Carmody 6

by Peter McCurtin

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Carmody.”

  “I might have to, Tex.”

  He didn’t say anything else for a while. I thought it was working up to a pretty good all-day party. McCarty thought different; from the bleak look on his face you’d think he was sitting up with a corpse. Maybe the poor feller felt lonesome, left out.

  He just had to get it off his bony chest. “What I saw here today makes me sick. Sick enough to throw up.”

  “Not here, Tex.”

  Ignoring that, he went on. “Look, Carmody, we tangled a few times, but you’re a professional, I’m a professional ...”

  “I just became a farmer,” I said, tilting the bottle.

  “So God damned sick I just got to do something.” His hand reached for the bottle, maybe the most normal thing he ever did in his life. “Even drink this slop.”

  I told him to drink up. “Be good for you, Tex.”

  One drink made him drunk, something I thought could happen only to maiden ladies. He put another one in the glass, and you’d think he was drinking horse piss, it went down so hard.

  “Now my turn,” I said. The punch-hole piano was jangling out “My Minnesota Rose” and the boys were putting new corns on the whores’ trail-weary feet. I looked around to see which of the girls I would take upstairs.

  “The same thing is happening here,” the kid said, slurring the words. “Murphy and Dolan tricked Mr. Tunstall the same way. Talked a big peace, then killed him in cold blood. Billy knew what was happening but Mr. Tunstall wouldn’t listen … ”

  The kid was going back eight years, back to when his so-called brother Billy was the biggest gun in the Lincoln County War in another part of the Territory. Murphy, the ex Union major, and his partner, Dolan, were on one side. Tunstall, an English rancher long on money and short on brains, was on the other. I couldn’t recall any special tricks, but a Murphy-bought sheriff named Brady gunned down the unarmed Englishman. Billy was a half-starved kid when Tunstall took him in, so the Englishman’s murder hit him kind of hard. So hard that he killed Brady and most of his deputies, as well as some other people who might or might not have been involved. Pat Garrett killed Billy, but the legend went on.

  “Saxbee’s tricks ain’t going to work here,” the kid said. “Cause I’m going to be looking out for Mr. Blatchford all the way.”

  “Lucky Sam,” I said.

  Sam, that sweaty sack of guts, was up on the floor staggering through a dance with the fattest whore he could find. At the table Saxbee was slumped over with his long face in a pool of slopped whisky.

  I was ready to give McCarty one more chance to leave Sam in peace. If he wasn’t ready to go, then I’d have to do something about it. Pushing him got his back up, so I tried it the other way.

  “You do what you want, Tex. But there’s no gun work around here. Take a good look, see for yourself.”

  He looked over at Sam and shook his head, kind of sad. “A damn shame,” he said. “I guess you’re right.”

  Maybe it was the whisky that kept me from wondering why he was so quick to change his mind. The two drinks of booze had ironed out the map-work of grin lines in his face. Could be if he drank more he could stop grinning and people might like him better. People might—I never would.

  “I’m going back to the ranch to get my gear. Sure hope Colorado’s got more real men than this place. I don’t include you in that, Carmody.”

  “Thanks, Tex. Do appreciate that.”

  Sam was back at the table, trying to wake Saxbee by dumping a full quart of whisky over his bald scarred head. McCarty, looking mean again, turned back and asked if maybe I’d like to ride along with him. As the girl said to the soldier, that was kind of sudden. “You don’t have to like me, nor me you. We’d make one hell of a team, and some day maybe we’d have to tangle. Makes no difference ...”

  That little speech was direct from one of his greasy dime novels. And there was a good chance Tex McCarty meant to back-shoot me the first chance he got.

  I answered the son of a bitch in dime novel lingo.

  “Sorry, pardner, but an old lone wolf don’t change his spots that easy.”

  Tex just had to let me in on the benefits of his wide reading. “Wolves don’t have spots. You ought to know that, Carmody. So long. You’ll be hearing about me.”

  Before he left he went over and tried to say something to Sam. Just about then Sam was too drunk to know his own face in the mirror. He grabbed the kid’s hand and pumped it hard. “You’d be Dan Doolittle’s oldest boy—or am I wrong?” For some reason, Dan Doolittle was one of Sam’s all-time favorite joke names.

