by Jory Sherman
Lem rode behind the mule and whacked its rump until it jumped to the opposite bank.
“Corny the only one workin’?” Thatcher said, glaring at Krieger.
“We got us a tale to tell, Lem,” Krieger said.
Thatcher swung out of the saddle, the stub of a cigar between his teeth, a scowl chiseling his lean face.
“Well, I got a few tales to tell myself, Krieger. What’s goin’ on here? What’s wrong with your hand?”
“It’s a long story,” Krieger said as Ferguson dismounted and slipped the mule’s rope over the saddle.
Ferguson took off his hat, revealing a shock of blond hair. He wiped his forehead and the sweatband, then put his hat back on and led the mule to a small aspen and wrapped the rope around the tree, tied it off in a series of three knots.
“Playin’ grab-ass, Al?”
“Nope, me and them two, Pete and Harry, run into some trouble this morning.”
“Not much trouble you can get into when you’re pannin’ for gold, Krieger.”
“We went down past the rapids to do some pannin’,” Krieger said. “Thought it was unclaimed. Feller there drew down on us and sent lead a-flyin’. I got my rifle knocked out of my hand and the others caught slugs. The man was fast. Mighty fast.”
Thatcher looked at Pete and Harry, crunched down on his cigar, shifted it to the other side of his mouth. Ferguson untied the ropes on the canvas covering the pannier and let it all drop to the ground. He began stacking foodstuffs atop the tarp, taking in every word, but not looking at anyone.
“This feller have a name?” Thatcher said.
“I think his name was John something,” Harry said.
“Savage. It was John Savage,” Pete said.
Thatcher’s mouth opened and the cigar fell out. He caught it in his hand, but his mouth stayed open, widened as his jaw dropped another half inch.
Ferguson stopped unloading the pannier and turned around, his face drained of color, his eyes squinted to a pair of dark slits.
“Jesus,” Ferguson said.
Thatcher stuck the cigar stub back in his mouth, bit down on it.
“Have himself a pistol all shiny with silver inlays?”
“Yeah,” Krieger said. Pete and Harry both nodded, sheepish looks on their faces.
“You’re lucky, Al,” Thatcher said. “Me’n Fergie saw him put a man’s lights out so quick, we had to look twice to believe it.”
Krieger’s Adam’s apple bobbed against his throat as he swallowed hard.
Ferguson walked over, forsaking his chore of unloading the goods they had bought down in Denver.
“Al,” he said, “you’re one dumb sonofabitch.”
Thatcher’s mouth twisted in a wry smile.
“How come?” Krieger asked, blinking both eyes in bewilderment.
“You ever hear of Ollie Hobart?”
“I heard something about him, I reckon. Had a gang, was some kind of highwayman.”
“He wasn’t no highwayman, Al,” Thatcher said. “He was a claim jumper and he robbed some miners a couple of years back. Killed ’em all.”
“Except two,” Ferguson said. “He missed an old geezer named Ben Russell and a young’un named John Savage. Hobart kilt Savage’s ma and pa and his little sister. Ever hear about that?”
“No, I reckon not. I thought Hobart was dead.”
“He is dead,” Ferguson said. “And all of his bunch. Ever’ damned one of ’em kilt by John Savage and Ben Russell. Two men against a whole gang.”
“Christ,” Al breathed, his face pale as a winter sunrise.
“And we saw Savage down at Cherry Creek. He killed a man named Argus Blanchett in a fair fight. Fair for him, not Argus.”
Thatcher took in a deep breath, pulled the cigar from his mouth.
“I wondered where Savage’s claim was,” he said. “Now, I know, and it don’t make me feel real good.”
Krieger moved the muscles in his face, scrunching it up as he opened and closed his eyes.
“I don’t feel real good, neither,” he said.
“Corny,” Ferguson said, “you start totin’ them goods to the supply tent.” He walked back to the mule and started throwing airtights to the ground, dropping sacks of flour and beans in a heap.
