He looked over the horse’s back, saw Grace and Albavera standing there.
“It’s Ray Wickes’s horse,” Chance said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What’s that they say about Texas weather?” asked Albavera. “If you don’t like it, stick around for a minute, and it’ll change.”
“Texas weather.” Chance had taken off his mackinaw, and was tying it atop his bedroll behind the cantle of his saddle. “Arkansas weather. Kansas weather. Colorado weather. New Mexico weather. Every damned state says the same damned thing about the same damned weather.”
The weather had warmed considerably, probably pushing the mercury up to the sixty-degree mark, a far jump from the twenties and forties. Not hot, not as hellish as it would get in the summer, but that sun baked you like an oven. Even the wind felt warm. Chance finished securing his coat, and turned back. Removing his hat, he wiped the dust off his forehead, and stared south. A dust devil blew across the path about twenty yards away. The sky was pale and cloudless, the sun a white glare directly over their heads.
“Feels more like April than November,” Albavera said. “You take these bracelets off, I’ll take off my coat, too.”
“Those bracelets stay on,” Chance said. “So does your coat.”
“But I’m hot. This buckskin is heavy, too.”
“I don’t care.”
Albavera shook his head. “You’ve been in a grouchy mood since we left Marathon.”
Without a word, Chance nudged the gray stallion into a walk, putting his hat back on his head, wetting his cracked lips. Albavera rode alongside him, pulling Ray Wickes’s brown horse behind him. They rode in silence, but only briefly, for Albavera found it difficult to keep his trap shut.
“I still don’t know why we’re riding south.”
“Told you.” Chance tilted his head toward the brown gelding. “That’s the lieutenant’s horse. Wickes might need help.”
“If Wickes needs anything, it’s burying. You see all that blood on that saddle?”
“Then we’ll bury him.”
“If we find him. That’s a big if.” He shuddered. “This country gives me the creeps.”
Chance knew the feeling. Mountains rose in the distance, clouded by a haze caused by the wind-blown sand. There were no trees, just cactus, an occasion shrub, and mostly rocks and ridges. Albavera went right on talking.
“That wind will scar you with sand, blind you if you aren’t careful. Rattlesnakes and scorpions will bite you. Plants will poke you, if not poison you. You’ll be baking like bread in an oven one minute, then a blue norther will leave you covered with sleet, freezing your ass off. Even the water here will kill you if you’re not careful.”
“Yep. It would make a good hell.”
“It is hell.” Albavera had to hold his hat on as a sudden gust of wind sprayed the man and horses with sand. He spit, and wiped his tongue on the sleeve of his duster.
“All right,” Chance said. “I have an excuse. The Rangers sent me out here. This is where I happen to work. I’m just following orders. But what brings you to this hell?”
“Well, on this particular morning, to this particular hell, you’ve brought me here, Ranger Chance. I still haven’t figured out why.”
“Would you have preferred being left behind in Marathon? So when Don Melitón returned, he could hang you?”
“No. For one, I don’t think that old codger would have hanged me. Shot me, sure. Maybe buried me up to my head near an ant bed, or staked me out in the sun. On the other hand, I’m not certain the don would come to Marathon. Your captain killed his two men, and the old man likely thinks they’re still alive, waiting to see if we show up. Yeah, you could have left me in Marathon. I would have been safe. Only there isn’t anything to drink in that town now. Thanks to your captain.”
No, Chance thought. Albavera was wrong. Secrets were hard to keep from Don Melitón. Hec Savage had made a mistake sending that railroad crew to Murphyville. Those men might not wire any explanation to the Southern Pacific offices in El Paso, but they’d definitely tell somebody in some Murphyville bucket of blood what had happened to those two vaqueros Savage’s men had killed, and the don’s men would have returned, likely in force. Instead of correcting Albavera, however, Chance said, “That wasn’t my meaning. What brought you to this country?”
“Money.”
Chance nodded. They rode.
He didn’t need to hear anymore, but Albavera made sure he did.
“First, I planned on betting on some boxing match they were having in El Paso. Then, I figured there was a bunch of hard-rock miners in Shafter worth visiting.”
“Instead you ran into Prince Benton.”