  McCarty jerked his hand away and went out with the longest stride he could manage. He was going through the door when a drunk cowboy called after him in a high voice, “Bye, Dolores!” Fast gun or not, the kid didn’t even look back.

  God Almighty, I was glad to see that feller gone.

  After that I snagged a girl and sat drinking with her until she got more enthusiastic about her work. Listening to a woman before I take her to bed comes easy to me. If you want it to be good in bed, and not just a quick ride, you have to feed them whisky and you have to listen.

  The party roared on into the afternoon; I was half drunk, easy, relaxed. Earlier two of the boys had a fight about exactly what it was Stonewall Jackson had to say on his deathbed. When men get to drinking you can expect arguments about anything. Not being able to agree, they fought with nothing more dangerous than their fists.

  My whore got better looking as the bottle went down. She was prettier than you’d expect to find in a forgotten hole like Mariposa. That was the trouble with her; she was too good for Mariposa, she thought, and naturally there was a story to go with it.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Your beau, Captain Fairweather of the Army of the Confederacy, lost his memory during the war and you’ve been searching for him ever since.”

  My whore’s face was well dusted with rice powder, but her beauty spot hadn’t been pasted on right. It kept peeling off. Pressing on it, she said, “You’re silly, you know that, Mr. Carmody. Why the war’s been over”—she had to count hard—“over for twenty-four years. Lordy, I’m only twenty-two myself.”

  That was hard to believe, I said. “You don’t look a day over eighteen, honey.” She was on the dark side of thirty-five, but a man learns to work with what he’s got.

  “You’re awful,” she giggled. “You want to hear the real story or not?”

  I said she ought to pay me.

  She had a Georgia or Alabama accent, all mush and feathers. “The real story of my life is … ”

  Saxbee’s foreman, an Indian-looking feller named Morgan, barged through the door with a tight scowl on his face. Sam was up and dancing again, if you can call it that, and while he wheeled the girl about his hands kept grabbing at her softer parts. Saxbee had slept, was refreshed and back at the bottle. One of Sam’s boys, a real young one, was on the floor calling for his mother. And there was no call for Morgan to kick him in the side.

  Saxbee asked Morgan what in hell he was doing.

  “Some of these bushwhackers stole my new Sharps.” Morgan said it was his new rifle mail-ordered all the way from Chicago.

  There might have been trouble if the party hadn’t been going so good. Saxbee told Morgan to use his God damned head. The hell with his new rifle. “If it doesn’t turn up, I’ll pay for another one,” Saxbee told his foreman. “Now you join the party or get back to the ranch.”

  Morgan went out looking mad, and after that the party thinned out as the boys took the whores upstairs. “What about it, honey?” my girl wanted to know.

  Sam stopped dancing, probably because he was about to fall down. “I’m going upstairs,” he bellowed to anyone who wanted to listen. He had the fat whore in a bear hug and when he belched she looked offended until he dropped a fifty dollar gold piece between her considerable melons. Listening to the soft sounds upstairs—a giggle, a laugh, a grunt—Sam got a wide smile
on his whiskery face.

  “Wake up, Saxbee,” he said. “Cut out a filly and we’ll ride double.”

  Saxbee was ready to climb into bed, but not for that. “Got to watch my heart, the doc says. We’ll talk later, Sam. When you … ”

  Sam said no need to be bashful. “Me and Mary Rose are engaged.”

  Mary Rose giggled and said her real name was Victoria Regina. She was called after the Queen of Canada and other places, and she was all for the engagement if Sam was. She had a bitter chalky face that was trying hard to be young. “Oh, do you really mean it, Mr. Blatchford?”

  Sam winked. “Got to try you first, honey.”

  At the foot of the stairs he turned back to speak to me. “You ain’t still guarding me, are you? Cause if you are, don’t bother. No more trouble. Go on, boy. Take your woman upstairs. Enjoy yourself sick.”

  I can’t recall what my whore’s name was, though she must have mentioned it forty times. Even saloon girls like to be remembered, and I do remember what a good ride she was once I got her upstairs and into her crib. I gave her ten dollars, and in a town like Mariposa that was top dollar.