“Cool down, Fergie,” Thatcher said.
“Damn Krieger, anyway. Now we got trouble ’cause of him.”
“And we’ve got a worthless claim on this stretch of creek,” Thatcher said. He spit out the wet wad that was left of his cigar, and turned to face Ferguson. “Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something that might work for us.”
“Like what?” Ferguson said.
“Like make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Thatcher said, an enigmatic smile on his face. “Maybe it’s time Savage’s clock run down.”
“Hobart probably thought the same thing a time or two,” Ferguson said. “And he had a dozen men or more.”
“Hobart might have had too many men. Made him careless. It would take only one man to kill Savage. One man against another.”
“Jesus,” Ferguson said again.
“That part of a prayer, Fergie,” Thatcher said, “or the start of a curse?”
6
WHEN JOHN SAT DOWN AT THE TABLE OPPOSITE EMMA, HE TOOK A good look at her. Sunlight streamed through the window and lit her face. He saw the dark blotches on her cheekbones, the faint smudges along the jawline, and one on her throat. Eva was rattling tin and porcelain in the small kitchen, and the Mexican was still standing in the doorway. Ben was scooting out his chair, and Emma seemed nervous and ill at ease.
“I’m so glad you brought my son back to me,” she said, looking directly into John’s eyes.
John cleared his throat and shifted his glance to Whit, who sat down on a polished stump that served as a makeshift chair. He sat in front of a small fireplace with a smoke-blackened hearth, half-burned logs in the fireplace, a mantel decorated with small mountain stones. The entire cabin reeked of poverty and hardship, but the smell of brewing tea and bread baking in the oven spoke of warmth and friendship, of a family making do on next to nothing.
Eva walked up to the table carrying a small tin tray laden with cups and a chipped porcelain teapot. She set the cups and teapot down and sat in a nearby chair.
“Aren’t you having tea, Eva?” her mother said.
“No’m. I’ll just sit.”
Emma poured tea into the cups and smiled wanly at John, as if trying to express her gratitude at his returning her son to her.
“I just can’t thank you enough, sir,” she said, filling her cup last. “Eva and I were so worried. All night. I couldn’t sleep and Eva was crying. We just didn’t know what to do and we didn’t know what had happened to Whit.”
John blew on the steaming tea and took a sip, set his cup down on the pine table.
“Ma’am, I’m afraid I didn’t bring Whit back up here just out of the kindness of my heart.”
Ben stiffened as he sipped his hot tea.
“Oh?”
“No, ma’am. After Ben and I talked to him, and found out where he lived, I was plumb curious.”
“Curious? About what?”
“About who was living on my land,” he said, and waited for the shock to take effect on Emmalene Blanchett.
She took it better than he would have thought. She was momentarily speechless, but recovered quickly.
“Just what do you mean, sir?”
“Well, Ben and I filed homestead papers on three hundred and twenty acres here and have plans to raise cattle up here. You built right on one corner of my land.”
“Why, that’s just not possible. My husband . . .”
“Do you have papers?” John asked. “Maybe he got his survey figures mixed up.”
“Pa didn’t file no papers before we come here,” Whit said. “He’s down in Denver taking care of that. He should be back up here any day.”
“That’s right,” Emma said.
“He surveyed the land up here? Didn’t he see our stakes?”
Emma shook her head. “I—I don’t know.” She looked over at Manolo Pacheco, who shrugged and rolled his eyes back in their sockets.
“Look, ma’am,” John said.
“Will you please call me Emma? And how may I address you and your friend?”
“I’m John Savage and this is Ben Russell.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” she said, a timid squeak in her tone.
“Ma’am, I’m not going to boot you and your family off my land. I just want you to know that I own it. There’s plenty of land right around us and I can help you to homestead it. We could be neighbors, if you like.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to Argus about it when he gets back. I’m sure he can straighten all this out to your satisfaction. John.”
