by Ian Weir
Tyree read the article twice through, beginning to end. “No,” he muttered to himself, out loud. “Not possible.” He read it again. His hands, clutching onto the newspaper, commenced to shake.
That evening, he sat in the window on Polk Street, and tried to compose himself to write a letter. It did not go well. Words came, but in fits and starts, with blottings and cross-outs and crumplings of successive sheets of paper. He gave up after awhile, and dragged himself back outside, making his way toward a barroom that he frequented from time to time.
Night had fallen. Light from the windows spilled down as he passed, and pooled about the lampposts on the corners. A cable car trundled, one street over; closer by, someone played a concertina, badly. On the corner just ahead of him, two men stood. They were a mismatched pair—Tyree, deep in his thoughts, registered this vaguely. One of them was gaunt and towering, his companion trim and slight.
With a start, Tyree recognized the second man. It was Weaver, spruced and brushed and aspiring to be dapper, his hair centre-parted and his accents bright. Tyree flinched back before he could be recognized in turn, hunching into the deeper darkness against a building. He had no energy tonight for Barry Weaver.
The two men were talking. One of them, mainly—Weaver. Tyree heard cadences, but not words. Weaver’s companion, towering in shadow, rumbled something in return. Tyree heard a gravelly baritone, and by lamplight glimpsed a one-eyed derelict.
That voice seemed to rumble ten feet up, from the hang of the scrotum.
Tyree’s heart very nearly stopped.
–TWELVE–
From High Crimes of the Outlaw Dillashay6
Santa Rosita, New Mexico Territory, 1874
1.
THE BIG MAN gave his name as Strother Purcell. He had considerable experience in law enforcement, he said, having worked as a Sheriff’s Deputy in sundry jurisdictions, these past years.
“Which places were these?” asked Sheriff Bob Lestander.
Jesus, the man was big, the Sheriff thought. Bob Lestander was no paltry specimen himself, bull-necked and broad athwart the beam as he sat behind the desk in his office. But Purcell towered over him.
“You want a list?”
Purcell produced a crinkled sheet of paper. The Sheriff counted seven different towns over the past eight years—tough rail-head cattle towns in Kansas and Wyoming. “Surely this ain’t all of ’em?” he said.
Purcell appeared to miss the intended whimsy. He said: “Yep.”
“You don’t seem to stay in one place, for long,” the Sheriff said.
“Not lately.”
“Any reason for that?”
The big man gave a shrug. “It varies.” His shoulders were wide and sloping. A scent of sage came off him as he shifted. “The time comes round,” he said. “And I move on.”
“How long would you be willing to stay here, d’you think?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Because?”
“I just arrived.”
The Sheriff leaned back in his chair, reflecting. It groaned a little, in protest. The chair was a new one, a swiveller with a padded seat, which he supplemented with a cushion. The office itself was newly built and gave off a fine, clean smell of new wood, which had been brought in by the wagon-load from the sawmill at Las Tablas.
Santa Rosita had been a sleepy town, not so long ago. A nice town. But it was changing, growing larger and more fractious, as were towns across the Territory. Hard men were slouching in amidst the jostling of moneyed interests; an outright war was brewing not far away in Lincoln County. So a Sheriff needed hard men of his own, deputies such as could hazard the rigours of law enforcement in New Mexico Territory, and would do so for the pittance that the County offered. This grew all the more vital if the Sheriff’s hair was sparse and white, as was Bob Lestander’s, who was no longer young.
He looked at the list. “Say I got in touch with these fellas—the Sheriffs who hired you in Kansas and Wyoming. “What d’you suppose they’d say about you?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
Bob Lestander looked at the list some more. “Job pays a dollar a day,” he said. “Plus a share of the revenue from fines. Still interested?”
“I’m still standing here.”
“Any questions?”
Strother Purcell said: “Did you ever come across a man, name of Collard?”
“Collard?”
“Meshach Collard. Out of North Carolina.”
