by Chuck Tyrell
Marie checked each table by habit, flicking her gaze to each, even though Stryker was the only customer in the room. She bustled back to the kitchen.
Roots. Stryker stared at the celadon cup. Roots. Almost everyone he knew and trusted had roots. Ness Havelock at the RP Connected. Garet Havelock at the H Cross on Silver Creek. Wolf Wilder had the Flying W in Long Pine Canyon. Real Lee and Lilywhite seemed settled down in Payson. Laurel Baker and Finn McBride were married and the Rafter P supplied Ponderosa with good beef and better horses. The McCulloughs had their place in the Blues.
Roots.
Stryker’s thoughts returned to Catherine de Merode, as they so often did. “Wire me, send me a letter, use one of those new telephones to talk to me, it doesn’t matter how you contact me, Matt, but when you’re ready to put down some roots, as soon as I can find transportation to wherever you are, I will come.”
Roots.
After that speech, Catherine took the stagecoach to Ehrenberg, ferried across the Colorado, and went on to the old Spanish city called Los Angeles. Stan Ruggart’s girl April was there. Catherine was still her governess and confidant. And Ruggart’s fortune, under the management of Josiah Fish, took good care of April.
Roots. Damn.
Matt Stryker did only two things well. One was lawmanning, the other was manhunting.
Roots.
“Here’s your omelet, Matt.” Marie was at his elbow. Stryker berated himself for not noticing her. Lack of awareness of a man’s surrounds could get that man killed.
The white porcelain plate Marie placed in front of Stryker held a large golden omelet. Stryker had no way of knowing what the eggs held wrapped inside. But it bulged temptingly. He took the fork at the left of the plate and was about to stab the omelet when Marie said, “Oh my, Matt. Have you forgotten how to eat an omelet?” She held out a wooden pepper mill and another of salt. The salt is from the farms of La Paz on the Sea of Cortez,” she said. “The pepper is direct from the Spice Islands.”
She ground three turns of La Paz sea salt on the omelet, then showered it with coarsely ground black pepper from the mill. “There. Now you may enjoy the fine omelet Marcel created just for you. Ah. Moment. I will bring you toasted bread, some fresh butter, and perhaps some delicious jam.” She hurried back into the kitchen.
Stryker didn’t wait. Once again he picked up the fork, and this time he attacked the omelet. Outside, it was golden egg, not over done, not runny. His fork gouged a large portion from the near end. Chopped ham, sausage, melted cheese, and diced onion oozed from inside. Stryker leaned over the plate and devoured the portion on his fork. As the robust flavors of the omelet and its filling invaded his senses, two men entered Chez Bennie. They glanced at Stryker, their eyes pausing briefly on his scarred face. Stryker seemed to ignore them, but his peripheral vision catalogued their peculiarities.
One was tall and gangly, dressed in a brown sack coat and California pants that seemed at least a size too big. He wore a bowler that he didn’t remove when he came into the restaurant. The other was shorter by half a foot, but broad-shouldered and thick bodied. They took a table close to the door and sat facing the windows that looked out on 12th Street.
Marie emerged from the kitchen, toast on a small plate, butter and jam in little jars. “Bonjour, messieurs,” she said to the men. “Your toast, Matt.”
“Thank you, Marie,” he said. “Mighty good omelet. You can tell Marcel I said that.”
“Why thank you. Merci beaucoup. Coming from Matt Stryker, that is high praise indeed.” She turned to the other men. “Moment, Messieurs.” She’d noticed that Stryker’s coffee cup was nearly empty and needed refreshing. “More coffee in a moment, Matt,” she said, and hustled into the kitchen for the coffee pot.
“Scuse me,” said the broad man. “Did the waitress say you were Matt Stryker?”
“She did,” Stryker said.
“No shit?”
“I’ll thank you not to use such language in a public place,” Stryker said.
“Ah. Sorry. Just kinda slipped out.” The thick man said, “I’m Garth Upton and this here’s Elijah Carpenter.”
Stryker nodded. He’d never heard of either name. He took another bite of omelet.
“You’re that man what gunned down King Rennick up to Ponderosa, ain’t ya?” the thick man said.
“And took on the Nogales Guards all by himself,” Carpenter said.