John took another sip of tea, looked down at the table. He knew Ben was staring at him, wondering how he was going to squirm out of the deep hole he was digging for himself.
He heard Ben clear his throat, and knew it was forced.
Eva walked to the table and stood behind her mother, looking at John Savage. He looked up at her and their eyes met. He felt something melt inside him, some liquid filling his heart, searing it with a lava heat. He felt his stomach twist up and try to tie itself in a knot. He looked back down at Emma, looked into her eyes. They were innocent of all knowledge, but Eva suspected something. When she had heard her father’s name, she had come to stand behind her mother immediately. As if to protect her.
“Ma’am, is your husband Argus Blanchett?”
“Why, yes, that’s his full name. Do you know him?”
Ben scooted his chair back an inch or so from the table. The scraping sound filled the silent room.
“No, ma’am, I don’t know him. Didn’t, I mean.”
“Didn’t?”
John steeled himself to tell her the truth about her husband. At the same time, he looked over at Whit and turned his head to mark where Pacheco was standing. He had to know where everyone was in case the boy and the Mexican tried to jump him.
“Your husband, ma’am, is buried down in Cherry Creek. He’s not coming back. I’m sorry.”
There was a deeper silence in the room now. A stunned silence. And, as John glanced at all those present, they seemed frozen in time, frozen like figures in a museum.
Emma did not cry. He had expected her to break down and begin wailing like a grieving wife.
Instead, Eva put both hands on her mother’s shoulders and squeezed her gently. John looked up at Eva and saw that her face was immobile, without expression, her soft blue eyes slightly dulled, either from shadow or from a terrible grief. And then, as he looked at her, her eyes widened and they glistened like blue sapphires, as if they were smiling while her face remained rigid.
“Argus . . . dead?” Emma said.
“Yes’m, I’m afraid so,” John said.
“How did he die?” she said tightly.
Ben squirmed in his seat. His right hand dropped to the butt of his pistol, as if it was an old habit of his.
“He was shot,” John said, his voice pitched low, soft and smooth as flowing honey.
“Shot? Who shot him?”
“I did, ma’am,” John said. “I shot him.”
“You killed my . . . you killed Argus?”
Disbelief crawled across Emma’s face. The muscles in her cheekbones twitched involuntarily. Her lips and chin quivered as if she had been struck a hard blow across her face.
“It was self-defense,” Ben blurted out. “Argus pulled a gun on John.”
Everyone in the room looked at Ben. Emma’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“I swear,” Ben said, but he kept his hand on the butt of his pistol.
“Is that true, Mr. Savage?” Emma said, shifting her attention back to John.
“Yes’m, your husband did draw down on me.”
“Why?”
“Ma’am, I don’t think you want to know all of it right now. Maybe later when you’ve cried out your grief and accepted your husband’s death.”
Emma stiffened in her chair. She sat up, her back straight, her blue eyes clear, her jaw firmly set.
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw Pacheco cross himself with quick movements of his right hand. His lips moved as he invoked the names of the Trinity in Spanish. There would be no threat from there, he thought.
He glanced over at Whit, wondering if the boy would jump off the stump and rush him, blinded by fury over the death of his father. Whit had a quizzical look on his face, an almost rapturous look, and the faintest trace of a little crooked smile. Or was John just imagining that the boy was starting to smile, that he was not mad or suffering from grief?
Whit just sat there, stunned, and then he closed his eyes and John thought he was going to cry. When the young man opened his eyes again, they were dry and clear, and he looked at John as though the man who had killed his father was to be praised, or worshipped.
“I do want to know,” Emma said, and touched a finger to one of the bruises on her face. “I want to know what Argus was doing that you had to shoot him.”
“Ma’am . . .” John said, shaking his head.
“Go on, Johnny,” Ben said. “Tell her the whole thing. You got nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
“Is that true, Mr. Savage?” Emma said. “You’re not ashamed that you killed my husband?”
