The Devil's Waltz

by Ethan J. Wolfe

  “I remember every night after supper he would wind that watch and set it open-faced on the mantle above the fireplace,” Posey said.

  “I remember,” Dale said.

  Looking down the tracks, Posey spotted the arriving train.

  “What did you finish up with when you got out?” Posey asked.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Dale said.

  “That made it easy to get appointed marshal, huh?”

  “Nothing easy about being a marshal,” Dale said.

  “Pay is good?”

  “Jack, be quiet. The train is almost here.”

  After a while, the constant rocking motion of the train lulled Posey to sleep in his window seat.

  Dale made provisions so that it was just the two of them in the first car for the other passengers’ safety. The slowing of the train woke Posey, and he opened his eyes when the train stopped.

  “Water stop,” Dale said.

  “Where are we?”

  “About a hundred miles east of Yuma.”

  Dale had a Bible on his lap. It was well-worn and tattered.

  “Is that Ma’s Bible?” Posey asked.

  “It is.”

  “She read to us from it every night,” Posey said.

  “I remember,” Dale said. “She gave it to me before I left for the army. She said to carry it into battle and it would protect me.”

  “And did it?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Matthew, chapter seven, do unto others as they would do unto you,” Posey said. “Only do it first and don’t miss. That’s Tom Spooner.”

  “A two-bit outlaw, thief, and murderer, that’s Tom Spooner, Jack,” Dale said.

  “I’m no better,” Posey said.

  “Maybe not,” Dale said. “We’ll see. In the meantime, be quiet.”

  Posey looked out the window as the train started to roll forward.

  Once the train was at full speed, the door to the car opened and a porter entered.

  “The dining car opens at one if you and your . . . if you would like to have lunch,” the porter said.

  “I would, but could you arrange to have it brought here?” Dale said.

  “For two?” the porter asked.

  “Yes,” Dale said.

  Posey grinned at the porter. “Maybe something a bit more high-spirited than coffee to drink,” he said.

  “No spirits served until after four,” the porter said.

  “Coffee will be fine,” Dale said.

  Posey opened his eyes and looked out the window at the darkness and said, “Where are we now?”

  “Maybe an hour from Santa Fe,” Dale said. “I swear, Jack, you sleep more than any man I’ve ever seen.”

  “Nothing else to do,” Posey said. “Roll me a smoke, would you.”

  “I’m going for some coffee first,” Dale said. “Be right back.”

  Posey watched the darkness outside his window while Dale was gone and thought if it was anybody but his brother, he’d be long gone by now. But he gave Dale his word, and he’d be hard-pressed to break it.

  Dale returned with two cups of coffee. He set them on the floor and rolled two cigarettes, then gave cup and cigarette to Posey.

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars plus expenses,” Dale said.

  Posey looked at his brother.

  “That’s what a US marshal makes every month,” Dale said.

  “It ain’t enough,” Posey said.

  “We’re coming into the station soon,” Dale said. “Finish your coffee.”

  Walking off the train, Posey stretched his back as best he could with the heavy shackles still binding his legs and wrists.

  It was after midnight, and they were the only two exiting the train.

  Two US deputy marshals waited with shotguns on the platform.

  “Take these damn things off me, Dale,” Posey said.

  “Sure,” Dale said. “As soon as you’re safely locked in a cell for the night.”

  “You said in Santa Fe . . .” Posey said.

  “As soon as I send the papers in the morning,” Dale said. “In the meantime, breakfast is served at seven thirty sharp.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Posey said.

  Grinning, Dale said, “Go easy on him, boys. He’s a big, dumb, son of a bitch, but he’s the only brother I got.”

  The marshal’s office was large enough to accommodate three desks, one for Dale and one for each of his two deputies. The jail cells, three in all, could hold as many as six men per cell.

  Posey found himself alone in the first cell.

  As one deputy stood by with a shotgun, the other deputy removed the shackles.

