Hell's Angel

by Peter Brandvold

  “Here’s to Mr. Moon,” said a beefy, Irish bartender, standing behind the bar and lifting a shot glass in salute. His voice was thick as he added, “He was the only man who offered me a job when I bailed out of Yuma pen. God bless you, squire!”

  The others muttered and nodded, raised their own glasses, and sipped their beers or tequilas or whiskies, and then the Mexicans lifted the coffin lid from off a separate table.

  “I’m going to miss you, my love,” Griselda said, glancing at the Rio Bravo Kid, who stood beside his new deputy, Lee Mortimer, near the open double doors. He and Mortimer both stood with their hats in their hands, chins dipped to their chests. Mortimer’s jaw was set tight in silent anger. Meeting Griselda’s glance, the Kid quirked a faint, conspiratorial smile, dimpling his cheeks, and winked.

  That bit of foolishness annoyed Griselda. What if the others had seen? She’d admonish the big, stupid firebrand later, maybe even withhold her body for a night or two in punishment. After their celebratory tumble of the preceding night, he’d miss it for sure!

  The Mexicans held up the coffin lid, waiting for Griselda’s order. She stared into the coffin at Moon’s slack face, his eyes tightly closed, what appeared a faint grin on his thin lips mantled by his scraggly mustache, with a fringe of goat beard sagging off his dimpled chin.

  She sighed, nodded. The Mexicans placed the lid on the coffin and then each grabbed a rope handle on either end. They began carrying the coffin toward the open doors.

  Griselda said, “We’ll have a brief service at Mr. Moon’s grave, gentlemen and ladies. Just a few words, maybe a prayer. Any more than that would only embarrass him. As you know, Mr. Moon was not a God-fearing man.”

  A couple of the Mexican peasants and Mexican freighters shook their heads regretfully at that. One crossed himself and moved his lips as though in prayer for Moon’s lost soul.

  Griselda suppressed an urge to roll her eyes.

  She donned her hat and walked to the front of the saloon, avoiding eye contact with either the Kid or Deputy Mortimer, and headed out into the bright sunlight. The other mourners followed her out of the saloon, and they all formed a procession, Griselda following the two peasants carrying the dwarf’s coffin, the Kid and Mortimer behind her, the others behind them.

  Several more people who’d been holding a vigil of sorts out in the street followed, as well, so that there were a good thirty, forty people striding mournfully behind the sprawling saloon and past the corrals and barns and up a rocky hill sparsely stippled with mesquites and sotol cactus.

  Griselda had sent out two other Mexicans—an old man and a boy of about twelve—to dig the dwarf’s grave. The grave was dug, and now the pair lounged in the shade of a lone mesquite, the middle-aged Mexican taking a drink from the bladder flask looped around his neck, the boy sitting against the same tree and playing with a black and brown mongrel puppy between his spread legs. The boy and the puppy were playing tug-of-war with a knotted rag.

  When the puppy saw the little wooden box and the crowd filing up the hill toward the hole in the ground, it growled and barked and then gave a yip and ran down the side of the hill to the north.

  The man and the boy gained their feet as Griselda and the two peasants carrying the coffin approached. The peasants set the coffin down, and Griselda looked into the hole. It was only about three feet deep. A pile of ash-colored soil liberally sprinkled with gravel lay beside it.

  Griselda frowned at the old man, who doffed his battered felt hat, and said nervously in halting English, “Bad rock. Very shallow. Too hard dig. Should bury Senor Moon there.” He turned to indicate a higher hill about two hundred yards farther west, the starkly forbidding Chisos range rising beyond. “Not so rocky,” the Mexican said.

  Griselda shook her head. She hadn’t wanted to walk that far in the blinding sun and searing heat. It was so hot that she didn’t even sweat, but she felt as desiccated as a hunk of beef jerky.

  “This was his favorite tree,” she lied. “This is where we’d often come to look over his holdings. This is where he wanted to be planted. He told me so.”

  Mortimer gave a little snort but did not meet Griselda’s silent glare. The Kid stood beside Mortimer, keeping his own head down, his hat in his hand, but still looking as though he were about to jump up and down and whoop with joy at being named sheriff of Moon’s Well.

