The Chili Queen: A Novel

by Dallas, Sandra

  “Obliged,” Ned muttered. He studied the bank as if he’d never seen such a grand establishment, while Emma glanced behind the counter and moved around to stare at the safe. Neither the clerk nor the banker paid attention to them, and after they had taken in everything, Ned and Emma left. By the time they reached the main street, Ned’s mood, along with his head, had improved considerably. “It is as easy as honey,” he told Emma. “The safe’s wide open. There’s money in the till. We could have taken it right then if there hadn’t been any customers, but it’ll be better if the banker’s not around. The teller won’t risk his neck. All we have to do is make sure he’s alone.”

  “The safe is open, and there appears to be plenty of money in the teller’s drawer. The buildings on either side are boarded up, and the front door is visible only from the back of the hotel. It looks almost too easy,” Emma replied. When Ned frowned, she added quickly, “But how would I know?”

  “Yes,” Ned agreed. “How would you know?”

  “Will he leave the safe open all day?”

  “He’s a big man, and Addie says he’s lazy. I don’t suppose he likes to heft himself off that chair more than he has to. We’ll just have to hope he leaves it open when he goes to dinner.”

  They walked abreast now as they made their way down the boardwalk to a sign that said SPILLMAN & GOTTSCHALK, GENERAL MERCHANDISE. Like the bank, the store was crowded, which was fine with Ned, because he was in no hurry. Emma, a shopping list in her hand, lost herself among the other women as she studied the patent medicines and fancy groceries—the oysters and herring and imported peppermint candies—in their bright tins, placed at eye level to tempt shoppers. Ned watched her finger a bolt of cloth that lay on the counter, carefully straightening the fabric when she was finished and tucking under the raw edge. She looked up and stared longingly at a yellow-and-white spotted coffeepot sitting among the tin cups and queensware plates that were stacked on a shelf. When she reached the back of the store, she took in the shoes and slippers, the gents’ furnishings, and the corsets and hosiery along the back wall. Emma let out a snort of disdain when she saw the glass case with a display of fans, some made of feathers, others of folded paper painted with exotic scenes.

  Ned himself wandered along the other side of the room, picking up a whip and testing it against his hand. He passed the dog collars and window shades, the lamps and brass fittings, then stopped to examine a hoe that was leaning next to the cold stove.

  “Lookit here, sister. Here is a fine hoe,” he called.

  Emma sent him a hard look. “We have a hoe,” she replied. “Before we throw away good money on another, we must wait and see if we can make a crop in this godforsaken land.”

  Two rawboned women dressed remarkably like Emma stopped to look her over and nod in agreement. “New Mexico is the awfulest sight I ever did see. It’s wore me out good,” one remarked. “Bless God,” muttered the other.

  A man who looked as if he’d worn out six or seven bodies with the same face regarded the women, then glanced at Ned with sympathy and said, “Farming out here’s harder than pushing a wheelbarrow with rope handles.”

  “I guess it beats making shoes in a factory,” Ned told him. “Her,” Ned lowered his voice, “I thought she would jump at the sun with happiness to have her own house. But she has got in meanness since she arrived.”

  “You new?” the man asked.

  Ned nodded. “How long you been here?”

  “Since way back when hell wasn’t no bigger than Jasper.” He turned his back to the women and said in a low voice, “That’s just wind stuff they’re saying. They like it better than they let on. You snook a look at your woman days when the rains come down and the prairie’s green, and you’ll see I’m right. They like it well enough after a rain.”

  “You mean it rains here?” Ned asked.

  “Sure, a regular toad strangler—every five years.” The man laughed and clamped Ned on the shoulder. Ned wondered what it would be like if he really were a farmer, talking with men like this one about crops and the weather, complaining about the land and the women. Then he remembered he hated farming.

  The man began to ask Ned about his place, but just then, the clerk called the farmer by name, and he went to the counter. His wife came up alongside him and began reading off the foodstuffs on her list.

  When the couple was finished, the clerk nodded at Ned and Emma.

  “We already got most of what we need. We’ll be buying just a few rations,” Emma told him. “I’d be wanting a gallon of molasses, saleratus, a bottle of vanilla. What do you charge for brown sugar?” Emma and Ned had decided earlier that they would purchase items that Addie or Welcome could use.