“Bad luck. You play enough cards, you learn. Sometimes luck’s with you. Sometimes she’s against you. I didn’t take it personal.”
“Don Melitón did.”
“Well. I also figured this country could swallow you up. Be easy for a man to disappear.”
“A lot of people have.”
“Maybe your lieutenant.”
Chance shrugged. “Maybe. But you didn’t. After you killed Prince Benton, you could have hidden out.” He pointed at the mountains off to the northwest. “There in the Del Nortes.” Pointed at the rises in the southeast. “Or there in the Tinajas.” Pointed directly south. “Or down in the Santiagos, the Chalk range, the Chisos. Hell, you could have swum the Rio Grande and hidden out in Mexico. Instead, you found a poker game in Fort Davis. Acted like you wanted to get caught.”
A grin stretched across Albavera’s chiseled face. “Did I really act like I wanted to get caught, Ranger Chance? Seems to me you played hell getting these bracelets on me.”
Chance had to laugh at that. “Point taken,” he said.
The black man shook his head. “You misunderstood me, Sergeant. After I killed that bastard Prince Benton, I wasn’t about to hide. You know as well as I do that nobody could hide from Don Melitón Benton. He’d come, and come to kill. I was waiting for him in Fort Davis. You just happened to get there first.”
“Why did you need country to hide out in?” Chance asked. “You were surprised when I arrested you for killing the Marin brothers. Seemed stunned to think anyone remembered those murders.”
“It was self-defense,” Albavera corrected.
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Like I told you. You knew about the Marins. And Prince Benton. But there was—”
“Bill Carter.” Chance’s head bobbed.
“That’s right. You got a good memory, Ranger. Bill Carter. The one you didn’t know about—which was self-defense, too.”
“Of course.” Chance’s voice was placating.
The tone didn’t appear to annoy Moses Albavera. “After I killed the Marin fools, I drifted. Piedras Negras. San Carlos. Spent some time in Mexico, then came back to Texas. Didn’t stop, mind you. Just passing through. To Kansas. Colorado—Denver, Leadville, Lake City—gambling. Betting on horses. Poker. Keno. Faro. Finally, I drifted back to Texas. Figured you Texans have short memories, and the Marin brothers would be long forgotten. Hit The Flat, Jacksboro, Fort Worth. Luck was running with me.
“Finally, I was told there was to be a big boxing match in El Paso, and I figured there was money to be had there, so I boarded a stagecoach in Jacksboro and headed for El Paso. Well, everything was going along just dandy till we got to Fort Stockton.”
“Stockton?”
“Yeah. You know that town?”
Involuntarily, Chance raised his right hand, ran his fingers around his throat. “Yeah,” he said in a dry whisper. “I know Fort Stockton.”
“A miserable blight in a miserable country. Alas, the stage had busted an axle, so I was stuck. Decided to pass my time at the Bad Springs Saloon.”
“Bad Water,” Chance corrected. “Bad Water Saloon.”
“Indeed, you’re right, Ranger Chance. You do have a great memory. Well, I went inside, bellied up to the bar— how I love that term, bellied up to the b
ar.” Chuckling, he shook his head. “Then this woman comes up to me. I buy her a drink. She’s a whore. I know that. Hell, everybody in the Bad Springs, I mean, Bad Water Saloon knew that. She didn’t care if I was Moorish. I didn’t care that she was white.”
“But somebody did.”
“You know Fort Stockton. You know how it was.”
“I can imagine.”
Albavera shook his head. “All we were doing was drinking what passes for whiskey in that groggery. I didn’t touch her. Certainly didn’t kiss her. We were just drinking, passing time, laughing at a joke now and then.”
“And Bill Carter took exception.”
“He damned near took my head off with a meat cleaver. If Loretta, that was the whore’s name, hadn’t screamed her head off, I wouldn’t have my head now.”
“So you killed Bill Carter.”
