by Jeff Rovin
“Ma’am, there is nothing out there I welcome along my spine,” Stockbridge said.
Everyone laughed at that, and it was enough to break the dreary mood that had settled upon them all.
“Ma sews real good,” Lenny said. “She made all our clothes.”
“One must be resourceful,” the woman said. In that was the weight of months, years she had spent husbandless in this small cabin.
Rachel prepared a pot of oatmeal and set tin plates on the table along with biscuits. Feeling that they were safe for the present, Stockbridge went to the only bedroom. He shut the door and stood there for a moment. The shotgun seemed welded to his right arm. He did not want to put it down.
Now is not then, he told himself. You are here to help if they need it.
It was not modesty that had brought him in here. He would adjust his shirt and trousers to make the Keelers think that. He was here because he did not want them to see him falter. Stockbridge’s fingers were on the barrel. He coaxed them to loosen. . . . They hurt as they opened, so tightly had they been closed for the better part of the ride. Reaching across his chest with his steadier left hand, he took the gun and leaned it against the foot of the bed so he could remove his coat. He trembled as he did that. He felt both lighter and afraid.
You can take it with you, he thought. Just set it somewhere nearby, like you were taking off your boots. Which he would not do, in case he had to run out.
That moment he had entered his house—it would never let him go; he knew that. The best he could do was handle the feelings that kept returning.
Stockbridge tucked in his shirt, fixed his belt, settled his cuffs above his boots, then picked up the shotgun and coat and returned to the main room, the only other room.
Mrs. Keeler was waiting for the garment and hung it on a wall peg. The sewing kit was on a stool beneath it. While the food was brought from the hearth by Rachel and her brother, Stockbridge took in the room. There were the stool, a rocking chair covered with a bear hide, four chairs with soft deer cushions around a rickety table, and two piles of assorted furs, where he assumed the children slept. Buffalo skins hung on the windows, a large, beaten-up leather trunk below one of them. They kept out the cold though they did little to stifle the roar of the wind. With nothing around it but open lowlands, the Keeler home took the full force of the evening westerlies that swept from the mountains.
“Heated and dipped, you won’t notice the biscuits were made two days ago,” Rachel half apologized as she set out the meal.
“Never damaged any of us,” Mrs. Keeler said.
“I’m sure I won’t mind,” Stockbridge replied.
“Just don’t drop one on your foot,” Lenny dared, leaning over conspiratorially.
Supper was preceded by a prayer and followed with tea. The leaves were weak from overuse, the brew poured from a pot that had seen happier times. But as timber was not lacking out here, the fire was bright and warm and, while she sewed, Mrs. Keeler did not bother to stop the children from recalling the events of the day with giggly relief. The two never stopped working all the while, putting the tableware in a big metal bucket in the corner and then wiping the table and sweeping the floor around it. Rachel and Lenny were slope shouldered by the time they had nearly finished, as the steam they had run on during the long day ran out.
Stockbridge was tired, too, and had pulled one of the dinner chairs close to Mrs. Keeler and sat.
“You and your husband raised good, strong, dutiful children,” he remarked.
“Thank you, Dr. Stockbridge. They have made this a family, and the family made this a home.” She broke off, turning slightly and sobbing. “I don’t— I can’t think of—”
“It’s best not to,” Stockbridge said quietly.
“No. You’re right. I mustn’t. The Lord will do what He thinks is best.”
The doctor informed Mrs. Keeler that he would rest a bit and then set out before dawn.
“There are the furs,” she said, nodding toward the beds. “The children can stay with me.”
“There’s no need to go to any trouble. The rocker will suit me fine.”
“Sitting? How will you ever—”
“I’m used to it. Actually, I’ve come to prefer it. During the War, I always slept in small bites with my back to a tree. Made me feel safe, one less side to be shot.”
“A quilt, then. I’ll get—”
“I’ll stoke the fire and put on my mended coat, and I’ll be quite warm,” he said. “You ought to rest, too.”
“Just as soon as I’m done here.”
Stockbridge rocked for a moment, hoping to make what he was about to say sound less important than it might have been.
“Mrs. Keeler, there are two things I want to ask you if I may.”
“Anything, Doctor.”
It was barely perceptible, but her eyes grew guarded, and her mouth tightened. She appeared to be bracing for bad news.
“The first— Well, I have something to show you.”
The woman stopped sewing as Stockbridge reached into the pocket of the coat she was repairing. He withdrew the necklace he had taken from Grady.
“I wondered what was rattling in there,” she said.
“Do you recognize this?”
“Yes. That belongs to Jacob!”
“Who?”
“Jacob Wallingham—a traveling salesman. Ben gave that to him. Jacob comes around twice a year or so, trades goods for pelts, Indian jewelry, anything he can hang from the big chuck wagon he ran for the Union Pacific.”
“When was the last time he was here?”
“Summer. Where did you find that?”
“On the neck of the man Grady,” Stockbridge told her.
Mrs. Keeler’s expression relaxed into sadness. “Lord, I hope he wasn’t harmed.”