  Griselda doffed her own hat and held it before her as she waited for the other mourners to circle around the grave. No one said anything. There was only the sound of the hot, parched wind rattling the mesquite leaves and kicking up dust here and there around this godforsaken stretch of ground west of Moon’s Well. She kept her head down but looked toward the Chisos range and then south across the painfully bright, white, lunar-like landscape toward the Rio Grande and Mexico.

  What a god-awful place this was. All dust and rock and blazing sun and hot wind and Gila monsters, and hardly anything green at all. Even mesquite leaves weren’t really green, but more of a silver, as though there wasn’t enough water to nourish them properly.

  What Griselda wouldn’t give to see a sprawling red oak again in the humid, green hills of Missouri. . . .

  Soon, very soon, she’d have Moon’s money from the safe and from the sale of the slave whores, and she’d be off in search of an ocean somewhere, or at least some green hills.

  “All right, let’s get on with it,” she said, too quickly, indiscreetly returning her mind to the task at hand. “I mean . . . go ahead and set him in the hole, por favor.”

  The peasants dropped to their knees and, each taking an end of the coffin, slowly lowered it into the shallow hole. The hole wasn’t much deeper than the box itself. Coyotes would probably dig Moon up in no time, but what the hell? At least he was gone and out of her hair. If only she’d learned the combination to his safe first, and he’d sold the slave whores . . .

  Oh, well. Things might be turning out in her favor despite all of that. A couple of sticks of dynamite would likely blow the safe open. She’d simply have some freighted in.

  “Anyone know a prayer?” Griselda asked, when the man and the boy had lowered the box into the grave and gained their feet, dusting themselves off with their hats.

  She looked around at the mourners of every shape and size surrounding her—a ragged, dusty lot, some armed, some not. There were more than a few Mexican women from town here to pay their own respects to Moon despite his expensive water contracts, despite his using them for mostly slave labor.

  They all looked at her. Most of the Mexicans hadn’t understood her. None of the Anglos appeared to know any prayers, except Mortimer, who said with a faintly cunning grin: “Sure, I know a prayer.”

  “Oh, Deputy Mortimer,” Griselda said. “How nice!”

  Mortimer held his eyes on her with that faintly wry, decidedly insolent grin as he recited “The Lord’s Prayer.” When he was finished, he snugged his flat-brimmed, black hat on his head, turned and strode down the hill toward the town, his string tie blowing back over his shoulder in the wind.

  “All right, cover him,” Griselda said to the Mexican man and his son. To the others she said, “Funeral’s over, folks. Mr. Moon is planted. Everyone back to work!”

  The gravediggers had just picked up their shovels and started to toss dirt into the hole when there was a hollow thud. Griselda had just started to walk down the hill, but now she turned back to the hole, frowning.

  She’d thought that the Mexican man or the boy must have tossed a stone onto the coffin, but the thud had sounded duller than the sound a rock would have made.

  The Mexican man and the boy leaped back from the grave as though they’d just spied a rattler slithering out of the hole.

  There was another thud.

  And another.

  A man’s hoarse, muffled voice shouted something incoherent. It seemed to come from the hole.

  But that could
n’t be.

  Griselda grew weak in the knees.

  The lid flew up off of the coffin. The dwarf crawled up out of the hole, looking haggard, holding his bullet-torn hat in one hand, and standing up on the side of the hole. He canted his head, glowered up at Griselda, and said through gritted teeth, “Surprise, surprise—I ain’t dead!”

  22

  THE PREVIOUS NIGHT, Prophet had watched the strange horse and rider move slowly up toward him, causing Louisa’s pinto and Prophet’s lineback dun, Mean and Ugly, to snort and blow.

  Prophet could see only the young man’s silhouette—at least, his voice had told him that the rider was young—so he couldn’t tell much about him except that he was slender and he wore a calico shirt and suspenders, and that long hair hung straight down from his hat.

  “Who the hell is Colter Farrow?” Prophet said, holding his rifle across his chest, always cautious. “And what’s he doing here?”

  “Stand down, Lou,” Louisa said. “Mr. Farrow gave me a hand in Moon’s place earlier. In fact, if he hadn’t intervened with rifle and hogleg, I and Mrs. Rose would likely be snuggling with snakes, as you would so colorfully put it.” She raised her voice. “Take a load off that horse, Mr. Farrow. We’ve coffee and food here by the fire. It’s not much, but it’ll do for these quarters, I reckon.”

