by Paul Lederer
‘Yes,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, running his fingers through his untidy hair. ‘I can’t say it explained matters completely. Someone claims to have a prior deed to your land.’
‘Yes, and it’s odd, Bill,’ I sat on the corner of his desk, watching him chew on his cigar and explained about the discrepancy between the size of the property on the two deeds.
‘That is odd, I agree. If someone were simply trying to rob you of your property, why would they bother to work up a phoney deed with different boundaries than yours?’
‘It does make you think, doesn’t it, Bill? Doesn’t it prove that something is up, even if I don’t know exactly what it is?’
He remained thoughtful, looking at the ceiling as he moved his cigar around like a cow chewing its cud. ‘Let’s have another look at the county map,’ he suggested. ‘I have a spare key to their office. We’ll check the corners and compare them with your deed. I don’t suppose you know who originally surveyed the property.’
I shook my head. ‘That would have been done ten years back or so. Henry Trent is gone, so unless there’s a record somewhere.…’
‘There may be,’ Bill said. ‘In Santa Fe. For now let’s have a look at the map. A shame you couldn’t bring the other deed to compare yours with.’
‘No chance of that,’ I said. Bill was searching through his desk drawer and now came up with a brass key with a paper tag on it. He nodded and rose.
‘Let’s see what we can make of matters.’
The day was already warm when we traipsed out of his office and up the street to the county courthouse. Glancing at the saloons across the street I noticed three unfamiliar horses hitched in front of the Golden Eagle.
‘New men in town?’ I asked. Bill Forsch glanced that way and shrugged. He was chewing his cigar furiously, trying to get the key to work in the old lock. Finally it clicked and the door swung in. We entered the musty building, Bill going directly behind the counter to the case where the land maps stood neatly in their blue binders. He removed the one we needed to see.
Placing the book on the counter, he began thumbing through it. ‘Map 44B,’ I told him.
‘That’s what I thought,’ the lawyer said, turning pages one way and the other as I watched anxiously, my deed in my hands. ‘Lang?’ Bill said after a minute. ‘You’re not going to like this, but I’m afraid.…’
‘There is no page 44B in this book.’
‘What are you talking about? Of course there is.’ I pulled the book out from under his hands and turned it toward me, my face heating as my confusion rose. ‘It was here yesterday. Probably two pages stuck together,’ I said, my words rapid and sharp.
It wasn’t there. The page was missing. Bill’s finger pointed out a small uneven strip of paper stuck beneath the book’s hinges. Page 44B had been torn out.
‘Someone moved fast,’ Bill said with a muffled whistle.
‘The woman! It had to be, didn’t it? She stayed in town overnight. This morning the page is missing.’
‘Could have been anybody,’ Bill said in a calming voice.
‘No, Bill, it could not have been anybody! Who else would have any interest in that particular map page? Who else would have had access to it? Unless we are to suspect old Nathan Hanson who’s had this job for twelve years and has no possible motive.’
‘Maybe someone paid him to take it,’ Bill suggested, but we both knew how improbable that was. Nathan would hardly risk his job for a bribe, and the two people who had any interest in examining the map – Matti and myself – had already seen it.
‘She did it,’ I said again, closing the book slowly.
‘Why would she, Lang?’ Bill Forsch asked me.
‘I don’t know!’ I said in frustration. ‘For the extra two hundred acres.’
‘If they exist, she already owns them,’ the lawyer pointed out, ‘and if that was the point, she no longer has a map to prove they do or don’t exist.’
‘Then, Bill, you tell me? Who and why?’
‘I’ve no idea, Lang. I’m no detective. I’m just a country lawyer.’
‘As a lawyer, then, what course of action would you recommend now?’
‘Same as previously, Lang. This can be cleared up by consulting the Territorial Record archives in Santa Fe. You know what that entails – two days’ travel. Say a day and a half if I just happen to make connections. More likely two full days. Plus a day at the courthouse there. You’d need three full days of my time, plus I’d have to be paid for any lost fees I might incur by my absence. That begins to add up, Lang.’