“Had to. Shot him in the stomach with Miss Vickie, and he still came at me. I had to smash in his skull, and as soon as he hit the floor, Loretta was saying, ‘Oh, my God, you’ve killed Bill Carter. You best light out of here.’ She didn’t have to tell me twice. I could see the Bad Springs—Water—Saloon was filled to the brim with friends of Bill Carter. But they looked struck dumb. One of them whispered, ‘I didn’t think Bill Carter could get killed.’ Another added, ‘Specially by no darky.’ I told them to keep their hands on the table and their feet on the floor, and kept them covered with Miss Vickie. Fools were too stupid to realize it’s a single-shot rifle, and I hadn’t reloaded. Backed through those batwing doors—”
“And stole this stallion.” Chance smiled at Albavera.
“You don’t miss much, Ranger Chance.”
“I’m alive.”
“Well, I never made it to El Paso. Decided I might hide out in this Big Bend Country, and I did for a while. But this country . . .” Shuddering, he shook his head. “I’m not a man who enjoys solitude. I need people. I need noise. The sound of chips on a felt cloth. The shuffling of paste-cards. The clinking of glasses. The laughter of whores. I figured I might as well try my luck in Shafter.”
“Where you killed Prince Benton. You seem to run into a lot of trouble in saloons, Moses. You might want to stay out of those places.”
“That I can’t do, Ranger Chance. Those saloons, those gambling parlors, they’re like a home to me. Besides, a lovely little whore in Shafter—black lady, me figuring people wouldn’t get riled at me for talking and drinking with her—told me that I didn’t have to worry about being posted for killing Bill Carter, not if he got killed in Fort Stockton.”
“There’s some truth to that. Fort Stockton’s—”
Chance stopped the Andalusian. Albavera reined up the sorrel and followed Chance’s gaze southeast. At first, he saw nothing, but then found about six or seven birds circling overhead. They seemed to have silver wings, but both men knew those birds were really black or brown.
“Like I said, your lieutenant doesn’t need help. He needs burying.”
“Let’s find out.” Chance’s spurs raked the stallion’s side, and the gray took off in an easy lope across the desert floor.
A huge turkey buzzard, better than two and a half feet long, lifted its red, featherless head, which seemed so tiny compared to the rest of the bird’s body. A piece of gut hung from the hooked ivory beak, before the bird shook its head, swallowed the entrails, and, staring at the two riders, hissed. Other carrion kept right on feeding, waddling around, occasionally looking up, grunting.
Sounding like pigs, not birds.
They were hideous creatures in a horrible scene. Gray, dead eyes. Pale legs, clawed feet, red heads, dark feathers. Feasting on what once had been a man.
Catching the odor of blood and death, the horses danced nervously. The buzzards showed no fear.
The Andalusian turned in a circle as Chance drew the Schofield and fired once, twice, three times, the reports echoing, sending the birds noisily flapping into the sky. Few traveled more than twenty yards before lighting on the boulders, waiting for the riders to leave them to their find.
After holstering the Schofield, Chance swung from the saddle, drew the Winchester from the scabbard, and handed the reins to Albavera.
“Wait here,” he said.
“That’s what I planned on doing,” Albavera said.
“If you try to ride off, I’ll kill you.”
“If I go anywhere”—Albavera looked away—“it’ll be to that bush yonder. To throw up.” He covered his mouth. The gunman looked sick.
Chance took a few steps, stopped, spit, and pulled his bandana over his mouth and nose. His eyes watered. Bile rose from his stomach, but he kept it down. He made it ten more feet, then leaned the Winchester against a rock. He lifted the bandana just enough to spit, almost spraying a boulder with vomit, but somehow managed to hold everything together.
Lucky, he tried to tell himself. Spring or summer, even early fall, ants would have been with the turkey buzzards, beetles, too. He studied the ground. Coyotes had already been there. Bits of clothing had caught in the rocks and yucca, or had been snagged on prickly pear. The ground around the dead man was stained brown from dried blood.
He had reached the body. What was left of a body, anyway.
The chest cavity had been ripped apart. So had the shirt, but Chance could tell it had been red flannel with a bib front. The shirt along the side hadn’t been torn apart by the scavengers. He pulled a piece of cloth off the sticky mess of bloody flesh and bone, and put his finger through a hole, a hole no animal had made. He looked at the cloth carefully. The cloth was dried with blood, but he could make out powder burns.
