Cemetery Jones 5

by William R. Cox

  The kid watched, fascinated. Finally, when Wyatt took the cigar from his mouth, the kid spoke again. He seemed to have exhausted his English. He spoke in a mixture of Spanish and Apache; Sam picked up some of it, and translated for Wyatt:

  “Says his name’s Massé. Chiricahua. Says Pacheco sent him to tell us Victorio knows about the guns he brought to his people. Says Victorio’s demanding they give him the guns before the next moon. Or Victorio’ll take ’em ... Also, the old man rancher with the dirty hair face—must be Old Man Clanton—aims to kill all of his people. Says they’ve seen the faces of his scouts and Pacheco killed one of ’em.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Wyatt. “Boy’s got a lot of courage. I wish to hell I could help them out. I owe Pacheco. But right now you can see I can’t leave Tombstone with what’s shaping up.”

  Sam nodded. “Sure. But sounds like Pacheco’s got himself a passel o’ trouble right now. If you and the boys can get along without me for a while ...”

  “Reckon we can do that. We did before. But don’t you go up there alone, Sam. We’d never find enough of you to bury.” Then Wyatt squinted; it was clear he’d been struck by the edge of a new thought. “Tell you what, though. What with the pinch Luke’s got himself into over the Charlie Storms shooting, it might cool things down here some if we made it look like you and Luke were leaving town. Won’t cool Old Man Clanton down any, but it might make some of the others find better things to do. Cut down the odds against us some.”

  “Well, if it’s a help to you, I’d sure enjoy to have Luke along.” Sam turned to the Indian lad. “You meet me right here tomorrow morning, one hour after the sun rises. Comprende?”

  The boy glowed, and disappeared instantly into the darkness.

  Wyatt touched Sam’s arm. “See you in the morning, old friend.” Then he, too, was gone, the rich scent of his cigar smoke floating back on the evening breeze.

  Sam thought about going up the stairway. He imagined the door between their rooms standing open. Renee was waiting.

  But that would have to wait a bit. He headed out along the street to find Luke Short.

  Seven

  Old Man Clanton sat on his porch in the moonlight and watched John Ringo face-off a rattlesnake.

  Ringo had a throwing knife upraised. He circled the coiled snake, just out of striking range.

  The snake’s rattles made a steady whirring sound in the night as it swayed its head back and forth, seeking its chance to strike.

  The old man watched silently, thinking, Any sensible man’d just shoot the damn snake and be done with it.

  But not Ringo. Ringo had nerve, but no nerves.

  Always trying to prove something.

  From inside the house came the boys’ voices—Phin, Ike, and Billy. Grown men but playing a little-kid card game. Somebody shouted something about cheating. The old man made a face.

  Ringo feinted with his throwing arm. The snake reared back. For that moment of uncertainty its head hung steady in the air. In a flash Ringo took one long stride forward into the danger zone and flicked the knife.

  The old man saw the snake fall back. It wriggled in spasm and then lay inert. The light wasn’t clear, but he knew the knife must have decapitated it.

  “Hell,” the old man growled, “s’pose you’d missed? You’d be pullin’ his fangs out of your leg now.”

  “That’s why I didn’t miss,” Ringo said. “Trouble with you, old man, you lost your sense o’ fun.”

  “I never seen fun in takin’ risks for no cause.”

  “See? That’s what I mean,” Ringo said. He peered down into the darkness where the snake had flopped back under a greasewood clump. After a moment he found his knife and picked it up. The old man saw him wipe it on his pants and slide it back into the sheath inside his left sleeve.

  Ringo said, “Pretty good, aren’t I, old man?”

  The old man snorted. “I’ve seen roadrunners do as good.”

  “If it’s that easy, I’d like to see you give it a try yourself.”

  “When I was young and foolish I might’ve.”

  You didn’t give orders to Johnny Ringo. You had to approach him just right to get him to do what you wanted. The trick, the old man thought, was to know how to do that. It decided who was boss.

  The old man said, “Cemetery Jones is in Tombstone.”

  “Is he now?” Ringo stood bolt still and watched him.

  “Say he’s fast.”