I rubbed my forehead in angry disbelief. This could not be happening to me. The full force of my loss was only now beginning to settle on my shoulders. Bill was not trying to cheat me, I knew that. He was only telling me what I had already known.
‘I don’t suppose we could handle it by mail?’ I enquired.
‘If you know someone in Santa Fe who is reliable enough and knows his way around the courthouse – that would probably require another attorney, Lang. Besides, would you want to trust the result of such a search to the mails?’
‘I am stuck!’ I said, banging my fist down on the counter as Bill Forsch turned away to replace the blue book on its shelf. ‘Good and stuck, and she knows it.’
‘You still think it’s the lady?’ Bill asked.
‘Who else?’
‘I don’t know, Lang. I do know from my past dealings with situations like this … people have been used as dupes before. Think about it. I don’t know this woman at all; you do. Try to see her clearly enough to decide if she is really that sort.’
‘You’re saying that she might be someone else’s puppet?’
‘I’m saying as they do in court: don’t be in a rush to convict.’
‘I’ll think it through. When I’m cooler,’ I promised. We started again for the courthouse door. Stepping through, Bill said as he locked up again, ‘Lang, if you can find a way to come up with the money.…’
‘I can’t.’
‘Well … I hope you understand,’ he mumbled.
‘I do, Bill. Truly.’ I made a suggestion then. ‘I owe you something for your time. How about if I buy you breakfast and promise not to discuss this while you’re eating?’
Breakfast was enjoyable. As I had promised we talked no more about my case, restricting ourselves to conversations about the weather and those crooks in the legislature. We said goodbye in front of the restaurant and I watched Bill make his slow way back to his office. I untied my sorrel from the hitchrail and turned him homeward once again.
The day grew hotter beneath a white sun and I dragged plumes of yellow dust behind me as I walked my pony the length of Main Street. The riff-raff was up and beginning to congregate in the twin saloons. I spotted Indio standing at the open batwing doors of the New Amsterdam with a mug of beer in his hands. He gave me a sullen glance and turned his eyes away.
The three strange horses I had noted earlier were gone from in front of the Golden Eagle. Just passing through, whoever they were. I started homeward, the sun reflecting its brilliance from the desert sand into my burning eyes, the sorrel moving at a snail’s pace which I did not object to. After all, where did I have to be, what did I have to do that morning?
The freight wagon was drawn up beside my cabin and two men were trying to unload a heavy oak bureau from the tailgate. I heard one of them say to the other, ‘All right, but you tell me where we’re supposed to put it!’
Virgil Sly was sitting on the end of the sagging porch when I reached the house. He looked up at me and said, ‘Don’t bother trying to go in there, Lang. There’s not a square foot of floor not taken up with the lady’s belongings.’
‘I’d forgotten she said that her things were arriving today.’
‘They’ve arrived,’ Virgil commented dryly. ‘Some of them are stacked up on each other. I wanted a cup of coffee, but I couldn’t even see the stove.’
‘Well, at least we didn’t have to unload the wagon.
’
‘There’s that to be thankful for,’ Virgil said, as I seated myself beside him. ‘Say, Lang, I saw something that kind of mystified me this morning while I was showing the lady around the place.’
‘Oh?’ I scooted aside so that the movers could swing the bureau around and try wedging it through the door.
‘The tracks of three horses,’ Virgil told me, rising to his feet. ‘Up near the Panhandle,’ which was what we called an irregularly shaped patch of rugged land along our northern boundary.
‘Hatchet riders?’ I asked. Virgil shrugged.
‘Had to be, didn’t it? What they might have been doing up there I can’t guess, though. All our cattle are bunched over near Arapaho. I counted them up. Still twenty-two head. I can’t see Reg Kent sending his boys over for a picnic, so it’s beyond me what they wanted.’
‘Cheyenne Baker, Frank Short and Indio are still in town, so they haven’t even been around.’
‘Passing strangers, maybe,’ Virgil said with a shrug. We both turned our heads as something inside the house fell with a crash. ‘Though the Panhandle’s well off the track for anyone just passing through.’