  We wrestled and later we drank, then lay sweating in the heat listening to Sam and his woman next-door. Through the thin wall it sounded like two hogs in a wallow, and when Sam grunted like that you knew he was having a good time. Of course, being old, it took him a while, and he still wasn’t finished an hour later when we wrestled again, and I fell asleep.

  When I woke up again Sam was in the room; the girl slept quietly beside me. “No need for that gun,” Sam nodded.

  “Habit,” I said.

  “Just brought you a fresh bottle,” Sam told me. “In case you feel like staying in bed. Me and Noah just talked again, so it’s all right, no more trouble. Now it’s time I was getting back to the ranch. You be out later?”

  I said sure. I rolled my legs off the bed and the girl muttered in her sleep.

  “Shush,” Sam said. “Don’t wake the poor child. I don’t need you to ride along. Get your rest, boy—that’s an order.”

  Some orders, not many, come easy. This was one I liked. Sam went downstairs and when he got outside I watched from the window while he climbed up on the wagon seat and set the horse to walking. Nobody shot at him and—like he said—why should they?

  Chapter Nine

  Mariposa City was quiet when I got my horse and rode out on the north trail. Before I left I eased open the door of Saxbee’s room, and he was still there, sleeping off a new drunk. In another room Morgan was snoring, maybe dreaming of his lost mail order rifle. It looked like most of the ranch hands had straggled home.

  All things considered, it had been a good enough day; in the morning after a solid Blatchford breakfast I’d decide which direction to go.

  Taking it slow, I wasn’t even close to Sam’s boundary wire when they opened up with a hail of lead. Even with the sun still strong I saw the flashes of yellow that were trying to kill me. I slid off fast, slapped my horse the other way. I was beginning to feel persecuted; it looked like every time I climbed on a horse there was somebody waiting to kill me. They were throwing a storm of lead my way, sending bullets as fast as they could work the levers. I stayed flat and the shooting went on. A hundred times I’d told them to let riders get in close before they started blasting; just then I was glad they weren’t following orders.

  While I waited for the lead storm to ease up I wondered what in hell they were doing.

  Flat behind a scatter of broken rocks, I raised my head an inch at a time. From where I was I could see the wire; they hadn’t seen me yet. Whatever the reason, those boys were good and mad.

  “Carmody,” I yelled when the fire slackened. The shout got them firing again, then there was yelling over on their side of the wire. After that the firing stopped. I heard Dink Westfall telling me to show myself.

  Up on my feet, I let them take a good look before I started for the wire. I was supposed to be on their side, but their guns stayed with me every step of the way. When I reached the swing gate that blocked off the trail I whistled up my horse and he came running.

  A word from the foreman would have killed me or let me through. He didn’t give it, either way, and his old Army .45 didn’t move an inch from my belly. Eventually the Dutchman would tell me what was wrong.

  “Sam’s dead,” he said abruptly. “Bushwhacked on his way home. McCarty was at the ranch, got worried about Sam, went out looking for him. Found him still in the wagon shot through the head and chest.”

  “What time?” I asked.

  Westfall didn’t answer the question; instead he asked one. “Where were you all this time, Carmody?”

  Sam’s boys raised their guns without any special instructions. The hell with Sam’s boys. I told the Dutchman what he could do with his God damned questions.

  That seemed to do it for him. He put his gun away and told them to open the gate. Westfall was down in the mouth, more than a mite confused. “I guess you had nothing to do with it,” he said.

  “Then why are you asking?”

  “Just asking. Sam’s dead, so I got to ask. Hardly need to. It’s plain who did, who paid to have it done. Saxbee and Morgan—nobody else. McCarty found Morgan’s rifle, the name on the stock, behind a stand of rocks. Right above where Sam was murdered. The rifle, two cartridge cases. You passed the place about three miles back.”

  Well, there it was; Sam was dead but it wasn’t over; not for me it wasn’t because I hadn’t earned my pay. It was too late to help Sam, but I’d earn that month’s pay somehow. I didn’t tell Westfall about the different things I was going over in my mind.

  “Where’s Detective McCarty now?” I asked Westfall, who said he’d ride back with me.

