Remarque's Law

by Will DuRey

  ‘I’ve been to Pecos,’ he replied, the woman’s persistence testing his temper. ‘It’s not my habit to retrace my steps. I’m sorry, Mrs Tippett, but you need to find someone else to take you through the scrubland.’

  Ben Joyner replaced his hat and walked away, leaving the woman to burn holes in his back with her angry gaze. He headed for the livery barn at the far end of the street where he’d stabled his horse overnight. All the horses had been moved outside and the big chestnut was in a corral behind the stable with six other animals. It took only an instant to satisfy him that the horse had been well tended, not only with food and water but also with currycomb and wet cloth too. The ostler, a long, stooped fellow with a heavy limp, was washing a two-seat black buggy and, although he greeted Ben with a curt nod, he didn’t allow his arrival to interrupt the work at first. After Ben had fussed his horse for a few moments, the stableman set aside his bucket and joined him, leaning against the poles of the corral.

  ‘A fine animal,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen a better horse since leaving Kentucky in ’58.’

  Praise for the chestnut was welcomed by Ben; he’d valued it at sight and bought it from his employer’s stock only days before beginning his journey. He ran a hand down the animal’s long face.

  ‘Saw the woman talking to you,’ the stable man said. ‘Offering to buy him?’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Seemed mighty interested when she came to inspect him early this morning.’

  Ben shook his head. Elsa Tippett was after him, not his horse.

  ‘Brought the sheriff with her,’ the stableman said quietly, throwing a sideways look at Ben. Unable to detect any kind of reaction, he asked, ‘Will you be leaving today?’

  It didn’t escape Ben’s notice that the stableman’s tone was laced with the suspicion that the lawman’s interest in the chestnut gelding might be cause for him to quit the town urgently. He was amused by the thought that he found facing Elsa Tippett again a more daunting proposition. ‘Reckon I’ll stay another day,’ he told the stableman, then clapped the horse’s neck before heading back up the street.

  Ben Joyner’s presence was a point of interest to the smattering of people to be seen on the boardwalks. Few spoke but he guessed that those who saw few fresh faces in their town had exchanged many nudges and comments. One man in particular caught Ben’s attention. He was leaning against a stout post, smoking a black cigarillo and making no secret of the fact that Ben was under his scrutiny. He was a wiry character, long-legged and long-armed, which gave the impression that he lacked strength in his upper body. He wore a high, round-domed Texas hat that had neither dimples in the dome nor a rim sturdy enough to form side channels. If the man was fifty years old it seemed likely that the same hat had been clamped on his head for thirty of them. His shirt was grubby white calico and his blue trousers were rough denim. For Ben, however, the most prominent thing about him was the bright piece of tin pinned over his heart.

  ‘I’m the owner of the chestnut down at the livery,’ Ben said when he stopped alongside the lawman.

  ‘Figured you were. I know everyone else in town.’

  ‘Stableman told me you were interested in it.’

  ‘Figured he would. Jake’s never had the same control over his jaw as he has over horses.’

  ‘So are you?’

  ‘No. But Mrs Tippett now, that’s a different matter.’

  ‘What interest can my horse have for her? Why draw your attention to it?’

  The sheriff shook his head. ‘You’ve got that wrong, young fella. I saw the animal first. Check the stable every night when I patrol the town. I took Mrs Tippett to the stable this morning.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ben, beginning to weary of a conversation that seemed to be going nowhere, ‘so what is so special about my horse?’

  The lawman twisted his face with a grimace of amusement. ‘Not your horse, exactly, but the brand burned into its rump.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘My book tells me that that is the Long-R mark of Gus Remarque.’

  ‘It is,’ Ben agreed, ‘and I’ve got papers to prove I bought it fair and square.’

  The sheriff’s low chuckle was a disarming sound and his raised hands were a supplication for peace. ‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ he said, ‘I’m sure the beast is legally yours, but the Long-R is Pecos range and Mrs Tippett is trying to find someone to escort her there.’

  ‘I’ve told her no,’ Ben told him.