“Maybe Jacob just traded it,” Stockbridge said without entirely believing that. He put the necklace on the table. “You can return it to him. I’ve been told that your husband’s horse was found at Eagle Lookout, higher in the mountains. Did Ben ever mention that name?”
“In stories he told,” the woman said. “Never anything serious.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Indian legends,” she replied. “He used to tell them to the children.”
“I remember them, Mama!” Lenny shouted from across the room. He and Rachel were taking shifts bringing well water to the dish bucket and the washbasin.
“You’re not supposed to be listening to adult conversation,” the woman reproached him.
“Sorry.”
“Tell me about these stories, Mrs. Keeler,” Stockbridge said.
“Oh, they were silly, flighty things that he heard from other trappers who heard it from some prospectors. Those men,” she laughed thinly. “They try to out-tale each other when they’re in the woods or mountains. Or at the Poet and Puncher Tavern. A lot of them spin fables there.”
“Such as?”
“Secret tunnels, treasures, great animals with fur like snow and a stride like Goliath’s. Fables. Just fables, Dr. Stockbridge.”
“I’ve talked to businessmen, Cheyenne, and no one has ever spoken of silver, gold, copper, or anything worth mining up there. Certainly not at Eagle Lookout. Did Ben ever talk about any of those?”
“Never.”
“What— Was there anything that came up over and over?”
She stopped sewing for a moment and looked wistfully into the past. “One name. Ute Mountain.”
“I’m not familiar with it,” Stockbridge said.
“It’s supposed to lie somewhere in the southwest, a great many miles and peaks from here.”
“Pa talked about Ute Mountain and Ute Indians a lot,” Lenny blurted, completing his last trip. “He showed it to me on one of the maps.”
Mrs. Keeler
scowled at her son a second time. “The legends Ben talked about were of underground caves that went clear into the middle of the earth. I honestly didn’t like how he scared the children with his tales of wicked men in the passages, either guarding ancient treasure or making magic potions.”
“Aw, I was never scared,” Lenny said—mostly to himself to avoid a third chastisement.
“What are those little men called?” Mrs. Keeler wondered aloud. “The ones in Ireland?”
“Leprechauns,” Rachel said.
Mrs. Keeler frowned at her daughter. Rachel went back to adjusting the dishes for a soak.
“Leprechauns,” Mrs. Keeler repeated. She looked at Stockbridge, who was listening intently. She leaned a little closer. “Doctor, my Ben has been all through those mountains, and he never came back with anything but pelts or injuries. I know he wanted more than anything to find magic or treasure or something that would improve our lives by making him famous.”
The fire seemed to cackle. Mrs. Keeler settled back and resumed her sewing.
“He talked about getting us a place made of wood, with stairs, with chamber pots, with walls that didn’t howl. But riches just aren’t out there, Doctor. They just aren’t.”
“But he didn’t believe that.”
“Ben? No. He’s a dreamer. But he’s also practical, when he wants to be. To go ranging around that region for something, in terrain he didn’t know, would mean leaving his traps untended. And nothing was more important to him than providing for us. And why now? He’s known about those stories since before we even owned a cradle.”
“A man does things at a certain age that he wouldn’t consider before.”
“Is that you?”
“Some men are forced. Some men, like Ben, they go more willingly.”
Mrs. Keeler gave him a look of sympathy for whatever it was he carried in his heart, whatever hurt so deep that he did not even want to say its name.
“Whether he believed those stories or did not, Eagle Lookout is where his horse was found, and it seems a good place to start when I leave here.” Stockbridge looked over at Lenny. “Son, you said there are maps?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Respectful language!” his mother said.
“Sorry. Yes, sir,” he said, and went to the old trunk in the corner. Stockbridge guessed that it was where the family kept their most precious items. Many families did that across the Mississippi in case they had to leave in a hurry due to weather or savages.
The boy carefully removed a pony carved from stone, a golden eagle feather, and other knickknacks. He hurried over with several hides bundled in his arms. They were black-ink maps, his father’s record of years of trapping and travels.
“Thank you,” Stockbridge said when the boy handed them over. There weren’t many and only one that showed Eagle Lookout. “May I borrow this?”
“Of course, sir. They were made to be used.”
Stockbridge smiled at that. The boy smiled back, proud to have been of assistance. When Mrs. Keeler was finished with his coat, Stockbridge folded the pelt inside a deep side pocket.
Rachel went out for water and filled the washbasin while Lenny spread the furs. They were stacked in the corner so the family would not walk all over them in the small living area. Stockbridge took the opportunity to go out back and select a few logs for the fire. He settled them in, then poked the fire to set them ablaze. The room glowed with renewed heat and light. Good nights were said along with prayers, after which Mrs. Keeler retired to her room. The children fell asleep quickly. The wind quieted as the night deepened. Save for the crackling fire, the children breathing, and the baying of distant coyotes, it was quiet—and, for Stockbridge, expectedly mournful. It reminded him of his own married home and all he had lost.
The doctor turned the rocker so that the back was to the hearth, his eyes to the window facing east. As he drifted into sleep, he wondered about the red handprint on the dead man’s saddle and the greedy, murderous men out there who would soon learn of the latest killing. Other than the former slave, Stockbridge knew nothing of their numbers or their identities.