The Sheriff knitted his brow. It seemed to him that a chill had crept into the room, despite the rising warmth of the spring day. Purcell’s two eyes were icy and pale blue. Bob Lestander found himself unaccountably squirming in that gaze, which was peculiar and unsettling, here in his own damned office. He looked out the window instead, at the courthouse across the square, and the desert beyond. There was hardly a hint of green, even here in May.
“Collard,” he repeated. “No, I can’t say as I recognize the name.”
“You’re sure?”
“Why d’you ask?”
“Just someone I used to know. Someone I lost track of, awhile back. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again.”
It seemed to Bob Lestander that Purcell was not telling him the truth. Not all of it, at any rate. But it seemed to him, also, that this was not a man you questioned too closely.
“When could you start?” the Sheriff said. “Assuming I offered you the job.”
“Could start right now.”
Later that afternoon, the Sheriff sent a telegram of enquiry to an old colleague in Kansas, whose name Purcell had supplied as a reference. The reply was prompt: HIRE HIM STOP THEN STAND CLEAR STOP GOOD LUCK. Bob Lestander chose to interpret this recommendation as unequivocal.
He had, in any case, hired Strother Purcell already.
July came, and Purcell was still in Santa Rosita, serving as one of Sheriff Lestander’s two Deputies. Deak Roby was the other.
Deputy Roby was eight-and-twenty in July of 1874, a decade younger than Strother Purcell. He was a man of goodly parts, sturdy and well-made, with a thatch of red hair and a bluff, amiable manner. Deak Roby lived a few miles from the town with a widow of a surly and independent disposition—his mother, in fact. But it is no necessary calumniation of a grown man to say that he lives with his Ma, although some might try to make it so; Deak Roby was, as it happened, popular amongst his friends—a man who was well enough liked, by those who liked him, with a ready laugh and a shoulder-slapping gift for ingratiation, although his eyes were perhaps too small. He also kept a room above the Gemstone Saloon, for use on nights when duty detained him.
“Collard,” he said to his fellow Deputy.
Strother Purcell stopped. “What about him?”
“Collard was the name of the family—have I got that right? Folks you had some disputation with, up there in the piney-woods of Buttfuck Holler, or wherever it was you hail from.”
The two of them were in the town square. Deak Roby had found a scrap of shade, where he stood in the stifling heat of the late afternoon, taking off his hat and swiping a sleeve across his brow. He had spoken as Purcell emerged from the courthouse.
“North Carolina, was it? Years ago—way back near the beginning of the War, when God knows what-all was being gotten up to, in them mountains. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“Oh, somewheres or other.” Deak’s grin was amiability itself. “I don’t exactly recollect. Just one of those things a fella picks up.”
The Deputy heard a good many things. He made it his business, as an officer of the law. It was also his vocation, Deak Roby being a noted hearer of barroom whispers, and a whisperer of them in return.
“So,” Deak said, fishing a little. “Is it true?”
Purcell stared down, stone-eyed. “What else have you heard?”
Deputy Rectitude, Deak had come playfully to call him, though not to Strother’s face. Deak Roby had a fondness for whimsical nicknames, wi
th which he would amuse companions in the Gemstone. He had a gift for mimicry as well, and last evening had entertained them no end with an imitation of Deputy Rectitude’s stiff-kneed walk and ramrod spine. “Tar-nay-shun,” Deak had exclaimed in wicked approximation of his colleague’s measured baritone, peering at the floor all about his feet; “Tar-NAY-shun, where-all did Ah mis-lay it, boys—the ten-foot Plank o’ Rectitude Ah keep wedged up mah ass?” This had reduced them to gales of mirth; they begged him to stop.
“Whoo-ee,” Deak Roby said now, fanning with his hat. “How ’bout this heat?”
“I asked what else you heard.”
“I heard you been lookin’ for him, ever since. Stopping here, and stopping there, but always looking. One of the Collards—assuming I heard correctly, about that name. The one who done you some particular wrong, even more than all them others. Whatever it was that happened to them, up Mount Wherever-it-was.”