‘Well off it,’ I answered. I was thinking about the three strange horses I had seen in town earlier, wondering if there was a connection, and what it could possibly be. I supposed I should have taken the time to try to find out who those men were.
‘Think Reg has hired some new hands, maybe?’
‘What for? Round-up’s a long way off and he’s got all the men he needs now.’
‘I don’t know then,’ Virgil said. He yawned and told me, ‘I showed the tracks to the boss lady, but she didn’t seem to take much interest in them.’
‘I doubt she knows enough to keep her eyes open for range rats, Virgil. Anyway, let’s us keep our eyes open because something funny is sure going on around here.’
I had not unsaddled my horse because I was busy considering, and considering brought me to thinking I would be happier riding out somewhere on the ranch than hanging around watching the lady’s belongings be unloaded. I returned to the sorrel, and as it eyed me unhappily, I tightened my cinches again. Virgil had tagged along. He seemed distracted. His flop hat was tilted back showing his graying hair. His broad mouth was set. He seemed to want me to ask him a question, and so I did:
‘What is it, Virgil?’
‘Nothin’, Lang.’ His eyes told a different story as they dipped and shifted away.
‘You had something you wanted to say.’
‘Well, I did. But I don’t think you want to hear it,’ he said.
‘Maybe not. Try me.’
‘I was just thinking about everything. This trouble with your claim, the strange riders looking our land over. They might be connected, you know.’
‘I thought of that.’
‘Might have something to do with Reg Kent, too.’
‘You’re right again. Now suppose you tell me whatever it is that is on your mind, Virgil.’
‘Just this – you could poke around, maybe find out what is going on. Where this lady comes from; if her deed is any good; who’s trying to make trouble for us. Lang,’ Virgil said with a sharp exhalation as if he were forcing himself to speak a callous truth.
‘I reckon that if you were to become town marshall you would have the authority to look into matters and collect a few dollars while you were about it.’
FOUR
I just stared at Virgil. Had he gone crazy; had the lady already gotten to him? ‘You know I gave that up long ago, and you know why, Virgil. If I ever had to resort to that sort of work again, it sure wouldn’t be in this town.’
Virgil was intimidated by my tone of voice and maybe by the gleam in my eyes. ‘You ought to at least think it over, Lang.…’ he muttered, before he turned away and started walking toward the house.
The two freighters had clambered back aboard their wagon and the driver turned the mule team as the swamper removed his hat to mop at his brow with a blue bandanna. The relief on both of their faces was obvious. They were pleased to be finished with that job. I lifted a hand to them as the rig rolled past behind the plodding mules.
I didn’t even want to see the inside of the cabin just yet. I mounted my sorrel and rode out northward, toward the Panhandle where Virgil had seen the tracks of strange horses. There was nothing out that way. The land was mostly a ledge of solid rock, a few feet higher than the surrounding country. No grass grew and there were only spotty clumps of brush and cholla cactus. It was worthless for grazing and, as far as I knew, unremarkable in any way, which made us wonder why the three horsemen had paused there.
The day was pleasant enough. Hot, it was, but windless with a crystal sky. Walking my sorrel along the sandy trail through a stand of creosote brush, I startled a covey of quail and they scattered before the sorrel’s hoofs, weaving their way toward safety, not frightened enough to take to wing.
I could smell water now, for there was water standing in isolated pools along Whipsaw Creek. For the most part, however, the Whipsaw was a broad sandy gully lined with dry willow brush and a few scattered, dismal cottonwood trees. If I hadn’t smelled the water, I would have known I was near it by the surrounding presence of the swarm of gnats and the quick blue-gold darting dragonfly that whipped past my face like a tiny shooting star.
I looked ahead toward the low, broken hills someone had named Arapaho Peak, though this territory was far south of the usual range of that tribe of Indians. Maybe they had once roamed this land, I wouldn’t know.