  “Don’t mean to muscle in on your camp,” the young man said, sitting tall and straight in his saddle. Firelight flickered across a grisly scar in the shape of an S on his left cheek. “I just wanted to make sure the ladies was all right, is all. I led Mr. Moon’s riders straight south for a time, but they sniffed out the ruse and picked up your trail to the west. I seen what they got for their trouble. I take it that was your doin’, Mr. Prophet?”

  Prophet walked down the slope until he stood a few feet from the kid’s coyote dun. He could see the young man better from this distance. He could see the long, copper-colored hair, the long, pale, slightly freckled face, and the S brand that had been seared into his cheek, just under the left eye.

  He’d seen the kid a few days ago back in San Simon, airing his paunch out back of the whorehouse.

  “Well, well,” the bounty hunter said, setting his rifle on his shoulder and giving a soft, wry chuff. “I see you survived your encounter with whiskey, women, and tobacco.”

  The kid shook his head. “Whew—I’ll never do that again!”

  “That’s what I keep sayin’. Like Miss Fancy Britches over yonder says, light an’ sit a spell. I thank you for helping the ladies out. Can’t let ’em go anywhere alone without ’em makin’ trouble of one stripe or another, callin’ rabid coyotes onto their trail.”

  “Like I said, I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “Kid, you ain’t intrudin’,” Prophet said. “You helped me out in Mexico, and you helped my lady friends out in Moon’s . . . I mean, Chisos Springs, and we’d like to offer some coffee and hardtack, maybe a few beans boiled in rattlesnake. That’s Louisa’s favorite.”

  “Well, dang,” the kid said, quietly droll. “Beans boiled in rattlesnake. Shoulda said so right off!”

  He swung down from the saddle. He was a full head shorter than Prophet, and probably fifty pounds lighter. He wore what appeared an old Remington revolver for the cross draw on his right hip, a knife on his left. His long, thin hair blew around his face in the night breeze.

  “Kid, I like your style,” Prophet said. He held out his hand. “I guess you already know my name. Louisa must’ve told you.”

  “Nah, I just knew,” the kid said. “Before I took to the trail myself under circumstances less favorable than those I would have preferred, I used to tip an ear to such matters and outlaws and bounty hunters an’ such.”

  As he began stripping the tack off his coyote dun, he said, “I grew up in the Lunatic Mountains above Sapinero, in Colorado, and there wasn’t much to do but listen to the old punchers who worked at my foster parents’ place, and the men who ran cattle around us. Your name came up more’n a few times, Mr. Prophet.”

  “Either before or after a cuss word, I’d fathom,” Louisa said from where she was preparing a meal over the fire in the cave.

  Young Farrow glanced at her over his shoulder. “Heard Miss Bonaventure’s name, time or two, as well. More so after I hit the trail myself.”

  “Men mention Louisa’s name in fear and trembling,” Prophet said as he hauled the young man’s saddle into the cave. He set it down on the far side of the fire and looked at her. “Leastways, I do.”

  Louisa tossed some bits of jerky into a pot of boiling beans, and slid a steaming coffeepot onto a flat rock out of the flames. “You best sit for a while, Lou. You don’t look well. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”

  “Ah, don’t get all nice, now, or you’re gonna rattle me.” Prophet took the cup of coffee that Louisa handed him and walked over to where Ruth lay back against the cave wall, a blanket pulled up to her chin. She looked worn and haggard as she stared toward the ceiling, a stricken cast to her gaze.

  “Here, Ruth—drink this. Good, hot coffee’ll do you good.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t care for coffee, Lou. Food, neither.” She looked at Louisa. “I do thank you, Miss Bonaventure, for saving my worthless hide tonight. You shouldn’t have endangered your own, however. I’m not worth it.” She gave a sad, sardonic smile.

  “What you did tonight makes you worth it, Mrs. Rose.”

  “Please . . . Ruth.”

  “Only if you call me Louisa.”

  Ruth lifted her mouth corners at that, crinkled the skin around her eyes. Prophet sat down beside her and took a sip from the smoking coffee cup.

