“How many times did you shoot him . . . inside that place of worship?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“Enough to splatter a nun’s face with his blood and brains. Enough to cause eighteen dollars’ worth of damages to the church.”
“I paid for those damages, Captain. Out of my own pocket. And I buried Villanueva myself.”
“You splattered that nun’s face with blood and brains,” Hollister repeated.
“Would you have rather had Cuervo splatter her brains across the church?”
Captain Hollister sank into the big chair behind his big desk.
The newspaper editor wrote a few notes onto his pad and began to talk. “The only reason the good citizens in Purgatory City have not taken up arms against Ranger McCulloch is because this gunfight happened to have occurred in a Mexican church.”
McCulloch saw that he had balled his hands into fists. One of these days, he knew, Alvin Griffin would get his nose broken, and his jaw, and, with luck, every finger on both hands. That might keep him from writing those hate-filled stories, at least for a while.
“But, as I will point out in next week’s editorial, what happens when our Lutherans or our Episcopals or our Baptists and good Methodists see their sanctuaries riddled with bullets? But this is not just about religion.”
“No, sir,” the Ranger captain said. “It most certainly is not.” He gathered several telegraph sheets in his right hand, balled them up, and held them high over his balding head. “Do you see these, McCulloch? Do you know what they are?” He tossed them aside, but again, somehow, did not collapse of stroke or heart failure.
McCulloch figured, if he kept it up, he would likely splatter his own blood and brains across the Texas Rangers in the captain’s office, the editor of the muckraking newspaper in Purgatory City, and the circuit judge—once Hollister’s head exploded like an over-pressurized steam engine.
“The governor. Two senators. A representative from my hometown. The state attorney general. The attorney general from Washington, our nation’s capital. Six newspaper editors. The Archdiocese of San Antonio. The bishop in El Paso.” Hollister shook his head, and next brought his fingers to his temples to begin a hard massage. “The only person I haven’t heard from is the Pope. Every one of them wants my head on a platter.”
McCulloch said, “I can think of some who don’t want that, Captain.”
The massage stopped, the hands fell atop the desk, and the captain looked up. He waited.
“The priest down there. Two nuns. A mother and her four-month-old daughter,” McCulloch told him.
“That’s a bunch of bull—”
“You think so? You think that priest would rather ’ve read the last rites over that girl? That baby? We had to get Cuervo out of that building before the sun went down, and that job fell to me.”
The two other Rangers, Burns and Means, shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
Sergeant Powell cleared his throat. “Well, now, Matt, I don’t think I actually ordered you to—”
“Because you were thinking about negotiating,” McCulloch barked back. “Having a little parley with a butcher. Begging him not to hurt those fine people inside that mission, letting him cross the border to rape and rampage over there till the Rurales chased him back across the Rio Grande and he became our problem again till we ran him back into Mexico.” He paused just long enough to catch his breath, and when Sergeant Ed Powell’s mouth opened, McCulloch closed it. “And, Sergeant, you asked me if I had any better ideas. I did. I took that as an order. I wasn’t about to let Cuervo Villanueva start another Embarrado.”
The Ranger sergeant sighed. “You’re right, Matt.” He looked at the Ranger captain and the newspaperman. “I didn’t exactly give Matt McCulloch the order, but he did what had to be done. There are times when I think too much. Matt knows what has to be done, and he knows thinking can get folks killed. You might be getting a lot of criticism for having a gunfight in a church, but, well, we don’t always get to pick where we have to make a stand. You folks seem to forget that the Alamo was a Spanish mission back in 1836. And Matt was right. We couldn’t afford another Embarrado.”
“Embarrado.” The town’s newspaper editor and owner, Alvin J. Griffin IV, spoke the village’s name with a mix of contempt and skepticism. “You and Ranger McCulloch pull that name like you draw your guns. Embarrado. Massacre at Embarrado. Bloody Embarrado. The Embarrado Bloodbath. It’s like a dime novel, McCulloch. And I don’t believe anything ever happened at—”
“If you say one more word, Mister Newspaperman,” Matt McCulloch said, his voice steady, soft but cold. Very cold. “I’ll rip out your guts just like Cuervo Villanueva did to that woman in Embarrado.”