  “Fifty cents the pound.”

  “Then I expect you can keep it. I’m not a fool to throw away my money.” With the stub of a pencil lying on the counter, Emma crossed the item off her list. After she had ordered Arbuckle’s Coffee at twelve cents a pound and a pound box of Stickney & Poors cinnamon for two bits, Emma picked up a package of sweet mignonette seeds and asked the price. When the clerk told her ten cents, Emma returned the package to its box and said she would write home and get the seeds for the price of a stamp. She bought two wool blankets, bartering the clerk down from $2.00 each to $3.50 for the pair. Then she asked for a round tin box of Maillard’s Caprices, explaining to Ned that the purchase was not extravagant since once the candy was gone, she could use the copper-colored container to store her pins. Finally, she pointed to a bolt of yellow cloth, and the clerk used a ladder to reach it. He spread it out in front of Emma, who ran her hand over the fabric, which was sprigged with red and blue flowers.

  “I expect you’d like a piece of that for your quilt,” Ned spoke up.

  “I always fancied yellow,” Emma said.

  “Well, you get it then.”

  Emma ordered a quarter-yard. The clerk measured it out, giving her a fraction of an inch more.

  Ned glanced around the store, then spotted the yellow coffeepot he’d seen Emma admire. “That up there. We’ll take it, too,” he said, pointing, “and a couple of tin cups.”

  Emma frowned. “We surely cannot afford it.”

  “It’s yellow. You said you like yellow, and I’m treating you to it. Now don’t complain.” Ned wasn’t sure a coffeepot was a good present to give Emma, but as a dirt farmer, he couldn’t very well spend money for a necklace or a silk dress.

  “Why, brother, I believe you’ve gone soft in the head.”

  As the clerk totaled their purchases, Emma eyed the fancy foodstuffs and said, “I guess it wouldn’t rob us to buy a tin of oysters for you and a bottle of peaches. ’Twill remind us of home.” She pointed to the cans. Ned added some crackers and sardines and a small shovel, then paid and told the clerk to store the order until after dinner, when they would pick it up.

  Since it was still only midmorning, Ned and Emma strolled along the boardwalk, peering into the stores. After Nalgitas’s handful of meager businesses, Ned found Jasper rich and tempting, with blocks of fine establishments—two more hotels, restaurants and saloons, and stores. He and Emma passed a butcher shop with lard pails sitting in the window and hams and breakfast bacon hanging from hooks inside. Flies covered a beef carcass that was laid across a counter, and Emma made a face, but Ned only laughed. “I’ve eaten many pieces of beef that were worse,” he said.

  Emma paused in front of a jewelry store to admire the brooches and rings in their little boxes. “I always cared best for rubies,” she said, leaning closer to a ring in the center of the display. She strolled on and stopped at a millinery, studying the hats and gloves and bottles of perfume in the window. She cocked her head at one hat and lowered her voice to a whisper. “If bank robbing does not suit me, I believe I might open up a hat shop here, no matter what Addie says.”

  Ned, who did not know about such things, moved along to a photographer’s studio. “I guess we don’t care to get our pictures took,” he told Emma.

  “The sh
eriff might like it if we did,” she replied.

  As he laughed, Ned looked down the boardwalk to a saloon where two men had just emerged, and he stiffened. “Turn back,” he ordered in a low voice. Without a word, Emma did as she was told, at the same time adjusting the bonnet to cover more of her face. Ned slouched a little as he looked at the props in the photographer’s window.

  The two men sauntered down the boardwalk toward them, and as they reached the photographer’s studio, the smaller man swerved and bumped Ned’s elbow. “Hey, Jesse,” he said softly, “look who I just run into.”

  Jesse, a giant of a man with long black hair that hung around his swarthy face, smiled at Ned, showing a mouthful of broken teeth. “We used to have a friend that looked like you. We don’t see him no more, do we, Earlie?”

  Ned shrugged and smiled back. “Folks get busy.”

  “We heard about that,” Earlie said. “We heard you got real lucky.”

  “I heard you were dried up and dead, one of you anyway,” Ned told them.