  “I’ve heard that,” Ringo said in a dangerous voice.

  “Say he’s the fastest.”

  “He’s not.” Ringo’s lip curled.

  “Some of the boys been bettin’ on who’d be faster—Cemetery Jones or John Ringo.”

  Ringo stood below the porch and brooded up at him. He was an average-size man with an ordinary kind of round face and a receding hairline; he didn’t look prepossessing until you looked close into his eyes. A killer’s ice-cold eyes.

  The old man sank his own knife then: “Know who’s the favorite? They puttin’ heavy odds on Cemetery Jones to put you in the ground with your boots on.”

  Ringo’s face went even darker. He didn’t say anything. He walked away toward the bunkhouse.

  The plunging resentfulness of his stride indicated the old man’s words had hit home. Ringo wouldn’t rest now until he killed Cemetery Jones.

  The old man leaned back against the wall. As his eyelids drooped and he began to doze, his lips behind the beard and mustache settled back in a knowing smile.

  It seemed to Sam Jones that the entire group of beleaguered lawmen and friends gathered at the sumptuous post dawn breakfast at the Cosmopolitan. As if there were something to celebrate. All three Earp brothers were there; from a distance they might have been mistaken for identical triplets, were it not for the fact that Virgil was thirty or forty pounds heavier than the other two, and Morgan—the youngest—was still a bit baby faced.

  With them, discussing strategy, sat Bat Masterson; even Doc Holliday sat at the table, sullen and hung over. Only Luke Short was absent.

  They attended Renee with undisguised admiration and she bloomed under their attentions.

  Like Bat, Sam stayed well upwind of Doc; he held himself reserved from most of the palaver, smugly content and proud that these men, all but one of whom had more than earned his respect, were so obviously impressed with his lady.

  It was Morgan Earp’s stated opinion that in order to defuse the white-hot situation, they ought to arrest every cowboy who rode into town, and disarm the intruders one at a time.

  In his steady, deep voice, Virgil said equitably, “Good thought there, Morg, but we’ve got no authority to do anything of the kind.”

  “Not sure about that,” Wyatt contradicted. “Suppose the mayor and council passed a city ordinance against carrying firearms inside the town limits?”

  Virg, normally the quietest of the four, said dryly, “You try that in this town, you’ll have a full-size revolution on your hands.”

  Bat Masterson agreed. “These boys’re used to carrying their sidearms. Feel undressed without ’em.”

  Sam knew Bat was right, although Bat himself was a good example of the kind of progress that ought to be overtaking the west by now; Bat rarely carried a gun.

  He had been known to use them. With a borrowed rifle, Bat had been one of the handful of storied frontiersmen who had held off the massive Indian assault at Adobe Walls by shooting down nobody knew how many attackers; the bodies had been stacked up belly-deep on a buffalo before it was done. But given a choice, Bat preferred to go about unarmed. He said it was the best way to stay alive and he expected even the most hard-bitten villains would think twice before throwing down on a man who wasn’t carrying his own iron.

  As sheriff, Bat had kept the peace in Dodge City while rarely ever carrying a gun when he ventured into the streets. He was a devotee of prizefighting and, in his own circles, a noted amateur pugilist—and had the stocky musculature to accompany the skill. Sam hadn’t heard o
f any varmint who’d ever out-boxed Bat Masterson.

  For a while Bat had taken to carrying a heavy-headed walking stick, which he had used to good effect in buffaloing drunks and miscreants over the head before dragging their half-conscious forms off to the Ford County hoosegow. His preference for the stick over the gun had earned the nickname “Bat” for the young James Barclay Masterson.

  It was possible, Sam thought, that Bat was far and away the bravest of all these brave men. None of the others would likely have the nerve to travel the night streets of a hard town unarmed, while surrounded by evildoers and sworn enemies.

  Today, though, he noticed Bat was carrying a revolver in his belt. It was a sign of the explosive volatility of these times in Tombstone.

  With the fine early meal under their belt they went outside. It was time for Sam’s appointment with the juvenile Apache guide; sure enough, he saw the kid two blocks away, riding forward double on the back of Luke Short’s horse. They led two animals—a loaded pack mule and a riderless saddle horse—by the reins.