Deak had heard other rumours as well, though he didn’t think it politic to mention these now. There were whispers of controversies in Kansas and Wyoming, at the stops Deputy Rectitude had made along his long, winding way from the piney-woods of Buttfuck to the stifling summer heat of Santa Rosita. Rumours of an implacability that went beyond the bare requirements of the Law, and had led to deaths that might have been avoided: the shootings-down of cowboys whose nature was wild, but not rotten; boys who were weak rather than wicked, or who lacked a head for strong liquor, or who had fallen—alas—amongst low companions, and from whom ought not to have been exacted, perhaps, the last pennies of the ultimate price. True, there was never a hint of back-shooting or treachery—not that Deak Roby had heard, at least, and Deak Roby could surely be relied upon to have asked. Those were all fair gunfights, as far as anybody knew. True as well that every young hellion has his defenders, and no lawman ever stood his ground without being impugned by someone. But still.
“Must of been a fearful wrong,” Deak Roby said. “Whatever it was this fella done—to have you looking for him, all these years.”
“Assuming what you heard was true.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Assuming it was.” Deak Roby smiled again. He smiled some more. Butter would not have melted, despite the heat of the afternoon. “So,” he said. “...Was it?”
Deputy Purcell made no reply, nor did his stony expression alter. But Deak saw the muscles bunch, in his jaw.
“A good twelve, thirteen years—even longer, maybe,” Deak said. “My, oh my. Such a long and onerous time, to be lookin’ for a fella. An’ I’ll tell you what—if I ever hear that name again? You’ll be the first to know.”
The muscles in Purcell’s jaw bunched some more. “Here’s a question for you, Roby.”
“Go ahead, friend—ask it.”
“Do you have business of your own?”
“Why, yes indeed—I believe I do.”
“Then you should mind it. And I’ll attend to mine.”
Strother Purcell started away. Deputy Rectitude, stalking stiff-kneed into the blaze of the sun.
“Purcell.”
Deputy Rectitude looked back.
“Give my best to the gal, if you see her first. Miss Maria.” Deak Roby continued to smile, though not so much. “You seen her the other evening, I understand.”
“Why shouldn’t I? She’s a friend.”
“’Course she is. An’ friends are good—a man needs friends. God help the fella who’s without ’em.” Deak Roby’s smile had faded some more. “She’s half your age,” he said.
“I know how old she is.”
“And she’s spoken for. I expect you know that, too?”
“Like I said. She’s a friend.”
“Well, that’s good. That’s fine and dandy. Long as we’re clear.”
Deputy Rectitude stalked away.
Deak Roby, watching, no longer smiled at all.
*
The gal was Maria Teresa Lestander, the Sheriff’s daughter. Strother Purcell did not in fact see her that evening, though he had half a mind to do so, just to spite Deputy Roby.
He knew that sort of man. He had dealt with sundry Deacon Robys in the long years since Hanging Tree Ridge. They were all of them the same, the Deacon Robys of this world, and it grated on him to see this one paying court to Maria Teresa, who was altogether a finer creature than Roby was equipped to appreciate.
But this evening, Strother Purcell had duties. He went first to the Sheriff’s office to attend to paperwork. This fell to him when Sheriff Lestander was away from Santa Rosita, as he was on this occasion, having travelled to the outer reaches of the County to collect unpaid taxes from ranching concerns. After that, he looked in on the prisoners who were being kept in the courthouse cells. There were two of these, at present, both drifters. They had given their names as Smith and Miller, and had been locked here to await the Circuit Judge after allegations that a saloon gal had been menaced.
Shortly after nine p.m., Strother Purcell locked the courthouse tight and proceeded to the New Southwest Hotel, where he partook of a late dinner before conducting his nightly rounds. Finding nothing significantly amiss, he made his way to McMurtry Street, where he had taken a room on the second floor above a dry-goods shop. It was nearly eleven o’clock.
