After he left the saloon, he loitered for several minutes in a shadow-darkened doorway, making certain that he was not being followed. He was foolish sometimes, he acknowledged with a scowl, but he wasn’t so stupid as to forget that there were men who would like to brag that they had killed the Coyote Kid.
Near the end of the alley, a dog barked behind an adobe wall. He thought of Pernell’s dog. If the wall had not been between him and the dog, he would have given this betrayer of his presence the same treatment as that yellow cur. Muttering under his breath, he moved onward. Soon he was at the second gate. Pistol in hand, he eased the gate forward with his shoulder.
“Oh, my Bobby, you came.” Maria melted out of the shadows and came forward eagerly. The moonlight flashed on the barrel of the gun, and she squeaked in alarm. “Why do you have a pistol?”
“Sorry,” he apologized as he looked beyond her, checking the silvery lighted yard. Hastily he holstered the gun, then took her slender form into his arms. He crushed his mouth to her perfumed lips, wanting to pull her soft body into one with his.
His hand cupped a small willing breast and desire pulsated through his veins. Soon he was smoothing her soft skin and their mouths were on fire.
She broke free abruptly and took his hand. “Come to my bed,” she whispered. He blinked, not believing his good luck. The invitation was beyond his dreams.
He did not know how long or how many times he pleasured himself with his rose of the garden. But never had he been so successful, so mucho hombre, so virile in his life. Success rendered more success, and finally she pleaded for mercy. “Please, my lover. I will never walk again.”
“Oh,” he mumbled in shock, “have I hurt you?”
“No, but your love is so much.”
“It will be dawn soon; I must go,” he said regretfully as he raised himself above her.
“You will come back tonight?”
“Of course. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”
She almost squealed with excitement. “But now one more time, my great lover?”
“Are you sure?”
She put her hands behind his neck and pulled him closer. “I am sure if you are sure.” They both giggled softly in excitement, then dissolved into the finale of the passionate night.
The next day he discovered that Gunther still had not returned from Sante Fe. Since he had had little sleep the night before, he decided to go back to bed. He dreamed of the creamy-skinned Maria who had awakened his sometimes less than virile manhood. He awoke once, bathed in sweat, and had to shake his head several times to clear his confused mind. Had he dreamed of all those pleasures of the previous night? But his bruised lips and sore muscles convinced him otherwise. He lay back down and smiled in anticipation of the coming sundown.
Later in the afternoon, he entered the Tolteca where she worked, noting that she had not yet arrived. He ordered a bottle of whiskey and retired to a rear table.
A disturbance at the door caused him to look up curiously. A group of loud men entered the cantina. They were obviously not Mexican, and appeared to be freighters. Apparently the leader or boss was the heavily bearded big man. He had a gruff but booming voice, like the growl of a grizzly. His companions were hard-eyed men. The Kid recognized the type, tough and ruthless.
Maria arrived soon after the men. She paused at the end of the bar and put on her apron. Glancing around the room and noting Bobby’s eyes on her, she sent him a smile that would have melted a mountain of snow. A silent kiss flew from her lips to him, then she briskly moved around the tables to begin her work.
“Hey, puta,” the large man shouted as he spotted Maria. “Come over here!”
The Kid jerked up from his lounging position at the man’s disparaging tone. A muscle moved violently in Bobby’s jaw and his hands were clenched at his sides.
“Whore, I said get over here!” the freighter repeated.
Maria glanced at the Kid, then at the big man uncertainly. Cautiously, she moved toward the freighter. “Pardon me, señor,” she said with quiet dignity, “but I am not what you think.”
“Goddamnit, get over here. I know a whore when I see one!”
The Kid lunged to his feet. “Maria, stand back!” he shouted. “These are the kind of men I am looking for.” His breath raged through his flared nostrils as his right hand rested on the butt of his gun.
“No, Bobby!” she screamed and tried to run toward him, but she was caught and held back by one of the big man’s companions.
The freighter sprang from his chair, knocking it sideways across the floor as he glared at the Kid. “Just who the hell are you?” he demanded in a thundering rage.
