San Antonio before I joined the Pinkertons. Just interested; does it represent anything?’
‘Should it?’
‘Sometimes they are the result of an evening of drunken madness, sometimes just for decoration and other times for very personal reasons. I went out with a Texas Ranger one time who had a diamondback tattooed on his shoulder. Turned out he was a bit of a snake also. Are you a raven, a dark bird?’
I ignored her and poured myself a whiskey. ‘Would you care for one?’
‘Do you have a clean glass?’
We sat there in silence for a few moments, she in the room’s single chair and me back on the bed, propped up on the pillow jammed against the headboard. The only sound apart from our breathing was the patter of the rain as it gathered pace, backed by a rising southerly wind.
‘Did you know Kathleen Riley?’ I asked, wanting to get that subject out of the way, lest it hover.
‘Briefly. I also know how she died. I also know that you could not have done anything about it. Line of duty: a risk we all take.’
‘You carry a piece?’
‘It’s against company policy.’
It wasn’t an answer but I let it slide. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
She shook her head and sipped her whiskey. ‘I’ve been here a week now. Nothing to say really that would help you. At least, nothing that you would not have discovered for yourself out on the street. I got myself a job at the Overland stage office, working the mail mostly, and selling tickets, keeping the place tidy . . . not much else to do around here for a girl who can’t sing, can’t dance and would not know one good poker hand from another.’ She smiled. ‘Three jobs I was offered at the Red Diamond Saloon. I have now been offered a part-time position at the land office; that may be a fatter cow to milk. Should the need ever arise, I can also read and work the telegraph, but I have not let that be known.’
I nodded and waited.
‘Vagg has a raggle-taggle bunch of men on his payroll; mostly they drink and hurrah south of the line. Billy Bob is a cautious man, but he will only let them go so far before he hangs up his fishing rod and does his day job of keeping law and order. He seems to have the full support of Vagg where law in this part of town is concerned.’
‘He is a strange man, sure enough. He braced me about the flier that Beaufort sent out but let it slide; not out of fear but seemingly a lack of interest.’
‘Vagg’s ramrod is Jimmy Olds, but you have already met him, I understand.’
‘I tried to talk him out of a fight but he would not listen.’
‘And now I am told he does not hear so good anymore.’ She smiled. ‘He also has two other men working for him who sound to be of a much higher calibre.’
‘Have you met them?’
‘No, but I do know their names: Jack Temple and an albino by the name Val Lefranc.’
‘Jack Temple? You are sure that is his name?’
‘That’s what I am told. Why, do you know him? He is a one-eyed man; wears an eye patch, apparently. There seems to be a bit of confusion as to which eye it covers.’
I did not answer right away, thinking on it. Then I simply nodded.
‘He is Vagg’s personal bodyguard and Lefranc serves the same purpose for his sister. I understand they are away at present, possibly in San Antonio, but Temple is on the ranch and never comes into town unless it is to accompany Vagg.’
‘Good, all useful intelligence,’ I said. ‘Another drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ She got to her feet and walked over to the bed. ‘My room is just down the hall. You need anything – or for me to contact head office – just slip a note under the door. If I need anything, I will do the same. Goodnight, Kid, and thanks for the drink.’
She was out through the door before I had the chance to object, and I think I heard her chuckle as she closed it behind her.
CHAPTER NINE
Hector Monroe
The man was big, as big a man as they come: high, wide and ugly. I figured he could eat me for a light breakfast if he wanted to; he looked hungry and I felt very tired. I am not used to a long day in the saddle: my backside was tender, my inappropriate town suit draped in dust, my shirt wet with sweat, and I needed a drink, a bath and a shave in that order. I had spent the day exploring the flat grassy landscape to the north of town. Other than a few deserted homesteads, two burned out, and abandoned crops, I had found little of interest. As soon as I saw the big man, I knew those priorities would mean very little to him. I bellied up to the bar, ordered a beer without a head and we studied each other in the long mirror. As we studied on each other, the small crowd of late afternoon drinkers waited patiently for whatever was going to happen. I guessed they knew who the big man was.
