by A. T. Butler
Silent Night
A Western Adventure
A.T. Butler
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Free Jacob Payne Story
Also by A.T. Butler
About the Author
Chapter One
Jacob Payne, bounty hunter, pulled up the collar on his coat and smiled to himself. He had been waiting for this for months. Temperatures closer to thirty than to eighty was what December was supposed to feel like. Here in Tucson there wouldn’t be too many weeks of weather this cold, not like back in Virginia, but he would enjoy it while he had the chance.
Jacob hurried down the busy dirt street through town, reveling in the piercing cold even in the middle of a sunny day. He wanted to be early for meeting Bonnie Loft as she finished her shift at the San Xavier Cafe; he reminded himself he had plenty of time to enjoy the cold weather. It should hang around for at least another couple months. He hoped. What was Christmas without a coat at the very least?
Even from a distance Jacob could tell that the cafe was crowded—strange for the middle of the afternoon. As he opened the door and crossed the threshold, though, he understood why. Coming inside from the cold, in from the outdoors, the San Xavier Cafe was a welcoming haven. Whatever Mrs. Everill had been cooking all morning had made the entire place smell of cinnamon and cloves with an undercurrent of butter. Jacob took a good, deep whiff of the spiced air as he looked around.
There wasn’t an empty table in the place. Everywhere he looked, Jacob saw his friends and neighbors talking and laughing over their meals. Men that Jacob knew should be out tending to stock or repairing a roof lounged at a cafe table clutching a mug of coffee. Women that Jacob recognized as busy wives and mothers leaned their heads close together, whispering and laughing at whatever gossip they shared.
Tucson was booming. They had just gotten their first newspaper a few months prior, and word had it that Phoenix (over a hundred miles north) would soon be an incorporated city as well. The Territory of Arizona was filling up, and though Jacob had come west to give himself a fresh start away from people, he had to admit that finding himself in a place surrounded by friends and neighbors, by people he cared about, was a welcome surprise.
Mickey, the bartender, waved Jacob over from where he stood in the doorway to the cafe.
Shrugging off his coat, Jacob made his way over. He found a lone barstool in between two pairs of men, and leaned forward to be heard over the din of the room.
“What’s all this, Mick?” Jacob asked. “You all giving away some free pie or something?”
“Ach, no. The few days before Christmas have been our busiest the last few years. Mrs. Everill claims it’s a combination of the cold outside and folks not wanting to work if they don’t have to and the general feelings of community and generosity as the holiday approaches. I’ve seen men get into fistfights after arguing about who was going to pay for that next round of drinks.” He shook his head as Jacob laughed.
“Well, I promise not to fight anyone who wants to buy me a drink.”
Micky waved him off. “You don’t worry me, Payne. I know you’re not staying.” He pulled out his pocket watch to verify the time. “Bonnie should be out here any second and then you’ll whisk her away, won’t you?”
“If she wants to be whisked away I am happy to be the man to do that job,” Jacob averred.
Mickey chuckled as he turned to give another patron his attention.
Jacob turned around and leaned with his back to the bar. From this spot he could watch the happenings in the cafe. Though he wasn’t currently hunting down an outlaw, and didn’t have any intentions to take a new job until January, he couldn’t very well turn off his instincts. Jacob surveyed the room carefully, looking for suspicious behavior, for men who were trying to hide something or strangers that seemed out of place. This was what he was best at, after all. Watching. Listening. Observing. And homing in on the outlaw that was trying to evade capture.
Bonnie Loft shyly stepped into his line of view. Jacob smiled widely at her and quickly hopped down off the barstool.
“Miss Loft,” he said, unnaturally formal and bowing slightly.
“Mr. Payne,” she replied.
“May I escort you out of the cafe?” He offered his arm as he over-enunciated each of the words, figuring if he was going to play into the formal nature of their meeting he might as well go all the way.
It worked. She laughed and took his arm in response. He led her out of the San Xavier Cafe, not even bothering to say good-bye to Mickey.
The couple didn’t speak again until they had exited the crowded building and were back in the cold, relative quiet of the street.
“You sure you don’t mind doing a little shopping with me, Jacob?”
Bonnie huddled close to him against the cold and Jacob stood up a little straighter, proud to be the one to provide that protection for her.
“I can’t think of a single thing I would mind doing with you,” he promised her.
“I’d like to send some gifts back home to my family.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
She shrugged, looking into the big front window of the hardware store they passed. “Family is family. I honestly don’t know if I will ever see them again, so this is just a little way I can make sure they know I’m thinking about them.”
Jacob was silent, thinking about his own family back in Virginia. He had sent them one telegram when he had arrived in Tucson almost a year ago, just so they would know he was alive, and know where to find him if they absolutely had to. But beyond that he hadn’t had any desire to contact them again. After losing his wife and son, Jacob was more inclined to feel like he had no family at all, rather than thinking of his brothers as family.