“Doesn’t matter,” he gritted between his teeth. “Go for your gun, mister.”
Before the man had cleared leather, the Kid’s .38 spoke, the bullet smashing the freighter full in the face. His companion on the left took a bullet in the heart before he could come out of his chair. The other man, who held Maria, threw her aside and went for his gun, but the Kid’s third shot caught him in the forearm.
Smoke rose in a thin wisp from his gun barrel as he advanced forward. Maria rose and stumbled into his arms. She clung to him sobbing hysterically. “Bobby, oh, my Bobby,” she repeated over and over. He holstered the pistol and put his arms around her. The patrons of the cantina moved forward, glancing warily at him as they investigated the slain and wounded men.
Two ominous shotgun barrels were thrust between the swinging saloon doors. Behind the gun came the town marshal and a deputy sheriff. In his concern over Maria’s safety, the Kid felt totally helpless to do anything as he stood holding her.
“Get back, everyone. You!” The marshal pointed the gun barrel at the Kid. “Get those hands up!”
“No!” Maria screamed. “No, not my Bobby.”
He stuck his hands high in the air, but he looked down and smiled tenderly at the weeping Maria. “Don’t worry about me, Maria.” He turned and stared vacantly at the marshal. He kept his gaze directed straight ahead as they marched him out of the saloon and down the street to the jail.
Inside the marshal’s office, he continued to protest his innocence, claiming self-defense.
“Listen, mister, the only way you’re getting out of here is when Judge Hartwell says you’re innocent and can go free,” the marshal stated flatly. “We ain’t having these kinds of shootings in Arido, you savvy?”
“When does the judge come?” the Kid asked.
The marshal shrugged. “Couple of months, I guess.”
“A couple of months! Are you crazy?” he repeated in disbelief. “Why so long?”
“He’s a circuit judge and goes all over hell trying cases. Now, that ain’t my fault. You just settle down and behave. You’ve got plenty of time.” With that said, the marshal pushed him toward the back of the jail, then shoved him inside the cell. The heavy slam of the steel door rang in his ears for a long time.
Time clicked slowly by. Each day, an old man, under the protection of the guard’s shotgun, emptied his chamber pot. Once a week, Bobby was allowed to bathe in a wooden tub in the hallway while a guard pointed both barrels of a twelve-gauge at him. Then he shaved himself and returned the razor to the guard.
The marshal took no chances with him. Despite Bobby’s constant vigilance, searching for an escape opportunity, none materialized. To pass the time, he read newspapers and magazines. One Denver newspaper’s account amused him. It proclaimed that the Coyote Kid was in the Arido jail and he would soon hang for his notorious life of random murders. One such account cited him as being a member of a gang that had killed a former president. More lies.
Maria was allowed to see him twice a week, but they only permitted her to stand outside the bars and with a guard watching them from the door.
“There is a lawyer coming with this judge, Bobby,” Maria said excitedly on one of her visits. “He is a very good lawyer. My cousin in Santa Fe wrote me this good news. You can hire this lawyer and he will help you go free!”
“Sure, angel,” he agreed wryly. “They all want me hung.”
“No, no, my lover. This is not true. Me and my friends at the cantina we will tell them how it was.”
“Well, just don’t count on that meaning a hell of a lot, Maria. Although I appreciate the offer.” He stared at the dust particles dancing in the shaft of light coming in the barred window. The law in this place intended to hang him as a lesson for others; he could see the look of revenge in their eyes.
“Oh, Bobby, no. I am so worried.”
He smiled and reached his hand through the bars to pat her gently. “Don’t be. They’ve got a long ways to go before they stretch the Coyote Kid’s neck.”
Then came a day in the fall when the judge, a prosecutor, and the legal staff arrived in town. The day after his arrival the defense attorney John Evans came to see the Kid. He was an eagle-eyed man in his forties, wearing a store-bought coat. He sat in the hallway with his elbows propped up on his knees, listening without interruption to Bobby’s side of the story.