  Earlie smirked, showing even teeth under a blond mustache. He was a head shorter than Jesse and had a pretty look to him. “Yeah, I did, too. But I didn’t hear ’bout you throwing no funeral.”

  “I was in mourning,” Ned replied. “You just get in?”

  “Yesterday. We went to the cockfighting pit, but we were too late to see the fun,” Jesse replied, scratching his face, which was pockmarked with scars from black measles. “You going to introduce us?” Jesse tried to get a good look at Emma. Her back was still turned to them.

  “Naw,” Ned laughed. “Why would my sister want to meet a couple of saddle bums?”

  Emma turned around nonetheless. Her face, shaded by the sunbonnet, seemed even darker and older than before.

  The men lost interest. “I guess she’s your sister, after all,” Jesse said. “She is poorly thin and old.”

  “She’s ageable, all right. Maybe she’s your mother,” Earlie added.

  “Hey!” Ned said. It was the second time since he’d arrived in Jasper that he’d defended Emma.

  “Oh, don’t mind Earlie. He fell down drunk last night, and somebody stepped on his nose.” Earlie scowled while Jesse laughed at him, then leaned against the window of the photography studio and sized up Ned. “You gone to farming, have you?” he asked.

  Ned looked away as he nodded.

  “How come you done that?” Jesse asked.

  “I’ll say it real slow so’s you can catch it. I never knew anybody who got old robbing people. Everybody’s got to settle down.”

  “Not us,” Earlie said.

  Suddenly, Ned caught sight of Sheriff Tate coming out of a cigar store across the street. He jerked his head in the sheriff’s direction, and Jesse and Earlie exchanged glances. “Come on, Jess, let’s ride. Be seeing you,” Earlie told Ned, and without another word, the two faded into a group of men who were walking past.

  Ned took Emma’s arm and hurried her along in the opposite direction, toward the hotel. He walked as quickly as he could without drawing attention. Emma seemed to sense the urgency and did not question him about the two men until they had collected their keys from the desk clerk and reached her room. Ned closed and locked the door, then went to the window and moved the curtain a little to peer out at the street. Neither of the men was in view. He let out a sigh of relief.

  “Who are they?” Emma asked.

  “The Minder brothers,” Ned replied, straightening the curtain and moving to the side of the window. He did not care to stand where he could be seen. Emma had removed the sunbonnet, and he thought he saw her flinch. “Heard of them?”

  “No. As least, I don’t think so.”

  “Earlie and Black Jesse Minder. I heard they were killed. I wish they had been. I guess they’re still alive because the devil didn’t want them, and the Lord wouldn’t have them.” He pulled out a chair, set it just out of view from anyone looking up from the street, and straddled it. “Black Jesse is braggedy-talking and ugly from ignorance, but Earlie is the big toad in the puddle. And he is purely evil.” Ned lifted the corner of the curtain and looked out the window again. “I rode with the Minders once, but I quit them. I wouldn’t join up with them again if it would turn me to gold.”

  “They’re bank robbers?” Emma asked.

  “No, they’re not smart enough. Mostly they rob and kill people they meet up with.”

  “Highwaymen then.”

  Ned put his chin on the top of the chair and stared straight at Emma. “If you want to put a fancy name to it, you can call them that. I call them vagabonds, scoundrels—murderers. They kill even when they don’t have to. They like it.” Ned shook his head back and forth a couple of times, trying to rid himself of a memory.

  “What is it?” Emma asked. She had seated herself on the bed and leaned forward.

  “You don’t want to hear it,” Ned said, rubbing his hands over his face. The hangover was gone, replaced by a feeling of unease about the Minders.

  Emma continued to stare at him, until Ned looked up and shook his head at her. “You wouldn’t want to know,” he repeated.

  “Yes, I would. When we agreed to rob this bank, I considered it to be something of a prank, but since last night, I have been weighing the seriousness of it. If you are mixed up with two killers who are here, perhaps we should reconsider. At the very least, I should like to know your connection with them.”

  Ned considered her words then nodded glumly. “Sometime back, I met up with Earlie and Black Jesse in Taos and kept company with them. We pulled a couple of jobs, nothing big. They seemed all right at first, not too bright, but most outlaws aren’t very smart.” Ned glanced up at Emma and grinned. “Some are.”