“If you will let M’sieur Stryker finish his meal in peace, messieurs,” Marie said. She poured coffee for Stryker.
“Just being friendly.” Upton’s voice had a pout in it.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Stryker said. “Now. If I could finish my breakfast, I’ll be on my way.”
“Who ya chasing?” Upton wouldn’t let well enough alone.
Stryker ignored him while he buttered a slice of hot toasted bread and took a large bite.
“Coffee, messieurs?” Marie asked.
Both men nodded. Neither looked at her. They were interested only in Stryker, who ate the omelet and toast as if they were the only interest in his life at that moment.
“Who ya after?” Upton said again.
Stryker dabbed at the tears leaking from his left eye. “Whether or not I seek a lawbreaker at this moment is of no import,” he said. “I came to Chez Bennie for one of Marcel’s excellent omelets, and he has obliged me. Right now, all I want to think about is how good this food is. You really should try it.”
Marie brought white porcelain coffee cups and saucers, along with the coffee pot. She poured each man a cup. “Sugar?” she asked.
“Black,” Upton said.
Carpenter nodded. “Same,” he said.
Stryker’s omelet neared extinction. He pointedly ignored the bowler-hatted duo across the room.
“Bet’chu five dollars that Stryker’s after someone.” Upton’s voice carried easily to Stryker’s ears, but the two men might as well have been ghosts. “I mean, he’s a goldam bounty hunter. When he’s not hunting bounties, he’s wearing a goldam badge.”
“Orders, messieurs?”
“Just coffee this time a the morning,” Upton said.
Marie raised her eyebrows.
“Anyone can cook hen fruit,” Upton said. “Only the Frenchy makes coffee like this.” He gulped at his coffee. “Yessiree. Almighty good coffee.”
“Perhaps an order of cinnamon toast to complement the coffee, then,” Marie said.
“Coffee,” Upton said, an edge of sharpness in his voice. “You hard a hearing or sumpin?”
“I’ll have one more cup of coffee, too, Marie,” Stryker said. “Marcel have any cinnamon rolls left?”
“Perhaps, Matt. I will look.” As Marie took a step away from Upton’s table, he grabbed her wrist. “Where you going? We ain’t finished yet.”
“Upton.” Stryker spoke in a hard low voice, but it carried the impact of a shout. “Don’t know who you are. Don’t care. But no man restrains a woman by force. No one. Let go of the lady’s arm.” Stryker pushed his chair back.
Upton pulled Marie around in front of him. “You trying to make me do sumpin? Huh?”
He stood up behind her and put a sheath knife to her throat. “Come on, big bounty hunter. Just what’cha figure to make me do, huh, what?”
Stryker sat perfectly still.
Marie acted as if it were just one more part of her everyday job. She stood, seemingly unconcerned about the blade at her throat.
“No need for you to get upset, Upton,” Stryker said. “We’re talking manners, not gunfights.” He paused for a long minute. “But if it’s a gunfight you want, let Marie get out of the way. Put up that knife and we can go out in the street where it’ll be just the two of us. How about it, Upton? Don’t you want to be the man who kills Matt Stryker? Isn’t that what you want?”
“King Rennick got lead into you, din’t he?”
“He did.”
“’Ness Havelock shot them guardsmen in Nogales, din’t he?”
�
��He did.”
“You’d stand it off with me out in the street?”
“I will.”
“No shit?”
Stryker’s eyes narrowed. “Use civilized language, Upton. There’s a lady present.”
Upton chuckled. Then laughed out loud. “I got a knife to the bitch’s jugular and you’re worried about how I talk. That’s rich.” He pushed Marie away.
Two loud clicks sounded from the door to the kitchen. Marie dropped to the floor. “Zees ees a Greener, monsieur,” Marcel said. “I use her to get doves and quail for my guests’ tables. But now I put zee buckshot in her. Leave. Now. As you say, toot sweet.”
Upton sheathed the knife and raised his hands shoulder high, palms out. “No quarrel with you, Mr. Cook. No quarrel with the girl. Me and Matt Stryker’re gonna have us a contest of guts and lead outside.”
He spoke to Stryker, “Ain’t that so, bounty hunter? I let the girl go, so you owe me.”
Stryker gave a short nod. “We will,” he said.