When he had finished, Evans straightened and gave him a level look. “If you weren’t the Coyote Kid, they never would have arrested you for this. Well, Kid, as I see it you have two choices. You can plead guilty to manslaughter and serve two to five years. Or you can plead not guilty and take a chance on hanging. Who knows?”
The Kid was not impressed with Evan’s dry manner. He narrowed his gaze and he glared through the bars at the free man. “Not guilty,” he said. “I didn’t do it. I heard that if you were innocent that the laws worked for you.”
“Well …” Evans shrugged. “Not always.” With that disturbing statement, the man left Bobby to ponder his trial and fate.
The prosecutor arrived shortly after the defense attorney left and introduced himself as Roger Wilson. A pompous, blustering man, he stalked up and down the jail hallway, pointing his finger in the air as if he were shooting pigeons in a plaza.
“Coyote Kid, you are as good as strung up now. Your death will be a symbol that law and order has finally come to the territory of New Mexico. Praise the Lord. Law and order to these bastions of crime and disorder.
“Yes, your sentence will be carried out in Sante Fe, so all the heathens who worship firearms can see how their chief disciple ended his sorry life at the end of a rope.” At that point, the people’s attorney grabbed his own throat and gave a theatrical gasp. The Kid scowled in disgust at his playacting. The man preened and strutted like a bandy rooster until his antics nauseated the Kid’s stomach.
“Coyote Kid, throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Free your soul and admit how you’ve pilfered and robbed, raped and murdered, innocent citizens the length and breadth of New Mexico.”
The oration went on and on. Wilson seemed to be speaking to a greater audience than Bobby Budd and the two sullen Mexicans in the next cell who were serving a sentence for disturbing the peace. Back and forth, the demon chaser stalked his imaginary prey, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.
At this point, the Kid really lamented the loss of his gun. The .38 would have done an effective job of blowing away that word spewing opening on the man’s face. He grinned to himself as he imagined placing the Colt’s muzzle in Wilson’s foul mouth. Well, he didn’t have his gun, he acknowledged ruefully. ’Course, he could piss on the man, but there was a certainty that it wouldn’t be enough to drown him. But the thought took root, and his gaze fell on the night bucket in the corner of his cell. Old Pablo hadn’t been in to dump it yet.
A mischievous intent filled his mind. He glanced at the silent Mexicans in the next cell. After gaining their attention, he moved his night pail with the side of his foot toward the bars dividing their cells and gestured to them silently, clearly indicating his plan. The Mexicans nodded soberly and forced back grins. They moved cautiously, watching the orator’s back as they dumped the contents of their chamber pot through the bars into his bucket. Although the air was rank with the stench, Wilson did not. seem to notice.
The Kid waited until Wilson was on another track, his head thrown back and his voice droning on and on without pause. Then with the toe of his boot, he managed to push the bucket out in front of himself until it was halfway between his bunk and the bars. The hall was not wide, so if he were able to slosh Wilson head-on, the man would back up but the contents of the night bucket would still reach him.
“Wait!” he shouted, while still seated on the bunk. “I confess.”
“What?” Wilson whirled and rushed to grasp the bars. It was almost as if he wanted to pull them apart and grab up the repentant felon.
“I confess, oh yes!” the Kid shouted then bowed his head. He kept Wilson distracted so that he did not see the two Mexicans back away to the adobe wall at the rear of their cell.
The man flung his head back as if to seek gratification from heaven. Evidently he felt that his sermon alone had worked on the hardest criminal the court had ever known. Almost dancing with excitement, he pulled himself against the bars. “Tell me your sins! Now, my son,” he hissed eagerly.
The Kid edged forward, his head still bowed. In a flash he had his hand on the bucket handle. Before the prosecutor knew what he was about, he shouted, “Here’s my sins!,” and threw the contents of the odorous bucket over him. “There, you son of a bitch. There’s a sample of my sins!”
The blubbering, aghast prosecutor screamed. “Guards! Guards!” His face dripped with excrement and liquid, then his soles hit a slippery spot and he fell to the floor, floundering in the mess.
“Guards!”
