AHMM, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You kill a man's son, and he puts a price on your head. Kick Emory kills a man's son, and that man puts a price on his."

  "You don't appreciate the distinction,” Placido Geist replied tartly. “Kick Emory fell off a whorehouse roof. Derek Hagerty threw down on me and I defended myself."

  This was shading the truth, some. He'd in fact goaded the Hagerty kid into gunplay. He knew Derek Hagerty to be complicit in a lynching, but having no proof, served up his own equity.

  "If you don't mind my saying so,” the judge retorted, “any fair-minded observer would remark the similarities. Two men's sons are dead. Both of those men have money and political connections. Both of those men seek an accounting. Both of those men have a quarry in their sights.” The judge took a deep breath, stifling his impatience with an old friend. “I'm not comparing you with Kick Emory,” he said. “I'm simply suggesting that you have a motive as transparent as Colonel Benét's."

  "Which is?"

  "You don't want to see Emory's death bought and paid for."

  "Somebody has to catch him first."

  "But it won't be you, by your own choice."

  "Benét will hire another man."

  "He won't hire a better."

  "That remains to be seen,” Placido Geist said. “Any number of men will hunt their own kind if the price is right."

  The judge had a sudden presentiment. He realized he should have seen it from the start. “You intend to find Emory first."

  "I intend to beat Colonel Benét to his prize, yes."

  The judge shook his head. “If this weren't fast becoming a farce, it would soon be tragedy,” he said.

  "No,” Placido Geist told him. “A tragedy, defined, is the drama of a man brought low by a flaw in his own character. This may be an unhappy or an unfortunate circumstance, an accident waiting to happen, perhaps, but by no sensible measure can it be misnamed a tragedy."

  The judge didn't answer. Tragedy, he also well knew, turns on fated moments. If so, the question then was whose.

  * * * *

  In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase relocated the border of the United States, moving it some sixty miles south of the Gila River to its present-day boundary with Chihuahua and Sonora. This negotiation might be characterized as a conciliatory gesture to Mexico, which had lost all of California and what was now the American Southwest five years before that, in a war of adventure still bitterly resented. For a price of ten million dollars, about 45,000 square miles changed hands; most of it wound up in what was now Arizona, the tag-end left over for New Mexico. The shape of this arbitrary line on a map, falling just below the Thirty-Second Parallel, was geometric: It followed none of the natural contours of the land, and in New Mexico it was known as the Bootheel.West of El Paso, the main Southern Pacific route cut up toward Deming. The rail line along the border was a feeder road for livestock and local freight, stop-and-go, twice weekly.

  Placido Geist chose to go saddleback on a hired mount and tack. The buckskin gelding was a damn decent horse, he discovered, after making fifty miles the first day, which was asking a little much from both man and animal. They got to Columbus just as the light was failing.

  Columbus, New Mexico, was the site of a cross-border raid by Pancho Villa's guerrilla troops in 1916, two years previous. Placido Geist dismounted in front of the shuttered railway station. The depot clock had stopped a bullet that March morning of Villa's attack. Its inner workings were jammed fast, the hands stuck at 4:20 A.M.

  The bounty hunter went to find a place to stay, for himself a bath, if possible, and for the horse, grain and a rubdown.

  He pushed on the next day.

  The country was hard, unwatered, a desert landscape. Towns were few. He was making for Antelope Wells, a border crossing. Word had it that Kick Emory was holed up there. But if word had it, Placido Geist wouldn't be the only one who'd heard.

  They made another forty miles. The buckskin was game enough. The bounty hunter knew he wasn't doing the horse any favors, though. Placido Geist wouldn't last much longer than a dead horse. He camped on the trail, resting the gelding that night and walking him the best part of the following day before turning due south to cross the Hatchets. Antelope Wells was situated about halfway between the Alamo Hueco and the Continental Divide. It was another two days’ ride to the border. He had to conserve the horse's energies, as well as his own, but he imagined time was already against him.