  “ ’Cause a you, I gotta sleep in the office tonight instead a next to my nice, warm wife,” the shotgun-toting deputy said.

  “Try breaking rocks at Yuma, you big dandy,” Posey said.

  “If you weren’t Dale’s brother, I’d pound you to sand,” the deputy said.

  At least six inches taller than the deputy, Posey grinned and said, “Make sure you wake me at seven.” Then he sat on a cot and added, “Shorty.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  A deputy woke Posey exactly at seven o’clock.

  “Got a mug of coffee and fresh water for washing,” the deputy said.

  Once the basin and coffee were inside the cell, Posey stuck his head, hair and all, into the fresh, cold water. The deputy handed him a small towel when Posey emerged from the basin.

  He wiped his face clean, ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair, and then took the mug of coffee.

  “You’re free to come out and wait in the office with us,” the deputy said. “The marshal should be here any minute.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Posey said.

  He followed the deputy to the office where the other deputy sat behind a desk.

  “Mind if I sit?” Posey said and sat on the corner of Dale’s desk.

  “I don’t understand none of this and, personally, I think the marshal is crazy letting you loose like this,” the seated deputy said.

  Posey rolled a cigarette and said, “Have you had any luck catching Tom Spooner?”

  “You know we ain’t,” the standing deputy said.

  “Got a match?” Posey asked.

  The standing deputy dug a wood match out of a shirt pocket and handed it to Posey.

  “Thanks,” Posey said, then struck the match against the desk and lit the cigarette.

  “So you think you can catch Tom Spooner?” the seated deputy said.

  “My brother does,” Posey said. “That’s what matters.”

  “I’d like to get you alone in that cell back there, we’ll see . . .” the standing deputy said.

  The door opened and Dale walked in with a wrapped package under his arm.

  “We’ll see what?” Dale asked.

  “Nothing,” the standing deputy said.

  Dale tossed the package to Posey. “Clean shirt. Put it on.”

  “Two clean shirts in three days,” Posey said. “This keeps up and I’ll be a dandy soon . . . like your deputies.”

  A buggy waited in front of the office and Posey remarked, “Is my big brother going soft that he rides around in a buggy?”

  “Belongs to my wife, Sarah,” Dale said. “We been married going on eleven years now.”

  “You didn’t mention her before,” Posey said.

  “I’m mentioning her now,” Dale said. “We’re going to my home, and I expect you to act accordingly. Sarah is the preacher over at the church, and she doesn’t take kindly to cussing and liquor.”

  “You married a preacher lady,” Posey said. “Jesus, Dale.”

  “Met right after the war during the reconstruction,” Dale said. “I knew right off she was for me, but she took some convincing.”

  As Dale drove the buggy along Main Street, they passed under a long banner hung between two buildings on opposite sides of the street. The banner read See Dan Brout
hers and the Buffalo Bisons play John Morrill and the Boston Beaneaters. Today. Admission twenty-five cents.

  “What’s that about?” Posey asked.

  “Remember the game the soldiers would play to pass the time?” Dale said. “The game with the stick and ball. They called it baseball.”

  “I remember,” Posey said. “I played it a few times myself.”

  “They play it for money now. There’ll be a game today in the field north of town.”

  “Play for money?” Posey said. “Who would pay to see that?”

  Dale turned the buggy onto Oak Street and continued until they reached the last house. It was a large home with yellow shutters and gray trim, a fenced-in garden out front, and a swing set on the porch.

  “This is my house,” Dale said.

  Posey and Dale stepped down from the buggy and walked to the porch. The door opened and Sarah Posey stepped out to meet them. She wore a simple white dress with a high collar and had her golden hair worn up in a bun, but Posey thought her a striking-looking woman.

  “Sarah, this is my brother, Jack,” Dale said.

  Sarah smiled at Posey. “Welcome,” she said.

  “Where are the . . . ?” Dale said.