  Doc Holliday said, “Maybe I’ll ride along for the fun.”

  Sam thought fast. He needed to deflect that. He didn’t want Doc along.

  Wyatt came to his rescue: “Doc, I’d be obliged if you’d hang around the Oriental. We need you for a beacon to draw the moths.”

  “Well, if you need me.”

  “I’d rather see Luke go, what with the feelings that’ve been stirred up by the Charlie Storms shooting. This way it looks as if Sam and Luke are leaving town.”

  Luke and the boy rode up. There were greetings and farewells. Then the group walked away from Sam and Renee, up street toward Nellie Cashman’s. The three Earp brothers walked abreast, filling the width of the boardwalk—daring their enemies. Behind them Doc and Bat walked side by side, each doing his best to ignore the other. Doc’s glance kept flashing toward rooftops and alleys, as if daring his enemies to take a shot at him.

  Sam turned Renee in the circle of his arm. There was a silent moment between them, glances locked. No need for words. He kissed her there, in broad daylight, and when Luke Short handed him the reins he swung aboard the horse with easy grace. As they trotted away he didn’t need to look back to know she was following him with love in her eyes.

  They rode out by way of Willow Springs.

  Luke said, “Got everything I could on that packsaddle. Spent more’n a few dollars on rifles and amm’nition, and I reckon it’s a good thing nobody asked if I was runnin’ guns to the Indians.” Luke always had an easy laugh. “Brought some grub, too—corn flour mostly, hardtack, and jerky—things I expect the Apaches can use. I hear it’s barren country up there.”

  “Not much but rocks,” Sam agreed. “Some of ’em bigger’n houses.”

  Massé, the young warrior-to-be, rode astraddle the cantle of Luke’s saddle. It seemed the boy had traversed the entire distance from the stronghold in the Dragoons on foot—partly because it made him less visible, but also because the only mounts available to the Apache group were the ones Pacheco had brought with him. Those horses were too precious if anything should have interfered with Massé’s journey.

  It reminded Sam how an Apache could cover ground on foot. Generally they could make better distance than a white man could on horseback, and they could do it faster. Unlike the fleet-riding Indians of the Plains, the desert Apache relied on his feet and his legs. He had no particular reverence for horses. Give a Chiricahua a horse and he’d be happy enough to have it—he’d ride it a hundred miles inside twenty-four hours, ride it another fifty miles before the next dawn, and then, having worn it out completely, he’d kill it and eat it, and walk away.

  There’d been times, combing the morning’s kinks out of a high-spirited saddle horse, when Sam thought the Apaches had the right idea. Horses were useful enough, but they could be mean as vipers and stupid as sticks: What other animal would let a man ride it to death?

  Still, he’d been around the beasts all his life and he had to confess an affection for them. Stupid they might be, sometimes, but they could be trained—and there was no more loyal companion to a westerner than a good horse.

  The only sounds in the high desert air were the clicking of harness, squeak of saddle leather, clip-clop of shod hoofs, and an occasional blowing of the horses as Sam and Luke urged them steadily onward toward the Dragoons without stopping except to allow the horses to drink and rest. Whenever they stopped, the Apache turned his head slowly in a half circle to listen for untoward sounds in the hill-country air, exposing the flats of his eardrums to every direction.

  This piece of southeastern Arizona Territory held few surprises for Sam. In time they came through the Burros Range and climbed into the Mule Mountains, reputedly so named after army mules that had escaped and joined wild horses left by the Spaniards when they’d explored this area before the Yankees.

  Not too many years ago Sam had drifted into this part of the world prospecting as a very young man. It was then he had made the acquaintance of the Chiricahuas and their leader Cochise.

  Behind him Luke grunted a soft warning. Sam reined to a halt and looked back. The Indian youngster jumped off the back of Luke’s horse. The kid was plainly agitated; something had alerted him. He motioned the two men to silence and ran afoot up the side of the steep scrubby ridge, fleet as a deer.

  Massé must have detected something: a sound, or a shadow, or perhaps a scent of danger ...