  * * * *

  The town numbered no more than four hundred residents, although on market days it probably drew some itinerant custom. The buildings were by and large of one story, mud-plastered adobe or sod, there being little in the way of indigenous timber for framing lumber or planking. Although it was styled a Port of Entry on the ordnance maps, there was no sister settlement across the border, probably because there was no river between and no viable water source. Antelope Wells was orphaned, an accident not of geography but of the Gadsden Treaty. It had no good reason for being there.

  There was, however, a telegraph office, the twentieth century gaining ground, and an Army garrison, manned at less than company strength, perhaps forty officers and men, all told, detailed to patrol a trackless stretch of border that invited casual depredations, given the unruly state of the insurgency in Mexico. The largest establishment in Antelope Wells called itself the Longhorn, a saloon with gaming tables, the few whores drawing most of their idle custom from the cavalry post.

  It was the only place to rent a room. It was also where Placido Geist expected to find the man Emory, although why Emory would choose this flyblown outpost was a puzzle. The place to lose yourself was somewhere well trafficked, busy with nameless transients, both opportunists and their prey, not some town on the edge of nowhere where you couldn't go unnoticed. But perhaps Emory had confused isolation with secrecy, an easy mistake.

  The bounty hunter was to realize his own mistake early that evening.

  * * * *

  He took note of the man first thing, of course. There was an easy physical confidence, the mark of a practiced gunhawk. Not a swagger, more of a completeness, absolutely aware of the immediate environment. He'd come in through the back, where the whores had their cribs, but he didn't have the look of a man dulled by recent and hurried sex. He had more the sleepy aspect of a tiger pretending to ignore a staked goat.

  Placido Geist was seated at one of the vacant blackjack tables. There had been no other place to sit. He'd waved away both of the girls who'd offered him company, had eaten a not unacceptable steak, gristly but flavorful, if overcooked, and he was sipping a weak coffee with a whiskey chaser.

  The man who'd come in through the back walked over to the table. He was a compact sort, of medium height, the kind of man likely to be very quick, Placido Geist calculated.

  "Straw's my name. I believe I know yours."

  Placido Geist nodded. They'd never met, but Simon Straw had killed sixteen men, to the bounty hunter's knowledge, in the Texas Panhandle and in Oklahoma. He was as good as they came. Both of them were out of their usual territory, but they were on all too familiar territory with each other.

  "I believe we have a bone to pick,” Straw said.

  Placido Geist had himself unhurriedly surveyed the near environs, casting about for a second shooter, but had seen none. This appeared to be a straightforward transaction, man to man. “I believe we may have an argument,” he conceded. “And one I'd prefer to avoid. You're here for Kick Emory, if I don't miss my guess. I've come to prevent your killing him."

  Simon Straw smiled. It was a disarming smile, almost apologetic. It wasn't meant to give insult. “I'm not here for that ranny,” he said. “I'm here for you, Espectro.” His stance was relaxed, practically nerveless, none of his muscles tensed.

  His hands were at his sides, the elbows slightly bent, like a man ready to pick up a glass. His gun was worn high on the hip, a .44 Remington single-action.

  "Kick Emory is worth fifty thousand dollars to Nathan Benét's father,” Placido Geist said. “
I can't be worth the time and energy."

  "You'd be worth it to me,” Straw said.

  He should have seen it before, he now saw. “How much money has Farragut Hagerty put up for me?” he asked.

  Simon Straw shrugged. “Twenty-five thousand,” he said.

  "The price for the cowboy's twice that."

  "Kick Emory's holed up on the Hagerty place back in Texas,” Straw said. “He's nowhere near New Mexico."

  "Old man Hagerty's giving sanctuary to Emory from Colonel Benét,” Placido Geist said, snapping to it at the last, if a little late. “And this entire fool's errand has been meant only to draw me out."

  "That's about the size of it,” Straw said.

  To die in some backwater where there was no law to stop it. It wasn't Kick Emory who'd picked this place.

  "Let's step out into the street,” Straw said.

  "Why bother?” Placido Geist asked him.

  "I'll take small credit for shooting a man with a napkin in his lap."

  "You want a fair fight,” Placido Geist said. “You want we should stand up to each other. You want it known you could take me. And your reward is my celebrity, not Hagerty's money."