  “Right here,” Sarah said, and their two children stepped out from behind her.

  “My daughter is Erin,” Dale said. “She’s eight.”

  She was cute as a button with sandy-colored hair and a tiny, upturned nose.

  “Erin, this is your Uncle Jack,” Dale said.

  “Hello, sir,” Erin said.

  “Erin was our ma’s name,” Posey said.

  “I know that, sir,” Erin said.

  “The boy is John, and he’s all of nine,” Dale said.

  “John, is it?” Posey said and looked at Dale.

  He was a scrawny boy but showed promise.

  “My father told me you were with General Sherman during the war,” John said.

  “Right true,” Posey said.

  “For goodness’ sake, everybody, come in to breakfast,” Sarah said.

  After breakfast, Dale and Posey took coffee on the porch, where they both rolled cigarettes.

  Sarah came out with the pot to refill their cups.

  “I wish you’d quit that habit, Dale,” Sarah said. “And it’s doing you no good either, Jack.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Posey said. “That was a right elegant breakfast, and your blessing was beautifully said.”

  “You haven’t heard anything yet, Jack,” Dale said.

  “As soon as you’re done with your coffee, hitch the second buggy,” Sarah said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dale said.

  As soon as Sarah was inside the house, Posey said, “Are we going somewhere?”

  “Church,” Dale said. “Today is Sunday.”

  The church was the last structure on Main Street at the very edge of town. Santa Fe had a large population of six thousand, and Posey swore every last one of them was in church that Sunday morning.

  Posey wasn’t sure if that was because Santa Fe was full of sinners who needed the word of God, or because that word of God was being delivered by a strikingly beautiful woman all fired up and red in the cheeks.

  Posey suspected the latter.

  After the hour-long sermon, Sarah and Dale stood on the top steps and greeted the faithful as they flocked out of the church.

  Posey waited by the buggy.

  When the last of the faithful had left the church, Dale came down to the buggy.

  “Sarah and the kids are going home,” Dale said. “You come with me to the office.”

  Using a key, Dale unlocked the gun safe against the wall in his office.

  “What’s your fancy?” he asked.

  Posey inspected the long guns.

  “The Winchester 75 with the adjustable sights,” Posey said. “And that Sharps will do nicely.”

  “Can you still hit anything?” Dale asked.

  Posey looked at Dale and Dale said, “Well, it’s been two years since you shot anything.”

  “The warden at Yuma likes fresh meat,” Posey said. “With a team of guards, I used to hunt for him once or twice a week. They let me use an old Springfield rifle, and I could still take the eye out of a rabbit mid-hop. I’d be allowed one bullet at a time and I never missed. What can I have for a short gun?”

  Dale went to his desk and opened the wide bottom drawer. He removed a black gun belt wrapped around the holster and tossed it to Posey.

  “By God, that’s my Colt,” Posey said.

  “I saved it from your trial,” Dale said. “Cleaned and oiled just last week.”

  Posey pulled the Colt from the holster and held the black handgun in his right hand. It was like shaking hands with an old, trusted friend.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Dale said.

  “Where?”

  “I like to select my tools carefully for each job,” Dale said.

  A few blocks from the office, down Elm Street at the very end of the block, stood a private livery stable and corral. A sign on the stable read, US Marshal’s Service Use Only.

  An old man in his sixties greeted them at the corral.

  “Howdy, Marshal,” the old man said.

  “Jack, this here is Pete Thompson,” Dale said. “Pete served as Grant’s personal horse groomer during the war. If he doesn’t know it about a horse, it’s because there’s nothing left to know. Pete, my brother, Jack Posey.”

  Pete gave Posey a once-over. “You got the look of a Sherman man to me,” he said.

  “Rode with the general two years,” Posey said.

  “We need two horses for a long and hard ride,” Dale said.

  “Them there in the corral are all first-rate, but I got two inside I been working on since they got here a few months ago,” Pete said.