Upton straightened his bowler. “But you don’t know where. You won’t know until I pull the trigger” without taking his eyes off Stryker, he said, “Come on, Elijah. We’re leaving. Going out on the street. Going out to wait for Matt Stryker.” The grin on Upton’s face looked very much like a snarl.
Carpenter drained his coffee cup. “Very good coffee, as usual, Marcel. Please pardon my friend Garth’s impoliteness.” He touched the brim of his bowler toward the angry Frenchman with the cocked Greener, then turned to Stryker. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stryker. If you survive Garth Upton, perhaps we should have a conversation. You see, I know Lester Dent.”
“You friends with the Dents?”
“Know ‘em. Don’t run with them.”
“Join me for some more coffee?”
“How about Garth?”
“Bring him along. Him and me, we’ll settle what’s between us later.”
“All right.” He got up and walked over to Stryker’s table. He took the seat with its back to the room.
“Trusting soul, ain’t you?” Stryker said with a wry smile. He dabbed at the tears on his cheek with his napkin.
“You’re watching the room, Stryker. That’s as good a protection as I could get anywhere, I reckon.”
Upton sat next to Carpenter, his face a plain mask, but Stryker could read the anger in him. He ignored it, figuring Carpenter was the stronger of the two.
“Marie,” Stryker said, “please bring us some more of Marcel’s fine hazelnut coffee. On my bill, if you will.”
Marie scrambled to her feet. “At once, monsieur,” she said.
Marcel released the hammers on the Greener and leaned it against the wall, just inside the kitchen door.
In moments, Marie came with three porcelain cups and saucers. Marcel followed her with a coffee pot. He filled the cups as she placed them in front of the men.
“My thanks, Marie, Marcel.”
“Surely, monsieur,” Marcel said. He and Marie retreated to the kitchen.
Stryker sipped at the hot coffee. “Aaah. Tucson. All the vestiges of culture.” He replaced his cup to its saucer and sat looking at Carpenter. He ignored Upton. “Tell me about Lester Dent and his boys, Elijah. You don’t mind my calling you Elijah, do you?”
“Elijah would be just right, Striker, just right.”
“So what do you think I should know about Lester Dent and his boys, then? What’s more, what gave you the idea that I’m interested in the Dents?”
Carpenter showed his teeth in a smile. “Any time a man sends a telegram in this burg, he’d better figure on everyone in the city knowing about it before an hour’s out.” Carpentered put his hands on the table, palms up and fingers spread.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Lester Dent was one of James Danby’s riders in the recent war of Northern aggression, and one of his raiders once the war was over.”
“Jayhawk?”
“That’s a nice word for it. Jim Danby had little care for which side of the slavery question a body stood on. He only wanted to know where the money was cached.” Carpenter took a gulp of his coffee. “”Dent wasn’t so interested in cash as he was in women. Give him a day or two, and any woman would be doing just about anything he said to.”
“Hmmm.” Stryker scowled. Dodge Miller’s account of what happened to Molly seemed to make her assailants the Dents, no mistake. “The station master at Miller’s Well said there were four Dents who burned down his station,” Stryker said. “Who do you think would be riding with Dent?”
“Him and his three boys. They’re about as nasty a bunch as you’ll ever run into.”
“Tell me.”
“The oldest is Phineas. Finn for short. Mean as a bobcat. Sneaky as a coyote.” Carpentered emptied his coffee cup and held it up until Marie noticed. “Second is Lee Roy. Cut from the same mold as Finn. Then there’s Wee Willy.”
“Wee Willy?”
“Yep. Big giant of a man, he is. Bigger even than Bob Paul. But he’s never growed in his head past about seven or eight years old. His pa beats on him a lot, too. Wee Willy. Always trying to do things right, but never quite making it, and always getting beat for his mistakes, real or imagined.”
Marie came with the coffee pot and filled their cups.
“You seem to know the Dents right intimate.”
“I rode with Danby. We were right upset about Suthrun cecesh. But more ‘n more, raids got to be about money, not revenge. After we got shot to pieces by Sheriff Satterlee’s posse from Wolf Creek, I left. Told Canby to keep my share. I left. Quit bein’ a raider.”
“Good choice,” Stryker said. “But I’m gonna have to ride them Dents down.”