Not that that mattered.
His last thought as he fell asleep was both frank and bracing: Come the dawn, they will be looking for me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Promise Cuthbert knew that his meeting with the sheriff would be a squandered ten minutes.
Tom Neal was a former Texas Ranger who, three years previous, had suffered a mishap with a gun and his big toe during a wild pursuit through San Antonio. As a result, he’d had to leave that beloved institution and seek employment elsewhere. He still had enough heft in his big arms and skill with a revolver to land this post in a town that was not really going anywhere. And the reason it wasn’t going anywhere was the same reason that Neal was a moderately effective sheriff: Buzzard Gulch was not on a route anyone took from east to west. Passage was farther south, from Fremont to Montrose. It was so quiet here that the previous law, Goodman Peake, had gone for a ride one day, his pearl-handled six-shooters shining in the summer sun, and kept on going.
“The Keelers?” Neal said in answer to Cuthbert’s question. Sitting back in his chair, near the warm stove, he looked out from under bushy white eyebrows that matched his woolly mustache. “They live about three miles outta town, west, foot of the homestead area. Well, nearly west. A little northerly, in the lowlands.”
The men were seated in his small office, Neal’s right foot on the desk, Cuthbert sitting on the edge, trying not to look at the hole cut in the top of the boot for the twisted nub of the shattered toe. There were wanted posters on a board behind him and a spittoon beside him. Neal was not smoking at the moment. He had run out of tobacco and so had the general store. A rider had gone to Gunnison for more but was overdue.
The sheriff’s office did not have a jail cell. That was out back: a brick structure with bars, a door that closed over them—to keep out the cold, though barely—and a bucket and a stool inside. It had never been occupied by anyone more dangerous than a drunk. The way people drank in Buzzard Gulch, that usually meant the prisoner was passed out. It was likely, Neal thought, that the tobacco-fetching rider, a souse who had been released from that very cell, had gotten drunk on Gunnison rye and was drying out in a much nicer cell.
“Have you been to the Keeler place?” Cuthbert asked.
“No cause. I see them now and then when they come to town for essentials or on Sundays, for church.” Neal looked up through watery blue eyes. “Why are you interested in them, Captain?”
“I’m not. I’m interested in the man who was riding with them this morning and killed one of my men.”
Neal eased his foot to the ground and sat up straight. “Hold on there! Who got it?”
“Grady Foxborough.”
“Who shot him?”
“Man name of John Stockbridge.”
“The one from the Line & Telegram?”
“Selfsame.”
“How do you know?”
“Two of my men came upon them.”
“They saw him do it?”
“No. All they saw was Stockbridge riding Grady’s horse after blowing the top of his head to beef.”
Neal’s mouth twisted. “That won’t raise Judge Wilson’s flag. He likes witnesses and bodies. One without the other—”
“I know. Fortunately, Sheriff, I did not come here to discuss the law. I just wanted to find out about the Keelers.”
Neal absently reached into a pocket for tobacco fixings he knew weren’t there. His thick fingers moved among the fabric for a moment before his body sagged.
“Goddamn town,” he said. “Captain, listen. I’d be careful around this Stockbridge fella. I had a drink with a deputy from Gunnison who came looking for a new job. He saw the showdown, said the man was fearless and lethal.”
“Then it’s a good
thing I’m not asking you to go after him.”
“For what? Tell me, Captain—and I say this with no disrespect intended to you or to the deceased—but how do you know Grady didn’t start whatever it was?”
Cuthbert rose. He’d had enough of Neal. “I don’t care who started what. All I know is my friend is dead and someone’s to blame. My men say it’s John Stockbridge and that the Keelers were there, so we start there. If that’s all you can tell me, I’ll be on my way.”
“That’s all I got, other than to suggest that you bring an army if you’re tackling that one.”
“Thanks. I intend to.”
“And that you don’t do any killing. You just preconfessed your intentions, which is like Old Glory itself to Judge Wilson.”
Cuthbert left in a hurry. It hadn’t been just a waste of ten minutes; it had been a waste of ten minutes plus a lecture from someone who felt like threatening him with the state’s general statutes. Annoyed with Tom Neal, with himself, and with Raspy Nikolaev for having pushed him, Cuthbert returned to the Pap Hotel. Nikolaev was behind the counter. The captain ignored him, crossing the Persian style carpet and heading up the stairs.
“Captain Cuthbert!”
“Shut up, Raspy.”
“Sir, there’s no point going up.”
Cuthbert stopped. “Why not?”
The Russian came around the counter, tugging the hem of his vest, a man of property in authority. He was not only in charge of this establishment; he had the answer to Cuthbert’s question. He delayed giving it to make that point to the bully.
“Molly is gone,” Nikolaev said.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do not shout, sir.”
Cuthbert looked around the lobby. The bellboy was the only other person there. The Russian had grown some brass in the last few minutes.
“I’m sorry,” Cuthbert said in a mockingly quieter tone. “Where has Molly gone, Mr. Nikolaev, the man who failed to build an empire?”
The Russian stiffened. “We have both failed at that, have we not?”