When the shotgun bearer finally opened the outer door, he had to suppress a chuckle. “Wh-what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Arrest that man!” Wilson shouted in a womanlike screech. He pointed and waved at the Kid, who was leaning against the rear of his cell, a wide grin on his face.
“Mr. Wilson,” the guard said, pursing his lips to hide a smile. “There ain’t nothing I can do. He’s already under arrest.” His nose twitched and he looked down on the floor with a scowl. “God, this place sure stinks.”
The Kid and his jail cohorts laughed for hours each time they recalled the bath he had administered to Wilson. He felt it was almost worth the lingering stench in the jail just to remember the look on the mouthy prosecutor’s face.
In the evening after the first day of his trial, he was not sure if all the things his lawyer Evans had said during the day’s session would help or hinder his case. Evans scolded him. “Throwing that chamber pot on Wilson might have been a damned funny thing, but it just might get you hanged.”
The careless manner in which he imparted that bit of news caused the Kid to clench his fist to keep from striking Evans in the mouth. He hoped that the judge had been more impressed by Evans’s manner than he was.
At last, seated on his bunk, he heard a hiss from the window above him. He jumped up and glanced quickly at the door. The guard was not in evidence. When the Kid looked back at the window, he saw a rope snaking down the wall. Attached to it was a woman’s small pearl-handled pistol. He pulled on the rope as a signal. Then he quickly untied the gun and jerked on the rope again.
“Ave Maria,” he said with a smile. “You’re a sweetheart.”
The two Mexicans were still snoring, and a quick glance at the door showed him that the guard had not made his rounds. He checked the gun’s chambers. Five shots. Five answers to his sentence. So excited the blood pounded in his head, he stuffed the gun into one of his boots, which were placed on the floor near the foot of his bunk. They would not find it, he felt confident. Sighing in relief, he lay back and closed his eyes. They would never hang the Coyote Kid, at least not this time.
At dawn, under the guard’s supervision, Pablo brought him a breakfast tray of sorghum syrup over corn cake flapjacks and a cup of barley coffee. He ate the meal slowly and looked up in surprise when John Evans and the town marshal came hurrying in.
Evans smiled. “I’ve got good news for you, Kid.”
“Y
ou’re a free man, Bobby Budd,” the lawman announced as he unlocked the cell door.
The Kid shook his head and studied the pair with wry cynicism. “Why in hell am I free all of a sudden?”
“The judge decided it was foolish to proceed with the trial since all the eyewitnesses have testified that it was a clear case of self-defense,” Evans explained.
“It was.” He handed Evans the breakfast tray. “Try the food; it’s real tasty. Say, Marshal, how much do them two next door owe you?” He jabbed a finger toward the Mexicans.
“Thirty bucks. Why?”
“I’m bailing them out. Come on, turn them loose,” he said. He waved off the two men’s shouts of thanks as he went out into the office to get his personal belongings.
Before he strapped on his holster, he loaded the .38.
Prosecutor Wilson burst in the doorway. “My God, Marshal! You’re not issuing him a pistol, are you?”
“It’s his. He’s free to go, so the judge says,” the lawman said.
“Don’t worry, fancy pants,” Bobby said. “I won’t waste good bullets on your ass. Just slop!” Wilson reddened at the laughter that the Kid’s sarcasm drew.
“This is a travesty of justice,” Wilson moaned, backing away.
“Hell, Wilson, I was so sure that I was going to be set free that I never even shot you when I had the chance.” The Kid laughed and bent down to draw the small pistol from his boot. He smiled at the marshal’s stricken face.
“Budd, how did you get that?” the lawman demanded.
“Get it?” he scoffed. “I’ve had it. See, the Coyote Kid plays by the rules. You all think I’m some hired gun or some sort of an avenger. I’m just a businessman.”
“Sure,” the marshal said, shock still registering on his face. “Where in hell …” Those were the last words that the Kid heard as he strode out of the jail.
Maria was not at the cantina. Word was that she had left for Santa Fe. He was anxious as he hurried to call at the house where she lived.
Servant of the Law Page 11