  ‘Figured you had when I saw the storm in her face a few moments ago. She’s come a long way to find her son. I guess your rebuff was hard for her to take. So close to her destination but unable to reach it.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone in town who can take her?’

  The man with the star shook his head. ‘Not more than twenty-five men in this town who are eligible to undertake such a chore but none of them can go missing from their work for a week or more. In a small place like this every man is busy from dawn to dusk. Many have more than one job. I just pin this badge on when it’s necessary. The rest of the time I’m the gunsmith and sometimes taxed with upholstering saddles and mending tack.’

  Ben looked up and down the street trying to fathom why this spot had ever been chosen for a settlement. Judging from the well-weathered timbers, however, it seemed possible that some of the buildings were old enough to have been erected when this land still belonged to Mexico. The sites on which Americans were given permission to settle by the Mexican government weren’t always prime territory. Whatever had attracted those first pioneers to put down roots in this spot had apparently been strong enough for their descendants to remain after Texas gained independence.

  ‘People usually stumble on this town by accident,’ the sheriff told Ben. ‘Travellers to and from the major cities tend to stick to the usual trails. We’re too far south for Fort Worth and too far north for San Antonio.’

  ‘But Mrs Tippett was travelling with a guide,’ Ben stated. ‘Was he lost when he brought her here?’

  The sheriff shook his head. ‘Raine claimed to know the area. A couple of years back, he’d worked cattle along the Mexican border. Reckoned that by quitting the main trails and crossing the scrubland they would reach Pecos more quickly. They’d be there now if he hadn’t filled himself too full of that venomous brew that Sam Puddler calls whiskey.’

  ‘Heard he tripped over a dog.’

  ‘Dog’s been accused, but there are witnesses who say that Raine was stumbling around so full of liquor that it would have been just as easy for him to trip over a splinter. Still,’ he added ruefully, ‘it means Mrs Tippett is stuck here until she can find someone to take her the rest of the way. No one can say when that will be and, even though Sam Puddler doesn’t charge Houston prices for his rooms, she’s likely to run out of money at some point.’

  The implication that he should be the one to take Mrs Tippett through the scrubland wasn’t lost on Ben Joyner. ‘Like I told Mrs Tippett, I’m going in the opposite direction,’ he told the sheriff, but as he walked away he was nagged by thoughts of the woman’s predicament. Whatever thoughts he had about the rashness of her undertaking, he wasn’t blind to the courage and determination that had brought her this far, nor to the frustration that the delay must be imposing. However, there were two reasons why he was not prepared to assist her. One was a pledge never to return to the places he’d known. From coast to coast and north to south there would always be new land to cross and new sights to see. Never go back had become his golden rule.

  Ben’s other reason for staying clear of Pecos was wrapped up in his reason for leaving the Long-R spread. Times were changing, and homestead families were staking out sections of land earmarked by ranchers as part of their empires. Signs of conflict were growing and Ben had no taste for a range war. He had no property of his own and wasn’t prepared to kill or be killed for land that belonged to someone else. He wasn’t even convinced that the newcomers were in the wrong but he was sure that
he didn’t agree with the measures proposed by Mr Remarque. Damaging property and ruining crops had failed to scare away most of the newcomers and rumours had become rife around the ranch that the owner had sent for specialists to assist in the fight: gunmen hired to kill.

  Nothing about that situation sat easily in Ben’s mind, so he’d quit his job on the Long-R ranch. The area was a powder keg waiting to blow. Pecos: a place for which he harboured no desire to return, and from which a lone traveller like Elsa Tippett should stay clear.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The men who arrived in town two hours later rode very slowly along the street. Being strangers was reason enough for them to attract the attention of the people on the boardwalk but the hobbling horse doubled their interest. Horses were revered in remote towns. Men’s abilities were restricted without them, not only as a means of transport but also as an aid to his labours. As a result, it irked most citizens when an animal was misused or abused.