Chapter Four
Finn Dent came clattering down the trail, just in time for a cold biscuit and a strip of jerky. “Ain’t no one in sight, pa. Red or white or any other kinda color.”
Lester Dent said nothing, but he smiled inside. James Canby, that hoity-toity guerilla raider, could never have pulled off a stage heist like the Dents’d done at Miller’s Well. Now they had a woman to do and make do. And they had six sacks of solid gold ingots that were hidden away under the stagecoach’s seats, lashed to the back of a mule. No sir. James Danby, that famous Kansas Redleg, he couldn’t do what Lester Dent had done.
No way to know where the gold ingots had come from. No mill stamp. No nothing to identify them. The results of someone’s high grading operation, maybe. Didn’t matter. Now the gold belonged to Lester Dent, and the woman belonged to them all. ‘Twas good to have a poke whenever a man got the urge. Morning or night. A man never knew when the urge for a poke would come. Yes. Good to have a woman. Downright good.
“Molly. Bring me some water,” Finn said. “Damn biscuits is hard as sin.” He laughed at his own joke. No one else did.
Molly Miller kept her eyes on the ground as she approached Finn with a canteen. She held it out.
“Cain’t reach it,” Finn growled.
She inched closer, the canteen at arms length.
Finn grabbed it.
“Don’cha go chugalugging that water now, boy,” Lester Dent warned. “We still gotta get through Hell’s Trail.”
“Aah, pa. They’ll be water afore then. San Pedro Creek runs all the way to the Gila.”
“That creek’s been known to go dry,” Lester Dent said. “Take it easy on the water.”
Finn said nothing. He took the canteen, uncorked it, and had two deep swallows. He looked at Lester, then took another. He recorked the canteen and tossed it to Molly. “Don’chu go drinking up all our water, bitch.”
Molly shook her head and retreated. At least he’d not ordered her to hike up her skirts again.
“Time to get back on the trail,” Lester Dent said. “Once we’re through Hell’s Trail, there’s a rock cabin up there in Skeleton Canyon. We can stay there until people stop looking for us.”
“Nobody left from Miller’s Well,” Leroy said. “How’ll the
y know it was us?”
“We got our horses shoed in Globe City. Someone’ll recognize the shoes. Maybe. Maybe not. But we gotta figure someone will know it was us. Figure on it.”
“Ain’t no one on the back trail, pa,” Lee Roy said. “I checked.”
“A whole band of Mescaleros could ride up on us without you ever seeing ‘em,” Lester said. “But there’s probably no white men back there, I’ll give you that.”
Wee Willy didn’t join the conversation. Bruises from the beating Lester had given him still stood out in purple and yellow and green. He stayed away from Molly, and he stayed away from the other Dents. He squatted in the shade of the pack mule the Dents had stolen from the corral at Miller’s Well. He kept his eyes on the ground. He tried to be inconspicuous, but a man his size could hardly fade from sight.
Molly squatted not far from Wee Willy, but in the shade of a boulder. She was thirstier than she’d ever been in her life, but she refused to drink or even look at the canteens, unless told to fetch one.
“You all’ll die if’n you don’t take some water,” Wee Willy said. He spoke only loud enough for his voice to carry to Molly’s ears.
Molly shook her head. “I don’t care,” she whispered. “I just don’t care.”
“You gotta care, missus.”
“I’m just a bitch. A bitch’s an animal. No use living.”
“Hey, bitch.” The call came from Lee Roy. “Get’chor ass over here. Now.”
Molly heaved herself to her feet. She took a deep breath. Her hands trembled. She clamped her lips together.
“Move’ut,” Lee Roy hollered.
She dogtrotted across the sunburnt patch of ground and halted in front of Lee Roy, her shoulders slumped and her head bowed. Her ratty hair fell in snarls around her face.
Lee Roy took a roundhouse swing at her that sent his right hand splatting against the side of her face. “Bitch. When I call ya, come running.”
Molly dropped to her knees without a sound.
“You hear me, bitch?” Lee Roy’s voice nearly screeched.
Molly toppled forward, but caught herself with hands spread wide, elbows locked and fingers splayed. She panted. Ung. Ung. Ung. Ung. Like a child who has been told to shut up, but can’t hold the sobs back completely.