He spoke to my reflection in the mirror. ‘You the man shot the ear off my friend, Jimmy the Deuce?’
I should have known Jimmy would have a friend.
‘Is that a question or a statement of fact?’ I said to his reflection.
‘Either will do if you be he.’
His voice was fairly high pitched and did not sound to be coming from such a big fellow. He was dressed in faded dungarees with a corncob pipe stem jutting out of the bib. He was not wearing a sidearm and, as far as I could tell, there were no lumps or bumps in the overalls that suggested a knife or hidden weapon. He was clean-shaven and shorthaired, with a benign open face that looked as if it had been moulded from wet clay by a none-too-skilful sculptor. He had a large cauliflower ear and his nose looked like it had been reshaped a time or two, but the eyes were dark and alive, and there was the hint of a smile on his fat lips. The expectations of a great pleasure yet to come? I wondered.
‘Who sent you?’ I asked quietly. ‘Is there an endless supply of folk around here who do not like me? I’m an OK fellow if you get to know me.’
‘No one sent me. I came because you hurt my friend, is all, and I figure to give you back some of the same.’
So, there it was, out in the open with no subterfuge. He was there to kick my ass and he, and I suspect the spectators, had little doubt that was what was going to happen. Seems I was the source of some unusual entertainment since my arrival in San Pedro. First there had been a gunman who wanted to shoot me dead, and now a hungry giant of a man who seemed intent on eating me. I looked around but there was no sign of Billy Bob Hunt, so I figured he had gone fishing again.
I am no fist-fighter; I am too slight by far and I rarely, if ever, put myself in a position where pure physical violence is the only possible outcome. I have no wish to have my nose broken or my teeth kicked out. Probably more to the point, given my profession, I could not afford to damage my hands – especially not my right hand. My face is already much too lived in, and my gun hand keeps me alive.
He turned to face me. ‘You are such a little man. I was told you was a big old boy.’
‘A little rattler can kill you as dead as a big one,’ I said. ‘Might take a little longer, but dead is dead and the snake couldn’t give a damn.’
‘I ain’t packing. You can’t shoot an unarmed man down, not even in this burg.’
‘Who says I can’t?’ I offered with what I hoped was a cold smile.
‘Feisty little bastard, ain’t you just? Best get running though, I’ll give you that chance. You run hard and fast an
d me and Jimmy will call it quits. How does that sound? That, or I’ll stomp the living daylights out of you.’
‘Never ran away from any man in my life, sir, and I do not intend to start today.’ Before the last word was out of my mouth, I was running straight at him and charging the cannon. He was as much surprised as the spectators. When I was a couple of feet from him I lashed out with my pointed boot, driving the toe hard and deep into his crotch. It must have hurt like hell. His eyes crossed and his knees banged together, and he let out one great moan and sank to the floor. I stepped closer, drew my Colt and smacked him across the temple. It took two taps to make him keel over, blood running down his deathly white face.
It was over. It would be a while before he could walk upright and longer before he would be inclined to sit a saddle. I holstered my piece and knelt beside him, nodding to the open-mouthed bartender. ‘Bring me a brandy, a large one.’
I took the glass from the man’s shaking hand and held it to the lips of the big man. ‘Drink this down, breath deep, think of something nice and hold those cojones tight, my friend, before they drop off. Get some ice on them as soon as possible. They will be sore for a while, but no permanent damage.’
He stared up at me and nodded. I ordered and gave him another brandy, and helped him to his feet and supported his immense weight to an empty table. ‘You got a friend here? I mean a real friend.’
He nodded and whispered a name.
I looked around the room and recognised the little man who had been in company with Jimmy Olds. I called him over. ‘Your name Willy Jones?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, Willy Jones, seems you don’t have too much luck with the company you keep. I suggest you get a buckboard and you take this big fellow back to whichever hell cave he came from, and tell whoever sent him that little rattlers bite hard.’
Where No Ravens Fly Page 4