  The rider was as lean as a willow sapling, his back straight and his chin jutted forward as though contemptuous of challenges from any man. His sunken cheeks were tanned dark brown, the colour of Navajos and Apaches, and that allusion was completed by the heavy brows and dark narrow eyes that flicked this way and that as he made progress through the town. Dust clung to his features, which were damp with sweat. His black hat sat low on his brow in order to cast a shadow over most of his face as protection from the burning sun. He wore a faded denim shirt and dark trousers that were tucked into black boots. His appearance was warlike and his demeanour hostile, accentuated by the ammunition belts that crossed around his waist and the ivory-handled Colts that filled each holster.

  The second man was heavier, slouching and round-shouldered, as though he’d been in the saddle for several days. This, in fact, was true and every part of him ached from the jarring repercussions of the horse’s persistent movement. His face was etched with surliness and fatigue but neither overshadowed the brutishness of his character.

  The man sitting on the long bench of the rooming house wasn’t deserving of anything more than a glance from them as they passed by, but they fell under his study. Ben Joyner had known men of similar ilk during the war. The heavier one had the face of a bully, someone who wallowed in savagery. The other was more cold-blooded, sadistic in his application of cruelty, a fact that was proven by his arrival on a distressed horse, knowing and enjoying the outrage it caused in this small community. It was an act that delivered a message with greater clarity than any words he could utter. He didn’t tolerate opposition. He was a man to be feared.

  They reined in outside the Dragoon, dismounted, and stepped up on to the boards outside that saloon. The tall one paused outside the swing doors before following his companion into the saloon. Slowly, he surveyed the street, as though daring anyone to criticise such behaviour: no man attended to his own thirst first when his horse was in greater need of attention. When no one met his gaze, he pushed aside the doors and went from the heat of the day into the darkened beer palace.

  Across the street from where he sat, Ben saw the man who wore a tin star on his shirt leave his office. After a moment he crossed the dirt road to lean against the rail on which Ben had his feet.

  ‘More people arriving in this town than ticks on a longhorn’s hide,’ he said.

  ‘Just passing through, I suspect. No need yet to paint over the population count.’

  ‘Guess not,’ said the lawman. He rubbed his chin. ‘Came in from the east, did they?’

  It was a rhetorical question. He must have seen the newcomers pass his window, but Ben still told him he was right.

  ‘Heading west then,’ ruminated the other. ‘Perhaps Pecos is their destination.’

  Ben had come to the same conclusion. It wasn’t one that he liked. The rumours he’d heard before quitting the Long-R filled his mind. The two who had gone into the Dragoon bore the hallmarks of the kind of men that Gus Remarque needed to clear away homesteaders. Hired killers. Instantly, the face of Lottie Skivver filled his imagination and he recalled the unexpected sadness he’d caught behind her smile of farewell the last time they’d been together. That had been in a Pecos storehouse; she with her parents gathering supplies and he gathering the paltry provisions needed for his journey.

  Drew Skivver had expressed surprise when Ben informed the family that he was leaving the territory. ‘Had you down for a man who would be keen to mark out his own 160-acre homestead,’ the big, red-haired Pennsylvanian had said.

  ‘Perhaps one day,’ Ben had replied, ‘when I’ve built a big enough bankroll.’ In fact, the possibility of owning his own property had never occurred to him. He wasn’t even sure that he was suited for farming or ranching, or perhaps he just didn’t consider the land of the Pecos valley worth the fight that he knew was fast approaching. ‘Take care, Drew,’ he’d said. ‘Gus Remarque doesn’t want to part with an inch of land. He’ll stop at nothing to drive you out of the territory.’

  Finding it difficult to smile, Lottie had wished him luck. For a moment it seemed as though she had other things to say but she’d climbed onto the buckboard that was loaded with their purchases and it drove away. Ben had watched the family wending along the busy street hoping desperately that no harm befell them.

  The lawman said, ‘Reckon I’ll have a word with those two. Find out how long they mean to stay in town.’

  ‘Might want to tell them to get that horse unsaddled and tended to. It’ll be lamed permanently if it’s ridden again without treatment.’