  The two men dismounted to stretch their saddle-weary legs.

  There was no need for words between the two old friends as they checked their revolvers and withdrew their rifles from the saddle scabbards. They held the animals’ reins firmly in case they should spook.

  Luke took out one of his elegant slim cheroots and peeled his lips back, showing his teeth as he jammed the miniature see-gar in his mouth; but there was no question of his lighting it up. The telltale smell of burning tobacco could carry miles on the high clear breezes of the mountains.

  The Indian youth came scrambling back down, motioning rapidly to maintain silence. In the corner of his eye Sam saw Luke drop the cheroot back into his pocket, knowing the boy’s signals meant there were unfriendly forces nearby.

  The boy’s hands moved swiftly. Sign language, Sam realized. He looked at Luke, who shrugged and shook his head. Neither of them could read the boy’s hand signals. With a quick patient smile the boy knelt, found a tiny stick, and made swift drawings in the earth.

  Sam hunkered down for a look. The kid’s swift hand drew a number of primitive horses, each with a rider; the last horse was trailed by something that looked like a long-pole Indian travois with a man propped on it—a man with several spikes protruding from his face.

  A beard, Sam realized. A bushy beard.

  He understood, and looked up and saw that Luke understood, too.

  A bearded man—and at least a dozen riders with him. Headed northeast.

  Luke patted the boy’s arm, nodding approval and thanks. Sam scuffed the earth with his boot sole to eradicate the signs the boy had drawn.

  They mounted up and rode toward the head of the canyon, not hurrying, not wanting to make noise.

  Old Man Clanton was displeased, to put it mildly, to find himself immobilized. He roared and fumed at the hip that was swelling rapidly and causing him a great deal of pain. “Phin!” he bellowed. “Git over here!”

  His son reined back to ride beside the makeshift travois.

  Phin said, “I am thinkin’ of shootin’ this damn animal. Hardest gait of any horse I ever done rode.”

  “You could’ve asked how I’m doin’. And the answer’d be, I’m doin’ terrible. This ain’t no good,” Old Man Clanton said. “I gotta git back to the ranch and let them blacks see to me.”

  “Hell, Pa, you want to spoil all the fun.”

  “You’re listenin’ too fast, as usual. I ain’t callin’ it off. You boys go ahead and have your fun. Have some for me, too. Send Stillwell back here, he can take me home. He’s worthless a
nyway. I never could figure why Behan made him a deputy—Stillwell was no help at all when Holliday buffaloed Billy about that horse.” He groaned with pain.

  He wasn’t happy about this turn of events, since he considered hunting unarmed Indians great sport, but the bum hip was just too agonizing today. “Where’re your goddamn brothers, anyways?”

  “Ike said they was gittin’ set to ride to Tombstone, Pa. Fixin’ to raise a little hell.”

  “Raise some yourself, then. You take the rest of these boys on up there and whomp ’em, hear? Bring me back some more ’Pache scalps to hang on my rafters.”

  Phin grinned. “Sure enough, Pa.”

  On top of the rise there was a stand of scrub oak, tall enough to conceal the horses. The Indian boy gathered the three sets of reins and held the animals in cover there, while Sam and Luke moved out across the hillside to crest the ridge.

  Below, they saw the procession of riders. The boy’s primitive stick drawing had been remarkably accurate.

  The bearded man on the travois was old. Sam turned inquiringly to Luke Short and mouthed the word “Clanton?”

  Luke nodded assent.

  No point speculating what was wrong with the old man that he had to be dragged on a litter. More importantly, there was a small army down there—headed in the same direction Sam and Luke were going.

  The old man’s horse was taken in tow by a single rider who led it back the way they had come. The rest of the men rode on ahead. Sam and Luke watched them for a moment. The old man on the litter thrashed angrily back and forth, clearly in pain. Once or twice his bellowing roars carried far, even against the wind.

  The two pulled back from the ridge and returned to their horses. In a low voice Luke said, “What do you make of it?”

  “Not sure. Looks like the old man’s goin’ home. The rest of ’em—maybe a cattle-stealin’ expedition, maybe a raid on Massé’s people.”