  She smiled a little.

  “I didn’t see right off that they were a pair of hard cases. But later, we robbed a man, and Earlie shot him. He didn’t have to because the man had already given us his money. Earlie did it for pleasure. I was afraid they would shoot me, too, so I got to thinking then that I’d go off by myself. But I hadn’t figured out how to leave them.” Ned nodded to himself, recalling the dilemma. “Then one day, we were on our way down from Colorado. We saw two barefoot, redheaded boys on a horse, one in front of the other, riding it bareback. Twins or thereabouts because they looked just alike. They couldn’t have been more than eight or ten years old. They were singing when we rode by them on the trail, and they waved at us, happy as hogs in a wallow. When we got past a little ways, Earlie bet Black Jesse ten dollars he could get them both with a single bullet. He used a rifle. The bullet went clear through one into the other. They fell off the horse and lay still, and Earlie and Jesse rode back to see were they both dead. They argued about it some. Jesse said one was still moving when they got there, but Earlie said he died in a few minutes, so that counted.”

  Emma’s face turned to such sadness that for a moment, Ned thought she might cry. He sorely felt like crying himself. Recounting the story had unnerved him. “It’s been some years. I never told anybody,” he said. “I believed the safest thing to do was disappear and never see them again. That’s what I did. I never saw them until today.”

  “Why didn’t you stop them from killing the boys?” Emma asked.

  The curtain swayed a little in the breeze, and Ned jumped. Then he settled back down in the chair, looking dejected as he stared at the floor. He didn’t say anything, and Emma leaned forward and asked again, “Why?”

  Ned let out his breath. He leaned back until he was balancing the chair on two legs. “I thought they were joking at first. By the time I realized Earlie meant it, Black Jesse had pulled a gun on me. He’d have killed me if I’d made a move. So I thought maybe I could talk them out of it. I said, ‘You got better things to waste your bullets on.’ Earlie smiled like he agreed with me, and I thought he’d forget about it. But all of a sudden, he turned and shot the boys. I should have tried to stop him, hit his horse maybe.”

  Emma thought that over. Then she reached out and touched Ned’s arm
. He was startled and looked up at her. “Sometimes we have to choose between two things that are evil. He’d have shot the boys anyway—and you, too. You’d have been throwing your life away for nothing.”

  “Black Jesse laughed at me later, saying he’d only been bluffing, but I knew he would shoot me up like lacework. Still, I should have thought of something.”

  “You’re not partly God. You couldn’t have done anything for them if you were dead, could you?” Emma asked.

  Ned stared at the pattern on the bedroom wall made by the sun going through the lace curtain. One of the designs looked like a pickle, and he had an urge to trace it on the wall with his finger, but he stayed in the chair, thinking over what Emma had said. “It has occupied my mind ever since. I’ve looked at it a hundred ways to Sunday and never figured out what I could have done different.”

  “You can’t do it different. It’s a lesson of life. You learned from it, and next time…” She grew quiet, and Ned thought she was done, but then, she said quietly, “I myself have learned from evil.” Ned wanted to ask what evil she had encountered on a Kansas farm, but Emma seemed to shake off whatever she had been thinking. She stood up and went to the window and looked through the curtain. She moved closer and put her eye to a hole in the lace and stared through it. “I believe those are the two men we have been talking about,” she said.

  Ned moved the curtain an inch and looked out. The Minder brothers were riding under their window. He could see their bedrolls tied behind their saddles. After the two men passed the hotel, Ned pressed his face against the glass and watched until he could no longer see them. “I guess they’re leaving, just like they said,” he told Emma. He grinned, and Emma smiled back. Ned left the window and went up close to her, taking her chin in his hand. “Maybe you haven’t thought serious enough about this. You can still say no.”

  “There won’t be any shooting, will there?”

  Ned shook his head. “I’ll tell you what. If anybody’s inside the bank besides the teller, we won’t go in. The teller won’t risk his life for somebody else’s money, but the banker might. If he gets back before we have a chance to pull the job, we’ll call it off.”