  The man with the star raised his hand in acknowledgement as he moved off towards the Dragoon. Ben regretted his words. Those men wouldn’t welcome criticism, especially in a small town like this where the duties of the man with a star were mainly those of a recorder of events rather than an enforcer of law. There would be few instances of crime in a settlement of fewer than two hundred inhabitants. But to men like those who had just arrived in town, interference from such a representative of community law was likely to offer them an opportunity to leave their mark on the town. He knew their sort too well. In all probability they would humiliate the sheriff, perhaps kill him.

  Ben’s gloomy thoughts were swept aside a few moments later when the town marshal emerged from the Dragoon and headed up the street with a long, striding, rolling gait.

  ‘Mrs Tippett still inside?’ he asked Ben when he reached the rooming house.

  There were few other places in town a visitor could be. Other than the Dragoon, which he’d just left, only the eating-house across the street and the general store were likely to have any appeal to visitors.

  ‘I believe so,’ Ben told him. More than once since their meeting that morning, Elsa Tippett had crossed his path and glared at him with undisguised anger but no further words had been exchanged. When the lawman went inside, Ben crossed the street and ordered a cup of coffee. If, as he suspected, the marshal had ascertained the destination of the two newcomers and dovetailed it with the need to get Elsa Tippett out of town, then it was a proposal that didn’t sit easy with him. Although it wasn’t his concern, he knew they were not men to be trusted. Any suggestion that the woman from Ohio was carrying a purse of fifty dollars or more was bait enough to persuade them to take her into the west and leave her body for the scavenger beasts of the wilderness.

  From his seat by the window he watched as the marshal, accompanied by Elsa Tippett, returned to the distant saloon. The woman didn’t enter but the two strangers emerged and all four engaged in conversation on the boardwalk. It was clear by their gestures that agreement had been reached although, when she stepped back onto the long, rooming house veranda, Elsa Tippett’s features were not expressive of complete contentment. When she caught sight of Ben watching her through the eating-house window, however, she lifted her chin defiantly, proclaiming herself the victor of the situation before stepping indoors.

  Ben had no reason to change his decision with regard to heading east. If his regard for Lottie Skivver hadn’t prevented him
leaving Pecos there was no reason why Elsa Tippett’s need should get him to return there. Her quest, he told himself, had been foolhardy from the very beginning. Either her son would get in touch with her when he had found a home, or he was dead. It wasn’t his concern if she was reckless enough to believe that a shared destination was sufficient justification to travel with strangers, yet he couldn’t shake the belief that offering payment endangered her even more. He was angry that he was letting the woman’s predicament linger in his mind and regretted his decision to stay in this town another day. Abruptly, he arose, crossed the street and announced to the rooming-house clerk that he was checking out.

  With saddle-bags slung over his left shoulder and his rifle held in his right hand, Ben left the hotel and went up the street to the livery stable. The lame horse had gone from the hitching pole outside the Dragoon and Ben found it unsaddled inside the stable at the end of the street. Apart from that horse, the high, dark building was empty. All the other animals were outside in the corral where he’d run an eye over his gelding earlier that day. Voices floated to him from that direction and Jake, the stableman’s, was curt with impatience and concern. Ben collected his saddle from the rail on which it had been set and carried it out through the rear the doors.

  ‘The horse isn’t mine to sell.’ The tone of Jake’s voice betrayed a change in the discussion. He was now less angry, more worried.

  Although they had their backs to him, inspecting the horses in the corral, Ben had no difficulty in recognizing the two men who were the source of the stableman’s consternation. The tall one, the one who had ridden in on a lame horse, was even slimmer than he’d seemed when astride a horse. If he’d been a critter brought in for the pot he’d have boiled down to nothing but bone and sinew. But he had a gun on each thigh, slung low like a showy gunfighter. He had a tight grip on Jake’s arm, was shaking the older man as a minor demonstration of the violence he was prepared to inflict if the stableman refused to accede to whatever demand he’d made.