The newspaper editor’s faced turned white.
“You don’t believe it happened, fine. But I was there, Griffin. I had to bury those people. And they were chopped up so much, I wasn’t sure I got the body pieces in the right graves. And if you say it didn’t happen in front of me ever again, and I’ll show you what I saw.”
“Ranger McCulloch!” the captain snapped. “I will not allow—”
“Captain,” Sergeant Powell said. “I was at Embarrado, too.”
“Well.” The editor had recovered. “Cuervo Villanueva was never convicted of what you allege happened at that dirty backwater—”
“And that’s another reason I have half a mind to run your sorry hide through that press you operate. See if I can’t squeeze all the black ink that flows through your black heart out of your body.”
The newspaperman shook his head. “You’re nothing but a jackal, McCulloch. Just as I pointed out in my newspaper. You don’t belong behind a Texas Rangers badge. You belong on a wanted poster. And you’re angry at me because I print the truth.”
“Print whatever you want,” McCulloch said. “Judge me all you want. You’re not the judge I’ll answer to. You’re just a seedy little man who wants to make a name for himself.”
“I think you’re the one who wants to make a name for himself,” Griffin said. “And you’re making one, too. I find you more offensive, more vile than those other jackals I singled out. The Army sergeant. He’s used to killing. He killed all through the war. And he’s a drunkard. An Irishman. He can’t help himself. The bounty hunter? Well, we all know what bounty hunters are. Scum of the earth. Low class. Killers. Their blood is as cold as a rattlesnake’s. But you . . . you’re a Texan. You were a family man. You were a man of peace. And now . . . you’re pathetic.”
“Gentlemen,” the Ranger captain pleaded.
“No, no, you will hear me out, Captain,” Griffin said. “I don’t want to see Purgatory City slide into oblivion. We are on the verge of greatness. But if we are not careful, if we do not weed out the sinners in our community, those who put a blight on our good name, we will become just another dusty, forgotten place. Like those ungodly backwater communities in our county that—”
McCulloch swore and shook his head. “Every town that’s not Purgatory City, especially every town with more Mexicans than white folks, is a dirty, backwater village. You might remember that the Mexicans were here long before we were, Griffin.”
The newspaperman spit into a spittoon. “That’s right. I keep forgetting, McCulloch. You actually married one of those greasers.”
The Colt leaped into McCulloch’s hand, and the report of the big .44-40 sounded like a howitzer in the close confines of the Ranger captain’s office. White smoke filled the room. Alvin J. Griffin IV soiled his britches as he dived to the ground, clutching the top of his head where the lead slug had passed by perhaps half an inch.
The youngest Ranger had dived onto the floor, while Ranger Means dropped his right hand for the big Colt on his holster before deciding otherwise.
“McCulloch!” Captain Hollister had stood. He pointed. His mouth hung open, but he could not find the words as Matt McCulloch walked slowly toward the writhing journalist.
“Ed!” Hollister said when he c
ould remember how to talk again. “Stop him. Don’t let him.”
Ed Powell sat where he was, cleaning a fingernail with the blade of his penknife. “He won’t bother him, Captain,” the sergeant said. “If he wanted to kill him, he would’ve killed him.”
Yet at that moment, Matt McCulloch was aiming the long barrel of his smoking revolver and the wild-eyed face of Alvin Griffin. “You ever mention my dead wife again, there won’t be another warning shot. You savvy?”
Griffin’s head bobbed.
McCulloch lowered the hammer, holstered the Colt, and walked up to the captain’s desk. Hollister sank deeper into the chair. His face revealed that he thought Matt McCulloch was going to part what was left of his hair with another .44-40 bullet.
Ranger Burns was finding his chair again, but stopped, too. Ranger Means looked toward Sergeant Powell to know what should be done, but the sergeant kept his focus on his fingernails.