“This is your first Christmas since leaving Virginia, isn’t it?” Bonnie continued.
“Yeah, it is. But …” He faltered, embarrassed for the first time by his distance from his family.
“Well,” Bonnie said, picking up the thread and saving him from having to defend himself, “this year you can come with me to the Nativity play at my church.”
“That might be nice,” he agreed. “It’s the night before Christmas?”
“Yes, but I promised to help with the costumes. Somehow in the next few days I need to put together outfits for the shepherds and Mary and Joseph and all.” She laughed at the thought. “You’ll be in town, won’t you?”
“I will. I already told the marshal. I’m not planning on taking any new jobs until at least the new year. I have plenty of things to take care of around home and I don’t need to be leaving the warm home fire at the holidays.”
“The warm home fire of your boarding house?” she teased.
“Oh, well.” He grinned. “It’s an expression. I’ll have a warm home fire sometime.”
She smiled up at him and seemed about to say something further before turning her attention to the store on their right.
“Here we are,” she announced. “Can we go in there?”
In answer, Jacob opened the door for her, ushering Bonnie into the warm interior of the Tucson General Store.
This town was growing and they were getting more and more specialized shops, but the general store, run by the Towers family for the last six years, would always be a pillar. As they entered, Jacob noticed the store was almost as crowded as San Xavier Cafe had been, mostly women
with arms and baskets full of all the supplies they would need for a festive family holiday in the next few days.
“Are you here for anything specific?” he asked, looking around.
Bonnie shook her head. “I have some ideas, but it’s more that I’ll know it when I see it.”
Jacob nodded. “You lead the way, then. Consider me your packhorse. I am at your disposal.”
Bonnie beamed at him and tugged his arm gently, leading him down a crowded aisle between shelves of cooking utensils and barrels of dry food stuffs. Though Jacob felt completely out of his element, he enjoyed his busy afternoon of shopping with Bonnie. After a thorough search, she settled on a bolt of calico fabric for her parents, along with other small things for herself and her fellow lodgers. Simple though it may be, she thought that whatever her mother made with the calico would remind them of their daughter. She worried about the cost to ship it all the way back to the east coast, but reconciled herself with the fact that she would not be going herself. She needed to send them something.
“I’m only partway through writing my letter to them,” she told Jacob, as Mrs. Towers packaged up her purchases. “I want to tell them everything, and give them a lovely thick envelope to pour over.”
“That’s thoughtful.”
“You don’t think your family would like the same thing?”
Jacob thought briefly before shaking his head. He couldn’t remember his brother ever reading anything other than the Bible and his account ledgers. A letter would just confound him; he would find it wasteful.
“That’s not the kind of family we are,” he said simply. The bounty hunter gathered up Bonnie’s packages in both arms. “You’ll have to lead the way.” He indicated the door to the store with a nod of his head. It was far too crowded inside for them to walk side by side. “I’ll walk you home.”
She smiled at him again, her warm and grateful smile, and led him to the street.
Chapter Two
Walking through the door of the Golden Saddle Saloon later that night, Jacob again reflected on what his life might be like with Bonnie a bigger part of it. He had been thinking about her as a partner, as his home, for the better part of a month and was beginning to feel like the time had come. It weighed constantly on him how much more would he prefer to be home with her, by his home fire, rather than coming out to the saloon for a drink and socialization.
Because, as always, this place came with a price. Sure, Jacob easily found Edwin Hogg, Lucky and Abe, but he also noticed the bounty hunter Clifford Pierce trying to get his attention from the other side of the room. Jacob and Clifford had played a memorable game of poker just the last week, all as a ploy to capture the outlaw Billy Watts. As part of that game, Watts had shot Pierce and Jacob had to hunt down the kid on his own.
In the days since, Clifford Pierce seemed to vacillate between being grateful to Jacob for the assistance and being resentful of how much he owed him. Apparently, this evening Pierce was feeling some kind of holiday spirit. Not long after Jacob walked through the door, Pierce seemed determined to get his attention and draw him over.
Jacob waved to acknowledge him, but something else caught his attention.
The Golden Saddle Saloon wasn’t quite as crowded as San Xavier Cafe had been earlier in the day, but it seemed apparent that plenty of men were taking advantage of the one warm place they could gather at this time of night. Tucson was a big enough town by now to have plenty of men coming and going on their way through other places in the territory. Jacob was used to seeing strangers.
He was not, however, used to those same strangers watching him.
Jacob couldn’t say what it was that caught his attention; maybe it was simply the unsettling calm emanating from that chair across from Pierce where the man sat quietly smoking. This stranger had long, straggly hair, so oily it appeared darker than it probably was. He also caught Jacob’s eye and gave him a smile that seemed more menacing than friendly.
Pierce waved Jacob over, and the quiet, dirty man just watched. By this time of night, so many of the men in the saloon were deep into their third drink. The quiet ones tended to stick out a bit more.