I couldn’t get Virgil’s words out of my mind. I didn’t like the idea and so I had simply gotten angry, but he did have a point. I should at least consider the possibility. The job of marshal would give me a few advantages I did not now have, for instance.
I saw a chunk of leather fly from the pommel of my saddle, felt the sorrel flinch before I even recognized the sound of a rifle report. I didn’t look around to see where the shot had come from. I leaped from leather, rolled into the brush and drew my Colt as a second shot echoed across the empty land. A third bullet searching the dry brush for flesh, furrowed the sandy soil a foot or so from my hand.
I lay hatless, sweat dripping into my eyes, Colt cocked and ready in my right hand, waiting. The shots had come from across the river, I thought. I searched the distances for a rising puff of smoke, watched for the moving shadow of a sniper or the silhouette of a picketed horse, but saw nothing.
Slow minutes passed without another sound, without movement as I studied the brushy bank of the dry creek. A stream of red ants had found my hand and decided to use it as a shortcut to their hill. I blew them off with a puff of breath and waited, squinting into the glare of the desert sunlight. I could see my sorrel, reins trailing, nibbling impassively at some mesquite beans it had found. I couldn’t remain where I was indefinitely. Pinned down, my muscles already stiff, not an adversary but only a target for the marksman across the river.
I could not attack an unseen enemy and so I took the other option. Retreat.
I slithered forward on my elbows and knees, managing to stick to the clump of brittle brush long enough to reach my horse. I stretched out a hand for the reins and came up beside the sorrel, my pistol aimed eastward, eyes alert for any movement. There was none.
I turned my pony’s head homeward and walked with it, staying behind the horse’s shoulder for fifty yards or so before, risking it, I grabbed the saddle-horn and leaped aboard, heeling the sorrel sharply into a dead run.
No shots followed. No one cried out.
Angling through the brush I came to a narrow sandy wash, dipped into it, followed it a way then emerged on the far side. I was well away from the river now, screened by low hills, sagebrush and rocky ridges. Still I did not feel safe. When a man wants to shoot you, he’ll generally find a way to pursue his idea.
What if it wasn’t me in particular he wanted to kill? Maybe it was just anybody he saw. Would Virgil Sly’s scalp have done just as well? Or Matti’s! All this b
usiness with the conflicting deeds had gotten me thinking – maybe someone just wanted this land and was using anything that came to mind to obtain it, even murder.
Reg Kent. It had to be Kent, I thought. But why after all this time? He didn’t like me, but we generally stayed out of each other’s way, and he had no use for my dry patch of land that I could see. It was Reg who had all the good water, obtained by driving off or bullying the small ranchers farther north on the Whipsaw; Kent who had decent graze because of the water. So maybe I was doing Kent an injustice.
I put aside my intention of looking at my small herd of cattle to see how they were getting along, and headed my horse south again. Something more important than the cattle was on my mind now. I rode on grimly through the pale, heated light of the desert day.
I don’t know who was more astonished to find me standing there when the door to Mayor Jefferson’s fine white clapboard house opened to admit me – the mayor himself, Judge Plank or Reg Kent. All three of them wore suits, of course. Kent’s was a pearly gray affair worn with a ribbon tie. His silver hair had a wave in the front and another where his mane disappeared behind his stiff white collar. The mayor wore a black suit as did Plank. The mayor’s hair consisted of two white wings combed over his ears. Judge Plank couldn’t boast that much plumage. His hair was vaguely orange, thin and fluffy as a gosling’s.
I stood in the living room decorated with heavy dark-wood furnishings and waited for someone to speak. Two kids were playing a game on the floor near the fireplace. The little girl was in white, a big blue ribbon in her pale hair; the boy was dressed in a suit with short pants.
‘I am surprised to see you, Lang,’ the mayor said. He glanced at his other two guests. The judge’s mouth was tightly pursed. Reg Kent was smiling as if he knew something I did not. A lot of things. ‘Let’s go into the other room,’ he suggested.
We passed by an open door which led to a massive dining room. I could smell the Sunday roast cooking. I wondered if Reg Kent had brought the beef and to whom it had originally belonged.