When McCulloch reached the desk, his right hand left the butt of the Colt and came up to his vest. He unpinned the small badge made from a Mexican five-peso coin. He held it in his hand for a while, and then tossed it on the crumpled telegraphs that littered the captain’s desk.
“You probably want this, Captain. And to be frank, I don’t really care for wearing it anymore. I’ve grown tired of being bound to that oath I took.” McCulloch turned, gave a quick look at the three Rangers he had ridden with, and moved toward the door.
He stopped beside the newspaperman, who remained on the floor, though he had risen enough to lean his back against the stone wall, and his hand kept rubbing the top of his head.
“If you feel like your honor has been affronted, I’ll be gathering my traps from the quarters before I ride out. Otherwise, just remember what I said about my wife. And if you print something in that rag you call a newspaper, I’ll consider my honor affronted. Duels have come out of fashion in Texas, but it would give your competition across this county something to write about.” McCulloch tugged the hat down on his head and strode out the door.
* * *
Sergeant Ed Powell met McCulloch at the corral but did not speak as McCulloch secured the saddlebags behind the cantle, tied on his rain slicker—like it ever rained in that part of the world—and led the buckskin through the gate.
“Where you bound?” the sergeant asked as he closed the gate.
McCulloch shrugged then pointed to the gate. “Thanks.”
Powell struck a match against the corral post and brought it to his smoke. When he had the cigarette going to his satisfaction, he shook out the match and tossed it onto the dirt.
“The captain give me the rank of sergeant, McCulloch,” Powell said, “but it should’ve been you.”
McCulloch’s head shook. “No. And you know that, Ed.”
“Well.” Powell stared at his boots. “I ain’t rightly figured out what I’m supposed to do. Probably would’ve gotten everybody killed four times over if not for you, McCulloch.”
“Maybe. Maybe you’ll keep learning. If you live.”
“If I live.” Powell managed a slight smile. He swallowed, and tossed the cigarette, practically unsmoked, to the ground. “You going to look for her?”
McCulloch’s head shook. He didn’t like to think of his daughter, but he never could stop thinking about her. Or his wife, or those sons. “Been too long, Ed. She’s dead. Like me.”
“Yeah.”
McCulloch eased into the saddle like a much younger man, and he turned the horse around. “You think too much, Ed. Fighting Indians, bandits. It’s just like breaking a horse. Don’t think when you’re in a ticklish situation. React.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“You do that. Might keep you alive. Good luck.”
He didn’t offer his hand. Powell did not expect it.
Matt McCulloch just pulled his hat down low, kicked the buckskin, and rode out of Purgatory City.
Heading back to his own personal hell.
* * *
Weeds had taken over the graves, or as much as weeds could grow in that climate. McCulloch reined in and stared bitterly at the cemetery in front of what once had been his home. The corrals that the raiders had not taken down were gone. Wood was scarce in that part of the country, so most likely some homesteaders had taken the poles to use in their own homes . . . along with the stones for their chimneys. Yet, maybe out of decency, they had left the fence around the cemetery.
McCulloch frowned as he sank into the saddle, hearing the creak of leather. He remembered the cemetery next to the Catholic church and rectory down along the Rio Grande. It had a fence around it. Not much of one, but a fence, at the least. The post cemetery at Fort Spalding had a big stone fence, solid and thick and well-kept, enclosing it, too. Every cemetery McCulloch had ever seen, or at least all that he remembered, had been protected, or at the least, bordered by a fence.
So was this one that housed the graves of his wife and his sons and two of the Mexican hands who had worked for McCulloch. But he had never put up the fence. All he had done was bury them all, place crosses at the heads of the graves. Then he had ridden off to find his daughter Cynthia until he thought he could never find her—or decided he wouldn’t want to after more than a year living among the Indians.
He could put up a marker for Cynthia, just a cross, and then some other people, neighbors or the priest or the Rangers or whomever, could come along and replace the shoddy markers he had put up for his family.
Easing the buckskin, McCulloch left the hardscrabble boneyard and rode to the house. Winds and rains had scattered the ashes and sent the adobe walls back to the earth from which they had been made.