John let her words wash through him and soak into him. Ashamed was the wrong word, he thought. There was nothing to be ashamed of in the killing of Argus Blanchett. The man was an animal, a vicious, cruel, lustful sonofabitch. But he couldn’t tell his widow that, especially not in front of her children, who must be filled with hatred toward their father’s killer.
“I’m not ashamed, exactly,” John said. “The man brought it on himself. I didn’t like killing him. I don’t like killing anyone. But he was going to kill me, and if I hadn’t called him out . . .”
“You called him out?” Emma leaned forward over the table. Her daughter’s hands slipped from her shoulders.
“Ma’am, he was trying to put the boots to a young girl. A girl he was beating with his fists until her face was a bloody pulp.”
He saw Eva shudder and Emma stiffened again, sat straight and rigid as if she had received a shock of electricity up her spine.
The room went dead silent again. The silence was as thick as a feather quilt, heavy, stifling, breathless.
“What do you mean, ‘trying to put the boots to her’? Was he trying to kill her?”
“No ma’am. He was . . .”
John couldn’t say it. He looked at Ben and let out a long breath.
“What he’s tryin’ to say, ma’am,” Ben said, “was that this Argus feller, ah, I mean your husband, had torn off all the girl’s clothes and stripped his own trousers off. He was on top of that young girl and trying to deflower her. It was downright brutal, ma’am.”
Emma gasped and leaned backward in her chair as if a strong wind had gusted inside the room and pinned her to the back of her chair. Eva’s eyes closed tightly like a pair of tiny fists, and she brought her hands up to her mouth as if to stifle a scream.
Whit stood up, his eyes wild, rolling in all directions like steel balls that had been magnetized.
“You mean he was trying to rape her,” he said, and then clenched his fists and began to shake all over.
John didn’t answer him, although Whit was looking straight at him.
“He was dang sure rapin’ that pretty young gal,” Ben said. “Nobody stopped him ’ceptin’ John here, who told Argus to back off. Argus grabbed up his pistol and aimed it straight at John. He got the hammer pulled back. John drew his own pistol real fast and put . . . well, he shot Argus and he fell back dead as a stone. Sorry, ma’am, but that’s the way it was. John helped the gal up and took off his shirt, give it to her, and got her out of there, back to her wagon.”
“Is that what happened, Mr.
Savage?” Emma asked, her voice calm, level, and without rancor.
“I reckon. Ben saw it. I was in the middle of it.”
“Have you killed many men in your life?”
“Yes. I have.”
“Are you a gunman, then, Mr. Savage?”
“I don’t call myself a gunman. No, ma’am.”
“You sound like one. You look like one.”
“I’m really sorry, ma’am. If there was any other way to . . .”
“Don’t apologize,” she said. “You did what you had to do. I—I guess there’s nothing left for me. I’m on your property and as soon as we can, we’ll go down to Denver and try to make a life for ourselves.”
“Ma, no,” Eva said. “I don’t want to leave here. He said we could stay, didn’t you, mister?”
John looked at Eva. She was a beautiful young woman and there was a pleading in her blue eyes. He felt the tug of her, the urgency in her voice.
“Yes, I did. You all can stay here. Maybe you can help Ben and me and we can put money in your purse.” There was a silence again, and this time it was laden with palpable tension. John could feel it. He thought he knew what Emma was thinking. How could she work for a man who had killed her husband?
How could she even look at him without thinking of what he had done?
His pistol felt heavy on his belt just then. It felt as if it was made of pure lead and something was pushing it against his leg until his skin caught fire.
7
JOHN WAS NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. EVA walked over to him and leaned down, kissed him on the cheek. He felt that small strip of flesh on his face turn hot and spread wide in a blushing stain. He touched the spot and looked up at her.
“That was to show my gratitude,” Eva said.
Her mother’s eyes widened in shock and she frowned in disapproval.
“Eva, where are your manners? Your respect for your father?”