  "I don't care about the money, old man. I want it said I went up against you, and we took the ten paces, and shot it out. God's truth, I'd admire your scalp on my belt."

  "It's a dubious eminence, Straw,” Placido Geist said.

  "Fine words butter no parsnips."

  "Make your play,” Placido Geist told him.

  He was indeed very fast, and almost fast enough. His left hand moved across his body as he drew the gun with his right, so the heel of his left hand cocked the hammer.

  Placido Geist shot him through the table with the nine-inch Smith he'd been holding under his napkin, the bullet splintering up through the felt, taking Straw in the chest. He went down in a burst of tissue and bone.

  Straw's own bullet had nicked the bounty hunter's earlobe. Placido Geist stepped out from behind the table and put his foot on Straw's wrist.

  "Damn,” Straw said, looking up, his breath a whisper in his shattered lungs. “You've done for me."

  "They couldn't have sent a better,” Placido Geist said.

  Air bubbled on Straw's lips. “I found my better,” he said. He coughed, wetly, and choked to death on his own blood.

  Placido Geist touched the napkin to his ear.

  Fine words butter no parsnips. The bounty hunter regretted having to kill a literate man.

  * * * *

  Other than the Army, there was no law in Antelope Wells, and he chose not to wait for things to sort themselves out. He rode the gelding north to Deming, three full days, where he could catch a through train, and they traveled to Texas by rail, the buckskin riding in the freight wagons, his job done. Placido Geist had left a job half done, but now he had to see it through to the finish.

  He was going to settle with the Hagertys. The fated moment awaited him, and he would no longer avoid it.

  * * * *

  Emile Duquesne wasn't overly glad to see him again. The sheriff of Dime Box knew trouble when it came courting.

  "The last time you passed through, there were coffins made. Is this getting to be a habit?"

  "Hagerty sent a man to kill me."

  "He'll send others."

  "Not if there's no one left alive to pay my bounty."

  Duquesne studied the old manhunter. His hands rested on his desk, and he was careful to leave them there. “That sounds much like an offer of violence to Farragut Hagerty's person,” he remarked. “I've no grounds to arrest you, as yet. And there's no doubt in my mind that should I attempt such an arrest, you'd spill my brains before my gun cleared leather."

  "I'd be unhappy to see it come to that,” Placido Geist said.

  "So would I, and I'd be on the unhappy end of it."

  "What are the odds I can parley with Hagerty?"

  "Slim to none,” the sheriff said. “Your best chance of a negotiation would be to kill him, and then his oldest son Peter, and then you'd have no choice but to kill me as well."

  "You wouldn't let it rest there."

  "Couldn't,” Duquesne told him.

  "Because you're in Hagerty's pocket."

  "What difference does that make if he's dead? Besides, he might have bought the gun, but he can't buy the badge. I signed on for an honest day's work, half a lifetime ago."

  "Time you earned your pay,” Placido Geist said.

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars, if I shoot you in the back,” the sheriff said.

  "I won't leave you to cover my back, then."

  "Ah, hell,” Duquesne said, pushing to his feet. “Somebody has to."

  "No need for it to be you,” the bounty hunter said.

  "No need,” Duquesne agreed. “Other than mine."

  * * * *

  They rode out to the Hagerty spread together. Duquesne sat a roan. Placido Geist was riding his claybank mare. “That's an ugly damn hammer-headed horse,” Duquesne remarked. Placido Geist said nothing. Duquesne wasn't the first to comment on the mare's appearance.

  "Must be like having an ugly wife,” Duquesne said. “Nobody wants to steal her."

  He was making conversation to cover his anxiety, the bounty hunter understood.

  "It's said you've killed over forty men,” the sheriff said.

  "Near enough,” Placido Geist said.

  "You remember them all?” Duquesne asked.

  "Every one,” the bounty hunter said.

  "Not something you forget, I'd imagine. Like the women you chose to sleep with."

  "Some of those women have slipped my mind."

  Duquesne sniffed. “Not mine,” he said.

  "Fifty-six,” Placido Geist said.