The room was accessed by a side door, up a set of stairs in the alley. The darkness here was profound. He set his foot to the bottom step and then stopped.
A horse. There’d been a horse, tethered to the rail a distance away, in the street. He had taken mental note of this as he’d turned toward the alley, and it came to him now: what it was in that image that seemed out of place. The horse in the spill of light from a window had been slick with sweat, as from hard riding, which was unusual for this time of night. He had just started to turn when he heard the click of a revolver cocked directly behind his head. A low voice advised: “Do not make the bad mistake of reaching for that iron.”
The silence stretched, long enough for Strother Purcell to rebuke himself for careless inattention. Except he’d recognized that voice.
Jesus.
“Turn around, Strother.”
The man in the darkness had been a boy to him, all through these long years. Such was the image he’d carried.
Jesus God.
“Are we friends, then?” Lige said.
Strother held in memory his fifteen-year-old brother, picking himself up from the Asheville dust. Lige had not lowered the sixgun.
Strother said at last: “You knew she died?”
“A fire.”
“It was.”
“Her and poor old Solomon. I heard. And I heard you went up the mountain, afterward. Up to Hanging Tree Ridge.”
Strother did not reply.
“If I’d been around, I’d’ve come with you,” Lige said.
“But you weren’t.”
“I understand my Daddy sleeps easier, ever since. Though he was never once good enough for the likes of yourself.”
For an uncanny moment, it seemed to Strother that his step-father stood before him instead. Jacob Dillashay, swarthy and brutal and desperately uncertain.
“You can put the gun down,” Strother said.
“Can I?” His brother seemed unconvinced.
“Why are you here?”
“Not to ask for your help. I can tell you that much. Not from the likes of you.”
Lige was injured. Strother saw that now, despite the darkness. The clench of his brother’s jaw; the way his mouth twisted in a grimace.
“What’s happened, Lige?”
The front of his brother’s shirt was caked with blood.
“Aw, Christ,” said Strother, wearily.
He’d heard about Lige’s activities, through the years—or some of them, at least. He’d seen a poster on a Sheriff’s wall in Kansas.
“Trouble with the law, somewhere?” he said.
“You could say that.”
“Posse on the way?”
“Not in New Mexico. Not yet, anyway. U
nless you organize one.”
“Aw, Christ, Lige.”
“Will you help me?”
“Come up to the room,” Strother said at last. “You can stay the night.”
Lige’s steps were heavy on the stairs, his left foot clubbed as ever. He leaned against the rail, but disdained any offer of assistance. Once inside, he sagged down onto the bed, sitting with his head hung low.
“There’s a doctor,” Strother said. “Not competent, but not the worst. I can fetch him.”
“No doctor.”
In lamplight, Lige’s face was haggard. Someone had bandaged his right shoulder, but the dressing was makeshift and blood seeped through.
“You’ve took a bullet,” Strother said.
“It went right through.”
“At least let me change the dressing.”
Lige suffered him to do so, using strips torn from the bedsheet. The wound was ugly, but seemed clean. “Don’t waste good whiskey on it, then,” Lige said. He took the bottle that Strother had fetched from the shelf, lifting it in an ironical toast. “Good health and long life to you, brother. May you live until I kill you.”
“You intending on that?”
“Haven’t decided. You’ll be the first to know.”
Lige’s voice was slurred with exhaustion. Setting the bottle down, he eased himself to lie full length on the bed.
The room was small but immaculate in its neatness. The bed, a dresser, a nightstand with a basin. “The fuck,” Lige said, “keeps his room this clean? You’d think a damned old woman lived here.”
It was morning when he awakened. Strother sat on a wooden chair beside the door.
“Been there all night?” Lige said.
“Off and on.”
Strother had in fact gone out twice, to the Sheriff’s office and then to the telegraph office. He had sat quietly since returning, watching his little brother sleep. Lige looked in sleep as he’d always done, his left arm negligent across his face. He looked peaceful. Strother ached with that contemplation.