  Dale and Posey followed Pete inside the livery where two massive black horses stood side-by-side in a stall.

  “They’re fifteen hand and strong as oxes,” Pete said. “Brothers from different mothers, but they dad is pure.”

  “Saddle them,” Dale said. “Best saddles and bags we got. We’ll take them out for a little ride.”

  The horses had little trouble adjusting to Dale and Posey, and they rode ten miles south of town without either horse breaking a sweat.

  They rode to the Santa Fe River, which had been dammed in ’eighty-one to provide water to two reservoirs for the town’s use. They followed the riverbed for several more miles and dismounted near some trees.

  While the horses grazed on grass, Dale and Posey sat in the shade of a tall tree.

  Each man rolled a cigarette and lit them off wood matches.

  “You got the chance for a new start, Jack. A new life,” Dale said. “I’m not saying you should go back to the farm, but at least you can make something of yourself while you’re still young. Maybe find a good woman like Sarah and settle down.”

  “Settle down to what?” Posey asked.

  “Just settle down,” Dale said. “I know you did most of what you did out of some sort of justice for the war, but it’s long in the past, and you must have realized it was fruitless or you wouldn’t have parted ways with Tom.”

  Posey watched the horses graze for a bit.

  “I would like to see the farm one more time though,” he said.

  “After this trip, you’re free to do as you please,” Dale said.

  “If Tom don’t kill the both of us,” Posey said.

  Dale grinned and said, “Let’s go back. We still have some work to do.”

  Seated at his desk with his two deputies and Posey standing, Dale opened a large map.

  “Is that coffee hot?” Dale asked a deputy.

  “Just made,” the deputy said.

  “Pour us all a cup and then come in close,” Dale said.

  The deputy filled four mugs and passed them around.

  “I marked in red pencil where Tom Spooner has struck in the last six months,” Dale said.

  Posey look
ed at the map.

  “Jesus, Dale, that’s near thirty robberies,” Posey said.

  “Thirty-three to be exact,” Dale said. “He’s held up everything from the stagecoach taking passengers to Denver to catch the train, to banks, a mining payroll, and even a train out of Wyoming where he and his men rode as passengers.”

  “Where’s the last jobs he’s pulled?” Posey asked.

  “A little bank in Grayson in southern Utah,” Dale said.

  “Utah?” Posey said. “It appears Tom’s days of robbing to punish the south are over.”

  “Been over for a long time now, Jack,” Dale said.

  “How many men he ride with?”

  “Some say as many as fifteen.”

  “Is he killing?”

  “Everywhere he goes.”

  Posey studied the map closely. “How far apart are the jobs pulled?”

  “Seems like every two weeks or so,” Dale said.

  “Are you figuring we should start in Grayson?” Posey asked.

  “Unless I get reports he struck in the last few days, Grayson is as good a place as any to start,” Dale said.

  Posey took a sip of coffee. “Okay,” he said.

  After a quiet dinner, Dale and Posey took coffee to the porch and sat in the cool of the evening.

  They rolled and smoked cigarettes.

  “We’ll catch the train north to Alamosa and then west to the Utah line and ride the rest of the way,” Dale said.

  “We’ll need supplies,” Posey said.

  “Whatever we need we’ll get in Alamosa.”

  Holding a mug of coffee, Sarah came out to the porch and took the chair next to Dale.

  “I packed a bedroll for each of you,” she said. “An extra shirt and socks, needle and thread and a pint of whiskey for emergency use.”

  Sarah paused and looked at Dale.

  “And I do mean emergency use,” she said.

  “Of course,” Dale said.

  “That means you, too,” Sarah said to Posey.

  “Wouldn’t dream of touching the stuff unless I was snake bit,” Posey said.

  Sarah nodded. “Well, all right then,” she said. “Dale, you don’t stay up too late.”

  “Be in shortly,” Dale said.