  Duquesne knew it wasn't women the old man was keeping score of, but the number of graves the bounty hunter had filled.

  "I don't take pride in it,” Placido Geist told him.

  "But you're alive."

  Placido Geist nodded to himself. “There's that,” he said.

  Duquesne fell silent. The two men rode the rest of the way without talking.

  They walked their horses in through the corrals and drew up in front of the main house. Neither of them dismounted. A few Hagerty hands were on the porch. A few more gathered, curious as to what might be about to happen. Placido Geist and Duquesne sat their horses, waiting for it as well.

  "What's your object?” the sheriff asked him.

  "Not to get killed, or you either,” the bounty hunter said. “Nor to kill any innocents."

  Duquesne had a twelve-gauge scattergun resting across the pommel of his saddle, a holstered .45 on his hip. “We'll see how that works out,” he said. “Let's hope they're respectful of the office of the law."

  A tall man, weathered but only in his late twenties or early thirties, stepped out onto the porch and looked at the two men on horseback. There was nothing friendly in his gaze. His look was in fact more hostile toward the sheriff than toward the bounty hunter. His name was Peter Hagerty.

  "You know me,” Placido Geist said. “I killed your brother. And you're also well aware he invited it."

  The tall man moved forward out of the shadow of the porch overhang and into the sunlight at the top of steps. “He was a boy,” he said, his words rusty. “He chased whores, he was unlucky at cards, he couldn't break a horse, he didn't have the stomach to brand a calf. I've looked out for him since he was three years old. He was a featherweight. I knew that, but I cared about that kid. And when you shot him down in the streets of Dime Box, you were too quick for me then to stop it."

  "I'm too quick for you now, son,” Placido Geist said.

  "You're a murderer,” Peter Hagerty said. “And you,” he said to Duquesne, “you stood by and let it happen, and you stand by now."

  "Not quite the same,” the sheriff said. “I stood by then so as not to see you dead alongside your brother. I'm here now to back this man up. There's enough fault to go around."

 
; Peter glanced away. “It doesn't matter,” he said.

  "Yes, it does,” Duquesne said. “Your father put a price on this man's head."

  "This man answers for what he did,” Peter Hagerty said.

  "I'd rather answer for what I haven't done,” Placido Geist said mildly, and both Peter Hagerty and the sheriff looked at him in surprise. “For my failure of nerve, for not speaking up, for lacking courage, for never being bold enough with women."

  Hagerty and Duquesne stared at him.

  "We deserve to be told the truth, all of us,” Placido Geist said. “Me included.” He dismounted, letting the reins trail.

  He was a short, stocky half-breed. Peter Hagerty, standing tall on the porch, overtopped him by a good three feet.

  "Your brother was a boy, yes,” Placido Geist went on. “He was a rotten boy, a spoiled boy, and sooner or later he would have gotten what was coming to him. I'm sorry it had to be me, but it would have been somebody. You're welcome to try and kill me, if that gives recompense."

  The bounty hunter took off his sombrero and scaled it onto the ground. “I've hunted men, but I won't be hunted,” he said to Peter Hagerty. “Your father offered any and all comers a bounty of twenty-five thousand dollars to whoever killed me. Is he ready and able to do it himself?"

  Peter turned abruptly and went into the house.

  Duquesne, sitting his saddle, blew out his breath. “You're trying a man's patience,” he remarked to the bounty hunter.

  The old man nodded. “This family is trying mine,” he said. “They want a reckoning. I want a night's rest."

  "At what cost?” Duquesne asked him.

  "Whatever the market will bear,” Placido Geist said.

  Duquesne wasn't about to cross him. He'd known men who could be placated, or persuaded. The bounty hunter was obdurate as stone.

  They brought Farragut Hagerty out onto the porch, carrying him in a bentwood rocker, his son Peter taking half his father's weight, and a Chinaman in a cook's apron taking the other half. They were like pallbearers. Old man Hagerty had an Indian blanket thrown around his shoulders, the folds bunched in his lap, his hands beneath the blanket. Placido Geist thought about the gun he'd had under his napkin when he shot Simon Straw.