He tried to recall when he had returned last, but soon he quit trying. The settlers, the predators, or whatever had taken bits of the limestone slabs used for flooring McCulloch had brought in on wagon beds. The barn was nothing but a memory, too. The outhouses had fallen into themselves and vanished. He couldn’t exactly remember where the bunkhouse would have been.
The horse snorted, and McCulloch pulled the reins, turning the buckskin around. He tried to figure out why, after all those years, he had ridden back there. Had he expected the memories to come flooding through him? Did he think he would hear voices? Hear his wife’s cousins, who rode with him and knew the country better than the Apaches, and horses better than he? Hear them playing music at sunset, Carlito strumming the guitar and Benito singing in that rich, haunting, soulful voice? See his kids when they were little? The time the oldest had stepped on that nail? Or see his wife standing on the porch, waiting for him to come up the steps and sweep her into his arms?
There was nothing, of course. Nothing there. Even the wind had blown all the visions and memories from his mind. The ranch was dead. Like Matt McCulloch. He did not look at the graveyard as he rode past it. He did not look behind him as he kicked the buckskin into a lope.
He rode away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Do you really need these?” Gwen Stanhope raised her arms, letting the sleeves of her blouse fall down and reveal the iron manacles that chafed the flesh and rubbed against the bones in her wrists.
The deputy sheriff met her gaze briefly, sniffed, and worked his jaw. “Yeah. I do.”
“You could loosen them some,” she said, still holding her arms up for his inspection. “Couldn’t you?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
Gwen shook her head, looked at the benches in the station, and settled onto the closest one. She couldn’t really blame the deputy. He had a job to do, and he had done it . . . so far. The county paid the deputy, whose name was Glenn Reed, and the sheriff of the county was Charles Van Patten. Charles Van Patten was the brother of Kirk Van Patten, and Kirk Van Patten owned half the county. Kirk Van Patten was the man Gwen Stanhope had killed. She had been tried. She had been convicted. She had been sentenced to hang. Her lawyer had filed appeals. The appeals had been denied. Gwen Stanhope had managed to escape the jail at El Paso—but practically everyone w
ho had ever been imprisoned at the El Paso jail had managed to escape. She had managed to escape into Mexico, but the deputy sheriff had broken the law, crossed the border, found her dealing faro in some cutthroat saloon, shoved a pistol against her spine, and brought her back into the United States. Into Texas. And was taking her back to El Paso.
To hang.
They had arrived at Purgatory City, where the deputy and Gwen waited for the stagecoach to pull into the city. Nobody lives forever, she thought. That had been one of Kirk Van Patten’s favorite sayings, and he had lived to see it come true.
She settled onto the wooden bench and thought back to the circumstances that had resulted in her arrest.
He found Gwen dealing faro in Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, and she let him woo her. He certainly was not an ugly man, physically, at least. He was tall, but not too tall. He wasn’t fat, nor was he skinny. He had a wonderful laugh, an engaging smile, and he could talk about politics, about business, about gambling, about faro, about Shakespeare and Milton and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Plus, he owned thousands of acres in the county and had business interests beyond his ranch and the gambling hall he operated. He could afford good wines, and his library held hundreds of books.
Gwen decided that she might even let Kirk Van Patten marry her. After all, she was thirty years old, and after too many years on her own, realized that she wasn’t getting any younger and that, eventually, women gamblers would see their luck play out.
What happened to women gamblers when the cards turned cold usually was not a pretty sight to behold.
She grimaced, thinking Nobody lives forever.
Kirk Van Patten took Gwen out to supper at the Acme Saloon and had escorted her back to the Bolivar Hotel in El Paso. He invited himself into her room for a drink. Gwen said she was tired, and she was tired, after seventeen straight hours of dealing faro in a high-stakes game. She quickly learned that Kirk Van Patten did not like being told no. He pushed the door open, and shoved her inside, then slammed the door shut, locked it, and wagged his finger in her face.
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