As he stood near the bar, he tried to keep the man visible in his periphery while not letting him know he was being watched. His maneuver didn’t last long, however. Clifford Pierce had evidently gotten tired of trying to get Jacob’s attention and simply came to meet him at the bar.
“Payne,” he said, grabbing the bounty hunter’s arm. “You seem like you’re a million miles away. Didn’t you hear me calling for you? Maybe you just need a drink.”
Pierce signaled for the bartender, and Jacob noticed how slowly and stiffly he was moving. Being shot in the gut will do that to a man, he supposed. Pierce seemed to struggle to raise a hand above his shoulder, grimacing as he tried.
“I’m fine, Cliff,” Jacob said, putting his own hand up. “I’ll get one.”
“You get your drink then you come over to my table.” He indicated over his shoulder. “I got a story to tell you.”
Jacob raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Yep,” Pierce said. “Saw the marshal this afternoon. You’ll never guess who’s sitting in jail right now.”
“All right,” Jacob said. Though he wasn’t particularly fond of Clifford Pierce, he was never one to say no to a story, especially one that might inadvertently provide him with a clue he needed for a future case. U.S. Marshal Owen Santos had never been careless with his words. Jacob wanted to know what Pierce knew.
Plus that mystery man seemed to raise more questions in Jacob than answers. Maybe he could satisfy his curiosity by joining their table.
Jacob watched Pierce make his way back to the table, where two other men sat waiting for him: the stranger and one of Tucson’s deputies. The other bounty hunter took an empty chair from the table next to him; from this distance it seemed as though he got into some altercation with the men there, but Jacob couldn’t hear anything.
Instead, he turned his attention to Pete Pendleton, the bartender who had just found a moment in between serving the other patrons to wait on Jacob.
“Beer, Payne?” he asked.
Jacob nodded. “Make it two. Save me a trip back up here.”
Pete laughed. “Glad to hear you’ll be staying a while. I’ll get those right away for you.”
A couple minutes later, with a glass in each hand, Jacob followed the same path he had watched Pierce take to the small table near the front of the saloon. The quiet smoking man that had caught Jacob’s eye earlier continued to watch him, though Jacob didn’t meet his eye.
“Payne,” Pierce exclaimed when he saw him. “It’s about time. Come. Sit.”
Nodding to the other two men, he sat at Pierce’s left side. “How’s that hole in your torso, Pierce?”
The other bounty hunter frowned briefly before waving off the question. “Fine fine. It’ll heal. Don’t you worry about me. Give me another couple weeks and I’ll again be riding the trail right alongside you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You know Deputy Little, don’t you? What about Andrew Coleman? He ain’t been in Tucson long.” Pierce gestured to the other two men who tipped their hats.
Jacob nodded to each of them in turn. “Deputy. Mr. Coleman. Pleasure to meet you.”
Coleman tucked a piece of dirty hair behind his ear and stayed silent.
“The deputy was there when Santos was telling me. Yeah, so apparently this afternoon, only a few hours ago, he arrested Ben Wilbourne.”
Jacob had only been half listening to Pierce until he heard the name. “Wilbourne? Isn’t he the kid that the Towers family brought with them from back east? The little black child?”
“I don’t know that I’d call him a child, myself. That boy must be at least fifteen now, but yes, you’re thinking of the right man. He stole a couple hundred dollars from the telegraph office, they say.”
Jacob paused in bringing his glass to his lips. “How is that pos
sible?”
Jacob hadn’t ever had an interaction with the young man, but every time he had had reason to go into the general store, Ben was on hand. Usually, Mr. Towers tasked him with cleaning or carrying stock, but at least once Jacob saw him following a family back to their home, his arms laden with their purchases. He had seemed such a gentle, trust-worthy boy. Mr. Towers wouldn’t stand for anything less.
“How?” he said again. “Did he confess? What is this arrest based on?”
“They found the remains of a cigarette and a button at the scene of the crime.”
“That’s not— Are we’re sure that was his button? Did anyone see Wilbourne?”
Pierce shrugged. “Not that I know of. But, you know, Payne. Some people just aren’t trustworthy. Wilbourne works— worked at the general store where he could get any number of buttons. He probably stole from them too and then accidentally dropped one when he was rushing away from the scene of the crime.”
Jacob shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t understand how Santos can be okay with that. Seems like awfully little to be making an arrest on.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. This is all what I heard straight from the marshal.”
Jacob downed his beer and stood.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, boys. But this news has made me think. I’m gonna go see the marshal for myself.”
“He ain’t there now, Payne. Stay. Have a seat. Have another drink. It won’t do you no good to go now. The boy will still be arrested in the morning and you can talk to the marshal then.”
Still standing, Jacob looked from Pierce to the door and back again. He hated to admit that the other bounty hunter was right. There wasn’t anything he could do right now.