  He said, “I reckon you cut the head off the snake floppin’ an’ coilin’ around down there in Chisos Springs. Gotta admit I’m a little disappointed I never got a chance to drill a hole through that little bastard’s head my own self . . . uh, pardon my privy talk, Ruth . . . but I reckon now the rest of the beast will die soon, too.”

  “Don’t bank on that,” Louisa said, stirring the bubbling pot of beans as young Colter Farrow walked into the cave with his saddlebags on his shoulder, bedroll under his arm, Winchester rifle in his hand. “What about that little polecat girl of his—Miss Griselda May? She’s got enough cunning to keep the dwarf’s spirit alive in Moon’s Well.”

  “It’s Chisos Springs,” Prophet corrected her. “And before I leave here, by God, I’m gonna go down and change the name back. Or, hell . . .” He glanced at Ruth. “We’ll call it Rose’s Well from now on.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I’m not going back there for any length of time. Oh, I’ll bury Frank, and I’ll grab a change of clothes. But after that, I’m closing down the hotel, and I’ll be heading back north. I’ve had enough of this dry desert. Even with Moon dead, it’s still a perdition.”

  Louisa poured another two cups of coffee. She offered one to Colter Farrow, who had laid out his gear with his saddle and then hunkered down on his haunches at the end of the fire near Prophet.

  He accepted the coffee with a gentlemanly bow—the gracious nod of a polite young cowpuncher, Prophet thought. A young man who’d been raised good and proper.

  The kid had that quiet, country air about him—he probably knew horses better than he knew people—though the bounty hunter doubted most cowpunchers would have the sand to stand up to the dwarf’s breed of killer, as he’d apparently done in Chisos Springs.

  “Mr. Prophet misinformed you, Mr. Farrow,” Louisa said. “No rattlesnake stew tonight. Just beans and jerky and a little side pork.”

  “Don’t mind me. I done ate before I rode into Moon’s We—” Farrow glanced at Prophet, flushing slightly with cowboy-bashful chagrin. “I mean, Chisos Springs.”

  Louisa sat back on her rump, arms around her upraised knees, and sipped her coffee. “What about that bounty on your head, Mr. Farrow? You must be one mean, cold-blooded killer t
o stack up a whole two thousand dollars. And, heck, I bet you’re not yet twenty!”

  “I am just twenty, Miss Bonaventure. And about that bounty, well . . .”

  “That ain’t the mark of Satan on your cheek,” Prophet said, resting back on an elbow, ankles crossed before him. “That’s the Sapinero brand of Bill Rondo. I’d know it anywhere. He threatened me with it one time. I promised if he wagged that iron at me one more time, he’d get it shoved up his ass.”

  Colter Farrow stared into the fire. “Well, I didn’t shove it up his ass.” The kid spoke evenly, quietly, in somber tones, staring into the fire. “But I did burn the S into his own face though not before he used it on me first. When I found out it was him who killed the man who took me in when my parents died of a fever before I was out of rubber pants, and sent his body home nailed to the bed of his own supply wagon, I went after him. Broke his legs. Crippled him. Blazed his own brand in his cheek, just like he done me. I hear he’s confined to a wheelchair now, wearin’ the same scar as me. Rondo was a poison-mean hombre, but I reckon he had enough friends back in Sapinero that this bounty will ride with me for a while.”

  “It ain’t ridin’ around here, Red,” Prophet said. “Don’t sweat it.”

  Young Farrow appeared to take umbrage at this, beetling his brows and flushing again, causing the S on his cheek to turn a shade paler. “I don’t sweat nothin’, Mr. Prophet. I can take care of myself. Me an’ that horse out yonder—I call him Northwest ’cause at home he always grazed facin’ that direction—and this here old Remington pistol of my pa’s . . . we dusted a lot of trails together. And I expect we got a few more to go.”

  “Running,” Ruth said, though Prophet hadn’t even realized she’d been following the conversation. She shook her head as she regarded young Colter Farrow fondly and sadly. “You’re too young, and you obviously have too much good in you to live such a life. If you weren’t good, you wouldn’t have helped us out back at Moon’s place. Hearing that about you, young Colter, makes me sad.”