  Westfall didn’t like my tone, I didn’t like it much myself. “With Sam at the ranch. You should have been with Sam, so don’t go sneering at the kid. The kid says he warned you this would happen. Sam might’ve done better to hire on the kid.”

  I blew a long breath. “Could be,” I said.

  Westfall was right, I guess. Another man might argue that Sam’s orders had to be followed, that Sam himself declared the war to be over. But I had no excuses for myself, so the hell with the dumb Dutchman and anything he might have to say.

  I put the boots to my horse and nothing else was said until we got to the ranch. We were climbing down when Westfall said, “The kid’s taking it real hard. Go easy or there’ll be real trouble.”

  “Yeah, Dink,” I said.

  In the house the three Mexican women were wailing like Comanche squaws. Heard against the red glare of the dying sun it was a lonesome sound. The rest of the house was lit up, but from Sam’s room upstairs nothing showed but the flicker of candles. Out in front, the men guarding the house stood around smoking and talking, and you could nearly smell the bust-out of bad feeling when they saw me. They felt they’d been slickered, and wanted to do something about it, but didn’t know what. Just the same, Sam was dead, and no matter how bad they felt about it, they were out of a job. Sam was wrong and times had changed; in the old days they would have been halfway to Saxbee’s ranch by now.

  We went upstairs to Sam’s room, and the three women threw Spanish curses when they saw me. I speak enough Spanish to know what they were saying. I had soaked myself in whisky and dirtied myself with the perfumed flesh of whores while my friend, the Senor Blatchford, was being murdered on the trail.

  Which was true.

  The look on my face brought the curses down to a mumble. To them I was the Devil’s segundo—second in command—and they got out of my way when I went to get a closer look at Sam. On such short orders, they had done a real nice job on the dead fat man. There was no way they could hide the hole between his eyes—Westfall said one in the head, one in the heart—but otherwise Sam looked neat enough to be married. Or buried. The dusty black suit had been sponged clean, the hole on the left side neatly darned. They had shaved the silvery stubble from his face, now the color of old lard.
Sam had a boiled white shirt and a black tie knotted in a loose bow. They must have dug deep to find the gray elastic sided Jefferson shoes. Sam’s hands were folded on his fat belly.

  McCarty knew I was there but he didn’t turn his head. He sat near the bed looking at the dead man’s face, as if he expected Sam to open his eyes and to issue special instructions. The window was open and in the flickering candlelight McCarty’s face looked at least as pale as Sam’s.

  You never saw anybody trying to act more dignified when he finally turned around. “Not right to talk here,” he said. “We’ll go downstairs.”

  A brand new Sharps, two empty shell cases beside it, was on the dining room table. Westfall looked at both of us while the kid explained how he happened to find Sam. I expected him to put on a show; instead he was quiet.

  “Had my gear packed and everything. Then I thought the good friend Mr. Blatchford was to me. I had the feeling something wasn’t right. That’s when I started back towards town.”

  “You hear shots?”

  McCarty’s answer was quick. “Yeah, two shots. It happened where the road dips through those big rocks. Too far off to see anything. I just knew Mr. Blatchford was in trouble. I shot off my gun and rode in hard. Too late—Mr. Blatchford was dead on the wagon seat. I heard the bushwhacker riding off, but I couldn’t leave Mr. Blatchford like that. Later I found the rifle up in the rocks. Morgan’s.”

  I still hadn’t said anything about Morgan lying drunk in a whore’s bed in Mariposa. That was how he looked to me when I left town.

  “I don’t want any help from you, Carmody.” The kid seemed definite about not wanting help. Westfall moved out of the way.

  “None offered, Tex. I’ll speak for Sam in my own way.”

  That didn’t suit him either. “No, sir, nobody but me gets into this. You all just worked for money. I was Mr. Blatchford’s friend.”

  I wanted to look at Morgan’s rifle, and I was reaching for it when McCarty drew his gun and cracked me on the side of the head. Through a red blur I heard him warning Westfall to stand easy. Even with the short barreled .38 splitting my scalp my own gun came out. It didn’t do any good. It felt as heavy as an anvil at the end of my arm, and when it sagged so did I.