Chance looked around. He didn’t see a badge, but spotted a pair of glasses, one lens missing and the other broken, laying crumpled beside the man’s eyeless head.
He couldn’t identify the man. He had no features left, but Chance knew that turkey buzzards and coyotes weren’t the only animals responsible. They had ripped through his flesh, eaten his eyes, pulled out his tongue, but a bullet had slammed into his left temple, and blown out the back of his head.
The man had been shot twice. In the side. In the head. The side wound had been first. Had to be, Chance figured, from all that blood he had found on Ray Wickes’s saddle.
A shadow crossed Chance’s face. He looked up and found Albavera standing over him. Chance shot a quick glance, and saw the three horses hobbled, the Winchester Centennial lying where he had left it. He stared at the black gunman. “Thought you were going to be sick.”
“I decided I’d better buck up,” he said. “Be a man. See if you need any—” He made the mistake of looking at the corpse. “Oh, hell.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that your lieutenant?”
“Yeah.”
“Shot in the head, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Chance pointed to the corpse. “Took another bullet in his side. That one caught him at fairly close range. There are powder burns on the cloth.”
“Reckon those two bandidos who jumped us did it?”
“No. For one thing, those powder burns on his shirt—Close range, like I said. Ray Wickes was green in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t let a stranger get close to him. No, most likely, he knew who shot him. The first time. And that head shot? That pair of bandidos had Winchester carbines, .44-40 calibers. The bullet that blew off the lieutenant’s head came from a much more powerful rifle.”
Chance couldn’t get the image of Doc Shaw and that new High Wall rifle out of his mind.
“I’m sorry,” Albavera said, sounding like he meant it.
“Fetch the lieutenant’s bedroll,” Chance said. “We’ll wrap him in it. Take him back to Marathon, bury him in that church cemetery.”
“That boneyard’s getting crowded of late.”
Chance rose. “It’ll get a lot more crowded, too, before I’m finished.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The spade bit deeper into the sandy soil only to slam into a buried rock that left Moses Albaver
a shaking his ringing hands. Letting the tool fall, he leaned back against the mound of dirt, and examined his hands. “It would be a lot easier for me to dig this grave,” he told Chance, “if these bracelets came off.”
“They stay on.” With a grunt, Chance drove a pickax into the ground.
“My hands are getting blistered.”
“I don’t care.”
The two men stood alone in the cemetery behind the Catholic church of Marathon. Chance swung the pick again, leaned the tool against the wall of dirt, and knelt, prying out a rock with his hands. He tossed the stone, and pushed back his hat. The morning was cool, the sun behind a wall of clouds. He rose, found the canteen, and drank.
“It doesn’t seem right, if you ask me,” Albavera said. “Those two Rangers your captain killed, get sent off on a train with a pair of guards to get a fine funeral, and this lieutenant of yours gets buried here alongside a couple of dead vaqueros.”
Chance didn’t answer. He just drank.
“Did Lieutenant Wickes have any kin?”
That time, Albavera got a response. “He wasn’t married.” Chance tossed the canteen to his prisoner, who caught it with his cuffed hands. “That’s all I know.”
“His saddlebag wasn’t fastened. I noticed that when I got his bedroll. I secured the bag. He might have some personal property, name of his next of kin, something like that.”
“He might.” Chance hadn’t thought to check. “I’ll write or telegraph Colonel Thomas in Austin. If Wickes had any kin, and they want his body, they can dig him up, replant him in the family plot.”
“Poor bastard. He doesn’t even get a coffin, just his bedroll.”
“Wood’s scarce around here.”
“You’re either the hardest rock I ever met, Ranger Chance, or the cheapest son of a bitch there is.”
Albavera got another response, one that pleased him. Dave Chance looked at him, and grinned.
Albavera drank, corked the canteen, set it aside, grabbed the shovel, and resumed digging.
Two hours later, when they had finished the grave, they lowered the remains of Ray Wickes into the hole, using ropes, and went inside the church to fetch the priest. They were at the door, the priest walking outside with a rosary and Bible, when Albavera cleared his throat, and pointed down the hill toward the town.
West Texas Kill Page 12